LulzSec Posts Stolen Data from Arizona Lawman Site

Stolen data from the Arizona Department of Public Safety has been posted by the hacker group LulzSec. The hackers promised to release "more classified documents and embarrassing personal details" about military and law-enforcement attempts to "terrorize communities." LulzSec also said its attack on Sony Pictures was wider than reported.
Hackers have released a torrent of confidential data seized during an intrusion at the web site of the Arizona

Department of Public Safety, including hundreds of private intelligence bulletins, training manuals, and personal e-mail correspondence of law-enforcement officials. The underground group LulzSec said it selected its latest target because of Arizona's recent passage of an anti-immigration bill as well as the racial attitudes of state police officials.
Among the confidential documents released by LulzSec Thursday was a report concerning an encounter between Arizona police and two private individuals equipped with pistols and an assault rifle and wearing camouflage outfits. Both individuals held valid U.S. Marine Corps identification cards and claimed they were off-duty and working as private contract employees paid to patrol the border.
"Every week we plan on releasing more classified documents and embarrassing personal details of military and law enforcement," the LulzSec hackers wrote. The aim is "not just to reveal their racist and corrupt nature, but to purposefully sabotage their efforts to terrorize communities [by] fighting an unjust 'war on drugs.' See you again real soon!"
Problems Along the Border
One sensitive FBI document released Thursday noted that the Mexican government refused to sign an "Intercept Agreement" promising not to eavesdrop on U.S. government radio communications along the border. The confidential report suggested Mexico's response meant Mexican authorities intended "to do a lot of listening."
Other Arizona law-enforcement documents demonstrate that smugglers are becoming more tech-savvy. For example, drug lords moving product across the border are now using sophisticated GPS gear to track their shipments as well as target rival groups.
Smugglers also have begun hiding their flash storage devices in innocuous objects ranging from cigarette lighters, jewelry and pens to calculators and children's toys. By contrast, some of the computers in the Arizona Department of Public Safety are still using dial-up connections to access the Internet.
One anonymous individual whose e-mail accounts were compromised by LulzSec's latest intrusion called the hackers terrorists. "If we're terrorists, then you're a jackass for reusing your password everywhere for nine years," LulzSec retorted in a Friday tweet.
On a Spree
LulzSec claimed responsibility for hacking the PBS web site late last month as payback after the television network ran a TV program about the WikiLeaks hack of sensitive U.S. State Department documents. The intrusion included the posting of a fake Tupac article on the PBS home page.
Then in early June, the hacker group broke into the Sony Pictures web site and claimed to have lifted the personal data of a million individuals. Sony Pictures affirmed the hack on June 8, when it admitted it had notified "approximately 37,500 people who may have had some personally identifiable information stolen during the recent attack."
Sony Pictures said the stolen information didn't include "any credit-card information, Social Security numbers, or driver-license numbers." Still, it admitted the hackers obtained data on a significant number of its web-site users, such as "address, e-mail address, telephone number, gender, date of birth, and web-site password and username."
However, LulzSec said its haul from Sony Pictures had a wider scope than the company reported. The group claimed to have compromised sensitive corporate details as well as propriety information. "Among other things, we also compromised all admin details of Sony Pictures -- including passwords -- along with 75,000 'music codes' and 3.5 million 'music coupons,'" the hacker group wrote.
Moreover, the group hacked Sony Pictures using "a very simple SQL injection -- one of the most primitive and common vulnerabilities, as we should all know by now," LulzSec observed.

 "From a single injection, we accessed EVERYTHING. What's worse is that every bit of data we took wasn't encrypted."

iCloud Slaps Apple with a Lawsuit

Last week was dominated by two events, E3 and Apple’s annual WWDC. The latter included the unveiling of iCloud, Apple’s answer to cloud-based music services from Google and Amazon. However, it seems the company may have to consider a name-change. Between the iPhone and the Mighty Mouse, Apple doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to choosing names already owned by someone else. Heck, the company has even been sued for its use of the name ‘Apple’ (by the Beatles, no less).

This time, Apple is facing the fire of iCloud Communications, an Arizona-based VOIP company claiming injury to its own iCloud-branding. iCloud Communications is seeking a permanent injunction to stop Apple using the iCloud name, along with "all profits, gains and advantages" and "all monetary damages sustained." So just how guilty is Apple? Well, VOIP and music streaming services are obviously different products. However, iCloud claims in the court documents that it also offers cloud computing services, too, and that Apple’s iCloud services are "identical or closely related to the goods and services that have been offered by iCloud Communications under the iCloud Marks since its formation in 2005."

Photos show Congresswoman Giffords

HOUSTON | Images of a smiling Rep. Gabrielle Giffords were posted Sunday on her Facebook page, photos that show her with shorter hair but few signs that she suffered a gunshot wound in the head. The photos were taken May 17 outside the rehabilitation facility where Giffords has been undergoing treatment since she was wounded in the Jan. 8 attack in Tucson, Ariz. Since then, access to the Arizona congresswoman has been tightly controlled. Until Sunday, no clear images had been released. Giffords spokesman

C.J. Karamargin said staff members released the photos Sunday to help satisfy “intense interest in the congresswoman’s appearance.” The timing coincides with plans to release Giffords from the hospital later this month or in early July. But the photos give little indication of Giffords’ cognitive abilities — what, for example, her speech is like after being shot in the left side of the head. The images also provide no hints as to when, or if, she will be able to resume her job. Pia Carusone, Giffords’ chief of staff, has indicated that while the congresswoman is able to speak and walk, she remains a shadow of her former self.

Giffords shooting suspect deemed incompetent to stand trial

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Jared Lee Loughner was incompetent to stand trial, all but ending, for now, legal proceedings in the January shooting that killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. After studying reports from two mental health experts who examined the 22-year-old defendant, Judge Larry A.

Burns ordered that Loughner be kept in custody and stopped any federal trial unless Loughner were to be rehabilitated later, would be able to understand the charges against him and assist in his own defense. The charges carry the potential of the death penalty.

The ruling also appears to put on hold any state trial against Loughner.

He was ordered removed from the courtroom after an outburst. Reporters heard him shout: "She died in front of me," "Thank you for the freak show" and, "You're treasonous." A staff psychologist at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., and a forensic psychiatrist in San Diego both agreed that Loughner at this time is unfit mentally to stand trial. Calling the shuttle: For students at Mesa Verde Elementary School in Tucson, it was an unusual time to come to school: Sunday night. But it was an even more unusual school activity: making a long distance call 216 miles straight up to the space shuttle Endeavour. The educational event was set up by Endeavour commander Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in the Jan. 8 shootings that killed six people, including 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green. Christina-Taylor went to Mesa Verde.

Feds alerted to Gabrielle Giffords shooter three months before Tucson massacre

The Tucson community college that booted attempted assassin Jared Lee Loughner asked federal firearms agents to check his background three months before his shooting rampage.

Hundreds of emails released by Pima Community College show school officials investigated the troubled young man in the months before he shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 17 others in January, killing six.

They eventually suspended him, but during the weeks after the bloodbath administrators wondered if they did enough.

The emails depict a student with serious emotional problems whose strange behavior upset those around him.

In February 2010, a student emailed a writing teacher that Loughner put a knife on his desk. The teacher forwarded the complaint to an administrator and said he'd heard a similar complaint from another student.

"I think we ought to have another conversation with Jared to try to get to the bottom of this, and really at this point, I'd like to do everything that we can to have him removed from the class," teacher Steven Salmoni wrote.

"I think his presence alone is interfering with the kind of environment that I'm trying to foster in this course."

Loughner was in trouble again four months later after a math teacher said in an email that he appeared to be on drugs. School counselor DeLisa Siddall met with him the next day.

According to emails, Loughner told Siddall he was being "scammed" by his math teacher.

"He said, 'My instructor said he called a number 6 and said I call it 18.' He also asked the instructor to explain, 'How can you deny math instead of accept it?'" Siddall wrote.

Siddall told the teacher that Loughner would return to class but stop asking questions. The next day, the teacher said Loughner returned to class and was laughing inappropriately and staring at classmates with an "evil" smile.

That led campus police to recommend Dean Patricia Houston expel him, but Houston said in an email it was premature.

"It is a matter of balancing the disruptive student's right to due process with the rights of the other students in the class," Houston wrote.

More disruptions eventually prompted administrators to suspend Loughner from school. As they did, campus cops contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to look into him as a "person of interest."

Less than two weeks after the shooting, the school's director of contracts and risk management wrote an email to administrators saying the college should have done more.

"Arizona has one of the most lenient criteria for a commitment procedure which, having read the police reports, should have been initiated," Dworschak wrote. "You don't dump them."

Mental exam for Giffords shooting suspect Loughner

A judge has ordered the man charged in the January shooting rampage in Arizona to undergo a mental evaluation to see if he is competent to stand trial.

The evaluation at a specialist facility in Missouri will be filmed.

It will not examine whether Jared Lee Loughner, 22, was sane at the time of the shooting in Tucson, which left six people dead and 13 injured, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Mr Loughner has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges stemming from the attack.

They include killing US District Judge John Roll and Mrs Giffords' aide, Gabe Zimmerman, and attempting to kill Mrs Giffords and two other aides.

Mr Loughner is also charged with causing the deaths of four others, including a nine-year-old girl, who were not federal employees, causing injury and death to participants at a "federally provided activity", and using a gun in a crime of violence.

In total, 14 of the charges are punishable by death. However, prosecutors have not yet said if they will pursue the maximum penalty.

Mental disease or defect

Mr Loughner will travel to the Bureau of Prisons facility in Springfield, Missouri, because prosecutors had argued that his evaluation should take place at a medical referral centre that provided forensic services and had increased resources.

His lawyers had wanted the exam to be done by an expert at a prison in Arizona, as it might disrupt their relationship with him. They also wanted assurances that it would be limited to ascertaining whether their client was competent to stand trial, not whether he was sane on 8 January.

Judge Larry Burns ruled against the defence's first request, saying the relocation to Springfield was "unavoidable", but agreed with the second.

"The question at issue is whether the defendant is presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him, or to assist properly in his defence."

The judge ordered that the exam be conducted no later than 29 April, and said he expected a report to be submitted by 11 May.

USC can't get Vucevic untracked

DAYTON, Ohio – The one problem USC couldn't solve in the postseason was how to unleash top scorer Nikola Vucevic.

It started against Cal in the Pac-10 Tournament quarterfinals, continued against Arizona in the semis and proved ruinous in the Trojans' NCAA Tournament loss to Virginia Commonwealth on Wednesday.

Vucevic entered Wednesday averaging 17.3 points. He finished with 11, attempting only five shots from the field. He averaged just 11.3 points and nine field-goal attempts in three postseason games.

"They did a good job on defense," Vucevic said of the Rams. "They took me out of the game. They had a guy on me the whole time. And they didn't let me get in my comfort zone."

Like most recent opponents, VCU double-teamed Vucevic whenever he caught the ball in the post, forcing him to pass. But he failed to record an assist on a night his teammates shot 12 of 33 (36.4 percent) from the floor.

Despite the rough ending, Vucevic rose up NBA draft boards with a breakout junior year. The 6-foot-10 forward said he would decide sometime after the season whether he would enter the draft.

The deadline for early entries is April 24. Vucevic can withdraw his name as late as June 13 if he doesn't sign with an agent.

K.O. LOVES L.A.

O'Neill shot down rumors that he's a candidate for the opening at Oklahoma.

"I've got a great job," he said. "I'm happy where I'm at. I want to be at USC for a long time."

The rumors sprouted in part because Brandon Martin, who oversaw USC's basketball operations in O'Neill's first season, is now a member of Oklahoma's athletic department.

SENIORS STRUGGLE

Seniors Alex Stepheson and Donte Smith did not end their college careers the way they had hoped. The two combined to make only 1 of 11 field-goal attempts and 3 of 8 foul shots for five points. They also totaled seven turnovers. Stepheson did have 10 rebounds and four blocked shots.

Stepheson and Smith were not made available to the media after the game.

NOTES

USC finished 1 of 9 from 3-point range. VCU was 9 of 24. ... USC lost in the opening round for the second time in its past three NCAA Tournament appearances. ... The inaugural "First Four" was expected to have a $3.5 million economic impact on the city of Dayton.

Arizona tops USC 67-62 to reach Pac-10 tourney final

Arizona spent a lost weekend in Los Angeles two weeks ago, getting swept by UCLA and USC instead of clinching the Pac-10 regular-season title.
The Wildcats' latest visit is going much better.
Derrick Williams scored 20 points and No. 16 Arizona held off USC 67-62 Friday night to earn a spot in the Pac-10 tournament title game for the first time since 2005.
"We played better. We handled it better," Wildcats coach Sean Miller said. "I thought part of what's helped us here this weekend is we came here trying to be better than we were a couple weeks ago, and our team is more together and has a better mindset. If there was a total team win we had this season, tonight was the night."
The top-seeded Wildcats (27-6) will play No. 3 seed Washington in Saturday's final. Arizona last won the tournament in 2002.
"As long as we get the win, I'm happy," said Williams, who is from nearby La Mirada.
Arizona had a 25-year NCAA tournament streak end last year when the Wildcats stayed home. But as the Pac-10's highest-ranked team this season, they're headed back regardless of how they fare Saturday.
Marcus Simmons, the Pac-10's defensive player of the year, led the Trojans with a career-high 20 points. Nikola Vucevic scored 12 of his 16 in the second half and had 12 rebounds for USC (19-14).
The fourth-seeded Trojans played without coach Kevin O'Neill, whose suspension for the rest of the tournament was announced by USC two hours before tipoff. He and his wife got into a verbal altercation with an Arizona booster Thursday night at the team hotel.
Bob Cantu, the Trojans' associate head coach, took over and paced the sideline, regularly checking laminated play cards.
"It was different," Vucevic said. "When K.O. is there, he yells a lot, and we didn't hear a lot of yelling."
Cantu found out three hours before the game that he'd be in charge.
A USC fan held up a "Free K.O." sign during the game.
ARIZONA 67, USC 62
USC (19-14) — Stepheson 4-7 0-0 8, Vucevic 6-12 4-5 16, Fontan 3-7 0-0 7, D. Smith 3-11 0-0 7, Simmons 8-11 1-4 20, Jones 2-5 0-0 4, Jackson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 26-53 5-9 62.
ARIZONA (27-6) — Williams 7-10 5-6 20, Perry 4-7 3-4 11, Hill 0-3 0-1 0, Parrom 3-9 0-1 6, Jones 2-6 2-2 7, Natyazhko 0-1 0-0 0, Mayes 3-6 0-0 8, Fogg 1-4 0-0 3, Lavender 1-1 1-2 4, Horne 3-8 0-0 8. Totals 24-55 11-16 67.
Halftime — Arizona 33-28.
Three-point goals — USC 5-18 (Simmons 3-4, Fontan 1-2, D. Smith 1-6, Jones 0-3, Vucevic 0-3), Arizona 8-19 (Mayes 2-3, Horne 2-6, Lavender 1-1, Fogg 1-2, Jones 1-2, Williams 1-3, Parrom 0-1, Natyazhko 0-1). Fouled out — None. Rebounds — USC 30 (Vucevic 12), Arizona 32 (Parrom, Williams 6). Assists — USC 15 (Fontan, Vucevic 5), Arizona 13 (Mayes, Parrom 3). Total fouls — USC 17, Arizona 12.

On immigration, momentum shifts away from Arizona

A year after SB 1070 inspired a call for similar laws around the country, other states have failed to follow suit. Only Utah has passed a diluted version. A year ago, a revolution on immigration enforcement seemed underway, with legislators in at least 20 states vowing to follow the lead of Arizona's tough new law targeting illegal immigrants.

These days, the momentum has shifted.

In at least six states, the proposals have been voted down or have simply died. Many of the other proposals have not even made it past one legislative chamber.

The most-discussed provision in the Arizona law requires police to investigate the status of people they legally stop whom they also suspect are illegal immigrants.

But even in Arizona, several tough immigration proposals have been stalled in the Senate, with business leaders and some Republicans arguing that the state does not need more controversy.

The one state whose Legislature has passed an Arizona-style law, Utah, only approved a diluted bill accompanied by another measure that goes in a dramatically different direction.

The Utah Legislature on Friday voted to create ID cards for "guest workers" and their families, provided they pay a fine and don't commit serious crimes. Immigrants who entered the country illegally would be fined up to $2,500. Immigrants who entered the country legally but were not complying with federal immigration law would be fined $1,000.

"Why not put something in place where, in five years, we can say we did something, rather than sending a few people home?" said state Rep. Bill Wright, who wrote the law. "Sending a few people home will not solve our problems."

Utah's measure is essentially a state version of the comprehensive immigration reform that many backers of the Arizona approach deride as amnesty.

Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute said the momentum behind Arizona's law was similar to the motivations driving Republican campaigns during the 2010 election and a bevy of new "tea party"-backed legislators eager to make their mark.

"There was a strong newcomer's enthusiasm for this," Chishti said. "Now I think reality has set in."

The main factor behind the retreat is skittishness about costs, said Ann Morse, who tracks immigration legislation for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Arizona was sued by the Obama administration, which secured an injunction against most of the law. That ruling is under appeal and expected to reach the Supreme Court, costing millions in legal fees. Arizona was also hit by boycotts and canceled conventions.

"Most states are looking at where to cut money, not where to spend money," Morse said.

There's still time for the dynamic to change. Laws partly modeled on Arizona's SB 1070 have made their way out of one of the two chambers in legislatures in Indiana, Kentucky and Georgia.

But the situation in Georgia symbolizes why it has been difficult to pass Arizona-style laws. Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, campaigned on bringing such legislation to Georgia, but allies accuse him of equivocating because he hasn't vowed to sign the proposal that passed the state House of Representatives on Thursday.

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington said it's not surprising that efforts to replicate SB 1070 face uphill battles. Such laws spark fierce opposition from businesses, police and immigration advocates.

The issue gained traction in Arizona, Krikorian said, because illegal immigration was viewed as such a serious problem there. But elsewhere, "there's no business with full-time employees trying to get immigration laws enforced. In fact, the opposite is true."

"Any progress at all surprises me," he added.

A year after SB 1070 inspired a call for similar laws around the country, other states have failed to follow suit. Only Utah has passed a diluted version.

In Nebraska, state Sen. Charlie Janssen's SB 1070-style bill is stuck in the Legislature's judiciary committee, where he says six of the eight members are cool to the idea.

"When you talk to Main Street, Nebraska, they say, 'Go do it,'" Janssen said. "But when you get down here, the advocacy groups get to all the individual senators."

In Florida, a measure modeled on SB 1070 is unlikely to pass, but the Republican-controlled Legislature will still consider requiring that all people booked into jail be checked for immigration violations.

"What's encouraging is they're backing away from the blatant anti-immigrant sentiment in Arizona," said Subhash Kateel of the Florida Immigration Coalition. "But there's politicians who campaigned on doing Arizona-style stuff, and now they have to do something."

In Arizona itself, SB 1070 helped propel Republicans to record margins in both chambers of the Legislature and to a clean sweep of statewide elected offices during the November election. Polls show the measure is very popular in the state and nationwide.

But its author, Senate President Russell Pearce, has been unable to replicate the measure's smooth passage with the latest batch of immigration laws. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Proposals to require that hospitals check patients' immigration status, that teachers and social workers refer suspected illegal immigrants to the federal government and that U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants be denied citizenship have all squeaked through state Senate committees. They have yet to face a vote in the full Senate. It's possible the measures will ultimately pass, but many political observers in the state are surprised there has been Republican opposition to them.

"We have other more important issues and this distracts us from them," said Sen. John McComish, a Republican who voted for SB 1070.

The biggest shift in dynamics is in Utah, where, the day SB 1070 was signed last year, a legislator vowed to bring the same law to the Beehive State. In response, business and community groups issued a statement of principles known as the Utah Compact to fight the measure. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is growing rapidly overseas and in immigrant communities in the United States, endorsed the compact.

When the Utah Legislature acted on immigration last week, it moved in contradictory directions, trying to satisfy activists who want a tough approach to illegal immigration and business and religious leaders who urge flexibility and compassion for working families.

The Legislature weakened the Arizona-style law, which would now only require immigration checks of people arrested for felonies and serious misdemeanors. Still, the measure easily passed both houses. The guest-worker ID program also won easy approval.

The guest-worker bill depends on a federal waiver, and there are many who are skeptical the federal government would grant it. "It sends a bad message, that Utah wants its own amnesty program," said Ronald Mortensen, a Utah-based activist against illegal immigration. "I think there's going to be a lot of upset people."

Critics call Utah's guest-worker effort an unconstitutional attempt to create a state-level immigration policy just to send a message to a deadlocked Washington. That was also a central criticism of Arizona's law.

On Friday, as the heavily conservative state Senate debated the issue, senator after senator said the measure was a needed warning for a Washington they see as out of touch on taxes and regulation. State Sen. Howard Stephenson compared the move to the opening shots of the Revolutionary War.

"We are in a sense firing a shot and saying we are going to do it right," Stephenson said, "and set a pattern for Congress and the rest of the nation to follow."