Crime
We moved Boulder Crime News and police blotter out of News and made it a primary category. Even though crime news is the highest in analytic s some readers complain because it ruins non violent news. Our readers and viewers prefer science, tech environmental and entertainment news. So crime news junkies now have your own bad news section here.
Boulder Police arrest bookkeeper on charges of forgery and felony theft
Jan 23rd
In December 2010, Boulder detectives started an investigation into the embezzlement of funds from Impact on Education, a non-profit organization. During the investigation, detectives learned that the bookkeeper for the organization had stolen approximately $160,000 while working for the organization over the course of several years.
An affidavit was presented to the courts on Jan. 20, 2011, for the arrest of Diana Lynn Lewis, date of birth May 3, 1966, on charges of theft over $20,000, which is a class 3 felony, and several counts of forgery, a Class 5 felony. Bail was set at $100,000.
Yesterday, Lewis was arrested and transported to the Boulder County Jail.
The Boulder Police Department will not be releasing any additional information about this case, as the investigation is continuing.
Anyone with information about this crime is asked to contact Detective Jeff Kithcart at 303-441-3376. Those who have information but wish to remain anonymous may contact the Northern Colorado Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or 1-800-444-3776. Tips can also be submitted via the Crime Stoppers website at www.crimeshurt.com. Those submitting tips through Crime Stoppers that lead to the arrest and filing of charges on a suspect(s) may be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1,000 from Crime Stoppers.
EXTENT OF CORRUPTION IN COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD TIED TO EARTHQUAKE FATALITIES
Jan 12th
A new assessment of global earthquake fatalities over the past three decades indicates that 83 percent of all deaths caused by the collapse of buildings during earthquakes occurred in countries considered to be unusually corrupt.
Authored by Professor Nicholas Ambraseys of the Imperial College of London and Professor Roger Bilham of the University Colorado at Boulder, the study also found that in some relatively wealthy countries where knowledge and sound business practices would be expected to prevail, the collapse of many buildings is nevertheless attributable to corrupt building practices.
A commentary piece on the subject is being published in the Jan. 13 issue of Nature.
Corrupt building practices — which are generally covert and hard to quantify — can include the use of substandard materials, poor assembly methods, the inappropriate placement of buildings and non-adherence to building codes, said the authors.
Ambraseys and Bilham used data gathered by Transparency International, a global organization based in Berlin that operates through more than 70 national chapters around the world. Transparency International annually generates a Corruption Perception Index, or CPI, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys.
The CPI index — which defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain — is determined by an aggregate of 13 opinion polls averaged over two years from 10 institutions monitoring the frequency and extent of bribes paid within various countries, said Bilham, a professor in CU-Boulder’s geological sciences department. A CPI score of 0 indicates a highly corrupt nation with zero transparency, while a score of 10 indicates an absence of perceived corruption with total transparency.
The authors determined that there is roughly a one-to-one relationship between a nations’ wealth and its perceived level of corruption. “Less wealthy nations are the most corrupt,” said Bilham, also a fellow in the CU-Boulder based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “We found that fully 83 percent of all deaths from earthquakes in the last 30 years have occurred in nations where corruption is both widespread and worse than expected.”
Relative wealth is the most obvious parameter that influences a country’s corruption, according to the authors. Bilham and Ambraseys chose the gross national income per capita to compare the relative wealth of the countries. High wealth is strongly linked to countries with a stable government conducive to the rule of law, they said.
The authors noted that while a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that struck in New Zealand in 2010 resulted in zero fatalities, an identical 2010 quake in Haiti resulted in a death toll reaching six figures. “Widespread anecdotal evidence points to the collapse of structures in devastating earthquakes as a result of corrupt building practices,” said Bilham. “In this study we have attempted to quantify that perception.
“Corruption is found to be far worse in some countries than others, despite a measure of wealth that tells us they should do better,” said Bilham. “It is in the countries that have abnormally high levels of corruption where we find most of the world’s deaths from earthquakes.”
The global construction industry, currently worth $7.5 trillion annually and which is expected to double in the next decade, is recognized by experts as being the most corrupt segment of the world economy, said the authors.
Since 1980, deaths due to an absence of effective earthquake engineering activity have averaged about 18,300 per year, according to the authors.
Poverty and poor education also contribute to building collapse through a lack of strong, available building materials and a lack of education that otherwise would help guide safe building practices, the authors said.
The number of deaths attributable to collapsed dwellings is influenced both by the population density and the vulnerability of buildings near earthquake epicenters, said the authors. In the past 30 years, the rapid increases in urban populations — particularly in developing countries — have been adversely affected by building quality.
The authors said even if corrupt building practices were halted today, those residing in impoverished nations would inherit at least some structures and dwellings that were constructed while corrupt construction practices were under way.
“The structural integrity of a building is no stronger than the social integrity of the builder, and each nation has a responsibility to its citizens to ensure adequate inspection,” the authors wrote in Nature. “In particular, nations with a history of significant earthquakes and known corruption issues should stand reminded that an unregulated construction industry is a potential killer.”
SOIURCE: CU MEDIA RELEASE
interweb cops: National Internet Web ID proposed by white house: 1984 Boulder #boulder
Jan 11th
Obama’s Internet Plan Sounds an Awful Lot Like a National Internet ID
White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt announced to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research on Friday that President Obama intended to turn over development of a national Internet ID to the Commerce Department.
Pursuant to the Orwellian-sounding National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which the administration is currently writing, Commerce will create a program to provide and administer an allegedly voluntary interoperable verified online IDs.
An early draft makes the case for such an ID.
“(A) secure cyberspace is critical to the health of our economy and to the security of our Nation. In particular, the Federal Government must address the recent and alarming rise in online fraud, identity theft, and misuse of information online. One key step in reducing online fraud and identity theft is to increase the level of trust associated with identities in cyberspace. While this Strategy recognizes the value of anonymity for many online transactions (e.g., blog postings), for other types of transactions (e.g., online banking or accessing electronic health records) it is important that the parties to that transaction have a high degree of trust that they are interacting with known entities.”
According to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, as reported by CNET:
“We are not talking about a national ID card. We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.”
We are talking about a government-controlled system. That is exactly what we are talking about. In fact, the presentation of what few facts exist is vague enough as to be good for nothing but worry.
Here are the few facts on the program that are available.
- The government will enable the creation of verified identities
- The government will create an “Identity Ecosystem”
- Getting a verified identity will be elective
- Verizon, Google, PayPal, Symantec and AT&T support the program
- A user would be able to use one login to sign in to all of their sites
So, a user would have one, “verified” ID, which would be known by the government, and a set of large corporations. Given the periodic outbreak of governmental and corporate shenanigans, we fail to see the benefit of such a system.
Further, the “Identity Ecosystem” sounds strangely like the national intranet the Chinese government has been working on, as an alternative to the Internet as a whole, and more controllable.
“The Identity Ecosystem is the embodiment of the vision. It is an online environment where individuals, organizations, services, and devices can trust each other because authoritative sources establish and authenticate their digital identities.”
We write frequently here about Facebook’s efforts to become the source of a universal verified online ID system, but a campaign by the US government to do something similar is another matter. It would be niave to assume that either party is motivated by nothing more than convenience on the part of users.