GOP lawmakers challenge plan to correct diplomatic security flaws

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans on Thursday challenged the Obama administration's plan for correcting flaws exposed by the deadly attacks on the U.S. mission in Libya, pressing for an overhaul of its approach to security and probing to discover what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other top officials knew before the attacks.

Three days after an independent investigative panel delivered a stinging report on the department's failures in Benghazi, Libya, GOP lawmakers in open hearings demanded to know why State Department officials had not done more to protect the mission when they were clearly aware that militant attacks on Western targets had been increasing all year.

Republican lawmakers didn't appear to open any unexplored areas for investigation, however. And with a number of GOP lawmakers not showing up for the hearings, it appeared that an issue that has been a major focus of conservatives' efforts since fall may be losing steam.

The Benghazi attacks Sept. 11 killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans and set in motion a broad reexamination of how the State Department protects its 275 posts around the world.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) asked Clinton's deputies, William J. Burns and Thomas R. Nides, why the secretary hadn't sought to shift money to better protect the Benghazi mission, given the stream of violent incidents in the city and warnings from lower-level U.S. officials.

"Why did [Clinton] never ask for … any change of resources to make sure Benghazi was secure? Why did that not happen?" Corker asked at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I cannot imagine that we had people out there with the lack of security.... What I saw in the report is a department that has sclerosis."

Administration officials have accepted the conclusion of the investigative panel that security arrangements were deeply flawed, and they have sought to show they are taking the initiative on the issue, which has the potential to affect Clinton's legacy as she prepares to leave office.

State Department officials have embraced all 29 reform proposals recommended by the Accountability Review Board and have removed from their jobs — but not the department — four officials with some responsibility for diplomatic security in Libya. They are asking Congress for more money and reallocating funds to pay for additional Marine guards, civilian security personnel and physical security improvements.

Burns acknowledged that "we did not do a good enough job … in trying to connect the dots" amid signs of mounting danger.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the board's report "places a lot of the blame on lower-level officials" and asked how aware Clinton and top aides were of the concerns about the militant threat in Libya.

Burns said there were memos circulating among Clinton and top aides discussing the "deteriorating security situation in Libya." But he said he was not aware of any paper flow to the top level that discussed lower-level officials' requests for greater security funding in Benghazi.

The Republicans rejected arguments by administration officials and their Democratic supporters that part of the problem was the tight budget for diplomatic security, which House Republicans reduced last year. They called instead for a shift of money from lower-priority items.

At an afternoon hearing, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), said the problem was "misplaced priorities." She said the department was "lavishing" money on projects such as a "culinary diplomacy partnership" that sends American chefs around the world, and efforts to slow climate change.

The hearings probably would have drawn more lawmakers if Clinton had testified, as originally planned. But Clinton asked Saturday to be excused because she suffered a concussion in a fall last week. She plans to testify in mid-January, Ros-Lehtinen said.

The State Department said Wednesday night that three officials who had been criticized by the investigative board were giving up their jobs and that Eric Boswell, head of the Diplomatic Security bureau, agreed to resign. The three others were "relieved of their current duties" and have been "placed on administrative leave pending further action," a department statement said.

The statement didn't identify the three, but other officials said they include Charlene Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary in the Diplomatic Security bureau, and Raymond Maxwell, a deputy assistant secretary in the Near Eastern Affairs bureau.

paul.richter@latimes.com

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RIM loses BlackBerry subscribers for first time

TORONTO (AP) — Research In Motion‘s stock plunged in after-hours trading Thursday after the BlackBerry maker said it plans to change the way it charges fees.

RIM also announced that it lost subscribers for the first time in the latest quarter, as the global number of BlackBerry users dipped to 79 million.

In a rare positive sign, the Canadian company added to its cash position during the quarter as it prepared to launch new smartphones on Jan. 30. The new devices are deemed critical to the company’s survival.

RIM’s stock initially jumped more than 8 percent in after-hours trading on that news, but then fell $ 1.48, or 10.4 percent, to $ 12.65 after RIM said on a conference call that it won’t generate as much revenue from telecommunications carriers once it releases the new BlackBerry 10 platform.

RIM is changing the way it charges service fees, putting an important source of revenue at risk. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said only subscribers who want enhanced security will pay fees under the new system.

“Other subscribers who do not utilize such services are expected to generate less or no service revenue,” Heins said. “The mix in level of service fees revenue will change going forward and will be under pressure over the next year during this transition.”

RIM’s stock had been on a three-month rally that has seen the stock more than double from its lowest level since 2003.

But Mike Walkley, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity, said BlackBerry 10 will change RIM’s services revenue model dramatically. He said that instead of getting about $ 6 per device each month from carriers and users RIM could get as little as zero.

“That’s what turned the stock from being up 10 percent to being down 10 percent,” Walkley said. “That’s been part of our worry. How do they come back with a new platform and get carriers to continue to share the higher revenue —which sounds like they are not going to— and then subsidize the phone to make it affordable for consumers and enterprises.”

“People are seeing that the services revenue has a lot of risk to it now with the BlackBerry 10 migration.”

Three months ago, RIM had 80 million subscribers. Analysts said the loss of 1 million subscribers was expected. Once coveted symbols of an always-connected lifestyle, BlackBerry phones have lost their luster to Apple’s iPhone and phones that run on Google’s Android software.

RIM is banking its future on its much-delayed BlackBerry 10 platform, which is meant to offer the multimedia, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now demand.

“We believe the company has stabilized and will turn the corner in the next year,” Heins said. He noted that the company’s cash holdings grew by $ 600 million in the quarter to $ 2.9 billion, even after the funding of all its restructuring costs. RIM previously announced 5,000 layoffs this year.

Heins said subscribers in North America showed the largest decline, but said there is growth overseas.

Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Financial, said before the conference call that the company bought itself more time.

“It doesn’t mean (BlackBerry) 10 will gain traction. A lot of people said 10 would be DOA, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” he said.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek also earlier called the results better than expected, noting that RIM added a significant amount of cash. RIM will need the money to advertise the new BlackBerrys and operating system.

Misek also called it a positive development that RIM said there would not be another delay to BlackBerry 10.

“The success or failure of this company will be on BlackBerry 10,” Misek said.

RIM posted net income of $ 14 million, or 3 cents per share for its fiscal third quarter, which ended Dec. 1. That compares with a profit of $ 265 million, or 51 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

The latest figure includes a favorable tax settlement. Excluding that adjustment, RIM lost 22 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting a wider loss of 27 cents.

RIM reported revenue of $ 2.7 billion, down 47 percent from a year ago.

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Twitter post offers clue to The Civil Wars' future

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — While there still remain questions about the future of The Civil Wars, there's new music on the way.

Joy Williams, one half of the Grammy Award-winning duo with John Paul White, said Thursday during a Twitter chat that she was in the studio listening to new Civil Wars songs.

It's a tantalizing clue to the future of the group, which appeared in doubt when a European tour unraveled last month due to "irreconcilable differences."

At the time, the duo said it hoped to release an album in 2013. It's not clear if Williams was referring Thursday to music for a new album or for a documentary score they have composed with T Bone Burnett. They're also set to release an "Unplugged" session on iTunes on Jan. 15.

Nate Yetton, the group's manager and Williams' husband, had no comment — though he has supplied a few hints of his own by posting pictures of recording sessions on his Instagram account recently. The duo announced last summer it would be working with Charlie Peacock, who produced its gold-selling debut "Barton Hollow." The photos do not show Williams or White, but one includes violin player Odessa Rose.

Rose says in an Instagram post: "Playing on the new Civil Wars record... Beautiful sounds."

Even with its future in doubt, the duo continues to gather accolades. Williams and White are up for a Golden Globe on Jan. 13, and two Grammy Awards on Feb. 10, for their "The Hunger Games" soundtrack collaboration "Safe & Sound" with Taylor Swift.

Williams' comments came during an installment of an artist interview series with Alison Sudol of A Fine Frenzy sponsored by The Recording Academy.

___

Online:

http://thecivilwars.com

___

Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

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Bernard Madoff's brother is sentenced to 10 years in prison

NEW YORK — The brother of imprisoned financier Bernard Madoff was sentenced to 10 years in prison for crimes committed in the shadow of his notorious sibling by a judge who said she disbelieved his claims that he did not know about the epic fraud.

Peter Madoff, 67, agreed to serve the maximum sentence allowable to the charges of conspiracy and falsifying the books and records of an investment advisor that he pleaded guilty to in June.

U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain urged him to tell the truth even after he reports to prison Feb. 6 about what he knows about the multi-decade fraud that cost thousands of investors their original $20 billion investment.

The judge said Peter Madoff was "frankly not believable" when he said at his plea that he learned about the fraud only when his brother revealed it to him just before he surrendered to authorities.

Peter Madoff spoke only briefly Thursday before he was sentenced, saying: "I am deeply ashamed of my conduct and have tried to atone by pleading guilty and have agreed to forfeit all of my present and future assets."

He added: "I am profoundly sorry that my failures let many people down, including my loved ones."

Two investors spoke during the proceeding, which ended in less than an hour.

Investor Michael T. De Vita, 62, also demanded that the truth be forced out.

"I believe it to be physically impossible for a single person to carry out such a gargantuan task all by himself," he said.

De Vita said investors "have waited four years for others to accept responsibility for this massive crime. We are still waiting for that today."

"All of this was preventable if only one person was willing to do the right thing and stop this in its tracks years ago. Peter Madoff could have been that person," he said.

The sentencing comes four years and a week after Bernard Madoff first revealed the fraud, which occurred over several decades as the former Nasdaq chairman built a reputation for delivering unparalleled investment results, even in bad times. The revelation came only days after the business sent out statements that made investors think their investments had grown to a total of more than $65 billion.

Peter Madoff said at his plea that he had no idea his brother was running a massive Ponzi scheme, paying off longtime investors at times with money from newer investors.

"My family was torn apart as a result of my brother's atrocious conduct," he said. "I was reviled by strangers as well as friends who assumed that I knew about the Ponzi scheme."

But he conceded that he followed his brother's instructions and helped him decide which favored friends, clients and family members would receive the $300 million that remained in the company's accounts. The checks were never sent.

Peter Madoff, who joined his brother's firm after graduating from Fordham Law School in 1970, has been free on $5-million bail after he agreed to surrender all his assets.

Before the sentencing, his lawyer, John Wing, said in a memorandum that Peter Madoff will "almost certainly live out his remaining days as a jobless pariah, in or out of prison." He called him a victim of his loyalty to his brother, saying he had been mistreated by the sibling who was eight years older and was viewed as "the prince" by his mother.

As part of a forfeiture agreement, Madoff's wife, Marion, and daughter Shana must forfeit nearly all of their assets. The government said those assets and assets that will be forfeited by other family members include several homes, a Ferrari and more than $10 million in cash and securities. It said his wife will be left with $771,733. Besides the Madoff brothers, no other family members have been arrested.

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Robert H. Bork, pivotal figure in Supreme Court history, dies at 85

Robert H. Bork, the conservative legal champion whose bitter defeat for a Supreme Court seat in 1987 politicized the confirmation process and changed the court's direction for decades, died Wednesday. He was 85.

The former Yale law professor and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit died at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., from complications of heart disease, said his son Robert H. Bork Jr.

A revered figure on the right, Bork inspired a generation of conservatives with his critiques of the liberal-dominated high court in the 1960s and '70s. In speeches, law reviews and op-ed articles, Bork argued that the liberal justices were abusing their power and remaking American life by ending prayers in public schools, extending new rights to criminals, ordering cross-town busing for desegregation and striking down laws on birth control, abortion and the death penalty. Bork said the Constitution, as originally written, left these matters to the wishes of the majority.

Bork was more than a legal theorist. He was also a highly regarded constitutional lawyer. When he served as U.S. solicitor general under Presidents Nixon and Ford, the Supreme Court justices praised Bork as one of the finest advocates they had ever seen.

As solicitor general, he served as a footnote to the Watergate scandal that brought down Nixon. In what became known as "the Saturday Night Massacre," the embattled chief executive ordered the firing of special prosecutor Archibald Cox because he had demanded Nixon's secret White House tapes. The attorney general and then the deputy attorney general resigned rather than carry out the order. Bork, who was then in the No. 3 post as solicitor general, carried out the order and fired Cox.

When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, Bork's name rose to the top of the list of potential court nominees. Reagan aspired to transform the Supreme Court, and Bork, then teaching law at Yale, was offered a seat on the Court of Appeals in Washington. It was seen as a stepping stone to the high court.

But it turned into a long wait for Bork.

Reagan chose Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981, fulfilling a campaign promise to appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court. A fateful moment came in 1986 when a second seat became vacant. Reagan and his advisors passed over Bork for his younger colleague, then-Judge Antonin Scalia, who won a unanimous confirmation in a Senate still under Republican control.

Bork's time finally came in the summer of 1987 when Justice Lewis Powell, the swing vote on the closely divided court, announced his retirement. By then, however, the Democrats had taken control of the Senate, and Reagan had been weakened by the Iran-Contra scandal.

On July 1, 1987, Reagan introduced the burly, bearded Judge Bork as his nominee, but within an hour the president's words were drowned out by a fierce attack from Capitol Hill led by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, [and] rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids," Kennedy said. No one could remember such a harsh assault on a president's court nominee, and it set the tone for a campaign-style attack that lasted into the fall.

Bork gave the Democrats plenty of ammunition, however.

As a Yale professor in 1963, he had condemned the pending civil rights bill that would have given blacks an equal right to be served in hotels, restaurants and other public places across the nation. He called this a threat to individual freedom, and he advised Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee, to cast a "no" vote against what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bork wrote critically of the Voting Rights Act and various school desegregation measures. He also denounced the court's "right to privacy" rulings that led to the Roe vs. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman's right to have an abortion.

When Bork made his case before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he faced a hostile majority of Democrats, including its new chairman, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. Because of his long "paper trail," Bork had no choice but to try to explain his views. He did so, at length, but he did not win over many converts. And viewers watching on television told pollsters they saw the stiff, scowling judge as an intimidating figure. Bork helped his opponents paint a portrait of him as a nominee who was more attuned to legal theory than to doing justice. When asked why he wanted to serve on the nation's highest court, Bork told one senator the job would be "an intellectual feast."

When the hearings ended, the Reagan White House knew Bork could not be confirmed. But the judge refused to withdraw, and the Senate rejected his nomination on a 58-42 vote.

Conservatives were furious, insisting that partisan attacks had maligned the reputation of one of the most accomplished jurists to come before the Senate. The phrase "to bork" became shorthand for inflicting a harsh, unfair public attack. Liberals and Democrats countered that Bork went down to defeat because most Americans did not share his views.

But no one disputed that the Bork battle changed how presidents choose nominees and how the Senate debates them. In the wake of Bork's defeat, presidential legal advisors looked for judicial nominees who had said or written little on the major legal controversies. In 1990, for example, President George H.W. Bush chose a little-known New Hampshire judge for the Supreme Court because his views were unknown. Justice David H. Souter easily won confirmation, but then surprised his Republican backers when he became a reliable liberal on the court.

Court nominees after Bork refused to follow his tack of seeking to explain his views in answer to questions from senators, instead choosing to duck them. Bork's defeat also had a profound and lasting impact on the Supreme Court itself. Had Bork won confirmation, the court's conservative bloc, led by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, would have had a majority to overturn Roe vs. Wade as well as the strict ban on school-sponsored prayers and invocations. Instead, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Reagan nominee who eventually filled Powell's seat, cast a deciding vote in 1992 to preserve the right to abortion and the ban on school prayers. Kennedy has also been a strong foe of laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians, and he is seen as holding the decisive vote in the upcoming cases involving same-sex marriage.

Bork's influence on conservative legal thought was also lasting. In the 1970s, he was among the first to argue for interpreting the Constitution based on its "original intent," an idea that was later championed by Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas.

As a scholar of antitrust law, Bork helped fundamentally change the thinking behind the law. He criticized those who targeted "big" businesses as monopolies and said antitrust law should focus instead on the welfare of consumers. At Yale, students joked that Bork taught "pro-trust," not antitrust. But his views are now widely accepted.

Bork stepped down from the bench a year after his Senate defeat, and he wrote several books renewing his criticism of liberalism. In the last year, he served as a chairman of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's advisory committee on the judiciary and the courts.

Scalia praised Bork as "one of the most influential legal scholars of the past 50 years. His impact on legal thinking in the fields of antitrust and constitutional law was profound and lasting. More important for the final accounting, he was a good man and a loyal citizen."

Bork was born in Pittsburgh on March 1, 1927, and served in the Marines. He graduated from the University of Chicago and its law school and worked as a lawyer in New York and Chicago before joining the Yale faculty in 1962.

His first wife, Claire Davidson, died in 1980. He married Mary Ellen Bork, a former nun, in 1982. She survives him, along with three children from his first marriage, sons Robert and Charles Bork and daughter Ellen Bork, and two grandchildren.

david.savage@latimes.com

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Apple is dominating the small and medium business market in Q4

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Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy welcome a baby boy

NEW YORK (AP) — Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy's "Homeland" just got bigger.

Danes' rep confirms the couple welcomed a baby boy named Cyrus Michael Christopher.

People.com first reported Monday's birth.

It's the first child for 33-year old Danes and 37-year-old Dancy. They were married in 2009.

There's no word yet whether the new mom will attend the Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 13. She's nominated for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series for her work on Showtime's "Homeland."

Up next, Dancy stars in NBC's "Hannibal," an adaptation of Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon."

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Amgen Workers Helped U.S. in Aranesp Marketing Inquiry

“I hope no one is taping this,” the Amgen manager remarked at a company sales meeting in 2005.

The manager then boasted of how she had given a $10,000 unrestricted grant to a pet project of a doctor who was an adviser to the local Medicare contractor. In turn, she said, the doctor would help persuade the contractor to provide reimbursement for an unapproved use of Amgen’s anemia drug, Aranesp.

Someone, it turned out, was taping it. Jill Osiecki, a longtime sales representative at Amgen, was wearing a recording device under her clothes, transmitting the proceedings to agents of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The result of Ms. Osiecki’s undercover work, and information provided by other whistle-blowers, led to Amgen’s agreement this week to pay $762 million to settle federal investigations regarding the marketing of some of its top-selling drugs.

Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. of Federal District Court in Brooklyn accepted the settlement on Wednesday, clearing the way for 10 whistle-blower lawsuits to be unsealed.

Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company, will pay $150 million in criminal penalties after pleading guilty to one misdemeanor count of marketing Aranesp for unapproved uses and in unapproved doses.

The rest of the money — $612 million — will go to settle civil false claims lawsuits filed by the federal government, states and whistle-blowers. These contain accusations that go well beyond the off-label marketing of Aranesp.

They include off-label marketing of other drugs like Enbrel for psoriasis and Neulasta, which increases the levels of white blood cells. Amgen is also accused of offering kickbacks to doctors and clinics to induce them to use its drugs. These reportedly came as cash, rebates, free samples, educational and research grants, dinners and travel, and other inducements. The government also accused the company of knowingly misreporting the prices of some of its drugs.

Except for those in the criminal count, Amgen denied the other accusations, though it did issue a statement on Wednesday acknowledging the settlement.

“The government raised important concerns in the criminal prosecution,” Cynthia M. Patton, chief compliance officer at Amgen, said in the statement. “Amgen acknowledges that mistakes were made, and we did not live up to our standards.”

Ms. Osiecki, 52, was one of the main whistle-blowers and will be entitled to a share of the settlement. The amount each whistle-blower will receive has not been determined or is being kept confidential, their lawyers said.

Ms. Osiecki worked as a sales representative for Merck for nine years before joining Amgen in 1990, soon after the biotechnology company won regulatory approval for its first product. The company, based outside Los Angeles, had “good science, good products, strong ethics,” Ms. Osiecki said in an interview.

But, she said, the corporate culture changed starting around 2000. That was when new management came in and Aranesp was approved, setting up a fierce marketing battle with Johnson & Johnson and its rival anemia drug, Procrit.

“It was more important to make your numbers than to follow the rules,” said Ms. Osiecki, who was based in Milwaukee and sold Aranesp.

In August 2004, with her concerns mounting, Ms. Osiecki called the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services and left a message. Within days, she was called back, and she went to see an agent, who persuaded her to secretly record meetings. She did that 13 times over about 15 months, mainly sales meetings.

Aranesp is used mainly in a hospital, clinic or physician’s office. It is bought by the medical practice, which can make a profit if the patient and insurers pay more for the use of the drug than the practice paid.

Ms. Osiecki said Amgen “marketed the spread,” trying to make it more profitable for doctors to use Aranesp rather than Procrit.

Such financial inducements could also spur greater overall use of a drug and can violate anti-kickback laws, said Ms. Osiecki’s lawyer, Brian P. Kenney of Kenney & McCafferty in Blue Bell, Pa.

Ms. Osiecki said the first sales meeting at which she wore the recording device, wrapped around her midriff under baggy clothes, was in October 2004 in a Milwaukee hotel. She could look down from the meeting room and see the car parked across the street containing the agent with the receiving device. She said she was not particularly nervous.

The speaker was a pharmacist from an oncology practice going through the numbers on how his practice could make a million dollars more a year using Aranesp rather than Procrit.

Ms. Osiecki said Amgen was careful to cover up such marketing. Spreadsheets showing doctors how much more money they could make using Aranesp were “homemade bread,” meaning they were created by each sales representative, not by the company. And representatives were told not to leave the presentations behind after showing them to doctors.

Her 107-page complaint, filed in late 2004, contains many other accusations.

Other whistle-blowers made other accusations. Kassie Westmoreland, a former sales representative, said Amgen overfilled vials of Aranesp, essentially providing free drugs to doctors. They could then bill Medicare or private insurers for the use of that drug, making an extra profit.

“Amgen was offering a kickback in the form of extra product subsidized by the taxpayers,” said Robert M. Thomas Jr., one of Ms. Westmoreland’s lawyers.

Elena Ferrante and Marc Engelman, both former sales representatives, contended that Amgen promoted Enbrel’s off-label use for mild psoriasis when the drug was approved only for moderate or severe cases of the disease.

Lydia Cotz, one of their lawyers, said the two refused to go along with the off-label marketing. They are now pursuing wrongful termination claims against Amgen in arbitration proceedings that Amgen requires be kept confidential, she said.

“It’s been a very long heroic journey for my clients,” she said.

Ms. Osiecki is now also a former Amgen sales representative. She said that she was fired in December 2005 after she let slip that she had retained a company voice mail message that she thought provided evidence of illegal activity. Leaving the pharmaceutical industry, she moved to Amelia Island, Fla. She now works for a small business.

Mosi Secret and Barry Meier contributed reporting.

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FTC unveils broader rules to protect kids' privacy online

Columnist David Lazarus talks with Mark Blafkin, spokesman for the Assn. of Competitive Technology, an organization of app developers, and Alan Simpson of Common Sense Media, an advocacy group for parents.

SAN FRANCISCO — In a major step to protect kids' online privacy, the Federal Trade Commission has unveiled new rules that require mobile apps and websites to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children.

The agency's chairman, Jon Leibowitz, said Wednesday that federal regulators were trying to keep pace with the growing use of mobile devices by those under age 13 — and the rapidly evolving tactics and tracking tools of marketers and data brokers that collect detailed dossiers on Americans and their online activities.

The new rules — the first major update to federal laws on children's online privacy in 14 years — require a parent's consent to collect those kinds of personal details that can be used to identify, locate or contact a child and pass that information on to third parties.

The FTC struck a balance between shielding kids from potential harm and ensuring that the marketplace for kids' mobile apps and online services would continue to flourish, Leibowitz said during a Capitol Hill news conference.

Under the broader rules, the FTC said companies must get permission from parents before collecting photographs and videos as well as deploying tracking tools, such as cookies, which use IP addresses and mobile device IDs to follow a child on the Web.

Quiz: What set the Internet on fire in 2012?

The move comes one week after the agency said it was investigating mobile app developers who might have gathered information from kids without their parents' consent. The agency did not name the companies or say how many it was investigating.

"We are at a critical moment in the growth of the children's digital marketplace as social networks, mobile phones and gaming platforms become an increasingly powerful presence in the lives of young people," said Kathryn Montgomery, a children's advocate and a professor of communications at American University. "The new rules should help ensure that companies targeting children throughout the rapidly expanding digital media landscape will be required to engage in fair marketing and data collection practices."

Federal regulators had not significantly updated online privacy rules for kids since 1998 when the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was enacted. That law required online services geared toward kids to notify parents and get their permission before collecting or sharing basic personal information such as names, email addresses or home addresses from those under 13.

The law did not envision today's Internet in which the rapid adoption of mobile devices loaded with apps can relay a person's location and other personal details highly prized by advertisers and data brokers. The FTC began a review of the law in 2010.

James Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media Inc., a nonprofit group in San Francisco that studies kids' use of technology, said the new rules put parents — not corporations — back in charge as gatekeepers for kids.

"All of the companies and developers in the online and mobile space benefit from the share and use of personal information. But they also have a responsibility for providing parents with information and tools so they can make smart choices about what their young children do and share online, and so far, most of these companies have failed to live up to that responsibility," Steyer said.

But software developers — many of whom are parents themselves — said the FTC is giving their industry, which makes products including educational tools and games for kids, a bad rap.

"It's a little alarming that the FTC has chosen to paint all children's apps with the same brush," said Rick Richter, CEO of Ruckus Media Group Inc. "What this is all about is notifying parents about information we are gathering. We have been fastidious as a company about doing that."

Some app developers warned that the cost of complying with the new regulations would force many of them to stop building apps for kids.

Liability for violating the rules does not extend to Google, Apple and other technology giants that operate online stores that sell kids' apps.

The Application Developers Alliance said the kids' software industry is mostly made up of entrepreneurs who can't afford lawyers to help them navigate the complex new rules governing kids' privacy.

"Ultimately it's the kids, parents and teachers who will suffer," said Tim Sparapani, vice president of law policy and government relations at the alliance.

Josh Hartwell, who runs Mobile Deluxe, a mobile game developer and publisher in Santa Monica, has three kids and a fourth on the way. He said he and many other app developers agree that protecting children's privacy is "paramount" and supports weeding out "bad actors." But he worries that the burdensome new rules will stifle innovation.

"Some of the compliance issues are going to make it tougher for people to create apps for kids," Hartwell said.

But Samantha Lurey, CEO of Go Trexx in Mission Viejo, which makes travel apps for kids, applauded the effort to increase privacy protections for children.

"This is something our firm has wanted to see for a while now. We feel that federal regulators are going in the right direction," Lurey said. "Because our apps are designed for kids, we felt it was really important that we were not capturing any sensitive information. I think other developers will find that it's relatively easy to construct apps that are engaging, entertaining and useful without capturing sensitive information."

jessica.guynn@latimes.com

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Two more funerals in Newtown; NRA responds to school massacre

NEWTOWN, Conn. -- Two more of the children killed by a gunman who invaded a Connecticut elementary school were buried on Tuesday as officials released new details of the deadly spree that has reshaped the debate over gun control.

The National Rifle Assn., which has been under pressure to comment on the Newtown shootings, broke its silence and issued a statement saying it was ready to offer its plans at a Friday news conference.

“We were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown,” said the pro-gun rights lobbying group, which has repeatedly fought gun-control legislation on the national, state and local levels. “The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again.”

PHOTOS: Mourning after the massacre

Both funerals were held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, which has been one of the centers for consoling the bereaved and for memorial services that began Friday evening, hours after Adam Lanza opened fire inside Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Primarily using a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, Lanza killed 20 children and six adults in the school before turning a handgun on himself, authorities said. The rampage began Friday morning when Lanza killed his mother, Nancy, in the home they shared.

Dr. H. Wayne Carver, the state’s chief medical examiner, told reporters on Tuesday that Nancy Lanza was shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle. She was most likely asleep when she was killed, Carver said, according to the Hartford Courant.

After shooting his mother, Adam Lanza took her car and several of her guns and went to the school, where he forcibly entered and opened fire. The Bushmaster and two handguns were later recovered from the building and a shotgun was found in the car, officials said.

Sandy Hook Elementary remains closed, most likely for months, as investigators continue their work seeking to understand why Lanza did what he did. The hundreds of students at the school are being relocated to a school in nearby Monroe, Conn.

In the rain and cold Tuesday, other Newtown students returned to their schools where teachers were prepared to help them cope with the massacre. Campuses also had a sizable police presence to reassure parents.

One Newtown school, Head O'Meadow Elementary, was locked down Tuesday due to an unspecified threat. The principal told parents to keep their children home, according to a letter from the principal published by WFSB-TV. Police have said they will deal harshly with hoaxes and threats, including two directed over the weekend at St. Rose.

The first funeral Tuesday morning was for James Mattioli, 6. In what has become an ongoing sight, mourners kept their heads down and walked quickly into the building, and refused to comment. The families have repeatedly asked for privacy for their grief, a position backed by local police.

James' funeral was the first of eight to be held at the church. By noon, flowers for the second service, for Jessica Rekos, also 6, had begun to arrive.

James has been described by family members as a budding “numbers guy.” Jessica was a horse enthusiast who wanted cowgirl boots for Christmas, relatives told reporters.

A wake was scheduled Tuesday night for slain teacher Victoria Soto. Police were to be part of an honor guard for Soto, who died trying to protect her students by getting them into a closet and putting her body between the gunman and her charges.

The shootings have reopened the debate on gun-control laws, specifically whether to renew the expired national ban on assault weapons. President Obama has asked his staff to come up with proposals, though no time frame for action has been given. Even staunch pro-gun rights lawmakers have also called for reopening discussion on some bans.

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Susman reported from Newtown, Conn., and Muskal from Los Angeles.

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