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Late Edition Today, sun and clouds, a cool and gusty wind, high 54. Tonight, patchy clouds, brisk and chilly, low 40. Tomorrow, partly sunny, breezy, high 54. Weather map, Page B16.
VOL. CLXIII . . . No. 56,299
© 2013 The New York Times
$2.50
NEW YORK, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013
Anger Growing Among Allies On U.S. Spying
HEALTH LAW FAILS TO LOWER PRICES FOR RURAL AREAS
Merkel Calls Obama in Fallout Over N.S.A.
POOR OFTEN PAY MORE Analysis Finds Lack of Competition in Many of the Exchanges
By ALISON SMALE
BERLIN — The diplomatic fallout from the documents harvested by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden intensified on Wednesday, with one of the United States’ closest allies, Germany, announcing that its leader had angrily called President Obama seeking reassurance that her cellphone was not the target of an American intelligence tap. Washington hastily pledged that the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, leader of Europe’s most powerful economy, was not the target of current surveillance and would not be in the future, while conspicuously saying nothing about the past. After a similar furor with France, the call was the second time in 48 hours that the president found himself on the phone with a close European ally to argue that the unceasing revelations of invasive American intelligence gathering should not undermine decades of hard-won trans-Atlantic trust. Both episodes illustrated the diplomatic challenge to the United States posed by the cache of documents that Mr. Snowden handed to the journalist Glenn Greenwald. Last week, Mr. Greenwald concluded a deal with the eBay founder Pierre Omidyar to build a new media platform that aims in part to publicize other revelations from the data Mr. Greenwald now possesses. The damage to core American relationships continues to mount. Last month, President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil postponed a state visit to the United States after Brazilian news media reports — fed by material from Mr. Greenwald — that the N.S.A. had intercepted messages from Ms. Continued on Page A3
This article is by Reed Abelson, Katie Thomas and Jo Craven McGinty.
MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Children born in the Dominican Republic to Haitian parents, whose citizenship is affected after a ruling of the nation’s top court.
Dominicans of Haitian Descent Cast Into Legal Limbo by Court By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — For generations, people of Haitian descent have been an inextricable part of life here, often looked at with suspicion and dismay, but largely relied on all the same to clean rooms, build things cheaply and provide the backbreaking labor needed on the country’s vast sugar plantations. Now, intensifying a long and furious debate over their place in this society, the nation’s top court has declared that the children of undocumented Haitian migrants — even those born on Dominican soil decades ago — are no longer entitled to citizenship, throwing into doubt the status of tens of
thousands of people here who have never known any other national identity. “I am Dominican,” said Ana María Belique, 27, who was born in the Dominican Republic and has never lived anywhere else, but has been unable to register for college or renew her passport because her birth certificate was no longer accepted. “I don’t know Haiti. I don’t have family or friends there. This is my home.” In a broad order that has reverberated across the hemisphere, the court has instructed the authorities here to audit all of the nation’s birth records back to June 1929 to determine who no longer qualifies for citizenship, setting off international alarm. The United Nations high commissioner for refugees warned
Thousands Are No Longer Entitled to Citizenship that the decision “may deprive tens of thousands of people of nationality,” while the regional alliance of Caribbean nations, which the Dominican Republic has sought to join, condemned how masses of people are “being plunged into a constitutional, legal and administrative vacuum.” “It is remarkably sweeping in terms of numbers: over 200,000 made stateless — a staggering figure,” said Laura Bingham, who tracks citizenship issues for the
Open Society Justice Initiative. She and other legal experts called it one of the more sweeping rulings denying nationality in recent years. To some extent, the ruling, issued Sept. 23, and the intensity of emotions around it carry echoes of the immigration debate in the United States and other countries, with wide disagreement on how to treat migrant workers and their children. But given the history of the Dominican Republic and Haiti — a sometimes cooperative, often tense and occasionally violent relationship between two nations sharing one island — the decision has brought to the surface a unique set of racial tensions and Continued on Page A6
JPMorgan Faces Case Explores Possible Penalty Rights of Fetus
In Madoff Case
By BEN PROTESS and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG
Federal authorities are preparing to take action in a criminal investigation of JPMorgan Chase, suspecting that the bank turned a blind eye to Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The Madoff case, coming on the heels of a tentative $13 billion settlement over JPMorgan’s mortgage practices, poses another major threat to the reputation of the nation’s largest bank. Reflecting the magnitude of the investigation, prosecutors and JPMorgan have held preliminary discussions about a socalled deferred prosecution agreement, people briefed on the inquiry said. Such an arrangement would suspend criminal charges against JPMorgan in exchange for a fine, certain other concessions and an acknowledgment that the bank will face charges if it fails to behave. Prosecutors may also require JPMorgan, which has repeatedly said that “all personnel acted in good faith” in the Madoff matter, to hire an independent monitor. While deferred-prosecution agreements are the Justice Department’s preferred tool for punishing corporate giants — they allow prosecutors to appear tough without imperiling a company’s health — they are typically deployed only when misconduct is severe. For a large Continued on Page B3
Versus Mother By ERIK ECKHOLM
JACKSON, Wis. — Alicia Beltran cried with fear and disbelief when county sheriffs surrounded her home on July 18 and took her in handcuffs to a holding cell. She was 14 weeks pregnant and thought she had done the right thing when, at a prenatal checkup, she described a pill addiction the previous year and said she had ended it on her own — something later verified by a urine test. But now an apparently skeptical doctor and a social worker accused her of endangering her unborn child because she had refused to accept their order to start on an anti-addiction drug. Ms. Beltran, 28, was taken in shackles before a family court commissioner who, she says, brushed aside her pleas for a lawyer. To her astonishment, the court had already appointed a legal guardian for the fetus. “I didn’t know unborn children had lawyers,” recalled Ms. Beltran, now six months pregnant, after returning to her home north of Milwaukee from a court-ordered 78-day stay at a drug treatment center. “I said, ‘Where’s my lawyer?’” Under a Wisconsin law known as the “cocaine mom” act when it was adopted in 1998, child-welfare authorities can forcibly confine a pregnant woman who uses illegal drugs or alcohol “to a severe degree,” and who refuses to Continued on Page A16
INTERNATIONAL A3-10
German Bishop Suspended
As technical failures bedevil the rollout of President Obama’s health care law, evidence is emerging that one of the program’s loftiest goals — to encourage competition among insurers in an effort to keep costs low — is falling short for many rural Americans. While competition is intense in many populous regions, rural areas and small towns have far fewer carriers offering plans in the law’s online exchanges. Those places, many of them poor, are being asked to choose from some of the highest-priced plans in the 34 states where the federal government is running the health insurance marketplaces, a review by The New York Times has found. Of the roughly 2,500 counties served by the federal exchanges, more than half, or 58 percent, have plans offered by just one or two insurance carriers, according to an analysis by The Times of county-level data provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. In about 530 counties, only a single insurer is participating. The analysis suggests that the ambitions of the Affordable Care Act to increase competition have unfolded unevenly, at least in the early going, and have not addressed many of the factors that contribute to high prices. Insurance companies are reluctant to enter challenging new markets, experts say, because medical costs are high, dominant insurers are difficult to unseat, and powerful hospital systems resist efforts to lower rates. “There’s nothing in the structure of the Affordable Care Act which really deals with that problem,” said John Holahan, a fellow at the Urban Institute, who noted that many factors determine costs in a given market. “I think that all else being equal, premiums will clearly be higher when there’s not that competition.” The Obama administration has said 95 percent of Americans live in areas where there are at least two insurers in the exchanges. But many experts say two might not be enough to create competition that would help lower prices. For example, in Wyoming, two insurers are offering plans at prices that are higher than in neighboring Montana, where a third carrier is seen as a factor in Continued on Page A20
Change in Tactics ÁNGEL FRANCO/THE NEW YORK TIMES
Preserved in Sugar
Filtering vessels inside the refinery building are among the artifacts at the long-shuttered Domino Sugar plant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the site of a planned development. Page A24.
Republicans in Congress are refocusing their efforts from denying funds for the health care law to investigating problems with its rollout. Page A21.
Year Later, Storm Victims Challenge Christie’s Status as a Savior By KATE ZERNIKE
Hurricane Sandy turned Chris Christie into something akin to America’s governor, as the nation watched him express his state’s pain on the devastated shoreline the morning after the storm, then triumphantly cut the ribbons on reopened boardwalks on Memorial Day. “We’re stronger than the storm,” he proclaimed in television commercials that ran in
other states all summer. But in the affected parts of New Jersey, Governor Christie’s storm campaign has not sold as well. With at least 26,000 people still out of their homes a year later, he has become the focus of ire for many storm survivors who say that the recovery does not look as impressive to them as it does to the rest of the country. Homeowners promised money from Mr. Christie’s rebuilding program say they have yet to see
it; those who have been denied aid vent about the bureaucracy. Some criticize him for encouraging residents to build to new flood zone standards to speed recovery; homeowners now say they are being penalized, because anyone who started rebuilding is ineligible for a grant. Storm victims argue that the governor, who pushed fellow Republicans in Congress to pass a federal aid package, should be exerting similar pressure on in-
NATIONAL A12-21
SPORTSTHURSDAY B12-18
Vegetarian and Red-Meat Duo
Red Sox Romp in Opener
Heidi Nelson Cruz, a managing director at Goldman Sachs and wife of Senator Ted Cruz, is a complex study in conPAGE A12 trasts to her husband.
David Ortiz hit a homer and drove in three runs, and the Boston Red Sox trounced the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-1, in PAGE B12 Game 1 of the World Series.
Chapter 1 in a Chapter 9 Case
ARTS C1-8
The trial over Detroit’s eligibility for bankruptcy began with disagreement over what led to its condition. PAGE A15
Pope Francis suspended a German bishPAGE A4 op over lavish spending.
BUSINESS DAY B1-11
U.S. Mideast Policy Challenged
Bank Loses Mortgage Case
Secretary of State John Kerry seeks to defuse criticism from two allies, Israel PAGE A8 and Saudi Arabia.
A jury found Bank of America liable for selling defective mortgages, in a case inPAGE B1 volving Countrywide.
NEW YORK A22-25
Retrial for Skakel in ’75 Killing A Connecticut judge ruled that the lawyer for Michael Skakel, a nephew of Ethel Kennedy, did not provide adequate representation in his 2002 murder trial. Mr. Skakel, 53, was convicted in the 1975 killing of Martha Moxley, a neighbor, in PAGE A22 Greenwich.
surers and banks to settle claims and prevent harm to the credit ratings of victims. And they accuse him of using the storm for his own aggrandizement, particularly after he spent $4.7 million in federal money to hire a politically connected firm to produce the television ads, choosing it over an agency that bid less but did not plan to show the governor in its commercials. At a legislative hearing on Continued on Page A24
A Novel’s Demands
HOME D1-8
Eleanor Catton’s “Luminaries,” winner of the Man Booker Prize, is a complex period piece set in 19th-century New Zealand. Janet Maslin reviews. PAGE C1
For haunted houses, like Rob Zombie’s, PAGE D1 above, this is high season.
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27
Nicholas D. Kristof
PAGE A27
The Stuff of Nightmares
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THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONAL THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2013
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Case in Wisconsin Explores Rights of Fetuses Versus Those of Their Mothers From Page A1 accept treatment. Now, with Ms. Beltran’s detention as Exhibit A, that law is being challenged as unconstitutional in a federal suit filed this month, the first in federal court to challenge this kind of fetal protection law. Its opponents are hoping to set an important precedent in the continuing tug of war over the rights of pregnant women and legal status of the unborn. Wisconsin is one of four states, along with Minnesota, Oklahoma and South Dakota, with laws specifically granting authorities the power to confine pregnant women for substance abuse. But many other states use civil-confinement, child-protection or assorted criminal laws to force women into treatment programs or punish them for taking drugs. “This is what happens when laws give officials the authority to treat fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses as if they are already completely separate from the
pregnant woman,” said Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women in New York, of Ms. Beltran’s arrest and confinement. The Wisconsin law, according to the suit filed in United States District Court in Milwaukee, deprives women of physical liberty, medical privacy, due process and other constitutional rights. It is also based on faulty information about the risks to newborns and ultimately does more harm than good, the suit argues, by scaring pregnant women away from prenatal care. Bonnie Ladwig, a retired state representative who helped write the law, called it an appropriate effort to prevent harm. “It’s the same as abuse of a child after it’s born,” she said. “If the mother isn’t smart enough not to do drugs, we’ve got to step in.” The law is intended “to help both the woman and her baby,” said Susan Armacost, the legislative director of Wisconsin Right to Life, whose group lobbied hard
for the measure. Similar policies have won strong support from anti-abortion groups around the country, in part because they advance the goal of granting independent personhood and rights to the unborn child. The suit is being argued by National Advocates for Pregnant Women along with the Reproductive Justice Clinic of the New York University School of Law and Linda S. Vanden Heuvel, a Wisconsin lawyer who was eventually hired by Ms. Beltran’s mother. Wisconsin officials have not yet responded in court and declined to comment. Ms. Paltrow’s group has documented hundreds of cases nationally over the last decade in which women were detained, arrested or forced to accept medical procedures in the name of fetal protection, with low-income and minority women affected disproportionately. In the most extreme example, Alabama has applied a 2006 “chemical endangerment of a child” law, originally passed to protect children from methamphetamine laboratories, to prosecute about 100 women whose newborns tested positive for drugs, sending several new mothers to prison. Courts in more than 20 states have blocked the use of criminal child-abuse or related laws against pregnant women. But in January the Alabama Supreme Court upheld use of the endangerment law from the moment of conception. In Wisconsin, because childwelfare proceedings are confidential, no one knows how often the 1998 law has been used, but anecdotal evidence suggests it may happen a few times each year at least. Many medical experts say that these laws are based on exaggerated perceptions of the risks to newborns and are medically counterproductive. In 2011, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said that “incarceration and threat of incarceration have proved to be ineffective in reducing the incidence of alcohol or drug abuse” and that mandated testing and reporting lead women to avoid prenatal care that “greatly reduces the negative effects of substance abuse during pregnancy.” Dr. Cresta W. Jones, an obste-
DARREN HAUCK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Alicia Beltran, 28, was sent to a drug-treatment center despite insisting she was not using drugs. trician and a fetal medicine specialist at the Medical College of Wisconsin who sees many women with histories of drug or alcohol abuse, said that even sporadic detentions had sowed fear. “The women are scared to come in if they have dependency problems,” she said. “When you allow them to be honest you get better outcomes in their pregnancies.” She and other experts said that while fetal alcohol syndrome is a proven but unpredictable threat, the impact of illegal drug use on newborns is generally less serious and more treatable than is popularly believed. Ms. Beltran thought she was being helpful when, in her first prenatal visit, on July 2, to a clinic at St. Joseph’s Hospital, she discussed her medical history. Ms. Beltran, who worked as a bartender and waitress and became pregnant by a boyfriend who remains close, told the physician assistant that she had become addicted last year to Percocet, a painkiller. But she had willed herself off it the previous fall, even going to the hospital in November for withdrawal symptoms. She said she was unable to afford a prescription for Suboxone, which blocks other opiates and is widely used in treatment, includ-
ing during pregnancy. So she obtained some from a friend and, on her own, reduced the dosage over time, stopping altogether three days before her appointment at St. Joseph’s. She said that in May, before she knew she was pregnant, she had taken one Vicodin tablet for a toothache. The physician assistant, apparently skeptical, said she should get a prescription for Suboxone because withdrawal could be hard on the fetus, Ms. Beltran recalled. “But I told her I’d already tapered off and quit,” she said. A urine test that day found traces of Suboxone but no signs of other opiates, and later tests found her clear of both drugs. Two weeks after that prenatal visit the social worker showed up unannounced at Ms. Beltran’s home, telling her to restart Suboxone treatment or face a court order to do so. “I told her I’m off this stuff and I don’t want to go back on it,” she recalled, admitting that she lost her temper and shut the door on the social worker after saying, “Maybe I should just get an abortion.” Two days later, the sheriffs arrived to take her to the county jail and the initial hearing. The case against Ms. Beltran was bolstered by the statement of Dr. Angela Breckenridge, an obste-
trician at the West Bend Clinic South at St. Joseph’s Hospital. In a letter dated July 16, Dr. Breckenridge said that Ms. Beltran had “openly admitted” taking opiates during pregnancy and was still using Suboxone. “She exhibits lack of self-control and refuses the treatment we have offered her,” wrote Dr. Breckenridge, who, according to Ms. Beltran, had not personally met or examined her. She recommended “a mandatory inpatient drug treatment program or incarceration,” adding, “The child’s life depends on action in this case.” Dr. Breckenridge did not respond to requests for comment. A hospital spokeswoman said, “We are confident that our medical staff acted in good faith.” On threat of jail, Ms. Beltran remained at Casa Clare, a treatment center two hours north in Appleton, Wis., until Oct. 4, when the center sent her home. She lost her job and now hopes to find temporary work over the holidays. Her due date is Jan. 15, and she already has a hand-medown crib in her bedroom. “I’m scared they can just come back after my baby’s born,” she said. “This is supposed to be the happiest part of my pregnancy, and I’m just terrified.”
Oil Spill in North Dakota Raises Detection Concerns By DAN FROSCH
DENVER — For several days last month, Steven Jensen smelled the oil, wafting up over his rolling wheat farm near Tioga. But in that part of northwestern North Dakota, where the rush to tap the Bakken shale field is roaring, the scent of crude is hardly uncommon. It was not until Sept. 29 that Mr. Jensen came across a six-inch spurt of oil gurgling up from his land and reported a spill. As it turned out, a Tesoro Logistics pipeline had ruptured, spreading more than 865,000 gallons of oil across seven acres of Mr. Jensen’s farm. The spill is one of the largest inland oil pipeline accidents in the United States. State officials, who responded to the spill after being notified by Tesoro, said the oil posed no immediate environmental risk. Fortunately, they said, the accident occurred in a remote area, away from water and homes. But the rupture has raised fresh concerns about the ability of pipeline companies to detect problems before it is too late. Such fears have been heightened as the Obama administration nears a decision on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry a type of Canadian crude to American refineries on the Gulf Coast that is especially difficult to clean if spilled. “This section of the pipeline was not required to have leak monitoring or pressure sensors,” said Kris Roberts, an environ-
mental geologist with the North Dakota Department of Health, who is leading the state’s response to the spill. “And it didn’t.” Indeed, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration mandates that companies have some means of detecting leaks on their pipelines but offers little other guidance. The regulations emphasize the protection of environmentally sensitive areas and population centers, leaving more isolated
A landowner finds an accident before the pipeline company. sections of pipeline monitored less stringently. Moreover, there are no minimum performance standards for leak detection, so there is no way of knowing how well a company’s system works. Tesoro officials said the company had monitored the pipeline’s pressure remotely but acknowledged that was not enough. The company would not speculate on the length or cause of the spill, which the pipeline agency is investigating. It first learned of the accident the day Mr. Jensen discovered it, after he called another oil company with a pipeline in the area. State officials did not alert the public of the accident until more than a week later, which Mr. Rob-
erts said was because the spill posed no danger and was swiftly contained. A Tesoro spokeswoman, Tina Barbee, said in an e-mail that an internal inspection last month detected “anomalies” with the pipeline. But Tesoro was still waiting for details when Mr. Jensen discovered the spill. The company estimated that the hole from which the oil leaked was about a quarter-inch in diameter. “We will continue to work tirelessly to fully remediate the release area,” said the company’s chief executive, Gregory J. Goff, in a statement. Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, which advocates tougher pipeline regulations, said the federal government had moved too slowly to bolster leak detection standards. “Even though people have been calling for better leak detection, it is usually a landowner who finds the spills,” Mr. Weimer said. “It runs counter to what the industry tells us, that they can detect and shut off these spills in a minutes, when they actually go on for days.” A spokeswoman for the federal pipeline agency, Jeannie Shiffer, said detection rules were still in the process of being updated. In 2010, the agency announced that it was considering establishing minimum leak detection standards for all pipelines, and an initial public comment period has already occurred. A 2012 study commissioned by the pipeline agency found that emergency responders or members of the public were more like-
ly to detect hazardous liquid pipeline spills than pipeline companies themselves. In another 2012 report, the National Transportation Safety Board found that Enbridge Energy workers were not properly trained to recognize alarms, which contributed to a large 2010 oil spill in Michigan that went undetected for 17 hours. Lois Epstein, a civil engineer and pipeline expert for the Wilderness Society, said that based on Mr. Jensen’s account of the North Dakota spill and the size of the hole, oil may well have been leaking for weeks. “Many of us have been asking for this for over a decade,” said Ms. Epstein, referring to leak detection standards. “We really have regulatory paralysis in terms of pipeline safety requirements.” In North Dakota, where the cleanup continues, Tesoro said it would use additional monitoring equipment to detect any future problems. “The controls we had in place did not prevent this release, and we find that unacceptable,” Ms. Barbee said. So far the oil has been contained to a small sliver of Mr. Jensen’s property, which he cannot now farm. But he is still concerned about lingering effects the spill may have on his land. Recently, a Tesoro executive sat down with Mr. Jensen at his home over hot apple pie. The executive said the company would not abandon his land before the oil was gone, Mr. Jensen recalled: “They promised to make it right.”
National Briefing WASHINGTON
Answers Sought in Deaths of Dogs That Ate Treats The Food and Drug Administration is investigating the deaths of almost 600 dogs that ate jerky treats made in China. The F.D.A. said it had received reports of illnesses in 3,600 dogs and 10 cats in the United States since 2007, and that 580 dogs had died from the treats, which were sold under a variety of brand names. Pet owners and veterinarians have sent in reports of kidney failure, gastrointestinal bleeding and a rare kidney disorder, the F.D.A. said. The agency is appealing to pet owners and veterinarians for more information on animals that may have gotten ill after eating the treats. Pets can experience a decreased appetite, decreased activity, vomiting and diarrhea, among other symptoms within hours of eating jerky tenders or strips made of chicken, duck, (AP) sweet potatoes or dried fruit.
ROCKIES
Colorado: Files on JonBenet Ramsey to Be Opened A judge Wednesday ordered the release of the 1999 grand jury indictment in the killing of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, possibly shed-
ding light on why prosecutors decided against charging her parents. Senior District Court Judge J. Robert Lowenbach ruled that the indictment signed by the grand jury foreman constituted an official action and must be released Friday. A reporter for The Daily Camera and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sued for the records. The judge noted that District Attorney Alex Hunter prepared possible charges against John Ramsey and his wife, Patsy, three years after the death. It has remained sealed for 14 years because Mr. Hunter did not pursue charges, but officials have never explained why. JonBenet was found dead in her family’s Boulder home on Dec. 26, 1996. Former District Attorney Mary Lacy said in 2008 that DNA evidence suggested the (AP) killer was not a family member.
SOUTH
Florida: No Charges in Zimmerman Marital Dispute A Lake Mary police spokesman said Wednesday that a dispute last month between George Zimmerman and his estranged wife, Shellie, did not rise to a criminal level and that no criminal charges would be filed against Mr. Zimmerman. Divorce papers say the couple separated in August, a month after Mr. Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting (AP) death of an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin.