Principal ignored earlier report of abuse by teacher, Deasy says

The principal of a Wilmington elementary school received an allegation about four years ago that a teacher behaved inappropriately with a student but took no action, Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. John Deasy said Thursday.

The same teacher was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of committing lewd acts and sexually abusing 20 children and an adult, law enforcement authorities said.

Deasy said he removed the principal from her job after learning last March that she hadn't acted on the earlier allegation. “When I reviewed the personnel file of the teacher,” said Deasy. “It came to my attention that several years earlier, in about 2008, there was an allegation that was not properly reported. That was enough for me” to remove the principal.

Deasy added that the teacher’s file “contained notations of suspected misconduct along the lines of what he was later charged with, which was inappropriate touching of a student. I don’t know the specific nature of the touching.”

Robert Pimentel, 57, who taught at George de la Torre Jr. Elementary School in Wilmington, was taken into custody by Los Angeles Police Department detectives, who had launched an investigation in March after several fourth-grade girls said they had been inappropriately touched.

Prosecutors filed 15 charges against Pimentel involving a dozen alleged victims. The charges allege sexual abuse and lewd acts on a child and cover the period from September 2011 to March 2012, according to court records. Authorities said the teacher is suspected of inappropriately touching children under and over their clothing.

Detectives suspect Pimentel victimized an additional eight children and the adult, LAPD Capt. Fabian Lizarraga told The Times.

The nation's second-largest school district has been rocked in the last year by allegations of sexual misconduct involving teachers and students.

In January 2012, a teacher at Miramonte Elementary School in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood was arrested on suspicion of spoon-feeding semen to students in a classroom and taking dozens of photos. Some of the photos show students blindfolded and being fed allegedly tainted cookies.

An audit released in November concluded that the district failed to promptly report 150 cases of suspected teacher misconduct — including allegations of sexual contact with students — to state authorities as required by law. District officials say they have addressed breakdowns highlighted in the audit.

Parents of children at the Wilmington school were informed within 72 hours after Pimentel was removed from the campus, and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing was promptly notified, the district said.

District officials prepared a "notice of termination" for Pimentel and the principal, which they had planned to present to the Board of Education in April 2012, Deasy said. But both employees retired before the board meeting.

He said Pimentel and the principal will receive their full pensions because they retired before the district took action against them.

"Can you go back and fire someone who's already retired? No, you can't," Deasy said.

Detectives launched their investigation of Pimentel after some of the children told their parents they had been abused, Lizarraga said. The parents then alerted officers at the LAPD's Harbor Division.

Of the 20 children allegedly abused, 19 were students at the school, according to Lizarraga. He said detectives came across the other child as they gathered evidence.

Deasy told The Times that his recollection was that the adult was a co-worker of Pimentel.

Pimentel, who lives in Newport Beach, had been a teacher with the district since 1974, police said. He was taken into custody shortly after noon Wednesday and was being held on $12-million bail. He is expected to appear in court Thursday.

In the Miramonte Elementary case, former teacher Mark Berndt, 62, is charged with 23 counts of lewd conduct and is awaiting trial. He has pleaded not guilty.

In a separate case, a jury recently awarded $6.9 million to a 14-year-old boy who was molested while he was in fifth grade at Queen Anne Place Elementary School in the Mid-Wilshire area.

The teacher in that incident pleaded no contest to two counts of a lewd act on a child and to continuous sexual abuse of a child younger than 14. He is serving a 16-year prison sentence.

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Lookin' Hot in the Cold: Technical Outerwear for Winter

Winter outerwear has come a long way from the clammy straight-jackets your mom would wrap around you every time you wanted to go outside.

Every year, we see jackets, shells, bibs and pants that are more breathable, lighter, stretchier, and just plain better-looking than last year's crop.

We sifted through the countless options on the racks and selected a dozen or so favorite items, then took the whole pile of gear with us to Squaw Valley in California's Lake Tahoe region. We worked them over on the slopes for three days, then took the lot deeper into to the Sierras for another week. We also tried to pick something for everyone -- from Gore-Tex jeans (pre-distressed!) to a snow shell that costs as much as a mortgage payment, and even a down jacket hand-stuffed by followers of a 16th-century pacifist. It's going to be a weird, Wired winter.

The Phenomenon jacket from Spyder is pretty much what would happen if you said, "Screw the cost, let's make a jacket with the best materials we can find." The list of what went into the $1,200 garment looks like the textile version of the Robb Report.

The waterproof membrane is made of Schoeller c-change, which opens its pores to vent heat and moisture when the interior warms up. Custom-embossed stretch polyester lines the interior. Primaloft One insulation lines the body and sleeves. And the outer shell is composed of DWR-treated stretch polyester material with wool accents. Premium!

It was warm, waterproof and comfortable on the slopes, with no movement restricted, plenty of waterproof zip pockets and ventilation, and so many features, I actually lost track of everything that was special about it while I was showing it off to people. To top it all off, the jacket looks like money -- the slim cut and wool accents made it fit right in over a suit and tie on the way to office Christmas parties. -- Billy Brown

WIRED Fantastic material choices all around. Tough waterproof outer with great stretch. Removable hood and snow skirt. Gusseted cuffs are adjustable. Plays dress-up better than Eliza Doolittle.

TIRED I've owned cheaper cars.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Photos by Ariel Zambelich/Wired

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Aretha Franklin Approves of Beyonce’s ‘Beautiful’ Inaugural Lip-Syncing

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Aretha Franklin r-e-s-p-e-c-t’s Beyoncé’s decision to use a “beautiful” pre-recorded rendition of the national anthem during President Barack Obama‘s inaugural ceremony on Monday.

The Queen of Soul, who sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” during Obama‘s inauguration in 2009, told ABC News that the cold weather warranted Beyoncé lip-syncing “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“The weather down there was about 46 or 44 degrees and for most singers that is just not good singing weather,” Franklin said after noting the news gave her a good laugh. “When I heard that I just really cracked up. I thought it was really funny, but she did a beautiful job with the pre-record … next time I’ll probably do the same.”

She says “next time,” because she wasn’t afraid to brave below-freezing temperatures in Washington D.C. when she performed live four years ago. “In 2009, I wanted everything to be live and on the real side for the moment as it actually happened. Those were my feelings for my performance, but having come face to face with 28, 22 degrees I am not surprised she pre-recorded,” Franklin continued. “She wanted her performance to be what she wanted to be and she realized it wasn’t going to be the way she wanted it to be or she was going to be running a risk. That’s probably why she pre-recorded exactly how she wanted it to be heard.”

The 70-year-old Franklin isn’t the only music star shrugging off Beyoncégate. Jennifer Lopeztold Jon Stewart on Tuesday’s episode of “The Daily Show” that “all performers do have to” lip-sync at some point in their career.

“You know, sometimes it happens,” she explained. “When you’re in certain stadiums and in certain venues, they do pre-record things.”

Lopez’s former “American Idol” judging panel partner, Steven Tyler, isn’t particularly bothered by Beyoncé lip-syncing either. “It doesn’t matter,” he told TMZ.

“Beyoncé’s so hot, she can do anything,” the Aerosmith frontman added to give some shallow perspective. “Let’s just get real.”

Whether or not Beyoncé would agree with Tyler’s flattering statement, she has yet to comment on the matter herself, aside from posting the performance on her Tumblr — an action that suggests she has no regrets.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Marine Band that previously admitted to using a pre-recorded track to back her performance and suggested Beyoncé did the same for her vocals, has changed its tune.

“Each piece of music scheduled for performance in the Inauguration is pre-recorded for use in case of freezing temperatures, equipment failure, or extenuating circumstances,” a spokesman for the Marines told TheWrap on Tuesday. “Regarding Ms. Knowles-Carter’s vocal performance, no one in the Marine Band is in a position to assess whether it was live or pre-recorded.”

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: The Drawn Out Process of the Medical Lawsuit

She was one of the most highly sought radiologists in her hospital, a doctor with the uncanny ability to divine the source of maladies from the shadows of black and white X-ray films.

But one afternoon my colleague revealed that she had been named in a lawsuit, accused of overlooking an irregularity on a scan several years earlier. The patient suing believed she had missed the first sign of a now rampant cancer.

While other radiologists tried to assure her that the “irregularity” was well within what might be considered normal, my colleague became consumed by the what-if’s. What if she had lingered longer on the fateful film? What if she had doubled-checked her reading before signing off on the report?

She began staying late at the hospital to review, and re-review, her work. And she worried about her professional reputation, asking herself if colleagues were avoiding her and wondering if she would have trouble renewing her license or hospital privileges. At home she felt distracted, and her husband complained that she had become easy to anger.

After almost a year of worry, my colleague went to court and was cleared of the charges. But it was, at best, a Pyrrhic victory. “I lost year of my life,” she told me. “That lawsuit completely consumed me.”

She was not the first colleague to recount such an experience. And far from overstating the issue, doctors may in fact be underestimating the extent to which malpractice not only consumes their time but also undermines their ability to care for patients, according to a new study in Health Affairs.

For more than 150 years, the medical malpractice system has loomed over health care, and doctors, the vast majority of whom will face a lawsuit sometime in their professional lives, remain ever vocal in their criticism of the system. But with few malpractice claims resulting in payments and liability premiums holding steady or even declining, doctors have started to shift their focus from the financial aspects of malpractice to the untold hours spent focused on lawsuits instead of patient care.

Now researchers are putting numbers to those doctors’ assertions. For the current study, they combed through the malpractice claims records of more than 40,000 doctors covered by a national liability insurer. They took note of the length of each claim, as well as any payments made, the severity of the injury and the specialty practiced by the physician being sued.

Most claims required almost two years from initiation of the lawsuit, and almost four years from the time of the event in question, to reach a resolution. Cases that resulted in payment or that involved more severe patient injuries almost always took longer.

The researchers then looked at the proportion of a doctor’s career spent on an open claim. They discovered that on average, doctors spent more than four years of their career — more time than they spent in medical school — working through one or more lawsuits. Certain specialists were more vulnerable than others. Neurosurgeons, for example, averaged well over 10 years, or over a quarter of their professional life, embroiled in lawsuits.

“These findings help to show why doctors care so intensely about malpractice and what they might face over the course of a lifetime,” said Seth A. Seabury, lead author and a senior economist at the RAND corporation in Santa Monica, Calif.

The results also underscore what plaintiffs must endure. Previous studies have shown that when medical errors occur, patients prefer to have physicians acknowledge the mistake quickly and apologize as soon as possible. Though less than 5 percent of all errors ever lead to a malpractice claim, lengthy claims drag out the process and, in certain cases, hold up what may be appropriate compensation.

Patients not directly involved can be affected as well. A legitimate malpractice lawsuit sometimes results in doctors or even entire institutions changing how they practice in order to prevent similar events from happening again. Lengthy legal wrangling can slow down these potentially important improvements.

While these findings are only an indirect measure of the extent to which malpractice claims can affect doctors’ and patients’ lives, the study makes clear the importance of considering time, as well as cost, when looking at malpractice reform.

“If we could get these cases resolved faster, we might be able to improve the efficiency of the system, lower costs and even improve quality of care for patients,” Dr. Seabury said.

“Having these things drag on is a problem for doctors and patients.”

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DealBook: Choice for S.E.C. Is Ex-Prosecutor, in Signal to Wall St.

President Obama is tapping Mary Jo White, a former United States attorney turned white-collar defense lawyer, to be the next chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the White House.

Mr. Obama is set to announce the nomination at the White House on Thursday afternoon. As part of the event, the White House will also renominate Richard Cordray to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a role he has held for the last year under a recess appointment.

In its choice of Ms. White and Mr. Cordray, the White House is sending a signal about the importance of holding Wall Street accountable for wrongdoing. Both picks are former prosecutors.

Regulatory chiefs are often market experts or academics. But Ms. White spent nearly a decade as United States attorney in New York, the first woman named to this post. Among her prominent cases, she oversaw the prosecution of the mafia boss John Gotti as well as the people responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. She is now working the other side, defending Wall Street firms and executives as a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton.

As the attorney general of Ohio, Mr. Cordray made a name for himself suing Wall Street companies in the wake of the financial crisis. He undertook a series of prominent lawsuits against big names in the finance world, including Bank of America and the American International Group.

The White House expects Ms. White, 65, and Mr. Cordray, 53, to draw on their prosecutorial backgrounds while carrying out a broad regulatory agenda under the Dodd-Frank Act. Congress enacted the law, which mandates a regulatory overhaul, in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said Ms. White has “an incredibly impressive resume” and that her appointment along with the renomination of Mr. Cordray sends an important signal.

“The president believes that appointment and the renomination he’s making today demonstrate the commitment he has to carrying out Wall Street reform, making sure we have the rules of the road that are necessary and that are being enforced in a way” to avoid a crisis like that of 2008, Mr. Carney said.

Another White House official added that Ms. White and Mr. Cordray will “serve in top enforcement roles” in part so that “Wall Street is held accountable and middle-class Americans never again are harmed by the abuses of a few.”

Ms. White will succeed Elisse B. Walter, a longtime S.E.C. official, who took over as chairwoman after Mary L. Schapiro stepped down as the agency’s leader in December. Mr. Cordray joined the consumer bureau in 2011 as its enforcement director.

The nominations could face a mixed reception in Congress. The Senate already declined to confirm Mr. Cordray, with Republicans vowing to block any candidate for the consumer bureau, a new agency created to rein in the financial industry’s excesses. It is unclear whether the White House and Mr. Cordray will face another standoff the second time around.

Mr. Carney argued that there were no substantive objections to Mr. Cordray’s confirmation, only political ones. “He is absolutely the right person for the job,” Mr. Carney said.

Ms. White is expected to receive broader support on Capitol Hill. Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat, declared that Ms. White was a “tough-as-nails prosecutor” who “will not shy away from enforcing the laws to ensure that markets operate fairly.”

But she could face questions about her command of arcane financial minutiae. She was a director of the Nasdaq stock market, but has otherwise built her career on the law-and-order side of the securities industry.

People close to the S.E.C. note, however, that her husband, John W. White, is a veteran of the agency. From 2006 through 2008, he was head of the S.E.C.’s division of corporation finance, which oversees public companies’ disclosures and reporting.

Some Democrats also might question her path through the revolving door, in and out of government. While seen as a strong enforcer as a United States attorney, she went on in private practice to defend some of Wall Street’s biggest names, including Kenneth D. Lewis, a former head of Bank of America. She also represented JPMorgan Chase and the board of Morgan Stanley. Last year, the N.F.L. hired her to investigate allegations that the New Orleans Saints carried out a bounty system for hurting opponents.

Consumer advocates generally praised her appointment on Thursday. “Mary Jo White was a tough, smart, no-nonsense, broadly experienced and highly accomplished prosecutor,” said Dennis Kelleher, head of Better Markets, the nonprofit advocacy group. “She knew who the bad guys were, went after them and put them in prison when they broke the law.”

The appointment comes after the departure of Ms. Schapiro, who announced she would step down from the S.E.C. in late 2012. In a four-year tenure, she overhauled the agency after it was blamed for missing the warning signs of the crisis.

Since her exit, Washington and Wall Street have been abuzz with speculation about the next S.E.C. chief. President Obama quickly named Ms. Walter, then a Democratic commissioner at the agency, but her appointment was seen as a short-term solution. It is unclear if she will shift back to the commissioner role if Ms. White is confirmed.

In the wake of Ms. Schapiro’s exit, several other contenders surfaced, including Sallie L. Krawcheck, a longtime Wall Street executive. Richard G. Ketchum, chairman and chief executive of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street’s internal policing organization, was also briefly mentioned as a long-shot contender.

Peter Baker and Kitty Bennett contributed reporting

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Clinton takes responsibility for Benghazi failures

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing tough questions from Senate Republicans on the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, insisted Wednesday that she has moved aggressively to address security weaknesses laid bare by the assault.

In long-awaited testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Clinton acknowledged her personal responsibility as head of the State Department, and stressed that she has begun implementing all 29 corrective steps recommended by an in-house investigative board.

“I take responsibility,” said Clinton, whose appearance before the committtee was delayed for a month by a stomach flu, a concussion and a brief hospitalization. “Nobody is more committed to getting this right.”

PHOTOS: U.S. ambassador killed in Libya

At the same time, Clinton said she hadn’t seen specific requests for additional security personnel for the lightly protected diplomatic mission in Benghazi, saying those requests went to lower ranking “security professionals” at the State Department.

“I did not see these requests,” she said. “I did not approve them. I did not deny them.”

Clinton’s voice broke as she described seeing the bodies of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans killed in the attack as they arrived on a miltary cargo plane in Maryland.

“I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters,” she said.

She said that 85% of the review committee’s recommendations are “on track” to be implemented by the end on March. She will testify again Wednesday afternoon before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Complete coverage of the 2013 inauguration

Republicans sought to make the administration’s flawed handling of security at the Benghazi mission a political issue during the presidential campaign. But it’s unclear if they can open important new avenues of inquiry to keep the controversy alive. Clinton’s job approval ratings remain high as she prepares to step down from office — and perhaps consider a 2016 presidential run.

Clinton and the Senate committee also discussed the terrorism risks in North Africa, which have become painfully apparent in recent days with a bloody attack on an international gas field facility in Algeria.

She said many people wondered why the Pentagon created a new military command for Africa a few years ago. Now, she said, the question was whether Africa Command doesn’t need a large increase to its budget to deal with the expanding terror threat. 

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

paul.richter@latimes.com

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How People Smell Themselves

By Sarah C.P. Williams, ScienceNOW

You might not be able to pick your fingerprint out of an inky lineup, but your brain knows what you smell like. For the first time, scientists have shown that people recognize their own scent based on their particular combination of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins, molecules similar to those used by animals to choose their mates. The discovery suggests that humans can also exploit the molecules to differentiate between people.

“This is definitely new and exciting,” says Frank Zufall, a neurobiologist at Saarland University’s School of Medicine in Homburg, Germany, who was not involved in the work. “This type of experiment had never been done on humans before.”

MHC peptides are found on the surface of almost all cells in the human body, helping inform the immune system that the cells are ours. Because a given combination of MHC peptides—called an MHC type—is unique to a person, they can help the body recognize invading pathogens and foreign cells. Over the past 2 decades, scientists have discovered that the molecules also foster communication between animals, including mice and fish. Stickleback fish, for example, choose mates with different MHC types than their own. Then, in 1995, researchers conducted the now famous “sweaty T-shirt study,” which concluded that women prefer the smell of men who have different MHC genes than themselves. But no studies had shown a clear-cut physiological response to MHC proteins.

In the new work, Thomas Boehm, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Germany, and colleagues first tested whether women can recognize lab-made MHC proteins resembling their own. After showering, 22 women applied two different solutions to their armpits and decided which odor they liked better. The experiment was repeated two to six times for each participant. Women preferred to wear a synthetic scent containing their own MHC proteins, but only if they were nonsmokers and didn’t have a cold. The study did not determine which scents women preferred on other people, but past studies on perfume have shown that individuals prefer different smells on themselves than on others.

The researchers wanted to know whether the preferences were truly rooted in the brain’s response to the proteins. So next, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure changes in the brains of 19 different women when they smelled the various solutions, in aerosol form puffed toward their noses. “Sure enough, there again was a clear difference between the response to self and non-self peptides,” Boehm says. “There was a particular region of the brain that was only activated by peptides resembling a person’s own MHC molecules.” The brain had a similar response to all non-self MHC combinations, suggesting that any preference for how other people smell is a preference for non-self, not for particular MHC types.

Claus Wedekind, a biologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland who spearheaded the original smelly T-shirt study, says the results fit well with his research over the past decade. “After our original T-shirt study, I had the impression that people had preferences between different MHC types,” he says. “But based on later studies, it seemed that people are actually just distinguishing between self and non-self. This new paper certainly confirms this view.”

Past studies on perfumes have shown that different scents amplify the natural aromas of different MHC types — peach might mesh best with your own smell, whereas vanilla might jibe with your best friend’s odor. Boehm says his group’s new findings on distinguishing self from non-self smells, which appear online today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, could help researchers understand why people prefer different perfumes on themselves than on others. They might, he says, choose to wear a perfume that amplifies their own MHC peptides, but they favor perfumes on another person that amplify a non-self MHC type. But questions on the physiology of sensing MHC peptides still abound. Researchers don’t know which receptors in the nose actually sense MHC proteins, because humans don’t have the vomeronasal organ that animals use to sniff out the molecules. “We would really like to continue this research to identify the receptors that recognize these peptides in humans,” Boehm says.

Other molecules the human body produces could also influence individual smells and scent preferences, Zufall says. The individuality of people’s microbiomes—the collection of microbes living in and on us—could also be linked to the body’s odor or preferences, Wedekind says. “We just don’t know the full physiology yet,” he said, “But this is a good start.”

This story provided by ScienceNOW, the daily online news service of the journal Science.

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Live Nation to rock London Olympic park in 2013

LONDON (Reuters) – Live Nation Entertainment said on Tuesday it had secured exclusive rights to host major music concerts in London’s Olympic Park and Stadium complex in 2013.

Live Nation, which hosted more than 400 concerts and performances across Europe in the past year, said it has already planned to hold its Wireless Festival and Hard Rock Calling events at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in the summer.

“We are delighted to be staging music concerts at the London Olympics venue, which last year became a globally-recognized site for outstanding performances – both in sport and music,” John Reid, president of concerts at Live Nation Europe said in a statement on the company’s website.

The announcement is a boost for the British government, which provided almost 9 billion pounds ($ 14.25 billion) of public money to build and provide security for the London 2012 Games, quashing criticism that the east London site could become an expensive white elephant after a glorious summer of sporting drama.

The London Legacy Development Corp (LLDC), set up to transform the park into a viable space for entertainment, leisure and work, said the concerts will form part of a series of events that include a cycling festival, a weekend of music and other activities.

LLDC Chairman and London Mayor Boris Johnson said the Live Nation deal was a ringing endorsement of the efforts made to transform the park.

“Along with the other major international sports events we have already secured this latest news proves that the park has a very bright future indeed,” Johnson said in a statement on the LLDC website.

The LLDC is negotiating with West Ham United to try to finalise a deal for the Premier League soccer club to move into the Olympic Stadium.

The deal also provides Live Nation with a venue to stage events that had become a bone of contention for some residents living near London’s Royal Parks, who complained that its summer concerts failed to end at the appointed time and were too loud.

Concert-goers were surprised in July when microphones were suddenly switched off on Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen in mid-duet when a Hyde Park concert ran over time.

Financial terms of the London Olympic venue contract have not been disclosed. Details of the music acts and dates to perform at the site will be announced in the first quarter of 2013, Live Nation said.

($ 1 = 0.6316 British pounds)

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Keith Weir)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Have a Health Question? Ask Well

The Well section of The New York Times is starting a new online featured called Ask Well. If you have a question about fitness, nutrition, illness or family health, the staff of The New York Times Health section is ready to help you find the answer.

How do you solve the problem of back pain caused by sitting in an office chair all day? Do you still need the flu shot even if you’ve had the flu? What’s the best way to heal tennis elbow? Those are some of the questions we’ve already answered in Ask Well.

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Tara Parker-Pope speaks about Ask Well.

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All questions submitted to Ask Well will be reviewed by the health staff. We’ll post selected questions and let readers vote on those they would most like to see answered. You can ask a question, vote for your favorites and read answered questions on the Ask Well Questions Page.

While Ask Well is not a source for personal medical advice (only your doctor can give you that), we can offer readers health information from the experts and guide you to various resources to help you make informed decisions. So let’s get started. Tell us what’s on your mind, and Ask Well will provide the answers.

Ask Well

Your health questions answered by Times journalists and experts.

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Bits Blog: Keeping the Internet Safe From Governments

Even before the World Conference on International Telecommunications took place last month in Dubai, Internet activists anticipated trouble. So did Congress, which issued a resolution calling it “essential” that the Internet remain “stable, secure and free from governmental control.”

The worries proved prescient. The conference, which supposedly was going to modernize some ancient regulations, instead offered a treaty that in the eyes of some critics would have given repressive states permission to crack down on dissent. The United States delegate refused to sign it. Fifty-four other countries, including Canada, Peru, Japan and most of Western Europe, voted no as well.

The OpenNet Initiative estimates that about a third of Internet users live in countries that engage in “substantive” or “pervasive” blocking of Internet content. They tended to be among the 89 countries that signed the treaty, including Russia, Cambodia, Iran, China, Cuba, Egypt and Angola.

Those in favor of a free and open Internet have long had a problem with the International Telecommunication Union, the affiliate of the United Nations that ran the conference. They see the I.T.U., which dates back to 1865, as longing for the pre-Internet era, when its influence and fortunes were greater. As a result, activists think, the I.T.U. has become aligned with, and a tool of, countries that desire more governmental control over public speech.

In the wake of the Dubai meeting, there are renewed calls to scale back United States financing of the I.T.U. drastically. The logic is, why are taxpayers supporting an organization whose motives they oppose?

“Paying for both sides of a conflict is unsustainable and illogical, and should simply be corrected,” says the De-Fund the I.T.U. Web site, which has posted a petition on the White House Web site.

The De-Fund site notes that the petition is not asking the United States government to take an unprecedented first step. “Many of our free-market democratic allies, led by Germany, France, Spain and Finland, have already de-funded the I.T.U. Likewise, right-thinking American companies like I.B.M., Cingular, Microsoft, Fox, Agilent, Sprint, Harris, Loral and Xerox, and others, have already withdrawn their private-sector contributions from the I.T.U.”

The petition was the brainchild of Bill Woodcock, the Berkeley-based research director of Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit institute. “This is really about whether people should be allowed to say what they think,” Mr. Woodcock said. “The Internet enables free speech, and that makes it very dangerous to countries that try to control public discourse.”

The United States government contributes about 8 percent of the I.T.U.’s budget. The 55 countries that voted against the treaty contribute about three-quarters of it. If the White House receives 25,000 signatures by Feb. 10, it will review and quite possibly act on the petition. As of Tuesday, it had about 600 signatures with minimal publicity.

A spokesman for the I.T.U., which is based in Switzerland, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

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