NSA faces backlash over collecting phone data

WASHINGTON — A reporter recently asked the National Security Agency's chief a blunt question: Why can't he come up with a better example of a terrorism plot foiled through the bulk collection of U.S. phone records?

In the weeks since Edward Snowden disclosed that the NSA had been collecting and storing the calling histories of nearly every American, NSA Director Keith Alexander and other U.S. officials have cited only one case as having been discovered exclusively by searching those records: some San Diego men who sent $8,500 to Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

Although intelligence officials and the White House continue to defend the mass data collection, support has clearly eroded among the public and in Congress. A coalition of libertarians on the right and civil liberties advocates on the left came six votes short of passing an amendment in the House last week to curtail bulk collection of phone records, but no one believes that will be the last word.

Even Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the House and Senate intelligence committee leaders who have defended the NSA's collection of phone records since the program was disclosed, are among those who concede that changes would probably be needed.

"We will work to find additional privacy protections with this program," Rogers said during House debate over the amendment.

The shift in public opinion about the government's data collection efforts is clear. A Pew Research Center survey released Friday asked Americans whether they were more concerned that government programs to combat terrorism were going too far and endangering civil liberties or that they were not going far enough and leaving the country unprotected. For the first time since Pew began asking that question in 2004, more Americans, 47%, said their greater concern was the threat to civil liberties, compared with 35% who worried the programs don't go far enough to protect the country.

As recently as 2010, only a third of Americans said they worried the government's anti-terrorism efforts went too far.

In part, that change may reflect the passage of time and the fading of the intense emotions generated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But much of the shift seems attributable to Snowden's disclosures, the resulting debate and the difficulty that intelligence officials have had in convincing the public that their vast and expensive data-collection efforts are actually accomplishing much.

The government "has not done a good job justifying it," said Fred Cate, a privacy law expert and law professor at Indiana University. "I leave open the possibility that there are cases they can't talk about. It's also possible this is an entirely worthless program. Let's face it — a lot of government investments are."

If the government were to curtail the collection of telephone data or drop it entirely, the rollback would not be unprecedented. In 2011, according to Snowden's disclosures, the intelligence agencies quietly discontinued a then-secret program that collected email metadata on Americans — "to" and "from" information, not content — because it wasn't yielding much of value.

U.S. intelligence officials insist the telephone program is different. They collect and store domestic records of telephone calls, they say, so that they never repeat what happened before the Sept. 11 attacks, when an Al Qaeda terrorist was calling partners in Yemen, but the NSA didn't realize the calls were coming from San Diego.

But since Sept. 11, U.S. intelligence agencies have gotten better at tracking terrorists abroad and keeping them from entering the U.S. The collection of phone records may no longer be essential, according to some lawmakers who have studied the subject.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of government surveillance, said last week that he had pressed the intelligence community behind the scenes about the collection of telephone records, and that he would lead an effort to reform NSA surveillance.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said, "I don't think the intelligence community has been very definitive either with the public or with Congress about how often this program has played a role in stopping plots, and what sort of role it has played."

For example, one of the cases that intelligence officials often mention — and that Alexander cited in his reply to the question from Politico's Josh Gerstein during a recent conference in Aspen, Colo. — is the investigation into a 2009 plot to target the New York subway system. But that investigation, although it apparently made use of domestic calling records, began with a tip from a less controversial NSA surveillance program aimed at foreigners.

Outgoing FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress there had been 10 to 12 cases in which the phone data were important, but he offered none besides the one in San Diego, in which, he said, the collection had been "instrumental."

Schiff is pushing three legislative proposals. He wants judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA, which holds secret proceedings to oversee the surveillance, to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Currently, the Supreme Court's chief justice appoints sitting federal judges to the intelligence court. Almost all of its members have been Republican appointees, many with backgrounds as prosecutors or in other executive branch posts, which may incline them to favor the government, critics say.

Schiff also backs a plan pushed by some former judges of the foreign intelligence court to set up a team of lawyers who could argue before the court to represent privacy interests. The judges now consider government surveillance requests in hearings with only the lawyers representing the intelligence agencies present.

Schiff also wants to change the phone records program so that phone service providers keep the records, not the government. The NSA would query the records as needed with court approval, much as it does now. Administration officials have said that the government would have to pay the companies to store the vast amounts of data involved and that having the data held separately by each company would greatly increase the costs and complexity of the system.

"I think there will be reforms to the FISA court, and I think there will be a restructuring of this program," Schiff said.

Regardless of what happens in the near future, another date is looming: In 2015, the law that gives the government its surveillance authority will be up for renewal. For the current programs to continue, a bill would have to pass the House and Senate.

Without major changes, "there are not the votes" to keep the current data collection programs running, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) told intelligence officials at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this month.

In 2001, Sensenbrenner sponsored the Patriot Act, the law under which the Justice Department says it is acting. He believes the government has stretched the law he helped write.

Unless the intelligence agencies agree to changes, he warned, they're "going to lose it entirely."

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

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Bloodshed rises in streets of Egypt

CAIRO — Doctors rushed over floors scattered with bandages as the dead, covered with blood-drenched sheets, were identified by relatives in a makeshift hospital. The bodies were carried toward streets filled with mourners in a nation slipping deeper into violence.

The call to prayer pierced the sky and faded as thousands of Islamists, many tending wounds, prostrated in front of the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque, site of a monthlong sit-in. Worshipers whispered of vengeance and pictures of the newly fallen fluttered in the sun.

This was Cairo on a scorching Saturday after predawn clashes in which the Health Ministry reported that at least 80 people, mostly supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement, had been killed by police and civilian gunmen.

The ferocity of those hours spoke to an Egypt that appears to be coming undone. The deaths suggested a perilous turning point in a struggle between Islamists and the new military-backed government over the country's political destiny. Morsi was overthrown in a coup on July 3 and his supporters are demanding his reinstatement.

The killings stoked resolve among the Brotherhood but they also illustrated the narrowing options the group faces against a military that claims a popular mandate to stem "violence and terrorism."

The army has vowed to end the demonstration at the mosque soon, which may ignite more bloodshed at a time that foreign capitals are increasingly worried about Egypt's trajectory.

"We must live in dignity or die trying to get it," said Moataz Moussa, standing near the barricades. "They call us terrorists but we are not. We have only stones against the army's weapons."

The military is seeking to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which over the last two years rose from an outlawed opposition group to Egypt's dominant political force. The campaign of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, against Islamists mirrors the harsh tactics of other former military leaders, including President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising.

"This is not about being a Brotherhood member or not. We just want freedom and justice," said Ahmed Wahba, a burly man whose shirt was wet with sweat. "We stood in line for hours last year to vote for a new democracy. But what good has it done us? Democracy is down the toilet. This is a bloody coup."

There are conflicting reports of what happened to Wahba's compatriots between midnight and daybreak Saturday.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said security forces fired tear gas to stop Morsi supporters from blocking the 6th of October Bridge, a key Cairo thoroughfare. The police responded, he said, after Morsi's followers marched toward the bridge from the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque.

Ibrahim did not explicitly say whether security forces fired other weapons. He said, however, that "the police have not and will not aim any firearm at the chest of any protester."

The general prosecutor's office said that Morsi supporters fired at police first. The state news agency reported that the pro-Morsi "crowd attacked security forces with shotguns, pistols and Molotov cocktails."

That account differs from the version told by Brotherhood members, wounded protesters and doctors in the field hospital near the mosque. They say 120 people were killed, many of them by live ammunition, when police and unknown gunmen, including snipers, attacked peaceful protesters in clashes that intensified through the night.

"The early injuries we saw were mostly from tear gas. Then, a little later, we treated birdshot wounds," said Dr. Esam Arafa, who volunteered at the field hospital. "But around 2 a.m. there was a terrifying escalation. We saw injuries from live bullets. Protesters were shot in the chest, head and eyes. I've seen no less than 1,000 wounded patients."

The field hospital radiated fatigue and sorrow. The wounded and the dead were ferried in by trucks, cars and motorcycles. Medical supplies were quickly unpacked; stitches were counted, birdshot plucked from skin. Women wept and men parted to make way for television cameras and corpses carried from a room that served as a morgue.

"I saw things I didn't want to see," said one man.

"The world must know this," said another.

"We are Egyptians," said a third.

By late morning, rubber gloves streaked with blood littered the floor and the stench of death began to rise.

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Landmark California regulations under federal fire

WASHINGTON — California has a reputation for having some of the nation's most aggressive rules on workplace safety, consumer protection and environmental quality — regulations that force companies to make costly adjustments to the way they do business worldwide.

Now some of those companies, banking on congressional gridlock and sympathetic Republican leaders in the House, are fighting back. And officials in Sacramento worry that some of the state's landmark laws may be in danger.

At the top of their worry list is a measure with bipartisan support that would strengthen federal environmental laws on dangerous chemicals, but at the price of rolling back a pioneering California law that tries to protect consumers from the most toxic materials. State leaders are scrambling to fend off the bill, which they say is written so broadly that it also could undermine California's clean water laws and its effort to combat global warming.

"We are alarmed," said Debbie Raphael, director of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. "We have programs in place that are very effective and have moved the marketplace to benefit not just California but the entire world. This … puts all that at risk."

The U.S. government has the power to block the laws of California or any other state if the statutes have an impact on interstate commerce or otherwise interfere with federal authority. But Washington has tended to do that sparingly. Democrats there typically don't have a problem with the state's liberal policies, and Republicans have preferred to avoid infringing on states' rights.

But Republicans have taken up the argument that they need to curb such regulatory trailblazing to protect the rights of other states, particularly deep-red ones that don't want their industries faced with either following California's rules or being cut off from the country's biggest market. They argue that the state's regulations have gotten more aggressive. State officials say a more conservative Republican Party now puts business interests ahead of protecting states from Washington's authority.

Beyond the proposed federal Chemical Safety Improvement Act, a wide range of California measures are under siege. Agricultural interests have persuaded much of Congress that a state law prohibiting the sale of eggs laid by hens confined to tiny cages should be invalidated. California's foie gras ban has been under attack, as has its ban on the sale of inefficient light bulbs.

A proposed rule by one federal agency threatens the state's ban on cutting fins off sharks to sell for soup. A House panel recently amended a transportation bill to shift final authority over California's planned high-speed rail line to Congress, where many Republicans complain the project infringes on the rights of landowners in its path.

A measure that would have blocked California's authority to enforce state water law protections for endangered species made it through the House last year, though it stalled in the Senate.

"It's a constant push and pull," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law. "When a state puts in regulations a business finds onerous, it turns to Congress."

The toxics legislation has caused particular alarm in California.

It was hatched in the Senate, which has usually been the chamber that has protected California against legislation pushed by the Republican-controlled House. It was co-written by the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a liberal who had strong ties to consumer groups, and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), a conservative who has long championed less regulation for industry.

The two struck a compromise that would significantly strengthen the federal Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate chemicals.

Under current law, EPA authority is limited to chemicals that already have been proved to be dangerous. As a result, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of chemicals on the market has been tested by the federal government. Vitter agreed to back new authority for the EPA to screen all chemicals for safety. But in exchange, he insisted on provisions, backed by the chemical industry, that could prohibit states from adding regulations of their own.

In the spring, news of the deal was hailed as a breakthrough on Capitol Hill, where consumer activists and environmental groups had lost repeated battles to strengthen the existing law, which they considered toothless.

Then details from the fine print emerged.

California officials objected that the measure not only would prohibit the state from imposing its own rules on the manufacture and sale of chemicals, but also that the language had such broad sweep, it could invalidate several other state laws as well.

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris described the measure in an email to The Times as "a no-win that puts Californians at risk from toxic chemicals and inhibits the development of safer, cleaner products." Her office has concluded that the measure would imperil Proposition 65, which voters enacted in 1986 to limit contamination of groundwater and make businesses disclose when consumers are exposed to carcinogens.

The California Environmental Protection Agency has "identified dozens of California laws and regulations that may be at risk of preemption" under the chemicals bill, Secretary Matt Rodriquez wrote in a letter to senators. He warned that it "could jeopardize California's ability to control greenhouse gases and thereby meet the state's targets under AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006."

Vitter's office did not respond to requests for comment. Other supporters of the measure say it is not intended to unravel the state's toxics law, its global warming policies or other state laws. They say it will be amended to make that clear.

"This is a compromise we think supports national commerce and innovation and also recognizes places where a state rule is appropriate," said Anne Womack Kolton, vice president of communications at the American Chemistry Council. "It gives states the ability to preserve some of their authority."

California officials are looking to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who shares some of their concerns and heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, to take up their fight at a hearing this week.

Others in the delegation are exasperated.

"I have a state that wants to set the bar higher," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), who helped write several major California regulatory laws while serving in the Assembly. "On human health, on animal cruelty, on all sorts of things. The federal government should be supporting that. But there are some industries that are on a race to the bottom."

evan.halper@latimes.com

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Landmark California regulations under federal fire

WASHINGTON — California has a reputation for having some of the nation's most aggressive rules on workplace safety, consumer protection and environmental quality — regulations that force companies to make costly adjustments to the way they do business worldwide.

Now some of those companies, banking on congressional gridlock and sympathetic Republican leaders in the House, are fighting back. And officials in Sacramento worry that some of the state's landmark laws may be in danger.

At the top of their worry list is a measure with bipartisan support that would strengthen federal environmental laws on dangerous chemicals, but at the price of rolling back a pioneering California law that tries to protect consumers from the most toxic materials. State leaders are scrambling to fend off the bill, which they say is written so broadly that it also could undermine California's clean water laws and its effort to combat global warming.

"We are alarmed," said Debbie Raphael, director of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. "We have programs in place that are very effective and have moved the marketplace to benefit not just California but the entire world. This … puts all that at risk."

The U.S. government has the power to block the laws of California or any other state if the statutes have an impact on interstate commerce or otherwise interfere with federal authority. But Washington has tended to do that sparingly. Democrats there typically don't have a problem with the state's liberal policies, and Republicans have preferred to avoid infringing on states' rights.

But Republicans have taken up the argument that they need to curb such regulatory trailblazing to protect the rights of other states, particularly deep-red ones that don't want their industries faced with either following California's rules or being cut off from the country's biggest market. They argue that the state's regulations have gotten more aggressive. State officials say a more conservative Republican Party now puts business interests ahead of protecting states from Washington's authority.

Beyond the proposed federal Chemical Safety Improvement Act, a wide range of California measures are under siege. Agricultural interests have persuaded much of Congress that a state law prohibiting the sale of eggs laid by hens confined to tiny cages should be invalidated. California's foie gras ban has been under attack, as has its ban on the sale of inefficient light bulbs.

A proposed rule by one federal agency threatens the state's ban on cutting fins off sharks to sell for soup. A House panel recently amended a transportation bill to shift final authority over California's planned high-speed rail line to Congress, where many Republicans complain the project infringes on the rights of landowners in its path.

A measure that would have blocked California's authority to enforce state water law protections for endangered species made it through the House last year, though it stalled in the Senate.

"It's a constant push and pull," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law. "When a state puts in regulations a business finds onerous, it turns to Congress."

The toxics legislation has caused particular alarm in California.

It was hatched in the Senate, which has usually been the chamber that has protected California against legislation pushed by the Republican-controlled House. It was co-written by the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a liberal who had strong ties to consumer groups, and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), a conservative who has long championed less regulation for industry.

The two struck a compromise that would significantly strengthen the federal Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate chemicals.

Under current law, EPA authority is limited to chemicals that already have been proved to be dangerous. As a result, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of chemicals on the market has been tested by the federal government. Vitter agreed to back new authority for the EPA to screen all chemicals for safety. But in exchange, he insisted on provisions, backed by the chemical industry, that could prohibit states from adding regulations of their own.

In the spring, news of the deal was hailed as a breakthrough on Capitol Hill, where consumer activists and environmental groups had lost repeated battles to strengthen the existing law, which they considered toothless.

Then details from the fine print emerged.

California officials objected that the measure not only would prohibit the state from imposing its own rules on the manufacture and sale of chemicals, but also that the language had such broad sweep, it could invalidate several other state laws as well.

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris described the measure in an email to The Times as "a no-win that puts Californians at risk from toxic chemicals and inhibits the development of safer, cleaner products." Her office has concluded that the measure would imperil Proposition 65, which voters enacted in 1986 to limit contamination of groundwater and make businesses disclose when consumers are exposed to carcinogens.

The California Environmental Protection Agency has "identified dozens of California laws and regulations that may be at risk of preemption" under the chemicals bill, Secretary Matt Rodriquez wrote in a letter to senators. He warned that it "could jeopardize California's ability to control greenhouse gases and thereby meet the state's targets under AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006."

Vitter's office did not respond to requests for comment. Other supporters of the measure say it is not intended to unravel the state's toxics law, its global warming policies or other state laws. They say it will be amended to make that clear.

"This is a compromise we think supports national commerce and innovation and also recognizes places where a state rule is appropriate," said Anne Womack Kolton, vice president of communications at the American Chemistry Council. "It gives states the ability to preserve some of their authority."

California officials are looking to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who shares some of their concerns and heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, to take up their fight at a hearing this week.

Others in the delegation are exasperated.

"I have a state that wants to set the bar higher," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), who helped write several major California regulatory laws while serving in the Assembly. "On human health, on animal cruelty, on all sorts of things. The federal government should be supporting that. But there are some industries that are on a race to the bottom."

evan.halper@latimes.com

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NSA faces backlash over collecting phone data

WASHINGTON — A reporter recently asked the National Security Agency's chief a blunt question: Why can't he come up with a better example of a terrorism plot foiled through the bulk collection of U.S. phone records?

In the weeks since Edward Snowden disclosed that the NSA had been collecting and storing the calling histories of nearly every American, NSA Director Keith Alexander and other U.S. officials have cited only one case as having been discovered exclusively by searching those records: some San Diego men who sent $8,500 to Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

Although intelligence officials and the White House continue to defend the mass data collection, support has clearly eroded among the public and in Congress. A coalition of libertarians on the right and civil liberties advocates on the left came six votes short of passing an amendment in the House last week to curtail bulk collection of phone records, but no one believes that will be the last word.

Even Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the House and Senate intelligence committee leaders who have defended the NSA's collection of phone records since the program was disclosed, are among those who concede that changes would probably be needed.

"We will work to find additional privacy protections with this program," Rogers said during House debate over the amendment.

The shift in public opinion about the government's data collection efforts is clear. A Pew Research Center survey released Friday asked Americans whether they were more concerned that government programs to combat terrorism were going too far and endangering civil liberties or that they were not going far enough and leaving the country unprotected. For the first time since Pew began asking that question in 2004, more Americans, 47%, said their greater concern was the threat to civil liberties, compared with 35% who worried the programs don't go far enough to protect the country.

As recently as 2010, only a third of Americans said they worried the government's anti-terrorism efforts went too far.

In part, that change may reflect the passage of time and the fading of the intense emotions generated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But much of the shift seems attributable to Snowden's disclosures, the resulting debate and the difficulty that intelligence officials have had in convincing the public that their vast and expensive data-collection efforts are actually accomplishing much.

The government "has not done a good job justifying it," said Fred Cate, a privacy law expert and law professor at Indiana University. "I leave open the possibility that there are cases they can't talk about. It's also possible this is an entirely worthless program. Let's face it — a lot of government investments are."

If the government were to curtail the collection of telephone data or drop it entirely, the rollback would not be unprecedented. In 2011, according to Snowden's disclosures, the intelligence agencies quietly discontinued a then-secret program that collected email metadata on Americans — "to" and "from" information, not content — because it wasn't yielding much of value.

U.S. intelligence officials insist the telephone program is different. They collect and store domestic records of telephone calls, they say, so that they never repeat what happened before the Sept. 11 attacks, when an Al Qaeda terrorist was calling partners in Yemen, but the NSA didn't realize the calls were coming from San Diego.

But since Sept. 11, U.S. intelligence agencies have gotten better at tracking terrorists abroad and keeping them from entering the U.S. The collection of phone records may no longer be essential, according to some lawmakers who have studied the subject.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of government surveillance, said last week that he had pressed the intelligence community behind the scenes about the collection of telephone records, and that he would lead an effort to reform NSA surveillance.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said, "I don't think the intelligence community has been very definitive either with the public or with Congress about how often this program has played a role in stopping plots, and what sort of role it has played."

For example, one of the cases that intelligence officials often mention — and that Alexander cited in his reply to the question from Politico's Josh Gerstein during a recent conference in Aspen, Colo. — is the investigation into a 2009 plot to target the New York subway system. But that investigation, although it apparently made use of domestic calling records, began with a tip from a less controversial NSA surveillance program aimed at foreigners.

Outgoing FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress there had been 10 to 12 cases in which the phone data were important, but he offered none besides the one in San Diego, in which, he said, the collection had been "instrumental."

Schiff is pushing three legislative proposals. He wants judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA, which holds secret proceedings to oversee the surveillance, to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Currently, the Supreme Court's chief justice appoints sitting federal judges to the intelligence court. Almost all of its members have been Republican appointees, many with backgrounds as prosecutors or in other executive branch posts, which may incline them to favor the government, critics say.

Schiff also backs a plan pushed by some former judges of the foreign intelligence court to set up a team of lawyers who could argue before the court to represent privacy interests. The judges now consider government surveillance requests in hearings with only the lawyers representing the intelligence agencies present.

Schiff also wants to change the phone records program so that phone service providers keep the records, not the government. The NSA would query the records as needed with court approval, much as it does now. Administration officials have said that the government would have to pay the companies to store the vast amounts of data involved and that having the data held separately by each company would greatly increase the costs and complexity of the system.

"I think there will be reforms to the FISA court, and I think there will be a restructuring of this program," Schiff said.

Regardless of what happens in the near future, another date is looming: In 2015, the law that gives the government its surveillance authority will be up for renewal. For the current programs to continue, a bill would have to pass the House and Senate.

Without major changes, "there are not the votes" to keep the current data collection programs running, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) told intelligence officials at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this month.

In 2001, Sensenbrenner sponsored the Patriot Act, the law under which the Justice Department says it is acting. He believes the government has stretched the law he helped write.

Unless the intelligence agencies agree to changes, he warned, they're "going to lose it entirely."

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

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Bloodshed rises in streets of Egypt

CAIRO — Doctors rushed over floors scattered with bandages as the dead, covered with blood-drenched sheets, were identified by relatives in a makeshift hospital. The bodies were carried toward streets filled with mourners in a nation slipping deeper into violence.

The call to prayer pierced the sky and faded as thousands of Islamists, many tending wounds, prostrated in front of the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque, site of a monthlong sit-in. Worshipers whispered of vengeance and pictures of the newly fallen fluttered in the sun.

This was Cairo on a scorching Saturday after predawn clashes in which the Health Ministry reported that at least 80 people, mostly supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement, had been killed by police and civilian gunmen.

The ferocity of those hours spoke to an Egypt that appears to be coming undone. The deaths suggested a perilous turning point in a struggle between Islamists and the new military-backed government over the country's political destiny. Morsi was overthrown in a coup on July 3 and his supporters are demanding his reinstatement.

The killings stoked resolve among the Brotherhood but they also illustrated the narrowing options the group faces against a military that claims a popular mandate to stem "violence and terrorism."

The army has vowed to end the demonstration at the mosque soon, which may ignite more bloodshed at a time that foreign capitals are increasingly worried about Egypt's trajectory.

"We must live in dignity or die trying to get it," said Moataz Moussa, standing near the barricades. "They call us terrorists but we are not. We have only stones against the army's weapons."

The military is seeking to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which over the last two years rose from an outlawed opposition group to Egypt's dominant political force. The campaign of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, against Islamists mirrors the harsh tactics of other former military leaders, including President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising.

"This is not about being a Brotherhood member or not. We just want freedom and justice," said Ahmed Wahba, a burly man whose shirt was wet with sweat. "We stood in line for hours last year to vote for a new democracy. But what good has it done us? Democracy is down the toilet. This is a bloody coup."

There are conflicting reports of what happened to Wahba's compatriots between midnight and daybreak Saturday.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said security forces fired tear gas to stop Morsi supporters from blocking the 6th of October Bridge, a key Cairo thoroughfare. The police responded, he said, after Morsi's followers marched toward the bridge from the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque.

Ibrahim did not explicitly say whether security forces fired other weapons. He said, however, that "the police have not and will not aim any firearm at the chest of any protester."

The general prosecutor's office said that Morsi supporters fired at police first. The state news agency reported that the pro-Morsi "crowd attacked security forces with shotguns, pistols and Molotov cocktails."

That account differs from the version told by Brotherhood members, wounded protesters and doctors in the field hospital near the mosque. They say 120 people were killed, many of them by live ammunition, when police and unknown gunmen, including snipers, attacked peaceful protesters in clashes that intensified through the night.

"The early injuries we saw were mostly from tear gas. Then, a little later, we treated birdshot wounds," said Dr. Esam Arafa, who volunteered at the field hospital. "But around 2 a.m. there was a terrifying escalation. We saw injuries from live bullets. Protesters were shot in the chest, head and eyes. I've seen no less than 1,000 wounded patients."

The field hospital radiated fatigue and sorrow. The wounded and the dead were ferried in by trucks, cars and motorcycles. Medical supplies were quickly unpacked; stitches were counted, birdshot plucked from skin. Women wept and men parted to make way for television cameras and corpses carried from a room that served as a morgue.

"I saw things I didn't want to see," said one man.

"The world must know this," said another.

"We are Egyptians," said a third.

By late morning, rubber gloves streaked with blood littered the floor and the stench of death began to rise.

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NSA faces backlash over collecting phone data

WASHINGTON — A reporter recently asked the National Security Agency's chief a blunt question: Why can't he come up with a better example of a terrorism plot foiled through the bulk collection of U.S. phone records?

In the weeks since Edward Snowden disclosed that the NSA had been collecting and storing the calling histories of nearly every American, NSA Director Keith Alexander and other U.S. officials have cited only one case as having been discovered exclusively by searching those records: some San Diego men who sent $8,500 to Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

Although intelligence officials and the White House continue to defend the mass data collection, support has clearly eroded among the public and in Congress. A coalition of libertarians on the right and civil liberties advocates on the left came six votes short of passing an amendment in the House last week to curtail bulk collection of phone records, but no one believes that will be the last word.

Even Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the House and Senate intelligence committee leaders who have defended the NSA's collection of phone records since the program was disclosed, are among those who concede that changes would probably be needed.

"We will work to find additional privacy protections with this program," Rogers said during House debate over the amendment.

The shift in public opinion about the government's data collection efforts is clear. A Pew Research Center survey released Friday asked Americans whether they were more concerned that government programs to combat terrorism were going too far and endangering civil liberties or that they were not going far enough and leaving the country unprotected. For the first time since Pew began asking that question in 2004, more Americans, 47%, said their greater concern was the threat to civil liberties, compared with 35% who worried the programs don't go far enough to protect the country.

As recently as 2010, only a third of Americans said they worried the government's anti-terrorism efforts went too far.

In part, that change may reflect the passage of time and the fading of the intense emotions generated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But much of the shift seems attributable to Snowden's disclosures, the resulting debate and the difficulty that intelligence officials have had in convincing the public that their vast and expensive data-collection efforts are actually accomplishing much.

The government "has not done a good job justifying it," said Fred Cate, a privacy law expert and law professor at Indiana University. "I leave open the possibility that there are cases they can't talk about. It's also possible this is an entirely worthless program. Let's face it — a lot of government investments are."

If the government were to curtail the collection of telephone data or drop it entirely, the rollback would not be unprecedented. In 2011, according to Snowden's disclosures, the intelligence agencies quietly discontinued a then-secret program that collected email metadata on Americans — "to" and "from" information, not content — because it wasn't yielding much of value.

U.S. intelligence officials insist the telephone program is different. They collect and store domestic records of telephone calls, they say, so that they never repeat what happened before the Sept. 11 attacks, when an Al Qaeda terrorist was calling partners in Yemen, but the NSA didn't realize the calls were coming from San Diego.

But since Sept. 11, U.S. intelligence agencies have gotten better at tracking terrorists abroad and keeping them from entering the U.S. The collection of phone records may no longer be essential, according to some lawmakers who have studied the subject.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of government surveillance, said last week that he had pressed the intelligence community behind the scenes about the collection of telephone records, and that he would lead an effort to reform NSA surveillance.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said, "I don't think the intelligence community has been very definitive either with the public or with Congress about how often this program has played a role in stopping plots, and what sort of role it has played."

For example, one of the cases that intelligence officials often mention — and that Alexander cited in his reply to the question from Politico's Josh Gerstein during a recent conference in Aspen, Colo. — is the investigation into a 2009 plot to target the New York subway system. But that investigation, although it apparently made use of domestic calling records, began with a tip from a less controversial NSA surveillance program aimed at foreigners.

Outgoing FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress there had been 10 to 12 cases in which the phone data were important, but he offered none besides the one in San Diego, in which, he said, the collection had been "instrumental."

Schiff is pushing three legislative proposals. He wants judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA, which holds secret proceedings to oversee the surveillance, to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Currently, the Supreme Court's chief justice appoints sitting federal judges to the intelligence court. Almost all of its members have been Republican appointees, many with backgrounds as prosecutors or in other executive branch posts, which may incline them to favor the government, critics say.

Schiff also backs a plan pushed by some former judges of the foreign intelligence court to set up a team of lawyers who could argue before the court to represent privacy interests. The judges now consider government surveillance requests in hearings with only the lawyers representing the intelligence agencies present.

Schiff also wants to change the phone records program so that phone service providers keep the records, not the government. The NSA would query the records as needed with court approval, much as it does now. Administration officials have said that the government would have to pay the companies to store the vast amounts of data involved and that having the data held separately by each company would greatly increase the costs and complexity of the system.

"I think there will be reforms to the FISA court, and I think there will be a restructuring of this program," Schiff said.

Regardless of what happens in the near future, another date is looming: In 2015, the law that gives the government its surveillance authority will be up for renewal. For the current programs to continue, a bill would have to pass the House and Senate.

Without major changes, "there are not the votes" to keep the current data collection programs running, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) told intelligence officials at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this month.

In 2001, Sensenbrenner sponsored the Patriot Act, the law under which the Justice Department says it is acting. He believes the government has stretched the law he helped write.

Unless the intelligence agencies agree to changes, he warned, they're "going to lose it entirely."

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

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Bloodshed rises in streets of Egypt

CAIRO — Doctors rushed over floors scattered with bandages as the dead, covered with blood-drenched sheets, were identified by relatives in a makeshift hospital. The bodies were carried toward streets filled with mourners in a nation slipping deeper into violence.

The call to prayer pierced the sky and faded as thousands of Islamists, many tending wounds, prostrated in front of the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque, site of a monthlong sit-in. Worshipers whispered of vengeance and pictures of the newly fallen fluttered in the sun.

This was Cairo on a scorching Saturday after predawn clashes in which the Health Ministry reported that at least 80 people, mostly supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement, had been killed by police and civilian gunmen.

The ferocity of those hours spoke to an Egypt that appears to be coming undone. The deaths suggested a perilous turning point in a struggle between Islamists and the new military-backed government over the country's political destiny. Morsi was overthrown in a coup on July 3 and his supporters are demanding his reinstatement.

The killings stoked resolve among the Brotherhood but they also illustrated the narrowing options the group faces against a military that claims a popular mandate to stem "violence and terrorism."

The army has vowed to end the demonstration at the mosque soon, which may ignite more bloodshed at a time that foreign capitals are increasingly worried about Egypt's trajectory.

"We must live in dignity or die trying to get it," said Moataz Moussa, standing near the barricades. "They call us terrorists but we are not. We have only stones against the army's weapons."

The military is seeking to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which over the last two years rose from an outlawed opposition group to Egypt's dominant political force. The campaign of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, against Islamists mirrors the harsh tactics of other former military leaders, including President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising.

"This is not about being a Brotherhood member or not. We just want freedom and justice," said Ahmed Wahba, a burly man whose shirt was wet with sweat. "We stood in line for hours last year to vote for a new democracy. But what good has it done us? Democracy is down the toilet. This is a bloody coup."

There are conflicting reports of what happened to Wahba's compatriots between midnight and daybreak Saturday.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said security forces fired tear gas to stop Morsi supporters from blocking the 6th of October Bridge, a key Cairo thoroughfare. The police responded, he said, after Morsi's followers marched toward the bridge from the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque.

Ibrahim did not explicitly say whether security forces fired other weapons. He said, however, that "the police have not and will not aim any firearm at the chest of any protester."

The general prosecutor's office said that Morsi supporters fired at police first. The state news agency reported that the pro-Morsi "crowd attacked security forces with shotguns, pistols and Molotov cocktails."

That account differs from the version told by Brotherhood members, wounded protesters and doctors in the field hospital near the mosque. They say 120 people were killed, many of them by live ammunition, when police and unknown gunmen, including snipers, attacked peaceful protesters in clashes that intensified through the night.

"The early injuries we saw were mostly from tear gas. Then, a little later, we treated birdshot wounds," said Dr. Esam Arafa, who volunteered at the field hospital. "But around 2 a.m. there was a terrifying escalation. We saw injuries from live bullets. Protesters were shot in the chest, head and eyes. I've seen no less than 1,000 wounded patients."

The field hospital radiated fatigue and sorrow. The wounded and the dead were ferried in by trucks, cars and motorcycles. Medical supplies were quickly unpacked; stitches were counted, birdshot plucked from skin. Women wept and men parted to make way for television cameras and corpses carried from a room that served as a morgue.

"I saw things I didn't want to see," said one man.

"The world must know this," said another.

"We are Egyptians," said a third.

By late morning, rubber gloves streaked with blood littered the floor and the stench of death began to rise.

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Landmark California regulations under federal fire

WASHINGTON — California has a reputation for having some of the nation's most aggressive rules on workplace safety, consumer protection and environmental quality — regulations that force companies to make costly adjustments to the way they do business worldwide.

Now some of those companies, banking on congressional gridlock and sympathetic Republican leaders in the House, are fighting back. And officials in Sacramento worry that some of the state's landmark laws may be in danger.

At the top of their worry list is a measure with bipartisan support that would strengthen federal environmental laws on dangerous chemicals, but at the price of rolling back a pioneering California law that tries to protect consumers from the most toxic materials. State leaders are scrambling to fend off the bill, which they say is written so broadly that it also could undermine California's clean water laws and its effort to combat global warming.

"We are alarmed," said Debbie Raphael, director of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. "We have programs in place that are very effective and have moved the marketplace to benefit not just California but the entire world. This … puts all that at risk."

The U.S. government has the power to block the laws of California or any other state if the statutes have an impact on interstate commerce or otherwise interfere with federal authority. But Washington has tended to do that sparingly. Democrats there typically don't have a problem with the state's liberal policies, and Republicans have preferred to avoid infringing on states' rights.

But Republicans have taken up the argument that they need to curb such regulatory trailblazing to protect the rights of other states, particularly deep-red ones that don't want their industries faced with either following California's rules or being cut off from the country's biggest market. They argue that the state's regulations have gotten more aggressive. State officials say a more conservative Republican Party now puts business interests ahead of protecting states from Washington's authority.

Beyond the proposed federal Chemical Safety Improvement Act, a wide range of California measures are under siege. Agricultural interests have persuaded much of Congress that a state law prohibiting the sale of eggs laid by hens confined to tiny cages should be invalidated. California's foie gras ban has been under attack, as has its ban on the sale of inefficient light bulbs.

A proposed rule by one federal agency threatens the state's ban on cutting fins off sharks to sell for soup. A House panel recently amended a transportation bill to shift final authority over California's planned high-speed rail line to Congress, where many Republicans complain the project infringes on the rights of landowners in its path.

A measure that would have blocked California's authority to enforce state water law protections for endangered species made it through the House last year, though it stalled in the Senate.

"It's a constant push and pull," said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law. "When a state puts in regulations a business finds onerous, it turns to Congress."

The toxics legislation has caused particular alarm in California.

It was hatched in the Senate, which has usually been the chamber that has protected California against legislation pushed by the Republican-controlled House. It was co-written by the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), a liberal who had strong ties to consumer groups, and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), a conservative who has long championed less regulation for industry.

The two struck a compromise that would significantly strengthen the federal Environmental Protection Agency's authority to regulate chemicals.

Under current law, EPA authority is limited to chemicals that already have been proved to be dangerous. As a result, only a fraction of the tens of thousands of chemicals on the market has been tested by the federal government. Vitter agreed to back new authority for the EPA to screen all chemicals for safety. But in exchange, he insisted on provisions, backed by the chemical industry, that could prohibit states from adding regulations of their own.

In the spring, news of the deal was hailed as a breakthrough on Capitol Hill, where consumer activists and environmental groups had lost repeated battles to strengthen the existing law, which they considered toothless.

Then details from the fine print emerged.

California officials objected that the measure not only would prohibit the state from imposing its own rules on the manufacture and sale of chemicals, but also that the language had such broad sweep, it could invalidate several other state laws as well.

California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris described the measure in an email to The Times as "a no-win that puts Californians at risk from toxic chemicals and inhibits the development of safer, cleaner products." Her office has concluded that the measure would imperil Proposition 65, which voters enacted in 1986 to limit contamination of groundwater and make businesses disclose when consumers are exposed to carcinogens.

The California Environmental Protection Agency has "identified dozens of California laws and regulations that may be at risk of preemption" under the chemicals bill, Secretary Matt Rodriquez wrote in a letter to senators. He warned that it "could jeopardize California's ability to control greenhouse gases and thereby meet the state's targets under AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006."

Vitter's office did not respond to requests for comment. Other supporters of the measure say it is not intended to unravel the state's toxics law, its global warming policies or other state laws. They say it will be amended to make that clear.

"This is a compromise we think supports national commerce and innovation and also recognizes places where a state rule is appropriate," said Anne Womack Kolton, vice president of communications at the American Chemistry Council. "It gives states the ability to preserve some of their authority."

California officials are looking to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who shares some of their concerns and heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, to take up their fight at a hearing this week.

Others in the delegation are exasperated.

"I have a state that wants to set the bar higher," said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), who helped write several major California regulatory laws while serving in the Assembly. "On human health, on animal cruelty, on all sorts of things. The federal government should be supporting that. But there are some industries that are on a race to the bottom."

evan.halper@latimes.com

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Asiana crash focuses scrutiny on foreign pilots

The Asiana Airlines crash in San Francisco earlier this month in which three died and dozens were injured has focused attention on foreign airline safety and training procedures at a time when international air travel has boomed.

Federal investigators are trying to determine how three pilots who were in the cockpit allowed the landing speed and altitude of their Boeing 777, which had no known mechanical problems, to drop to dangerous levels. The crew's training, qualifications and experience are under examination, accident investigation experts say.

Asiana Airlines has defended its safety record and, in a statement to The Times, said its pilot training program meets or exceeds South Korean, U.S. and international standards. But in the wake of the San Francisco crash, carrier officials added that they were "in the process of reexamining our procedures and training."

Significant disparities exist between the safety practices of major U.S. airlines and those of some foreign operators, experts say.

The United States and a handful of European nations, by a wide margin, have better-trained pilots, more sophisticated regulatory agencies that closely monitor operations, and airlines that vastly exceed minimum government requirements, according to a wide range of aviation experts in the U.S.

Although all commercial airlines that fly into the U.S. must meet minimum international standards, only a few rise to the same level as the domestic industry.

"I refer to the United States as the gold standard," said Marion Blakey, former chief of both the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board and now president of the trade group Aerospace Industries Assn. "It would be impossible to point to a safer system."

To be sure, many foreign airlines have excellent safety records and well-trained crews. Accident rates and fatalities have been declining worldwide since 2000.

But international accident statistics bear out Blakey's assessment.

Since 1990, foreign-based airlines have accounted for 87% of nearly 300 crashes worldwide, even though they represent a much smaller share of passenger traffic. The FAA has restricted or banned air carriers from 23 nations, largely in Asia and Africa, from entering U.S. airspace. European authorities have blacklisted nearly 300 airlines.

Last year, the aviation arm of the United Nations and the International Air Transport Assn., which represents more than 240 carriers, launched a safety task force in Africa, where the accident rate is more than four times the world average. In addition, the FAA is evaluating India's Directorate General for Civil Aviation because of recent lapses in airline safety, some involving Air India pilots.

Although Asiana is not among the restricted airlines, it has had at least six serious safety incidents since 1990, including the San Francisco crash. The most deadly was a 1993 crash of a Boeing 737, which struck a mountain ridge while trying to land in South Korea, killing 68.

Other incidents included a runway collision that heavily damaged a Russian airliner in Alaska and a hard landing in Japan in 2009 that damaged the plane's rear fuselage. Japanese investigators determined that the pilot erred by coming in with the nose too high.

The largest U.S. carriers have not had a major crash in more than a decade.

The Federal Aviation Administration does not openly talk about the disparity between the safety of U.S. and foreign operators, but it is quietly addressed in some cases.

Air traffic controllers at Los Angeles International Airport, for example, advise foreign pilots to use automated systems for landing — a reflection of concerns about proficiency and language problems.

A century of aviation in the U.S. has resulted in a huge pool of pilots competing for coveted jobs, allowing only the best to move up through the ranks from general aviation to charter operators to commuter airlines to major carriers.

By the time a copilot is seated in a major carrier's cockpit, he or she has thousands of hours of experience, even though the FAA currently requires just 250.

"These foreign countries don't have the pipeline in all the aspects of aviation that we do, not only pilots but mechanics, engineers and inspectors," said Robert Ditchey, a former vice president for operations at US Airways.

Without such a merit-based system, some countries can end up with pilots selected more because of their government or family connections, said Jack Panosian, a former Northwest Airlines captain who teaches aviation law at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona.

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NSA faces backlash over collecting phone data

WASHINGTON — A reporter recently asked the National Security Agency's chief a blunt question: Why can't he come up with a better example of a terrorism plot foiled through the bulk collection of U.S. phone records?

In the weeks since Edward Snowden disclosed that the NSA had been collecting and storing the calling histories of nearly every American, NSA Director Keith Alexander and other U.S. officials have cited only one case as having been discovered exclusively by searching those records: some San Diego men who sent $8,500 to Al Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia.

Although intelligence officials and the White House continue to defend the mass data collection, support has clearly eroded among the public and in Congress. A coalition of libertarians on the right and civil liberties advocates on the left came six votes short of passing an amendment in the House last week to curtail bulk collection of phone records, but no one believes that will be the last word.

Even Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the House and Senate intelligence committee leaders who have defended the NSA's collection of phone records since the program was disclosed, are among those who concede that changes would probably be needed.

"We will work to find additional privacy protections with this program," Rogers said during House debate over the amendment.

The shift in public opinion about the government's data collection efforts is clear. A Pew Research Center survey released Friday asked Americans whether they were more concerned that government programs to combat terrorism were going too far and endangering civil liberties or that they were not going far enough and leaving the country unprotected. For the first time since Pew began asking that question in 2004, more Americans, 47%, said their greater concern was the threat to civil liberties, compared with 35% who worried the programs don't go far enough to protect the country.

As recently as 2010, only a third of Americans said they worried the government's anti-terrorism efforts went too far.

In part, that change may reflect the passage of time and the fading of the intense emotions generated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But much of the shift seems attributable to Snowden's disclosures, the resulting debate and the difficulty that intelligence officials have had in convincing the public that their vast and expensive data-collection efforts are actually accomplishing much.

The government "has not done a good job justifying it," said Fred Cate, a privacy law expert and law professor at Indiana University. "I leave open the possibility that there are cases they can't talk about. It's also possible this is an entirely worthless program. Let's face it — a lot of government investments are."

If the government were to curtail the collection of telephone data or drop it entirely, the rollback would not be unprecedented. In 2011, according to Snowden's disclosures, the intelligence agencies quietly discontinued a then-secret program that collected email metadata on Americans — "to" and "from" information, not content — because it wasn't yielding much of value.

U.S. intelligence officials insist the telephone program is different. They collect and store domestic records of telephone calls, they say, so that they never repeat what happened before the Sept. 11 attacks, when an Al Qaeda terrorist was calling partners in Yemen, but the NSA didn't realize the calls were coming from San Diego.

But since Sept. 11, U.S. intelligence agencies have gotten better at tracking terrorists abroad and keeping them from entering the U.S. The collection of phone records may no longer be essential, according to some lawmakers who have studied the subject.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of government surveillance, said last week that he had pressed the intelligence community behind the scenes about the collection of telephone records, and that he would lead an effort to reform NSA surveillance.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said, "I don't think the intelligence community has been very definitive either with the public or with Congress about how often this program has played a role in stopping plots, and what sort of role it has played."

For example, one of the cases that intelligence officials often mention — and that Alexander cited in his reply to the question from Politico's Josh Gerstein during a recent conference in Aspen, Colo. — is the investigation into a 2009 plot to target the New York subway system. But that investigation, although it apparently made use of domestic calling records, began with a tip from a less controversial NSA surveillance program aimed at foreigners.

Outgoing FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress there had been 10 to 12 cases in which the phone data were important, but he offered none besides the one in San Diego, in which, he said, the collection had been "instrumental."

Schiff is pushing three legislative proposals. He wants judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISA, which holds secret proceedings to oversee the surveillance, to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Currently, the Supreme Court's chief justice appoints sitting federal judges to the intelligence court. Almost all of its members have been Republican appointees, many with backgrounds as prosecutors or in other executive branch posts, which may incline them to favor the government, critics say.

Schiff also backs a plan pushed by some former judges of the foreign intelligence court to set up a team of lawyers who could argue before the court to represent privacy interests. The judges now consider government surveillance requests in hearings with only the lawyers representing the intelligence agencies present.

Schiff also wants to change the phone records program so that phone service providers keep the records, not the government. The NSA would query the records as needed with court approval, much as it does now. Administration officials have said that the government would have to pay the companies to store the vast amounts of data involved and that having the data held separately by each company would greatly increase the costs and complexity of the system.

"I think there will be reforms to the FISA court, and I think there will be a restructuring of this program," Schiff said.

Regardless of what happens in the near future, another date is looming: In 2015, the law that gives the government its surveillance authority will be up for renewal. For the current programs to continue, a bill would have to pass the House and Senate.

Without major changes, "there are not the votes" to keep the current data collection programs running, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) told intelligence officials at a House Judiciary Committee hearing this month.

In 2001, Sensenbrenner sponsored the Patriot Act, the law under which the Justice Department says it is acting. He believes the government has stretched the law he helped write.

Unless the intelligence agencies agree to changes, he warned, they're "going to lose it entirely."

ken.dilanian@latimes.com

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Bloodshed rises in streets of Egypt

CAIRO — Doctors rushed over floors scattered with bandages as the dead, covered with blood-drenched sheets, were identified by relatives in a makeshift hospital. The bodies were carried toward streets filled with mourners in a nation slipping deeper into violence.

The call to prayer pierced the sky and faded as thousands of Islamists, many tending wounds, prostrated in front of the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque, site of a monthlong sit-in. Worshipers whispered of vengeance and pictures of the newly fallen fluttered in the sun.

This was Cairo on a scorching Saturday after predawn clashes in which the Health Ministry reported that at least 80 people, mostly supporters of deposed President Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood movement, had been killed by police and civilian gunmen.

The ferocity of those hours spoke to an Egypt that appears to be coming undone. The deaths suggested a perilous turning point in a struggle between Islamists and the new military-backed government over the country's political destiny. Morsi was overthrown in a coup on July 3 and his supporters are demanding his reinstatement.

The killings stoked resolve among the Brotherhood but they also illustrated the narrowing options the group faces against a military that claims a popular mandate to stem "violence and terrorism."

The army has vowed to end the demonstration at the mosque soon, which may ignite more bloodshed at a time that foreign capitals are increasingly worried about Egypt's trajectory.

"We must live in dignity or die trying to get it," said Moataz Moussa, standing near the barricades. "They call us terrorists but we are not. We have only stones against the army's weapons."

The military is seeking to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, which over the last two years rose from an outlawed opposition group to Egypt's dominant political force. The campaign of Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, against Islamists mirrors the harsh tactics of other former military leaders, including President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in a 2011 uprising.

"This is not about being a Brotherhood member or not. We just want freedom and justice," said Ahmed Wahba, a burly man whose shirt was wet with sweat. "We stood in line for hours last year to vote for a new democracy. But what good has it done us? Democracy is down the toilet. This is a bloody coup."

There are conflicting reports of what happened to Wahba's compatriots between midnight and daybreak Saturday.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said security forces fired tear gas to stop Morsi supporters from blocking the 6th of October Bridge, a key Cairo thoroughfare. The police responded, he said, after Morsi's followers marched toward the bridge from the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque.

Ibrahim did not explicitly say whether security forces fired other weapons. He said, however, that "the police have not and will not aim any firearm at the chest of any protester."

The general prosecutor's office said that Morsi supporters fired at police first. The state news agency reported that the pro-Morsi "crowd attacked security forces with shotguns, pistols and Molotov cocktails."

That account differs from the version told by Brotherhood members, wounded protesters and doctors in the field hospital near the mosque. They say 120 people were killed, many of them by live ammunition, when police and unknown gunmen, including snipers, attacked peaceful protesters in clashes that intensified through the night.

"The early injuries we saw were mostly from tear gas. Then, a little later, we treated birdshot wounds," said Dr. Esam Arafa, who volunteered at the field hospital. "But around 2 a.m. there was a terrifying escalation. We saw injuries from live bullets. Protesters were shot in the chest, head and eyes. I've seen no less than 1,000 wounded patients."

The field hospital radiated fatigue and sorrow. The wounded and the dead were ferried in by trucks, cars and motorcycles. Medical supplies were quickly unpacked; stitches were counted, birdshot plucked from skin. Women wept and men parted to make way for television cameras and corpses carried from a room that served as a morgue.

"I saw things I didn't want to see," said one man.

"The world must know this," said another.

"We are Egyptians," said a third.

By late morning, rubber gloves streaked with blood littered the floor and the stench of death began to rise.

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Impala's leap points to U.S. car rebound

Once a muscle-car icon and a symbol of U.S. automotive dominance, the Chevrolet Impala has more recently seen its image suffer. Bloated and generic, the critics said. More suited for the rental car fleets that account for most of its sales.

Consumer Reports three years ago panned its sloppy handling and second-rate fit and finish.

So it marked a stunning turnaround Thursday when the Impala secured the influential magazine's top overall rating among sedans — a distinction held by Japanese and European models for at least two decades. Posting the third-highest score ever, the Impala ranked behind only such distinguished company as the Tesla Model S and BMW 135i.

The critical acclaim is emblematic of a resurgence by U.S. automakers in sales, profits and consumer perceptions of quality and imaginative design. General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. each posted second-quarter profits of $1.2 billion this week, numbers not seen since before the Great Recession and GM's bankruptcy and bailout.

Recently redesigned models such as Ford's Fusion sedan and Chrysler's Ram pickup truck are proving a hit with critics and consumers, said Jake Fisher,

director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports.

"There are no more excuses," he said. "They can make world-class cars."

Finally, the domestic automakers are focusing on exterior and interior design instead of just hitting sales targets, often with the help of fleet sales, said Alec Gutierrez, an analyst at auto information company Kelley Blue Book.

The improvements are paying off in sales and profits, Gutierrez said. The city of Detroit is in bankruptcy, but the domestic auto industry is booming.

The turnaround has come surprisingly fast. The recession nearly ruined Ford and toppled GM and Chrysler Group into bankruptcy restructurings. Chrysler is expected to report a profitable quarter next week.

Sales are robust. Through the first half of this year, the Detroit automakers have sold 3.6 million vehicles in the U.S., a 10.3% gain from the same period last year. And they have grabbed a full point of market share from the big Asian brands, according to Autodata Corp.

The Big Three are spending some of the new revenue on a hiring binge.

GM has added almost 6,000 U.S. workers in the last six months. Chrysler has added 17,000 U.S. workers since emerging from bankruptcy in 2009. This week, Ford said it will hire about 3,000 salaried workers this year, about 800 more than it had projected in February.

The restructurings at GM and Chrysler, as well as labor agreements that help Ford, are contributing to the industry's success, said John F. Hoffecker, an auto industry consultant with AlixPartners.

"Now they are in a much more level playing field with their global competitors," he said, and that's given the car companies the revenue and breathing room to develop better vehicles.

But domestic automakers still face significant challenges, said Christian Mayes, at auto analyst at financial firm Edward Jones.

"No doubt they are in a better financial position than they were before the downturn," he said, but they need to continue spending heavily on developing new models.

Their Japanese competitors have a financial edge right now because of the slide in the value of the yen, which makes the U.S. sales of those import brands more profitable. They're using that advantage to add features and offer discounts on the cars they sell overseas, a trend that will probably show up on U.S. shores, Mayes said.

Cars such as the Impala could blunt those advantages, analysts said.

The Impala proved a huge hit for Chevrolet after its introduction in 1958. By 1965, the car had shed its garish tail fins and morphed into a sleek, square icon of the muscle-car era. Chevrolet sold 1,068,614 Impalas that year, making it the bestselling car in the U.S. Nearly 1 in 10 cars sold in the U.S. that year were Impalas.

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A post-Deitch MOCA presents major challenge for next director

The house of MOCA is a real fixer-upper. And that could be a problem as the museum seeks a new director to replace Jeffrey Deitch.

Many museum experts wonder who would be willing to take Deitch's place at the helm of the troubled institution, given the museum board's track record of turmoil, MOCA's shaky finances and its sparse curatorial staff. Its 2012-13 budget was the museum's lowest in 15 years.

"I don't think anybody's gonna take the job until MOCA's situation is far clearer," says former Getty Museum Director John Walsh. "Candidates are going to be looking for a board that's well organized, has achieved its financial goal and is together on what kind of place they stand for. I trust the board will not hit the gas, but hit the brakes. Because this is a very big moment."

GRAPHIC: MOCA's ups and downs with Jeffrey Deitch

Some think that the search could be complicated by the involvement of billionaire Eli Broad, the museum board's founding chairman and life trustee and its biggest donor. He played a major role in bringing Deitch to Los Angeles three years ago.

"Whoever they get to replace Jeffrey Deitch will need to have an absolute guarantee of complete curatorial freedom to do the shows they want, when they want," says former Museum of Contemporary Art board member and art collector Dean Valentine, who currently serves on an advisory board of Los Angeles' Hammer Museum.

"Until Eli Broad comes to a recognition that he needs to stay away from the museum in anything other than a financial capacity," he says, "and until the board begins to behave responsibly and financially support the director, then a new director won't have the tools to revive this amazing institution."

Broad did not respond to a request for a comment.

MOCA announced on Wednesday that Deitch, a former New York art gallery owner, would be stepping down following a stormy tenure. Supporters say he helped MOCA revitalize its shows and try new things, while critics say he was unprepared for the administrative and fundraising duties of the job.

MOCA's search committee to find Deitch's replacement will be led by board co-chairs Maria Bell and David Johnson as well as former Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, a former MOCA trustee who is now president of New York's Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

TIMELINE: MOCA in flux

Carol Weisman, a fundraising expert and president of BoardBuilders.com, says the museum's most pressing need is to raise money.

"I don't think you need someone from the arts at all," Weisman says. "If I had my choice of someone who was an arts expert versus someone not in the arts world who'd raised 100 or 200 million, I'd go with the one who brought the money. Great fundraisers listen well and can tap into what people really care about. They can learn the art part."

But an ability to raise money alone isn't enough, says former head of fundraising for the Guggenheim Museum, Charlie Brown.

"They really have to have a background in art or at least arts management. And a vision for MOCA — that's what a fundraiser would sell to a potential donor."

While there is no clear front-runner for the job at this point, art world experts said potential candidates include former MOCA senior curator Ann Goldstein. She is currently the artistic director of Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, and is a close friend of Wachs.

Former MOCA Director Richard Koshalek is another potential candidate.

"He'd know how to rebuild it," says artist John Baldessari, who resigned from MOCA's board when longtime chief curator Paul Schimmel was forced out after a rocky two-year relationship with Deitch.

PHOTOS: Arts and culture in pictures by The Times

Baldessari notes that until recently, Koshalek served as director of the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum.

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Morsi supporters killed as police break up Cairo demonstration

were killed by police and other gunmen early Saturday as security forces moved to break up a monthlong demonstration by thousands of Islamists camped outside a Cairo mosque.

The death toll could rise. Al Jazeera reported that at least 75 people had been killed and thousands injured in predawn clashes that followed warnings from the army for Morsi's backers, including his Muslim Brotherhood movement, to disperse from the Rabaa al Adawiya mosque.

 "Over 100 fathers, brothers, sons, husbands have been lost today," said Gehad Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman, in a tweet. "Their loved ones [are] weeping [for] them but vowing not to let their deaths be in vain."

The casualty numbers could not be independently verified. But the deaths appear to mark a perilous turning point in the battle between Islamists and the new military-backed government over the nation's political future. Morsi was overthrown in a coup on July 3 and his supporters are demanding his reinstatement.

The country's volatile atmosphere – tanks clattered and riot police gathered – sharpened hours after state media reported that prosecutors had accused Morsi of espionage, murder and conspiring with the Palestinian militant group Hamas. The allegations infuriated Morsi's Islamist supporters, who cursed the military and chanted "God is great."

Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, set the mood for a showdown when he vowed this week to crush what he called "terrorism and violence." Even the police, once the reviled symbol of an oppressive state, were seen by many Egyptians as partners with the army against the Brotherhood and ultraconservative Islamists.

Military helicopters, in a bit of psychological warfare, dropped leaflets on Brotherhood supporters at Rabaa al Adawiya.

"Everything the armed forces do is for you [citizens] and holds no resentment for religion or humanity or any threat to life or freedom. So join us hand in hand," the leaflets read. "We are not your enemies and you are not ours, we support you so you may support your country and not raise your weapon against your brother."

The streets around Rabaa al Adawiya were streaked in tear gas, scattered with rocks and busy with ambulances, trucks and motorcycles ferrying the wounded to a field hospital near the mosque. Egyptian media reported that many of those killed and wounded were hit with live ammunition in the upper body. Security forces denied they fired bullets.

Saber Mohamed Hassan, a carpenter, stood with thousands outside the mosque, listening to preachers and vilifying the army.

"Sisi is either going to surrender or is insane with power enough to continue in his call for a civil war," he said. "He might try to disperse the sit-in, but we have a million martyrs ready."

ALSO:

Twin bombings in Pakistan kill at least 40

Pope Francis counsels young prisoners in Brazil

Sixty years of Korean armistice: One war, two histories, no peace

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

 

 

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Militants in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula grow stronger

CAIRO — While the Egyptian army moves to contain violent protests in Cairo and other major cities, extremist attacks on police stations and military checkpoints in the desolate Sinai Peninsula have added a perilous dimension to the country's unrest.

Fueled by weapons smuggled from Libya and widening calls for jihad, the militants have grown stronger on a harsh terrain dominated by Bedouin tribes and criminal clans.

Frequent skirmishes between the army and militant networks have killed dozens in recent weeks. The bloodshed is another pivotal test for the new military-backed government, which is struggling with political divisions, a broken economy and rising sectarianism.

Militant attacks in the Sinai's deserts and lawless scrublands spread amid the security breakdown left by the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. They have intensified since July 3, when Islamist anger deepened after the coup that overthrew President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. The instability has spurred neighboring Israel, which signed a 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, to tighten its border.

Security officials fear a new wave of terrorism reminiscent of the assaults on resorts and tourist sites that killed dozens in late 1990s and early 2000s. Indications that militant plots may be radiating beyond the Sinai arose Wednesday when a bomb hidden beneath a car exploded outside a police station in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, killing one soldier and wounding 28 others.

The Brotherhood said the "attacks would stop if Morsi was reinstated," said a tribal sheik who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. "There's no Al Qaeda in Sinai or anything like that. Maybe fundamentalist ideology exists here, but it was imported to Sinai because of the security vacuum."

It is not clear, however, how much sway the Brotherhood has over extremists in the Sinai. Foreign fighters, including some reportedly from Saudi Arabia and Libya, have joined the ranks of indigenous Bedouins in a mix of interests that includes battling Israel and the West, destroying the Egyptian government and demanding jobs and other opportunities.

Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi, commander of the armed forces, urged Egyptians on Wednesday to hold mass rallies Friday to support a military crackdown against violence and terrorism. The move was a reaction to the chaos in the Sinai and part of the army's strategy to isolate the Brotherhood, which had been the country's most potent political force.

Clashes between pro- and anti-Morsi demonstrators have killed more than 90 people nationwide in recent weeks, raising fear of factional fighting if the Brotherhood refuses to disband its sit-ins and marches.

"I did not deceive the former president," Sisi, who has been vilified by Islamists for unseating Egypt's first freely elected leader, said in a speech. "The former president was advised, directly and indirectly, either to step down or hold a referendum to see if the people want him or not."

The general's comments confirmed "that what happened was a coup against legitimacy, a coup against Islam," said Sheik Ibrahim Menei, head of the Sinai Tribal Union. "I never expected to hear what we heard today; it's an open call for war. Today, what was hidden has been revealed.... The military has bared its fangs."

Hours after Sisi's comments, violence erupted in the Sinai. Gunmen reportedly killed two soldiers and, in a separate incident, three extremists died when a car carrying explosive belts and gasoline canisters exploded in the desert outside the coastal city of El Arish.

Militants, many of them poor Bedouin tribesmen, have carried out at least 30 attacks on security forces in the region over the last three weeks. The extremists' arsenal includes Kalashnikov rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and SAM-7 missiles. The army has sent reinforcements, and desert roads and town squares now rattle with tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Military patrols sweep across the windy landscape on highways while militants and smugglers, traveling on foot and in pickups, traverse a web of dirt paths and shifting sandy roads. Traffickers sneak drugs, weapons and African migrants past the edges of villages and the army barricades, police stations and government buildings.

Two soldiers and a policeman were killed Monday in ambushes targeting a radio station, an administrative office and a police headquarters in El Arish. Another attack that day killed a policeman outside his home.

"This escalation is new [and] has never happened with this intensity before," said Hossam Refai, a pharmacist in the northern Sinai. "There used to be long periods between such attacks, but now there's daily targeting of checkpoints and security installations."

A number of extremists in the Sinai were freed from prisons over the last two years as part of an amnesty program to correct the injustices of Mubarak's police state. Other released prisoners were accused this year of planning terrorist attacks in Cairo and other cities.

Security officials also said Hamas, the radical group in the Gaza Strip that was born out of the Muslim Brotherhood, has dispatched militants to the Sinai. The claim could not be independently verified, but the army has destroyed many tunnels leading into Gaza. Egyptian prosecutors are investigating whether Hamas was involved in a prison break in 2011 that freed Morsi and other Brotherhood members during the uprising against Mubarak.

The Sinai's troubles are rooted in poverty and years of marginalization, especially under the Mubarak government. With few opportunities, tribesmen took to smuggling, including human trafficking and shuttling weapons, cement and groceries through tunnels into Gaza. Some residents helped the terrorist cells that targeted resorts, including bombings in Sharm el Sheik that killed more than 80 people in 2005.

A crackdown on the region followed. The atmosphere further deteriorated amid the security vacuum after Mubarak's downfall. Natural gas lines supplying Israel were blown up repeatedly and a checkpoint between El Arish and the border city of Rafah was hit at least 40 times by militants in 16 months.

Police retreated and the military clumsily stepped in. In August 2012, masked gunmen attacked several military checkpoints, killing 16 border guards. The assault gave Morsi a pretext to purge the military leadership, including Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, then commander of the armed forces.

"There are many people whose interests lie in the absence of security in the Sinai," said Refai. "They do not belong to any Islamist organizations or groups, but they just don't want to see security return, so they may participate in such operations."

jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com

Hassieb is a special correspondent

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Pope Francis visits a Brazil slum, scolds country's leaders

RIO DE JANEIRO — Pope Francis waded into the heart of Brazil's troubles Thursday, telling residents of a notorious slum that their leaders must do a better job of helping them.

The potentially provocative comments by the first pope from the Americas were in keeping with the causes he holds most dear: social justice and reaching out to the poor.

"No one can remain insensitive to the inequalities that persist in the world!" Francis told a rain-soaked crowd in the Varginha favela, or slum, which had been spruced up with new electrical cables and fresh asphalt. Yet ruins of shanty-type housing hulked a few yards away, and drug traffickers' graffiti kept reappearing under the noses of military police.

Public authorities, the pope said to enthusiastic applause, and "those in possession of greater resources" must "never tire of working for a more just world, marked by greater solidarity!"

It was the most political message yet in the pope's pilgrimage to Brazil, and for many it echoed the enormous protests that erupted last month among Brazilians angry over government corruption, excessive state spending on upcoming international sports events, and lack of basic services such as education and healthcare.

Venturing into the favela was probably the trickiest event in the pope's week in Brazil, his first overseas trip since his election in March — one that has brought him back to his native continent.

Security, already frayed by Francis' tendency to ignore restrictive rules, and logistics were complicated. The recently paved streets in the favela are narrow; large parts of the slum are essentially in ruins; and the crowds, while perhaps admiring of the pope, are unpredictable.

But the visit appeared to go off without major hitches.

Varginha, a slum so poor and violent that it's sometimes referred to as the Gaza Strip, has benefited from small improvements aimed at stanching social unrest. But the pope seemed to be saying that such government efforts were not enough.

The most humble, he said, can offer the world a lesson in solidarity.

"Here, as in the whole of Brazil, there are many young people.... You have a particular sensitivity toward injustice, but you are often disappointed by facts that speak of corruption on the part of people who put their own interests before the common good," the pope said at a refurbished soccer field, speaking accented but perfectly understandable Portuguese.

"To you and to all, I repeat: Never yield to discouragement, do not lose trust, do not allow your hope to be extinguished. Situations can change, people can change."

Francis traveled to Varginha, on Rio de Janeiro's northern edge, in a relatively modest silver sedan, not a limo, seated in the back and with the window rolled down. He then transferred to an open-sided popemobile from which he waved at followers swarming the vehicle and kissed the occasional baby hoisted in his direction.

Government sharpshooters lined the route.

Thousands of residents and visiting pilgrims waited in cold, steady rain for the pope's arrival. Earlier in the day, he received the keys to the city and blessed some of Brazil's potential Olympic athletes; later, he met with young people from his native Argentina, then presided over a celebration for World Youth Day, the official reason he is here.

"We were a little worried how this would go, but it was better than we could have imagined," said Varginha resident Rosane Paulino dos Santos, a wedding florist and church volunteer. "How can we explain a blessing like this? … He knows how to speak to the young, and with the less fortunate."

As a priest in his native Buenos Aires, the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio relied on his Jesuit-shaped faith to minister to the impoverished slums of the Argentine capital. At his election, he said the Roman Catholic Church should be "a poor church for the poor."

Many Varginha residents seemed grateful for anyone to shine a light on their plight.

"He's bringing hope to the community, especially the children, and showing them that you can get through anything with faith and goodwill," said Suely Ribeiro, 58, an education worker.

"This is really important for us. He's a representative of humility and caring and, most importantly, true peace, which is something we need here," said Milena de Souza, 26, an office assistant. "Because of all the violence we've had here, hopefully the pope can bless us."

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Mayor Eric Garcetti faces early test over proposed DWP deal

Less than a month after taking office, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti is facing a major test of his power: A union leader who ran a brutal campaign against him in the May election is trying to line up City Council support for a new salary agreement for Department of Water and Power workers.

The high-stakes political drama has been building for weeks in private conversations and closed-door meetings at City Hall. It has prompted Garcetti to risk an early and potentially ugly public fight with a powerful critic, DWP union leader Brian D'Arcy.

The proposed labor agreement also raises the possibility of a struggle between Garcetti and Council President Herb Wesson, who has been pushing for a quick deal with the DWP union, Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

The ultimate terms of the contract will affect future rates that Los Angeles businesses and nearly 4 million residents pay for water and power.

On Thursday evening, Garcetti spokesman Yusef Robb declined to confirm the deal's terms, but denounced it. "It's not good enough. Period," he said. "Mayor Garcetti was elected with a clear mandate to bring real reform to the DWP, and that includes pensions, healthcare and salaries."

Under the deal, outlined in a memo obtained by The Times, more than 8,200 DWP employees would forgo a scheduled raise of 2% to 4% that is supposed to take effect Oct. 1. They would also get no raises the following two years. In 2016, they would get a pay hike of up to 4%.

The proposed agreement also includes reduced retirement benefits for newly hired employees. They would be required to contribute 3% of their salary toward health coverage after they retire — up from zero for current employees. Talks on the deal began months ago, when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was still in office. The memo, written by City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana and DWP General Manager Ron Nichols, says the deal would save the public $6 billion over 30 years. Wesson and D'Arcy both declined to comment Thursday.

The deal includes a settlement of a 2010 lawsuit filed against the city by union representatives on the DWP's pension board. The suit alleges that the city improperly forced the utility to absorb at least $183 million in retirement costs when it shifted hundreds of workers onto the DWP payroll to help balance the general government budget that pays for police and other basic services.

On Tuesday, Garcetti, Wesson and the rest of the city's labor negotiating committee held a private meeting at City Hall on both the lawsuit and the proposed DWP contract. Immediately afterward, union leader D'Arcy and Santana attended a closed-door, courthouse settlement conference on the lawsuit with a judge.

Garcetti's spokesman said late Thursday that the city should continue fighting the case. "The lawsuit is without merit and is not a factor in the mayor's decision-making," Robb said.

In his campaign, Garcetti vowed to stand up for ratepayers and be an independent check on the DWP union. The labor group and its affiliates spent $2 million portraying Garcetti as "living large" at taxpayer expense, and promoting his opponent, Wendy Greuel. A central thrust of Garcetti's campaign was that his rival would reward the DWP union by burdening ratepayers with rich labor contracts.

The union's current contract expires in the fall of 2014. On Friday, Garcetti, Wesson and the three other members on the city's Executive Employee Relations Committee are scheduled to meet privately to discuss the new contract proposal.

In remarks to reporters Wednesday, Garcetti stressed pay and benefit costs for the city workforce must be controlled.

"While we've backed away from the cliff, the cliff isn't out of sight," he said. "And it's going to be very important to me that we hold down those raises, pensions and healthcare costs that in the past have driven expenses in this city. I said that during the campaign. I will continue to do that at the negotiating table as mayor."

A close ally of the DWP union, who declined to be identified by name because of the sensitivity of the labor talks, said the proposal on the table serves the city's interests. "It's the best deal they've cut with any union so far," he said. "This is a good deal for the city."

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Times staff writers Kate Linthicum and Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

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