Activists from the hacker collective known as Anonymous assumed control over the homepage of a federal judicial agency this morning.
In a manifesto left on the defaced page, the group demanded reform to the American justice system and what the activists said are threats to the free flow of information.
The lengthy essay largely mirrors previous demands from Anonymous, but this time the group also cited the recent suicide of Reddit co-founder and activist Aaron Swartz as has having “crossed a line” for their organization. Swartz was facing up to 35 years in prison on computer fraud charges.
Prosecutors said he had stolen thousands of digital scientific and academic journal articles from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the goal of disseminating them for free.
Read More: Aaron Swartz’ Death Fuels MIT Probe, White House Petition to Oust Prosecutor
Anonymous says Swartz was “killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win — a twisted and distorted perversion of justice — a game where the only winning move was not to play.”
“There must be a return to proportionality of punishment with respect to actual harm caused,” it reads, also mentioning recent arrests of Anonymous associates by the FBI.
In their statement, the hackers say they targeted the homepage of the Federal Sentencing Commission for “symbolic” reasons.
The group claimed that if their demands were not met they would release a trove of embarrassing internal Justice Department documents to media outlets. Anonymous named the files after Supreme Court justices and provided hyperlinks to them from the defaced page.
As of press time the commission’s site had been taken offline but an earlier attempt by CNN to follow the files’ links yielded dead-ends, mostly offline sites.
The file names use an “.aes256″ suffix, denoting a common encryption protocol. The same system was used to encrypt the Wikileaks Afghan war documents before their release.
The U.S. ambassador to Syria says the U.S. has provided $210 million in humanitarian aid
The assistance has to be discrete, he said, to protect workers from being targeted
Washington has also provided $35 million worth of assistance to Syria's political opposition
Ambassador: We can help, but it's up to Syrians to find their way forward
(CNN) -- It has been more than a year since the United States government withdrew its ambassador to Syria and closed its embassy in Damascus.
On Thursday, that ambassador returned to the region along with a U.S. delegation, touring a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey to bring more attention to the growing humanitarian crisis. As the civil war has intensified in Syria, hundreds of thousands of people have sought refuge in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and other neighboring countries.
Ambassador Robert Ford gave an exclusive interview to CNN's Ivan Watson and described what the U.S. is doing to help the refugees and the Syrian opposition.
Ivan Watson: The U.S. has given $210 million in aid (to Syria), but I think that there is a perception problem because no one can actually point at what that help is. So people conclude there is no help.
Robert Ford: The assistance is going in. It's things like tents, it's things like blankets, it's things like medical equipment, but it doesn't come in big boxes with an American flag on it because we don't want the people who are delivering it to be targeted by the Syrian regime.
The regime is going after and killing people who are delivering supplies. You see them bombing even bakeries and bread lines. So we're doing that, in part, to be discrete.
The assistance is going in ... but it doesn't come in big boxes with an American flag on it. Robert Ford, U.S. ambassador to Syria
The needs are gigantic. So even though a great deal of American materials and other countries' materials are arriving, the needs are still greater. And that's why we're going to Kuwait to talk to the United Nations and to talk to other countries about how we can talk together to provide additional assistance.
Watson: The head of the Syrian National Coalition, which the U.S. government has backed, came out with a statement very critical of the international community, saying we need $3 billion if you want us to have any say on events on the ground inside Syria. Where is that money?
Ford: (Sheikh Ahmed) Moaz al-Khatib is a good leader, and we think highly of him and we have recognized his (coalition) as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. And, of course, he wants to get as many resources as possible because of the humanitarian conditions that I was just talking about. Especially the ones inside Syria.
But we also, at the same time, have to build up those (aid) networks I was talking about. In some cases, they start out with just a few people. We don't need just a few people, we need hundreds of people, thousands of people on the inside of Syria organized to bring these things in.
And so step by step, the Syrians, Moaz al-Khatib and his organization, need to build that capacity. We can help build it, we can do training and things like that. But in the end, Syrians have to take a leadership role in this.
Watson: Is Washington giving money to the Syrian National Coalition?
Ford: We absolutely are assisting the (coalition), with everything from training to, in some cases, limited amount of cash assistance so that they can buy everything ranging from computers to telephones to radios.
Frankly, if not for the American assistance in many cases, the activists inside Syria wouldn't be in contact with the outside world. It's American help that keeps them in contact with the outside world.
Watson: But, how much assistance has this coalition gotten from the U.S.?
Ford: So far, we've allocated directly to the coalition in the neighborhood of $35 million worth of different kinds of equipment and assistance. And over the next few weeks, couple of months, we'll probably provide another $15 million worth of material assistance.
Watson: Washington recently blacklisted Jabhat al-Nusra, the Nusra Front, calling it a terrorist organization even though inside Syria, it has attracted a lot of respect for its victories and for comparative lack of corruption compared to many rebel groups. How has blacklisting the Nusra Front helped the Syrian opposition?
Ford: We blacklisted the Nusra Front because of its intimate links with al Qaeda in Iraq, an organization with whom we have direct experience, which is responsible for the killings of thousands of Iraqis, hundreds of Americans. We know what al Qaeda in Iraq did and is still doing, and we don't want it to start doing that in Syria -- which is why we highlighted its incredibly pernicious role.
I think one of the things that our classification of Nusra as a terrorist group did is it set off an alarm for the other elements of the Free Syrian Army. There was a meeting of the Free Syrian Army to set up a unified command, (and) Nusra Front was not in that meeting -- which we think is the right thing to do. As Syrians themselves understand that Nusra has a sectarian agenda, as they understand better that Nusra is anti-democratic and will seek to impose its very strict interpretation of Islam on Syria -- which historically is a relatively moderate country in terms of its religious practices -- as Syrians understand that better, I think they will more and more reject the Nusra Front itself.
Watson: But I've seen the opposite. As I go into Syria, I hear more and more support and respect for the Nusra Front, and more and more criticism for the U.S. government each time I go back.
Ford: I think that people, Ivan, are still understanding what Nusra is. I have heard criticism from the Nusra Front from people like Moaz al-Khatib who, in Marrakesh (Morocco) in his speech, said he rejected the kind of ideology which backs up Nusra. ... We have heard that from the senior commander of the Free Syrian Army as well. And so the more people understand inside Syria what Nusra is and represents, I think they will agree that is not the group on which to depend for freedom in Syria.
Watson: Do you think the U.S. government could have done more?
Ford: I think the Syrians, as I said, are the ones who will bring the answer to the problem -- just as in Iraq, Iraqis brought the solution to the Iraq crisis, to the Iraq war. The Americans can help, and we helped in Iraq, but ultimately it wasn't the Americans. Despite our help, it was Iraqis.
In Syria, again, it has to be Syrians who find their way forward. Twenty-three million Syrians need to find their way forward. We can help, and we are helping: $210 million in humanitarian assistance, $50 million to help the political opposition get organized for the day after (Bashar) al-Assad goes. These are important bits of help. But ultimately, it's not the American help. It's the Syrians themselves.
WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is gearing up for a huge new challenge to rebuild the economies of the turbulent Arab world, a mission that poses starkly different challenges to its eurozone rescues.
The Arab Spring revolutions of 2010-2011 have opened doors to the IMF's money and expertise as new governments face the need to balance their books and revive sagging growth.
Egypt and Tunisia are in negotiations over IMF loan programs that would entail structural reforms, and the Fund is also providing technical assistance to Libya.
The IMF is also nursing countries weakened by the Arab turmoil. In August, Jordan received a $2 billion loan and Morocco has a precautionary facility of $6 billion, meant to give it more protection from external shocks.
Torn by political upheaval, the countries of the region face multiple deep challenges, including high unemployment, large population growth, capital flight and deep government deficits, experts say.
The Fund recognizes the issues are more than financial.
Earlier this month, Managing Director Christine Lagarde wrote in the Financial Times that Arab countries need "urgent policy measures" to avoid killing the hopes raised by the revolutions.
Lagarde's number two, David Lipton, has swept through the region delivering the IMF's message in numerous speeches.
The Arab world has "formidable growth potential" that the IMF cannot ignore, Lipton said. But, he likes to point out, aside from oil and gas, the region's exports together are barely the size of Belgium's.
The fund nevertheless has to convince a region plagued by doubts over its approach in the past -- attaching harsh austerity conditions to its loan programs as it sought to help governments balance budgets and boost growth.
Especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the IMF has been accused of foisting such programs on governments with little consideration for local conditions and how the local people are impacted.
Before the Arab Spring, "many of the Arab and African countries were about to turn their backs on the IMF," said Ibrahim Saif of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Indeed, many people blamed IMF programs for the social and economic hardship that led to the revolts, he said.
Today, the IMF says it has got the message. It emphasizes that it is now developing reform programs that are "homegrown" -- developed with the backing of all stakeholders in a society, including civil society groups.
"As we engage more closely in the region, we find that we have to explain the role of the IMF and how we work with governments today," Lipton said in November.
"We know from experience that programs are much more likely to succeed if they are designed and owned by the national authorities and enjoy broad support within the country."
But as Egypt shows, that is not an easy thing.
Egypt's political groups have battled over what kind of reforms are needed following the revolt of early 2011.
After elections last year established a new government, they entered discussions with the IMF over a $4.8 billion loan program.
But as a preliminary deal neared in December, talks were suspended over fresh domestic political problems.
In Tunisia, an IMF program also faces the challenge of elections later this year, which could spark a new wave of instability.
"These countries are presently facing the unenviable conflict," said Zubair Iqbal, a former IMF official now at the Middle East Institute.
"There is a dire need for painful economic reforms to get these economies growing and creating jobs for a sharply rising youth bulge."
Yet, he said, "the political climate in the post-revolution period is not ready for the needed reforms. Therefore any attempts by the IMF for reform will face severe resistance."
In Egypt, for instance, a number of religious and civil groups sent a letter late last year to the IMF opposing the loan talks with Cairo, condemning the lack of transparency around the negotiations.
This underscored the deeper challenge the IMF faces in the Arab region, according to Iqbal.
"The IMF will be in the eye of the storm and will be blamed for any national failures to implement their own programs and the consequent crises," he said.
An appeals court invalidates two of Casey Anthony's convictions, upholds two others
She was convicted of 4 counts of giving false information during a missing person investigation
Charges arose from statements Anthony made in 2008 after her daughter, Caylee, disappeared
Anthony's attorney said his client wanted to "keep fighting" after hearing about ruling
(CNN) -- One of the most infamous Americans in recent years took two big steps Friday toward clearing her name, and she's vowed to "keep fighting."
Florida's 5th District Court of Appeal threw out two of Casey Anthony's four convictions of "providing false information to a law enforcement officer during a missing person investigation," agreeing with her argument that the multiple convictions violated the ban on double jeopardy.
But the appeals judges upheld the other two convictions. According to the court filing, they rejected Anthony's claim that the trial court should have granted her motion to suppress statements made to law enforcement officers before they told her her Miranda rights. And they rejected her argument that the state statute she was convicted of violating is unconstitutionally vague.
Anthony's lawyer, Cheney Mason, said when he called his client to share the ruling, she said, "We keep fighting."
Anthony could appeal the remaining two convictions to the Florida Supreme Court next.
The four charges arose from statements Anthony made on July 16, 2008, to Orange County Detective Yuri Melich, who was investigating the disappearance of Anthony's 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.
Anthony gained notoriety after her mother, Cindy Anthony, called police to arrest her daughter the day before, when she thought Casey had stolen the family car and some money.
Read how Anthony's prosecutor has no regrets
During the call, Cindy Anthony told police she was concerned that her granddaughter might be missing, and said, "I found my daughter's car today, and it smelled like there's been a dead body in the damn car."
When questioned, Casey Anthony admitted to police that she hadn't seen Caylee for more than 30 days, and on July 16, she was arrested on suspicion of child neglect, filing false official statements and obstructing a criminal investigation. At that time, she made the statements to Melich, which led to her convictions.
In December 2008, a utility worker found remains in a wooded area near the Anthony home, and about a week later, authorities announced they were Caylee's.
After nearly three years of legal maneuvers, Anthony's capital murder trial began on May 24, 2011.
Prosecutors alleged that she killed Caylee by using chloroform and covering her nose and mouth with duct tape, and that she put her body in the trunk of her car before dumping it in the woods.
Defense attorney Jose Baez argued that Caylee drowned in the Anthony family pool on June 16, 2008, and that Casey Anthony and her father, George, covered up the death.
Watch: A year after trial, where's Anthony?
On July 5, 2011, a jury found Anthony not guilty of first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child, while convicting her on the four "false information" counts.
Anthony was sentenced to four years in jail, to be served consecutively, including time served. She was released 10 days after her sentencing, on July 17. Even though she exited shortly after midnight, about 1,000 people jeered her as police guards and Baez escorted her to a waiting SUV and drove away quickly.
Anthony still faces a defamation lawsuit from Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, of nearby Kissimmee, Florida.
During Anthony's disputed July 16, 2008, statements to Melich, she said the last time she had seen her daughter was when she dropped Caylee off at Gonzalez's apartment.
Gonzalez filed suit in September 2008, claiming that Anthony ruined her reputation.
Last April, a judge ruled that the suit needed to go to trial by jury and denied Gonzalez's request for a summary judgment.
In Session correspondent Jean Casarez reported for this story, and Mark Morgenstein wrote it in Atlanta.
President Barack Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said that Obama did not have the power to make three recess appointments last year to the National Labor Relations Board.
The unanimous decision is an embarrassing setback for the president, who made the appointments after Senate Republicans spent months blocking his choices for an agency they contended was biased in favor of unions.
The ruling also throws into question Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray's appointment, also made under the recess circumstance, has been challenged in a separate case.
Obama claims he acted properly in the case of the NLRB appointments because the Senate was away for the holidays on a 20-day recess. But the three-judge panel ruled that the Senate technically stayed in session when it was gaveled in and out every few days for so-called "pro forma" sessions.
GOP lawmakers used the tactic - as Democrats have in the past as well - to specifically to prevent the president from using his recess power. GOP lawmakers contend the labor board has been too pro-union in its decisions. They had also vigorously opposed the nomination of Cordray.
Play Video
Carney: Court's NLRB ruling "novel and unprecedented"
White House spokesman Jay Carney today said the administration "respectfully but strongly" disagrees with the court decision. He said there have been more than 280 intra-session recess appointments dating back to 1867.
"The decision is novel and unprecedented," he said. "It contradicts 150 years of practice by Democratic and Republican administration."
Carney also said the decision does not apply to Cordray's appointment, since it was written about a specific case the court considered.
The Obama administration is expected to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, though Carney referred questions with respect to the administration's next steps to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesperson, said, "We disagree with the court's ruling and believe that the president's recess appointments are constitutionally sound."
If the decision stands, it means hundreds of decisions issued by the board over more than a year are invalid. It also would leave the five-member labor board with just one validly appointed member, effectively shutting it down. The board is allowed to issue decisions only when it has at least three sitting members.
On Jan. 4, 2012, Obama appointed Deputy Labor Secretary Sharon Block, union lawyer Richard Griffin and NLRB counsel Terence Flynn to fill vacancies on the NLRB, giving it a full contingent for the first time in more than a year. Block and Griffin are Democrats, while Flynn is a Republican. Flynn stepped down from the board last year.
Obama also appointed Cordray on the same day.
The court's decision is a victory for Republicans and business groups that have been attacking the labor board for issuing a series of decisions and rules that make it easier for the nation's labor unions to organize new members. House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement the ruling was "a victory for accountability in government."
"The Obama administration has consistently used the NLRB to impose regulations that hurt our economy by fostering uncertainty in the workplace and telling businesses where they can and cannot create jobs," he said. "Instead of operating under a shroud of controversy, the NLRB should meet the highest standards of transparency, starting with having its members approved by the people's representatives."
It was never supposed to last this long. When the Mars rover Opportunity settled on the Martian surface nine years ago today, mission managers at NASA said they would be pleased if it lasted for 90 days.
Instead, it's been 3,201 days, and still counting. The rover has driven 22.03 miles, mostly at a snail's pace, from one crater to another, stopping for months at a time in the frigid Martian winters. The six motorized wheels, rated to turn 2.5 million times, have lasted 70 million, and are all still working.
"Opportunity is still in very good health, especially considering what it's gone through," said John Callas, manager of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project. The surface of Mars is a pretty tough place; there can be temperature fluctuations of a hundred degrees each day. That's pretty hard on the hardware."
Video: '7 Minutes of Terror: A Landing on Mars
When Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, reached Mars in January 2004, there was a fair bit of sniping that NASA, with all that 90-day talk, was playing down expectations. It escalated when Steve Squyres of Cornell University, the principal investigator for the missions, said things like, "We're on Sol 300 of a 90-Sol mission." (A Sol is a day on Mars, and lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes.) Callas and others have insisted that the prediction was based on engineering, not a nod to public relations.
"There was an expectation that airfall dust would accumulate on the rover, so that its solar panels would be able to gather less electricity," said Callas. "We saw that on Pathfinder," a small rover that landed on Mars in 1997." The cold climate was also expected to be hard on the rovers' batteries, and changes in temperature from night to day would probably pop a circuit or two.
Instead, the temperatures weren't quite as tough as engineers had expected, and the rovers proved tougher. They did become filthy as the red Martian dust settled on them, reducing the sunlight on the solar panels -- but every now and then a healthy gust came along, surprising everyone on Earth by cleaning the ships off.
Click Here for Pictures: Postcards From Mars
Spirit, in hilly territory on the other side of the planet, finally got stuck in crusty soil in 2009, and its radio went silent the next year. But Opportunity, though it's had some close calls, is -- well, you remember those commercials about the Energizer bunny.
So what do you do with an aging rover on a faraway planet? You keep using it. In its first weeks, NASA said Opportunity found chemical proof that there had once been standing water on the surface of Mars -- good news if you're looking for signs that the planet could once have been friendly to life. Since then, it's been sent to other places, with rocks and soil that are probably older, and with clay that may have been left by ancient rivers.
About 20 NASA staff members still work full-time on Opportunity at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Another 60 split their time between Opportunity and other projects, such as the Curiosity rover that landed last August. About 100 scientists, doing research on Mars, pop in and out.
In a few months, Callas said, Opportunity will head to an area nicknamed Cape Tribulation. The clay there could be rich in the minerals suggestive of past life.
They haven't done much to mark the ninth anniversary or the 3,200th Martian day, just a get-together earlier this week during a previously scheduled science conference. After that, Callas said, it was back to work.
"It's like keeping your car going," he said, "without ever having a chance to change the oil."
A display of a reconstruction of a Neanderthal man and boy at the Museum for Prehistory in Eyzies-de-Tayac, France.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Arthur Caplan: It would be unethical to try and clone a Neanderthal baby
Caplan: Downsides include a good chance of producing a baby that is seriously deformed
He says the future belongs to what we can do to genetically engineer and control microbes
Caplan: Microbes can make clean fuel, suck up carbon dioxide, clean fat out of arteries
Editor's note: Arthur Caplan is the Drs. William F and Virginia Connolly Mitty professor and director of the Division of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center.
(CNN) -- So now we know -- there won't be a Neanderthal moving into your neighborhood.
Despite a lot of frenzied attention to the intentionally provocative suggestion by a renowned Harvard scientist that new genetic technology makes it possible to splice together a complete set of Neanderthal genes, find an adventurous surrogate mother and use cloning to gin up a Neanderthal baby -- it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.
Nor should it. But there are plenty of other things in the works involving genetic engineering that do merit serious ethical discussion at the national and international levels.
Arthur Caplan
Some thought that the Harvard scientist, George Church, was getting ready to put out an ad seeking volunteer surrogate moms to bear a 35,000-year-old, long-extinct Neanderthal baby. Church had to walk his comments back and note that he was just speculating, not incubating.
Still cloning carries so much mystery and Hollywood glamour thanks to movies such as "Jurassic Park," "The Boys From Brazil" and "Never Let Me Go" that a two-day eruption of the pros and cons of making Neanderthals ensued. That was not necessary. It would be unethical to try and clone a Neanderthal baby.
Why? Because there is no obvious reason to do so. There is no pressing need or remarkable benefit to undertaking such a project. At best it might shed some light on the biology and behavior of a distant ancestor. At worst it would be nothing more than the ultimate reality television show exploitation: An "Octomom"-like surrogate raises a caveman child -- tune in next week to see what her new boyfriend thinks when she tells him that there is a tiny addition in her life and he carries a small club and a tiny piece of flint to sleep with him.
The downsides of trying to clone a Neanderthal include a good chance of killing it, producing a baby that is seriously deformed, producing a baby that lacks immunity to infectious diseases and foods that we have gotten used to, an inability to know what environment to create to permit the child to flourish and a complete lack of understanding of what sort of behavior is "normal" or "appropriate" for such a long-extinct cousin hominid of ours.
When weighed against the risks and the harm that most likely would be done, it would take a mighty big guarantee of benefit to justify this cloning experiment. I am willing to venture that the possible benefit will never, ever reach the point where this list of horrible likely downsides could be overcome.
Even justifying trying to resurrect a woolly mammoth, or a mastodon, or the dodo bird or any other extinct animal gets ethically thorny. How many failures would be acceptable to get one viable mastodon? Where would the animal live? What would we feed it? Who would protect it from poachers, gawkers and treasure hunters? It is not so simple to take a long dead species, make enough of them so they don't die of isolation and lack of social stimulation and then find an environment that is close enough and safe enough compared with that which they once roamed.
In any event the most interesting aspects of genetic engineering do not involve making humans or Neanderthals or mammoths. They involve ginning up microbes to do things that we really need doing such as making clean fuel, sucking up carbon dioxide, cleaning fat out of our arteries, giving us a lot more immunity to nasty bacteria and viruses and helping us make plastics and chemicals more efficiently and cheaply.
In trying to make these kinds of microbes, you can kill all you want without fear of ethical condemnation. And if the new bug does not like the environment in which it has to exist to live well, that will be just too darn bad.
The ethical challenge of this kind of synthetic biology is that it can be used by bad guys for bad purposes. Biological weapons can be ginned up and microbes created that only infect people with certain genes that commonly associate with racial or ethnic groups.
Rather than worry about what will happen to real estate values should a new crop of "Flintstones" move in down the street, our public officials, religious groups and ethicists need to get serious about how much regulation the genetic engineering of microbes needs, how can we detect what terrorists might try to use, what sort of controls do we need to prevent accidents and who is going to pay if a bug turns out to cause more harm than good.
We love to think that the key to tomorrow lies in what humanity can be designed or empowered to do. Thus, the fascination with human cloning. In reality, at least for a long time to come, the future belongs to what we can do to design and control microbes. That is admittedly duller, but it is far better to follow a story that is true than one such as Neanderthal cloning that is pure, speculative fantasy.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Arthur Caplan.
SYDNEY: Australia on Friday joined three European nations in urging its citizens to leave the Libyan city of Benghazi due to a "specific, imminent threat to Westerners" linked to French action in Mali.
The advice followed similar warnings from governments in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, which sparked an angry response from Libya's government. Tripoli said there was "no new intelligence" to justify such concerns.
But Australia's department of foreign affairs said: "We are aware of a specific, imminent threat to Westerners in Benghazi. All Australians in Benghazi should leave immediately.
"There is a risk of retaliatory attacks against Western targets in Libya following the French intervention in the conflict in Mali in January 2013," it said in an updated travel advice.
"A number of militant groups are known to operate in Libya and some may seek to target Western interests."
Only two Australians are registered as being in Benghazi and just 22 in Libya, said the department.
The alert came after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified to Congress this week about the September attack on the US diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including the ambassador to Libya.
It also comes as French troops battle Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Mali, amid rising concern about Islamist extremism across north Africa after last week's bloody attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria.
NEW: Doctor's alleged killer came to her house to deal with rodent problem, police say
NEW: Jason Smith is charged with murder, other counts in Melissa Ketunuti's death
NEW: Other than traffic offenses, Smith has no criminal record, police say
Ketunuti's dog walker found her bound, burned body in the basement of her home
Philadelphia (CNN) -- The unsettling case of a doctor killed and set on fire in her Philadelphia home took another turn Thursday as police identified her alleged killer as an exterminator sent to her home to help clear it of rodents.
Jason Smith, 36, of Levittown, Pennsylvania, was charged Thursday with murder and other counts after detectives, using surveillance video and tips, identified him as the alleged killer of Melissa Ketunuti, a well-liked doctor and researcher at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Police say Smith got into an argument with Ketunuti in the basement of her row home in an affluent area of downtown Philadelphia. He knocked her down, then strangled her and then set her body on fire, police Capt. James Clark said at a news conference.
He declined to elaborate on the argument but said Ketunuti and Smith had never met.
"We're glad for the family we're at least able to give some closure with the arrest of this individual," Clark said.
Surveillance video shows Smith approaching her home and going inside at Ketunuti's invitation, he said.
"She was expecting him. They had an appointment," Clark said.
Once inside, an argument erupted that quickly escalated into a physical altercation.
Smith struck Ketunuti, knocked her to the ground and strangled her with a rope he found in the basement, Clark said. Eventually, he set her body on fire, he said.
Ketunuti's dog-walker discovered the body, according to police.
Smith lives in Levittown with his girlfriend and her young daughter, Clark said. Other than minor traffic offenses, he has no criminal record, he said.
He is charged with murder, possession of an instrument in a crime, abuse of a corpse and causing catastrophe, according to Tasha Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia district attorney's office.
It was not immediately clear when he was to appear in court.
Levittown is about 30 miles away from Ketunuti's home.
Ketunuti, who graduated from medical school in 2007, moved to Philadelphia from Washington in 2008 for a three-year residency in pediatrics. She was in her second year of working as a researcher and fellow in infectious diseases, the hospital said.
She previously had residencies in surgery at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington and cardiothoracic surgery at a veterans hospital.
Susan Candiotti reported from New York, and Sarah Hoye reported from Philadelphia.
As President Obama faces opposition from gun rights advocates over his recent proposals to combat gun violence, the challenge he faces of fixing flaws in the mental health care system may prove just as difficult a battle.
Mr. Obama outlined plans aimed at preventing mass shootings and reducing broader gun violence in the United States last week, while signing 23 executive actions that did not require Congressional approval. Alongside proposed changes to gun laws including universal background checks, a stronger ban on assault weapons and new restrictions on ammunition and magazines, mental health emerged as a core feature of the president's plan to prevent further tragedies like the Dec. 14 shooting in Newtown, Conn.
The executive actions related to mental health included:
A letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities
Incentives for schools to hire school resource officers
A letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover
Finalization of regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within health insurance exchanges
A commitment to finalizing mental health parity regulations
The launch of a national dialogue led by the departments of Health and Human Services and Education on mental health
A Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence
Clarification that the new health care law does not prohibit doctors from asking their patients about guns in their homes
Noting that it was the first of its kind to focus on mental health since 2007 -- and long overdue -- Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin chaired a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Thursday.
Harkin laid out that while Newtown has brought the issue to the forefront of discussion, mental illness only accounts for a small proportion of violent crimes.
Experts estimate only a small percentage of violent crimes -- less than 5 percent -- are caused by mentally ill people.
"People with mental illness are much more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than perpetrators of violence," said Harkin, who called mental health care's shortcomings a public health problem.
A common theme throughout the hearing was to avoid stigmatizing people with mental illness while discussing gun violence and problems facing mental health care.
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Mental health expert: "We can and must intervene early"
Pamela S. Hyde, administrator for the government's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) laid out the scope of the mental health care problem during the hearing (video at left). Of the 45 million U.S. adults suffering from mental illness, only 38.5 percent receive the treatment they need, she said. For children, only one in five receive necessary treatment for diagnosable mental disorders. Despite showing symptoms, many children and adults experience significant delays getting into treatment. Hyde argues that if the system shifts to a focus on early intervention, more people can be helped.
"Cost, access and recognition of the problems are the primary reason this treatment is not received. However it doesn't have to be this way," said Hyde. "For most of these conditions, prevention works, treatment is effective and people do in fact recover."
Mental health care spending has been dramatically cut in recent years. A 2011 report from the National Alliance on Mental Health that looked at state-by-state mental health budgets reported $1.6 billion in state funding cuts from 2009 through 2012. Medicaid cuts at this time also negatively affected mental health care, the report showed. States are mulling increases in funding in light of the Newtown shooting.
And the health care system may only become more burdened in the near future: A July 2012 study by the Institute of Medicine, an advisory medical organization to the government, found an aging baby boomer population could cause a mental health care crisis by 2030, when the number of U.S. seniors is expected to double and necessary resources will be woefully lacking.
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Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, told CBS News senior correspondent John Miller in December that mental health care is a societal problem because the U.S. has not taken on the treatment of mental illness as effectively as it could.
"I think mental health is a big issue," Lieberman said at the time. "It's definitely related to the frequency of these seemingly senseless and wanton killings that occur. And the way it relates is that unfortunately, individuals who have specific forms of mental illness, if untreated, can be more prone to act in a way which is socially destructive and results in harm or killing like we saw happen."
Lieberman said a person who needs treatment for mental illness often faces barriers such as insurance coverage and accessibility to care, in addition to stigma -- while people getting treated for a disease like cancer face fewer "disincentives" to getting the best care.
Following the president's announcement, Lieberman told CBSNews.com that the new proposals are "on the right track" in terms of addressing issues in the mental health system, but much work remains to clarify how these actions will be implemented.
By getting more people with mental illness, impulse disorders and substance abuse issues into constant treatment, he said, they may be prevented from ever getting to a point where they are showing symptoms of mental illness -- and acting on violent impulses.
"Trying to say we should only do something when they get dangerous is very late in the process," said Lieberman.
Details on the president's proposals still need to be worked out, said Lieberman, who is also president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association. For example, the Mental Health Parity Act, which the president wanted to finalize in his executive actions, requires that mental health benefits are covered by insurance, similar to non-psychiatric health care benefits. However, the rules to determine what services are covered, how people become reimbursed and other stipulations have not been established, he said. The president also asked for clarification on Medicaid mental health services, which now typically covers people who have severe forms of mental illness. Lieberman argues policymakers may find that these services are not adequate, and broader services are needed.
Right now, doctors cannot provide mental health care services in what Lieberman refers to as a "financially viable way." He explains that patients seeking help for mental health may require a lot of support, not only from a doctor who may provide medication, but from therapists, case managers and social and vocational rehabilitation counselors who need to be more actively involved in the patient's lives. These team-based "multi-element treatment approaches" have been shown in studies to be effective, however these types of paid services just aren't available for people suffering from mental health problems. Meanwhile, a person with heart disease may see a cardiologist, a surgeon, a different doctor about stent management, a nutritionist for lifestyle tips, and other providers all covered by insurance.
"In mental health care it's the same thing -- you can't just see a psychiatrist and get a prescription," he said. "This is not just throwing different services at the problem, there's good evidence that these things work."
Dr. Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University School of Medicine, who has published several research papers on gun violence and mental health for more than a decade, agrees the current mental health system represents a complex public health problem facing the United States.
"The mental health system in the country, if you can call it that, is fragmented and grossly under-resourced," Swanson told CBSNews.com in an email. "It needs a lot of things, and more research into how to fix it -- at a time when there are more mentally ill people incarcerated than in hospitals -- is one of the needed things," he said.
A 2011 paper by Swanson published in Psychiatric Services examines the lack of data available on firearm use against strangers, and how it is impossible to reliably predict which specific individuals would engage in the most serious acts of violence.
But even if more CDC research stemming from the president's proposals strengthens the available data pool, Swanson argues these egregious acts of violence may still be impossible to predict.
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"I think more access to evidence-based treatment and less access to guns, taken together, would have an impact on gun violence, at least on the margins. But prevent mass shootings? That's hard to say," Swanson said. "Those are almost inherently unpredictable, and often perpetrated by people with no gun-disqualifying mental health or criminal record -- until it's too late. Most of the measures in the President's proposal, even if enacted and implemented perfectly, would not necessarily have prevented the shootings in Tucson, Aurora, or Newtown."
While concerns persist on how the president's proposals will be implemented, the announcement was supported by various health organizations that had previously submitted recommendations to Vice President Joe Biden's White House Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention.
"NAMI applauds the President's plan for its significant provisions to strengthen and expand mental health services," Michael Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness said in a statement following the proposals. "The mental health care system has long been broken. The challenge is not to fix it, but to build it anew, focusing on early screening, diagnosis, treatment and prevention. The President's plan takes important steps toward meeting that challenge."
Dr. Dilip V. Jeste, president of the American Psychiatric Association, added in statement, "We are heartened that the Administration plans to finalize rules governing mental health parity under the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, the Affordable Care Act, and Medicaid. "We are glad that the President has clarified that doctors are not prohibited from asking their patients about guns in their homes. The APA has consistently advocated for such a position."
The American Academy of Pediatrics also offered its support.
"In addition to addressing firearm regulations, we must improve access to quality mental health care both to help prevent violent acts and to assist victims of trauma," AAP President Dr. Thomas K. McInerny, said in a statement following the proposals. "The AAP agrees with the President that we must improve the identification of mental illnesses through increased screening, address inadequate insurance coverage and high out-of-pocket costs that create barriers to access, strengthen the overall quality of mental health access, and improve and expand the Medicaid reimbursement policy to include mental health and developmental services.
