DHS Launches YouTube Channel and Redesigns DHS.gov

From the July 22, 2009 DHS Press Release:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today launched the DHS YouTube Channel and announced the redesign of DHS.gov—steps to enhance the Department’s web presence, increase transparency and provide accurate, up-to-date information to the public.

“Social media plays an increasingly large role in our engagement with the public, especially in the event of an incident or disaster,” said DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. “These new tools will facilitate an open dialogue about the Department’s security efforts across the nation and around the world.”

The YouTube Channel, found at www.youtube.com/ushomelandsecurity, will allow DHS to use video to highlight events, speeches, public service announcements and other related content. DHS’s emphasis on web 2.0 tools such as YouTube allows the Department to provide greater transparency and access to the public and our state, local, territorial, tribal, private sector, and international partners.

DHS.gov was reorganized around Secretary Napolitano’s five major responsibilities—counterterrorism, border security, enforcement of immigration laws, disaster preparedness and response and Department unification—and redesigned based on user input and search analysis to help visitors find relevant and timely information.

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Global Legal Studies: Recent Acquisitions

Elements of Crimes under International Law
Gideon Boas, James L. Bischoff, Natalie L. Reid
K5301 .B627 2008
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Freedom of Speech and Press: Exceptions to the First Amendment
Henry Cohen
KF4770 .C63 2008
ThomCat | Amazon.com

The International Politics of Judicial Intervention: Creating a More Just Order
Andrea Birdsall
KZ4017 .B57 2009 (New Book Shelf)
ThomCat |Amazon.com

Investment Treaty Arbitration and International Law
edited by T.J. Grierson Weiler
K3829.8 .I58 2008
ThomCat | Amazon.com

The Necessary Evil of Preventive Detention in the War on Terror: a Plan for a More Moderate and Sustainable Solution
Stephanie Cooper Blum
KF9430 .B48 2008 (New Book Shelf)
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Opening Markets for Trade in Services: Countries and Sectors in Bilateral and WTO Negotiations
edited by Juan A. Marchetti and Martin Roy
HD9980.5 .O64 2008
ThomCat | Amazon.com

U.S. International Investment Agreements
Kenneth J. Vandevelde [TJSL Faculty]
KF1575 .V365 2009
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Library Highlights: Immigration Law

“Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery”

Jack Paar
Radio and television talk show host

El Norte: A Film by Gregory Nava
VIDEO PN1997 N678 2009

From the Publisher: Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life. It’s a story that happens every day, but until Gregory Nava’s groundbreaking El Norte (The North), the personal travails of immigrants crossing the border to America had never been shown in the movies with such urgent humanism. A work of social realism imbued with dreamlike imagery, El Norte is a lovingly rendered, heartbreaking story of hope and survival, which critic Roger Ebert called “a Grapes of Wrath for our time.”

Immigration Consequences of Criminal Activity: A Guide to Representing Foreign-born Defendants
Mary E. Kramer
KF4819 .K73 2008

From the Publisher: The Supreme Court and federal courts have issued incredibly important precedent decisions over the past several years that have drastically changed the immigration law landscape. Immigration Consequences of Criminal Activity by Mary E. Kramer is your one volume resource for providing knowledgeable and intelligent representation. With its easy-to-read style, the third edition provides step-by-step analysis of the most cutting-edge issues in criminal immigration law. In addition, the author combines in depth research and analysis with everyday experience in court, CIS, and detention centers.

Keeping Out the Other: A Critical Introduction to Immigration Enforcement Today
edited by David C. Brotherton & Philip Kretsedemas
JV6483 .K44 2008

From the Publisher: America’s reputation for open immigration has always been accompanied by a desire to remove or discourage the migration of “undesirables.” […] Instead of finding effective ways of integrating newcomers into American society, the United States is focusing on making the process of citizenship more difficult, provoking major protests and unrest.

Brotherton and Kretsedemas provide a history and analysis of recent immigration enforcement in the United States, demonstrating that our current anti-immigration tendencies are not a knee-jerk reaction to the events of September 11. Rather, they have been gathering steam for decades. With contributions from social scientists, policy analysts, legal experts, community organizers, and journalists, the volume critically examines the discourse that has framed the question of immigration enforcement for the general public. It also explores the politics and practice of deportation, new forms of immigrant profiling, relevant case law, and antiterrorist operations. Some contributors couch their critiques in an appeal to constitutional law and the defense of civil liberties. Others draw on the theories of structural inequality and institutional discrimination. These diverse perspectives stimulate new ways of thinking about the issue of immigration enforcement, proving that “security” has more to do with improving legal rights, social mobility, and the well-being of all U.S. residents than keeping out the “other.”

Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants
David Bacon
HD8081.A5 B33 2008

From the Publisher: For two decades veteran photojournalist David Bacon has documented the connections between labor, migration, and the global economy. In Illegal People Bacon explores the human side of globalization, exposing the many ways it uproots people in Latin America and Asia, driving them to migrate. At the same time, U.S. immigration policy makes the labor of those displaced people a crime in the United States. Illegal People explains why our national policy produces even more displacement, more migration, more immigration raids, and a more divided, polarized society.

In particular, he analyzes NAFTA’s corporate tilt as a cause of displacement and migration from Mexico and shows how criminalizing immigrant labor benefits employers. For example, Bacon explains that, pre- NAFTA, Oaxacan corn farmers received subsidies for their crops. State-owned CONASUPO markets turned the corn into tortillas and sold them, along with milk and other basic foodstuffs, at low, subsidized prices in cities. Post-NAFTA, several things happened: the Mexican government was forced to end its subsidies for corn, which meant that farmers couldn’t afford to produce it; the CONASUPO system was dissolved; and cheap U.S. corn flooded the Mexican market, driving the price of corn sharply down. Because Oaxacan farming families can’t sell enough corn to buy food and supplies, many thousands migrate every year, making the perilous journey over the border into the United States only to be labeled “illegal” and to find that working itself has become, for them, a crime.

Bacon powerfully traces the development of illegal status back to slavery and shows the human cost of treating the indispensable labor of millions of migrants-and the migrants themselves-as illegal. Illegal People argues for a sea change in the way we think, debate, and legislate around issues of migration and globalization, making a compelling case for why we need to consider immigration and migration from a globalized human rights perspective.

Making People Illegal: What Globalization Means for Migration and Law
Catherine Dauvergne
K3274 .D38 2008

From the Publisher: This book examines the relationship between illegal migration and globalization. Under the pressures of globalizing forces, migration law is transformed into the last bastion of sovereignty. This explains the worldwide crackdown on extra-legal migration and informs the shape this crackdown is taking. It also means that migration law reflects key facets of globalization and addresses the central debates of globalization theory. This book looks at various migration law settings, asserting that differing but related globalization effects are discernable at each location. The “core samples” interrogated in the book are drawn from refugee law, illegal labor migration, human trafficking, security issues in migration law, and citizenship law. Special attention is paid to the roles played by the European Union and the United States in setting the terms of global engagement. The book’s conclusion considers what the rule of law contributes to transformed migration law.

Immigrant Rights in the Shadows of Citizenship
edited by Rachel Ida Buff
KF4819 .I49 2008

From the Publisher: Punctuated by marches across the United States in the spring of 2006, immigrant rights has reemerged as a significant and highly visible political issue. Immigrant Rights in the Shadows of U.S. Citizenship brings prominent activists and scholars together to examine the emergence and significance of the contemporary immigrant rights movement. Contributors place the contemporary immigrant rights movement in historical and comparative contexts by looking at the ways immigrants and their allies have staked claims to rights in the past, and by examining movements based in different communities around the United States. Scholars explain the evolution of immigration policy, and analyze current conflicts around issues of immigrant rights; activists engaged in the current movement document the ways in which coalitions have been built among immigrants from different nations, and between immigrant and native born peoples. The essays examine the ways in which questions of immigrant rights engage broader issues of identity, including gender, race, and sexuality.

Website Spotlight: MAPLight.org — making money/vote connections transparent

MAPLight.org‘s mission is to “illuminate the connection between money and politics in unprecedented ways.” The organization aims to “give citizens the tools to find out for themselves how campaign contributions affect the specific issues they care about.” Watch this 6 mins. video to learn how it works.

Some articles and other items about MAPLight.org:

Shedding New Light on Lawmakers’ Voting Records (interview on KQED) (June 18, 2009)

Mapping a better world (The Economist) (June 4, 2009)

The People’s Data (Newsweek) (February 28, 2009)

The Citizen Watchdogs of Web 2.0 (Time) (June 30, 2008)

MAPLight gets its data from:

Library of Congress THOMAS website through GovTrack.us
Center for Responsive Politics
California: Legislative Council of California website 
National Institute on Money in State Politics

Law, Technology & Communications – New Acquisitions

Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future
Bill McKibben
HD75 .M353 2008
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Water on Wall Street
Frank Partnoy
HG6024.U6 P37 2009
ThomCat | Amazon.com

FORECITE California: Latest Developments in CALCRIM and CALJIC
Thomas Lundy
KFC1171 .F67 2006
ThomCat

Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity
William J. Baumol, Robert E. Litan, Carl J. Schramm
HB501 .B372 2007
ThomCat  | Amazon.com

Intangible Cultural Heritage and Intellectual Property: Communities, Cultural Diversity and Sustainable Development
edited by Toshiyuki Kono
K3791 .I55 2009
ThomCat | Amazon.com

The International Politics of Judicial Intervention: Creating a More Just Order
Andrea Birdsall
KZ4017 .B57 2009 (New Book Shelf)
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Issues in Competition Law and Policy
Wayne Dale Collins
KF1649 .I87 2008
ThomCat | Amazon.com

The Market, the State, and the Export-Import Bank of the United States, 1934-2000
William H. Becker, William M. McClenahan, Jr.
HG3754.U5 B43 2008
ThomCat | Amazon.com

The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, the Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals
Frank Partnoy
HD9660.M473 S864 2009
ThomCat | Amazon.com

The Necessary Evil of Preventive Detention in the War on Terror: a Plan for a More Moderate and Sustainable Solution
Stephanie Cooper Blum
KF9430 .B48 2008 (New Book Shelf)
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Political Determinants of Corporate Governance: Political Context, Corporate Impact
Mark J. Roe
HD2741 .R64 2006
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Take the Money and Run: Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Demise of American Prosperity
Eric C. Anderson
HG4910 .A713 2009
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Trade and Investment Rule-making: The Role of Regional and Bilateral Agreements
edited by Stephen Woolcock
HF1418.7 .T723 2006
ThomCat | Amazon.com

Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage
edited by Peter A. Hall and David Soskice
HB501 .V355 2001
ThomCat | Amazon.com

TJSL Prof. Patrick Meyer, Law Firm Legal Research Requirements for New Attorneys on SSRN

Law Firm Legal Research Requirements for New Attorneys by Patrick Meyer, TJSL Associate Library Director & Adjunct Professor of Law is available on SSRN and has been downloaded 500+ times!

Find the article here: 

Abstract: This article collects in one place the results of previously published and unpublished surveys as they pertain to law firm research requirements of new hires. The article also summarizes results from the author’s recent law firm legal research survey, which determined what research functions, and in what formats, law firms require new hires to be proficient.

The article concludes that there is a need to integrate the teaching of online and print-based research resources for the following tasks: federal and state-specific legislative codes, secondary source materials, reporters, administrative codes and digests. There must also be a strong emphasis on the teaching of cost-effective research strategies.

Casemaker vs. Fastcase, A Comparison of Two Legal Research Services

from WEB WATCH: Casemaker vs. Fastcase by Robert J. Ambrogi:

Two legal research services are in a head-to-head competition to win the loyalty of America’s lawyers. No, I am not talking about Westlaw and LexisNexis. This battle is between Casemaker and Fastcase.  

Each markets itself as a member benefit to state and local bar associations. Casemaker has the bigger share of the market, with 28 bars representing 475,000 lawyers. But Fastcase is fast on its heels, with 17 state bars and other smaller bars representing 380,000 subscribers. Read more.

Law & Social Justice — Recent Acquisitions

The Child Sex Trade
produced by Kurtis Productions, Ltd. for A&E Network; executive producer, Bill Kurtis;
HQ117 .C45 2008 VIDEO (Reserve)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Children in the Legal System: Cases and Materials
Samuel M. Davis … [et al.]
KF479 .C46 2009 (Course Reserve)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

The Constitution, Race, and Renewed Relevance of Original Intent: Reclaiming the Lost Opportunity of Federalism
Donald Lively
KF4545.S5 L58 2008
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Constitutional Law: The Religion Clauses
Daniel O. Conkle
KF4783 .C62 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Economic Analysis of Civil Law
Hans-Bernd Schafer, Claus Ott; translated from the German by Matthew Braham
K623 .S313 2004
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Efficiency Instead of Justice?: Searching for the Philosophical Foundations of the Economic Analysis of Law
Klaus Mathis; translated by Deborah Shannon
K487.E3 M3813 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Eyes on the prize
creator and executive producer, Henry Hampton
E185.61 .E848 2006 VIDEO (Reserve)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Fairer Sex
ABC primetime; ABC news
HQ1426 .F342 2008 VIDEO (Reserve)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Family & Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly
Legal Periodical (2^nd floor)
Thomcat

FORECITE California: Latest Developments in CALCRIM and CALJIC
Thomas Lundy
KFC1171 .F67 2006
Thomcat

Gifts: a Study in Comparative Law
Richard Hyland
K898 .H95 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Global Climate Change and the Road to Extinction: The Legal and Planning Response
James A. Kushner
QC981.8.C5 K875 2009 (New Book Shelf)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Gun Control: a Documentary and Reference Guide
Robert J. Spitzer
KF3941 .S678 2009 (Reference)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

How to Keep Control of Your Life after 60: a Guide for your Legal, Medical, and Financial Well-being
Teresa Schwab Myers
KF390.A4 M97 1989
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Human Rights: Initial Publication of the American Section of the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Consisting of the Papers Prepared for its Second Plenary Meeting
edited by Ervin H. Pollack
K3240 .H8574 1971
Thomcat

In the Name of Justice: Leading Experts Reexamine the Classic Article “The Aims of the Criminal Law”
edited by Timothy Lynch
KF9223 .I58 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

International Law and Fact-finding in the Field of Human Rights
edited by B.G. Ramcharan
K3240.4 .I58 1982
Thomcat | Amazon.com

The International Politics of Judicial Intervention: Creating a More Just Order
Andrea Birdsall
KZ4017 .B57 2009 (New Book Shelf)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Judges on Judging: Views from the Bench
collected and edited by David M. O’Brien
KF8775.A75 J82 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Law and the Contradictions of the Disability Rights Movement
Samuel R. Bagenstos
KF480 .B345 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Legal Ethics: Rules, Statutes and Comparisons
KF306 .L447
Thomcat

Legal Responses to HIV and AIDS
James Chalmers
K3575.A43 C45 2008
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Legally Speaking: Contemporary American Culture and the Law
Helle Porsdam
KF385 .P645 1999
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Living Constitution, Dying Faith: Progressivism and the New Science of Jurisprudence
Bradley C.S. Watson
KF4552 .W38 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

The Lost History of the Ninth Amendment
Kurt T. Lash
KF4558 9th .L37 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

The Necessary Evil of Preventive Detention in the War on Terror: a Plan for a More Moderate and Sustainable Solution
Stephanie Cooper Blum
KF9430 .B48 2008 (New Book Shelf)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

The New Aging: Politics and Change in America
Fernando M. Torres-Gil
HV1461 .T66 1992
Thomcat | Amazon.com

The Principle of Legality in International and Comparative Criminal Law
Kenneth S. Gallant
K5165 .G35 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Principled Sentencing: Readings on Theory and Policy
edited by Andrew von Hirsch, Andrew Ashworth and Julian Roberts.
K5121.Z9 P75 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Protecting Civilians: The Obligations of Peacekeepers
Siobhan Wills
KZ6515 .W55 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Regulating Tobacco
edited by Robert L. Rabin & Stephen D. Sugarman
HD9136 .R43 2001
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Regulators: Our Invisible Government, 1982
KF5407 .R43 2004 (Video)
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent
Marjorie Cohn (TJSL Faculty) and Kathleen Gilberd
U22 .C542 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Sexual Discrimination and Harassment
edited by Rachel C. Feldman
KF4758 .S49 2008
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Speaking for the Dead: The Human Body in Biology and Medicine
D. Gareth Jones and Maja I. Whitaker
QM33.5 .J66 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Speaking Up: The Unintended Costs of Free Speech in Public Schools
Anne Proffitt Dupre
KF4124.5 .D87 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Territorial Rights
Tamar Meisels
KZ3675 .M45 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Trade and Investment Rule-making: The Role of Regional and Bilateral Agreements
edited by Stephen Woolcock
HF1418.7 .T723 2006
Thomcat | Amazon.com

The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public
Susan M. Schweik
KF480 .S39 2009
Thomcat | Amazon.com

Youth Outloud!: A Documentary Addressing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth Issues in our Schools
produced, written, and directed by Kathy Hines & Becky Burklee
HQ75.15 .Y68 2000 (Reserve)
Thomcat

Library Highlights: Law & War

Jus Post Bellum: Towards a Law of Transition from Conflict to Peace
edited by Carsten Stahn, Jann K. Kleffner
KZ6740 .J87 2008
From the Publisher: Warfare is usually theorised in the categories of jus ad bellum (justification for recourse to force) and jus in bello (rules applicable in armed conflict). The challenge of establishing fair and sustainable peace after conflict (jus post bellum) has received less attention in existing law and practice, although it has an established tradition in just war theory. This book sheds a fresh light on the use and relevance of the concept of jus post bellum in contemporary international law and policy. It examines the origins and foundations of the concept from an inter-disciplinary perspective. Moreover, it identifies some of the features and challenges of a framework governing transitions from conflict to peace, such as the treatment of sovereignty, accountability and local ownership, the relationship of jus post bellum to jus ad bellum and jus in bello and the role of human rights law and transitional justice.

The Legitimate Use of Military Force: The Just War Tradition and the Customary Law of Armed Conflict
edited by Howard M. Hensel
U22 .L37 2008
From the Publisher: Throughout human history, scholars, statesmen and military leaders have attempted to define what constitutes the legitimate use of armed force by one community against another. Moreover, if force is to be used, what normative guidelines should govern the conduct of warfare? Based upon the assumption that armed conflict is a human enterprise and therefore subject to human limitations, the Western ‘just war tradition’ represents an attempt to provide these guidelines. Following on from the success of Hensel’s earlier publication, The Law of Armed Conflict, this volume brings together an internationally recognized team of scholars to explore the philosophical and societal foundations of just war tradition. It relates the principles of jus ad bellum to contemporary issues confronting the global community and explores the relationship between the principles of jus in bello and the various principles embodied in the customary law of armed conflict.

Applying an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing and assessing the links between just war and the norms of behaviour, the book provides a valuable contribution to international law, international relations and national security studies.

Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent
Marjorie Cohn (TJSL Faculty) and Kathleen Gilberd
U22 .C542 2009
From the Publisher: Rules of Disengagement examines the reasons men and women in the military have disobeyed orders and resisted the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It takes readers into the courtroom where sailors, soldiers, and Marines have argued that these wars are illegal under international law and unconstitutional under U.S. law. Through the voices of active duty service members and veterans, it explores the growing conviction among our troops that the war is wrong. It then examines what they have done—and what readers can do—to resist and end the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Defending Humanity: When Force is Justified and Why
George P. Fletcher and Jens David Ohlin
JZ6385 .F54 2008
From the Publisher: In Defending Humanity , internationally acclaimed legal scholar George P. Fletcher and Jens David Ohlin, a leading expert on international criminal law, tackle one of the most important and controversial questions of our time: When is war justified? When a nation is attacked, few would deny that it has the right to respond with force. But what about preemptive and preventive wars, or crossing another state’s border to stop genocide? Was Israel justified in initiating the Six Day War, and was NATO’s intervention in Kosovo legal? What about the U.S. invasion of Iraq?

In their provocative new book, Fletcher and Ohlin offer a groundbreaking theory on the legality of war with clear guidelines for evaluating these interventions. The authors argue that much of the confusion on the subject stems from a persistent misunderstanding of the United Nations Charter. The Charter appears to be very clear on the use of military force: it is only allowed when authorized by the Security Council or in self-defense. Unfortunately, this has led to the problem of justifying force when the Security Council refuses to act or when self-defense is thought not to apply–and to the difficult dilemma of declaring such interventions illegal or ignoring the UN Charter altogether.

Fletcher and Ohlin suggest that the answer lies in going back to the domestic criminal law concepts upon which the UN Charter was originally based, in particular, the concept of “legitimate defense, “which encompasses not only self-defense but defense of others. Lost in the English-language version of the Charter but a vital part of the French and other non-English versions, the concept of legitimate defense will enable political leaders, courts, and scholars to see the solid basis under international law for states to intervene with force–not just to protect themselves against an imminent attack but also to defend other national groups.

The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days
Karen Greenberg
HV6432 .G7345 2009
From the Publisher: In January 2002, the first flight of detainees captured in the “Global War on Terror” disembarked in Guantanamo Bay, dazed, bewildered, and–more often than not–alarmingly thin. Given very little advance notice, the military’s preparations for this group of predominantly unimportant ne’er-do-wells were hastily thrown together, but as Karen Greenberg shows, a number of capable and honorable Marine officers tried to create a humane and just detention center–only to be thwarted by the Bush Administration.

The Least Worst Place is a gripping narrative account of the first one hundred days of Guantanamo. Greenberg, one of America’s leading experts on the Bush Administration’s policies on terrorism, tells the story through a group of career officers who tried–and ultimately failed–to stymie the Pentagon’s desire to implement harsh new policies in Guantanamo and bypass the Geneva Conventions. She sets her story in Camp X-Ray, which underwent a remarkably quick transformation from a sleepy naval outpost in the tropics into a globally infamous holding pen. Peopled with genuine heroes and villains, this narrative of the earliest days of the post-9/11 era centers on the conflicts between Gitmo-based Marine officers intent on upholding the Geneva Accords and an intelligence unit set up under the Pentagon’s aegis. The latter ultimately won out, replacing transparency with secrecy, military protocol with violations of basic operation procedures, and humane and legal detainee treatment with harsh interrogation methods and torture […].

July is Bioterrorism Awareness Month

Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 destroyed the World Trade Center in New York, damaged the Pentagon and killed about 3,000 people, Bioterrorism Awareness Month has been educating the public about the potential of a bioterror attack and what the average person can do to recognize an attack and reasonably prepare for a bioterror attack or other disaster.

Here are suggestions for simple things that you can do to increase your awareness and preparation in the event of a bioterror attack or other disaster.

What should I do if I receive a suspicious letter or package?

1. Do not shake or empty contents of any suspicious envelope or package; DO NOT try to clean up powders or fluids.
2. Place the envelope or package in a plastic bag or some other type of container to prevent leakage of contents.
3. If you do not have a container, then cover the envelope or package with anything (e.g. clothing, paper, trash can, etc.) available and do not remove this cover.
4. Leave the room and close the door, or section off the area to prevent others from entering.
5. Wash your hands with soap and water to prevent spreading any powder to your face or skin.
6. If you are at home, then report the incident to local police. If you are at work, report the incident to local police and notify your building security official or an available supervisor.
7. If possible, list all people who were in the room or area when this suspicious letter or package was recognized. Give this list to both the local police and local public health authorities for follow up investigation and advice.
8. Remove heavily contaminated clothing and place in a plastic bag that can be sealed. Give the bag to law enforcement personnel.
9. Shower with soap and water as soon as possible. Do not use bleach or disinfectant on your skin.

What precautions should I take regarding the threat of bioterrorism?

The federal government is not recommending any specific bioterrorism-related precautions. However, in the event of a natural (for example, tornado, flood or earthquake) or man-made disaster, lives can be saved if people are prepared for the emergency. Every family should have the following emergency supplies on hand:

1. A battery-powered radio and a flashlight, with extra batteries to each
2. Bottled drinking water – one gallon per day per person, with a three – to seven-day supply recommended
3. Canned or sealed package foods that do not require refrigeration or cooking, and a can opener
4. A blanket or sleeping bag for each family member
5. First-aid kit, including any special prescription medications, such as insulin or heart tablets
6. Toilet paper and paper towels
7. Extra set of car keys, and a credit card, cash or traveler’s checks
8. Special items for infant (disposable diapers), elderly or disabled family members
9. Extra eye glasses, and contact lenses and supplies

Come by the Library to check out our display of materials relating to the threat of terrorist attack and the legislative and legal responses to terrorist attacks in the United States and the world. Also pick up a handy Emergency Preparedness Checklist prepared by the American Red Cross.