Surveillance

Despite the protest of one supervisor that it smacked of "vigilante" justice, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed Tuesday to seek state legislation that would encourage "community surveillance" of registered sex offenders. The proposal, by Supervisor Pete Schabarum, would establish a statewide reward fund for citizens who identify and report sex offenders violating probation or parole requirements that require them to register with law enforcement.

They've tried to rub it out. They've tried to paint it out. Now Los Angeles city officials will try to snoop it out. In the latest effort to slow down a spray paint scourge that has not been tamed by nearly a dozen other city programs, graffiti and graffiti vandals will be targeted by special surveillance teams under a proposal approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles City Council.

LONDON - The British government is scrambling to fend off accusations of trying to turn the country into a virtual police state with plans to conduct some trials in secret and allow authorities to track the phone calls, emails, text messages and online activity of the entire population. Civil liberties advocates are aghast over revelations this week that officials are preparing to introduce legislation to expand state surveillance in the interests of national security. Separately, the government of Prime Minister David Cameron is proposing that certain civil court proceedings take place behind closed doors if sensitive matters of intelligence are involved.

Los Angeles detectives Tuesday were reviewing videotapes from security cameras near the site of Sunday's drive-by shooting of rapper Notorious B.I.G. to determine whether they captured the shooting or other clues that might help in solving the slaying, police said. Authorities declined to say whether the video cameras taped anything incriminating. At least one video showed the area outside the Petersen Automotive Museum, where the 24-year-old rapper was killed, police said.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, testifying Friday for the second time in a federal court trial over the killing of three robbers by his officers, defended the secretive surveillance unit that shot them. Members of the unit, the Special Investigations Section, or SIS, have "perhaps the most dangerous assignment" in the department, "almost always dealing with armed and dangerous suspects," Gates said.

Beads of light appear on a large video screen in a darkened room, and an Air Force captain explains their tactical significance to a Navy vice admiral and Marine brigadier general. A revolutionary method of waging war--or, better yet, of deterring war--by being able to monitor and assess an enemy's every move is being tested this tranquil night aboard the command and control ship of the Navy's Third Fleet as it steams off the Southern California coast.

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that videotape surveillance is legal and may be used as evidence in the pending trial of 11 people charged with laundering $312 million in drug money through the downtown Los Angeles jewelry district. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a March, 1990, decision of U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, who found that hundreds of hours of surveillance videotapes from Los Angeles and New York were inadmissible.

A federal judge in New York refused to block surveillance evidence against a prominent civil rights lawyer gathered during her representation of a Muslim cleric serving a life term for planning bombings in the U.S. U.S. District Judge John Koeltl ruled that the surveillance of lawyer Lynne Stewart was lawful under a federal law that allows authorities to conduct electronic surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence information.

Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales defended President Bush's domestic spying program Tuesday. Speaking to students at Georgetown University's law school, Gonzales said a 15-day grace period allowing warrantless eavesdropping under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act demonstrated that Congress knew such surveillance "would be essential in wartime." But Gonzales said following that law would overly burden the government with paperwork and other requirements when it needed to respond quickly.

From the rooftops of Little Tokyo, merchants and residents are keeping an eye out for vandals and other criminals. The Police Department has launched its first volunteer surveillance effort in the Central Division by enlisting the help of Little Tokyo citizens to serve as patrol officers' eyes and ears. About a dozen Little Tokyo residents and merchants have so far volunteered.