Americans Warned to Be Vigilant in Europe After Terror Threat - Bloomberg

Police in Paris evacuated the Eiffel Tower on Sept. 28 for the second time in two weeks after bomb threats. Photographer: Fred Dufour/AFP/Getty Images

The U.S. warned Americans traveling in Europe to be vigilant following weeks of discussion within the Obama administration about threats of an attack by an al- Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group, officials said.

“Terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests,” the U.S. State Department said in a travel alert for Europe issued in Washington yesterday.

The State Department didn’t issue a higher level “Travel Warning” for the continent. A warning would have cautioned Americans to avoid Europe, their most popular foreign travel destination, with the potential for a much larger impact on airlines and hotels. Twelve million Americans traveled to Europe last year, spending more than $20 billion, according to Commerce Department data.

“There may be a little dip in bookings, especially on the leisure side,” Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition in Radnor, Pennsylvania, said in an interview after the alert was issued. “All bets are off if the threat is more specific or, God forbid, something happens.”

The State Department has been monitoring the threats in Europe for weeks and made the decision to issue the advisory this weekend based on the “cumulative effect of all types of information” it had, Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy told reporters.

Tourists Targeted

Terrorists often target tourist attractions, subways and rail systems, and travelers should “take every precaution” to protect themselves, the alert said. French police have evacuated the Eiffel Tower in Paris twice in the past three weeks because of threats.

The U.S. is “not, not, not” advising Americans to delay or cancel visits to Europe, Kennedy said. Instead they should take “common-sense precautions,” and also register with the consular offices in countries they visit. The alert is set to expire at the end of January.

U.S. airlines “are operating their business as usual, with the same continued security vigilance in the interest of safe travel,” David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, said in an e-mail. The Washington-based group represents airlines such as Delta Air Lines Inc. and Southwest Airlines Co.

While U.S. airlines are continuing normal flight operations, they likely have stepped up security, and won’t tell the public about it, George Hamlin, president of Hamlin Transportation Consulting in Fairfax, Virginia, said in an interview.

More Security Likely

“They may be on a higher state of alert, they may be making more random security checks, they may be even looking more closely at specific flights, but they aren’t going to tell us that,” he said.

Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs said it is “closely monitoring the situation in Europe,” and urged its citizens to “be aware of their surroundings.” The United Kingdom upgraded its terrorism warning for France and Germany.

“As we have consistently made clear, we face a real and serious threat from terrorism,” British Home Secretary Theresa May said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. “Our threat level remains at severe -- meaning that an attack is highly likely.”

Coordinated Attacks

Militants based in Pakistan are planning coordinated attacks in the U.K., France and Germany, prompting the recent increase in U.S. drone strikes in the region, Sky News reported, citing U.S. officials it didn’t name. Reports have focused on attacks similar to the 2008 ones by the Pakistani-based Lashkar- e-Taiba on a hotel in Mumbai that left 166 people dead.

In the attacks in Mumbai militants armed with grenades and rifles stormed into the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel and the Oberoi Trident complex, singling out foreign nationals and taking hostages in a three-day siege.

Pakistan’s intelligence services are acting on information from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to try to foil any terrorism plots against Europe, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” yesterday.

ABC News, citing U.S. and European officials, said the tipoff came from a German terror suspect held in Afghanistan who told interrogators that teams of attackers with European passports have been dispatched.

“Security agencies are investigating closely all information and are continually monitoring security measures,” Markus Beyer, a German Interior Ministry spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement.

France sees the U.S. alert as “in line with the general recommendations we ourselves make to the French population,” foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in an e-mail.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Drajem in Washington at mdrajem@bloomberg.net Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in Washington at msilva34@bloomberg.net

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Google Goggles Hits the iPhone - PC Magazine

Google on Tuesday released a version of its Google Goggles feature for Apple's iPhone.

Goggles lets you search by taking photos of things with your mobile phone. Take a photo of a landmark to get more details about its origins, or snap a pic of a DVD cover to find out more about the movie. Users can also speak commands to get location-based results. Saying "best Italian restaurants," for example, will return places in your immediate location.

Google has added the feature to its Google Mobile App for iPhone; the newest version is available now in the App Store. It is currently only available for the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4 running iOS 4 or above because Goggles requires an auto-focusing camera.

To activate Goggles, tap on the camera button within the app. Goggles will analyze the image and highlight the objects it recognizes; click on them to find out more.

Google stressed that Goggles is still a Labs project, so it won't work with everything. "It works well for things such as landmarks, logos and the covers of books, DVDs and games," Google said in a blog post. "However, it doesn't yet work for some things you might want to try like animals, plants or food."

An Android version of Goggles was released in December.

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Funeral protests could upend common view of free speech - Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Williamsburg, Va. —

More than 500 mourners walked quietly through rows of flags and into a white chapel on a recent Saturday afternoon to honor a dead soldier.

Army Lt. Todd Weaver was remembered as a scholar, athlete and born leader. He served in Iraq after high school, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the College of William and Mary two years ago and was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Sept. 9. He left behind a wife and a 1-year-old daughter.

But before entering the church parking lot, the mourners drove past an unusual demonstration. Scores of flag-waving bikers and students stood near the corner, surrounding three women holding brightly colored signs. They read: "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "God Hates Fags" and "You're Going to Hell."

Shirley Phelps-Roper and her two daughters are determined to go where they are not wanted and to spread their message that U.S. soldiers are fighting to promote tolerance of homosexuality. Their funeral pickets have prompted new laws across the nation to keep them away from grieving families.

When the Supreme Court opens its new term this week, the justices will be confronted with a potentially momentous question. Are vile and hurtful words always protected as free speech, even when the target is a private person, not a public figure?

The case of Snyder vs. Phelps, in which a jury in Maryland awarded the father of a dead Marine almost $11 million in damages against the Phelps family after a funeral incident in 2006, is one of two major 1st Amendment issues to be heard this fall.

The justices also will decide whether California and other states can limit the sale of violent video games to minors. So far, such laws have been struck down on free-speech grounds.

And the court will rule on other major issues, including whether employees can be forced to reveal their private lives in order to work on government jobs and whether states can punish employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The ruling on the funeral protesters could upset the common view that the Constitution protects wide-open free speech on the streets and on the Internet. In the past, the high court's great pronouncements on the 1st Amendment have protected protesters and publishers who clash with the government or with public officials.

The Phelps case poses a different issue. They have not gone just to the Pentagon or the White House to protest the sending of soldiers to war. Instead, they have picketed grieving families and derided the parents for having raised their young men to "serve the devil."

"We are saying you must obey God," Phelps-Roper said amid the counter-protesters last week. "He is punishing you for disobeying."

Her elderly father, Fred Phelps, founded the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., and in recent years, his daughters and granddaughters have traveled the country to spread his "fire and brimstone" message.

Albert Snyder, the father of the dead Marine, admitted he did not see the protesters or their signs on the day of his son's funeral, except in the television coverage. A few weeks later, however, he read a screed posted by Phelps-Roper on her website that denounced "satanic Catholicism" — the Snyders are Catholics — and accused Snyder and his wife of raising their son Matt to "defy his creator."

Snyder sued and alleged an intentional infliction of emotional distress. The trial judge upheld the jury's verdict, but reduced the $10.9 million damages to $5 million.

Last year, however, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the entire verdict and said the Phelpses' signs and messages were "constitutionally protected" speech.

To the surprise and dismay of 1st Amendment champions, the Supreme Court voted to hear the father's appeal and to decide whether a private figure can sue if he is the "target of hateful speech."

"It would be a sweeping change" if the court were to uphold Snyder's lawsuit, said Robert Corn-Revere, a 1st Amendment lawyer in Washington. "Where do you draw the line between public and private?" he asked, if protesters on a public street can be sued because their message is hurtful.

A ruling in favor of the Marine's father also could have a big effect on the Internet, because bloggers often attack non-public figures with mean and hurtful comments.

Nonetheless, Stanford University law professor Michael McConnell thinks the court will say the Constitution does not shield the Phelps family. Snyder "is not a public figure. He is a private person" who was the target of a hateful protest, McConnell said.

Stephen McAllister, former dean of the University of Kansas School of Law, says he too thinks the high court will lean in favor of upholding the lawsuit. "This is not just about punishing an offensive message. It is about their methods and tactics. They chose a private funeral and a grieving family to publicize their message," he said. "It is targeted to cause severe emotional distress."

The case will be heard Wednesday.

Taylor Reveley, president of the College of William and Mary, spoke at the funeral for Weaver. He described the protest as troubling but best left ignored. "They had no impact. They were kept well away from the church," he said.

He compared the protesters to the Florida minister who gained worldwide attention for threatening to burn the Koran. "If these people didn't get any publicity, they would go away. But we are much better off as a society if we let people protest, even if their views are abhorrent," he said.

david.savage@latimes.com

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