The 2006 budget shows that last year the FBI received $5.7 billion in federal funding while the DEA received $2.4 billion. The DEA said it would be unable to sustain employment at its current level if Congress does not allot an additional $95 million, and ATF officials say they need $71 million more in order to maintain its 4,900 employees. Observers say that the failure to approve 2007 budgets for the DOJ agencies could impede efforts to counter both violent crime and terrorism. While other agencies are feeling the burden of the lack of budget approval, Congress has already approved budgets for the military and for homeland security.

A federal grand jury in the Western District of Texas has returned a seven-count indictment charging Luis Posada Carriles with one count of naturalization fraud and six counts of making false statements in a naturalization proceeding, the Department of Justice announced today.

The indictment alleges that Posada, 78, a native of Cuba, knowingly attempted to obtain naturalization as a U.S. citizen unlawfully by making false statements on his application for naturalization on or about Sept. 10, 2005. The indictment also alleges that he knowingly made false statements under oath during his naturalization interview with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials on April 25 and 26, 2006.

In his naturalization interview, Posada allegedly made several false statements regarding his March 2005 entry into the United States, including statements about the transportation routes and methods used, as well as individuals who accompanied him. For example, he stated that he traveled from Honduras through Belize and entered the United States over land near Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, with the assistance of an unidentified alien smuggler. In fact, Posada entered the United States by sea aboard the motor vessel “Santrina” accompanied by four individuals, the indictment alleges.

Posada further stated in his naturalization interview that he had never had any type of documentation, passport or identification from the Republic of Guatemala, when, in fact, he had a fraudulent passport issued by that nation bearing his photograph in the name of “Manuel Enrique Castillo Lopez,” the indictment alleges.

Posada is currently detained by DHS’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on administrative immigration violations. His initial court appearance in connection with the criminal charges is expected to take place early next week before a U.S. magistrate judge in the Western District of Texas.

If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment for the naturalization fraud count and five years imprisonment for each of the false statement counts.

This case was investigated by ICE. The prosecution is being handled by David B. Deitch and Paul Ahern, Trial Attorneys with the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

The federal investigation of Posada continues.

An indictment is merely a formal allegation that a defendant has committed a violation of federal criminal laws. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The first US execution of 2007 took place Tuesday, when the state of Oklahoma executed a man by lethal injection for the 1992 murders of four people. The US Supreme Court denied Corey Duane Hamilton's request for a stay of execution and certiorari review on Monday, with Justices Souter and Stevens voting to grant the request. The Death Penalty Information Center said Hamilton is one of thirty people in the US scheduled to be executed in 2007. Death sentencing in the US hit a 30-year low in 2006.

Earlier this month, a New Jersey State commission recommended abolishing capital punishment in that state altogether, replacing it with a life sentence without the possibility of parole. If the commission's report makes its way into law New Jersey will become the first US jurisdiction to ban capital punishment in over 35 years. In December, Florida Governor Jeb Bush suspended all executions in that state after a lethal injection execution there was botched, and a federal judge effectively suspended capital punishment in California by ruling that that state's lethal injection procedure creates "an undue and unnecessary risk" of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the US Constitution.

The US House of Representatives passed its first piece of legislation for the 110th Congress late Tuesday, a bill to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission remaining after the enactment of the Intelligence Reform bill in 2004. The bill provides for additional intelligence oversight and sets out an ambitious screening program for shipping cargo coming into the US. HR 1 passed with bipartisan support by a vote of 299-128, though several Congressional Republicans assailed the bill's passage as a Democratic effort to appear tough on terrorism without considering the financial implications.

Tuesday's passage of HR 1 marks the first of several key votes scheduled by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) to occur during the Democrats first 100 hours in office. Later this week the House will vote on legislation to raise the federal minimum wage and expand embryonic stem cell research.

The Supreme Court Monday denied EchoStar's appeal of a lower court decision preventing the company from offering distant network TV station signals to its subscribers. That December 1 cut-off came after a years-long legal tussle with broadcasters over EchoStar's ability to determine with subs were and weren't eligible to recieve the signals. The decision does not affect the ability of EchoStar subs to receive distant signals via outside company National Programming Service. After a federal appeals court mandated the cut-off and NPS was recruited to provide EchoStar subs with distant signals, broadcasters went to court to try to block the move, but were rebuffed.

Illegal immigrants in the US who have been arrested and released within US borders appear to exhibit a markedly high rate of reincarceration, according to a report released by the US Department of Justice on Monday.

The report...judgmentally selected a sample of 100 criminal histories, which we reviewed for evidence of arrests of criminal aliens subsequent to June 30, 2003. The criminal histories for 73 of the 100 individuals documented at least one arrest after that date. Those 73 individuals accounted for a total of 429 arrests, with 878 charges and 241 convictions. These figures represent an average of nearly six arrests per individual. The charges for the 73 individuals ranged from traffic violations and trespassing to more serious crimes, such as burglary or assault....If this data is indicative of the full population of 262,105 criminal histories, the rate at which released criminal aliens are rearrested is extremely high.

The report also found that "most incarcerated aliens are being released into the U.S. at the conclusion of their respective sentences because of a lack of resources to identify, detain, and remove these aliens."

Diederich won't be in Washington tomorrow, but has submitted two briefs on behalf of the Rockland Coalition for Democracy and Freedom, the Rockland County Conservation Association and the Federation of New York Solid Waste Associations.

Christopher St. Lawrence, in his capacity as chairman of the Rockland Solid Waste Management Authority, and the authority's legal counsel, Bridget Gauntlett, will both attend the court session tomorrow.

The Rockland Solid Waste Management Authority has also filed a brief allowing it to weigh in on the case, United Haulers Association Inc., etc., v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, and Oneida and Herkimer counties.

St. Lawrence, who is also supervisor of the town of Ramapo, said Friday that communities have the right to manage their waste and to require that it be sent to a specific location for transfer or landfill burial.

He said the health and safety of residents and the environment depended on a community's ability to manage its waste, without having a garbage hauler deciding where it would go.

Diederich represented the New York State Association for Solid Waste Management when United Haulers first sued Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, and Oneida and Herkimer counties, which are located in upstate New York.

United Haulers argued that requiring garbage collectors to bring their trash to a specific location violated the U.S. Constitution's Interstate Commerce Clause.

The clause empowers the U.S. Congress "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." The interpretation of the clause has evolved over the years, but it has been used to prevent and break up monopolies.

The haulers argued that the counties and solid waste authority they sued were creating a monopoly in violation of the clause by requiring use of specific disposal facilities.

Diederich successfully argued that waste itself was not an article of commerce, whereas the management of that waste was. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on the case in 2001.

A similar case then made its way through the Sixth Circuit Court, which is based in Ohio. In that case, National Solid Waste Management Association v. Daviss County, the court ruled last year that so-called "flow control" of trash did violate the Commerce Clause.

The U.S. Supreme Court will now attempt to rectify the differing views of the circuit courts, Diederich said.

He also said local residents should be allowed to democratically choose and decide whether their locally generated trash should go to a publicly managed local facility.

"I view this as a worldwide environmental issue," Diederich said. "If you view waste as valuable, you're encouraging more of it."

Instead, he said, it was the management of that waste that should be valued. That management, he said, should include both reducing waste and recycling what had to be collected.