The headline in the Pueblo Chieftain, one of the local papers, was "Inmate assaults two federal prison staffers, Injuries to the workers were not serious, officials said."  The press release certainly did not adequately present the true scope of the incident, and this lead the media to inaccurate reporting.

On December 21, 2010, an inmate assaulted to staff members.  The inmate hit one staffer so hard, he fell back and cracked his skull.  The inmate also injured another staffer.  Two other staff members responding did get minor injuries not needing outside treatment.

The staff member with the cracked skull also had brain hemorrhage problems. He was taken to a local hospital but then flown to a larger hospital because of the serious nature of his injuries.  He still remains in intensive care (ICU) but in stable condition.

William Edwards was just elected President of American Federation of Government employees, Council of Prison Locals 1301 (AFGE CPL 1301), last week.

President Edwards was so upset with the BOP's release that he responded to the media himself.  He interviewed Wednesday with KOAA 5/30 explaining the serious nature of the incident and his disagreement with the BOP.  www.newsfirst5.com/news/federal-prison-worker-has-fractured-skull/

President Edwards explained, " it was fortunate that there were three other staff members able to respond.  Normally there aren't three other staff members available."

Edwards went on to say, "With three prisons coming online in the BOP system and no increase in funding from Congress, staff for the new facilities with have to come from existing staff in the BOP.  The system is already strained.  Assaults like the serious one that happened Tuesday at  USP , Florence could happen more often."

Professional correctional staffers can always encounter dangerous situations.  This is especially true in a United States Penitentiary. Professional Correctional Officers and Professional Correction Staff are the unsung heroes of public safety.  

Proper staffing levels and training help prevent assaults.   

Please keep our fellow staffer from USP, Florence in your thoughts and prayers.   Please also send out your thoughts and prayers to his family. 

What you can do additionally?  Call your Congressman and US Senators and tell them you are upset that the Bureau of Prisons did not accurately release the true nature of the assault on staff Tuesday December 21, 2010 at the United States Penitentiary at Florence.  

Ask them to ask the BOP why they down played the assault.  Finish by asking if they are going to support an increase of staffing across the BOP system for the safety of those protecting America's safety.

 If you leave them a message, ask them to call you back with his/her response.  If you email, ask for an email response. 
Please note, most members of congress won't return till after the holidays.

In recent months, there's been a lot of talk about proposed hiring and pay freezes and mandatory furloughs in the federal government. But those ideas could become reality if Republicans on Tuesday win the necessary 39 seats to gain control of the House.

House Republicans unveiled their Pledge to America in September, promising to reduce the size of government and freeze hiring for all nonsecurity-related federal positions. Lawmakers in both chambers also have pushed several measures that would affect federal jobs and benefits. For example, Republicans have introduced legislation that would furlough all federal civilian workers for up to two weeks in 2011 and make those with outstanding tax debts ineligible for continued government employment. Bills in both chambers would cap the federal workforce through attrition or by allowing agencies to hire only one employee for every two employees who leave.

In addition, GOP lawmakers have used the YouCut program to push federal workforce reductions. The initiative, designed to control government spending, allows the public to vote online, or via text message each week on legislative proposals. The winning idea goes to the House floor.

Federal workers have friends in both parties, says Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association. While the group's priorities won't change based on leadership on Capitol Hill, election results could affect progress in achieving those goals.

"[Federal employees] have strong supporters on both sides of the aisle, but a quick tour of the YouCut website tells you the priorities of [Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio] and [Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.]," said Klement. "If those are priorities of the leaders, they could become more than just something the American public votes on."

If Republicans gain control of the House, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., will no longer be majority leader. Hoyer has been an advocate for federal workers' concerns, and union leaders have said a leadership change could affect the tone of the conversation about the government workforce or even invite attacks on federal employees.

"Democrats will keep the House, and I will continue to work with members across the aisle to address the issues of importance to federal employees, many of whom are my constituents," said Hoyer in a statement to Government Executive.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., would assume the chairmanship of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee if Republicans win the House on Tuesday. Issa's office in September released an outline of priorities for the committee under his leadership. The report, which focused on issues like stimulus spending, health care oversight, federal agency performance management and domestic terrorism, cited a growing federal workforce as a potential contributor to government waste, fraud and abuse. Issa spokesman Frederick Hill said the committee does not yet have a more specific agenda outside of those guidelines.

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah would take over the subcommittee tasked with overseeing the federal workforce and U.S. Postal Service. Chaffetz angered many government employees and union leaders earlier this year when he introduced a bill to fire government workers who owe back taxes. He also has drawn criticism from the postal community for his opposition to the agency's five-day delivery plan and his proposed legislation granting the Postal Service 12 postal holidays every fiscal year to suspend mail delivery.

USPS spokeswoman Joanne Veto said leadership changes won't affect the Postal Service's legislative agenda. The agency has been pushing for flexibility to close post offices for economic reasons, determine the number of weekly mail delivery days and adjust requirements to prefund its retiree health benefits.

Union leaders have said they will continue to work with both Democrats and Republicans on issues in support of their members, but acknowledged it could be hard work. Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, expressed concern that a Republican takeover could lead to freezes in federal hiring and pay, as well outsourcing accompanied by cuts in government jobs.

"We're extremely concerned about a change in the House because many of these new congressional people coming in are obsessed with this rolling back government to some small government," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees. "I think we will be in really tough shape on appropriations and federal pay. I don't know if they're gung-ho enough to go after federal health care and retirement, but I wouldn't put it past them."

On the Senate side, there is less change expected for the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Committee Chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Ranking Member Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, have a positive working relationship, which Collins has pledged to continue regardless of Tuesday's outcome. The roster of the federal workforce subcommittee will change, however. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, long active in federal employee issues is planning to retire, while appointed Sens. Ted Kaufman, D-Del., and Roland Burris, D-Ill., will not return.

According to committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips, legislation extending benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees is likely to be on next year's agenda, in addition to issues like homegrown terror, cybersecurity legislation, reform of the Federal Protective Service, and oversight of border security and emergency preparedness.

"Federal employees don't all paint with the same brush, and they don't all vote the same way," said Klement. "They don't hold homogenous views or vote solely for the Democratic ticket. You can't lump all 2 million together."

Report: Prison recycling program posed health threat for years

An electronic waste recycling program, designed to provide inmates in federal prisons with jobs and skills, posed a serious health threat to inmates and prison staff for several years, a new Justice Department report says.

The report, issued Thursday by the department's inspector general, says from the program's startup in the mid-1990s until 2003, staff and inmates at several prisons were exposed to toxic metals including cadmium and lead. Not until 2009 did the program --named UNICOR -- fully institute adequate policies to protect staff and inmates from the dangerous substances.

The electronic waste program is a major recycling program at eight federal institutions. Computers, monitors, printers, and other devices are disassembled and recycled by inmates.

The study was undertaken after complaints from prison workers in the program. The report says experts were unable to conclude that health problems identified by staff or inmates could be linked to recycling work. However, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said it could not rule out the possibility of future medical effects resulting from past cadmium and lead exposures.

The inspector general said the UNICOR program deserves credit for seeking to provide the federal government and the public with recycling services.

However, the program's staff was criticized for frequently failing to share important health and safety information with prison executives. The report found "willful violations" of regulations in some cases, and determined that 11 UNICOR and Bureau of Prison employees committed misconduct or performance failures in their work.

The Justice Department and Bureau of Prisons agreed to take necessary actions to improve accountability, oversight and compliance with health and safety regulations.

Several agencies -- including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- helped with the Justice study, because of their experience in dealing with toxic substances harmful to humans and the environment.

Prison violence

In 2009, the correctional officers and staff at USP Lewisburg were given an almost impossible mission — to house the worst of the worst inmates in the federal penitentiary system.  

These are inmates who have shown, through their actions, that they are unable to control their behavior.  

The federal prison system’s answer is to simply give them harsher punishments: lock them down in a tiny two-man cell for 23 hours a day with one hour of recreation in an enclosed cage.

These are conditions that would drive anyone crazy, let alone someone who has a history of behavioral problems and, often, violence.  

These are also conditions that have been proven, time and time again, to not only be ineffective at controlling inmates’ behavior, but to also cause psychological damage.  

Yet, they continue to be used to over and over again as the solution to dealing with disruptive inmates.

These are also conditions that put correctional officers at extreme risk every day they enter the institution.  

The men and women that I have met who work at Lewisburg are professional, caring and are doing their best with the mission they were given to run a safe and secure facility.

Conditions at USP Lewisburg must be changed, but we must also change the conditions that have led to over 210,000 inmates incarcerated in our federal prisons and over 1.4 million incarcerated in our state prisons.

Our country’s solution to crime over the past 30 years has been to simply lock people up and throw away the key, resulting in overcrowded prisons, inadequate staffing and violence.

Until we, as a society, become more supportive of alternatives to incarceration, we will continue to have violent conditions in our prisons, such as what we are seeing in Lewisburg and other facilities around the country.

Coffman Introduces Federal Furlough Bill to Save Taxpayers $5.5 Billion

(WASHINGTON) — Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) this week introduced a bill that would subject federal civilian employees to a two week furlough in 2011 and reduce salaries of members of Congress by 10 percent saving taxpayers more than $5.5 billion.  The bill, H.R. 6134, is a one year measure to reduce federal spending and combat the unsustainable deficit spending in Washington.

Introducing his bill, Coffman remarked, “Currently, at least 24 states, and nearly three quarters of a million workers, are undertaking a budget-cutting maneuver that I believe we should institute at the federal level: short term employee furloughs.  These states, across the nation, along with city and county government counterparts, recognize that occasional worker furloughs are necessary to cut budgets and hold down spending.  It also has the benefit of ensuring that federal workers are not sheltered from the realities of life in today’s economy.”

“One of the most unpleasant adjustments a former small businessman or former state legislator - and I am both - faces in coming to Washington is the unlimited ability of the federal government to deficit spend.  Furlough Fridays are becoming a common occurrence for state and local governments. They present slight problems but they provide large solutions to the budget troubles we face.  I believe that managed appropriately, with due allowance for vital and national security implications, as specified in this bill, they can do the same for the federal government.”

“The federal government continues to grow, and continues to rack up debt.  I would like to make the U.S. government as cost conscious as the states.  My legislation is a start,” Coffman concluded.

Coffman’s bill, H.R. 6134, will make federal civilian employees subject to a non-consecutive two week furlough in 2011, correspondingly reduce appropriations for salaries and expenses for offices of the legislative branch, and provide a 10 percent reduction in pay for members of Congress.  An exception is provided for national security or reasons relating to public health or safety, including law enforcement.  Coffman’s bill will save the federal government over $5.5 billion.

While the executive order President Obama signed on Tuesday suspending bonuses and cash awards for political appointees through the end of fiscal 2011 does not directly affect career civil servants there could be trickledown effects, according to a group representing senior executives.

In justifying the freeze in any bonuses or discretionary payments or salary adjustments for political officials, Obama said he appreciated the work of federal employees and understood these payments were important to them. "Yet like households and businesses across the country, we need to make tough choices about how to spend our funds," the president said.

Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, said the freeze was not surprising, but she was concerned there will be indirect effects on the career civil service.

"When you're a political appointee who is suddenly not eligible to receive a cash award, your inclination to be appropriately generous to your career executives will be decreased," she said.

Performance awards, which are completely discretionary, are a substantial part of senior executives' compensation, according to Bonosaro. Members of the SES do not receive the same annual pay raises as General Schedule employees; senior executives' pay is based on job performance, under a system established by the fiscal 2004 National Defense Authorization Act.

"We have already heard some concerns from executives that agencies might be cutting back on performance awards for the same reasons the president cited," she said. "When you add this [executive order] to the mix, it does raise concerns."

Matthew Biggs, legislative and political director for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, said the order was a clear extension of the president's earlier statements that political appointees should not expect raises. But Biggs said any future actions affecting the bonuses of career federal employees could have unintended consequences.

"In terms of the potential of things to come, if a similar freeze on bonuses were to be extended to the rank and file, it would not be a stretch to assume that such an action would seriously endanger any future effort by [the Office of Personnel Management] to put in place governmentwide performance management," Biggs said.

Presidential Memorandum--Freeze Discretionary Awards, Bonuses and Similar Payments

MEMORANDUM FOR THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OF STAFF THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES

SUBJECT: Freeze on Discretionary Awards, Bonuses, and Similar Payments for Federal Political Appointees

At a time when so many American families are struggling to make ends meet, I am committed to making sure the Federal Government is spending the taxpayers' money wisely and carefully, and cutting costs wherever possible.  I am committed to ending programs that do not work, streamlining those that do, and bringing a new responsibility for stewardship of tax dollars.  Like households and businesses across the country, the Federal Government is tightening its belt.  This effort began during my first days in office, when I froze the salaries of the senior members of my White House Staff.

As a next step in this effort, I direct you to suspend cash awards, quality step increases, bonuses, and similar discretionary payments or salary adjustments to any politically appointed Federal employee, commencing immediately, and continuing through the end of Fiscal Year 2011.  I also direct the Office of Personnel Management to issue guidance, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget, to assist departments and agencies in implementing this policy.

In addition to these actions freezing discretionary payments, I have proposed in my Budget for Fiscal Year 2011 a salary freeze for senior political appointees throughout the Federal Government.  Unlike the administrative action I have taken today in this memorandum, my proposed salary freeze requires legislation, so it cannot be implemented absent legislative action by the Congress.

I appreciate the hard work of our Federal workforce, and understand how important these payments can be to many workers and their families.  Yet like households and businesses across the country, we need to make tough choices about how to spend our funds.

This memorandum shall be carried out to the extent permitted by law and consistent with executive departments' and agencies' legal authorities.  Nothing in this memorandum shall be construed to affect payments or salary adjustments for Federal employees who are not political appointees.  This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

The Director of the Office of Management and Budget is hereby authorized and directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

Mother of Slain Correctional Officer Jose Rivera Files Civil Rights Lawsuit Against Administrators at USP Atwater/Federal Bureau of Prisons for the Wrongful Death of her Son

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Mark Peacock, Esq. representing the family of Jose Rivera, announced the filing of a lawsuit against Harley Lappin (Director of US Federal Bureau of Prisons); Robert McFadden (Regional Director US Federal Bureau of Prisons); Dennis Smith (Warden UPS Atwater); SIS technician Ziragosa; Marie Orozco; Lt. Jesse Estrada; Associate Warden Bell; Associate Warden Shinn; Unit Secretary Drayton and Unit Manager Bowles. Terry Rivera, Jose Rivera's mother, has filed her lawsuit against these individuals for their "deliberate indifference" which led to the death of her son, Officer Jose Riveraa.

"This was a totally unnecessary murder which could have been avoided. These individuals dishonored the correctional staff, and this dishonor contributed to the death of Officer Rivera," said Peacock.

House Passes Bill To Create Criminal Justice Commission

The U.S. House yesterday passed a bill to create a commission that would undertake a top-to-bottom review of the nation’s criminal justice system, says its main sponsor, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA). “Today our prison population is expanding at an alarming rate, with costs to the taxpayers that are unsustainable,” Delahunt said. ”The bill passed tonight will assess the current crisis, reverse these disturbing trends and help save taxpayer money.”

Link: http://delahunt.house.gov/2010/07/house-passes-national-criminal-justice-commission-act.shtml

The Senate has passed this bill out of the Judiciary Committee, but, it hasn't passed the full Senate.

There have been three inmates killed in the U.S. Penitentiary in Lewisburg since the beginning of May. The most recent homicide inside the walls of the penitentiary took place on Tuesday. The trio of deaths come less than a year after a guard was stabbed by an inmate wielding a metal-tipped

spear fabricated from rolled-up newspapers and magazines. Last month, three staff members were attacked as they tried to quell a brawl at the U.S. Penitentiary in Allenwood. A union Web site indicates that the fight arose from conflict between unidentified prison gangs. At least one of the inmates killed in Lewisburg was a known gang member. In 1992, Juan "China Boy" Arias survived getting shot in the chest during a gang gun fight. Arias was 27 in 1997 when he was sentenced to 32 years in federal prison for his involvement in the Los Angeles Mexican Mafia. Arias was one of 13 men prosecuted under federal racketeering laws for an array of crimes, including jailhouse murder, street stabbings, extorting "tributes" of thousands of dollars from other Latino street gangs, and drug trafficking. At the time, the judge said he was cutting Arias a break because of his young age. News reports noted that he would be in his 60s when he was released from jail. Arias was 40 when he died in Lewisburg. We raise Arias' background not to glorify his notoriety, but to convey just what prison guards say when they describe working with the "worst of the worst" criminals in the federal prison system. Danger is their business. Professional pride may often make prison employees reluctant to complain or suggest that more ought to be done to protect them. After a correctional officer was stabbed in November, union officials said staff levels were too low. In recent weeks, it has been difficult to judge how safe

conditions are, because neither the Bureau of Prisons, nor the correctional officers union are saying much. It is difficult to feel like conditions could have improved much, though, as the death toll rises. We hope federal prison officials take adequate steps to ensure that staffing levels are sufficient and guards receive all the equipment and training they need. The unwillingness to share information only fosters uncertainty and fear. We urge prison officials begin to speak as openly as they can without creating any lapses in security.

PAY FREEZE

MOTION TO RECOMMIT

Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentlewoman opposed to the bill?

Mrs. BACHMANN. Yes, in its current form.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I reserve a point of order against the motion to recommit.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The point of order is reserved.

The Clerk will report the motion to recommit.

The Clerk read as follows:

Mrs. Bachmann moves to recommit the bill back to the Committee on Armed Services with instructions to report the same back to the House forthwith with the following amendment:

At the end of the bill, add the following new title:

(a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, for purposes of computing compensation for service performed during fiscal year 2011 and the first quarter of fiscal year 2012, the rate of salary or basic pay for any office or position within the civil service, as defined by section 2101 of title 5, United States Code, shall be deemed to be equal to the rate of salary or basic pay payable for such office or position as of September 30, 2010.

(b) Congressional Pay Freeze.--Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no adjustment shall be made under section 601(a) of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (2 U.S.C. 31) (related to the Compensation of Members of Congress) during fiscal year 2011 and the first quarter of fiscal year 2012.

(c) Rule for New Positions.--For purposes of subsection (a), the rate of salary or basic pay payable as of September 30, 2010, for any office or position which was not in existence on such date shall be deemed to be the rate of salary or basic pay payable to individuals in comparable offices or positions on such date.

(d) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this section shall be considered to apply with respect to any office or position within the uniformed services, as defined by section 2101 of title 5, United States Code.

Mrs. BACHMANN (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the reading.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Minnesota?

Mr. SKELTON. I object.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Objection is heard.

The reading will continue.

The Clerk continued to read.

Mr. SKELTON (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to dispense with the continuing of the reading.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Missouri?

There was no objection.

POINT OF ORDER

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order against this motion as it is not germane, and I insist on that point of order.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I ask to be heard on the point of order.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Minnesota is recognized.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, the motion to recommit proposes to add a new amendment to the bill freezing the rate of pay for ourselves, Members of Congress, and for the non-uniformed Federal employees. The amendment relies on the definition of civil service provided in title V of the United States Code which covers positions in the executive, the judicial, and the legislative branches.

The bill before us contains numerous and repeated references to title V of the United States Code, yet the gentleman makes the point of order that this amendment is not germane to the bill.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us includes provisions, such as the recently adopted Sarbanes amendment, that affect the policies of all executive branch agencies, not just the Department of Defense. And on that basis, I believe that the Chair will find the provisions of the amendment limiting pay for civilian executive branch employees germane. I also believe that the bill is broad enough to cover judicial employees as well.

So, Mr. Speaker, that then leaves the question of ourselves, our pay, and that of non-uniformed Federal employees, legislative branch employees. So, therefore, Mr. Speaker, I believe it would be improper for the Chair to use a point of order for the purpose of protecting the employees of the legislative branch and for the purpose of protecting and shielding us Members of Congress from the pay freeze herein being proposed. And it would otherwise be in order for employees of the executive branch.

And so, Mr. Speaker, I ask the question: Do we really want to go on record saying that the rules of this House should not be used to shield our own Members of Congress' salaries and also those of the legislative salaries of the non-uniformed branch from being fiscally irresponsible?

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge you not to sustain the point of order because when the average wage and benefit package of government workers is double that of private employees, then we should not use--

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I insist on my point of order.

Mrs. BACHMANN. I am speaking on the point of order, Mr. Speaker.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman is reminded to confine her remarks to the point of order.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Yes, Mr. Speaker.

We should not use the arcane rules to somehow exempt ourselves as a Member of Congress from our own pay increases and that of the non-uniformed Federal offices under the responsibility of tightening our belt.

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I insist on my point of order. It is not germane.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will rule.

The gentleman from Missouri makes the point of order that the instructions proposed in the motion to recommit offered by the gentlewoman from Minnesota are not germane. The bill broaches a range of subject matters related to both national defense and to general operations of the Federal Government. This range of subject matters implicates the jurisdiction of several committees.

The instructions proposed in the motion to recommit seek to prohibit certain future increases in pay for Members of Congress and employees across the Federal Government. This prohibition, by addressing the legislative branch, involves the jurisdiction of the Committee on House Administration.

One of the fundamental principles of germaneness is that an amendment must confine itself to matters within the jurisdiction of the committees with jurisdiction over the pending text. To the Chair's knowledge, the underlying bill is devoid of subject matter within the jurisdiction of the Committee on House Administration. Thus, the motion offered by the gentlewoman from Minnesota is not germane. The point of order is sustained. The motion is not in order.

Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is, Shall the decision of the Chair stand as the judgment of the House?

MOTION TO TABLE

Mr. SKELTON. Mr. Speaker, I move to table the appeal of the ruling of the Chair.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to lay the appeal on the table.

The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that the ayes appeared to have it.

RECORDED VOTE

Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

A recorded vote was ordered.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 and clause 9 of rule XX, this 15-minute vote on tabling the appeal will be followed by 5-minute votes on passage of H.R. 5136 and adoption of H. Res. 407, unless sooner followed by further proceedings in recommittal.

The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--ayes 227, noes 183, not voting 21, as follows:

[Roll No. 334]

AYES--227

Supreme Court upholds search of a police officer's messages

After strong debate from both sides of the aisle, the Senate on Thursday rejected a legislative provision that would have frozen federal pay and the size of the government workforce.

The chamber voted 57-41 to let stand a budgetary point of order against a GOP alternative amendment to the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act. The point of order essentially blocks the amendment, offered by Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., which sought to avoid $113 billion in spending, partly by freezing federal employees' salaries, eliminating their bonuses and collecting their unpaid taxes. It also would have held the number of government workers at current levels, and rescinded $38 billion in unobligated stimulus funds.

"The alternative amendment I proposed was a common sense step toward restoring fiscal sanity to our nation's runaway spending and ballooning deficit," Thune said after the vote. "The defeat of my amendment was a missed opportunity for Congress to prove they are serious about tackling our dangerous spending habits and $13 trillion national debt. This amendment would have lowered taxes for families and small businesses as they struggle through these challenging times."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell urged colleagues to vote in favor of the amendment.

"Senators will have a simple choice today. They can either vote to reduce the deficit, or they can lock arms with the Democrat leadership and dig an even deeper hole of debt when most Americans think $13 trillion is far too much already," the Kentucky lawmaker said. "If you're even remotely attuned to what Americans are asking of us, this would be an easy choice." During debate of the amendment, Delaware Democratic Sen. Ted Kaufman chastised the Republicans, saying they were using incorrect information on federal pay to scapegoat hardworking employees.

"Over the years, as I've witnessed countless acts of personal courage, devotion to country and real sacrifice" by federal employees, Kaufman said. "I have also seen and heard such disheartening and baseless attacks against those who choose to serve. The pending amendment is just the latest assault."

Kaufman said it has become too common for politicians to criticize Washington by "defaming" civil servants.

"Now is not the time to talk about laying off federal workers, or freezing their pay," he said. "We should be talking -- seriously and on this floor -- about how to invest in recruiting the next generation of federal employees."

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., on Tuesday called the proposed spending cuts "arbitrary and restrictive." He also warned that the provision to cap the total number of federal employees would dramatically reduce agencies' flexibility to make hiring decisions, forcing them to find an existing employee to fire if they needed to hire a new one.

Treasury kicks off effort to go paperless with federal benefits

The Treasury Department is kicking off an initiative to move recipients of federal benefits away from paper payments to direct deposit by March 2013, the Obama administration announced Monday.

New enrollees receiving a range of benefits administered by the Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs Department, Railroad Retirement Board and Office of Personnel Management will be required to receive payments beginning March 1, 2011, either through direct deposit into a bank account or through a Treasury-issued debit card. All existing check recipients will have to enroll to receive electronic payments by March 1, 2013.

Treasury announced the initiative in April, saying that moving all recipients of these benefits to electronic payments would save more than $300 million in the first five years. Currently, 85 percent of federal benefit recipients receive their payments electronically.

On Monday, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter R. Orszag said the shift to electronic payments will continue to save $120 million each year after the first five, and he painted the initiative as part of the administration's efforts to reduce wasteful spending in the federal government.

"This is a win-win for the American public, because it makes government more convenient and cost-effective," Orszag wrote on the OMB blog. "This is precisely the type of smart, streamlined improvement that this administration is committed to making across government to boost efficiency and modernize how we do business. And OMB is working with agencies across the government to bring more ideas like this one online in the months to come."

Orszag said not only will electronic payments be more convenient for many beneficiaries, they also will eliminate the risk that checks will be lost, stolen, altered, or fraudulently signed, which happens more than 500,000 times a year with paper checks.

"The benefits of electronic transactions are well-documented," the Treasury announcement stated. "Aside from the large cost savings, electronic transactions provide safety, convenience and control for payment recipients, taxpayers and savings bond holders."

The department pledged that the shift would be accompanied by strengthened protections for those who receive direct deposits. Treasury and the federal agencies that issue benefit payments have published a notice of proposed rule-making to ensure that federal benefit payments that are protected from garnishment remain safeguarded after being directly deposited into accounts.

Treasury also will issue a proposed rule reaffirming the long-standing policy that federal benefits must be deposited directly into an account in the name of the recipient and not into an account of a third party. The announcement stated that the rule will prevent entities such as payday lenders from establishing master accounts to receive payments on behalf of multiple beneficiaries. It will allow for direct deposit into master accounts established by reputable organizations such as nursing homes, as long as those organizations establish certain consumer protections.

Proposals to freeze federal employees' pay might make good headlines in lawmakers' home districts, but they are "demoralizing" to public servants, a Virginia Democrat said on Thursday.

Such proposals also make it that much harder for the government to compete against the private sector for talent, said Rep. Gerry Connolly, during a breakfast discussion in Washington hosted by Government Executive. Lawmakers should be more supportive of civil servants and the critical work they do, he said. But he noted one of the things he has learned during his first term in Congress is the further from the Beltway his colleagues' constituencies get, the harder it is to explain the complex issues the federal workforce faces and build sympathy.

Connolly said he wants no part of the government-bashing that has emerged in the run-up to the midterm elections. Skepticism of government is healthy, he said, but it should not get carried so far that citizens lose faith in public institutions and stop participating in politics.

"I'm certainly not going to campaign on freezing civilian pay," Connolly said. "That's a campaign pledge."

The freshman Democrat noted he is a strong advocate for giving civilians and military members the same annual raise and is pleased President Obama returned to the concept of pay parity in his second budget request. Connolly also said he supports the idea of paying employees based on how well they perform their jobs, but that it could be a nightmare to implement across an organization as large as the federal government.

Any performance-based pay system must be transparent and objective, and have safeguards against abuse, Connolly said. Agencies could have separate systems, but the Obama administration should establish some baseline parameters and expectations, he said.

Connolly said he is confident that Defense Department officials will be able to come up with a performance management arrangement to replace the ill-fated National Security Personnel System, but added Congress will help them if they don't. He said he supports measures to ensure employees moving from NSPS back to the General Schedule aren't unintentionally penalized for the pay raises they received under NSPS, noting he is not entirely comfortable with the idea of holding those employees back until the General Schedule catches up to them. He said he would consider a proposal adding steps to GS pay grades to resolve the issue.

Other changes that could make government more attractive as an employer according to Connolly include more robust telework and internship programs. He said he is optimistic the House will pass a bill to increase telework once it is brought up under regular order requiring a simple majority vote, and noted a bill he introduced to strengthen student internship programs (not to be confused with the Federal Career Intern Program, which he has criticized), has been incorporated into the fiscal 2011 Defense authorization measure.

Testing revealed that the helmets did not meet the Army’s ballistic standards. The company has suspended making helmets indefinitely, said Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for Federal Bureau of Prisons.

The decision to stop making the helmets was made a few months ago, she said on Wednesday.

“I can tell you that the decision to stop making helmets was prompted by an audit by defense and an investigation by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General,” she said in an e-mail.

The news comes a day after U.S. Rep. Christopher Carney, D-Pa., called for a review of military contracts to Federal Prison Industries after the Army’s recall.

“Our military men and women deserve the best-made equipment and this recall further demonstrates the pitfalls of trusting prisoners with the lives of our Soldiers and Marines,” Carney said in a news release on Tuesday.

Carney also questioned the Federal Prison Industries’ preferred status, which gave it the edge over private industry. Gentex Corporation and BAE Systems, which make helmets, have large facilities employing hundreds of people in Carney’s district, said his spokesman, Josh Drobnyk.

“We want to make sure that we protect the troops, first and foremost, and in doing so we looked at what was being provided to the troops and who was providing it. ... The folks in our district were providing a very good quality piece of equipment and FPI wasn’t making the grade,” Carney said Wednesday.

If Federal Prison Industries decides to make helmets again, Billingsley said, it will no longer have “mandatory source preference.”

Carney called the company’s decision to stop making helmets a “victory.” When asked if his stand against the company might be election-year posturing, he said, “The recall of the 44,000 [helmets] had nothing to do with the election year.” He said he is considering whether Congress needs to review all products that prisoners make for the military.

The helmet recall, prompted by a Justice Department probe, included about 20,000 issued to Soldiers. Earlier this month, the Army acknowledged it had no idea where the helmets were.

“They could be on some Soldier’s head in Iraq or Afghanistan. They could also be anywhere else in the world,” said Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, head of Program Executive Office Soldier, the Army’s center for advanced equipment.

Federal Prison Industries had two contracts with the Defense Logistics Agency, but stop-work orders were issued in February and no helmets were issued to troops.

Dublin, California (CNN) -- It's a Monday morning, and Vince Cefalu just got into work at his more than $150,000-a-year-job as a special agent of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

"It's 9:30. This is what I affectionately refer to as the cage," Cefalu, 51, said. "I am sitting here with an empty in box and nothing to do. I'll keep you apprised."

CNN gave Cefalu a video camera to document what he does at work. For five days, he recorded himself inside his own office.

Cefalu said he was put in a job with little or nothing to do because he's the victim of retaliation by ATF managers. After spending much of his nearly 24-year ATF career going undercover with motorcycle gangs and white supremacist groups, he now oversees equipment inventory.

"I spent my whole life standing up to bullies," Cefalu told CNN in an interview to air on AC360 Wednesday night. "The bullies right now are government bureaucrats who are abusing their oath and abusing the expectations of the public. I'm not leaving until this is resolved."

Blog: Bureaucrats and bullies

Records show ATF supervisors claim he's had performance and discipline issues.

CNN has interviewed dozens of ATF supervisors, agents and employees around the country who said they've been demoted or labeled troublemakers just for filing a complaint.

Later on the same Monday in which he brought a video camera to work, Cefalu was still having a slow day.

"I'm going to get something to eat, drag out the day a little bit, get some interaction with somebody ... Here I am, Safeway sandwich, a little news on, catching up on current affairs. I've had a few phone calls, personal phone calls that I've made, waiting for something to do."

At 3 p.m. that day, he records himself, saying "...watching a little news, surfing the net, reading some e-mails, doing whatever, waiting for something to do. It's good money for not a lot of work, I guess. I'm being facetious, obviously."

He said ATF managers turned against him after he reported in 2005 what he said was an illegal wiretap plan in a racketeering case. Records show ATF disputes his claims of the planned illegal wiretap. But he said that started a series of retaliatory measures that ended up in 2007 with him in a desk job. His only negative evaluation, he said, was the year after he criticized the planned wiretap.

"Had I not exposed some unethical, potentially criminal clearly outside policy conduct and actions by law enforcement that I was working with, none of this would have happened," Cefalu said. "I would still be working in the field."

"I report to where they tell me to report to, and I sit for eight hours a day, and then I go home," he said. "I do nothing."

Cefalu filed a series of grievances and an age-discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, but an administrative judge ruled against him. His attorney is appealing that decision.

And over the past several years, he's also sent letters to members of Congress complaining about alleged fraud and mismanagement at the ATF.

"It's almost like being in an abusive relationship, actually. It's almost like domestic violence, really," said Hiram Andrades, a supervisor in ATF's Washington field office. "It's just you think things are going to improve with each director, you think things will get better and improve, but they don't."

Andrades, who has a pending discrimination complaint, claims he was discriminated against because he can't get promoted.

"I can't get a promotion even if my life depended on it. If my life depended on it, I'd be dead by now, OK?" Andrades told CNN. "This type of retaliation isn't good for the agency, it's distracting and it's not good for the American people. We need to make better use of our tax dollars. We need to use it for the mission versus this kind of stuff. This is very distracting and not good for anybody."

ATF has not had a permanent director since Carl Truscott resigned in 2006. The agency is being run by Kenneth Melson, who has been deputy director since 2009.

In an interview with CNN, Melson said he was not permitted to discuss employee cases. But he insisted that he does not tolerate any type of retaliation.

"When I first came into ATF -- when I went around and talked to people at headquarters and around the country -- my specific and very emphatic message was that everyone was to be treated with respect and dignity and there would not be retaliation," Melson said. "I will not stand for retaliation against people who are abiding by our orders and reporting violations of law or regulations."

"Every allegation of retaliation doesn't mean it's true," Melson said. "Every person you talked to who perceives it's retaliation doesn't mean that it's retaliation, because there's been no adjudication of that. They haven't brought it to anybody to try to resolve it. Be careful when you talk to someone about retaliation, because there are many misconceptions and parameters of retaliation -- some of which are misinformed."

Asked about an employee who does virtually nothing all day, he said: "Well, I will certainly look into it and find out why he is not doing anything all day." He added, "I will make sure that he puts in a full day's work, because everybody is going to put in a full day's work at ATF."

Since fiscal 2005, ATF has paid a total of $1.6 million to settle discrimination claims, according to federal government records. For the same time period, the FBI paid out $1.3 million and the DEA paid $331,755.

In addition, records show, ATF has more discrimination complaints filed per employee than the DEA or the FBI.

But Melson said complaints have gone down 40 percent since last year. And ATF officials added that the U.S. Marshals Service and Bureau of Prisons have more complaints per employee.

John Taylor, a former ATF special agent based in Las Vegas, Nevada, said he was the target of retaliation after he wrote an anonymous letter to the agency's inspector-general. In his 2006 letter, he alleged taxpayer money was being wasted on agents' unnecessary trips to Las Vegas.

Taylor told CNN he was the target of an investigation into who wrote the letter.

"They asked me did I write the letter. My response was, 'I don't have to answer' ... they tried to charge me with lying."

He said he left ATF as soon as he was eligible to retire after 20 years, on December 31, 2009.

"I told my wife, I'm not going to live if I stay here," Taylor told CNN. "I was depressed. It was hell for me."

Another agent in the Las Vegas office, who claims he was suspected of writing the anonymous letter, also alleged he was the target of retaliation by managers, according to records obtained by CNN. That agent was fired for failing to pass a firearms test, but later got his job back.

ATF agents tell CNN that managers are taught how to handle discrimination complaints at supervisor meetings.

CNN obtained a statement from a current ATF supervisor who attended such a meeting in March. During that meeting, ATF associate chief counsel Eleanor Loos gave a presentation to supervisors in the Atlanta field division.

According to the statement, Loos stated that "she considers the EEO process as the employees' 'bitching platform' and "employees use this as a means to complain."

"Loos stated in a bragging manner that the EEO process can be dragged on and can take up to three years," the statement said.

Rafiq Ahmad, the ATF supervisor who wrote the statement, added: "This is not the first time that I have heard Eleanor Loos making similar remarks. She has presented these same remarks in presentations in New Supervisor's training."

Melson told CNN he had not seen the statement. "But what I can tell you is that the direction that I have given people is to make sure that we abide by the rules of the agency, that we abide by the process of the EEO, and the ombudsman. And that's why we have the process in place," Melson said.

In a follow-up interview, Scot Thomasson, chief of ATF public affairs, told CNN that the bureau looked into the statements made by Loos.

"What we found is those statements were being taken out of context," Thomasson said. "In addition, they were being characterized in a slanted matter by the person who wrote it."

1. Iran Hostage Rescue Mission Remembered April 25, 2010

The White House Commission on the National Moment of Remembrance

On Sunday, April 25, David Kolbe, Political and Legislative Director of the Ironworkers (U.S. Army) represented the Union Veterans Council at the 30th Anniversary Remembrance Ceremony Honoring Iran Hostage Rescue Mission Casualties: Arlington National Cemetery, Section 46

A Remembrance Tribute honored the eight American servicemen who died during the1980 attempt to free the 53 Americans held hostage in Iran . The ceremony marked the 30th Anniversary of the tragedy. An all-volunteer military mission to rescue the American hostages was planned for April 25, 1980. On that day, three Marines and five Air Force servicemen were killed when a helicopter and a transport plane collided on the ground during a refueling operation in Iran ’s Great Salt Desert , after the ill-fated rescue mission had been aborted.

The eight servicemen honored are: MAJ Richard L. Bakke, USAF; SGT John D. Harvey, USMC; George N. Holmes, Jr., USM; SSGT Dewey L. Johnson, USMC; MAJ Harold L. Lewis, Jr., USAF; TSG Joel C. Mayo, USAF; MAJ Lyn K. McIntosh, USAF; CAPT Charles T. McMillan, USAF

During the Iran Rescue Mission, the eight Air Force Special Operations/Air Commando crew members sacrificed their lives at Desert One Iran so that many of their comrades could survive. After a Marine RH-53 helicopter collided with their C-130 aircraft, their individual actions contributed to the survival of over 53 mission personnel trapped in the cabin of the aircraft.

2. Machinists Union (IAM) Pledges Money for Upkeep of Vietnam Veterans Memorial Grounds

The AP (5/12, Zongker) reports the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a labor union based in Maryland, is "pledging $50,000 for upkeep of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial grounds on the National Mall." The union "also plans to restore a bronze sculpture of three soldiers at the memorial."

3. Obama signs law to protect Tricare

(Military Times, 26 Apr 10)?Rick Maze

http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2010/04/military_tricare_healthreform_042610w/

The Tricare Affirmation Act, aimed at protecting people in the military health care program from being penalized for not having private insurance, was signed into law Monday by President Obama.

The new law provides a specific exemption for Tricare beneficiaries and for nonappropriated-fund civilian employees of the Defense Department from a requirement of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that will require people without minimal health cover to either buy private insurance or face a $750 penalty.

Tricare health insurance is specifically defined by the law signed Monday as minimal essential coverage, which provides an exemption from the penalty.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the House Armed Services Committee chairman who opposed the national health care reform law but was a key sponsor of the Tricare Affirmation Act, said he hopes this resolves questions by active-duty family members, retirees and their families about how national health reform might affect them.

Signing the new law “reinforces that military health care coverage will not be adversely affected by the health care reform law,” Skelton said.

Skelton’s committee will consider legislation in May that would extend to Tricare beneficiaries one of the provisions of the new health reform law that allows unmarried children to remain covered by a parent’s insurance until age 26. That legislation is expected to be included in the 2011 defense authorization bill.

4.  Vets Salute Obama on Funding

Great article on President Obama keeping his campaign promises to Veterans—IN THE WASHINGTON TIMES NO LESS!!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/29/vets-salute-obama-on-funding/print/

Please share as widely as possible.

5. Obama Signs the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act 

On May 5, 2010, President Obama signed an important piece of legislation—the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act.  As the President said:

“With this legislation, we’re expanding mental health counseling and services for our veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq , including our National Guardsmen and Reservists.  We’re authorizing the VA to utilize hospitals and clinics outside the VA system to serve more wounded warriors with traumatic brain injury. We’re increasing support to veterans in rural areas, with the transportation and housing they need to reach VA hospitals and clinics.  We’re expanding and improving health care for our women’s veterans, to meet their unique needs, including maternity care for newborn children.  And we’ll launch a pilot program to provide child care for veterans receiving intensive medical care.  We’re eliminating co-pays for veterans who are catastrophically disabled.  And we’re expanding support to homeless veterans, because in the United States of America , no one who has served this nation in uniform should ever be living on the streets.  Finally, this legislation marks a major step forward in America ’s commitment to families and caregivers who tend to our wounded warriors every day.  They’re spouses like Sarah.  They’re parents, once again caring for their sons and daughters.  Sometimes they’re children helping to take care of their mom or dad.   These caregivers put their own lives on hold, their own careers and dreams aside, to care for a loved one.  They do it every day, often around the clock.  As Sarah can tell you, it’s hard physically and it’s hard emotionally.  It’s certainly hard financially.  And these tireless caregivers shouldn’t have to do it alone.  As of today, they’ll be getting more of the help that they need.”

                Please share this important news with your Veterans and Military Family networks.  Today is a victory for all Veterans, their loved ones and all who advocate on their behalf.

You can see the video of the President’s speech here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/improving-health-care-veterans

You can read the transcript of the President’s remarks at the bill signing here:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-signing-caregives-and-veterans-omnibus-health-services-act

6. First Lady Michelle Obama Announces Presidential Directive on Military Families, May 12, 2010

WASHINGTON, DC – First Lady Michelle Obama today announced that President Obama has directed the National Security Staff to lead a new 90-day review to develop a coordinated Federal government-wide approach to supporting and engaging military families.  Building on work and expertise by the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, the review will involve nearly twenty federal agencies as well as the White House Domestic Policy and National Economic Councils and the Offices of the Vice President, the First Lady, and Dr. Biden.

Specifically, the review will:

• Set strategic military family priorities for the next ten years and identify key military family concerns and challenges;
• Review a cross section of public and private programs to identify the most promising ideas and programs that positively support military families;
• Develop options for departments to integrate military family matters into their strategic and budgetary priorities;
• Examine opportunities for Federal policies and programs to stimulate new and support existing state and local efforts achieving military family readiness goals and meeting military family priorities;
• Identify opportunities to leverage the skills and experience of military family members in national and community life; and
• Strengthen existing feedback mechanisms for military families to voice their concerns and views on the effectiveness and future direction of relevant Federal programs and policies.

The review builds on the Obama administration’s efforts to forge an enduring national commitment to support and engage military families.  These combined national efforts will help ensure that:

• The United States military continues to recruit and retain the highest-caliber volunteers contributing to the Nation’s security;
• Service members can have strong family lives while maintaining the highest state of readiness and focus on their military responsibilities;
• Civilian family members can fulfill their own potential while supporting service members; and
• The general population better understands military families and seeks more opportunities to support military families.

“With just one percent of our population—our troops—doing 100 percent of the fighting our military families are being tested like never before,” said First Lady Michelle Obama.  “This government wide review will bring together the resources of the federal government, identify new opportunities across the public and private sectors, and lay the foundation for a coordinated approach to supporting and engaging military families for years to come.”

The First Lady made the announcement during an address to the National Military Family Association’s summit – When Parents Deploy:  Understanding the Experiences of Military Children and Spouses.  Mrs. Obama addressed the state of America ’s military families today, outlined a vision of the nation supporting them over the long-term, and how, as a country, all segments of society can work together to turn that vision into a reality.  The First Lady, along with Dr. Jill Biden, uses their platform to support military families by:

• Championing a national call to action that both addresses the unique challenges facing military families and recognizes and taps their skills, strength and commitment to service;
• Building stronger civilian-military community ties; and
• Engaging and highlighting the service and sacrifice of military families to ensure their voices are heard inside the administration.

7. VA to Participate In Florida "Stand Down" For Homeless Veterans

The Winter Haven (FL) News Chief (5/9, 10K) reports, "The Polk County Stand Down event for veterans and homeless veterans will be held Saturday, May 15, Armed Forces Day, at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, to provide all available services for veterans at one central location." There, "services will be provided by the Veterans Administration, Polk Veterans Council, Polk County Veterans Services, Social Security Administration, Blind Vets Association, Department of Health, Florida Department of Veterans Affairs, Florida Rural Legal Services, Paralyzed Veterans, Peace River, Polk Health care Plan, Polk Works, Tampa Crossroad, Tri-County and local veterans organizations."

8. Union Veterans Council Supports Mark Critz for Congress

This week the Union Veterans Council will make its first foray into politics this year. 

We polled the UVC officers and Executive Committee, and we have unanimous support for backing Mark Critz in the 12th Congressional District in Pennsylvania to fill the seat held by John Murtha in a special election next Tuesday.  Mark Critz was Murtha's Chief of Staff for many years and carries with him Murtha's dedication to veterans.  You can find out more about his positions on veterans issues on his website.  Critz also has the backing of the Pennsylvanial AFL-CIO and many affiliates.  http://www.critzforcongress.com/home.

Thursday, May 13, in Johnstown , PA , Phil Glover of AFGE will represent the UVC in an event with the candidate and other area veterans in a roundtable discussion when he will make the announcement of our support for Critz.

9. Book Recommendation: Sebastian Junger's 'War'

Book review by Philip Caputo

Sunday, May 9, 2010, Washington Post

WAR

By Sebastian Junger

The ambitiousness of Sebastian Junger's "War" is summed up in its title. It's a story about war that is much more than a war story.

As a correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine, Junger made five trips to Afghanistan 's Korengal Valley in 2007 and 2008, embedded with the 2nd Platoon, Battle Company of the storied 173rd Airborne Brigade. "War" is the result of those journeys into a world so alien to civilians it might as well be a planet in some distant solar system.

The paratroopers' mission was to deny the valley to Taliban insurgents, and it proved difficult and costly. Junger and his photographer, Tim Hetherington, arrived utterly unprepared for the level of violence they experienced. The bloodshed was futile, it turns out. Last month, U.S. troops were withdrawn from the Korengal, leaving it to the insurgents. I was reminded of the battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam , when a battalion from the 101st Airborne Division took heavy casualties in seizing the hill from the North Vietnamese army and then was ordered to abandon it.

Most of what we read and hear about the conflict in Afghanistan focuses on politics and strategy. Junger makes plain that he isn't interested in such abstractions but in the men we've sent far away to do our dirty work. I say "men" because this book takes place among the hyper-male front-line infantry, where women are prohibited from serving.

With his narrative gifts and vivid prose -- as free, thank God, of literary posturing as it is of war-correspondent chest-thumping -- Junger masterfully chronicles the platoon's 15-month tour of duty. But what elevates "War" out of its particular time and place are the author's meditations on the minds and emotions of the soldiers with whom he has shared hardships, dangers and spells of boredom so intense that everyone sits around wishing to hell something would happen (and wishes to God it was over when, inevitably, it does).

"War" is divided into three long sections: "Fear," "Killing" and "Love." In each, Junger makes us see the terror, monotony, misery, comradeship and lunatic excitement that have been elements of all wars since, say, the siege of Troy . He thus becomes a kind of 21st-century battle singer, narrating the deeds and misdeeds of his heroes while explaining what makes them do what they do. These reflections, drawing on his wide-ranging research into military history, biology and psychology as well as on his personal experiences, overreach once or twice. Otherwise, it's the best writing I've seen on the subject since J. Glenn Gray's 1959 classic, "The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle ."

An eight-man squad caught in a Taliban ambush suffers 100 percent casualties. Their sergeant is mortally wounded. A team leader named Sal Giunta takes over and saves the unit from annihilation. The action appears chaotic but possesses an underlying choreography that requires each man to make "decisions based not on what's best for him, but on what's best for the group," Junger writes. "If everyone does that, most of the group survives. If no one does, most of the group dies. That, in essence, is combat."

He points out that while all animals defend their young and some their mates, only human beings are willing to die for a cause. And for these paratroopers, as for most warriors, their most cherished cause, maybe their only one, is each other. It is understood that each soldier will give his life for his comrades, if necessary.

Here is a paradox of war: Comradeship redeems it from becoming total savagery; yet that sense of brotherhood, the fierce protectiveness it arouses, can make men savage -- or seem so. After a prolonged firefight, a Taliban guerrilla whose leg has been blown off is seen crawling on a mountain slope. When he stops moving and scouts report that he has died, the troops cheer. Their joy troubles Junger. "It seemed," he observes, "like I either had to radically reunderstand the men on the hilltop or I had to acknowledge the power of a place like this to change them."

He has to do a little of both when a soldier named Steiner explains that he and his comrades weren't being senselessly sadistic. What tore that wild whoop from their throats was knowing that "this guy could have murdered your friend . . . we just stopped someone from killing us. . . . That's where the fiesta comes in."

Junger's sketches of the men are deft, his ear for their quirky speech (aided by video recordings) spot on. A partial platoon roster includes Jones, a former drug dealer who joined the Army to avoid being killed on the streets; Moreno, an ex-prizefighter and prison guard from Texas; Murphy, a rich kid who went to etiquette school and wonders which side of the plate the sherbet spoon goes on; the supremely weird Sgt. Buno, a man of indeterminate ethnicity who wanders around listening to his iPod and muttering bizarre things (asked where he'd spent one night, he replies that he was in a village "killing werewolves").

The main character, so to speak, is Brendan O'Byrne. Pugnacious and hard-drinking, O'Byrne is very tough -- he humps up mountains carrying a machine gun as heavy as a jackhammer -- but also gifted with an ability to articulate thoughts his comrades can't or won't. He confesses to Junger that he prayed only once in Afghanistan , for a dying medic to live. "But God, Allah, Jehovah, Zeus . . . wasn't in that valley," he says. "Combat is the devil's game. . . . That's why our prayers weren't answered: the only one listening was Satan."

Junger thinks of O'Byrne as the platoon's collective mind and voice -- "a way to understand a group of men who I don't think entirely understood themselves." This splendid book should help the rest of us understand them -- and war itself -- a little better.

Philip Caputo is the author of "A Rumor of War" and, most recently, "Crossers," a novel.

Four guards hurt in L.A. jail disturbance

LOS ANGELES, May 6 (UPI) -- A brawl that broke out in the Los Angeles federal Metropolitan Detention Center injured four guards before it was brought under control, U.S. officials said.

Two of the guards were treated at a hospital after Wednesday night's disturbance at the facility.

Los Angeles police responded to the jail to help secure the perimeter while the center's staff quelled the disturbance, the Los Angeles Times said.

It was not known what caused the melee. The MDC, a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility, houses more than 1,000 male and female inmates.

Federal benefits payments will go exclusively electronic by 2013, the Treasury Department announced on Monday.

Treasury's decision applies to all recipients of Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Veterans Affairs, Railroad Retirement and Office of Personnel Management benefits. Enrollees will be able to choose between direct deposits and balances added to Treasury debit cards. All new program enrollees will receive their benefits electronically starting on March 1, 2011, and current recipients will make the transition by March 1, 2013.

Treasury said 85 percent of federal benefits recipients already are receiving electronic payments. By moving the remaining 15 percent off paper, the government will save $300 million over five years, the department estimated.

Matt Biggs, legislative director for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, praised the decision as a cost-saving and environmental measure. The debit cards program, he said, is a good alternative for beneficiaries who might not have access to conventional bank accounts. But he suggested that electronic enrollment should be a default, rather than the only option.

"There is still some justifiable concern from veterans and others that should not be ignored," Biggs said. "While this is clearly the right time to make the transition, the government should also allow beneficiaries the option to continue to receive their benefits in a paper form."

In a Federal Register notice posted on Monday, OPM also proposed a number of changes to the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

Open season -- the time when federal employees can change their FEHBP enrollments -- runs from the beginning of the second full work week of November to the end of the second full work week of December. OPM proposed switching it to run from Nov. 1 to Nov. 30.

"This will simplify the annual announcement of the time period for open season and allow agencies and employees to better plan for the enrollment opportunity since they will know well in advance when it will occur each year," the agency said in the notice.

In addition, OPM suggested changes to the kinds of plans health care companies can offer through FEHBP. Right now, insurers can offer two regular options and one high-deductible plan, in which enrollees pay most of their costs out of pocket in exchange for low premiums. OPM proposed allowing companies to choose between offering two plans and a high-deductible option, or three regular plans.

Employees have until May 22 to use up comp time they accumulated in lieu of overtime pay before the March 2007 policy went into effect. That regulation required workers to use comp time within 26 pay periods. But it applied only to comp time earned after May 14, 2007. Employees had three years to burn time they'd gathered previously.

If employees fail to use their grandfathered time off by May 22, then they either will receive pay for the unused hours, or they will be forced to forfeit them, according to the March 30 memorandum from OPM Director John Berry. There will be no exceptions, he said.

Employees covered by the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act are entitled to receive pay for unused comp time. Those exempt from the law can be paid or forced to forfeit the time, depending on their agencies' internal policies. Agencies, however, must pay employees who cannot use the time due to certain circumstances beyond their control.

The bill (H.R. 4865), sponsored by Reps. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, would let employees roll over the value of their leftover leave as long as it did not push them above the cap on annual retirement contributions of $16,500 for employees younger than 50 and $22,000 for those who are 50 or older.

The National Treasury Employees Union praised the measure.

"Many federal employees carry over the maximum amount of 240 hours of annual leave on a yearly basis, and this legislation could significantly boost their TSP accounts," NTEU President Colleen Kelley said.

The bill grew out of a September 2009 pledge from President Obama to make it easier for Americans to save money. One idea was to let workers roll leftover leave into retirement savings, but the Federal Thrift Retirement Board found that current law precludes this option for feds.

The Lynch-Chaffetz bill would remove that restriction. The legislation has been referred to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Lynch and Chaffetz lead the panel's Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and the District of Columbia.

Federal prison warden indicted on 6 charges

RIVERSIDE, Calif.—The warden of a federal prison in San Bernardino County is accused of disclosing confidential information about ongoing criminal investigations and lying to investigators.

U.S. attorney's office spokesman Thom Mrozek says Scott Holencik was charged Wednesday in a six-count indictment in federal court in Riverside.

Holencik is warden of a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility in Adelanto.

He is charged with making false statements to investigators last year in connection with a probe into Internet postings that disclosed confidential information about criminal investigations at the prison.

Prosecutors say Holencik faces a maximum 14 years in federal prison if convicted of all charges.

He's scheduled to be arraigned on April 21.

White House reconsiders holding terror trials in civilian court

Suspected Sept. 11 plotters may be tried before military tribunals after all, administration officials say. Holding the trials in civilian court is deemed 'politically untenable.'

Reporting from Washington — The White House is considering an end to its effort to prosecute the suspected Sept. 11 plotters in a civilian court and may send them instead before military tribunals, in an apparent retreat from President Obama's pledge to overhaul the Bush administration's detention policies.

Last year, the Obama administration announced it would try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others in federal court in New York. That step came after Obama overhauled interrogation policies and ordered the shutdown of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But safety concerns about the trial have grown, and support for holding the trial in New York has eroded.

"It is politically untenable," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity because a decision had not been made. "No place wants to hold a trial."

A return to military commissions, as the tribunals are known, would be a major concession to Republicans. And administration officials appear to be using the potential shift as a down payment on a political deal to speed the closure of the Guantanamo prison by allowing the federal government to purchase an Illinois prison to transfer detainees.

A formal recommendation has not yet been made to Obama, and an administration official said a decision remains weeks away. Still, the idea, first reported in the Washington Post, represents a trial balloon to test how the administration's reversal would be received by liberals and conservatives.

Though several Republicans endorsed the plan to try the Sept. 11 suspects in military commissions, few seemed convinced Friday that Guantanamo should close.

Liberal groups reacted angrily, seeing the potential about-face as a betrayal of the president's campaign promise and an unwelcome endorsement of Bush administration practices. They said the Obama administration would be closing Guantanamo only to re-create the same problematic situation on U.S. soil.

"The world wasn't clamoring to close Guantanamo because it was built on some sacred Indian burial ground," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It was clamoring to close Gitmo because it stood for the militarization of justice in America and indefinite detention without charge. Keeping all of that preserves the essence of what people were objecting to at Gitmo."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has been negotiating with the White House, including with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, on a way to close Guantanamo but ensure that the government had the legal authority to hold detainees without trial. As part of his compromise, Graham had proposed moving several of the civilian trials to military commissions.

Graham said the potential shift by the White House was a "good start." "It would give us a chance to close Guantanamo Bay safely," Graham said on Fox News.

Charles Stimson, a former Pentagon detention official, said conservatives should embrace Graham's proposal.

"You are going to see national security hawks like me get out in front and support the administration and try to convince skeptics, members of the conservative caucus, that they need to get behind this," Stimson said.

But not all Republicans may be amenable to a deal. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) praised the prospect of a military tribunal trial for Mohammed, but continued to assert that Guantanamo should remain open, despite the controversy it has generated around the world.

He argued that closing Guantanamo and opening a long-term detention facility within the United States would not neutralize international objections to the U.S. treatment of terrorism suspects.

At least on that point, human rights groups who opposed Bush administration detention policies agreed with Obama's critics.

"Closing Guantanamo and moving the military commissions to the United States doesn't really close the concept of Guantanamo," said William Nash, a retired Army major general. "This bastardized version of justice known as military commissions . . . is leaving the job undone."

Nash was among military officers who appeared with Obama on his second day in office last year as the new president signed an executive order to close Guantanamo.

"It is times like this, when things are difficult, that we need the president to stand up and do the right thing, and the smart thing, the thing that will protect our troops," said John Hudson, a retired vice admiral and former Navy judge advocate general.

Malinowski of Human Rights Watch said abandoning trials in civilian court will not prevent the political headaches of trying to close Guantanamo, but will sap the benefits of shuttering the prison.

It would also make the administration look weak in Washington, Malinowski said. "The political cost is catastrophic," he said. "It will invite endless bullying on national security. It is not the way to look strong."

But some Democrats hoped the call to move Mohammed to military court would soften opposition to closing Guantanamo and moving detainees to the prison in Illinois. Before such a transfer could take place, Congress would have to give its stamp of approval.

Under the plan, the Bureau of Prisons would purchase the near-empty state prison in Thomson, Ill., to house both federal inmates as well as some of the detainees displaced by the closure of Guantanamo.

It would take time to upgrade the Thomson prison before any military commission trial could be held there. The prison needs security upgrades and construction of a trial facility, changes that would take until next spring, by some estimates.

Federal Prisoner Convicted of Attempted Murder for Slashing Deputy Marshal’s Throat Sentenced to 20-Year Maximum

HOUSTON—Jose Garcia Jr., 31, of Mercedes, Texas, has been sentenced to the statutory maximum punishment of 20 years' imprisonment for the attempted murder of a deputy U.S. marshal (DUSM), United States Attorney José Angel Moreno announced today. Garcia, a federal prisoner in custody, used a razor to slash at the throat of DUSM at the federal courthouse in McAllen, Texas, on May 22, 2009. In June 2009, Garcia was indicted for attempted murder of a federal agent in the Houston division.

Garcia pleaded guilty to the attack on a DUSM in December 2009. At a hearing late this afternoon, United States District Judge Ewing Werlein sentenced Garcia to 20 years in federal prison to be followed by a three-year term of supervised release. The 20-year sentence is to be served consecutive to his 50-year state prison sentence.

According to the factual basis in support of the guilty plea, Garcia was in a holding cell in the federal courthouse awaiting a hearing before United States District Judge Randy Crane in McAllen for the possible revocation of the term of supervised release imposed as part of a 2000 federal robbery conviction prompted by Garcia’s recent state conviction for murder and 50-year sentence. While being lead into Judge Crane’s courtroom from a holding cell through a door being held by a DUSM, Garcia walked through the door into the courtroom and lunged at the DUSM slashing his throat with a razor blade. As the DUSM and other deputy marshals attempted to subdue Garcia, Garcia continued to slash at the DUSM’s throat several more times. Eventually, Garcia was subdued. Bleeding profusely from the injury to his neck, the DUSM was transported to the hospital and received nine stitches to close the wound.

FBI agents arrived at the scene and recovered the razor blade used by Garcia. FBI agents then interviewed Garcia, who told them he felt a “vibe” when he saw the DUSM earlier in the day. Before going in the courtroom, Garcia said he found a razor blade on the floor by the urinal in the holding cell located on the first floor of the federal courthouse building. Garcia admitted he hid the razor blade in his upper lip then later moved it to his hand where he had it when the cell door opened. As he walked closer to the DUSM, Garcia admitted he wanted to “get him right there,” and was trying to kill the DUSM when he attacked him. Garcia told FBI agents he felt “relaxed” after the attack.

Garcia, who has been in federal custody, will remain in custody to serve this sentence.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark McIntyre. Assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn Cook represented the government at today’s hearing.

A new report shows that the amount federal agencies paid in relocation incentives -- to compensate employees asked to move from one area to another -- nearly doubled from 2007 to 2008.

The Office of Personnel Management report shows than the rise in relocation bonuses, often to law enforcement officers and supervisors, made up a sizable portion of the 37 percent overall increase in the amount paid out for what are known as "3Rs" incentives for relocation, retention and recruitment.

Such increases have led OPM to ask agencies to review their use of the incentives. The total number of bonuses handed out increased by 7,027 between 2007 and 2008, to 39,511. The dollar amount spent on them went up by more than $77 million, to nearly $285 million. Citing recent labor market conditions, OPM Director John Berry asked agencies to make sure incentives were justified.

All three categories of incentives saw increases from 2007 to 2008. On a percentage basis, relocation incentives went up the most - nearly 86 percent, or about $20 million. Retention bonuses remained the most popular type of incentive, with a $28.9 million increase from 2007 to 2008.

According to the report, the Defense Department awarded the most incentives, handing out more than 19,000 bonuses totaling more than $135 million. The Veterans Affairs Department was second, with more than 9,000 incentives totaling almost $54 million. Other departments near the top of the list included Justice, Health and Human Services, and Commerce.

According to the report, 34 percent of all retention incentives were paid to employees in the health care field, including nurses, medical officers and pharmacists. For recruitment incentives, the most common occupation was patent examiner, which represented 11 percent of all such incentives.

Relocation incentives went to a mix of criminal investigators, contract officers, administrators and engineers.

Two of the agencies that manage federal benefits handed out some of the largest incentives. According to the report, OPM itself handed out five incentives averaging $23,600, including one relocation incentive of $70,000. The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board gave out two awards, totaling $54,500 -- including a $38,650 retention incentive to its executive director. Both made the top five list for largest average incentive payments.

Is There Skepticism About Merit System Principles?

'A growing skepticism'

Federal workers who want to advance might want to look at a report issued last week by the Merit Systems Protection Board.

"Fair and Equitable Treatment: Progress Made and Challenges Remaining" contains valuable information on diversity in the federal workplace and alarming findings on fairness. But it is the section on advancement that workers might find most useful.

Through interviews and surveys, the MSPB came up with a list of 10 "career accelerators." These are workplace situations that help employees move up the promotional ladder. The two top items relate directly to personal contacts.

"A supportive supervisor to encourage my development and advancement" and "senior person/mentor (other than my supervisor) looking out for my interests" each were identified as having a positive impact by 85 percent of those surveyed.

"Clearly, one should not underestimate the power of personal connections in the workplace," the report says. "Given their nearly absolute control over the developmental opportunities employees receive, supervisors play crucial roles in determining the fate of their employees."

This, of course, allows for bias and favoritism. The report says fears about unfair and inequitable treatment are on the rise, even as perceptions of ethnic and racial discrimination have declined.

"Suspicions regarding traditional/blatant forms of discrimination have been supplanted by a growing skepticism about managers making their decisions in accord with the merit principles," the MSPB found in responses to its Career Advancement Survey.

The flip side of having encouraging supervisors and mentors is the feeling that "who you know," which carries a negative connotation, is what counts when it comes to promotions. Far more respondents, 72 percent, picked that as a reason for advancement, than did those who cited competence (40 percent) or hard work (36 percent).

Disturbingly, "over 70 percent of employees believed that some supervisors practiced favoritism," according to the report. And those views cross racial and ethnic lines. My mail indicates that's a prime factor undermining confidence in federal pay-for-performance systems.

Showing what you can do is an important way to be promoted. Being appointed an acting supervisor presents a "critical opportunity for employees who aspire to demonstrate that they can handle the responsibilities" of being the boss, the report says.

"Opportunity" seems to be the operative word here.

"Unfortunately, our survey results indicate that members of minority groups report that they have less opportunity to serve in an acting capacity than White employees," the MSPB found. "Further, these discrepancies do not appear to be diminishing."

The MSPB urged agencies to measure how their policies and practices help or hinder progress toward workplace fairness. The measurement should include a workplace analysis that covers, among other things, "possible barriers to a fully representative workforce." They also should "emphasize to supervisors their influence over -- and responsibility for -- the career development of the employees they supervise."

Among other recommendations, the MSPB advises employees to seek or create developmental opportunities and to develop productive relationships with supervisors or other mentors.

A view inside federal lockup

The nation's largest federal prison facility opened its doors to media for the first time ever.

COLEMAN - Encircling the perimeter of United States Penetentiary-1, one of two maximum-security prisons here, are coils of barbed wire, the last buffer of security separating the concrete structure from the rest of the sprawling Federal Correctional Complex of which it is part.

Here, an ordinary day for an inmate in general population might go as follows: breakfast at 6 a.m., early morning work call by 7:40 a.m., vocational training or continued work duty, leisure time in the recreation yard, and two more meals, before it's back to a bland 84-square-foot cell by the time lights go out at 10 p.m.

With an average confinement period of 10 years, inmates at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex, the nation's largest federal prison facility, must adapt to a certain way of living - work, education, recreation, thriftiness - that prison staff hopes will prepare them for the world to which they might eventually return.

"Our prison is very reflective of the community," Bill Bechtold, associate warden of U.S.P-2, said Wednesday during the first-ever media tour Coleman has conducted since opening in 1995.

Following a spate of recent bad publicity - staff smuggling in contraband, the conviction of a correctional officer for violating an inmate's civil rights and contributing to his death - Coleman employees hope to reinforce a positive message about the prison.

"Those people involved in those activities," Bechtold said, "are not representative of the many great people here."

With a staff of about 1,300, Coleman is one of the largest, if not largest, employers in Sumter County.

It's actively seeking to hire additional correctional officers, especially medical personnel, to help supervise the 7,120 inmates it currently houses across four different facilities: a low-security institution; a medium-security institution with adjacent satellite female work camp; and the two high-security penitentiaries, known as U.S.P-1 and U.S.P-2.

With the exception of the female work camp, all inmates are male, and the vast majority of their offenses are drug-related.

During the guided tour of U.S.P-1, led by a handful of associate wardens and other staff, a scrubbed and smoothly functioning operation was on display: polished floors, immaculate hallways, a GED class in session, colorful artwork on easels in a recreation room.

Even the general population inmates released into an enclosed outdoor recreation yard, many sporting headphones, seemed to blend as naturally into the undisturbed calm as the beige on their prison jumpsuits to the rural landscape.

Although both U.S.P-1 and U.S.P-2 have a segregated housing unit reserved for the most violent, maximum-security offenders and for those who require protective custody, such areas were not opened to the media Wednesday.

Subject to metal detection screening, media also were advised not to participate in spontaneous interviews with inmates or correctional staff they happened to come across. No photography was allowed.

At Coleman, each inmate is given a job assignment, in which they can earn money to use at the prison commissary, for instance, to purchase things like snacks, aspirin, or personal hygiene items, though these items are marked up 30 percent.

Depending on the pay grade, such jobs will net anywhere between 12 cents to 40 cents an hour.

Coleman also offers an industries-oriented work program - building office furniture, for instance - that nets higher salaries of 23 cents to $1.15 an hour.

Prison employees place a high emphasis on inmate productivity, especially since it employs no outside contractors to perform maintenance work.

"We like to keep them busy because they stay out of trouble," said Steve Mora, associate warden at U.S.P-1.

Phil Geistfeld, who oversees educational services at Coleman, added that the prison is "keeping these guys busy with something legitimate."

He noted that 42 percent of inmates are enrolled in at least one educational or recreational program, such as an art or musical activity, and that 228 inmates obtained their GEDs in 2009, while 447 completed some sort of vocational training.

This is a complex that serves 2,900 meals a day, and where 5,000 pieces of incoming mail are pre-screened daily. If anything is slight, it's the average daily number of visitors that inmates receive, with Father's Day and Christmas being the busiest.

There are no plans to build an additional institution on the 1,600-acre complex, although the inmate count has already reached official capacity, according to Bechtold. Still, he said none of the facilities are so full as to be "packed to the gills."

If there is any one challenge over the next year that officials say they hope to overcome, it's increasing staffing levels to sustain a high inmate population.

"They (the federal Bureau of Prisons) are locking up more and more inmates but they're not hiring staff to equal it," said Jose Rojas, the new president of the local chapter of the American Council of Prison Locals. "Of course that makes for a volatile cocktail."

Rojas, whose also teaches inmates at the Coleman prison, said additional precautionary measures have been instituted over the last year.

He, too, rebuffed the notion that the Sumter County complex is any more rife with staff misconduct than anywhere else in the nation.

"That's prison. Every now and again, there's cracks," he said. "You'll always get folks that slide through the cracks. Hopefully those who do, get caught."

As Coleman seeks to burnish its image as a facility intent on better preparing its inmates for life on the outside, all the while embracing a newfound philosophy of greater transparency, it knows how it wants to do it.

As one of its staffers put it Wednesday, "Here at Coleman, we take the attitude that we want to be good neighbors."

Despite the often exemplary care given at most Veterans Affairs Department medical facilities, sometimes the best care for a wounded warrior comes from a loved one. A provision tucked away in the fiscal 2010 Defense Authorization Act will make it easier for federal employees and other workers to take time off to care for family members injured while on active duty.

The measure -- summarized in a Dec. 29, 2009, memorandum from Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry to agency heads -- allows federal employees to take up to 26 weeks of unpaid leave annually through the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act to care for an injured veteran. To qualify, a veteran must be undergoing medical treatment or therapy for the injury, and he or she must have served in the military within five years of the treatment.

The new law builds on a provision passed in the fiscal 2009 Defense Authorization Act, which granted leave to help care for injured active-duty soldiers, by allowing time off to care for veterans as well.

"That's pretty significant," said Carl Bosland, a Colorado attorney who specializes in family and medical leave issues. "There are a lot of vets out there."

The 2010 law also broadens the types of injuries that qualify for the leave to include existing injuries aggravated by active-duty service.

In addition, the policy measure allows family members to take time off when active-duty troops are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. This leave can used to spend more time with the soon-to-be deployed soldier and settle financial or family issues. Previously, this benefit was available only to families of reservists called to certain types of duty.

Leave taken under FMLA -- whether for military care, medical issues, or the birth of a child -- is unpaid. But employees who have saved up other types of paid leave can apply that to make up some of the lost wages.

The White House released a series of wide-ranging mandates Tuesday designed to make agencies more transparent and cooperative in the public's requests for information about the inner workings of government.

Among other things, federal agencies have until the end of January to post three "high-value" data sets on Data.gov, the online home of such government information.

The Open Government Plan delivers a victory to open-government groups that have long sought to transform how the government presents and shares information with the public.

The plan says that agencies must publish information online in a timely manner and present their data in a Web-friendly format that is available to download. Agencies with significant backlogs of Freedom of Information Act requests will have to reduce that number of requests by 10 percent each year.

Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said he expects that federal agencies and departments will comply.

"Failure to follow through on this will generate displeasure from the White House and the president," he said in an interview. "I don't think we've had a problem with Cabinet secretaries embracing clear directives from the president."

Orszag's team spent months meeting with government officials and good-government groups after President Obama ordered on his first full day in office a review of the government's transparency and openness efforts.

"The results appear to be well worth the wait," said Gary D. Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, one of several groups that pushed for transparency reforms.

"The key will be how the public, the White House and federal agencies work together in implementing the directive," Bass said.

Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation in Washington, said that the new orders demonstrate "the seriousness of the administration's commitment to data transparency and citizen engagement. It is evidence that the administration recognizes that transparency is government's responsibility."

Orszag said that the Internet has made government transparency efforts much easier. Although an agency could require that people visit their offices to review public records, he said, that would be "much less transparent than posting something on a Web site."

"Ease of access is part of transparency," Orszag said.

President Obama ordered late Friday that all federal agencies close for the last half of the work day on Thursday, Dec. 24, to give employees a jump on the Christmas holiday.

In an executive order, Obama also noted that the heads of departments and agencies may determine that "certain offices and installations of their organizations, or parts thereof, must remain open and that certain employees must remain on duty for the full scheduled workday" on Christmas Eve.

Traditionally, presidents grant employees an extra day of vacation when Christmas falls on Tuesday or Thursday. This year it is on a Friday.

Last year, when Christmas fell on a Thursday, President Bush ordered executive branch agencies to close on the next day, Friday, Dec. 26, giving most federal employees a four-day weekend over the Christmas holiday.

The last time Christmas fell on a Friday, in 1998, President Clinton gave federal workers a half day off. At that time, a White House spokesman said the half day was something of a tradition in years when Christmas falls on a Friday.

In 2002, when Christmas fell on a Wednesday, Bush gave federal workers a half day of vacation on Tuesday.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

_______________________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 15, 2009

TODAY: Senior Administration Officials to Hold Background Briefing Call on Decision to Acquire Thomson Correctional Center;

Quinn, Durbin to be Briefed at the White House

WASHINGTON – Today, senior administration officials will hold a background briefing call with reporters to discuss the administration’s decision to acquire Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois to house federal inmates and a limited number of detainees from Guantanamo Bay , Cuba .

Today, the Secretaries of State, Homeland Security, and Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Attorney General wrote to Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announcing the administration’s decision.  Today’s announcement marks an important step towards closing Guantanamo, which will protect our national security and help American troops by removing a deadly recruiting tool from the hands of al Qaeda. 

This afternoon, Governor Pat Quinn and Senator Dick Durbin will be briefed at the White House about the decision by General James Jones, National Security Advisor; William Lynn, Deputy Secretary of Defense; and Harley Lappin, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. 

The meeting will be closed press but there will be a stakeout immediately following the meeting.

Details about the background call and the stakeout are below.

BACKGROUND BRIEFING CALL WITH REPORTERS

WHO:              Senior Administration Officials

WHAT:            Background Briefing call on the Administration’s Decision to Acquire Thomson Prison

WHEN:            TODAY, 1:00 pm ET

Call in:             (800) 288-8976                               

Note:                This call is NOT embargoed.

STAKEOUT WITH GOVERNOR QUINN, SENATOR DURBIN, ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS FOLLOWING WHITE HOUSE MEETING ON THOMSON

WHO:              Illinois Governor Pat Quinn

Senator Dick Durbin

General James Jones, National Security Advisor

William Lynn, Deputy Secretary of Defense

Harley Lappin, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons

WHAT:            Stakeout following briefing on Thomson prison

WHEN:            TODAY, 3:15 pm ET

WHERE:          Stakeout location outside of West Wing

Note: Press needing access to the White House to cover the stakeout must send their vital information and RSVP to media_affairs@who.eop.gov by 1:30 pm ET today.

Rural Ill. prison to house some Gitmo detainees

Decision is key step to closing Cuba facility; town hopes for jobs boon

WASHINGTON - Taking an important step on the thorny path to closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the White House plans to announce Tuesday that the government will acquire an underutilized state prison in rural Illinois to be the new home for a limited number of terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo.

Administration officials as well as Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will make an official announcement at the White House.

Officials from both the White House and Durbin's office confirmed that President Barack Obama had directed the government to acquire Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill., a sleepy town near the Mississippi River about 150 miles from Chicago. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting Tuesday's announcement.

A Durbin aide said the facility would house federal inmates and no more than 100 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

The facility in Thomson had emerged as a clear front-runner after Illinois officials, led by Durbin, enthusiastically embraced the idea of turning a near-dormant prison over to federal officials.

The White House has been coy about its selection process, but on Friday a draft memo leaked to a conservative Web site that seemed to indicate officials were homing in on Thomson.

The Thomson Correctional Center was one of several potential sites evaluated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to potentially house detainees from the Navy-run prison at Guantanamo Bay. Officials with other prisons, including Marion, Ill., Hardin, Mont., and Florence, Colo., have said they would welcome the jobs that would be created by the new inmates.

Closing Guantanamo is a top priority for Obama, and he signed an executive order hours into his presidency directing that the process of closing the prison begin. Obama has said he wants terrorism suspects transferred to American soil so they can be tried for their suspected crimes.

The Thomson Correctional Center was built by Illinois in 2001 as a state prison with the potential to house maximum security inmates. Local officials hoped it would improve the local economy, providing jobs to a hard-hit community. State budget problems, however, have kept the 1,600-cell prison from ever fully opening. At present, it houses about 200 minimum-security inmates.

Obama has faced some resistance to the idea of housing terrorism suspects in the United States, but in Thomson many have welcomed the prospect as a potential economic engine. Thomson Village President Jerry Hebeler, was asleep when the word came that Thomson had been chosen.

"It's news to me, but then I'm always the last to know anything," Hebeler said Monday night of the news affecting his town of 450 residents. "It'll be good for the village and the surrounding area, especially with all the jobs that have been lost here."

But Hebeler said he wouldn't rejoice until "the ink is on the paper" because previous plans for increased use of the nearly empty prison have fallen through.

Some Illinois officials have not supported the idea. GOP Rep. Mark Kirk, who is seeking Obama's old Senate seat, said he believes moving Guantanamo detainees to Illinois will make the state a greater threat for terrorist attacks. Kirk has lobbied other officials to contact the White House in opposition to using the facility.

To be sure, Thomson will not solve all the administration's Guantanamo-related problems. There still will be dozens of detainees who are not relocated to Thomson, other legal issues and potential resistance from Congress.

Thomson is a symbolic step, however, a clear sign that the United States is working to find a new place to hold detainees from Guantanamo.

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.

The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.

"There's no way to justify this to the American people. It's ridiculous," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a first-term lawmaker who is on the House's federal workforce subcommittee.

Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the federal workforce is highly paid because the government employs skilled people such as scientists, physicians and lawyers. She says federal employees make 26% less than private workers for comparable jobs.

USA TODAY analyzed the Office of Personnel Management's database that tracks salaries of more than 2 million federal workers. Excluded from OPM's data: the White House, Congress, the Postal Service, intelligence agencies and uniformed military personnel.

The growth in six-figure salaries has pushed the average federal worker's pay to $71,206, compared with $40,331 in the private sector.

Key reasons for the boom in six-figure salaries:

• Pay hikes. Then-president Bush recommended — and Congress approved — across-the-board raises of 3% in January 2008 and 3.9% in January 2009. President Obama has recommended 2% pay raises in January 2010, the smallest since 1975. Most federal workers also get longevity pay hikes — called steps — that average 1.5% per year.

•New pay system. Congress created a new National Security Pay Scale for the Defense Department to reward merit, in addition to the across-the-board increases. The merit raises, which started in January 2008, were larger than expected and rewarded high-ranking employees. In October, Congress voted to end the new pay scale by 2012.

• Paycaps eased. Many top civil servants are prohibited from making more than an agency's leader. But if Congress lifts the boss' salary, others get raises, too. When the Federal Aviation Administration chief's salary rose, nearly 1,700 employees' had their salaries lifted above $170,000, too.

Guantanamo Bay: depressed US towns battle to house detainees in 'Gitmo North'

Several blighted US towns are battling for the right to host Guantanamo Bay terror detainees in their own backyards in an unusual case of reverse "nimbyism".

The strategy of requesting the Islamic extremists accused of some of the world's worst atrocities, including the attacks of Sept 11 2001, as neighbours may seem perverse.

But local officials hope they will land a bonanza of jobs and investment by offering up their empty prisons as President Barack Obama tries to close the infamous prison camp, on a US naval base on Cuba nicknamed "Gitmo".

In the process, they have thrust themselves on to the frontline of a fierce national debate as Republicans accuse the Obama administration of endangering national security with plans to house and try terror suspects on US soil.

Amid the watermelon fields along the banks of the Mississippi River, the Illinois village of Thomson - down to about 450 residents after business and stores closed - has emerged as a strong contendor for "Gitmo North".

Federal officials last week visited an almost empty high-security 1,600-cell prison there that has rarely housed any inmates since it was completed for $128 million in 2001. The Bureau of Prisons and Department of Defence would upgrade it to the standards of a "supermax" - as the country's most secure federal jail is called - if it is chosen.

The state's Democratic governor and senior senator have said that the moving the prisoners there could create more than 3,000 jobs in the area - including 900 at the prison itself. htat sounds highly attractive to many residents. "We're hurting here, hurting bad," said village president Jerry Hebeler.

But Republicans have raised the spectre of attempted rescues of inmates by fellow Islamisists and retaliatory attacks on the skyscrapers and airport of Chicago, 150 miles to the west, as well as disputing the benefits for local coffers.

Federal officials have also visited a prison about to close in the economically-striken Michigan city of Standish, where the jobless rate stands at 18 per cent. Michael Moran, the city manager, has little time for those opposed to re-locating Guantanamo detainees. "We already have unemployment figures of the level of the Great Depression and we are losing the jobs of 500 prison guards and yet we still get some people trying to stoke up fears," he told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I am a former corrections officer and a former military policeman and I am sure that there are no security fears. It's unfounded scaremongering."

In Big Horn County in Montana, officials in Hardin are proposing their pristine new detention centre - empty for two years - as an ideal site to locate the prisoners, arguing that their remote location in "cowboy country" is another plus. Unemployment here is above 10 per cent.

And another Illinois town, Marion, has also made a bid for the detainees. "Bring them on," said Mayor Robert Butler, hoping to reduce an unemployment rate just below 10 per cent.

Florence, home to the country's only current federal "supermax", has made a pitch too. But the prison would probably only have space for the "worst of the worst" - such as self-confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is due to be put on trial in New York - as it already houses the likes of British "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, the Unabomber Theodore Kacynski, and other convicted Islamic terrorists.

Mr Obama admitted publicly last week that the deadline he set for closing Guantanamo Bay - Jan 22 2010, a year after he took office - will be missed. One of the prime problems has been overcoming opposition in Congress to moving detainees to the US mainland, so selecting an appropriate site is key to his strategy.

The camp is currently home to about 215 prisoners. If Mr Obama has his way, up to 100 could be transferred for detention and later trial in the US, while the remainder would be cleared for transfer overseas, so long as countries willing to accept them can be found.

As the debate rages, the residents of the competing towns are not the only interested parties - so are the detainees in Cuba, for they know one thing is certain if they are moved. Their conditions will be a lot less comfortable, and not just because of less clement climes of the main contendors for Gitmo North.

For while Guantanamo Bay may be the world's most notorious prison, life behind the barbed wire there has never been better.

During a recent visit, the DVD in the recreational room was loaded with Spiderman 3, ready for an afternoon viewing, while others detainees prepared to play football outside on a pitch built at their request Lunch was served with the usual daily choice of six menus, all Middle Eastern and following halal rules of preparation. Fresh supplies of dates, olive oil, honey and pita bread are also on offer.

Detainees spend at least two hours out in the Caribbean sun every day and have access to a library of 16,000 books, 1,600 magazines and 300 DVDs - Agatha Christie is surprisingly popular, although tomes on the Islamic faith are in most demand. In every cell there is an arrow pointing towards Mecca, a prayer rug and beads; there is one medical member of staff for every three detainees, After it was opened in Jan 2002 by then president George W Bush to receive suspected members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, Guantanamo quickly bacame a symbol of detainee abuse and detention without charge and a stain on America's reputation.

Now, incredible though it may sound, camp officials say that hardcore detainees, who are certain they will never be free men, would rather stay in Guantanamo than spend a life sentence, or years waiting for execution, in the US.

"They know there will not receive the same privileges as here," Zak, an Arab American appointed in 2005 to liaise with the exclusively Muslim detainees, told The Sunday Telegraph. "Given the choice of being sentenced forever in Guantanamo or moved to supermax, it is 'No, can I stay in Gitmo?'. Here they can be outside, they can smell the sea."

By contrast, prisoners at the Florence "supermax" spend 22½ hours a day in a 9ft by 9ft cell. The only natural light comes from a 4in by 4ft window that only shows the sky, in order to prevent the prisoner from knowing his specific location within the complex. Exercise time is strictly limited.

It took years for the Pentagon to grasp what damage conditions at Guantanamo were doing to America's reputation. But Adm Thomas Copeman, the detention centre's commander, now confidently describes it as a "model detention facility".

Peter King, a Republican congressman who visited earlier this year and wants Mr Obama to keep the faciltiy open, said that "if there's any scandal at Guantanamo, it is that the detainees are treated too well". It is, he complained "a Club Med for terrorists".

Officials to inspect Ill jail for Gitmo inmates

THOMSON, Ill. — Federal officials are due to arrive in rural northwest Illinois to inspect a prison that could be bought by the federal government and used to house Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Closing Gitmo: Feds Eye State and Military Prisons for Detainees

Officials Expect Dozens Of 'Enemy Combatants' to Be Distributed Across Country

By DEVIN DWYER and JASON RYAN

Nov. 16, 2009—

As the Obama administration's January deadline to close the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay looms, officials are developing plans for the more than 200 detainees still held there, including their possible distribution to civilian and military prisons across the country.

Attorney General Eric Holder Friday said the United States would bring five Gitmo detainees, including four alleged 9/11 conspirators, to New York City to stand trial in federal court. Holder also said that five suspects would be tried before revamped military commissions.

Roughly 40 to 50 more prisoners from the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba will be transferred to the United States , prosecuted in federal court or before a military tribunal, officials say. And at least 100 detainees have been approved for transfer to other countries.

The United States is actively negotiating additional transfer arrangements in pursuit of its self-imposed deadline, administration officials said.

That leaves 70 to 80 men considered too dangerous for release but whom the administration neither plans to charge in federal or military courts nor transfer to foreign countries.

The hope is that all but 10 to 30 of the unresolved cases will eventually be brought for prosecution or transferred abroad, officials said. A number of Yemeni and Afghan detainees are expected to remain indefinitely in "enemy combatant" status.

Those prisoners, officials say, will likely be distributed to several prisons and military installations throughout the country with none of the facilities having to completely shoulder the load.

Among the leading state prisons being considered to house detainees is Illinois' Thomson Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison complex 150 miles south of Chicago .

Feds Eye State Prisons for Gitmo Detainees

The Thomson facility has been underutilized since opening in 2001 and state officials, including Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and U.S. Sen. Richard "Dick" Durbin, both Democrats, see the chance to house Gitmo detainees there as an opportunity to create much-needed jobs, both at the prison and in the surrounding area.

Other communities, from the tiny town of Hardin , Mont. , to recession-struck Standish , Mich. , have also been attracted to the potential economic boost and have actively lobbied the government to bring the high-level prisoners there.

The Standish City Council recently passed a unanimous resolution expressing interest in having a federal prison at the Standish Max Correctional facility, which has faced closure because of budget cuts.

But critics in Standish and elsewhere across the country have expressed skepticism about the prospect of their communities becoming the Gitmo detainees' new hometowns.

"There are just too many things that could go wrong," said Tom Kerrins, chief of the Michigan correction officers union. "The problem I have is ... you almost are putting a bull's-eye on the whole entire area."

In Illinois , GOP Rep. Mark Kirk has warned in a public letter, "We should not invite Al Qaeda to make Illinois its No. 1 target."

But advocates for the adoption of Gitmo detainees in state prisons point to the federal maximum-security prison in Marion, Ill., which already houses 35 convicted terror suspects, as proof that such inmates can be held and at little danger to surrounding communities.

Federal officials have also been considering Colorado 's so-called supermax prison, south of Denver , for placement of some of the detainees.

The prison is already home to Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols, Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph, 9/ 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef and failed airline shoe bomber Richard Reid.

U.S. Military Prisons Among Those to Replace Gitmo

Aside from state correctional facilities, the Obama administration is considering a list of U.S. military bases that could house some of the detainees. Among the options are Camp Pendleton in California , Fort Leavenworth in Kansas and the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston , S.C.

Representatives from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Marshals Service and other agencies have conducted site visits at the brig in Charleston and consider the military complex a viable option, according to two administration officials.

Officials had also considered Fort Leavenworth in Kansas but have recently shied away from that option.

The congressional delegation from Kansas, led by Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has fiercely opposed using the military compound north of Kansas City as home for detainees.

In August, the senators placed legislative holds on Justice Department and Pentagon political appointees who were awaiting Senate confirmation to force the administration to provide information about its plans and prevent Leavenworth from being one of the chosen locations.

A month later, the Kansas senators said they had released the holds on the nominees after discussions with senior administration officials.

"We believe that the administration has a good understanding of obstacles and concerns and is giving them proper consideration," the senators said in a joint statement. "In a good faith effort to continue moving this dialogue forward, we are releasing our holds on all Department of Defense and Department of Justice nominees. We are confident that because of this good faith dialogue, detainees will not be transferred to Fort Leavenworth ."

One major consideration that remains unresolved in the placement process is how state prisons and military installations will handle staffing of the facility or at courthouses where potential trials would take place, according to the Justice Department and federal law enforcement officials.

While there have been no specific funding requests made yet to the federal government, officials said, the cost of holding detainees on U.S. soil is likely to be a matter of concern for states, many already facing significant budget crises.

Illinois prison top contender to house Gitmo detainees, official says

Of the total number, 35 inmates are housed in federal prisons in Illinois, including Ali al-Marri, who pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda. Al-Marri is serving eight years and four months at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois.

This memorandum is being sent as a reminder to all TRULINCS institutions of the CorrLinks transition beginning Monday, October 5.  On Monday, we will mass email all inmate email contacts an invitation to join CorrLinks.  If the contact does not register prior to October 14, they will not be able to send email to or receive email from inmates.

We have had some inquiries regarding CorrLinks and based on these inquiries I want to clarify a few things:

-           The public does not need to register with a credit card.

-           The public can not add an inmate without the invitation's identification number; although the site will allow them to register in advance.

-           The public must go to www.corrlinks.com to read or send all future emails.

-           If the public receives an invitation and has problems registering, they should submit the issue via the Customer Support link at www.corrlinks.com. 

Please find attached a document you may wish to consider posting to remind inmates of the upcoming change.

Teenage inmates allegedly stab and handcuff officers in escape attempt

Vernon, Indiana, Oct 6 - (WHAS11) - Corrections officers in southern Indiana had some terrifying moments Tuesday when they were overpowered in an escape attempt and held hostage. Two of them were stabbed at the Jennings County jail by young inmates who'd learned to improvise.

Police say 3 teenage inmates took clothes hangers and sharpened the points.

They then stabbed a guard several times, overpowering and handcuffing him.

Two other guards rushed to help and the teens stabbed one of them and used pepper spray they'd gotten from a storage cabinet.

They handcuffed the officers, too.

State police and sheriff's deputies rushed to the scene.

With the guards held hostage, police shot the teens with stun guns ending their escape attempt.

One inmate, 17-year-old Ryan Renfroe, was in the jail on murder charges suspected of killing Greg and Maugerite Gough, a couple in their 60’s, in Jennings County then stealing and crashing their 1987 Camaro.  Police say after he was caught, he claimed voices told him to kill the couple.

Another inmate, 17-year-old James Smith had a bandage on his head as police moved him Tuesday. They say he tried to kill at least one of the guards and will be charged with attempted murder.

The others, Renfro and 19-year-old Roger Bushhorn will face kidnapping and assault charges.

They have now been sent to 3 separate jails.

The most seriously injured corrections officer was Walter Peace. He was flown to an Indianapolis hospital and at last report, he was in serious condition with a stab wound to his head.

The other officers, Shawn McDaniel and Vickie Day were treated and released from a local hospital.

Short-Staffed Federal Prisons Endanger Communities, Guards

The union that represents correctional officers at the U.S. Bureau of Prisons says federal prisons—including the famed Supermax facility—are not safe and major steps must be taken soon to protect prison employees and the communities near the prisons.

Testifying before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security yesterday, Bryan Lowery and Phil Glover told lawmakers that budget cuts and short staffing increasingly pose a danger to officers, inmates and the 115 communities and small towns which surround the facilities.

Lowery is president of AFGE’s Council of Prison Locals, and Glover is the council’s legislative coordinator.

Earlier this year, AFGE successfully fought for a $545 million increase in Bureau of Prisons funding. But the agency’s top management repeatedly has refused to follow the direction of Congress and is unilaterally saying that none of the funds provided for increased staffing will be used for that purpose.

Lowery testified:

The blatant disregard for the safety of our federal correctional officers by the Bureau of Prisons management is inexcusable. The safety of correctional officers, inmates and our communities is at risk.

The Council of Prison Locals is circulating an online petition urging U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to order Bureau of Prisons management to use the appropriated funds to hire more officers, fire Bush-era Bureau of Prisons Director Harley Lappin and hire 9,000 additional correctional officers. The council also has asked for a meeting with Holder to address the issues at the Bureau of Prisons.

Click here to sign the petition and send Holder the message.

Years of underfunding has created a serious understaffing situation in which correctional officers are outnumbered by inmates by 150-1 and correctional officers are unarmed inside the facilities. In a bureaucratic sleight of hand to cover over the shortstaffing, the Bureau of Prisons counts secretaries and administrative unit managers, among other nonguard correctional workers, in calculating its inmate-to-correctional staff ratio nationwide.

Some 206,000 inmates are confined in federal prisons today, up from 25,000 in 1980. By 2010, estimates project 215,000 inmates in these institutions.

The number of officers who staff federal prisons is failing to keep pace with the tremendous growth in the inmate population. Today, prison staffing is at an 86.6 percent level, compared with 95 percent staffing in the mid-1990s. The additional officers requested by the union would return staffing to 1997 levels.

The seriousness of the short staffing was underscored last month on the first anniversary of the murder of correctional officer Jose Rivera, who was stabbed to death in a federal prison in Atwater, Calif., while locking inmates into their cells. He was working alone because, the union says, that prison is severely understaffed.

In addition to fully funding and staffing the prisons, the union is seeking stab-resistant vests for correctional officers. Assaults on officers with homemade weapons have jumpred in recent years, said Lowery and Glover, who both are exposed to dangers in their jobs as correctional officers in federal lockups.

Panel: Prison Overcrowding Jeopardizes Guard and Inmate Safety

Some operations at 14 US prison factories closing

The government-owned company that employs federal prison inmates is closing some factory operations at 14 prisons and downsizing operations at four more amid multimillion-dollar losses, according to a copy of a memo provided by a prison union official.

ByCATHERINE TSAI

DENVER —

The government-owned company that employs federal prison inmates is closing some factory operations at 14 prisons and downsizing operations at four more amid multimillion-dollar losses, according to a copy of a memo provided by a prison union official.

Federal Prison Industries Inc., or UNICOR, has lost $20 million year to date and has lost money the last seven months, according to the memo Wednesday from Paul Laird of the Bureau of Prisons.

The Associated Press received a copy of the memo from Phil Glover, national legislative coordinator for the Council of Prison Locals, American Federation of Government Employees.

The memo didn't say how many staff jobs were affected. Bureau representatives didn't return after-hours phone messages.

Laird wrote that the company has excess production capacity, and cost-reduction initiatives weren't enough to bring profits.

The memo said the company started closing factories at eight prisons Tuesday in various states and will close operations at specialized units at six more prisons. Operations at four more prisons will be downsized.

The initiatives are expected to save nearly $16 million a year in operating costs, beginning in late 2010, Laird wrote in the memo.

"This was an extremely difficult decision because it affected a number of dedicated FPI staff. However it is critical that FPI not incur costs that we have insufficient business to support," he wrote.

Glover said Laird told union officials early this year that the company was projecting multimillion-dollar losses for the year.

Glover said the military hasn't been buying as much equipment from the company. At the Loretto federal prison in Pennsylvania where he is a correctional officer, the factory was running two shifts, five days a week, to keep up with orders for communications cable during the Iraq war, he said.

The workload is now down to four days a week, with one shift and almost 200 fewer inmates working, Glover said.

Glover estimated 100 non-inmate jobs could be affected by the factory downsizing, although workers could be offered other corrections jobs. The larger issue, though, is what will happen with inmates who lose jobs - a big safety issue for corrections officers, Glover said.

"Idle inmates are always a recipe for disaster," said Mike Schnobrich, a correctional officer and treasurer for an American Federation of Government Employees local union in Colorado. "One of the benefits of having UNICOR is it takes up inmates' time. They're being productive, they're busy working."

The company had 21,836 inmate employees and 109 factories at 76 locations as of Sept. 30, 2008. The program is aimed at preventing recidivism and teaching inmates job skills.

U.S. Marshals searching for prisoner who was allowed to take himself to halfway house

By Naples Daily News staff report

U.S. Marshals are searching for a prisoner from Fort Myers who recently walked away from an unescorted move to a halfway house in the city.

Kent George Sawyer, 43, was serving a 92-month sentence for a 2003 drug possession conviction. Held in a low-security prison at the federal Coleman complex in Orlando, Sawyer was granted a June 8 move to the halfway house, according to an affidavit filed in federal court.

He was permitted to travel unescorted to the home, the Salvation Army Residential Reentry Center on Edison Avenue.

Sawyer was to take a taxi from the prison to the Orlando bus station and catch an afternoon Greyhound bus to Fort Myers, arriving no later than 8:35 p.m. Sawyer would then take a taxi to the reentry center, arriving no later than 9:05 p.m., according to the affidavit.

When he didn't show up, the Bureau of Prisons notified marshals that Sawyer had escaped.

The U.S. Marshals Service filed a criminal complaint against Sawyer on Wednesday. In the affidavit, Deputy U.S. Marshal Paul Smith stated that Sawyer still hadn't been found.

The Bureau of Prisons grants furloughs to prisoners who meet "strict requirements," according to its Web site. Reasons for the unescorted trips include family emergencies and efforts to aid the prisoner's eventual release.

Sawyer showed no disciplinary problems in prison, according to court documents.

His sentence, originally for 110 months, was reduced last year to match newly lowered federal crack cocaine sentencing guidelines.

Three Democratic lawmakers have asked President Obama to restore a labor-management partnership council established by President Clinton and abolished by President Bush.

"Union leaders with whom we have spoken agree that the labor-management partnership recognized the importance of employees and their employee representatives to smooth collegial decision-making in the government," wrote Reps. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., and Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., in a June 2 letter to the president. "The council served the essential purpose of maintaining communication between the heads of executive agencies and the president to better serve the public."

Clinton created the governmentwide National Partnership Council in a 1993 executive order, and directed agencies to establish their own groups. But Bush shut down the partnerships with a 2001 executive order. In 2007, Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., and Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, introduced legislation that would have written the councils into law; the bill did not make it out of committee in either chamber of Congress.

Reviving the labor-management partnerships has been a priority for federal unions, though there has been some disagreement about the form the partnerships should take. John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, has said he would prefer a version of partnership that did not require employee and management representatives to be trained in negotiation tactics that focus on reaching compromises and consensus. Other unions have praised the Clinton-era partnerships for fostering greater collaboration between labor and management, and a number have submitted drafts of a potential executive order.

"Partnership, collaboration, cooperation -- it does not matter what it is called," said Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union. "The idea is that a mechanism be established by which employees' voices can be heard in a nonadversarial forum where everyone retains their rights and where the objective is raising and talking through ideas that address ways to reach common goals."

Even absent an executive order, the Obama administration has shown some interest in restoring partnership. Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, voluntarily restarted EPA's partnership council. And Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry said during his confirmation hearing that he wanted to increase labor-management collaboration within OPM to set a strong example for the rest of government.

Schock says closing Guantanamo poses risks to U.S.

The Guantanamo Bay detention center, with the largest known al-Qaida cell in the world being held there, is an invaluable asset to U.S. military and intelligence operations, said U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock.

Closing it would strip the U.S. military of key information in fighting terrorism and pose a threat to national security, said Schock, R-Peoria, who toured the facility in Cuba on Monday with five other members of Congress.

"Individuals who will remain there are the most hardened criminals who pose the greatest danger and threat to the U.S., and there is no safer or more appropriate place to keep them than Guantanamo Bay," Schock said. ". . . A place that has a stellar reputation of treatment, of security with no escapes and still allows us to gather assets for our intelligence community.

"When (military officials) are describing who the individuals are, what they have done and what they can do, the plots that they've discovered, the information they've been able to provide our government, you are very glad that they are there and not here."

On the tour with Schock were three other Republicans and two Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Evanston. During the five- to six-hour tour, the group saw all six detainee camps - three now are vacant - which include minimum to maximum security facilities and house upward of 250 prisoners, mostly captured in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Schock said.

President Barack Obama has vowed to shutter the prison by early 2010. The Senate recently voted to keep the prison open and forbid the transfer of detainees to the United States after a similar move in the House.

At its height, the facility housed about 500 prisoners. The least harmful have been processed and sent back to their home countries, and those who remain are the most dangerous and still operate under the al-Qaida hierarchy of power, Schock said he was told.

The Peoria congressman was surprised to learn torture techniques never have been used at Guantanamo Bay. He said prisoners have access to a library, computers, television, newspapers and receive three meals daily.

Military officials "never invoked involuntary interrogation. They (gather information) by building relationships with individuals," Schock said.

Allowing those prisoners to infiltrate U.S. prisons poses safety concerns not only to the communities in which they reside, but the prisoners and others who could be subject to their "hatred and ideology," Schock said.

U.S. Sen Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, has called Guantanamo a "recruiting tool for terrorists around the world" and said it should be closed. U.S. prisons are capable for handling the transfers, he continued.

"The reality is that we are already holding some of the world's most dangerous terrorists in federal prisons, including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, the Shoebomber, the Unabomber and many others," Durbin said in May.

"The Bureau of Prisons is currently holding 347 convicted terrorists. Clearly, our prison guards know how to hold terrorists."

Some Democrats oppose closing the facility, saying bringing detainees from Cuba to the U.S. could pose security threats.

U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, D-Rock Island, also does not support closing Guantanamo Bay.

"It has become a moral black eye for our nation and a detriment to our national security," said Hare spokesman Tim Schlittner.

"However, (Hare) believes the president should submit a detailed plan regarding how and where detainees will be housed before proceeding with its closure."

Schock said a more logical approach is more transparency into Guantanamo.

"It's very easy to be critical of a facility you've never seen, of a process you know very little about," Schock said.

"There is no price that can be put on keeping America safe. And there is no better place for them to be other than Guantanamo Bay."

Marking guard's slaying, activist seek changes at federal prisons

Michael Doyle | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: June 11, 2009 07:30:45 PM

Worker at U.S. Penitentiary Atwater predicted trouble day before deadly attack

By CORINNE REILLY

A manager at U.S. Penitentiary Atwater predicted that someone would be killed if the two inmates accused of murdering correctional officer Jose Rivera were allowed to live near each other, according to a newly released FBI report. Even so, the inmates were placed in the same housing unit, the report says.

AFGE Takes on the Bureau of Prisons