Banned in Boston. The local FOX and NBC television stations in Boston refused to play this ad. That is certainly their right, but sadly indicative of a culture now where messages about the dangers from the Global Jihad Movement are being suppressed. We don’t think that is healthy for a our liberty or security. So our policy is See Something, Say Something.
There are jihadists in our midst. There are mosques where they congregate. Many of these mosques hand out jihadist literature and the worst of them preach it openly. But we are supposed to stay quiet, we are told that pointing this out is Islamophobia. Keeping quiet led us to the horror of the Boston Marathon bombing, and a mosque in Boston has not just the Tsarnaev brothers, but a Dirty Dozen jihadists associated with it.
Yet this very Mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston, was singled out by President Obama as an example of how his Countering Violent Extremism program is keeping us all safe. He invited members if its leadership to the White House to participate in a summit earlier this year.
Americans for Peace and Tolerancehave documentedjust how bad an example of countering violent extremism this mosque actually is.
Federal agencies in Boston are working with the Islamic Society of Boston and its political arm, the Muslim American Society, which both have links to many extremists who are either in jail, in flight from federal authorities, or have been killed during terrorist attacks. Indeed, as APT research has shown, both the ISB and the MAS are Muslim Brotherhood entities that indoctrinate their followers with radical Islamist ideology. Far from being a model, Boston should serve as a cautionary tale – about deception and denial.
It is long past time to keep quiet about the known wolves in our communities. One shooter in the Garland Texas attack was well knownto law enforcement well before his failed attempt to slaughter a room full of peaceful, law abiding citizens.
It appears that this attack is yet another case of what I have termed “known wolf” syndrome, when the suspect is already known to law enforcement and intelligence. Virtually every terror attack in the West over the past year has been by one of these “known wolf” suspects.
“Simpson was well known to the FBI, ABC News reported. Five years ago he was convicted for lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Africa, “but a judge ruled the government did not adequately prove he was going to join a terror group there.”
We have been handcuffing our law enforcement and national security agencies in their efforts to investigate and stop these infiltrators for decades. Now in the wake of Garland we are being told that we shouldn’t do or say things that make the jihadists angry. There is nothing in our Constitution that says we have to tolerate those using religion to hide indoctrination into violence or be silent in the face of attempted censorship.
Secure Freedom has launched theCounterJihad Campaignand we will speak freely. We will expose the concerted and organized efforts to use our freedoms against us. We will name the Global Jihad Movement as our enemy, and we will call them out whether they wear fatigues and fly the black flag or business suits and fly the banner of the Muslim Brotherhood and its assorted front groups.
The truth is not hate speech, so if you See Something, Say Something.
This past week John Kerry, bargaining from a self-imposed position of weakness, continued to negotiate with Iran, the world’s most pernicious state sponsor of international terrorism even after America’s allies walked away. It might be said that Kerry agreed to take “No” for an answer.
Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu left no doubt about his grave concerns about the wisdom of the agreement being hammered out at the behest of the Obama administration that legitimizes Iran’s nuclear program and therefore poses an existential threat to Israel.
Mr. Obama has said that a deal with Iran would be “Historic.”
My concern is that Obama’s statement will be prophetic. History records as many tragedies as successes. The Hindenburg explosion was certainly historic. So was the loss of the Titanic and two of our space shuttles.
In point of fact, every major war has been historic as has been the Holocaust.
Many of the events recorded in history books were written with blood- rivers and, indeed, oceans of blood!
The news media has reported on Netanyahu’s concerns and noted how a nuclear Iran would, indeed, pose a threat to Israel’s survival. What has not been considered is that a nuclear Iran would pose no less a threat to America.
There is a saying that when confronting several adversaries in a dark alley you should not go after the smallest adversary but the largest. The reasoning is that if you beat up the smallest guy first, you will then have to fight your way up until you wind up fighting the largest adversary last. By then your strength and ability would have been largely depleted.
On the other hand, if you successfully take on the biggest adversary first, the other guys will run away and you will prevail.
Undoubtedly when Iran looks at Israel and the United States, the United States is that largest adversary.
Iran is operating in the Western Hemisphere as has been for many years. Their presence in our hemisphere and indeed our country, leaves us vulnerable to a devastating attack.
The basis for the Huffington Post article was a hearing that was conducted that day by the House Committee on Homeland Security that is chaired by Congressman Peter King of New York, the topic of the hearing was, “Iran, Hezbollah, and the Threat to the Homeland.”
Here is how the Huffington Post article began:
WASHINGTON — Iranian-backed Hezbollah agents, not al Qaeda operatives, may pose the greatest threat on U.S. soil as tensions over Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program ratchet up, according to the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security.
“As Iran moves closer to nuclear weapons and there is increasing concern over war between Iran and Israel, we must also focus on Iran’s secret operatives and their number one terrorist proxy force, Hezbollah, which we know is in America,” said New York Rep. Peter King at a Wednesday hearing of his committee.
The hearing, which featured former government officials and the director of intelligence analysis for the New York Police Department, follows a foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassadorin Washington, D.C., and testimony by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in late January that Iran’s leaders are “more willing to conduct an attack inside the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime.”
Opening the hearing, King said, “We have a duty to prepare for the worst,” warning there may be hundreds of Hezbollah operatives in the United States, including 84 Iranian diplomats at the United Nations and in Washington who, “it must be presumed, are intelligence officers.”
Congressman Peter King focused primarily on the threats posed by Iranian diplomats and, indeed, these diplomats should be of great concern to us. However, these diplomats are readily identifiable. We know their identities and the fact that they are officially connected to the Iranian government. There are other Iranians who are present in the United States whose relationship with the Iranian government and its goals of destroying the United States are not so readily identifiable.
Here is an important excerpt from “The Blaze” article:
The federal indictment revealed Allouche had married a U.S. citizen and was going through the naturalization process when he was arrested. When asked by officials if he had ever been associated with a terrorist organization, he replied no. That apparently turned out to be a lie.
According to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, he was a militant with the Amal militia in Lebanon in the early to mid-1980s. He was reportedly captured as a Israeli prisoner of war, but was later released to become a commander of the Amal militia.
“News reports at the time said Hezbollah was formed by religious members of the Amal movement.”
In addition to lying about his terror ties, Allouche is also accused of lying about his relationship with his ex-wife. He falsely claimed on his application forms in 2009 that he and his wife were married and living together for the past three years. In reality, they had no lived together since May 2007 and they filed for divorce in December of 2007.
While Allouche’s allegedly committed fraud in filing his application for naturalization, it must be noted that if the allegations are accurate, that he also gamed the the process by which he had been granted lawful immigrant status years earlier. He had a Green Card (Alien Registration Receipt Card) for at least three years before he applied for United States citizenship. The 9/11 Commission identified such fraud as being an integral part of the strategy terrorists have used to enter the United States and embed themselves.
At the time of his arrest Allouche, was applying for a security clearance in order to work for the Department of Defense and had also applied for naturalization. Allegedly he lied by claiming to have never been a member of a terrorist organization when in fact, according to the FBI, he had not just been a member of Hezbollah, but had been a commander of that terrorist organization.
On May 29, 2013 both of those newspapers published follow-up reports in conjunction with disclosures made by prosecutors during the bail hearing.
Allouche was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force here last week after being indicted on charges of not disclosing, during his quest to obtain his U.S. citizenship, his membership in the Amal militia and Hezbollah in Lebanon in the 1980s.
He’s also charged with not disclosing his prior membership in those groups when he applied for a security clearance with the Defense Departmentas he sought a contracting job.
Before 2009, Allouche worked for L-3 Communications, which provides linguistic services for the U.S. military, and he was deployed for several months to Iraq. He has lived in the U.S. since about 2002, and once owned Windcrest Mobil, a gas station at Walzem Road and Interstate 35, his lawyer said.
In view of the charges lodged against Allouche, it would be important to know what the vetting process was that enabled him to be put in a position of trust. He was deployed with American troops in Iraq as a translator. This means that he may have assisted in the questioning and vetting of suspected terrorists and with those applying to work with our military. This raises some obvious and important questions.
What classified documents or people did he have had access to? Did he come to meet with covert officers whose identities must be preserved? Did he meet with suspected terrorists and, perhaps, have the capability to alter what the record reflects that they did or did not say? Might he have learned the identities of foreign nationals who for whatever reason decided to become cooperators? Has this endangered their lives and the operations that they were providing information for? Might he mistranslated statements made by terrorists seeking to gain entry to military bases to subsequently kill American soldiers?
The Allouche case is hardly an isolated one. Furthermore, the threat of terrorism is not just limited to Iranian citizens but may involve terrorists from other countries that are funded and otherwise supported by Iran.
The FBI Is Very Excited About This Machine That Can Scan Your DNA In 90 Minutes; ‘Every Move You Make, Every Step You Take I’ll Be Watching You”
Shame Bauer, writing in the November 20, 2014 edition of MotherJones, begins, “Robert Schueren shook my hand firmly, handed me his business card, and flipped it over — revealing a short list of letters and numbers.” “Here is my DNA profile. He smiled, I have nothing to hide.” “I had come to meet Schueren, CEO of IntegenX, at his company’s headquarters in Pleasanton California, to see its product: a machine the size of a large desktop printer that can unravel your genetic code — in the time it takes to watch a movie.”
“Schueren grabbed a cotton swab, and dropped it into a plastic cartridge. That’s what, say, a police officer would use to wipe the inside of your cheek to collect a DNA sample after an arrest, he explained,” wrote Mr. Bauer. “Other bits of material with traces of DNA on them, like cigarette butts, or fabric, could work too.” Or, a post-it-note if one were to touch the sticky side of the note. “He inserted the cartridge in the machine; and pressed a green button on its touch screen: “It’s that simple.” “Ninety minutes later, the RapidHIT 200 would generate a DNA profile , check it against a database; and, report on whether it found a match.”
“The RapidHIT represents a major technological leap –testing a DNA sample in a forensics lab normally takes at least two days. This has government agencies very excited,” Mr. Bauer wrote. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Justice Department funded the initial research for “rapid DNA,” technology, and just after a year on the market, the $250K RapidHIT is already being used in a few states, as well as China, Russia Australia, and countries in Africa and Europe.”
“We’re not always sure how it is being used,” Schueren said. “All we can say is that it’s used to give accurate identification of an individual.” Civil liberties advocates worry that Rapid DNA will spur new efforts by the FBI, and police to collect ordinary citizens’ genetic code.”
“The U.S. Government will soon test the machine in refugee camps in Turkey and possibly Thailand, and on families seeking asylum in the U.S.,” said Chris Miles, Manager of the Department of Homeland Security’s Biometrics Program. “We have all these families that claim they are related, but we don’t have any way to verify that,” he added. Miles added that “rapid DNA testing will be voluntary, though refusing a test could cause an asylum application to be rejected.”
“Miles added that federal immigration officials are interested in using rapid DNA to curb trafficking, by ensuring that children entering the country are related to adults with them. Jeff Heimberger, the Vice President of Marketing at IntegenX, says the government has also inquired about using rapid DNA to screen green-card applicants.”
“Meanwhile, police have started using Rapid DNA in Arizona, Florida, and South Carolina,” Mr. Bauer wrote. “In August, sheriffs in Columbia, South Carolina, used RapidHIT to nab an attempted murder suspect. The machine’s speed provides a major “investigative lead,” said Vince Figarelli, Superintendent of the Arizona Department of Public Safety Crime Lab, which is using RapidHIT to compare DNA evidence from property crimes against the state’s database of 300K samples. Heimburger notes the system can also prevent false arrests, and wrongful convictions: There is great value in finding out that somebody is not a suspect.”
“But, the technology is not a silver bullet for DNA evidence,” Mr. Bauer wrote. “The IntegenX executives brought up rape kits so often that it sounded like their product could make a serious dent in the backlog of a half million untested kits. Yet, when I pressed Schueren this,” Mr. Bauer wrote, “he conceded that RapidHIT is not actually capable of processing rape kits…since it can’t discern individual DNA in comingled, bodily fluids.”
“Despite the new technology’s crime-solving potential, privacy advocates are wary of its spread,’ Mr. Bauer notes. “If rapid-DNA machines can be used in a refugee camp, “they can certainly be used in the back of a squad car,” says Jennifer Lynch, a Senior Staff Attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “I could see that happening in the future, as the prices of those machines goes down.”
“Lynch is particularly concerned that law enforcement agencies will use the devices to scoop up and store even more DNA profiles. Every state already has a forensic DNA database, and while these systems were initially set up to track convicted, violent offenders, their collection thresholds have steadily broadened. Today, at least 28 include data from anyone arrested for certain felonies, even if they are not convicted; some store the DNA of people who have committed misdemeanors as well. The FBI’s National DNA Index System has more than 11 million profiles of offenders; plus 2 million people who have been arrested….but, not necessarily convicted of a crime,” Mr. Bauer observed.
“For its part,’ Mr. Bauer notes, “DHS will not hang onto refugees;’ DNA records, insists Miles.” (“They aren’t criminals, he pointed out.”) “However, undocumented immigrants in custody may be required to provide DNA samples, which are put in the FBI’s database. DHA documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation say there may even be a legal case for “mandating collection of DNA” from anyone granted legal status under a future immigration amnesty. (The documents also state that intelligence agencies, and the military are interested in using Rapid DNA to identify, race, sex, and other factors machines currently do not reveal).”
“The FBI is the only federal agency allowed to keep a national DNA-database,” Mr. Bauer says. “Currently police must use a lab to upload genetic profiles to it. But, that could change,” Mr. Bauer warns. “The FBI’s website says it is eager to see rapid DNA in wide use; and that it supports “legislative changes necessary” to make that happen. IntegenX’s Heimburger says the FBI is almost finished working with members of Congress on a bill that would give “tens of thousands” of police stations…..Rapid-DNA machines that could search the FBI’s system; and, adds arrestees’ profiles to it. (The RapidHIT is already designed to do this).IntegenX has spent $70K lobbying the FBI, DHS, and Congress over the last two years.”
“The FBI declined to comment.” Mr. Bauer wrote, “and Heimburger wouldn’t say which lawmakers might sponsor the bill. But, some have already given Rapid DNA their blessing. Rep. Eric Swalwell, a former prosecutor who represents the district where IntegenX is based, says he’d like to see the technology “put to use quickly, to help law enforcement” — while protecting civil liberties. In March, he and seven other Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Barbara Lee of California, urged the FBI to access Rapid DNA’s “viability for broad deployment” in police departments across the country.”
DNA Shedding, Facial Recognition, IRIS Scanning, Fingerprints on Cell Phones, Drones Overhead, Camera’s Everywhere, And, Digital Exhaust Are Making Identity Management Ubiquitous And, Undermining Intelligence Agencies And Law Enforcement Abilities To Keep Someone Under Cover For Very Long
The musical group/band, Sting and The Police made the lyrics “Every Move You Make, Every Step You Take, I’ll Be Watching You,” famous; but, it is the rise of the machines, and advancements in nanotechnology, biometrics, pixel clarity, diagnostics, body scanning at airports and biometric passports, and computing algorithms that are wreaking havoc on our ability to maintain a reasonable expectation of privacy; and, for the law enforcement and intelligence communities — keeping someone under cover for very long. Biometric passports, for example, are embedded with microchips containing a person’s face, sex, fingerprints, date and place of birth, and other personal data. As the body scanning technology at airports and elsewhere get more sophisticated, coupled with biometric passports, etc. — how indeed — are we going to be able to keep a very valuable undercover operative — undercover? I don’t have the answer; and, I hope we are still one step ahead of the adversary in this realm; but, logic would tell you that undercover operations are likely to get increasingly more difficult and challenging — if the aren’t already.
“If you go to one of those countries under an alias, you can’t go again under another name,” said a career spook to cyber security guru Bruce Schneier a few years back. “So, it’s a one-time thing — one and done. The biometric data on your passport and maybe your iris too, has been forever linked forever to whatever name was on your passport the first time. You can’t show up again under a different name — with the same data,” game over.
It is not hard to envision a mobile, hand-held version of RapidHIT, soon being available to criminal gangs, nation-states, and other malcontents, who will use this technology to discover and ferret out “spies” within their midst. How accurate is this technology? And, what are the chances of a false positive/negative, and/or, how ‘easily’ can it be fooled, or defeated? Presumably, the engineers who developed this technology know the answer; and, if they don’t they better wargame these kind of scenarios and figure it out — before one of our adversaries do, and put one of our most precious HUMINT operatives out of business. V/R, RCP
Time: Washington (CNN) — A week after U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria began, lawmakers continued to question President Barack Obama’s strategy for defeating the militant group ISIS, which he admitted in a televised interview Sunday was more powerful than the U.S. initially believed.
Echoing sentiments also expressed by James Clapper, the head of U.S. intelligence services, Obama said the government “underestimated what had been taking place in Syria” during its civil war, allowing Syria to become “ground zero for jihadists around the world.”
Speaking in a taped interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Obama said the terrorists were remnants of al Qaeda in Iraq, which after being diminished by U.S. forces “went back underground.”
“Over the past couple of years, during the chaos of the Syrian civil war, where essentially you have huge swaths of the country that are completely ungoverned, they were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos,” Obama said, adding later the U.S. also overrated Iraq’s security forces, which were quickly overrun by ISIS when it took over the northern city of Mosul this summer.
The President stressed that the issue in Iraq is not simply a military problem; it’s a political one.
“This is America leading the international community to assist a country with whom we have a security partnership with, to make sure that they are able to take care of their business,” he told “60 Minutes.”
The President added: “If we do our job right and the Iraqis fight, then over time our role can slow down and taper off.”
Obama spent much of last week rallying international support for his mission against ISIS at the United Nations, telling leaders there the fighters represent a “network of death” that must be defeated.
An air campaign, which began last week and included coalition support from five Arab nations, continued over the weekend with strikes on the northern Syrian city of Ayn al-Arab, where Kurdish forces have been battling ISIS.
The mission is meant to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS, Obama says. The White House has remained adamant there won’t be any U.S. combat forces deployed in Iraq or Syria, though military “advisers” have been sent to Iraq in the hopes of fortifying local security forces.
The President warned the campaign probably won’t conclude any time soon.
“There is a cancer that has grown for too long that suggests that it is acceptable to kill innocent people who worship a different God.
“And that kind of extremism, unfortunately, means that we’re going to see for some time the possibility that in a whole bunch of different countries, radical groups may spring up — particularly in countries that are still relatively fragile, where you had sectarian tensions, where you don’t have a strong state security apparatus.
“And that’s why what we have to do is, rather than play whack-a-mole and send U.S. troops wherever this occurs, we have to build strong partnerships,” Obama told “60 Minutes.”
Aides to Obama have been careful to underscore that the military operation in the Middle East won’t resemble the wars of the past decade, which left many Americans skeptical of intervention abroad.
“We’re doing this in a very different way than in the past,” Tony Blinken, a deputy national security adviser, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Candy Crowley.
“We’re not sending in hundreds of thousands of American troops,” Blinken continued. “We’re not spending trillions of American dollars. What we are doing is empowering local actors with some of the huge assets we can bring to this, like our airpower, intelligence, training and equipping, advising and assisting.”
The “no boots on the ground” mantra was questioned Sunday by House Speaker John Boehner, who said if local forces aren’t trained to battle ISIS quickly enough, U.S. troops would be required.
“Maybe we can get enough of these forces trained and get ’em on the battlefield. But somebody’s boots have to be there,” the Republican leader said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Boehner added later that if Obama advanced a new resolution authorizing the military action in Syria, he would be willing to call lawmakers back from the campaign trail to vote on it.
Obama claims he doesn’t need Congress’ permission for the air campaign under way in Iraq and Syria, citing the 2001 authorization to go after al Qaeda. He has said he would “welcome” Congress showing its support for the mission.
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Sunday an authorization vote would allow lawmakers — and by turn the American public — to hear more about long-term plans in Syria.
“I think the reason that we need to have the debate is so that we can get a better explanation as to what the endgame is in Syria,” Murphy, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on “State of the Union.”
“In the end, that’s the check on a war without end: a Congress speaking for the American people who can put an end date on an authorization for military force or put a limitation, so that you can’t use ground troops,” he said. By Kevin Liptak, CNN White House Producer
The Silent Soldier 