U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joins the National Gang Intelligence Center

The FBI is pleased to announce the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has joined the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC). Established in 2005, the NGIC is an FBI led multi-agency effort that integrates the gang intelligence assets of the FBI and other federal, state, and local law enforcement entities to serve as a centralized intelligence resource for gang information and analytical support
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“The addition of CBP will only strengthen the partnership of the NGIC aimed at combating violent crime and gangs,” said Assistant Director Kenneth W. Kaiser.“ The NGIC provides the law enforcement community with a one-stop-shop mechanism for submitting requests for information and conducting relational analysis of gang information as it pertains to past and present gang investigations.”

“CBP has to be an intelligence driven organization to provide information to frontline officers to protect the nation from criminal gangs,” said U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham. “CBP's Office of Intelligence and Operations Coordination recently announced an Anti-Gang Initiative related to fighting the growth, migration, criminal activity, and affiliation of gangs who pose a threat to our nation's security and to public safety. We welcome the ability to add the resources of NGIC to our ongoing efforts to collaborate with other federal agencies and our state and local partners to combat this unique threat.”

The NGIC is designed to combine the manpower and resources of partner federal agencies responsible for investigating and gathering intelligence on violent street and motorcycle gangs. The center supports law enforcement agencies through timely and accurate information sharing and strategic/tactical analysis of federal, state, and local law enforcement information focusing on the growth, migration, criminal activity, and association of gangs that pose a significant threat to communities throughout the U.S.

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Chicagoland Antique Advertising, Slot-Machine & Jukebox Show

The Chicagoland Antique Advertising, Slot-Machine & Jukebox Show is the largest show of its type in the world! It's very popular with dealers and collectors from across the country and around the world for it's wide range of high-quality antique collectibles. Please don't confuse the show with typical antique shows. Their dealers generally don't bring furniture, glassware, dishes or other similar types of antiques to the show. The public is cordially invited to attend this semi-annual event, held in 2 exhibition halls at the beautiful Pheasant Run Resort Hotel.

Show Days and Times:

• Saturday, November 15th, 2008 - 9:30 am-5:00 pm - $7.00 per person
• Sunday, November 16th, 2008 - 9:30 am-3:00 pm - $7.00 per person
• Friday, November 14th, 2008 is Early Bird Preview Day - $50.00 per person 7:00 am-5:00 pm (Good for admission all 3 days)

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Is Pope Benedict XVI on the Lam from the Mob?

John Paul II set a powerful precedent for how a Roman Pontiff can take on the Italian Mob. In May 1993, after a high-profile spate of Mafia killings, the Pope denounced the Mob's "culture of death" in an emotionally charged sermon in Agrigento, Sicily, the home turf of Cosa Nostra. "I say to those responsible: Convert!" he intoned, shaking his clenched fist and index finger. "One day, the judgment of God will arrive!" Two months after the dramatic papal appeal, the Mafia bombed two historic churches in Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI was certainly aware of that confrontation as he prepared this past weekend to visit Pompeii. The southern Italian city, near the ruins of an ancient site buried by a Mount Vesuvius volcanic eruption, lies in the heart of the region controlled by the Camorra. The Naples-based organized crime syndicate has lately tightened its grip on the impoverished region, with more killing sprees and a high-profile death threat against a young writer. But unlike John Paul, Benedict said nothing at all about the Mob in his Sunday homily. Did the Pope back down in the face of one of Italy's most entrenched and destructive evils?

Many were counting on another papal mention about the Mob as violence in the region reaches new heights. Last month, a Camorra death squad unleashed a fury of submachine-gun fire, killing seven immigrants in a single attack. A week ago, reports surfaced of a pointed death threat against Naples writer Roberto Saviano, 28, whose best-selling book Gomorrah, and the movie based on it, reveal the extent of the Camorra's influence and dirty dealings. While the Pope remained silent, more than 100,000 people signed a petition this week in support of Saviano, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Desmond Tutu, Orhan Pamuk, Günter Grass, Jose Saramago and Jonathan Franzen. "It is intolerable that all this can happen in Europe, and in 2008," reads the petition. "The state must make every effort possible to protect (Saviano) and defeat the Camorra." The movie version of Saviano's book, directed by Matteo Garrone, won second prize at the Cannes film festival this year and is Italy's entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.

When reporters asked why the Pope had said nothing on such a burning topic in Pompeii, Vatican spokesman Reverand Ciro Benedettini said Benedict had intentionally avoided referring to the Camorra as a "show of respect for decent people" of the region, who "are the vast majority." The Pope, the spokesman added, had also talked about organized crime in a visit last year to Naples, though admittedly not with the same confrontational tone as John Paul did in Sicily.

Benedict's silence has generated a small rumbling of dissent from both inside and outside the church. "It could seem that there is fear now to confront the Mob, and call it by its name," Don Vitaliano Della Sala, a leftist priest from nearby Avellino, said in a Monday radio interview. He drew a parallel between Benedict's decision not to speak out Sunday and the controversy stirring over Pope Pius XII's alleged silence about the Holocaust during World War II.

That analogy seems a stretch: the Italian authorities' decades-long battle to uproot the Mob bears little comparison to the Nazis' state-run policy of genocide. But the comparison between Benedict and his immediate predecessor is illuminating. John Paul not only possessed a pastoral charisma that made him beloved among his flock, but also he could call on a reserve of public passion in order to confront a problem facing his church or the world at large. That kind of fire is simply not in this Pontiff's arsenal.

Thanks to Jeff Israely

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