Ecuador Votes on Bid to Give More Control to President

Campaigning ahead of the vote further polarized the Andean country, which went through a decade of political instability before Mr. Correa was elected in 2006, emerging as the country’s strongest leader in decades while drawing criticism for his consolidation of power. Mr. Correa, a left-leaning economist, pushed for the referendum after he survived a chaotic police rebellion in Quito in September and his approval ratings climbed. He and his supporters described the revolt as a coup attempt.

That rebellion, during which Mr. Correa opened his shirt and dared police officers to kill him, accentuated tensions between the president and his critics, including some in the news media.

Mr. Correa has long had a tense relationship with Ecuador’s news media over criticism of his policies, which have aligned the country with leftist allies like Venezuela and overhauled its political institutions.

Included in the 10 measures of the referendum is a controversial proposal to create a state panel to regulate media content, a proposal that is heightening concern among many Ecuadorean journalists. “This is the concretion of a threat,” said Arturo Torres, head of the investigative unit of El Comercio, a daily newspaper in Quito. “Investigative journalism will suffer severe limitations due to its scrutiny of power.”

The president’s critics say other measures are intended to weaken Ecuador’s judiciary. They would allow citizens to be detained longer without charges being filed against them; the appointment of judges by a commission influenced by Correa supporters; and the creation of a so-called Transitional Judiciary Council, expected to be dominated by the president’s supporters, to speed certain judicial reforms.

“Correa is holding this referendum with the purpose of consolidating the powers of the executive branch,” said Fabián Corral, dean of the law department at San Francisco University in Quito. “Judicial reform is necessary, but dependence of judges upon the executive branch is not going to help.”

Some voters in Ecuador, however, said they were voting out of their admiration for Mr. Correa, an ally of Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez. Mr. Correa’s support is based at least in part on a nationalist focus that chafes at foreign interference.

Last month, Mr. Correa, 48, expelled the American ambassador, Heather M. Hodges, over comments made public in a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, in which she referred to high-level police corruption in Ecuador and possible knowledge of it by Mr. Correa.

“Correa is a great fighter,” said Oswaldo Pazmi?o, 64, a Quito resident who campaigned in favor of the proposed measures. “Nobody can stop him; he is the reincarnation of Eloy Alfaro,” he said, referring to an Ecuadorean leader in the early 20th century who is associated with antiestablishment rebellion.

Official results were not expected to be available on Saturday.

Media rights groups in Ecuador and abroad expressed concern over some ballot measures.

One would prohibit owners of media companies from having financial interests in other industries, presumably to prevent the formation of media conglomerates.

A measure similar to the media regulation efforts in Venezuela and Bolivia would create the oversight panel that would hold “communicators or broadcasters responsible” for messages considered violent, sexually explicit or discriminatory.

Mr. Correa has already clashed with some Ecuadorean journalists. He filed a lawsuit this year against El Universo, Ecuador’s top opposition newspaper, seeking criminal libel penalties of three years in prison each against an editorial writer at the newspaper and three members of its board of directors.

The lawsuit, which seeks as much as $80 million in fines from the individual defendants and El Universo’s parent company, was filed in response to a column that contended Mr. Correa ordered security forces to open “discretionary fire” at a hospital during the police revolt. Several people were killed as the rebellion unfolded and was put down.

Simon Romero reported from Caracas, and Irene Caselli from Quito, Ecuador.

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Portland, Ore., Votes to Rejoin Task Force After Terrorism Scare

No, it told Attorney General John Ashcroft in the fall of 2001, its police officers would not join federal efforts to interview thousands of Middle Eastern men. No, it said again in 2005, when it became the first city to stop participating in the Joint Terrorism Task Force, which the Department of Justice operates in cities across the country to unite federal, state and local law enforcement authorities.

And then, on Thanksgiving weekend last year, federal authorities arrested Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-born teenager they accused of trying to detonate a bomb at a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony attended by thousands of people. The investigation had been under way for many months, but the Portland police were consulted only near the end, largely to help with logistics of a sting operation. Mayor Sam Adams was unaware until after the arrest.

“It showed the challenges we face and the fact that the 2005 resolution, while well intentioned, wasn’t meeting the needs of collaboration between local and federal law enforcement,” Chief Michael Reese of the Portland police said in an interview. “You’re going to be an afterthought, like we were in that investigation.”

Now, after five months of public debate and rewritten drafts — and as Mr. Mohamud’s case moves slowly along — city leaders last week approved what one City Council member called a “very Portland” compromise to rejoin the task force.

“Be it resolved, that it is the policy of the city simultaneously to help prevent and investigate acts of terrorism, protect civil rights and civil liberties under United States and Oregon Law, and promote Portland as an open and inclusive community,” reads part of the preamble to the agreement.

The agreement goes on to emphasize that local officers will be guided by state law “in situations where the statutory or common law of Oregon is more restrictive of law enforcement than comparable federal law.” It also advises individual officers working with the task force to consult with the city attorney “whenever the officer has any question about the application of Oregon law.”

Under Oregon law, law enforcement agencies cannot collect information about a person’s political, religious or social views or group involvement “unless such information directly relates to an investigation of criminal activities, and there are reasonable grounds to suspect the subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct.”

The upshot, Chief Reese said, is that his department will soon be able to participate in longstanding regular briefings that already include the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Police, county sheriff’s deputies, port authority officials and others. He will be allowed to apply for top-secret government clearance, and Mayor Adams, who is also the police commissioner, will be able to have secret clearance.

“A month from now, if we’re able to be there at the table and assign officers where it’s appropriate, I would be very happy,” Chief Reese said.

The agreement passed unanimously among the city’s five commissioners, though many residents spoke against it. Some said it would stir more fear among Muslims already wary of federal agents. Some said officers would abuse the agreement.

“How do you spell oppression? J.T.T.F!” a small group of opponents chanted on the sidewalk outside City Hall during the debate, in easy earshot of Council members. “How do you spell police state? J.T.T.F!”

Some critics said the agreement was so nuanced that it was hard to understand. “I don’t know if we are or if we’re not” joining the task force, Brandon Mayfield told Council members.

Mr. Mayfield, a lawyer, has experience in terrorism investigations that go wrong. In 2004, he was arrested after the F.B.I. mistakenly said his fingerprints matched one found on a plastic bag containing detonator caps found at the scene of terrorist bombings in Madrid the same year. He eventually received a $2 million settlement and an apology from the federal government.

Mr. Mayfield said in an interview that he opposed the agreement but that he was pleased that “at least they are thinking of civil rights.”

“They don’t want to be deemed as being soft on security, but at the same time they are putting in all these precautions,” he said. “It shows they are listening to the citizens of this city.”

Much has happened in the decade since Portland first resisted. The mayor and the police chief are new. The lead F.B.I. agent in Portland is new, as is the United States attorney here, Dwight C. Holton. The administration in Washington is also new.

“They were uncomfortable with some of the tactics in the war on terror,” said Mr. Holton. “They were uncomfortable with some of the politics of it, the national politics. Those folks are all gone now.”

Jeffrey L. Rogers, who was the city attorney in 2001 when Portland pushed back against Mr. Ashcroft, was among several people struck by the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union has given cautious support to the new agreement.

“It was harder to look for this kind of middle ground because the positions were so hardened,” Mr. Rogers said, recalling earlier debates. “Just on its face, that’s pretty impressive, to have all of those people agreeing.”