Homeland Security, Border, sabotage of energy, transportation, environment

[G M]

http://www.cis.org/identitytheft

Illegal, but Not Undocumented: Identity Theft, Document Fraud, and Illegal Employment
By Ronald W. Mortensen
June 2009
Backgrounders and Reports

Download this Backgrounder as a pdf

Ronald W. Mortensen, PhD, is a retired career U.S. Foreign Service Officer and former Society for Human Resource Management senior executive.

This Backgrounder examines illegal immigration-related document fraud and identity theft that is committed primarily for the purpose of employment. It debunks three common misconceptions: illegal aliens are “undocumented;” the transgressions committed by illegal aliens to obtain jobs are minor; and illegal-alien document fraud and identity theft are victimless crimes. It discusses how some community leaders rationalize these crimes, contributing to a deterioration of the respect for laws in our nation, and presents a variety of remedies, including more widespread electronic verification of work status (E-Verify and the Social Security Number Verification Service) and immigrant outreach programs to explain the ramifications and risks of document fraud and identity theft.

The findings include:

    * Illegal immigrants are not “undocumented.” They have fraudulent documents such as counterfeit Social Security cards, forged drivers licenses, fake “green cards,” and phony birth certificates. Experts suggest that approximately 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security cards to obtain employment.

    * Most (98 percent) Social Security number (SSN) thieves use their own names with stolen numbers. The federal E-Verify program, now mandated in only 14 states, can detect this fraud. Universal, mandatory use of E-Verify would curb this and stop virtually 100 percent of child identity theft.

    * Illegal immigration and high levels of identity theft go hand-in-hand. States with the most illegal immigration also have high levels of job-related identity theft. In Arizona, 33 percent or all identity theft is job-related (as opposed to identity theft motivated simply by profit). In Texas it is 27 percent; in New Mexico, 23 percent; in Colorado, 22 percent; California, 20 percent; and in Nevada, 16 percent. Eight of the 10 states with the highest percentage of illegal aliens in their total population are among the top 10 states in identity theft (Arizona, California, Florida, Texas, Nevada, New York, Georgia, and Colorado).

    * Children are prime targets. In Arizona, it is estimated that over one million children are victims of identity theft. In Utah, 1,626 companies were found to be paying wages to the SSNs of children on public assistance under the age of 13. These individuals suffer very real and very serious consequences in their lives.

    * Illegal aliens commit felonies in order to get jobs. Illegal aliens who use fraudulent documents, perjure themselves on I-9 forms, and commit identity theft in order to get jobs are committing serious offenses and are not “law abiding.”

    * Illegally employed aliens send billions of dollars annually to their home countries, rather than spending it in the United States and helping stimulate the American economy. In October 2008 alone, $2.4 billion was transferred to Mexico.

    * Tolerance of corruption erodes the rule of law. Corruption is a serious problem in most illegal aliens’ home countries. Allowing it to flourish here paves the way for additional criminal activity and increased corruption throughout society.

    * Leaders support perpetrators and ignore victims. Political, civic, religious, business, education, and media leaders blame Americans for “forcing” illegal aliens to commit document fraud and identity theft. No similar concern is expressed for the American men, women, and children whose lives are destroyed in the process.

    * The Social Security Administration and Internal Revenue Service facilitate illegal immigrant-driven identity theft. Both turn a blind eye to massive SSN fraud and take no action to stop it. The Social Security Administration assigns SSNs to new-born infants that are being used illegally. The IRS demands that victims pay taxes on wages earned by illegal aliens using their stolen SSNs, while taking no action to stop the identity theft.

    * State and local governments need to adopt tougher laws to supplement federal efforts. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is targeting large document fraud rings and the most egregious employers, but their resources are limited and stretched across multiple priorities. In 2007, identity theft cases represented only 7 percent of the total ICE case load.

    * Employers must do their part. They can ensure that they have a legal workforce by using a combination of the federal government’s E-Verify and Social Security Number Verification Service systems and by signing up for the federal government’s IMAGE program or privately conducted audits.

[G M]

http://www.cis.org/Costs

Much better than snopes. Aside from the corrosion of the rule of law and people harmed by illegal aliens, there are real financial costs.

[JDN]

http://www.cis.org/Costs

Much better than snopes. Aside from the corrosion of the rule of law and people harmed by illegal aliens, there are real financial costs.

"Much better than snopes"   
Snopes is impartial. 

The CIS webpage is blatantly biased and opinionated against immigration!

[G M]

**And what is the snopes.com pedigree?

http://www.cis.org/About

About the Center for Immigration Studies
Who We Are

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit, research organization. Since our founding in 1985, we have pursued a single mission – providing immigration policymakers, the academic community, news media, and concerned citizens with reliable information about the social, economic, environmental, security, and fiscal consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the United States.

The Center is governed by a diverse board of directors that has included active and retired university professors, civil rights leaders, and former government officials. Our research and analysis has been funded by contributions and grants from dozens of private foundations, from the U.S. Census Bureau and Justice Department, and from hundreds of generous individual donors.

Our board, our staff, our researchers, and our contributor base are not predominantly "liberal" or predominantly "conservative." Instead, we believe in common that debates about immigration policy that are well-informed and grounded in objective data will lead to better immigration policies.

The data collected by the Center during the past quarter-century has led many of our researchers to conclude that current, high levels of immigration are making it harder to achieve such important national objectives as better public schools, a cleaner environment, homeland security, and a living wage for every native-born and immigrant worker. These data may support criticism of US immigration policies, but they do not justify ill feelings toward our immigrant community. In fact, many of us at the Center are animated by a "low-immigration, pro-immigrant" vision of an America that admits fewer immigrants but affords a warmer welcome for those who are admitted.
Center Staff

Mark Krikorian, Executive Director
Steven A. Camarota, Director of Research
Cynthia Owens, Director of Administration
John Wahala, Assistant Director
Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies
Janice Kephart, Director of National Security Policy
Stephen Steinlight, Senior Policy Analyst
Jerry Kammer, Senior Research Fellow
Jon Feere, Legal Policy Analyst
Thomas P. Redding, Research Associate
Bryan Griffith, Multimedia Director
Ashley Monique Webster, Demographer
Zack Nunez, News Editor
Tomika Herrien, Project Assistant
Center Fellows

Don Barnett
Glynn Custred
Michael Cutler
Marti Dinerstein
James R. Edwards, Jr.
John Miano
Ronald W. Mortensen
David North
Stanley Renshon
David Seminara
Jan Ting
Board of Directors

Peter Nunez, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Vernon M. Briggs, Jr.
Thomas C.T. Brokaw
William W. Chip
T. Willard Fair
Otis Graham, Jr.
George Grayson
Carol Iannone
Frank Morris, Sr.
Harry E. Soyster
Anita Winsor-Edwards
The Katz Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Immigration

The Center hopes to raise the bar in immigration coverage by the media making an annual award to the journalist who best challenges the norm of immigration reporting. Read about our winners.
Internship Program

The Center for Immigration Studies is the nation’s only think tank devoted exclusively to the research of U.S. immigration policy and is a leading voice in the drive to inform policymakers and the public about immigration’s far-reaching impact. The Center is animated by a unique pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted.

Undergraduate interns are accepted for all semesters. Work hours, typically 20-35 hours per week, are flexible and unpaid. Interns assist the Center’s staff with a variety of research, media relations, and administrative tasks. Also, interns will likely attend and summarize into blog postings the Center’s events, Congressional hearings, and other immigration related events.

Applications are accepted year-round, though earlier applicants will have a particular advantage. To apply, please send you cover letter and resume as an e-mail attachments to press@cis.org.
Media References

Lexis Nexis was used to search media references that discussed both immigration and the organizations below.
Organization    2003    2004    2005    2006    2007    2008    Total
Pew Hispanic Center    570    621    1,489    3,136    1,854    1,577    9,247
Center for Immigration Studies    1,190    966    1,281    2,237    1,756    1,119    8,549
National Council of La Raza    509    872    735    1,256    1,314    1,200    5,886
FAIR    654    835    710    1,197    1,209    831    5,436
AILA    579    535    509    750    806    586    3,765
National Immigration Forum    233    283    415    671    643    187    2,432
Urban Institute    346    486    335    370    512    263    2,312
Migration Policy Institue    207    267    297    529    578    441    2,319
Kudos for the Center

“The Center for Immigration Studies brings a credible and articulate voice to a very
contentious debate.”
U.S. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX)

“The Center for Immigration Studies is one of the best organizations working on one of America’s most important problems.”
Richard D. Lamm, former Democratic Governor of Colorado

“Most of us don’t have time to go out and crunch the numbers and census data and go through all of this. I just want to thank CIS for providing invaluable research. You can be sure the other side has plenty of money and plenty of numbers, a lot of it not very accurate.”
U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

"I want to congratulate the Center for Immigration Studies and especially Jessica Vaughn for their – for her very important work on this issue that is, I think, the key to understanding the solution to the problem we face today with illegal immigration."
Former U.S. Representative John Hostettler (R-IN)

"CIS has of course been the premier think tank on immigration issues…"
U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)

“I don't necessarily agree with the positions…but I greatly value the clear and non-vituperative way you express a set of arguments that my students really need to wrestle with. Some are even persuaded.”
David Martin, University of Virginia Law Professor, Principal Deputy General Counsel of the DHS, former State Department Official and former General Counsel to the INS

“The Center is a leading voice in the drive to inform policymakers and the public about immigration’s far-reaching impact.”
Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY), Immigration Subcommittee Chairman

“I’ve found your insights keen, your reports provocative, and your news service quite useful . . . you guys are the ones who have raised the tone in the immigration debate.”
Scott Baldauf, Christian Science Monitor

“The Center is doing important work to focus attention on the important role of the current rapid U.S. population growth in dealing with the many environmental problems we face in this country.”
Doug La Follette, Wisconsin’s Democratic Secretary of State; Sierra Club National Board Member

“The reliable and credible reports issued by your organization are a tremendous asset to our country.”
Phyllis Schlafly, Eagle Forum

“Your analyses and other immigration reporting are excellent and I want to congratulate you and CIS for keeping this vital policy issue on the front burner.”
Joaquin Otero, former Deputy Under Secretary of Labor, and AFL-CIO Vice President

“I’ll applaud CIS again, they’ve done - to my knowledge - the first comprehensive study of what it means if Americans simply stand up and say, “we believe in the rule of law and we want elected officials that will enforce the law.”
Former U.S. Representative Tom Feeney (R-FL)

“The Center’s work is truly first rate.”
Frank Gaffney

Mark Krikorian is a “great national resource.”
William Bennett, Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute

“I rely on the work of the Center of Immigration studies all the time. The Center brings a responsible, fact-based approach to a hot-button issue, and is an invaluable asset to the cause of sensible immigration reform. Its research routinely debunks entrenched misconceptions about our immigration policy. I can't say enough about the Center - its work is intelligent, courageous, and altogether indispensable.”
Rich Lowry

“CIS is the most reliable source of solid research on immigration issues.”
Former U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO)

“…[J]ust thankful you guys are out there doing this great work.”
Robert J. Bodisch, Deputy Director, Office of Homeland Security

"The Center has established itself in the immigration debate as a body which, while being restrictionist in its general outlook, nonetheless produces economic research on immigration that is valuable to all sides in the debate."
John O'Sullivan, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

“I just received Jessica [Vaughan]'s newest critique of the US-VISIT Program, and like it a lot. . . . I don't see anybody else doing what she's done in the reporting of the problems with exit recording and estimating overstays.”
Senior Analyst, U.S. Government Accountability Office

“The materials sent to me are invaluable for my work.”
Shmuel Adler, Director, Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption

“[The Center’s website]…is best used by more sophisticated researchers than undergraduates.”
F. J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress, Choice Review, April 2003

“Intelligence Squared U.S., the Oxford style, three-on-three debate series sponsored by The Rosenkranz Foundation, announced the results of Tuesday night's debate [that included Mark Krikorian] on the motion, "Let's stop welcoming undocumented immigrants." A packed audience at Asia Society and Museum, New York City voted 60% for the motion and 37% against at the conclusion of the debate.”
Intelligence Squared U.S.

[JDN]

Surely you jest?

Check out their "unbiased" publication list...
http://www.cis.org/publications

On this very long supposedly impartial list, did you find any publications in favor of immigration?

Or their "Costs of Immigration" page...
http://www.cis.org/Costs

Did you find any articles about the possible benefits of immigration?

Or their "impartial" Home Page...
http://www.cis.org/

Best of all, on the Home Page I just love CIS's impartial VISION;   

We have a "vision of an America that admits fewer immigrants".  Wow!
But they say they offer a warm welcome to the few they admit.  But frankly
I can't find any pro immigration articles or publications.
Now that's what I call an "impartial" pedigree.

As for me, I'm just looking for a neutral source; that's why I picked Snopes.
Often called, "The definitive Internet reference source for misinformation."

At least they tell you when stuff doesn't pass the smell test like some of the articles
posted on CIS.

[G M]

Uh yeah, snopes is fine for "Will Bill Gates pay me 5 bucks for forwarding a chain email?" questions, not answers to serious policy issues.

Disregard CIS if you wish. Let's ask a simple question: How's that illegal immigration working out for California? You guys getting rich from all the illegals?

[G M]

http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2010/12/crash-program.html

Saturday, December 11, 2010
Crash Program

Since 9-11, various government officials have warned about the possibility of a terrorist attack using a radiological weapons (say, a "dirty bomb"), or an actual nuclear device. It remains one of the most frightening scenarios for those charged with keeping us safe.

But such warnings often carried caveats, to mitigate public fears. For example, despite Al-Qaida's demonstrated interest in nuclear and radiological weapons, we were told it would "be difficult" for terrorists to fabricate or obtain such devices, and smuggle them into America for detonation. The government has also spent freely in an effort to deter potential terrorist attacks using nuclear or radiological weapons, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into detection technology alone.

Some of that investment was on display in the Atlanta area last month, as federal, state and local agents scanned hundreds of trucks along Interstate 20, looking for radiological material. The event, which lasted for several days, was described as an "exercise." A few analysts expressed doubt about that explanation, given the scope of the drill, and the fact that continued during the Atlanta rush hour, snarling traffic for miles on either side of the checkpoints.

And federal preparations for the unthinkable aren't limited to scanners and search exercises. There's been a flurry of activity in recent months surrounding a new drug called CBLB502 and a company called Cleveland BioLabs. Less than two weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration took the unusual step of labeling CBLB502 as an "orphan drug," reserved for medications used to treat rare diseases and conditions. The orphan drug designation came only four months after the FDA granted "fast track" status for CBLB502, accelerating its development and potential introduction.

Why those designations for Cleveland BioLab's new product? Because CBLB502 is the only drug available to reduce the risk of death due to total body irradiation. The most likely cause of that condition: a radiological or nuclear disaster.

While orphan drug status is often reserved for medications with limited market potential, Cleveland BioLabs has already found a buyer for CBLB502: the U.S. military. Back in September, the Pentagon gave the firm a $14.8 million contract for an injectable form of the drug, to protect troops during a nuclear catastrophe. That contract allowed Cleveland BioLabs to complete more tests and the application process with the FDA.

Since Congress passed the Orphan Drug Act 27 years ago, less that 250 new medications and treatments have reached the market, so that means CBLB502 is in very select company. It is the first designed to combat the effects of a massive radiation dose.

The rush to get the drug on the market raises a rather obvious question. The threat of a nuclear or radiological attack by terrorists has existed for more than a decade. If their capabilities in those areas have remained rather crude, why expedite production and introduction of CBLB502? Why not spend the money on more pressing homeland security needs?

The answer can probably be told by intelligence dispatches that haven't been featured in WikiLeaks. Based on the recent spate of CBRN exercises (and the accelerated introduction of CBLB502), it appears the feds are more concerned than ever about the possibility of a terrorist attack, using a nuclear bomb or a radiological device. And, since the drug is used for treatment after radiation exposure, the government isn't taking any chances. Doses of CBLB502 will be administered to military personnel responding to a nuclear or radiological attack, allowing them to do their job in the days following the catastrophe.

Production of the drug also affirms our worst fears about that scenario. Despite all the equipment, all the personnel and all that money, the terrorists still have a reasonable chance of success, once they get a dirty bomb (or a full-up nuke) in our territory. That's why the crash program for CBLB502 is clearly aimed at the aftermath. From the homeland security perspective, it makes sense to prepare now, for an attack that may be on the way, and could very well succeed when the elements come together.

One final note: some reports peg the government's initial order of the drug at 37,000 doses. That quantity is sufficient for military responders, but not for civilians living in the disaster zone. Without larger purchases, civilians exposed to high doses of radiation during terrorist attacks will be on their own. Welcome to government-run healthcare.
***
ADDENDUM: Here's another element of this crash program that we find rather revealing. While Al-Qaida's interest in WMD has never waned, there is no evidence of a recent breakthrough in terms of their capabilities to produce such weapons. The government's rush to get CBLB502 into production suggests a growing concern over bin Laden simply purchasing the needed weaponry from Iran or friendly elements within the Pakistan military. And judging by the timeline for the anti-radiation drug program, U.S. officials see a rapidly escalating CBRN threat against the homeland over the next five years.

[DougMacG]

"protect your social security number until the government finds a better way to track citizens."

Good luck getting mandatory car or health insurance without giving your ss no. out to private cos.

[DougMacG]

Effective advocacy does not mean you don't need to get your facts right.  Calling your self non-partisan and unbiased doesn't in my experience (with Snopes or anyone else) make it so.

The cost of illegal aliens to federal, state and local governments is IMO a symptom, not the central problem.  If the new people all came here fully employed as rocket scientists would there still not be an issue of enforcing our borders in order to remain a sovereign nation with borders, citizenship and a rule of law?

[G M]

Part of the "Transformation of America" Obama promised was the end of the rule of law and the creation of a permanent democrat underclass. That what these various attempts at amnesty are intended to do.

[G M]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/counterterror-officials-terror-chatter-rise-holiday-travel-season/story?id=12449231&page=2

Brennan and Napolitano knew of the arrests and said that the plot would not have threatened the United States, but Director Clapper, who briefs the president daily on the nation's security, appeared to be unfamiliar with the events in London.

"First of all, London," Sawyer said. "How serious is it? Any implication that it was coming here? ... Director Clapper?"

"London?" Clapper said, before Brennan entered the conversation explaining the arrests.

Later in the interview, Sawyer returned to the subject.

"I was a little surprised you didn't know about London," Sawyer told Clapper.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't," he replied.

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 Well, won't that help us sleep better at night. Makes you wonder what else they are clueless about.
                                P.C.

[G M]

Well, AG Holder is concerned about homegrown terrorists while the Obama administration continues to cuddle with muslim brotherhood front groups.

Holder told ABC News yesterday: "It is one of the things that keeps me up at night. You didn't worry about this even two years ago – about individuals, about Americans, to the extent that we now do. And – that is of – of great concern.

"The threat has changed from simply worrying about foreigners coming here, to worrying about people in the United States, American citizens – raised here, born here, and who for whatever reason (whatever reason?), have decided that they are going to become radicalized and take up arms against the nation in which they were born," he said.

[G M]

http://www.strategypage.com/on_point/20101221225721.aspx

Season's Greetings From Al-Qaida

by Austin Bay
December 21, 2010

"Just how real is the holiday terrorist threat?"

The question isn't rhetorical, nor is it an arid theoretical. Since Thanksgiving, it's been the query of the season, reflecting the uneasy spirit of our times. I've had it popped on me at parties, in the gym, on the phone and by my wife.

[Crafty_Dog]

DECEMBER 20, 2010
 
By SEAN GARDINER  for The Wall Street Journal
Earlier this month the New York Police Department ran an antiterrorism exercise simulating an attack on the city.
A team of terrorists unleashed a coordinated series of bombings and gun attacks around the city in the simulation. At one point, terrorists attacked New York police officials visiting wounded officers in a hospital. By the time the daylong attacks were over, dozens of people had been killed and many more wounded.
The NYPD simulation was different from any of the terrorist incidents that have actually hit New York, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks where terrorists hijacked planes to destroy the World Trade Center, or the foiled Times Square car-bombing attempt in May of this year.
Instead, the simulation deliberately mirrored the 2008 massacre in Mumbai. Within minutes of one another on the night of Nov. 26, 2008, 10 gunmen attacked various locations in the Indian city, including two luxury hotels, a hospital and a railway station. The attack stretched on for three days as hostages were taken at several of the locations. Ultimately, 174 people were killed.
Until Mumbai, NYPD counterterrorism officials felt reasonably comfortable that they were prepared for any type of terrorist attack. But that comfort level was built on preparing for a single event, not a series of coordinated attacks that would terrorize a city for days on end.
"The Mumbai attack two years ago was a bit of a game changer," Mitchell Silber, head of the NYPD's intelligence analysis division, said. "It was a model that most counterterrorism practitioners hadn't really considered. The armed gunmen roaming around the city taking hostages, that wasn't something we had seen by any jihadist group. That was a real eye-opener." Mr. Silber said the more NYPD officials learned about the Mumbai attacks "the more similarities we saw between Mumbai city and New York City." Both, he said, are financial centers; both are surrounded by water on three sides; both get intense media attention.
The latest simulation made additional sense, he said, in light of the rumors this past fall that jihadists were planning another "Mumbai-style" attack somewhere in Europe.
So on Dec. 3, the NYPD's top brass gathered inside the department's headquarters in downtown Manhattan, in the Police Academy on East 20th Street and a third location, which police don't want to identify, that will be activated in the event police headquarters is destroyed. More than 40 senior commanders took part, and a facilitator introduced "injects," or new complications, into the exercise.
According to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the police were given a fictional scenario that began with President Barack Obama visiting New York for a bill signing. At the same time, convicted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was scheduled to appear in federal court. The attacks began with bombings in downtown that resulted in 18 dead and dozens injured. The president went ahead with the bill signing at the World Trade Center site, when another bomb went off nearby. He was whisked away.
The attack wasn't over. Six gunmen piled out of a van at Herald Square and opened fire on shoppers and pedestrians. They then entered the Macy's department store and took 26 hostages.
As in Mumbai, police in the simulation had trouble containing and anticipating the terrorists. At one point, police who tried to rescue hostages were shot by snipers. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Chief of Department Joseph Esposito went to Bellevue Hospital to visit wounded police officers, then both were incapacitated when a bomb exploded inside the emergency room, according to the simulation.
This is the eighth such large-scale tabletop exercise held by the NYPD since Mumbai, according to Paul Browne, the NYPD's spokesman. He said this exercise provided several valuable lessons. For instance, conventional wisdom was that the best way to deal with multiple subway bombings was to shut down all mass transportation and evacuate everyone by foot, Mr. Browne said. But the exercise showed the advantage of continuing to use buses during an attack to shepherd civilians out of lower Manhattan.
The exercise also showed that the first responding officers to Macy's shouldn't have evacuated people and waited for reinforcements, the traditional response in a hostage situation. Instead, the police could have minimized casualties by quickly finding and killing the terrorists who were shooting people.
Mr. Browne said the exercise also served as a reminder that the NYPD needs to obtain or update floor plans of the city's large department stores in case hostage-taking or some other standoff occurs there. Currently, the NYPD keeps floor plan copies for all of the city's major hotels and many popular buildings.
The department has taken other steps to prepare for a similar attack. Since Mumbai, Mr. Browne said, the NYPD has trained and equipped an addition 375 officers to use "heavy weapons" for a prolonged siege situation. The heavy weapons—MP5 submachine guns and Mini-14 semiautomatic carbine rifles—are needed to counteract military-style assault weapons like the ones used in Mumbai.
Lastly, police are preparing for more chaos. They now assume that when they advise civilians to "shelter in place," many will flee the island on foot as they did during the last major power blackout. That means police will need to protect pedestrians leaving Manhattan via the East River bridges or ferries.

sean.gardiner@wsj.com

[G M]

Heckler & Koch probed over Mexico arms sales

Published: 22 Dec 10 11:47 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20101222-31963.html


Police have searched the premises of renowned German gun maker Heckler & Koch on suspicion that the firm was breaking a ban on weapons sales to parts of Mexico that are plagued by bloody drug gang warfare.

[G M]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/28/indiana-grandmother-muslim-convert-investigated-possible-terror-link/

A 46-year-old Indiana grandmother is under investigation for her possible ties to suspected and convicted international terrorists, FoxNews.com has learned.

Muslim-convert Kathie Smith, 46, a U.S. citizen living in Indianapolis who has blogged about her granddaughter, last year married a suspected German jihadist, and has been flying back and forth between the U.S. and Germany as recently as two weeks ago.

A pro-jihadist video featuring Smith and her husband – alongside photos of members of the Islamic Jihad Union charged with plotting failed terror attacks against U.S. targets in Germany -- is being investigated by the Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center. The center is a counterterror intelligence clearinghouse staffed by law enforcement officers from local and federal agencies, including the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

“Certainly, it’s being looked at and evaluated by Indiana State Police, which runs Indiana Intelligence Fusion Center, ” Indiana Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Emily Norcross told FoxNews.com, adding that the video would be passed along to appropriate law enforcement for further investigation.

FBI spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said: “As you’re aware, FBI and DOJ policy precludes us from confirming or denying the existence of an investigation.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Washington office did not respond to a request for comment.

Interpol, which helps government law enforcement agencies track crime suspects around the world, declined to comment, citing policy.

The FBI also did not respond to an e-mail from FoxNews.com asking why Smith is not on the federal government’s no-fly list. Smith, meanwhile, said she believes her name is on some kind of government “watch list.”

In lengthy e-mail exchanges with FoxNews.com, Smith claimed that she has been repeatedly subjected to hours-long interrogations by Homeland Security every time she travels. She said her luggage has been subjected to bomb residue tests, and that officials asked her numerous detailed questions about her husband. She also claims DHS officials on more than one occasion escorted her onto a departing airplane.

DHS did not respond to FoxNews.com’s request for comment on Smith’s allegations.

Smith — who now calls herself Zubaida — added that she and her husband were met and interrogated by German police while in a taxi in October 2009.

German police, however, said they were not currently investigating an American woman, but declined to say whether they were aware of Smith.

In lengthy e-mail exchanges with FoxNews.com, Smith alternatively defended her online postings, denied being anti-American, called the Sept. 11 attacks an inside job, the U.S. a terrorist organization and praised the American-born radical Muslim cleric Anwar al Awlaki -- architect, trainer and inspiration for many of the recent terrorist attacks attempted or committed against the U.S. President Obama last April approved Awlaki's inclusion on the CIA's targeted killing list.

In one e-mail to FoxNews.com, Smith wrote:

“If your neighbor was being attacked by a perpetrator, would you just stand there and say, 'Oh I will let someone come who has a gun to help them'? No, you would rush to their defense. And use any type of "weapon" to help that person... this is what I am doing. I am defending the defenseless. I am defending my home and family and their right to safety. No matter who it is at my door. These are the rights the Constitution gives me. The very right this Communistic government is trying to take away from me and the rest of the Americans.”


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/12/28/indiana-grandmother-muslim-convert-investigated-possible-terror-link

[Crafty_Dog]

Separating Terror from Terrorism
December 30, 2010


By Scott Stewart

On Dec. 15, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sent a joint bulletin to state and local law enforcement agencies expressing their concern that terrorists may attack a large public gathering in a major U.S. metropolitan area during the 2010 holiday season. That concern was echoed by contacts at the FBI and elsewhere who told STRATFOR they were almost certain there was going to be a terrorist attack launched against the United States over Christmas.

Certainly, attacks during the December holiday season are not unusual. There is a history of such attacks, from the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988, and the thwarted millennium attacks in December 1999 and January 2000 to the post-9/11 airliner attacks by shoe bomber Richard Reid on Dec. 22, 2001, and by underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Dec. 25, 2009. Some of these plots have even stemmed from the grassroots. In December 2006, Derrick Shareef was arrested while planning an attack he hoped to launch against an Illinois shopping mall on Dec. 22.

Mass gatherings in large metropolitan areas have also been repeatedly targeted by jihadist groups and lone wolves. In addition to past attacks and plots directed against the subway systems in major cities such as Madrid, London, New York and Washington, 2010 saw failed attacks against the crowds in New York’s Times Square on May 1 and in Pioneer Courthouse Square in downtown Portland, Ore., on Nov. 26.

With this history, it is understandable that the FBI and the DHS would be concerned about such an attack this year and issue a warning to local and state law enforcement agencies in the United States. This American warning also comes on the heels of similar alerts in Europe, warnings punctuated by the Dec. 11 suicide attack in Stockholm.

So far, the 2010 holiday season has been free from terrorist attacks, but as evidenced by all the warnings and concern, this season has not been free from the fear of such attacks, the psychological impact known as “terror.” In light of these recent developments, it seems appropriate discuss the closely related phenomena of terrorism and terror.


Propaganda of the Deed

Nineteenth-century anarchists promoted what they called the “propaganda of the deed,” that is, the use of violence as a symbolic action to make a larger point, such as inspiring the masses to undertake revolutionary action. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, modern terrorist organizations began to conduct operations designed to serve as terrorist theater, an undertaking greatly aided by the advent and spread of broadcast media. Examples of attacks designed to grab international media attention are the September 1972 kidnapping and murder of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the December 1975 raid on OPEC headquarters in Vienna. Aircraft hijackings followed suit, changing from relatively brief endeavors to long, drawn-out and dramatic media events often spanning multiple continents.

Today, the proliferation of 24-hour television news networks and the Internet have allowed the media to broadcast such attacks live and in their entirety. This development allowed vast numbers of people to watch live as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, and as teams of gunmen ran amok in Mumbai in November 2008.

This exposure not only allows people to be informed about unfolding events, it also permits them to become secondary victims of the violence they have watched unfold before them. As the word indicates, the intent of “terrorism” is to create terror in a targeted audience, and the media allow that audience to become far larger than just those in the immediate vicinity of a terrorist attack. I am not a psychologist, but even I can understand that on 9/11, watching the second aircraft strike the South Tower, seeing people leap to their deaths from the windows of the World Trade Center Towers in order to escape the ensuing fire and then watching the towers collapse live on television had a profound impact on many people. A large portion of the United State was, in effect, victimized, as were a large number of people living abroad, judging from the statements of foreign citizens and leaders in the wake of 9/11 that “We are all Americans.”

During that time, people across the globe became fearful, and almost everyone was certain that spectacular attacks beyond those involving the four aircraft hijacked that morning were inevitable — clearly, many people were shaken to their core by the attacks. A similar, though smaller, impact was seen in the wake of the Mumbai attacks. People across India were fearful of being attacked by teams of Lashkar-e-Taiba gunmen, and concern spread around the world about Mumbai-style terrorism. Indeed, this concern was so great that we felt compelled to write an analysis emphasizing that the tactics employed in Mumbai were not new and that, while such operations could kill people, the approach would be less successful in the United States and Europe than it was in Mumbai.


Terror Magnifiers

These theatrical attacks have a strange hold over the human imagination and can create a unique sense of terror that dwarfs the normal reaction to natural disasters that are many times greater in magnitude. For example, in the 2004 Asian tsunami, more than 227,000 people died, while fewer than 3,000 people died on 9/11. Yet the 9/11 attacks produced not only a sense of terror but also a geopolitical reaction that has exerted a profound and unparalleled impact upon world events over the past decade. Terrorism clearly can have a powerful impact on the human psyche — so much so that even the threat of a potential attack can cause fear and apprehension, as seen by the reaction to the recent spate of warnings about attacks occurring over the holidays.

As noted above, the media serve as a magnifier of this anxiety and terror. Television news, whether broadcast on the airwaves or over the Internet, allows people to remotely and vicariously experience a terrorist event, and this is reinforced by the print media. While part of this magnification is due merely to the nature of television as a medium and the 24-hour news cycle, bad reporting and misunderstanding can also help build hype and terror. For example, when Mexican drug cartels began placing small explosive devices in vehicles in Ciudad Juarez and Ciudad Victoria this past year, the media hysterically reported that the cartels were using car bombs. Clearly, the journalists failed to appreciate the significant tactical and operational differences between a small bomb placed in a car and the far larger and more deadly vehicle-borne explosive device.

The traditional news media are not alone in the role of terror magnifier. The Internet has also become an increasingly effective conduit for panic and alarm. From breathless (and false) claims in 2005 that al Qaeda had pre-positioned nuclear weapons in the United States and was preparing to attack nine U.S. cities and kill 4 million Americans in an operation called “American Hiroshima” to claims in 2010 that Mexican drug cartels were still smuggling nuclear weapons for Osama bin Laden, a great deal of fearmongering can spread over the Internet. Website operators who earn advertising revenue based on the number of unique visitors who read the stories featured on their sites have an obvious financial incentive for publishing outlandish and startling terrorism claims. The Internet also has produced a wide array of other startling revelations, including the oft-recycled e-mail chain stating that an Israeli counterterrorism expert has predicted al Qaeda will attack six, seven or eight U.S. cities simultaneously “within the next 90 days.” This e-mail was first circulated in 2005 and has been periodically re-circulated over the past five years. Although it is an old, false prediction, it still creates fear every time it is circulated.

Sometimes a government can act as a terror magnifier. Whether it is the American DHS raising the threat level to red or the head of the French internal intelligence service stating that the threat of terrorism in that country has never been higher, such warnings can produce widespread public concern. As we’ve noted elsewhere, there are a number of reasons for such warnings, from trying to pre-empt a terrorist attack when there is incomplete intelligence to a genuine concern for the safety of citizens in the face of a known threat to less altruistic motives such as political gain or bureaucratic maneuvering (when an agency wants to protect itself from blame in case there is an attack). As seen by the public reaction to the many warnings in the wake of 9/11, including recommendations that citizens purchase plastic sheeting and duct tape to protect themselves from chemical and biological attack, such warnings can produce immediate panic, although, over time, as threats and warnings prove to be unfounded, this panic can turn into threat fatigue.

Those seeking to terrorize can and do use these magnifiers to produce terror without having to go to the trouble of conducting attacks. The empty threats made by bin Laden and his inner circle that they were preparing an attack larger than 9/11 — threats propagated by the Internet, picked up by the media and then reacted to by governments — are prime historical examples of this.

In recent weeks, we saw a case where panic was caused by a similar confluence of events. In October, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) issued the second edition of Inspire, its English-language magazine. As we discussed in our analysis of the magazine, its Open Source Jihad section pointed out a number of ways that attacks could be conducted by grassroots jihadists living in the West. In addition to the suggestion that an attacker could weld butcher knives onto the bumper of a pickup truck and drive it through a crowd, or use a gun as attackers did in Little Rock and at Fort Hood, another method briefly mentioned was that grassroots operatives could use ricin or cyanide in attacks. In response, the DHS decided to investigate further and even went to the trouble of briefing corporate security officers from the hotel and restaurant industries on the potential threat. CBS news picked up the story and ran an exclusive report compete with a scary poison logo superimposed over photos of a hotel, a dinner buffet and an American flag. The report made no mention of the fact that the AQAP article paid far less attention to the ricin and cyanide suggestion than it did to what it called the “ultimate mowing machine,” the pickup with butcher knives, or even the more practical — and far more likely — armed assault.

This was a prime example of terror magnifiers working with AQAP to produce fear.


Separation

Groups such as al Qaeda clearly recognize the difference between terrorist attacks and terror. This is seen not only in the use of empty threats to sow terror but also in the way terrorist groups claim success for failed attacks. For example, AQAP declared the failed Christmas Day 2009 “underwear” bombing to be a success due to the effect it had on the air-transportation system. In a special edition of Inspire magazine published in November following the failed attack against cargo aircraft, AQAP trumpeted the operation as a success, citing the fear, disruption and expense that resulted. AQAP claimed the cargo bomb plot and the Christmas Day plot were part of what it called “Operation Hemorrhage,” an effort to cause economic damage and fear and not necessarily kill large numbers of people.

As we’ve noted before, practitioners of terrorism lose a great deal of their ability to create terror if the people they are trying to terrorize adopt the proper mindset. A critical part of this mindset is placing terrorism in perspective. Terrorist attacks are going to continue to happen because there are a wide variety of militant groups and individuals who seek to use violence as a means of influencing a government — either their own or someone else’s.

There have been several waves of terrorism over the past century, but it has been a fairly constant phenomenon, especially over the past few decades. While the flavors of terror may vary from Marxist and nationalist strains to Shiite Islamist to jihadist, it is certain that even if al Qaeda and its jihadist spawn were somehow magically eradicated tomorrow, the problem of terrorism would persist.

Terrorist attacks are also relatively easy to conduct, especially if the assailant is not concerned about escaping after the attack. As AQAP has noted in its Inspire magazine, a determined person can conduct attacks using a variety of simple weapons, from a pickup to a knife, axe or gun. And while the authorities in the United States and elsewhere have been quite successful in foiling attacks over the past couple of years, there are a large number of vulnerable targets in the open societies of the West, and Western governments simply do not have the resources to protect everything — not even authoritarian police states can protect everything. This all means that some terrorist attacks will invariably succeed.

How the media, governments and populations respond to those successful strikes will shape the way that the attackers gauge their success. Obviously, the 9/11 attacks, which caused the United States to invade Afghanistan (and arguably Iraq) were far more successful than bin Laden and company could ever have hoped. The London bombings on July 7, 2005, where the British went back to work as unusual the next day, were seen as less successful.

In the final analysis, the world is a dangerous place. Everyone is going to die, and some people are certain to die in a manner that is brutal or painful. In 2001, more than 42,000 people died from car crashes in the United States and hundreds of thousands of Americans died from heart disease and cancer. The 9/11 attacks were the bloodiest terrorist attacks in world history, and yet even those historic attacks resulted in the deaths of fewer than 3,000 people, a number that pales in comparison to deaths by other causes. This is in no way meant to trivialize those who died on 9/11, or the loss their families suffered, but merely to point out that lots of people die every day and that their families are affected, too.

If the public will take a cue from groups like AQAP, it too can separate terrorism from terror. Recognizing that terrorist attacks, like car crashes and cancer and natural disasters, are a part of the human condition permits individuals and families to practice situational awareness and take prudent measures to prepare for such contingencies without becoming vicarious victims. This separation will help deny the practitioners of terrorism and terror the ability to magnify their reach and power.

[Crafty_Dog]

The (In)Humanity of it all:
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105&load=4753

[Crafty_Dog]

Its Pravda on the Beach (LA Times) so caveat lector; that said this case seems quite awful.
===============

Mother describes border vigilante killings in Arizona
Gina Gonzalez says her 9-year-old daughter, Brisenia Flores, pleaded for her life. Opening arguments begin in the trial of Shawna Forde of the Minutemen movement, who is accused in the killing of the girl and her father.

By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times
January 25, 2011, 8:55 p.m.


Reporting from Tucson —
As her mother tells it, 9-year-old Brisenia Flores had begged the border vigilantes who had just broken into her house, "Please don't shoot me."

But they did — in the face at point-blank range, prosecutors allege, as Brisenia's father sat dead on the couch and her mother lay on the floor, pretending that she too had been killed in the gunfire.

Even as this city continues to mourn the victims in the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, another tragedy took center stage Tuesday, as opening arguments began in the trial of a member of a Minutemen group accused of killing Brisenia and her father, Raul Flores Jr.

Prosecutors allege that in May 2009, Shawna Forde decided to strike an odd alliance with drug dealers in southern Arizona: Forde would help the traffickers ransack their rivals' houses for stashes of drugs and cash, which could then fund her fledgling group, Minutemen American Defense.

She and another border vigilante, dressed in uniforms, identified themselves as law enforcement officers before bursting into the Flores home, prosecutors allege. If convicted, Forde could face the death penalty.

That second member of Forde's group is scheduled to go on trial next month, as is the alleged drug dealer with whom prosecutors say the Minutemen collaborated. But on Tuesday it was the turn of the woman who prosecutors contend masterminded the attack.

"Shawna Forde organized and planned this event," prosecutor Kellie L. Johnson told a Pima County Superior Court jury.

Forde's trial was almost delayed by the Giffords shooting. Her attorneys questioned whether an accused murderer allegedly driven by right-wing passions could get a fair trial here. The man charged in the Giffords rampage left behind a trail of writings with no coherent ideology, but Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik set off a national firestorm by insisting that Arizona's conservative politics played a role in that attack.

Forde's lawyer, Kevin Larson, told jurors that there is no evidence she was in the Flores house during the attack.

"The state will present to you absolutely no witnesses that will put her in that home on May 30," Larson said. He said his client was simply guilty of being "an exaggerator extraordinaire" for boasting of her plans to rob drug smugglers.

Forde spent several years as a bit player in the national Minutemen movement, a loose-knit affiliation of groups that believe that if the federal government cannot secure the border, armed citizens should do the job.

Prosecutors say that in April 2009, Forde told two members of the movement in Denver that she had linked up with drug dealers in the tiny town of Arivaca, Ariz., just north of the Mexican border and about 50 miles southwest of Tucson. She proposed helping the dealers raid a rival's house, which would be full of drug profits she could steal, prosecutors allege.

The plan so alarmed the members, prosecutors say, that they contacted the FBI. But Larson said it was such an obviously outlandish idea that the FBI did nothing with it.

On Tuesday, Johnson and Brisenia's mother, Gina Gonzalez, outlined the chilling sequence of events in the attack.

Shortly before 1 a.m. on May 30, 2009, Gonzalez was woken by her husband, who told her that police seemed to be at the door. The two went to the front room, where their daughter Brisenia was sleeping on the couch so she could be close to her new dog.

There were two people in camouflage outside — a short, heavyset woman who did all the talking and a tall man carrying a rifle and pistol, his face blackened by greasepaint, Gonzalez said. The woman told them they were accused of harboring fugitives and needed to open the door.

Once the pair were inside, the man —identified by authorities as Jason Bush — told Flores, "Don't take this personal, but this bullet has your name on it," Gonzalez testified Tuesday.

According to testimony, Bush shot Flores, then Gonzalez. Gonzalez was hit in the shoulder and leg and slumped to the floor. She testified that she played dead as she heard Bush pump more bullets into her husband as Brisenia woke up.

"Why did you shoot my dad?" the girl asked, sobbing, according to Gonzalez's testimony. "Why did you shoot my mom?"

Gonzalez said she heard Bush slowly reload his gun and that he then ignored Brisenia's pleas and fired.

More men entered the house and ransacked the place. After they left, Gonzalez called 911. On a tape of the recording, played for the jury Tuesday, she suddenly realized that the attackers were returning, and crawled to the kitchen to grab her husband's gun.

Prosecutors say Bush came back in and fired on Gonzalez, who returned fire and apparently hit him, forcing him to retreat.

Gonzalez testified that the woman in the house looked like Forde, but she said she couldn't definitively say it was her "because I don't know her personally." She failed to identify Forde in a police lineup after the shooting.

Forde had Gonzalez's wedding ring and jewelry with her when she was arrested days after the shooting, authorities say. Shortly after her arrest, members of the Minutemen movement disavowed her, saying they did not trust her and that she had stayed on its fringes.

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

 

[DougMacG]

GM wrote regarding the gun smuggling, "Perhaps Mexico should secure it's border....."

Mexico of course isn't going to do it and can't.  I hate to say it, but isn't it only a matter of time before the U.S.military needs to secure and control both sides of that non-existent border, assuming the private vigilante system described is not a great solution...

[G M]

Criminals sometimes claim a political motivation behind their crimes. Sometimes there is a political agenda, more often it's just window dressing for typical criminal conduct.

[Crafty_Dog]

This thread now has over 100,000 reads 

[G M]

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/143127-napolitano-warns-lawmakers-of-threat-from-homegrown-radicalization-domestic-terrorism

Napolitano warns of threat from homegrown radicalization, terrorism
By Jordy Yager - 02/09/11 07:00 PM ET

Homeland security and counter-terrorism officials warned lawmakers Wednesday that the nation is increasingly threatened by foreign terrorists who seek to recruit U.S. citizens.

The largest threat to the U.S. is no longer Osama Bin Laden, according to the director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCIC), Michael Leiter, but is now Anwar Al-Awlaki, the head of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group based out of Yemen.

The increased threat that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula poses revolves heavily around its ability to attract and reach U.S.-natives who want to be trained in terrorism techniques, and who could fall beneath the radar of intelligence circles more easily.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/02/21/hezbollah-working-with-cartels/

[G M]

http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2011/02/21/hezbollah-working-with-cartels/

Only thing new there is the media attention.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42041567/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts

[G M]

(PJM Exclusive) DOJ Memo Confirms Terrorists Have Crossed the Border
PJM reveals a court filing showing that federal prosecutors have admitted a terror threat involving an Al-Shabaab human smuggler who claimed asylum.
March 23, 2011 - by Patrick Poole   

A potentially explosive admission by federal prosecutors in the pending sentencing of Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane in a San Antonio federal courtroom could aid the case of border states looking to take the initiative to stem the flood of illegal immigrants coming into the U.S.

In this court filing, provided exclusively here at Pajamas Media, prosecutors admit that Dhakane, who ran a human smuggling ring based in Brazil for the Somali Al-Shabaab terrorist group, transported “violent jihadists” into the country. He stated that “he believed they would fight against the U.S. if the jihad moved from overseas locations to the U.S. mainland.” (p. 7)

The contents and implications of this admission by DOJ will be one of the items discussed when my colleagues Army Lt. Col Joseph Myers (ret.), Mark Hanna, and I will be testifying Wednesday before the Arizona House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee on the topic of “Cross-border Terror Threats and Islamic Radicalization in Arizona.”

Dhakane was charged in March 2010 with lying about his terror ties when he applied for asylum in 2008, specifically omitting information that he had worked for two specially designated global terrorist entities (SDGT). He pleaded guilty earlier this year to lying to the FBI and awaits sentencing next month. Rather than trying him on terror charges, federal prosecutors are asking for terror enhancements on the sentence for lying to the FBI.

In the DOJ sentencing memorandum, federal prosecutors explain that Dhakane knowingly smuggled violent jihadists into the country:

More importantly, based on the Defendant’s recorded statements and admissions made to law enforcement agents, the Defendant was a former member, or at the very least, associated with [Al-Ittihad al-Islami] AIAI, an SDGT, and that he believed that there was no separation of personnel between AIAI, the Council of Islamic Courts, and Al-Shabbab, a designated [Foreign Terrorist Organization] FTO.

He admits that he knowingly believed he was smuggling violent jihadists into the United States with the full knowledge that if the decision was made by the SDGT, for which he was associated with in the past, to commit terrorist acts in the United States, these jihadists would commit violent acts in and against the United States. Because the law enforcement authorities are constantly trying to investigate, detect, and prevent the infiltration of potentially violent jihadists, the Defendant’s lies hid critical information from the United States authorities regarding his successful smuggling activities. Thus, the preponderance of the evidence proves that the other obvious motivation for him to lie on his asylum application was to cover up and obstruct the fact from United States authorities that he facilitated the smuggling of violent jihadists who are now present into the United States. (pp. 10-11)

This is far from the first time that Islamic terrorists are known to have attempted to enter the U.S, or actually succeeded. Just last year Homeland Security authorities put out an alert concerning a group of terror-tied Somalis who were attempting to enter the country through Mexico. Then last May another terror alert was issued for a known Al-Shabaab official, Mohamed Ali, who was suspected of trying to cross the border from Mexico. And in February 2010, a Virginia convert to Islam who was in contact with Al-Shabaab officials, Anthony Joseph Tracy, was charged for his role in an international smuggling ring that brought at least 200 Somalis into the U.S. on Cuban travel documents.

Other terrorist operatives are known to have successfully crossed the border:

•In February 2001, Mahmoud Kourani crossed the border from Tijuana in the trunk of a car, eventually settling in Dearborn, Michigan. Kourani, who federal prosecutors claimed had received training in weapons, intelligence, and spy craft in Iran, bribed a Mexican embassy official in Beirut to obtain a visa. Kourani’s brother is known to be Hezbollah’s security chief in southern Lebanon.
•In December 2002, Salim Boughader was arrested for smuggling 200 Lebanese, including Hezbollah operatives, across the border. Boughader had previously worked for Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV satellite network.
•In July 2004, Farida Goolam Mohamed Ahmed was arrested at a Texas airport boarding a flight to New York. According to the Washington Post, she was connected to a Pakistani terrorist group. Believed to be ferrying instructions to U.S.-based al-Qaeda operatives, authorities issued a terror alert for Washington D.C., New York, and New Jersey.
•In January 2005, two Hamas operatives, Mahmoud Khalil and Ziad Saleh, were arrested as part of a criminal enterprise in Los Angeles. Both had entered the U.S. after paying a smuggler $10,000 each to take them across the border.
•Rep. John Culberson said in November 2005 that an Iraqi al-Qaeda operative on the terror watch list was captured living near the Mexico-Texas border.
During our testimony before the Arizona legislature on Wednesday, Lt. Col. Myers will be discussing the nexus between the South American drug cartels and Islamic terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda. With cartel violence already spilling across the border, and U.S. Border Patrol agents armed with beanbags being gunned down in the field by smuggling operatives, when might we see terrorist groups attempting to open up a new front against the U.S. across the vast stretches of our unguarded border?

Today we will be discussing what states might be able to do to confront this problem in the absence of federal attention to the border and exactly who might be on our side of the border ready to help terrorist groups. As DOJ has admitted in the Dhakane case, terrorist operatives are already inside the U.S. and are prepared to go operational at the command of their leadership. If the issue of homegrown terrorism is already keeping Attorney General Eric Holder awake at night, why aren’t similar concerns being translated into action to defend Americans from cross-border terror threats?

Patrick Poole is a regular contributor to Pajamas Media, and an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the military.

[Crafty_Dog]

 

URL please!!!

[G M]

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/doj-memo-confirms-terrorists-have-crossed-the-border-pjm-exclusive/

[Body-by-Guinness]

Amnesty International USA v. Clapper and Standing to Challenge Secret Surveillance Regimes
Orin Kerr • March 24, 2011 2:46 am

On Monday, the Second Circuit handed down a very important decision on standing to challenge secret surveillance programs in Amnesty International USA v. Clapper. The decision, by Judge Gerard Lynch and joined by Judges Calabresi and Sack, offers a very easy way for plaintiffs to have Article III standing to challenge secret surveillance statutes. The opinion strikes me as puzzling, however, and it appears to be in conflict with other Courts of Appeals cases on standing to challenge surveillance regimes. I suspect Supreme Court review is a serious possibility.

The new decision holds that the plaintiffs have established Article III standing to challenge Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which creates new procedures for authorizing government electronic surveillance targeting non-United States persons outside the United States for purposes of collecting foreign intelligence. The plaintiffs in the case are attorneys, journalists, and labor, legal, media, and human rights organizations who claim to believe that they may be monitored in the future pursuant to the statute, and they are claiming that their fear of surveillance — and costly measures they have taken to circumvent the monitoring that they think is likely — gives them Article III standing to challenge the surveillance program. Article III standing requires three elements: (1) injury in fact, which means an invasion of a legally protected interest that is concrete and particularized; (2) a causal relationship between the injury and the challenged conduct, which means that the injury fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant, and (3) a likelihood that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.

The opinion is pretty complicated, but here’s the basic idea as I understand it. According to Judge Lynch, there is obviously injury in fact: By spending money to avoid surveillance, the plaintiffs suffered an injury-in-fact of losing money. Judge Lynch then concludes that the injury is fairly traceable to the surveillance if the plaintifs’ belief that they are going to be monitored is reasonable. Here’s the key passage:

If the plaintiffs can show that it was not unreasonable for them to incur costs out of fear that the government will intercept their communications under the FAA, then the measures they took to avoid interception can support standing. If the possibility of interception is remote or fanciful, however, their present-injury theory fails because the plaintiffs would have no reasonable basis for fearing interception under the FAA, and they cannot bootstrap their way into standing by unreasonably incurring costs to avoid a merely speculative or highly unlikely potential harm. Any such costs would be gratuitous, and any ethical concerns about not taking those measures would be unfounded. In other words, for the purpose of standing, although the plaintiffs’ economic and professional injuries are injuries in fact, they cannot be said to be “fairly traceable” to the FAA – and cannot support standing – if they are caused by a fanciful, paranoid, or otherwise unreasonable fear of the FAA.

Of course, no one really knows who is being monitored or when. But Judge Lynch concludes that the plaintiffs have standing because their fear of being monitored does not seem fanciful based on “a realistic understanding of the world.” From the opinion:

The plaintiffs have established that they suffered present injuries in fact – economic and professional harms – stemming from a reasonable fear of future harmful government conduct. They have asserted that the FAA permits broad monitoring through mass surveillance orders that authorize the government to collect thousands or millions of communications, including communications between the plaintiffs and their overseas contacts. The FAA is susceptible to such an interpretation, and the government has not controverted this interpretation or offered a more compelling one.
. . . .
The [plaintiff’s] fears are fairly traceable to the FAA because they are based on a reasonable interpretation of the challenged statute and a realistic understanding of the world. . . . . These plaintiffs . . . . have successfully demonstrated that their legitimate professions make it quite likely that their communications will be intercepted if the government – as seems inevitable – exercises the authority granted by the FAA.
The government argues the plaintiffs have failed to establish standing because the FAA does not itself authorize surveillance, but only authorizes the FISC to authorize surveillance. As a result, the government says the plaintiffs must speculate about at least two intervening steps between the FAA and any harm they might suffer as a result of the government conducting surveillance: first, that the government will apply for surveillance 6   authorization under the FAA, and, second, that the FISC will grant authorization.

But this argument fails. The presence of an intervening step does not, as a general rule, by itself preclude standing. Nor do the particular intervening steps the government identifies here – the government’s seeking authorization and the FISC’s approving it –   preclude standing. With respect to the first step, as discussed above, it is more than reasonable to expect that the government will seek surveillance authorization under the FAA. We therefore cannot say that uncertainty about this step significantly attenuates the link between the FAA and the plaintiffs’ harms. Nor does the second intervening step add significant uncertainty. . . . It verges on the fanciful to suggest that the government will more than rarely fail to comply with the formal requirements of the FAA once it has decided that the surveillance is warranted.

How do the judges know these things? As best I can tell, they just sort of know, based on some news stories, an occasional FISA report, and their “realistic understanding of the world.”

If this new decision is right, then challenging secret surveillance statutes would seem to be pretty easy — in stark contrast with the previous understanding that it was extremely difficult. Other courts have held that standing requires a showing of actually being monitored. Under that standard, it is almost impossible to challenge new statutory surveillance authorities under the Fourth Amendment.

According to Judge Lynch, however, a reasonable fear of being monitored is enough. Since no one knows what the new secret programs actually are, but lots of people fear that they are very broad, you just need to get a broad class of people together who are really afraid of the surveillance, and then have them spend some money. On summary judgment, the plaintiff’s facts will be treated as true. Since the Government won’t say what the new secret surveillance program is, but the news reports usually report the scope of surveillance programs as extremely broad, no one will rebut the fears of surveillance and the judges will find the fears reasonable, creating Article III standing. True, the judges won’t know what the program is, either. But because they believe their own opinions are realistic, their lack of actual knowledge is no longer a barrier to standing. If this new decision holds, Article III standing to challenge surveillance programs would seem to now be pretty simple.

Whether you like the new decision or not, I suspect it’s not the last we’ve heard on this issue. The opinion strikes me as in pretty direct tension with cases like ACLU v. NSA, the 6th Circuit’s case rejecting standing for the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program during the Bush years. Given the importance of the issue, and the tensions among the circuits, I would suspect this case may be headed upstairs.

http://volokh.com/2011/03/24/amnesty-international-usa-v-clapper-and-standing-to-challenge-secret-surveillance-regimes/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/3-mid-east-men-allegedly-try-to-infiltrate-marine-base-after-making-terrorist-threats/

[G M]

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/remote-control-computer-programs-pose-terror-risks-to-aeroplanes/story-e6freooo-1226032870380

'Remote control' computer programs pose terror risks to aeroplanes

Alex Dickinson
From:The Courier-Mail
April 04, 201112:01AM


AEROPLANES could be taken over by remote control and forced to crash with the use of newly invented computer software.

Cyber attacks are now viewed by experts as the second-biggest risk to aviation behind natural disasters.

Representatives from Qantas and Virgin Airlines were warned of the threat at the Asia-Pacific Aviation Security Conference in Hong Kong.

Australian cyber-security expert Ty Miller, from Pure Hacking, told the conference whole fleets of planes could be affected.

"The stereotypical Die Hard 2 airport attack, where aircraft controls can be taken over, is no longer just a movie script. It's an actual reality,'' Mr Miller said.

"Depending on what information was accessed . . . the control of the aircraft themselves could be compromised.

"You could deal with planes so that when they're in the air they all of a sudden start dumping all of their fuel, or force the planes to take a nose-dive. And it's not necessarily one plane  it could be a whole fleet of planes.''

Mr Miller's firm engages in "ethical hacking'', which involves testing the security of a network by trying to crack its systems.

Posing as a rogue employee with general access to an airline's systems, Mr Miller was recently able to take over the airline's entire network within a day.

"That would give us full administrator access to the whole computer system and access to potentially sensitive documents and data,'' he said.

He cited the Stuxnet worm incident, where an unknown attacker last year used the software to sabotage one of Iran's uranium enrichment plants.

The Stuxnet attack overwhelmed the nuclear facility's internal network, causing it to go offline.

"The analysis of the Stuxnet attack (on Iran) showed that it would have required a team of five or ten people working for at least six months,'' Mr Miller said.

[Crafty_Dog]

How to Tell if Your Neighbor is a Bombmaker
April 7, 2011


By Scott Stewart

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the  fifth edition of its English-language jihadist magazine “Inspire” on March 30. AQAP publishes this magazine with the stated intent of radicalizing English-speaking Muslims and encouraging them to engage in jihadist militant activity. Since its inception, Inspire magazine has also advocated the concept that jihadists living in the West should conduct attacks there, rather than traveling to places like Pakistan or Yemen, since such travel can bring them to the attention of the authorities before they can conduct attacks, and AQAP views attacking in the West as “striking at the heart of the unbelievers.”

To further promote this concept, each edition of Inspire magazine has a section called “Open Source Jihad,” which is intended to equip aspiring jihadist attackers with the tools they need to conduct attacks without traveling to jihadist training camps. The Open Source Jihad sections in past editions have contained articles such as the pictorial guide with instructions titled “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom” that appeared in the first edition.

In this latest edition of Inspire there are at least three places where AQAP encourages jihadists to conduct “lone wolf” attacks rather than coordinate with others due to the security risks inherent in such collaboration (several jihadist plots have been thwarted when would-be attackers have approached government informants looking for assistance). In recent years there have been a number of lone wolf attacks inside the United States, such as the June 2009 shooting at an armed forces recruiting center in Little Rock, Ark.; the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting; and the failed bombing attack in New York’s Times Square in May 2010. Of course, the lone wolf phenomena is not just confined to the United States, as evidenced by such incidents as the March 2 shooting attack against U.S. military personnel in Frankfurt, Germany.

In the past, STRATFOR has examined the challenges that lone wolf assailants and small, insulated cells — what we call grassroots jihadists — present to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. We have also discussed the fact that, in many cases, grassroots defenders such as local police officers can be a more effective defense against grassroots attackers than centralized federal agencies.

But local federal agents and local police officers are not the only grassroots defenders who can be effective in detecting lone wolves and small cells before they are able to launch an attack. Many of the steps required to conduct a terrorist attack are undertaken in a manner that makes the actions visible to any outside observer. It is at these junctures in the terrorist attack cycle that people practicing good situational awareness can detect these attack steps — not only to avoid the danger themselves, but also to alert the authorities to the suspicious activity.

Detecting grassroots operatives can be difficult, but it is possible if observers focus not only on the “who” aspect of a terrorist attack but also the “how” — that is, those activities that indicate an attack is in the works. In the past we’ve talked in some detail about detecting preoperational surveillance as part of this focus on the “how.” Now, we would like to focus on detecting another element of the “how” of terrorism and discuss the ways one can detect signs of improvised-explosives preparation — in other words, how to tell if your neighbor is a bombmaker.


IEDs and Explosive Mixtures

In the 11th edition of “Sada al-Malahim,” AQAP’s Arabic-language online jihadist magazine, Nasir al-Wahayshi noted that jihadists “don’t need to conduct a big effort or spend a lot of money to manufacture 10 grams of explosive material” and that they should not “waste a long time finding the materials, because you can find all these in your mother’s kitchen, or readily at hand or in any city you are in.” Al-Wahayshi is right. It truly is not difficult for a knowledgeable individual to construct improvised explosives from a wide range of household chemicals like peroxide and acetone or chlorine and brake fluid.

It is important to recognize that when we say an explosive mixture or an explosive device is “improvised,” the improvised nature of that mixture or device does not automatically mean that the end product is going to be ineffective or amateurish. Like an improvised John Coltrane saxophone solo, some improvised explosive devices can be highly-crafted and very deadly works of art. Now, that said, even proficient bombmakers are going to conduct certain activities that will allow their intent to be discerned by an outside observer — and amateurish bombmakers are even easier to spot if one knows what to look for.

In an effort to make bombmaking activity clandestine, explosive mixtures and device components are often manufactured in rented houses, apartments or hotel rooms. We have seen this behavior in past cases, like the December 1999 incident in which the so-called “Millennium Bomber” Ahmed Ressam and an accomplice set up a crude bombmaking factory in a hotel room in Vancouver, British Colombia. More recently, Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested in September 2009, was charged with attempting to manufacture the improvised explosive mixture tri-acetone tri-peroxide (TATP) in a Denver hotel room. In September 2010, a suspected lone wolf assailant in Copenhagen, accidentally detonated an explosive device he was constructing in a hotel. Danish authorities believe the device was intended for an attack on the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which was targeted because of its involvement in publishing the controversial cartoons featuring the Prophet Mohammed.

Similar to clandestine methamphetamine labs (which are also frequently set up in rental properties or hotel rooms), makeshift bombmaking operations frequently utilize volatile substances that are used in everyday life. Chemicals such as acetone, a common nail polish remover, and peroxide, commonly used in bleaching hair, can be found in most grocery, beauty, drug and convenience stores. Fertilizers, the main component of the bombs used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center attack, can be found in large volumes on farms or in farm supply stores in rural communities.

However, the quantities of these chemicals required to manufacture explosives is far in excess of that required to remove nail polish or bleach hair. Because of this, hotel staff, landlords and neighbors can fairly easily notice signs that someone in their midst is operating a makeshift bombmaking laboratory. They should be suspicious, for example, if a new tenant moves several bags of fertilizer into an apartment in the middle of a city, or if a person brings in gallons of acetone, peroxide or sulfuric or nitric acid. Furthermore, in addition to chemicals, bombmakers also utilize laboratory implements such as beakers, scales, protective gloves and masks — things not normally found in a hotel room or residence.

Additionally, although electronic devices such as cell phones or wristwatches may not seem unusual in the context of a hotel room or apartment, signs that such devices have been disassembled or modified should raise a red flag, as these devices are commonly used as initiators for improvised explosive devices. There are also certain items that are less commonly used in household applications but that are frequently used in bombmaking, things like nitric or sulfuric acid, metal powders such as aluminum, magnesium and ferric oxide, and large quantities of sodium carbonate — commonly purchased in 25-pound bags. Large containers of methyl alcohol, used to stabilize nitroglycerine, is another item that is unusual in a residential or hotel setting and that is a likely signal that a bombmaker is present.

Fumes from the chemical reactions are another telltale sign of bombmaking activity. Depending on the size of the batch being concocted, the noxious fumes from an improvised explosive mixture can bleach walls and curtains and, as was the case for the July 2005 London attackers, even the bombmakers’ hair. The fumes can even waft outside of the lab and be detected by neighbors in the vicinity. Spatter from the mixing of ingredients like nitric acid leaves distinctive marks, which are another way for hotel staff or landlords to recognize that something is amiss. Additionally, rented properties used for such activity rarely look as if they are lived in. They frequently lack furniture and have makeshift window coverings instead of drapes. Properties where bomb laboratories are found also usually have no mail delivery, sit for long periods without being occupied and are occupied by people who come and go erratically at odd hours and are often seen carrying strange things such as containers of chemicals.

The perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing manufactured the components for the truck bomb used in that attack in a rented apartment in Jersey City, N.J. The process of cooking the nitroglycerine used in the booster charges and the urea nitrate used in the main explosive charge created such strong chemical fumes that some of the paint on the walls was changed from white to blue and metal doorknobs and hinges inside of the apartment were visibly corroded. The bombmakers also flushed some of the excess chemicals down the toilet, spilling some of them on the bathroom floor and leaving acidic burn marks. The conspirators also spilled chemicals on the floor in other places, on the walls of the apartment, on their clothing and on other items, leaving plenty of trace evidence for investigators to find after the attack.

Given the caustic nature of the ingredients used to make homemade explosive mixtures — chemicals that can burn floors and corrode metal — and the very touchy chemical reactions required to make things like nitroglycerin and TATP, making homemade explosives can be one of the most dangerous aspects of planning an attack. Indeed, Hamas militants refer to TATP as “the Mother of Satan” because of its volatility and propensity to either severely burn or kill bombmakers if they lose control of the chemical reaction required to manufacture it.

In January 1995, an apartment in Manila, Philippines, caught fire when the bombmaker in the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Abdel Basit (aka Ramzi Yousef), lost control of the reaction in a batch of TATP he was brewing for his planned attack against a number of U.S. airliners flying over the Pacific Ocean — an operation he had nicknamed Bojinka. Because of the fire, authorities were able to arrest two of Basit’s co-conspirators and unravel Bojinka and several other attack plots against targets like Pope John Paul II and U.S. President Bill Clinton. Basit himself fled to Pakistan, where he was apprehended a short time later. This case serves to highlight the dangers presented by these labs to people in the vicinity — especially in a hotel or apartment building.

Another form of behavior that provides an opportunity to spot a bombmaker is testing. A professional bombmaker will try out his improvised mixtures and components, like improvised blasting caps, to ensure that they are functioning properly and that the completed device will therefore be viable. Such testing will involve burning or detonating small quantities of the explosive mixture, or actually exploding the blasting cap. The testing of small components may happen in a backyard, but the testing of larger quantities will often be done at a more remote place. Therefore, any signs of explosions in remote places like parks and national forests should be immediately reported to authorities.

Obviously, not every container of nitric acid spotted or small explosion heard will be absolute confirmation of bombmaking activity, but reporting such incidents to the authorities will give them an opportunity to investigate and determine whether the incidents are indeed innocuous. In an era when the threat of attack comes from increasingly diffuse sources, a good defense requires more eyes and ears than the authorities possess. As the New York Police Department has so aptly said, if you see something, say something.

[G M]

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/did-obama-and-holder-scuttle-terror-finance-prosecutions/?singlepage=true

(PJM Exclusive) Did Obama and Holder Scuttle Terror Finance Prosecutions?

High-level source concedes DOJ let off CAIR co-founders and others for political reasons.

April 14, 2011 - by Patrick Poole

During the House Homeland Security hearing last month on the topic of radicalization in the American Muslim community, one exchange between L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca and Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN) concerned the relationship between the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and Hamas terrorist front the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Sheriff Baca told the congressman:
 

We don’t play around with criminals in my world. If CAIR is an organization that is a quote “criminal organization,” prosecute them. Hold them accountable and bring them to trial.
 
But according to a high-ranking source within the Department of Justice, who spoke exclusively to Pajamas Media on the condition of anonymity, Sheriff Baca, a long-time supporter of CAIR, was probably already in on the joke.
 
The joke is that a number of leaders of Islamic organizations (all of whom publicly opposed the King hearings on Muslim radicalization) were about to be indicted on terror finance support charges by the U.S. attorney’s office in Dallas, which had been investigating the case for most of the past decade.
 
But those indictments were scuttled last year at the direction of top-level political appointees within the Department of Justice (DOJ) — and possibly even the White House.
 
Included in those indictments was at least one of the co-founders of CAIR, based on “Declination of Prosecution of Omar Ahmad,” a March 31 DOJ legal memo from Assistant Attorney General David Kris to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler. A second DOJ official familiar with the investigation independently confirmed these details. Omar Ahmad is one of CAIR’s co-founders and its chairman emeritus. He was personally named, along with CAIR itself, as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror finance trial in 2007 and 2008. During the trial FBI Agent Lara Burns testified that both Omar Ahmad and current CAIR executive director Nihad Awad were caught on FBI wiretaps attending a 1993 meeting of Hamas leaders in Philadelphia.
 
Dean Boyd, public affairs representative for the DOJ National Security Division, declined to provide me a copy of the March 31, 2010, memo dropping the Omar Ahmad prosecution. Directing me to submit a FOIA request, Boyd did say that “as a general rule, internal DOJ deliberation memos spelling out arguments for or against potential prosecution of any particular suspect are not public.”
 
Pajamas Media will be filing a FOIA request for all the related documents in this case.
 
According to my source, the chief reason outlined in the DOJ memo declining to prosecute CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad was the issue of potential jury nullification. The first Holy Land Foundation trial in 2007 ended in a hung jury. When the case was retried in 2008, all five defendants, former executives of the Holy Land Foundation, were convicted on all 108 counts.
 
But, according to our DOJ source, possible jury nullification was hardly the primary issue in the DOJ’s scuttling of the terror finance prosecutions. “This was a political decision from the get-go,” the source said.
 

It was always the plan to initially go after the [Holy Land Foundation] leaders first and then go after the rest of the accomplices in a second round of prosecutions. From a purely legal point of view, the case was solid. Jim Jacks [the U.S. attorney in Dallas who prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation executives] and his team were ready to go. There’s a mountain of evidence against all of these groups that was never introduced during the Holy Land trial and it is damning. We’ve got them on wiretaps. That’s exactly why many of these leaders and groups were named unindicted co-conspirators in the first round of prosecutions.
 

But from a political perspective there was absolutely no way that they could move forward. That’s why this decision came from the top down. These individuals who were going to be prosecuted are still the administration’s interfaith allies. Not only would these Muslim groups and their friends in the media be screaming “Islamophobia” at the top of their lungs and that this is a war against Islam, but the administration would look like absolute fools. It’s kind of hard to prosecute someone on material support for terrorism when you have pictures of them getting handed awards from DOJ and FBI leaders for their supposed counter-terror efforts. How would Holder explain that when we’re carting off these prominent Islamic leaders in handcuffs for their role in a terror finance conspiracy we’ve been investigating for years? This is how bad the problem is. Why are we continuing to have anything to do with these groups knowing what we know?
 
“By closing down these prosecutions,” the source added, “the evidence we’ve collected over the past decade that implicates most of the major Islamic organizations will never see the light of day.”
 

The FBI still has boxes and boxes of stuff that has never even been translated — just like what happened in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But it’s already been made public that they have copies of money transfers sent by NAIT [the North American Islamic Trust, which holds the property titles of many of the mosques in America -- Ed.] directly to known Hamas entities and Hamas leaders. Those came out during the [Holy Land Foundation] trial. But what if we won the case against NAIT and its leaders and the U.S. government finds itself the landlord to hundreds of mosques across the country? How well do you think that would that play in the Muslim community?
 
The actions by the DOJ to crush these prosecutions are just another schizophrenic episode in the U.S. government’s ongoing relationship with Islamic organizations, especially CAIR. After CAIR was named unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial, the FBI was forced to cut ties with the group. In an April 2009 letter to Sen. Jon Kyl, FBI Assistant Director Richard Powers said that “the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.”
 
And a February 2010 letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich to four congressmen who inquired about the termination of the relationship between the FBI and CAIR — just weeks before the DOJ officially ceased further prosecutions, including of CAIR co-founders — elaborated on the evidence about CAIR that had emerged from the Holy Land trial. Yet, according to my DOJ source, CAIR leaders continue to be regularly received by top DOJ and FBI officials despite the official ban and these statements made to members of Congress.
 
And just last November, a significant July 2009 memorandum order by Judge Jorge Solis, who supervised the initial Holy Land Foundation trial, was unsealed under direction of the Court of Appeals. It provides the court’s reasons for refusing to remove CAIR and two other prominent Islamic groups, the Islamic Society of North America and NAIT, from the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the case. Judge Solis concluded that “the four pieces of evidence the government relies on, as discussed below, do create at least a prima facie case as to CAIR’s involvement in a conspiracy to support Hamas” (p. 7), specifically naming Omar Ahmad’s part in the conspiracy (p. 6) and adding later that “the Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) and with Hamas” (p. 15).
 
As I reported here at Pajamas Media, FBI Director Robert Mueller reiterated these reasons for cutting ties with CAIR before a recent House Judiciary Committee meeting — just two days before The Daily Caller reported that White House officials had publicly praised CAIR.
 
Adding to the hypocrisy, after the Obama administration scuttled the next round of prosecutions in the Hamas terror financing investigation last March, Attorney General Eric Holder gave the prosecutors and FBI investigators in the Holy Land Foundation case the AG’s Award for Distinguished Service last October for their work in the case.
 
I asked my DOJ source why they decided to come forward now. The source said:
 

This is a national security issue. We know that these Muslim leaders and groups are continuing to raise money for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Ten years ago we shut down the Holy Land Foundation. It was the right thing to do. Then the money started going to KindHearts. We shut them down too. Now the money is going through groups like Islamic Relief and Viva Palestina. Until we act decisively to cut off the financial pipeline to these terrorist groups by putting more of these people in prison, they are going to continue to raise money that will go into the hands of killers. And until Congress starts grilling the people inside DOJ and the FBI who are giving these groups cover, that is not going to change. My biggest fear is that Americans are going to die and it will be the very Muslim leaders we are working with who will be directly or indirectly responsible.
 
But if the U.S. government publicly acknowledges the terror ties of these groups why do they continue to deal with them?
 

We tried to do what we could during the Bush administration. After 9/11, we had to do something and [the Holy Land Foundation] was the biggest target. If the mistrial hadn’t have happened, we probably would have gone through the second round of prosecutions before the change in administrations.
 
To say things are different under Obama and Holder would be an understatement. Many of the people I work with at Justice now see CAIR not just as political allies, but ideological allies. They believe they are fighting the same revolution. It’s scary. And Congress and the American people need to know this is going on.
 
It remains to be seen how Congress, the American people, and the establishment media — who always seem eager to rise to the defense of CAIR and the other terror-tied Islamic groups — will proceed.

Patrick Poole is a regular contributor to Pajamas Media, and an anti-terrorism consultant to law enforcement and the military.

[Crafty_Dog]

Please continue to follow this for us GM!

[G M]

http://www.theneweditor.com/index.php?/archives/12884-When-Allahu-Akbar-Means-I-Have-a-Bathroom-Emergency!.html

Yesterday, on a flight from Chicago to San Francisco, a man was subdued by the plane's passengers after he charged up the airplane's aisle yelling "Allahu Akbar!" and began pounding on the cockpit door.
 
However, in the original AP article on the story, AP's writers helpfully informed its readers, "Authorities do not yet have a motive."

Further on in the article, in the 13th paragraph, AP attempted to shed some light on the man's intentions by quoting a relative of the man who helpfully suggested, "He might have seriously mistaken the cockpit for the bathroom.... He's only been on three planes in his whole life."
 
In paragraph 15 and 16, AP 's writers remember to explain that the man was yelling "God is great!" or "Allahu Akbar!" as he charged up the aisle.
 
Clearly, this was a 'bathroom emergency' of some immediate urgency.
 
Thank goodness for the Associated Press and its fearless reporting!
 
Remember, bathroom emergencies are nothing to laugh at...

[ccp]

"Allahu Akbar!"

 It is my understanding that Islamic tradition holds one should scream, "God is great" when one tries to go potty.

****Lead StoryNothing to see here, move along
By Michelle Malkin  •  May 10, 2011 09:29 AM
Photo taken by passenger Andrew Wai

Look, up in the air: Classic symptoms of what Daniel Pipes calls “Sudden Jihad Syndrome”.

If you see something, say something — and do something. Fortunately, the crew and passengers of AA Flight 1561 did — tackling a nutball Yemeni Muslim shouting “Allahu Akbar” as he beat on the cockpit door of their plane.

Now, watch law enforcement authorities downplay the incident as nothing-burger:

The passengers sat stunned as they watched a man walk quickly toward the front of American Airlines Flight 1561 as it was descending toward San Francisco. He was screaming and then began pounding on the cockpit door.

“I kept saying to myself: ‘What’s he doing? Does he have a bomb? Is he armed?’” passenger Angelina Marty said.

Within moments Sunday, a flight attendant tackled Rageh Almurisi. Authorities do not yet have a motive.

While authorities said that Almurisi, 28, of Vallejo, Calif., has no clear or known ties to terrorism, the incident underscored fears that extremists may try to mount attacks to retaliate for the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden last week.

Federal agents are investigating Almurisi’s background. He was carrying a Yemeni passport and a California identification card, authorities said.

…Marty, 35, recalled that she and other passengers on the plane were stunned when they saw Almurisi walking down the aisle. She said a woman in a row across from her who speaks Arabic translated that Almurisi said “God is Great!” in Arabic.

Andrew Wai, another passenger, told KGO-TV on Monday that the wife of one of the men who took Almurisi down later said Almurisi was yelling “Allahu Akbar.”

“There was no question in everybody’s mind that he was going to do something,” Marty said.

A male flight attendant tackled Almurisi, and other crew members and passengers, including a retired Secret Service agent and a retired San Mateo police officer, helped subdue him as he banged on the door, police said. The flight attendant put plastic handcuffs on him.
Funny how you can scream “Allahu Akbar” at the top of your lungs and still have authorities proclaim your motives unknown.

It’s not the first time.

[G M]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/stowaway_has_port_on_terror_alert_E6i2U79BQ0tqsNpJlV3vnI

Stowaway at Port Newark sparks terror probe
 
By PHILIP MESSING
 
Last Updated: 11:09 AM, May 23, 2011
 
Posted: 3:06 AM, May 23, 2011
 


More Print



EXCLUSIVE
 
A shadowy man suspected of fighting against US soldiers in Iraq has sparked a far-flung terror probe after entering New York Harbor as a stowaway aboard a freighter and taking up residence in a fenced-off Port Authority warehouse, The Post has learned.

Asem Ellbahnsany Haroon, 26, managed to easily infiltrate Port Newark -- where there are just the kind of oil refineries that Osama bin Laden talked about blowing up as part of a global-chaos plot in papers found in his Pakistan hideout.

"There have been reports . . . that indicate al Qaeda is trying to use explosive to blow up oil tankers to disrupt the world's economy. What's right next door to Port Newark? All of these oil refineries that line the highway there," said one law-enforcement source.




Asem Ellbahnsany Haroon
 



Authorities are now scrambling to figure out how Haroon managed to elude border checkpoints at the port -- and they are also nervously wondering whether he came here with others who have yet to be caught.

Haroon was arrested Jan. 31 after Port Authority cops found him hunkered down near the waterfront inside a warehouse that has remained unoccupied for about a year.

When Haroon was found, it appeared he had been squatting inside for several days and had set up a makeshift camp.

"When I first saw him, he was so weak," a law-enforcement source said.

"But he might be a terrorist and possibly be a threat because none of the answers he gave ever made any sense."

Haroon told investigators that he was an Iraqi citizen who had arrived at Port Newark two weeks earlier on an unspecified Italian freighter.

It turns out he's an Egyptian who was once denied a visa to enter the United States. Federal authorities told a judge that Haroon "had fought as an insurgent against the American forces in Fallujah."


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/stowaway_has_port_on_terror_alert_E6i2U79BQ0tqsNpJlV3vnI

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 If or when I should say, we get hit with another terrorist attack here in the U.S. I wonder, are we going to let these idiots that refuse to enforce our laws as a way of buying votes, off the hook again?

www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2011/may/u-s-loses-track-millions-who-overstay-visas
 www.judicialwatch.org/files/documents/2010/verdict-immigration-112010-1.pdf               
                     P.C.

[Crafty_Dog]

Harlequin novel, version 2011

 

He grasped me firmly, but gently, just above my elbow and guided me into a room, his room. Then he quietly shut the  door and we were alone. He approached me soundlessly, from behind, and spoke in  a low, reassuring voice close to my ear.

 

"Just  relax."

 

Without warning, he reached down and I felt his strong,  calloused hands start at my ankles, gently probing, and moving upward along my  calves, slowly but steadily. My breath caught in my throat.

 

I knew I should  be afraid, but somehow I didn't care. His touch was so experienced, so sure.  When his hands moved up onto my thighs, I gave a slight shudder, and partly  closed my eyes. My pulse was pounding. I felt his knowing fingers caress my  abdomen, my ribcage. And then, as he cupped my firm, full breasts in his hands,  I inhaled sharply.

 

Probing, searching, knowing what he wanted, he brought his  hands to my shoulders, slid them down my tingling spine and into my panties..  Although I knew nothing about this man, I felt oddly trusting and expectant.  This is a man, I thought. A man used to taking charge. A man not used to taking  ‘No for an answer. A man who would tell me what he wanted. A man who would look into my soul and say . . . .

 

"Okay ma'am, you can board your flight now."

 

 

[G M]

I doubt very much the TSA is doing cross-gender searches. 

[G M]

GM:

My informed friend responds to your question:

Marc

"What of a High Energy Radio Frequency burst directed to the "fly by wire"  system?"

"Electrical and Avionics systems must all test a series of “HIRF” tests: High Intensity Radio Frequency.  Components are put in a sealed room and blasted with a wide range of frequencies and the whole aircraft is subjected to a system test which I believe is conducted in an empty hangar with lots of antennas pumping electromagnetic energy around.  And there are also lightning tests, direct hits to boxes, and direct hits to larger subassemblies including cable assemblies.  At least that was the protocol years ago.  I am sure it is more thorough now.  It is one reason why these things cost so much."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/safe-cellphone-plane/story?id=13791569
Is It Really Safe to Use a Cellphone on a Plane?

[Crafty_Dog]

Umm , , , GM , , , the Harlequinn paraody was/is a joke

[G M]

Umm , , , GM , , , the Harlequinn paraody was/is a joke

I know, but with the TSA-related hysteria I commonly see on the net, it's important to point things like that out.

[DougMacG]

Great joke!  Just wanted to add an opinion to the safety of the cell phone on the airplane question.

I asked a family member with degrees in avionics about it a few years back.  He basically said no.  If navigation equipment could be confused by a cell signal you are already in big trouble.

From my technology past I would point out that all the sensitive wiring within the plane can be done in fiber optics with zero susceptibility to all electrical interference.  To the extent they aren't doing that yet, it is because they don't believe they need to, not because it isn't available:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060918164717.htm
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/news/NewsReleases/2008/08-31.html
http://www.aviation-ia.com/aeec/projects/fos/09_004_FosApim.pdf

It is pretty hard to imagine a wireless code division multiplexed cell signal with a passenger telling her husband the arrival time received by the navigation system as a command to switch the plane in or out of auto-pilot.  If true, it is time to stop flying.

If the issue is terrorists sending a disrupting signal, asking passengers to end their calls doesn't fix that.

[bigdog]

From DougMacG: "Just wanted to add an opinion to the safety of the cell phone on the airplane question."

At least the plane will remain cancer free. 

[Crafty_Dog]

 

By Scott Stewart

A new video from al Qaeda’s media arm, As-Sahab, became available on the Internet on June 2. The video was 100 minutes long, distributed in two parts and titled “Responsible Only for Yourself.” As the name suggests, this video was the al Qaeda core’s latest attempt to encourage grassroots jihadists to undertake lone-wolf operations in the West, a recurrent theme in jihadist messages since late 2009.

The video, which was well-produced and contained a number of graphics and special effects, features historical footage of a number of militant Islamist personalities, including Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abdullah Azzam and Abu Yahya al-Libi.

In addition to al-Libi, who is considered a prominent al Qaeda ideological authority, the video also features an extensive discourse from another Libyan theologian, Sheikh Jamal Ibrahim Shtaiwi al-Misrati. Al-Misrati (who is from Misurata, as one can surmise from his name) was also featured in a March 25 As-Sahab message encouraging jihadists in Libya to assume control of the country and place it under Shariah once the Gadhafi regime is overthrown. The still photo used over the March message featuring al-Misrati was taken from the video used in the June 2 message, indicating that the recently released video of al-Misrati was shot prior to March 25. The video also contains a short excerpt of a previously released Arabic language Al-Malahim media video by Anwar al-Awlaki and an English-language statement by Adam Gadahn that is broken up into small segments and appears periodically throughout the video.

Despite the fact that many of the video segments used to produce this product are quite dated, there is a reference to bin Laden as a shaheed, or martyr, so this video was obviously produced after his death.

Unlike the As-Sahab message on the same topic featuring Adam Gadahn released in March 2010 and the English-language efforts of  al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s “Inspire” magazine, this video is primarily in Arabic, indicating that it is intended to influence an Arabic-speaking audience.

To date, much of the media coverage pertaining to the release of this video has focused on one short English-language segment in which Adam Gadahn encourages Muslims in the United States to go to gun shows and obtain automatic weapons to use in shooting attacks. This focus is understandable given the contentiousness of the gun-control issue in the United States, but a careful examination of the video reveals far more than just fodder for the U.S. gun-control debate.


Contents of the Video

The first 36 minutes of the video essentially comprise a history lesson of militants who heard the call to jihad and then acted on it. Among the examples are individuals such as ElSayyid Nosair, the assassin of Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane; Abdel Basit (also known as Ramzi Yousef), the operational planner of the 1993 World Trade Center attack and the thwarted Bojinka plot; Mohammed Bouyeri, the assassin of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh; and Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan. Others include the leader of the team of assassins who killed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the militants behind the Mumbai attacks.

Then, after listing those examples, the video emphasizes the point that if one is to live in the “real Islamic way,” one must also follow the examples of the men profiled. Furthermore, since the “enemies of Islam” have expanded their “attacks against Islam” in many different places, the video asserts that it is not only in the land of the Muslims that the enemies of Islam must be attacked, but also in their homelands (i.e., the West). In fact, the video asserts that it is easy to strike the enemies of Islam in their home countries and doing so creates the biggest impact. And this is the context in which Gadahn made his widely publicized comment about Muslims buying guns and conducting armed assaults.

Now, it is important to briefly address this comment by Gadahn: While it is indeed quite easy for U.S. citizens to legally purchase a wide variety of firearms, it is illegal for them to purchase fully automatic weapons without first obtaining the proper firearms license. This fixation with obtaining fully automatic rifles instead of purchasing readily available and legal semi-automatic weapons has led to the downfall of a number of jihadist plots inside the United States, including one just last month in New York. Therefore, aspiring jihadists who would seek to follow Gadahn’s recommendations to the letter would almost certainly find themselves quickly brought to the attention of the authorities.

When we look at the rest of Gadahn’s comments in this video, it is clear the group is trying to convey a number of other interesting points. First, Gadahn notes that jihadists wanting to undertake lone-wolf activities must take all possible measures to keep their plotting secret, and the first thing they should do is avail themselves of all the electronic manuals available on the Internet pertaining to security.

A few minutes later in the video, Gadahn remarks on a point made in a segment from a U.S. news program that the Hollywood perception of the capabilities of the National Security Agency (NSA) is nowhere near what those capabilities are in real life and that, while the NSA and other Western intelligence agencies collect massive amounts of data, it is hard for them to link the pieces together to gain intelligence on a pending attack plan. This is true, and the difficulty of putting together disparate intelligence to complete the big picture is something STRATFOR has long discussed. Gadahn notes that the downfall of most grassroots operations is loose lips and not the excellence of Western intelligence and urges aspiring grassroots jihadists to trust no one and to reveal their plans to no one, not even friends and family members. This claim is also true. Most thwarted grassroots plots have been uncovered due to poor operational security and sloppy tradecraft.

The video also contains lengthy theological discussions justifying the jihadist position that jihad is a compulsory, individual obligation for every able-bodied Muslim. As the video turns to the necessity of attacking the enemies of Islam in their homelands, Gadahn notes that Americans are people who crave comfort and security and that terrorist attacks scare them and take away their will to fight Muslims. According to Gadahn, terrorist attacks also cause the people to object to leaders who want to attack Islam, and the people will not vote for those leaders.

Throughout the video, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is depicted several times, and it is asserted that the United States and the West are controlled by Jewish interests. Gadahn says that influential figures in the Zionist-controlled Western governments, industries and media should be attacked, and that such attacks will weaken the will of the masses to fight against Islam. He also says that attacks against such targets are not hard and that, from recent examples of people who have assaulted the pope and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, it is evident that if jihadists trust their efforts to Allah and choose the right place, time and method, they can succeed in their attacks.

But armed assaults are not the only type of attacks being advocated in the video. The message also contains several minutes of material dedicated to encouraging cyber-jihadists to conduct electronic attacks against the United States. This concept was supported by several excerpts from a segment of the U.S. television program 60 Minutes pertaining to the cyber threat and featuring U.S. experts discussing their fears that terrorists would attack such targets as the electrical grid. Again, this is an old threat, and acquiring the skills to become a world-class hacker takes time, talent and practice. This means that, in practical terms, the threat posed by such attacks is no greater than it was prior to the release of this video.


Tactical Implications

First, it needs to be recognized that this video does not present any sort of new threat. As far as Gadahn’s pleas for American Muslims to buy firearms and conduct armed assaults, we wrote an analysis in May 2010 discussing many failed jihadist bomb plots and forecasting that the jihadists would shift to armed assaults instead. Furthermore, jihadist websites have long been urging their followers to become cyber-jihadists and to create viruses that would cripple the economies of the United States and the West, which are so dependent on computerized systems.

Even the calls to target industrial and media leaders are not new. Jihadist publications such as the now-defunct online magazine of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Maaskar al-Battaar, encouraged attacks against such targets as far back as 2004.

This means that this latest As-Sahab message merely echoes threats that have already existed for some time now, such as threats emanating from grassroots jihadists. The grassroots threat is real and must be guarded against, but it is not nearly as acute as the threat posed by other, more skillful terrorist actors. Grassroots operatives do not often possess good terrorist tradecraft, and their attacks tend to be poorly planned and executed and susceptible to discovery and disruption.

However, killing people is not difficult, and even amateurs can be deadly. As we examine these repeated pleas by al Qaeda for grassroots jihadists to conduct attacks in the West, and then consider the ease with which such attacks can be conducted — evidenced by Hasan’s actions at Fort Hood — it raises an interesting question: Why haven’t we seen more of these attacks?

Certainly we’ve seen some thwarted attempts like the previously mentioned plot in New York in May 2011 and a successful attack in March on U.S. Air Force personnel in Frankfurt, Germany, but overall, the jihadist message urging Muslims to take up arms and conduct attacks simply does not appear to be gaining much traction among Muslims in the West — and the United States in particular. We have simply not seen the groundswell of grassroots attacks that was initially anticipated. The pleas of Gadahn and his companions appear to be falling upon deaf ears and do not seem to resonate with Muslims in the West in the same way that the cries of the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East have in recent months.

In theory, these grassroots efforts are supposed to supplement the efforts of al Qaeda to attack the West. But in practice, al Qaeda and its franchise groups have been rendered transnationally impotent in large part by the counterterrorism efforts of the United States and its allies since 9/11. Jihadist groups been able to conduct attacks in the regions where they are based, but grassroots operatives have been forced to shoulder the bulk of the effort to attack the West. In fact, the only successful attacks conducted inside the United States since 9/11 have been conducted by grassroots operatives, and in any case, grassroots plots and attacks have been quite infrequent. Despite the ease of conducting such attacks, they have been nowhere near as common as jihadist leaders hoped — and American security officials feared.

One reason for this paucity of attacks may be the jihadist message being sent. In earlier days, the message of Islamist militants like Abdullah Azzam was “Come, join the caravan.” This message suggested that militants who answered the call would be trained, equipped and put into the field of battle under competent commanders. It was a message of strength and confidence — and a message that stands in stark contrast to As-Sahab’s current message of “Don’t come and join us, it is too dangerous — conduct attacks on your own instead.” The very call to leaderless resistance is an admission of defeat and an indication that the jihadists might not be receiving the divine blessing they claim.



Read more: Al Qaeda's New Video: A Message of Defeat | STRATFOR

[Crafty_Dog]

From Glenn Beck's newsletter today:

The TSA is defending a recent controversial screening in which a 95-year-old with cancer was forced to take off her diaper for a pat down. You'd think a 95-year-old in a wheelchair wouldn't pose much of a risk, but the TSA said their team responded to the diaper 'security alarm' in a 'professional' manner according to proper procedure.

[G M]

Yes, it clearly states in the jihadist handbook that children and the disabled will never be used to smuggle explosives or weapons onto aircraft. Stupid TSA!