(The following is based on court documents and a law enforcement report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.)

Hassan Abu-Jihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, 33, of Phoenix, Arizona, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Mark R. Kravitz in New Haven to 120 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for disclosing previously classified information relating to the national defense.

(The following is based on court documents and a law enforcement report obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.)

Hassan Abu-Jihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, 33, of Phoenix, Arizona, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Mark R. Kravitz in New Haven to 120 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for disclosing previously classified information relating to the national defense.

The counterintelligence function involves protecting the country, as well as intelligence agencies, from the activities of foreign intelligence services. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has principal responsibility for countering the activities of foreign intelligence services within the United States in order to protect both classified US Government information and proprietary information held by US industry.

The CIA is responsible for coordinating US counterintelligence activities abroad. Each of the military departments also has a counterintelligence element that operates domestically and overseas.

N.Y. Guard Provides Helicopter Training to Canadian Aircrews 

Aviation soldiers from the Guard's Company B, 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation Regiment, who returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan in April, used their Chinooks and the upstate New York snow to train the Canadians on Afghan flying conditions.

The snow was a stand-in for the ubiquitous Afghan dust, Army Capt. Eric Fritz, instructor pilot for the battalion, explained. Fritz put together a two-week training program to prepare the Canadians for an upcoming Afghan deployment.

Members of the Canadian air force's 408th and 430th Tactical Helicopter Squadrons will be operating Chinooks in theater. The Canadian aircraft already are 6,000 miles away in place in Afghanistan.

"Everybody jumped at the opportunity to provide the training and transmit Company B's experience and information to the Canadians," Army Col. Michael Bobeck, aviation officer, said. "It makes everybody operate safer and allows us to accomplish the mission."

The first week of training focused on classroom briefings, battlefield scenarios and daylight-flying operations, and the second week was spent perfecting night-flying skills. The training plan culminated with a simulated air assault. All training flights took place within 100 miles of the flight facility here.

Landing and taking off in the light snowfall provided the Canadians with the same experience they'll get coping with the ever-present dust in Afghanistan, Fritz said.

"The New York National Guard has been very accommodating, because it's all been last-minute for us," Canadian air force Capt. Martin LeFrancois, 430th Squadron, said. "Now that we have six Chinooks waiting for us in Afghanistan, the training program that they prepared for us will be really beneficial."

President Obama, who had called for the Guantanamo facility's closure during his campaign, directed Gates to pause legal proceedings involving alleged terrorists being held and tried there, pending further guidance from the White House, spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters, bloggers and Internet journalists.

The president directed the secretary, who then directed the Office of Military Commissions, to cease referring any new cases through the military-commissions process at Guantanamo and to request 120-day continuances on all ongoing active cases there, Whitman said.

Whitman said he anticipates that further White House guidance regarding Guantanamo Bay will follow.

"The president has clearly made his intentions well known" regarding activities at the detention center, Whitman said.

Gates has recommended shutting down the Guantanamo detention center since he was appointed defense secretary more than two years ago. In December, Gates requested a proposal for closing the facility.

Gates has stated that requirements for closing Guantanamo include constructing legislation that provides statutory framework for housing detainees outside the confines of Guantanamo Bay, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters during a December 18 news conference.

The defense secretary "has asked his team for a proposal on how to shut it down [and] what would be required specifically to close it and move the detainees from that facility, while at the same time ensuring that we protect the American people from some very dangerous characters," Morrell said.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006 established procedures governing the use of military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses that can be tried by military commission, according to a military-commissions fact sheet.

The detention center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay has housed nearly 800 suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places since the start of the global war on terrorism that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.

About 250 people are being held at Guantanamo today, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.