posted July 24, 2007 11:46 AM         

Press Release -

Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller today announced the arrest of James William Kilgore in Cape Town, South Africa, where he was taken into custody by the South African Police Services without incident. Kilgore is the final member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) who has been sought as a fugitive from justice by law enforcement authorities for nearly 27 years.

The SLA was a group of individuals which advocated the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government during the 1970s. The SLA is most noted for the 1973 murder of Marcus Foster, Superintendent of Oakland Schools in Oakland, Calif., and the 1974 kidnapping of media heiress Patricia Hearst in Berkeley, Calif. The SLA was also responsible for numerous bank robberies and bombings.

In August, 1976, Kilgore was charged by federal indictment with Possession of an Unregistered Explosive Device (26 United States Code, Section 5861(d)). The device had been found among possessions being moved from an SLA safehouse in Daly City, Calif.

Kilgore has also been charged with the 1975 murder of bank customer Myrna Opsahl during an armed robbery in Carmichael, Calif. Four former SLA members pleaded guilty in the murder case yesterday.

Kilgore was born in Portland, Ore., but grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was an honors graduate from San Rafael High School in California. In 1969, he graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara with a degree in Economics.

Kilgore disappeared on or about September 18, 1975, after the FBI arrested SLA members Patricia Hearst, Wendy Yoshimura, William and Emily Harris and Steven Soliah in San Francisco. He disappeared at the same time as SLA member Kathleen Soliah, now known as Sara Jane Olson.

Investigators believe that Kilgore has been living in Cape Town under the assumed name of Charles William Pape since at least the early 1990s. He has been working at the University of Cape Town teaching English.

Over the nearly 27 years that Kilgore has been sought, all 56 FBI field offices, FBI Legal Attache offices overseas, and many other law enforcement agencies have participated in the investigation.

Attorney General Ashcroft and Director Mueller commend the South African Police Services, Interpol, the State Department, the United States Customs Service, the San Francisco Field Office of the FBI, and the FBI Legal Attache in Pretoria, South Africa, for their outstanding efforts which led to the arrest of Kilgore.

Special appreciation is extended to forensic sculptor Frank Bender who provided an age-enhanced bust of Kilgore to the "America's Most Wanted" television program. This program, along with other media outlets, aired several stories on Kilgore over the last few years and many investigative leads resulted from their assistance.

Title 26, United States Code, Section 5871, referring to Section 5861(d), carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment and/or a $10,000.00 fine. However, should Kilgore be convicted of the charges as alleged, any sentence upon conviction would be subject to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take a number of factors into account and are subject to the Court's discretion.

Kilgore will be afforded an initial appearance in Federal District Court in San Francisco after his return from South Africa.

posted July 25, 2007 01:27 PM         

Loooooove that Borg smilie!!!!!

Who's got the chips??

posted July 25, 2007 03:55 PM         

FBI tries to fight zombie hordes

The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals. The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.

The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.

The agency said the zombies or bots were "a growing threat to national security".

Signs of trouble

The FBI has been trying to tackle networks of zombies for some time as part of an initiative it has dubbed Operation Bot Roast.

This operation recently passed a significant milestone as it racked up more than one million individually identifiable computers known to be part of one bot net or another.

The law enforcement organisation said that part of the operation involved notifying people who owned PCs it knew were part of zombie or bot networks. In this way it said it expected to find more evidence of how they are being used by criminals.

"The majority of victims are not even aware that their computer has been compromised or their personal information exploited," said James Finch, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division.

Many people fall victim by opening an attachment on an e-mail message containing a virus or by visiting a booby-trapped webpage.

Many hi-tech criminals are now trying to subvert innocent webpages to act as proxies for their malicious programs.

Many bots are used to send out junk mail or spam
Once hijacked, PCs can be used to send out spam, spread spyware or as repositories for illegal content such as pirated movies or pornography.

Those in charge of botnets, called botherders, can have tens of thousands of machines under their control.

Operation Bot Roast has resulted in the arrest of three people known to have used bot nets for criminal ends.

One of those arrested, Robert Alan Soloway, could face 65 years in jail if found guilty of all the crimes with which he has been charged.

In a statement about Operation Bot Roast the FBI urged PC users to practice good computer security which includes using regularly updated anti-virus software and installing a firewall.

For those without basic protections anti-virus companies such as F Secure, Trend Micro, Kaspersky Labs and many others offer online scanning services that can help spot infections.

The organisation said it was difficult for people to know if their machine was part of a botnet.

However it said telltale signs could be if the machine ran slowly, had an e-mail outbox full of mail a user did not send or they get e-mail saying they are sending spam.

posted July 25, 2007 10:00 PM           

I don't, darn I feel left out! hehe

But, I do have a card that says, Resident Alien!

posted July 25, 2007 11:05 PM           

Aren't an Alien

Fairy Elf..I LOve that!

Ggod Night, Fayte

posted July 26, 2007 03:24 PM           

I thought of that, when I went to bed, hehe

posted July 27, 2007 05:47 PM         

'funny how I didn't know about this and it happened practically at my doorstep. I only know about some Taliban guy who was also hiding in Cape Town.