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TechnologyDaily Mobile
Tools To Fight Crime Across Borders
by Winter Casey
President Bush on Monday said he would like the United States to fund a new security cooperation initiative with Central American countries aimed at using technologies to combat the threats of drug-trafficking, transnational crime and terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.
Bush has requested $550 million for the initiative as part of a $1.4 billion program to fund security cooperation with Mexico. The funds would be used in part for "technologies to improve and secure communications systems to support collecting information, as well as ensuring that vital information is accessible for criminal law enforcement," according to the State Department.
The president also would like to direct funding toward inspection equipment and scanners, case-management software to track investigations, and surveillance aircraft.
The State Department said the partnership would support coordinated strategies to "produce a safer and more secure hemisphere" and "prevent the entry and spread of illicit drugs and transnational threats throughout the region and to the United States."
The department said U.S. federal agencies along the southwestern border are coordinating efforts aimed at improving intelligence collection, information-sharing and aerial surveillance.
"New programs to share tracing capabilities with the Mexicans, close off trafficking corridors, expand actionable, real-time intelligence cooperation and aggressively pursue prosecution have resulted in marked increases in interdictions and arrests of individuals seeking to move firearms across the border," the department said.
The proposal will be discussed during a House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee hearing Thursday.
"While I look forward to reviewing the counter-narcotics plan for Mexico and Central America, Congress was not consulted as the plan was developed," subcommittee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said in a statement.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations International Development and Foreign Assistance Subcommittee, said they would like to see an economic development section included in the plan.
A Global Network On Intellectual Property
The U.S. Justice Department has organized a gathering in Bangkok, Thailand, this week to focus on developing an international network against large-scale intellectual property crimes.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and State Department joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in helping Justice organize the conference. About 70 key law enforcers from more than a dozen nations were slated to attend the conference, according to Justice.
The department said the conference is focused on creating an Intellectual Property Crimes Enforcement Network. It would operate as a forum to exchange investigation and prosecution strategies in combating counterfeiting crimes and to promote coordinated multinational prosecutions of serious offenders.
"The development of the Intellectual Property Crimes Enforcement Network is an important step in coordinating enforcement efforts in a critical region of the world," acting U.S. Attorney General Peter Keisler said in a statement.
Julie Myers, the U.S. Homeland Security's assistant secretary for immigration and customs enforcement, said, "Counterfeiting and piracy exploit borders and customs processes across the globe, resulting in hundreds of billions of dollars annually entering the dark crevices of organized criminal syndicates."
The gathering in Thailand is occurring as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announced plans for an anti-counterfeiting agreement with U.S. trading partners, including the European Union, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea and Switzerland.
Also this week, British and Dutch police announced the shutdown of an online source of illegal, pre-release music albums and arrested a 24-year-old man for allegedly operating the Internet site, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The site had an estimated 180,000 members.
More than 60 major album releases have been leaked on the Web site so far this year, "making it the primary source worldwide for illegal, pre-release music," IFPI said.
U.S., Microsoft Take Aim At Global Problems
Three U.S. government groups and Microsoft announced Monday that they plan to join forces to address the social and business challenges faced by people in the world who currently receive few or no benefits from technology.
Microsoft, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (known as PEPFAR), and the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation have established a five-year partnership for various international development initiatives. The objectives include improving health care and economic development through technology. The collaboration also will focus on Internet child-trafficking issues and intellectual property rights.
"In this age of increasing interconnectedness, this global collaboration with Microsoft will help to mobilize ideas and resources, skills and technologies to spur innovation and deliver results far more efficiently and effectively than ever before," Henrietta Fore, the acting administrator of USAID, said in a statement.
"This groundbreaking public-private partnership will help PEPFAR leverage the tools of the information age and the core competencies of Microsoft to bring HIV/AIDS collaboration to the next level," added Mark Dybul, the global AIDS coordinator for PEPFAR.
Ambassador John Danilovich, CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, said the joint effort "will provide new avenues for MCC assistance to create the conditions that will unleash private-sector investment, support job creation with technology, and be an incentive for policy reform." MCC is a U.S. government corporation aimed at reducing global poverty through the promotion of sustainable economic growth and good governance.
International Development Blog Launched
An international blog on economic development issues was launched this week during annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington. The Ideas For Development blog does not belong to any organization or personality and pledges to remain independent.
Contributors include Kemal Dervis, administrator of the U.N. Development Program, and Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organization. Six other senior heads of international organizations are taking part.
The blog, available in three languages, is "meant to stimulate debate on development issues" and to offer "a new forum for open discussion and interaction between scholars, students, professionals of various backgrounds, and the public at large."
Its creators said there is a growing interest on the Web for forums on development issues. Blogs on development issues, however, are either run by individual Web users or institutions.
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