When a new crop of future business leaders graduates from the Harvard Business School next week, many of them will be taking a new oath that says, in effect, greed is not good.
Nearly 20 percent of the graduating class have signed “The M.B.A. Oath,” a voluntary student-led pledge that the goal of a business manager is to “serve the greater good.” It promises that Harvard M.B.A.’s will act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their “own narrow ambitions” at the expense of others.
What happened to making money?
That, of course, is still at the heart of the Harvard curriculum. But at Harvard and other top business schools, there has been an explosion of interest in ethics courses and in student activities — clubs, lectures, conferences — about personal and corporate responsibility and on how to view business as more than a money-making enterprise, but part of a large social community.
“We want to stand up and recite something out loud with our class,” said Teal Carlock, who is graduating from Harvard and has accepted a job at Genentech. “Fingers are now pointed at M.B.A.’s and we, as a class, have a real opportunity to come together and set a standard as business leaders.”
At Columbia Business School, all students must pledge to an honor code: “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” The code has been in place for about three years and came about after discussions between students and faculty.
In the post-Enron and post-Madoff era, the issue of ethics and corporate social responsibility has taken on greater urgency among students about to graduate. While this might easily be dismissed as a passing fancy — or simply a defensive reaction to the current business environment — business school professors say that is not the case. Rather, they say, they are seeing a generational shift away from viewing an M.B.A. as simply an on-ramp to the road to riches.
Those graduating today, they say, are far more concerned about how corporations affect the community, the lives of its workers and the environment. And business schools are responding with more courses, new centers specializing in business ethics and, in the case of Harvard, student-lead efforts to bring about a professional code of conduct for M.B.A.’s, not unlike oaths that are taken by lawyers and doctors.
“I don’t see this as something that will fade away,” said Diana C. Robertson, a professor of business ethics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “It’s coming from the students. I don’t know that we’ve seen such a surge in this activism since the 1960s. This activism is different, but, like that time, it is student-driven.”
A decade ago, Wharton had one or two professors who taught a required ethics class. Today there are seven teaching an array of ethics classes that Ms. Robertson said were among the most popular at the school. Since 1997, it has had the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research. In addition, over the last five years, students have formed clubs around the issues of ethics that sponsor conferences, work on microfinance projects in Philadelphia or engage in social impact consulting.
“It’s been a dramatic change,” Ms. Robertson added. “This generation was raised learning about the environment and raised with the idea of a social conscience. That does not apply to every student. But this year’s financial crisis and the downturn have brought about a greater emphasis on social ethics and responsibility.”
At Harvard, about 160 from a graduating class of about 800 have signed “The M.B.A. Oath,” which its student advocates contend is the first step in trying to develop a professional code not unlike the Hippocratic Oath for physicians or the pledge taken by lawyers to uphold the law and Constitution.
Part of this has emerged by the beating that Wall Street and financiers have taken in the current economic crisis, which can set the stage for reform, Harvard students say.
“There is the feeling that we want our lives to mean something more and to run organizations for the greater good,” said Max Anderson, one of the pledge’s organizers who is about to leave Harvard and take a job at Bridgewater Associates, a money management firm.
“No one wants to have their future criticized as a place filled with unethical behaviors,” he added. “We want to learn from those mistakes, do things differently and accept our duty to lead responsibly. Realistically, we have tremendous potential to affect society for better or worse. Let’s humbly step up. We are looking out for our own interest, but also for the interest of our employees and the broader public.”
Bruce Kogut, director of the Sanford C. Bernstein & Company Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia, said that this emphasis did not mean that students were necessarily going to shun jobs that paid well. Rather, they will think about how they earn their income, not just how much.
At Columbia, an ethics course is required, but students have also formed a popular “Leadership and Ethics Board,” that sponsors lectures with topics like “The Marie Antoinettes of Corporate America.”
“The courses make people aware that the financial crisis is not a technical blip,” Mr. Kogut said. “We’re seeing a generational change that understands that poverty is not just about Africa and India. They see inequities and the role of business to address them.”
Dalia Rahman, who is about to leave Harvard for a job with Goldman Sachs in London, said she signed the pledge because “it takes what we learned in class and makes it more concrete. When you have to make a public vow, it’s a way to commit to uphold principles.”
Saturday, May 30, 2009
No Mere Walk in the Park
Adrian Benepe, 52, has been the New York City parks and recreation commissioner since 2002. He and his wife, Charlotte Glasser — they were married in Central Park — live on the Upper West Side with their son Erik, 18. Their other son, Alex, is 22. ALAN FEUER
RISE AND SHINE I’m up pretty early — usually by 8 o’clock. I’ve lost the ability to sleep late in middle age. The first thing I do is have a cup of coffee, make some sort of breakfast and look at the paper. I usually cook myself an omelet: jalapeño peppers, onions, scallions and some kind of cheese.
THE SUNDAY PAPER I have this bad habit, according to my wife, of squirreling away the sections I haven’t read yet. Right now, the pile’s about a foot and a half tall. If I have a light weekend and I’m not working, I’ll go through 50 or so old papers and clip out photographs. I save them for decorating presents. I wrap the gift with regular paper, then put a picture on it and make some sort of comment. It’s kind of a family tradition.
THE WORKOUT Generally, in the late morning or early afternoon, I’ll get in some extended vigorous exercise, usually a long run or a bike ride or a walk in Central Park or Riverside Park or the Hudson River waterfront.
AND THE WORK The only problem is, I can’t relax in a park. My wife went walking with me recently in Central Park and said, “This isn’t a walk. This is a sector patrol.” It’s way beyond taking mental notes. My BlackBerry has a camera, which has actually become the bane of all parks department employees. I take pictures and e-mail them to people right away. Or I’ll see someone stomping through a flower bed or letting their dog run where it shouldn’t and I have to get involved. When people ask me “Who are you,” I usually tell them I work for the parks department.
AND THE PAPERWORK Every Sunday, I go through the biweekly reports from my senior managers. When the weather’s nice, I’ll take it outdoors and sit on a bench and watch people go by. Riverside Park is my backyard. I once read a piece about a guy who wrote a novel on a bench in Riverside Park. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that guy.
FOOD I don’t do brunch. I just can’t see spending too much time indoors on a Sunday and I can’t see drinking alcohol that early. But Sundays are one of the few nights at home when I actually have time to cook. I’ll make a homemade spaghetti sauce, heavy on vegetables, or a tomato sauce with something interesting like ginger, anchovies, capers and hot peppers — sort of an arrabbiata-puttanesca combination. My wife doesn’t eat meat, so it’s always vegetarian or, if we’ve thought about it in advance, I’ll cook some seafood. Occasionally, in the winter, I’ll make a beef stew.
IDLE, AND HAPPY Sunday is the one day I can count on not doing something. I’m usually at functions five nights a week and I’m always doing something even on a Saturday. It might be taking 50 economic-development people from Amsterdam on a bike tour down the West Side waterfront, but it’s still work. Sundays, I relax.
RISE AND SHINE I’m up pretty early — usually by 8 o’clock. I’ve lost the ability to sleep late in middle age. The first thing I do is have a cup of coffee, make some sort of breakfast and look at the paper. I usually cook myself an omelet: jalapeño peppers, onions, scallions and some kind of cheese.
THE SUNDAY PAPER I have this bad habit, according to my wife, of squirreling away the sections I haven’t read yet. Right now, the pile’s about a foot and a half tall. If I have a light weekend and I’m not working, I’ll go through 50 or so old papers and clip out photographs. I save them for decorating presents. I wrap the gift with regular paper, then put a picture on it and make some sort of comment. It’s kind of a family tradition.
THE WORKOUT Generally, in the late morning or early afternoon, I’ll get in some extended vigorous exercise, usually a long run or a bike ride or a walk in Central Park or Riverside Park or the Hudson River waterfront.
AND THE WORK The only problem is, I can’t relax in a park. My wife went walking with me recently in Central Park and said, “This isn’t a walk. This is a sector patrol.” It’s way beyond taking mental notes. My BlackBerry has a camera, which has actually become the bane of all parks department employees. I take pictures and e-mail them to people right away. Or I’ll see someone stomping through a flower bed or letting their dog run where it shouldn’t and I have to get involved. When people ask me “Who are you,” I usually tell them I work for the parks department.
AND THE PAPERWORK Every Sunday, I go through the biweekly reports from my senior managers. When the weather’s nice, I’ll take it outdoors and sit on a bench and watch people go by. Riverside Park is my backyard. I once read a piece about a guy who wrote a novel on a bench in Riverside Park. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that guy.
FOOD I don’t do brunch. I just can’t see spending too much time indoors on a Sunday and I can’t see drinking alcohol that early. But Sundays are one of the few nights at home when I actually have time to cook. I’ll make a homemade spaghetti sauce, heavy on vegetables, or a tomato sauce with something interesting like ginger, anchovies, capers and hot peppers — sort of an arrabbiata-puttanesca combination. My wife doesn’t eat meat, so it’s always vegetarian or, if we’ve thought about it in advance, I’ll cook some seafood. Occasionally, in the winter, I’ll make a beef stew.
IDLE, AND HAPPY Sunday is the one day I can count on not doing something. I’m usually at functions five nights a week and I’m always doing something even on a Saturday. It might be taking 50 economic-development people from Amsterdam on a bike tour down the West Side waterfront, but it’s still work. Sundays, I relax.
On Diverse Force, Blacks Still Face Special Peril
Two black police officers stand outside the 70th Precinct station in Brooklyn and consider the disastrous turn of events the night before: an off-duty black officer dead in a Harlem street, felled by the bullets of a white officer who mistook him for a threat.
One runs his hand across his corn-rowed scalp; he is disgusted. “Same deal always,” he says of the deadly encounter between colleagues on Thursday night. “They’ll say it’s about training.”
A block away, a Latino officer with six years on the force acknowledges being conflicted. “Tell you the truth, I feel bad for the shooter. It happens so fast, and now he has got to live with this.” His voice trails off.
At the Newkirk Avenue subway station, a black officer of many years’ experience stares straight ahead. “There’s your training and there’s your reaction,” he says quietly of such split-second tragedies. “That’s two different things.”
Its serried ranks are more diverse than ever, its training and rules on the use of force more rigorous than in the past, yet the New York New YorkPolice Department still struggles with the problem of fraternal shootings across the color line. Beginning with the first such shooting in 1940, when white officers in Harlem mistook a black officer, John A. Holt Jr., for a burglar and shot him dead in his own apartment building, these relatively rare shootings come attended by an air of political ritual: protesters march, panels are appointed and reforms are most often accepted by police commissioners.
After a white officer shot and killed an undercover detective, William Capers, in 1972, the department drew up guidelines intended to prevent fraternal fire and undercover officers began wearing their badges on strings around their necks.
In 1994, after a white officer fired shots into the back of a black undercover transit officer, Desmond Robinson, the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, acknowledged what seemed painfully obvious to black undercover officers — the department needed to appoint a panel to examine the racial assumptions of their white colleagues.
“It’s a reality,” Mr. Bratton said. “Minority officers are at risk.”
New York City has fewer fatal police shootings per officer than any other large police department in the nation, according to a department official. Since 1990, fewer than a half-dozen police officers have been shot by other officers in New York. And the Police Department has consistently tightened rules governing when and how officers should use firearms. But a 25-year-old police officer, Omar J. Edwards, now lies in a city morgue, and his death imposes its own reality. Anguish and tears come accompanied by questions about whether too many officers harbor too many assumptions and fire too quickly.
“This is the most Shakespearean aspect of policing,” said State Senator Eric Adams of Brooklyn, who is black and a former police captain. “Your greatest fear is to be shot and slain on duty, and that’s only matched by your fear of shooting another officer.”
He added, “If you speak with nine out of 10 officers of color they would tell you that when they hear sirens, in their head they are thinking: ‘I hope these cops know that I’m one of the good guys.’ ”
That worry comes embedded in a paradox: The New York New Yorkepartment never has been so diverse. A majority of the cadets in the last rookie police class were members of ethnic and racial minorities, offering a rainbow cross-section of the city itself. Over all, 47.8 percent of the city’s officers are white, 28.7 percent Hispanic, 17.9 percent black and 5.4 percent Asian.
But, replenished although this department is, its very youth and diversity present a challenge. Officer Edwards had been on the force for two years; the officer who shot him, Andrew P. Dunton, had been for 4 ½ years. Younger officers, say their instructors, are more likely to experience surges of judgment-blurring testosterone and adrenaline.
In Officer Edwards’s case, the young, off-duty officer apparently had drawn his weapon and was chasing a man who had tried to break into his car when he encountered his on-duty colleagues, who according to their initial testimony saw his gun, shouted “Police!” and fired when he turned to face them. Such actions might have been in violation of departmental protocols.
“The department has very good training on use of force and firearm simulators,” said Maria Haberfeld, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a specialist in the use of force. “The physiological impact on the officer is great. It’s very detrimental to solid judgment. Your adrenaline is pumping, and your visual skills are impaired.
“It’s not a situation you can replicate in a classroom.”
On Diverse Force, Blacks Still Face Special Peril
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LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkPublished: May 30, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
The city is a measurably safer place than it was two decades ago, when the number of homicides hovered around 2,000 each year. Last year, the city recorded 516 homicides. When former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani folded the transit and housing police forces into the New York New Yorkepartment in the mid-1990s, he eliminated much of the confusion that came with balkanized forces. But particularly for young officers, whose training comes in high-crime precincts, New York City can cast a confusing, even threatening shadow.
Officers, many of whom grew up in segregated neighborhoods, find themselves challenged to remember daily that their own come in every shape and color.
“There was a time if you were a cop you could grab your gun and go into the streets and count on a stereotype to protect you,” said Eugene J. O’Donnell, professor of law and police studies at John Jay and a former officer. “Now the cops look like everybody, and everybody looks like a cop.
“So stereotypes,” he said, “offer no protection at all.”
Sorting out the shooting of one officer by another, not least the role played by race, is complicated. In a few cases, gunman and victim share an ethnicity. In 2006, a gang brawled with an off-duty police officer, Eric Hernandez, at a White Castle restaurant in the Bronx. Officer Alfredo Toro responded to a 911 call and shot Officer Hernandez, not realizing he was a colleague. Officer Hernandez later died.
It “is naïve to assume that our department is driven by racism,” Dr. Haberfeld says. “Your experience will be based on what you encounter, and it’s natural to build up a profile.”
But some black officers and academics counter that this is too easy. “If it was just a mistake, we would see more of these mistakes with officers of different colors,” said Prof. Delores Jones-Brown, director of John Jay’s Center on Race, Crime and Justice.
Instinctual judgments about race and crime are woven into the culture of the streets. “We tend to pretend in the police force that we don’t see race, we don’t see ethnicity, but we do,” said Senator Adams, the former police captain. “One of my cops once said that if he sees a non-uniformed black man with a gun, he takes precautions for himself; if he sees a white guy with a gun, he takes precautions for both because he knows it could be a fellow cop.”
Desmond Robinson lived this experience. In 1994, in the confusion of the 53rd Street subway station, he chased a teenager with a gun. Another undercover officer, Peter Del-Debbio, who is white, came from the other direction and fired at Officer Robinson, the last few shots pumped into his back at close range.
Officer Del-Debbio was convicted of second-degree assault and sentenced to five years’ probation. Officer Robinson recovered and left the force.
“Everyone carries baggage subconsciously and retraining the mind takes lots of work,” said Mr. Robinson, who lives in Florida. “There are a lot of black undercovers out there, and officers need to understand that not every black man with a gun is a criminal.”
Amid Mourning, Circumspection
As New York City prepared for the funeral of Officer Omar J. Edwards, who was fatally shot by another officer in East Harlem on Thursday, his relatives and elected and civic leaders called for consideration of the split-second decisions officers must make. Article, nytimes.com/nyregion.
One runs his hand across his corn-rowed scalp; he is disgusted. “Same deal always,” he says of the deadly encounter between colleagues on Thursday night. “They’ll say it’s about training.”
A block away, a Latino officer with six years on the force acknowledges being conflicted. “Tell you the truth, I feel bad for the shooter. It happens so fast, and now he has got to live with this.” His voice trails off.
At the Newkirk Avenue subway station, a black officer of many years’ experience stares straight ahead. “There’s your training and there’s your reaction,” he says quietly of such split-second tragedies. “That’s two different things.”
Its serried ranks are more diverse than ever, its training and rules on the use of force more rigorous than in the past, yet the New York New YorkPolice Department still struggles with the problem of fraternal shootings across the color line. Beginning with the first such shooting in 1940, when white officers in Harlem mistook a black officer, John A. Holt Jr., for a burglar and shot him dead in his own apartment building, these relatively rare shootings come attended by an air of political ritual: protesters march, panels are appointed and reforms are most often accepted by police commissioners.
After a white officer shot and killed an undercover detective, William Capers, in 1972, the department drew up guidelines intended to prevent fraternal fire and undercover officers began wearing their badges on strings around their necks.
In 1994, after a white officer fired shots into the back of a black undercover transit officer, Desmond Robinson, the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, acknowledged what seemed painfully obvious to black undercover officers — the department needed to appoint a panel to examine the racial assumptions of their white colleagues.
“It’s a reality,” Mr. Bratton said. “Minority officers are at risk.”
New York City has fewer fatal police shootings per officer than any other large police department in the nation, according to a department official. Since 1990, fewer than a half-dozen police officers have been shot by other officers in New York. And the Police Department has consistently tightened rules governing when and how officers should use firearms. But a 25-year-old police officer, Omar J. Edwards, now lies in a city morgue, and his death imposes its own reality. Anguish and tears come accompanied by questions about whether too many officers harbor too many assumptions and fire too quickly.
“This is the most Shakespearean aspect of policing,” said State Senator Eric Adams of Brooklyn, who is black and a former police captain. “Your greatest fear is to be shot and slain on duty, and that’s only matched by your fear of shooting another officer.”
He added, “If you speak with nine out of 10 officers of color they would tell you that when they hear sirens, in their head they are thinking: ‘I hope these cops know that I’m one of the good guys.’ ”
That worry comes embedded in a paradox: The New York New Yorkepartment never has been so diverse. A majority of the cadets in the last rookie police class were members of ethnic and racial minorities, offering a rainbow cross-section of the city itself. Over all, 47.8 percent of the city’s officers are white, 28.7 percent Hispanic, 17.9 percent black and 5.4 percent Asian.
But, replenished although this department is, its very youth and diversity present a challenge. Officer Edwards had been on the force for two years; the officer who shot him, Andrew P. Dunton, had been for 4 ½ years. Younger officers, say their instructors, are more likely to experience surges of judgment-blurring testosterone and adrenaline.
In Officer Edwards’s case, the young, off-duty officer apparently had drawn his weapon and was chasing a man who had tried to break into his car when he encountered his on-duty colleagues, who according to their initial testimony saw his gun, shouted “Police!” and fired when he turned to face them. Such actions might have been in violation of departmental protocols.
“The department has very good training on use of force and firearm simulators,” said Maria Haberfeld, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a specialist in the use of force. “The physiological impact on the officer is great. It’s very detrimental to solid judgment. Your adrenaline is pumping, and your visual skills are impaired.
“It’s not a situation you can replicate in a classroom.”
On Diverse Force, Blacks Still Face Special Peril
Sign in to RecommendSign In to E-Mail Print Single Page Reprints ShareClose
LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkPublished: May 30, 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
The city is a measurably safer place than it was two decades ago, when the number of homicides hovered around 2,000 each year. Last year, the city recorded 516 homicides. When former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani folded the transit and housing police forces into the New York New Yorkepartment in the mid-1990s, he eliminated much of the confusion that came with balkanized forces. But particularly for young officers, whose training comes in high-crime precincts, New York City can cast a confusing, even threatening shadow.
Officers, many of whom grew up in segregated neighborhoods, find themselves challenged to remember daily that their own come in every shape and color.
“There was a time if you were a cop you could grab your gun and go into the streets and count on a stereotype to protect you,” said Eugene J. O’Donnell, professor of law and police studies at John Jay and a former officer. “Now the cops look like everybody, and everybody looks like a cop.
“So stereotypes,” he said, “offer no protection at all.”
Sorting out the shooting of one officer by another, not least the role played by race, is complicated. In a few cases, gunman and victim share an ethnicity. In 2006, a gang brawled with an off-duty police officer, Eric Hernandez, at a White Castle restaurant in the Bronx. Officer Alfredo Toro responded to a 911 call and shot Officer Hernandez, not realizing he was a colleague. Officer Hernandez later died.
It “is naïve to assume that our department is driven by racism,” Dr. Haberfeld says. “Your experience will be based on what you encounter, and it’s natural to build up a profile.”
But some black officers and academics counter that this is too easy. “If it was just a mistake, we would see more of these mistakes with officers of different colors,” said Prof. Delores Jones-Brown, director of John Jay’s Center on Race, Crime and Justice.
Instinctual judgments about race and crime are woven into the culture of the streets. “We tend to pretend in the police force that we don’t see race, we don’t see ethnicity, but we do,” said Senator Adams, the former police captain. “One of my cops once said that if he sees a non-uniformed black man with a gun, he takes precautions for himself; if he sees a white guy with a gun, he takes precautions for both because he knows it could be a fellow cop.”
Desmond Robinson lived this experience. In 1994, in the confusion of the 53rd Street subway station, he chased a teenager with a gun. Another undercover officer, Peter Del-Debbio, who is white, came from the other direction and fired at Officer Robinson, the last few shots pumped into his back at close range.
Officer Del-Debbio was convicted of second-degree assault and sentenced to five years’ probation. Officer Robinson recovered and left the force.
“Everyone carries baggage subconsciously and retraining the mind takes lots of work,” said Mr. Robinson, who lives in Florida. “There are a lot of black undercovers out there, and officers need to understand that not every black man with a gun is a criminal.”
Amid Mourning, Circumspection
As New York City prepared for the funeral of Officer Omar J. Edwards, who was fatally shot by another officer in East Harlem on Thursday, his relatives and elected and civic leaders called for consideration of the split-second decisions officers must make. Article, nytimes.com/nyregion.
Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for the United States
The government’s urgent push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts.
The exotic nature of the work, coupled with the deep recession, is enabling the companies to attract top young talent that once would have gone to Silicon Valley. And the race to develop weapons that defend against, or initiate, computer attacks has given rise to thousands of “hacker soldiers” within the Pentagon who can blend the new capabilities into the nation’s war planning.
Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies.
The companies have been moving quickly to lock up the relatively small number of experts with the training and creativity to block the attacks and design countermeasures. They have been buying smaller firms, financing academic research and running advertisements for “cyberninjas” at a time when other industries are shedding workers.
The changes are manifesting themselves in highly classified laboratories, where computer geeks in their 20s like to joke that they are hackers with security clearances.
At a Raytheon facility here south of the Kennedy Space Center, a hub of innovation in an earlier era, rock music blares and empty cans of Mountain Dew pile up as engineers create tools to protect the Pentagon’s computers and crack into the networks of countries that could become adversaries. Prizes like cappuccino machines and stacks of cash spur them on, and a gong heralds each major breakthrough.
The young engineers represent the new face of a war that President Obama described Friday as “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” The president said he would appoint a senior White House official to oversee the nation’s cybersecurity strategies.
Computer experts say the government is behind the curve in sealing off its networks from threats that are growing more persistent and sophisticated, with thousands of intrusions each day from organized criminals and legions of hackers for nations including Russia and China.
“Everybody’s attacking everybody,” said Scott Chase, a 30-year-old computer engineer who helps run the Raytheon unit here.
Mr. Chase, who wears his hair in a ponytail, and Terry Gillette, a 53-year-old former rocket engineer, ran SI Government Solutions before selling the company to Raytheon last year as the boom in the military’s cyberoperations accelerated.
The operation — tucked into several unmarked buildings behind an insurance office and a dentist’s office — is doing some of the most cutting-edge work, both in identifying weaknesses in Pentagon networks and in creating weapons for potential attacks.
Daniel D. Allen, who oversees work on intelligence systems for Northrop Grumman, estimated that federal spending on computer security now totals $10 billion each year, including classified programs. That is just a fraction of the government’s spending on weapons systems. But industry officials expect it to rise rapidly.
The military contractors are now in the enviable position of turning what they learned out of necessity — protecting the sensitive Pentagon data that sits on their own computers — into a lucrative business that could replace some of the revenue lost from cancellations of conventional weapons systems.
Executives at Lockheed Martin, which has long been the government’s largest information-technology contractor, also see the demand for greater computer security spreading to energy and health care agencies and the rest of the nation’s critical infrastructure. But for now, most companies remain focused on the national-security arena, where the hottest efforts involve anticipating how an enemy might attack and developing the resources to strike back.
Though even the existence of research on cyberweapons was once highly classified, the Air Force plans this year to award the first publicly announced contract for developing tools to break into enemy computers. The companies are also teaming up to build a National Cyber Range, a model of the Internet for testing advanced techniques.
Military experts said Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, which have long been major players in the Pentagon’s security efforts, are leading the push into offensive cyberwarfare, along with the Raytheon unit. This involves finding vulnerabilities in other countries’ computer systems and developing software tools to exploit them, either to steal sensitive information or disable the networks.Mr. Chase and Mr. Gillette said the Raytheon unit, which has about 100 employees, grew out of a company they started with friends at Florida Institute of Technology that concentrated on helping software makers find flaws in their own products. Over the last several years, their focus shifted to the military and intelligence agencies, which wanted to use their analytic tools to detect vulnerabilities and intrusions previously unnoticed.
Like other contractors, the Raytheon teams set up “honey pots,” the equivalent of sting operations, to lure hackers into digital cul-de-sacs that mimic Pentagon Web sites. They then capture the attackers’ codes and create defenses for them.
And since most of the world’s computers run on the Windows or the Linux systems, their work has also provided a growing window into how to attack foreign networks in any cyberwar.
“It takes a nonconformist to excel at what we do,” said Mr. Gillette, a tanned surfing aficionado who looks like a 1950s hipster in his T-shirts with rolled-up sleeves.
The company, which would allow interviews with other employees only on the condition that their last names not be used because of security concerns, hired one of its top young workers, Dustin, after he won two major hacking contests and dropped out of college. “I always approach it like a game, and it’s been fun,” said Dustin, now 22.
Another engineer, known as Jolly, joined Raytheon in April after earning a master’s degree in computer security at DePaul University in Chicago. “You think defense contractors, and you think bureaucracy, and not necessarily a lot of interesting and challenging projects,” he said.
The Pentagon’s interest in cyberwarfare has reached “religious intensity,” said Daniel T. Kuehl, a military historian at the National Defense University. And the changes carry through to soldiers being trained to defend and attack computer and wireless networks out on the battlefield.
That shift can be seen in the remaking of organizations like the Association of Old Crows, a professional group that includes contractors and military personnel.
The Old Crows have deep roots in what has long been known as electronic warfare — the use of radar and radio technologies for jamming and deception.
But the financing for electronic warfare had slowed recently, prompting the Old Crows to set up a broader information-operations branch last year and establish a new trade journal to focus on cyberwarfare.
The career of Joel Harding, the director of the group’s Information Operations Institute, exemplifies the increasing role that computing and the Internet are playing in the military.
A 20-year veteran of military intelligence, Mr. Harding shifted in 1996 into one of the earliest commands that studied government-sponsored computer hacker programs. After leaving the military, he took a job as an analyst at SAIC, a large contractor developing computer applications for military and intelligence agencies.
Mr. Harding estimates that there are now 3,000 to 5,000 information operations specialists in the military and 50,000 to 70,000 soldiers involved in general computer operations. Adding specialists in electronic warfare, deception and other areas could bring the total number of information operations personnel to as many as 88,700, he said.
The exotic nature of the work, coupled with the deep recession, is enabling the companies to attract top young talent that once would have gone to Silicon Valley. And the race to develop weapons that defend against, or initiate, computer attacks has given rise to thousands of “hacker soldiers” within the Pentagon who can blend the new capabilities into the nation’s war planning.
Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies.
The companies have been moving quickly to lock up the relatively small number of experts with the training and creativity to block the attacks and design countermeasures. They have been buying smaller firms, financing academic research and running advertisements for “cyberninjas” at a time when other industries are shedding workers.
The changes are manifesting themselves in highly classified laboratories, where computer geeks in their 20s like to joke that they are hackers with security clearances.
At a Raytheon facility here south of the Kennedy Space Center, a hub of innovation in an earlier era, rock music blares and empty cans of Mountain Dew pile up as engineers create tools to protect the Pentagon’s computers and crack into the networks of countries that could become adversaries. Prizes like cappuccino machines and stacks of cash spur them on, and a gong heralds each major breakthrough.
The young engineers represent the new face of a war that President Obama described Friday as “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” The president said he would appoint a senior White House official to oversee the nation’s cybersecurity strategies.
Computer experts say the government is behind the curve in sealing off its networks from threats that are growing more persistent and sophisticated, with thousands of intrusions each day from organized criminals and legions of hackers for nations including Russia and China.
“Everybody’s attacking everybody,” said Scott Chase, a 30-year-old computer engineer who helps run the Raytheon unit here.
Mr. Chase, who wears his hair in a ponytail, and Terry Gillette, a 53-year-old former rocket engineer, ran SI Government Solutions before selling the company to Raytheon last year as the boom in the military’s cyberoperations accelerated.
The operation — tucked into several unmarked buildings behind an insurance office and a dentist’s office — is doing some of the most cutting-edge work, both in identifying weaknesses in Pentagon networks and in creating weapons for potential attacks.
Daniel D. Allen, who oversees work on intelligence systems for Northrop Grumman, estimated that federal spending on computer security now totals $10 billion each year, including classified programs. That is just a fraction of the government’s spending on weapons systems. But industry officials expect it to rise rapidly.
The military contractors are now in the enviable position of turning what they learned out of necessity — protecting the sensitive Pentagon data that sits on their own computers — into a lucrative business that could replace some of the revenue lost from cancellations of conventional weapons systems.
Executives at Lockheed Martin, which has long been the government’s largest information-technology contractor, also see the demand for greater computer security spreading to energy and health care agencies and the rest of the nation’s critical infrastructure. But for now, most companies remain focused on the national-security arena, where the hottest efforts involve anticipating how an enemy might attack and developing the resources to strike back.
Though even the existence of research on cyberweapons was once highly classified, the Air Force plans this year to award the first publicly announced contract for developing tools to break into enemy computers. The companies are also teaming up to build a National Cyber Range, a model of the Internet for testing advanced techniques.
Military experts said Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, which have long been major players in the Pentagon’s security efforts, are leading the push into offensive cyberwarfare, along with the Raytheon unit. This involves finding vulnerabilities in other countries’ computer systems and developing software tools to exploit them, either to steal sensitive information or disable the networks.Mr. Chase and Mr. Gillette said the Raytheon unit, which has about 100 employees, grew out of a company they started with friends at Florida Institute of Technology that concentrated on helping software makers find flaws in their own products. Over the last several years, their focus shifted to the military and intelligence agencies, which wanted to use their analytic tools to detect vulnerabilities and intrusions previously unnoticed.
Like other contractors, the Raytheon teams set up “honey pots,” the equivalent of sting operations, to lure hackers into digital cul-de-sacs that mimic Pentagon Web sites. They then capture the attackers’ codes and create defenses for them.
And since most of the world’s computers run on the Windows or the Linux systems, their work has also provided a growing window into how to attack foreign networks in any cyberwar.
“It takes a nonconformist to excel at what we do,” said Mr. Gillette, a tanned surfing aficionado who looks like a 1950s hipster in his T-shirts with rolled-up sleeves.
The company, which would allow interviews with other employees only on the condition that their last names not be used because of security concerns, hired one of its top young workers, Dustin, after he won two major hacking contests and dropped out of college. “I always approach it like a game, and it’s been fun,” said Dustin, now 22.
Another engineer, known as Jolly, joined Raytheon in April after earning a master’s degree in computer security at DePaul University in Chicago. “You think defense contractors, and you think bureaucracy, and not necessarily a lot of interesting and challenging projects,” he said.
The Pentagon’s interest in cyberwarfare has reached “religious intensity,” said Daniel T. Kuehl, a military historian at the National Defense University. And the changes carry through to soldiers being trained to defend and attack computer and wireless networks out on the battlefield.
That shift can be seen in the remaking of organizations like the Association of Old Crows, a professional group that includes contractors and military personnel.
The Old Crows have deep roots in what has long been known as electronic warfare — the use of radar and radio technologies for jamming and deception.
But the financing for electronic warfare had slowed recently, prompting the Old Crows to set up a broader information-operations branch last year and establish a new trade journal to focus on cyberwarfare.
The career of Joel Harding, the director of the group’s Information Operations Institute, exemplifies the increasing role that computing and the Internet are playing in the military.
A 20-year veteran of military intelligence, Mr. Harding shifted in 1996 into one of the earliest commands that studied government-sponsored computer hacker programs. After leaving the military, he took a job as an analyst at SAIC, a large contractor developing computer applications for military and intelligence agencies.
Mr. Harding estimates that there are now 3,000 to 5,000 information operations specialists in the military and 50,000 to 70,000 soldiers involved in general computer operations. Adding specialists in electronic warfare, deception and other areas could bring the total number of information operations personnel to as many as 88,700, he said.
'I'm only 16. They gave me a rifle. It was heavy. They said we had to go forward. If we came back, they would shoot us'
Darchiga Kuken was sheltering in a bunker in the Mullaitivu area when a group of about 20 Tamil Tiger soldiers arrived and demanded that she went with them.
"I was sick with chicken pox. My mother and father were screaming and crying, saying that I was sick and pleading with them not to take me," she said. The men went away. And then at 5pm on 14 March they came back. They called me to come out and then they grabbed me and put me in a jeep. I started to cry. I was shouting: 'Mother, father, help me.' "
The 16-year-old is now being held in what the government describes as a "rehabilitation centre", a jungle camp built on a hillside outside the town of Ambepusse in the south of the country. Here children like her, who were forced to fight on the front line in the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka, gave the Observer compelling evidence of war crimes committed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The camp currently houses 95 children, with another 200 on their way from internment camps around the town of Vavuniya in the north of the country.
Despite international concerns over the treatment of LTTE suspects, the children appeared to be well treated and were able to speak freely when the Observer visited the camp on Thursday. The most distressing sight was a young boy howling in pain on the floor of one of the huts; his friends said that he had recently arrived and still had a piece of shrapnel lodged in his skull from the recent fighting.
The accounts of these boys and girls who surrendered to the Sri Lankan army were shocking. They say they were dragged screaming from their families and sent into action with only a few days of basic training. The older members of the LTTE warned them to keep firing and advancing, or they would be shot by their own side from behind.
Those who did try to escape said they were fired on by their own side. Children who were recaptured had their hair shaved off to mark them as deserters and boys were beaten.
Darchiga said she was shot in the stomach by the army two days after arriving on the front line, having been forced to pick up a rifle and go forward to fight. She said LTTE cadres left her bleeding for four hours before she received any medical treatment.
According to her testimony, the Tigers had warned every family that those children who could carry a weapon were expected to join up, regardless of age. Some as young as 11 and 12 had been taken, she said. "They told families that one child was enough. If they had five children, they would take four and leave just one."
She was taken to a training camp at Mullaivaikal, where nine days of basic military training were interrupted by frequent air attacks. On the morning of 24 March, she was sent to the front.
"I was scared and thought that I would die now and would never see my parents again. They had scared us and said we shouldn't sleep because the army would come and cut our throats."
She spent the first day hiding in a bunker, then she was shoved forwards because the senior Tiger cadres said they were running out of fighters. "They gave me a rifle. It was very heavy. They threatened us that we had to go forward and shoot; if we came back, they would shoot us themselves.
"I went a few hundred yards and hid behind a coconut tree. I saw the army coming and I was very scared and I was lying down trying to hide, but then they shot me in the stomach.
"I started screaming because of the pain, but the cadres told me to shut up because the army would hear me. They gave me a cloth to put on the wound. There was a lot of blood. It was four hours before they took me to the hospital at Matalan."
On 13 April she escaped and ran back to her family. The Tigers were looking for deserters, she said. "If they caught them, they shaved their hair off and sent them back to the front line." Boys also received a beating.
She finally managed to escape with a group of civilians, but only after the Tigers had fired on them. She was separated from her family, who were sent to the internment camps at Vavuniya, and taken to a court, which ordered her to be detained at Ambepusse for a year - the standard treatment for those who confess to LTTE membership, even if they had been coerced.
Ravindram Vajeevan, 17, said he arrived at Ambepusse on 9 April after escaping from the Tigers four days earlier. He had a large scar on his left arm where he had been shot by his former comrades as he ran away.
He had been taken from his family in Mullaitivu on 29 March, as fighting raged around the shrinking no-fire zone and LTTE numbers dwindled. A large group of men arrived at the house, he said, and dragged him from the bunker where he had been sheltering.
"They hit me and my mother was crying and I was crying, but they said I had to go to fight. My neighbours tried to stop them, but they said they would shoot. Then they fired in the air," he said.
He was taken to a camp with about 70 other young boys and taught how to make a bunker, how to handle a rifle, how to escape from an ambush and how to stage an attack. They were told that if they did not fight they would be shot from behind, he said. On the fifth day, he escaped.
"In the beginning, the LTTE were fighting for the Tamils, but in the end they were just fighting for themselves," he said.
Thambirasa Jagadiswary, 20, and her brother Thambirasa Thisanandan, 17, were reunited at Ambepusse after the the Tigers took them from their family. Jagadiswary was taken in June 2008 and drafted into a mortar unit before being captured; her brother was dragooned in February this year. He had spent 15 days with the rebels before escaping and surrendering.
Afterwards he was taken to Vavuniya with his parents. "They told us there that those who were in the LTTE should register, so I did," he said. "Then they told me they would separate us from our parents."
"I was talking with my friends when they brought him in," his sister said. "All of a sudden I saw my brother and I started crying and shouting and hugging him." Their mother remains in the internment camp at Menik Farm.
These teenagers' revelations come days after the UN human rights council rejected a call for an investigation into allegations of war crimes by both sides during the 26-year conflict and accepted an alternative Sri Lankan government resolution describing the conflict as a "domestic matter that doesn't warrant outside interference". The Sri Lankan military has also been accused of committing war crimes by firing on civilians.
Among the traumatised and unwilling child soldiers of the Tamil Tigers, there is just a desire for normality to return.
"I was one year with the LTTE and I must be one year here," said Jagadiswary. "Now I would just like to find my mother and get on with my life."
"I was sick with chicken pox. My mother and father were screaming and crying, saying that I was sick and pleading with them not to take me," she said. The men went away. And then at 5pm on 14 March they came back. They called me to come out and then they grabbed me and put me in a jeep. I started to cry. I was shouting: 'Mother, father, help me.' "
The 16-year-old is now being held in what the government describes as a "rehabilitation centre", a jungle camp built on a hillside outside the town of Ambepusse in the south of the country. Here children like her, who were forced to fight on the front line in the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka, gave the Observer compelling evidence of war crimes committed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The camp currently houses 95 children, with another 200 on their way from internment camps around the town of Vavuniya in the north of the country.
Despite international concerns over the treatment of LTTE suspects, the children appeared to be well treated and were able to speak freely when the Observer visited the camp on Thursday. The most distressing sight was a young boy howling in pain on the floor of one of the huts; his friends said that he had recently arrived and still had a piece of shrapnel lodged in his skull from the recent fighting.
The accounts of these boys and girls who surrendered to the Sri Lankan army were shocking. They say they were dragged screaming from their families and sent into action with only a few days of basic training. The older members of the LTTE warned them to keep firing and advancing, or they would be shot by their own side from behind.
Those who did try to escape said they were fired on by their own side. Children who were recaptured had their hair shaved off to mark them as deserters and boys were beaten.
Darchiga said she was shot in the stomach by the army two days after arriving on the front line, having been forced to pick up a rifle and go forward to fight. She said LTTE cadres left her bleeding for four hours before she received any medical treatment.
According to her testimony, the Tigers had warned every family that those children who could carry a weapon were expected to join up, regardless of age. Some as young as 11 and 12 had been taken, she said. "They told families that one child was enough. If they had five children, they would take four and leave just one."
She was taken to a training camp at Mullaivaikal, where nine days of basic military training were interrupted by frequent air attacks. On the morning of 24 March, she was sent to the front.
"I was scared and thought that I would die now and would never see my parents again. They had scared us and said we shouldn't sleep because the army would come and cut our throats."
She spent the first day hiding in a bunker, then she was shoved forwards because the senior Tiger cadres said they were running out of fighters. "They gave me a rifle. It was very heavy. They threatened us that we had to go forward and shoot; if we came back, they would shoot us themselves.
"I went a few hundred yards and hid behind a coconut tree. I saw the army coming and I was very scared and I was lying down trying to hide, but then they shot me in the stomach.
"I started screaming because of the pain, but the cadres told me to shut up because the army would hear me. They gave me a cloth to put on the wound. There was a lot of blood. It was four hours before they took me to the hospital at Matalan."
On 13 April she escaped and ran back to her family. The Tigers were looking for deserters, she said. "If they caught them, they shaved their hair off and sent them back to the front line." Boys also received a beating.
She finally managed to escape with a group of civilians, but only after the Tigers had fired on them. She was separated from her family, who were sent to the internment camps at Vavuniya, and taken to a court, which ordered her to be detained at Ambepusse for a year - the standard treatment for those who confess to LTTE membership, even if they had been coerced.
Ravindram Vajeevan, 17, said he arrived at Ambepusse on 9 April after escaping from the Tigers four days earlier. He had a large scar on his left arm where he had been shot by his former comrades as he ran away.
He had been taken from his family in Mullaitivu on 29 March, as fighting raged around the shrinking no-fire zone and LTTE numbers dwindled. A large group of men arrived at the house, he said, and dragged him from the bunker where he had been sheltering.
"They hit me and my mother was crying and I was crying, but they said I had to go to fight. My neighbours tried to stop them, but they said they would shoot. Then they fired in the air," he said.
He was taken to a camp with about 70 other young boys and taught how to make a bunker, how to handle a rifle, how to escape from an ambush and how to stage an attack. They were told that if they did not fight they would be shot from behind, he said. On the fifth day, he escaped.
"In the beginning, the LTTE were fighting for the Tamils, but in the end they were just fighting for themselves," he said.
Thambirasa Jagadiswary, 20, and her brother Thambirasa Thisanandan, 17, were reunited at Ambepusse after the the Tigers took them from their family. Jagadiswary was taken in June 2008 and drafted into a mortar unit before being captured; her brother was dragooned in February this year. He had spent 15 days with the rebels before escaping and surrendering.
Afterwards he was taken to Vavuniya with his parents. "They told us there that those who were in the LTTE should register, so I did," he said. "Then they told me they would separate us from our parents."
"I was talking with my friends when they brought him in," his sister said. "All of a sudden I saw my brother and I started crying and shouting and hugging him." Their mother remains in the internment camp at Menik Farm.
These teenagers' revelations come days after the UN human rights council rejected a call for an investigation into allegations of war crimes by both sides during the 26-year conflict and accepted an alternative Sri Lankan government resolution describing the conflict as a "domestic matter that doesn't warrant outside interference". The Sri Lankan military has also been accused of committing war crimes by firing on civilians.
Among the traumatised and unwilling child soldiers of the Tamil Tigers, there is just a desire for normality to return.
"I was one year with the LTTE and I must be one year here," said Jagadiswary. "Now I would just like to find my mother and get on with my life."
800 Britons on waiting list for Swiss suicide clinic
Record numbers of Britons who are suffering from terminal illnesses are queueing up for assisted suicide at the controversial Swiss clinic Dignitas, the Observer can reveal.
Almost 800 have taken the first step to taking their lives by becoming members of Dignitas, and 34 men and women, who feel their suffering has become unbearable, are ready to travel to Zurich and take a lethal drug overdose.
The tenfold increase in the number of Britons who have joined Dignitas since 2002 will raise questions about the law that bans assisted suicide in Britain.
On Tuesday, 46-year-old Debbie Purdy, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, will go to the House of Lords, the UK's highest court, asking it to determine whether her husband Omar Puente will be prosecuted if he helps her to travel abroad to die.
The 34 Britons given what Dignitas calls a "provisional green light" to die have provided documentary evidence of their condition and been interviewed by both a doctor and Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, and satisfied them that they are mentally fit to make such a decision.
One of the 34 is due to undertake an accompanied suicide very soon. Four have already secured fixed dates for their deaths, but adjourned them. The remaining 29 have not yet arranged a specific date.
A further four British people failed to get Dignitas's permission after the Swiss doctor who examines all applicants said they should not be helped, either because they did not have an incurable illness or were judged not of sound enough mind to reach such a decision.
Dignitas figures also show that 15 Britons took their lives there in 2003, 26 in 2006, eight in the first five months of 2008 and 23 in the past 12 months.
The disclosures will reopen the highly charged debate about euthanasia. This week, an influential group of peers, led by two former ministers in Tony Blair's cabinet, will seek to end what they see as the outdated and inhumane situation in which relatives or friends risk up to 14 years in prison if they travel with a loved one undertaking assisted dying overseas.
The peers - led by Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, and Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords - will table an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to lift the threat of prosecution from people in England and Wales who want to support someone in their final moments.
The 1961 Suicide Act criminalises anyone who aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else's suicide, and some relatives who have travelled have been questioned by police on their return. However, government law officers have already admitted that no one who goes abroad for that purpose is likely to face prosecution.
"It's a tragic anomaly that people who are giving a last loving assistance to a loved one find themselves under threat of 14 years' imprisonment if they do," Jay said last night. "Having made the very difficult decision to travel abroad to somewhere like Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, someone would want the sort of support they would expect here from a husband, wife or loved one. The law in this area is a fudge and parliamentarians are lagging behind public opinion on this."
Prominent peers with legal or medical backgrounds are backing the move, including Lib Dem barrister Lord Lester, Baroness Greengross, the former head of Age Concern England, and Lord (Naren) Patel, chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency.
If they win - and they are increasingly confident - it would force the government to take a view. It used parliamentary procedure to prevent voting in March on an identical amendment in the Commons, which had been proposed by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary until 2007.
Lesley Close, who travelled to Dignitas with her brother, John, in 2003 when he ended a life overshadowed by motor neurone disease, said: "More and more British people will be joining Dignitas and travelling to Switzerland to die because more people are aware of the compassionate and peaceful death you can achieve there.
"The interest in Dignitas among Britons underlines the case for reform of the law here. We need the same facility here [as Dignitas]. It's a perfectly rational and humane decision to end your life if you are suffering intolerably at the end of a terminal illness."
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a new right to assisted dying, said: "These figures show that the situation in this country is forcing people into difficult and dangerous decisions - to go abroad for an assisted death, or ask their doctor or a relative to help them die, or to attempt suicide themselves, some of which end up being botched.
"There is clearly a growing demand in this country for a well regulated, legal right for people with terminal illness, who are mentally competent, to end their life if they choose to."
Almost 800 have taken the first step to taking their lives by becoming members of Dignitas, and 34 men and women, who feel their suffering has become unbearable, are ready to travel to Zurich and take a lethal drug overdose.
The tenfold increase in the number of Britons who have joined Dignitas since 2002 will raise questions about the law that bans assisted suicide in Britain.
On Tuesday, 46-year-old Debbie Purdy, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, will go to the House of Lords, the UK's highest court, asking it to determine whether her husband Omar Puente will be prosecuted if he helps her to travel abroad to die.
The 34 Britons given what Dignitas calls a "provisional green light" to die have provided documentary evidence of their condition and been interviewed by both a doctor and Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, and satisfied them that they are mentally fit to make such a decision.
One of the 34 is due to undertake an accompanied suicide very soon. Four have already secured fixed dates for their deaths, but adjourned them. The remaining 29 have not yet arranged a specific date.
A further four British people failed to get Dignitas's permission after the Swiss doctor who examines all applicants said they should not be helped, either because they did not have an incurable illness or were judged not of sound enough mind to reach such a decision.
Dignitas figures also show that 15 Britons took their lives there in 2003, 26 in 2006, eight in the first five months of 2008 and 23 in the past 12 months.
The disclosures will reopen the highly charged debate about euthanasia. This week, an influential group of peers, led by two former ministers in Tony Blair's cabinet, will seek to end what they see as the outdated and inhumane situation in which relatives or friends risk up to 14 years in prison if they travel with a loved one undertaking assisted dying overseas.
The peers - led by Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, and Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords - will table an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to lift the threat of prosecution from people in England and Wales who want to support someone in their final moments.
The 1961 Suicide Act criminalises anyone who aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else's suicide, and some relatives who have travelled have been questioned by police on their return. However, government law officers have already admitted that no one who goes abroad for that purpose is likely to face prosecution.
"It's a tragic anomaly that people who are giving a last loving assistance to a loved one find themselves under threat of 14 years' imprisonment if they do," Jay said last night. "Having made the very difficult decision to travel abroad to somewhere like Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, someone would want the sort of support they would expect here from a husband, wife or loved one. The law in this area is a fudge and parliamentarians are lagging behind public opinion on this."
Prominent peers with legal or medical backgrounds are backing the move, including Lib Dem barrister Lord Lester, Baroness Greengross, the former head of Age Concern England, and Lord (Naren) Patel, chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency.
If they win - and they are increasingly confident - it would force the government to take a view. It used parliamentary procedure to prevent voting in March on an identical amendment in the Commons, which had been proposed by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary until 2007.
Lesley Close, who travelled to Dignitas with her brother, John, in 2003 when he ended a life overshadowed by motor neurone disease, said: "More and more British people will be joining Dignitas and travelling to Switzerland to die because more people are aware of the compassionate and peaceful death you can achieve there.
"The interest in Dignitas among Britons underlines the case for reform of the law here. We need the same facility here [as Dignitas]. It's a perfectly rational and humane decision to end your life if you are suffering intolerably at the end of a terminal illness."
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a new right to assisted dying, said: "These figures show that the situation in this country is forcing people into difficult and dangerous decisions - to go abroad for an assisted death, or ask their doctor or a relative to help them die, or to attempt suicide themselves, some of which end up being botched.
"There is clearly a growing demand in this country for a well regulated, legal right for people with terminal illness, who are mentally competent, to end their life if they choose to."
Pakistan seeks 'hardcore' Taliban
The Pakistani army says it is preparing to flush "hardcore" Taliban rebels out of the Swat valley after regaining control of the main city, Mingora.
"We are going after the leadership and we are going to take care of all the militants in the valley," spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told the BBC.
Clashes continued outside Mingora but its centre was under control, he said.
Essential services were being restored to the city, he added, which was home to 300,000 people before the fighting.
Doctors had arrived to re-open the main hospital, gas had been restored and mobile generators would help restore the water system, the general said.
But he suggested it would take at least two weeks to restore the electricity network. Local defence committees would be set up eventually to stop militants returning, he added.
With journalists barred from the area, it is impossible to verify the situation in the city independently.
Some 2.5 million people have fled their homes since military operations began in Swat more than a month ago.
'Better position'
"We have been able to block the major routes and the entries, exit points of the valley," said Gen Abbas.
"So we are in a better position to flush out, to eliminate the main militants, the hardcore militants of the valley."
Troops now have Charbagh, a Taliban stronghold 32km (20 miles) north of the valley, in their sights, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley reports.
Helicopters are said to be dropping leaflets advising residents to leave.
Soldiers continued to patrol Mingora's largely deserted streets on Saturday, securing neighbourhoods and checking houses for booby-traps.
Pakistan has increased its reward for the capture of the Taliban leader in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, to 50m rupees ($600,000).
The radical cleric is believed to be the architect of a two-year uprising in the valley aimed at enforcing Islamic law.
It is thought that the Taliban responded to the military campaign this week with a major suicide bomb attack on the country's second-biggest city, Lahore, as well as bombings in two other cities in the north-west.
The US is giving full backing to the Pakistani operations, which are linked to its own offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, our correspondent says.
"We are going after the leadership and we are going to take care of all the militants in the valley," spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told the BBC.
Clashes continued outside Mingora but its centre was under control, he said.
Essential services were being restored to the city, he added, which was home to 300,000 people before the fighting.
Doctors had arrived to re-open the main hospital, gas had been restored and mobile generators would help restore the water system, the general said.
But he suggested it would take at least two weeks to restore the electricity network. Local defence committees would be set up eventually to stop militants returning, he added.
With journalists barred from the area, it is impossible to verify the situation in the city independently.
Some 2.5 million people have fled their homes since military operations began in Swat more than a month ago.
'Better position'
"We have been able to block the major routes and the entries, exit points of the valley," said Gen Abbas.
"So we are in a better position to flush out, to eliminate the main militants, the hardcore militants of the valley."
Troops now have Charbagh, a Taliban stronghold 32km (20 miles) north of the valley, in their sights, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley reports.
Helicopters are said to be dropping leaflets advising residents to leave.
Soldiers continued to patrol Mingora's largely deserted streets on Saturday, securing neighbourhoods and checking houses for booby-traps.
Pakistan has increased its reward for the capture of the Taliban leader in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, to 50m rupees ($600,000).
The radical cleric is believed to be the architect of a two-year uprising in the valley aimed at enforcing Islamic law.
It is thought that the Taliban responded to the military campaign this week with a major suicide bomb attack on the country's second-biggest city, Lahore, as well as bombings in two other cities in the north-west.
The US is giving full backing to the Pakistani operations, which are linked to its own offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, our correspondent says.
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