Entries in Security (1453)
War in the Caucasus and the Global Repositioning of China, Germany, Russia and the US
Monday, August 25, 2008 at 11:30 M K Bhardrakumar
A geopolitical convulsion measuring six points on the Richter scale is bound to produce aftershocks. The reverberations of the conflict in the Caucasus are beginning to be felt. We may be unwittingly bidding farewell to the "war on terror". In any case, the international community has lost interest in Osama bin Laden.
The United States has spotted a promising new enemy on the horizon and an engrossing war may be offering itself, with infinite possibilities. The author considers the Russia-Georgian War in the Caucusus through the lens of a new stage in global conflict.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
He published this article in Asia Times on August 19, 2008. Published at Japan Focus on August 21, 2008.
NATO Secret Armies Linked to Terrorism?
Monday, August 25, 2008 at 09:59 By Dr. Daniele Ganser At a time when experts are debating whether NATO is suited to deal with the global “war on terror”, new research suggests that the alliance’s own secret history has links to terrorism. The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MINA. |
Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 22:37 
A Reporter at Large
by Lawrence Wright June 2, 2008
Dr. Fadl had laid the intellectual foundation for Al Qaeda’s murderous acts. His defection posed a terrible threat.
- Last May, a fax arrived at the London office of the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al Awsat from a shadowy figure in the radical Islamist movement who went by many names. Born Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, he was the former leader of the Egyptian terrorist group Al Jihad, and known to those in the underground mainly as Dr. Fadl. Members of Al Jihad became part of the original core of Al Qaeda; among them was Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s chief lieutenant. Fadl was one of the first members of Al Qaeda’s top council. Twenty years ago, he wrote two of the most important books in modern Islamist discourse; Al Qaeda used them to indoctrinate recruits and justify killing. Now Fadl was announcing a new book, rejecting Al Qaeda’s violence. “We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that,” Fadl wrote in his fax, which was sent from Tora Prison, in Egypt.
Fadl’s fax confirmed rumors that imprisoned leaders of Al Jihad were part of a trend in which former terrorists renounced violence. His defection posed a terrible threat to the radical Islamists, because he directly challenged their authority. “There is a form of obedience that is greater than the obedience accorded to any leader, namely, obedience to God and His Messenger,” Fadl wrote, claiming that hundreds of Egyptian jihadists from various factions had endorsed his position.
Two months after Fadl’s fax appeared, Zawahiri issued a handsomely produced video on behalf of Al Qaeda. “Do they now have fax machines in Egyptian jail cells?” he asked. “I wonder if they’re connected to the same line as the electric-shock machines.” This sarcastic dismissal was perhaps intended to dampen anxiety about Fadl’s manifesto—which was to be published serially, in newspapers in Egypt and Kuwait—among Al Qaeda insiders. Fadl’s previous work, after all, had laid the intellectual foundation for Al Qaeda’s murderous acts. On a recent trip to Cairo, I met with Gamal Sultan, an Islamist writer and a publisher there. He said of Fadl, “Nobody can challenge the legitimacy of this person. His writings could have far-reaching effects not only in Egypt but on leaders outside it.” Usama Ayub, a former member of Egypt’s Islamist community, who is now the director of the Islamic Center in Münster, Germany, told me, “A lot of people base their work on Fadl’s writings, so he’s very important. When Dr. Fadl speaks, everyone should listen.”
Although the debate between Fadl and Zawahiri was esoteric and bitterly personal, its ramifications for the West were potentially enormous. Other Islamist organizations had gone through violent phases before deciding that such actions led to a dead end. Was this happening to Al Jihad? Could it happen even to Al Qaeda?
A THEORIST OF JIHAD
The roots of this ideological war within Al Qaeda go back forty years, to 1968, when two precocious teen-agers met at Cairo University’s medical school. Zawahiri, a student there, was then seventeen, but he was already involved in clandestine Islamist activity. Although he was not a natural leader, he had an eye for ambitious, frustrated youths like him who believed that destiny was whispering in their ear.
So it was not surprising that he was drawn to a tall, solitary classmate named Sayyid Imam al-Sharif. Admired for his brilliance and his tenacity, Imam was expected to become either a great surgeon or a leading cleric. (The name “al-Sharif” denotes the family’s descent from the Prophet Muhammad.) His father, a headmaster in Beni Suef, a town seventy-five miles south of Cairo, was conservative, and his son followed suit. He fasted twice a week and, each morning after dawn prayers, studied the Koran, which he had memorized by the time he finished sixth grade. When he was fifteen, the Egyptian government enrolled him in a boarding school for exceptional students, in Cairo. Three years later, he entered medical school, and began preparing for a career as a plastic surgeon, specializing in burn injuries.
Both Zawahiri and Imam were pious and high-minded, prideful, and rigid in their views. They tended to look at matters of the spirit in the same way they regarded the laws of nature—as a series of immutable rules, handed down by God. This mind-set was typical of the engineers and technocrats who disproportionately made up the extremist branch of Salafism, a school of thought intent on returning Islam to the idealized early days of the religion.
Imam learned that Zawahiri belonged to a subterranean world. “I knew from another student that Ayman was part of an Islamic group,” he later told a reporter for Al Hayat, a pan-Arabic newspaper. The group came to be called Al Jihad. Its discussions centered on the idea that real Islam no longer existed, because Egypt’s rulers had turned away from Islamic law, or Sharia, and were steering believers away from salvation and toward secular modernity. The young members of Al Jihad decided that they had to act.
In doing so, these men were placing their lives, and perhaps their families, in terrible jeopardy. Egypt’s military government, then led by Gamal Abdel Nasser, had a vast network of informers and secret police. The prisons were brimming with Islamist detainees, locked away in dungeons where torture was routine. Despite this repressive atmosphere, an increasing number of Egyptians, disillusioned with Nasser’s socialist, secular government, were turning to the mosque for political answers. In 1967, Nasser led Egypt and its Arab allies into a disastrous confrontation with Israel, which crushed the Egyptian Air Force in an afternoon. The Sinai Peninsula soon passed to Israeli control. The Arab world was traumatized, and that deepened the appeal of radical Islamists, who argued that Muslims had fallen out of God’s favor, and that only by returning to the religion as it was originally practiced could Islam regain its supremacy in the world.
In 1977, Zawahiri asked Imam to join his group, presenting himself as a mere delegate of the organization. Imam told Al Hayat that his agreement was conditional upon meeting the Islamic scholars who Zawahiri insisted were in the group; clerical authority was essential to validate the drastic deeds these men were contemplating. The meeting never happened. “Ayman was a charlatan who used secrecy as a pretext,” Imam said. “I discovered that Ayman himself was the emir of this group, and that it didn’t have any sheikhs.”
In 1981, soldiers affiliated with Al Jihad assassinated the President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat—who had signed a peace treaty with Israel two years earlier—but the militants failed to seize power. Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, rounded up thousands of Islamists, including Zawahiri, who was charged with smuggling weapons. Before he was arrested, Zawahiri went to Imam’s house and urged him to flee, according to Zawahiri’s uncle Mahfouz Azzam. Imam’s son Ismail al-Sharif, who now lives in Yemen, says that this never happened. In fact, he claims, Zawahiri later put Imam in danger, by disclosing his name to interrogators.
During the next three years, these two men, who had once been so profoundly alike, began to diverge. Zawahiri, who had given up the names of other Al Jihad members as well, was humiliated by this betrayal. Prison hardened him; torture sharpened his appetite for revenge. He abandoned the ideological purity of his youth. Imam, by contrast, had not been forced to face the limits of his belief. He had slipped out of Egypt and made his way to Peshawar, Pakistan, where the Afghan resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan was based. Imam left his real identity behind and became Dr. Fadl. It was common for those who joined the jihad to take a nom de guerre. He adopted the persona of the revolutionary intellectual, in the tradition of Leon Trotsky and Che Guevara. Instead of engaging in combat, Fadl worked as a surgeon for the injured fighters and became a spiritual guide to the jihad.
Zawahiri finished serving his sentence in 1984, and also fled Egypt. He was soon reunited in Peshawar with Fadl, who had become the director of a Red Crescent hospital there. Their relationship had turned edgy and competitive, and, besides, Fadl held a low opinion of Zawahiri’s abilities as a surgeon. “He asked me to stand with him and teach him how to perform operations,” Fadl told Al Hayat. “I taught him until he could perform them on his own. Were it not for that, he would have been exposed, as he had contracted for a job for which he was unqualified.”
In the mid-eighties, Fadl became Al Jihad’s emir, or chief. (Fadl told Al Hayat that this was untrue, saying that his role was merely one of offering “Sharia guidance.”) Zawahiri, whose reputation had been stained by his prison confessions, was left to handle tactical operations. He had to defer to Fadl’s superior learning in Islamic jurisprudence. The jihadis who came to Peshawar revered Fadl for his encyclopedic knowledge of the Koran and the Hadith—the sayings of the Prophet. Usama Ayub, who was in Peshawar at the time, remembered, “He would say, Get this book, volume so-and-so, and he would quote it perfectly—without the book in his hand!”
Kamal Helbawy, a former spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Islamist group, was also in Peshawar, and remembers Fadl as a “haughty, dominating presence,” who frequently lambasted Muslims who didn’t believe in the same doctrines. A former member of Al Qaeda says of Fadl, “He used to lecture for four or five hours at a time. He would say that anything the government does has to come from God, and if that’s not the case then people should be allowed to topple the ruler by any means necessary.” Fadl remained so much in the background, however, that some newer members of Al Jihad thought that Zawahiri was actually their emir. Fadl is “not a social man—he’s very isolated,” according to Hani al-Sibai, an Islamist attorney who knew both men. “Ayman was the one in front, but the real leader was Dr. Fadl.”
Fadl resented the attention that Zawahiri received. (In the interview with Al Hayat, Fadl said that Zawahiri was “enamored of the media and a showoff.”) And yet he let Zawahiri take the public role and give voice to ideas and doctrines that came from his own mind, not Zawahiri’s. This dynamic eventually became the source of an acrimonious dispute between the two men.
SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY MICHAEL CHERTOFF DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE 2008 S&T STAKEHOLDERS CONFERENCE EAST - NEWS EVENT
Thursday, June 5, 2008 at 09:43 SECRETARY CHERTOFF DELIVERS REMARKS AT THE 2008 S&T STAKEHOLDERS CONFERENCE EAST, AS RELEASED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
JUNE 4, 2008
SPEAKER: SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY MICHAEL CHERTOFF
[*] CHERTOFF: Jay, thank you for that introduction. Let me thank the National Defense Industry Association and our own Science and Technology Directorate for their roles in making this year's conference possible. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you about the increasingly prominent role that science and technology play in homeland security in a post-9/11 world. When I spoke to you last year, I summarized our progress in applying science and technology to the protection of our country, and this year I'd like to update you further on what we've been doing to continue to make this kind of progress as we move forward.
What I want to do is provide you with this update in the context of the five major goals that we have laid out for the Department of Homeland Security: protecting our country from dangerous people; protecting our country from dangerous things; securing the nation's critical infrastructure; strengthening our emergency preparedness and response; and ensuring that the department continues to become a fully integrated single entity driven by an overall critical mission.
First, let me deal with protecting against dangerous people. In the last year, 414 million people came into the United States through our ports of entry, and that meant that we had literally seconds to determine who among this vast throng of travelers might be coming here for the purpose of doing us harm, whether it's a terrorist or criminal, or a drug dealer or smuggler. And we had to do this analysis in a way that protected the privacy and allowed the vast majority of innocent travelers to pass unhindered into the United States.
In dealing with this large number of people and winnowing out the very few who are dangerous from the majority who are not, we had to do several things as efficiently as possible. First, we had to get some advance information when we could about who was coming in. We had to confirm their identities with speed and accuracy and check them against watch-lists. We had to prevent them from impersonating another individual using fraudulent documents. And we had to protect against the possibility of an unknown, yet-to-be identified terrorist hiding among these travelers. All of these tasks necessarily involved the use of technology in some fashion.
As I mentioned last year, one such element of technology is biometrics, or fingerprinting, where we apply technology in order to capture and analyze biometric or fingerprint information as rapidly as possible. In order to confirm -- to improve our ability to confirm identity and to check individuals against latent prints, we are in the process of transitioning from two-fingerprint collection to ten- fingerprint collection. We do this using a technology that is not only more accurate than under the old two-print system, but a technology that allows us to scan and match the fingerprints that we're collecting from those who enter the country or seek visas against a database of latent prints we've collected across the globe at crime scenes and safe houses and even on battlefields. And this use of technology to capture and compare fingerprints has allowed us a much greater opportunity to identify a terrorist whose name is yet unknown to us, but whose physical presence in a safe house or bomb factory suggests that the individual is in fact a danger to us in the United States.
Not only is this a good tool for identifying the unknown terrorist, but it actually creates a deterrent effect. Terrorists who have been in safe houses or training camps now have to wonder whether they have left fingerprints behind that have been lifted, captured, and recorded in a database so that when they cross our border they will face the possibility of being arrested because we're able to make that connection between that latent fingerprint at the scene of a bomb making factory and the fingerprint of the traveler who is seeking to enter the country.
Another way we use technology is to prevent people from impersonating others so that they can evade our various watch lists that we use to prevent known terrorists from entering the country. Again, we recognize that human nature from time immemorial has prompted people to try to masquerade as others in order to conceal their identity when that identity is potentially a warning sign to those who are monitoring entry into a border or any other place where security is a concern.
As the 9/11 commission itself noted, a forged or stolen travel document is a potent weapon in the hands of a terrorist. And that's why we're taking decisive steps to ensure that people who say -- that people actually are the person that they claim to be when they cross the border. And we do this by rolling out a requirement of secure travel documentation through such initiatives as our Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Using these initiatives as well as our requirements under the Visa Waiver Program, we are requiring stronger and stronger security measures and security systems in the documentation that is presented at our borders or getting on airplanes or getting into our federal buildings. And here again technology is a key enabler in terms of our ability to make sure that people are not able to forge or alter documentation to disguise their true identity.
A final example I'd like to use to talk about how technology is assisting our capabilities and protecting against dangerous people coming into the country is to talk about our SBInet program that's part of the Secure Border Initiative, which is designed to give us a better capability to monitor, deter, and prevent people from crossing illegally between our ports of entry. Whether that is for the purpose of human smuggling, whether it's for the purpose of drug smuggling, whether it's for the purpose of carrying out acts of violence or even carrying out an act of terror.
By combing a whole suite of technological capabilities, not the same thing at every square mile of the border, but the appropriate mix depending on the terrain, we are bringing to bear ground based radar, aerial video, ground based video, ground based sensors, and modern communications to weave a web that will allow the Border Patrol to better detect and disrupt those who want to cross the border. This is truly using technology to leverage the ability of the boots on the ground, the Border Patrol agents themselves, to do their jobs as efficiently and as safely as possible. Again, an important element of this whole system is the use of technology.
Now, just as we use technology to pursue the goal of keeping out dangerous people, we also want to use technology to keep dangerous things out of the country, including most particularly radioactive material -- nuclear material. Well, one way we're using technology is by deploying and having deployed radiation portal monitors to basically scan about 100% of inbound cargo that comes into the United States for radioactive emanations. We have now deployed over 1000 radiation portal monitors. We're deploying these overseas in some instances, working with the cooperation of our foreign allies. And we are working on the next generation of technology for radiation detection that will be smaller, more precise, easier to deploy, and therefore more efficient.
Now, of course we recognize that some threats will get through, or some threats will be generated from within the country. And that's why we have to harden our critical infrastructure, which is the third element of our major strategy.
In the months and years following 9/11, we took dramatic, long- overdue steps to make America's airports a lot safer and more secure. And here again we use multiple layers of security, many of which are technology based. Explosive detection devices for screening baggage. Explosive detection devices for screening passenger carry-ons and passengers themselves, including our new millimeter wave technology, which allows much greater visibility in to what kind of material an individual might be concealing on their person.
And of course in using technology, we still do use good old- fashioned human ingenuity, including behavioral detection analysis, which allows our TSA officials to observe the behavior of people entering into the area, the securities under the airport, so they can detect those whose conduct suggests they might be concealing a nefarious purpose. A little over a month ago at BWI airport I announced our latest iteration, or round of this process -- a three- fold set of changes that will not only further enhance security, but make the air traveling experience more palatable.
The first change tackles the problem of misidentification or false positives -- when a person winds up not being able to get their ticket or their boarding pass right away because their name happens to match the name of a person who's on a watch list. Under the new system we announced at BWI, airlines will, if they chose, now be able to store more biographical data in their systems which will allow them to distinguish the false positives from the true positives for purposes of screening and will allow passengers, all passengers now who are not on actual no fly list, to obtain their boarding pass at a kiosk or even online in the same way that every other traveler does.
The second change I announced involved the creation of new ID standards at airports to give travelers greater clarity about what documents will be acceptable. Much like our efforts through the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, this change will give our document checkers a smaller universe of documents to inspect which will give them a better ability to detect forgeries and will also provide greater clarity for the traveling public about what kind of documents are acceptable.
The third change we unveiled at BWI was what we call checkpoint evolution. This involves three things. The deployment of, as I said, multiple-view millimeter wave x-rays to help us look at the body and see if something is concealed. It also involves the use of better technology to actually examine what is in the carry-on baggage, and it involves the ability to use -- and this is not quite so high tech -- but use lighting, music and signage and to reconfigure the open space to reduce the stress level which not only makes it better for the travel, but it also makes it better for the Behavioral Detection Officer to separate those whose anxiety is focused not on the anxiety of the travel experience itself, which heaven knows can be anxious enough, but on the anxiety caused because someone is planning to do something bad.
The fourth element of our strategy is emergency preparedness and response, and here's where interoperability and other communications technology plays a very critical, enabling role. Of course, the gateway technologies that now allow us to communicate across various frequencies is a critical technological tool that has driven us in the direction of interoperability. But here again I have to emphasize, you know -- technology by itself is not a magic bullet. Technology only works in a system. A good piece of what has to be done to complete the drive to interoperability is an agreement on common language, common protocols for communication, and common standards. If you don't get this agreement among the responders in the field, no amount of technology is going to allow them to communicate with each other. And that perhaps is my key message here. Technology only works in the context of a system which has been designed to achieve an end. A system which includes consideration of human factors and the incentive structure, or the micro-economics of how we live as well as the gizmos and gadgets which you all are out there inventing. It's only as part of a whole system that these gizmos and gadgets actually make sense.
Finally, in terms of our drive to a single, unified DHS, technology is of course critical here as well. Critical in the sense of allowing us to integrate our IT systems, reduce our major data centers from what began as 17 to just two, give us a one-net program so that our seven wide area networks can be consolidated into a single departmental network. And for those of you who have followed our cyber-initiative, technology will be an ingredient, although not the totality, of what I think is the most ambitious and perhaps long overdue effort to take a jump forward in cyber security in recognition of the significant vulnerability we currently have with respect to penetration by cyber espionage, and vulnerability to cyber terrorism or efforts to destroy or damage our infrastructure using computer networks.
So as we look to the future, I remain confident that we will continue to build on the technology and ingenuity of groups like this as part of a systems-based strategy to elevating the security of the homeland, but doing it in a way that allows the vast majority of transactions and trade and travel to continue unhindered in a way that serves our freedom and our prosperity. I know you will continue to work with us to make valuable contributions in this crucial area, recognizing that our greatest strength as a nation is ingenuity and creativity unleashed by freedom. And it is that ingenuity and creativity that will allow us to continue to enhance our homeland security, but to do it in a way that fosters our fundamental values. Thank you very much.
Security Human Security Brief 2007
Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 22:36 A 64-page review of the global human security landscape
 Download: Human Security Brief 2007 |
COMPREHENSIVE NEW STUDY CHALLENGING EXPERT CONSENSUS FINDS INCIDENCE OF TERRORISM DECLINING AROUND THE WORLD
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 23:56 Terrorism Fatalities Decline as Muslim Support for al-Qaeda Terror Network Plummets Number of Wars and Death Tolls in Africa Down Dramatically Since 1999 |
NEW YORK, May 21, 2008—Challenging the expert consensus that the threat of global terrorism is increasing, a new report from the Canadian research team that produced the much-cited Human Security Report in 2005, reveals a sharp net decline in the incidence of terrorist violence around the world.
The Human Security Brief 2007 demonstrates that:
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The Brief was produced by the Human Security Report Project (HSRP) research team at Simon Fraser University’s School for International Studies in Vancouver, Canada. The HSRP’s research is supported by the governments of Canada, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland and the UK.
NOT LICENSED TO KILL - German Special Forces in Afghanistan Let Taliban Commander Escape
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 16:40 By Susanne Koelbl and Alexander Szandar
German special forces had an important Taliban commander in their sights in Afghanistan. But he escaped -- because the Germans were not authorized to use lethal force. The German government's hands-tied approach to the war is causing friction with its NATO allies.
Unlike their Delta Force colleagues, Germany's KSK special forces are not authorized to use lethal force in Afghanistan except in the event of an attack.
He is also thought to be behind one of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan's history, the Nov. 6, 2007 attack on a sugar factory in the northwest province of Baghlan. The attack killed 79 people, including dozens of children and many parliamentarians and other politicians, as they celebrated the factory's reopening.
Germany's KSK special forces have been charged with capturing the terrorist, in cooperation with the Afghan secret service organization NDS and the Afghan army. The German elite soldiers were able to uncover the Taliban commander's location. They spent weeks studying his behavior and habits: when he left his house and with whom, how many men he had around him and what weapons they carried, the color of his turban and what vehicles he drove.
Graphic: Location of German forces in Afghanistan
The dangerous terrorist escaped. It would, however, have been possible for the Germans to kill him -- but the KSK were not authorized to do so.
The threat to the international relief workers and the ISAF soldiers stationed in the north may now be even greater than it was before. Warned of ISAF's activities and intent on taking revenge, the man and his network are active once again. Over 2,500 Germans are stationed between Faryab and Badakhshan, along with Hungarian, Norwegian and Swedish troops.
YouTube: Broadcast Terrorism Yourself
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 16:32 From: MASHABLE
According to the YouTube blog today, Senator Joe Lieberman sent a letter explaining his misgivings with the platform for free speech that YouTube has given the public. His primary concerns weren’t the usual suspects when you think of the things that American politicians find objectionable (rap music, graphic portrayals of violence, Grand Theft Auto and Janet Jackson’s nipple).
Instead he brought up a topic that YouTube is actually fairly guilty as charged on - allowing themselves to be a willing participant in the dessimenation of Islamic terrorist organizations’s propaganda videos:
YouTube is being used to share videos produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups. The purpose of this letter is to request that Google implement its own policy against this offensive material, remove these videos from YouTube, and prevent them from reappearing [...] Central to this media campaign is the branding of content with an icon or logo to guarantee authenticity that the content was produced by al-Qaeda or allied organizations like al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam (a.k.a Ansar al-Sunnah) or al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb. All of these groups have been designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) by the Department of State.
YouTube tries to go with the standard excuses:
First, some background: hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to YouTube every day. Because it is not possible to pre-screen this much content, we have developed an innovative and reliable community policing system that involves our users in helping us enforce YouTube’s standards. Millions of users report potential violations of our Community Guidelines by selecting the “Flag” link while watching videos.
In Lieberman’s letter, we learn that he and his staff identified numerous videos that should, in theory, be a violation of YouTube’s Community Guidelines (promoting hate-speech and violence against others, or even depicting ‘gratuitous violence’). The videos were not in fact cited by YouTube, but YouTube claims that they were not in violation of the terms of service, and did not contain any violent or hate speech content.
The fact remains that the videos are there to promote the organization, and those organizations regularly organize the killings of innocent humans, in Iraq and elsewhere.
Meanwhile, YouTube is capricous and arbitrary about content that they’ll take down that they do deem as promoting hate speech, objectionable, or promoting of violence, and what they don’t. Let’s go down the list, shall we?
Michelle Malkin: Censored for promoting hate speech, when she created a music montage showing victims of Muslim terrorist attacks in response to the Muhammed riots.
BumFights: Uncensored. Videos of actual homeless folks paid in sandwiches for beating the crap out of one another.
Handsome Hong Kong Guy Censored for showing videos of clothed local females with derogatory towards women music in the background.
Terrorism, Security, Opinion, Technology, ICT MUSLIM LEADER SAYS RECRUITMENT IN PORTUGAL "UNSUCCESSFUL"
Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 11:34 Text of report by Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias website on 19 May
A group of Muslims who was preparing violent acts was in Portugal to recruit young Portuguese Muslims for the jihad (commonly known as Holy War). This was revealed yesterday by Sheikh David Munir, during a debate on Radio Clube Portugues. The group was in the country a few years ago but "was not successful, having been rejected by the community", he said. The feeling of integration in the country was the main reason given for the unsuccessful recruitment.
The vice-president of the Security, Organized Crime and Terrorism Observatory (OSCOT), Jose Manuel Anes, who also participated in the radio debate, told Diario de Noticias that "there was a group who was preparing attacks and came to Portugal a few years ago. It could have included people from Indo-Pakistan and the Maghreb, who might have gone through England."
The Muslim community's leader in Lisbon, David Munir, stressed during the debate that "it is necessary to try to halt this recruitment. They did not succeed here, so for them Portugal is not ideal and has gone into the backburner." Integration has contributed to security: "No Muslim living here is interested in destroying part of their home. They feel they are a citizen like any other," Munir said.
"The recruitment and the subsequent rejection by the community made them leave Portugal," Jose Manuel Anes said, adding that the group was planning actions in Portugal.
For the two experts this reaction from the community is another guarantee that danger only comes from outside. "The Muslims who have come to Portugal, or who were born here, are peaceful. They have never, nor will they ever, commit any type of aggressive act," said the imam. The only risk "would have to come from outside, Morocco, Algeria or even Spain," Professor Anes added. Cooperation between intelligence services of several countries and the lack of warning signs lead Jose Manuel Anes to say that everything is under control.
In Portugal, the integration of the community is different from that in other countries, although much remains to be done, especially with regard to the high level of ignorance which still exists about the culture and religion of this community. "When people do not know something they fear it," said Anes.
The two experts invited the Portuguese to reflect on whether the fact that a Muslim lives in Europe or in Portugal, more precisely, makes him or her European or Portuguese. "The Muslims who live here are as Portuguese as others, but we can see that they still face obstacles relating to prejudice and marginalization," said David Munir.
The bringing together of communities occurs in social events between institutions such as the Palmela Muslin school and the Lisbon mosque. "In some countries non-Muslims are not allowed in because they are not pure or believers. As long as there is respect, everyone is welcome. There is nothing to hide," said David Munir
Source: Diario de Noticias website, Lisbon, in Portuguese 19 May 08
BBC Monitoring
HR2616: Encryption for the National Interest Act
Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 09:01 ** CRS BILL DIGEST **
* HR2616: Encryption for the National Interest Act * * Sponsor: Goss (R-Fla.) * * Official Title: A bill to clarify the policy of the United States with respect to the use and export of encryption products, and for other purposes. * TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Title I: Domestic Uses of Encryption
Title II: Government Procurement
Title III: Exports of Encryption
Title IV: Liability Limitations
Title V: International Agreements
Title VI: Miscellaneous Provisions
Encryption for the National Interest Act - Declares that it is U.S. policy to protect public computer networks through the use of strong encryption technology, promote the export of encryption products developed and manufactured in the United States, and preserve public safety and national security.
Title I: Domestic Uses of Encryption - Makes it lawful for any person within any State and for any United States person to use any encryption product, regardless of encryption algorithm selected, encryption bit length chosen, or implementation technique or medium used, except as otherwise provided by this Act or by law. Defines "United States person" to mean any U.S. citizen, any other person organized under the laws of any State, and any person organized under the laws of any foreign country who is owned or controlled by such individuals.
(Sec. 103) Amends the Federal criminal code to prohibit, and set penalties for, knowingly using encryption in furtherance of the commission of a criminal offense for which the person may be prosecuted in a U.S. district court. Prohibits the court from placing on probation any person convicted of such a violation and prohibits the term of imprisonment imposed from running concurrently with any other term imposed for the underlying criminal offense. Specifies that the use of encryption by itself shall not establish probable cause to believe that a crime is being or has been committed.
Makes it unlawful for any person to intentionally: (1) obtain or use decryption information without lawful authority for the purpose of decrypting data, including communications; (2) exceed lawful authority in decrypting data; (3) break the encryption code of another person without lawful authority for the purpose of violating the privacy or security of that person or depriving that person of any property rights; (4) impersonate another person for the purpose of obtaining decryption information of that person without lawful authority; (5) facilitate or assist in the encryption of data, knowing that such data are to be used in furtherance of a crime; or (6) disclose decryption information in violation of code provisions. Sets penalties for violations.
Requires a court of competent jurisdiction to issue an order ex parte granting an investigative or law enforcement officer (officer) timely access to the plaintext of encrypted data, or requiring any person in possession of decryption information to provide such information to a duly authorized officer: (1) upon the application by a Government attorney that is made under oath and that provides a factual basis establishing the relevance of the information sought to a law enforcement, foreign counterintelligence, or international terrorism investigation; and (2) if the court finds that the information being sought is relevant to an ongoing investigation and the officer is entitled to such information.
Directs that the order issued by the court: (1) be placed under seal, except that a copy may be made available to the officer authorized to obtain access to the information sought in the application; and (2) subject to notification procedures, be made available to the person responsible for providing the information to the officer.
Bars disclosure of an application made or order issued under this section, except as specifically permitted by this section or another court order.
Directs that there be created an electronic or similar type of record of each instance in which an officer, pursuant to an order under this section, gains access to the plaintext of otherwise encrypted information, or is provided decryption information, without the knowledge or consent of the owner of the data who is the user of the encryption product involved. Authorizes the court issuing the order to require that the record be maintained in a place and manner that is not within the officer's custody or control. Requires: (1) the record to be tendered to the court, upon notice from the court; and (2) the court to make the original and a certified copy of the record available to the Government attorney and to the attorney for, or directly to, the owner of the data who is the user of the encryption product, pursuant to specified notification procedures.
Specifies that nothing herein shall be construed to enlarge or modify the circumstances or procedures under which a Government entity is entitled to intercept or obtain oral, wire, or electronic communications or information.
Directs the court, within a reasonable time but not later than 90 days after the filing of an application for such an order which is granted, to cause to be served to specified parties an inventory which shall include notice of: (1) the entry of the order or application; (2) the date of the entry of the application and issuance of the order; and (3) the fact that the person's decryption information or plaintext data has been provided or accessed by an officer. Allows the court, upon the filing of a motion, to make available for inspection to that person or that person's counsel such portions of the plaintext, applications, and orders as the court determines to be in the interest of justice.
Sets forth provisions regarding: (1) postponement of inventory for good cause; (2) admission of encrypted information into evidence; (3) contempt; (4) motions to suppress; (5) appeal by the United States; (6) a civil action for violations; (7) a statute of limitations; (8) exclusive remedies; (9) technical assistance by a provider of encryption technology or network service; and (10) reporting requirements.
Authorizes an officer to whom plaintext or decryption information is provided to use such information only for purposes of conducting a lawful criminal investigation, foreign counterintelligence, or international terrorism investigation and for purposes of preparing for and prosecuting any criminal violation of law. Bars any such information provided to an officer from being disclosed, except by court order, to any other person for use in a civil proceeding that is unrelated to a criminal investigation and prosecution for which the information is so authorized. Allows such order to issue only upon a showing by the party seeking disclosure that there is no alternative means of obtaining the information being sought where the court also finds that the interests of justice would not be served by nondisclosure.
Prohibits an officer from using decryption information to determine the plaintext of any data unless it has obtained lawful authority to obtain such data under other lawful authorities.
Sets forth provisions regarding: (1) the return of decryption information; (2) other disclosure of such information; (3) identification of material that discloses such information; and (4) responsibility of the officer to reasonably assure that inadvertent disclosure does not occur.
Title II: Government Procurement - Authorizes the President to require an encryption product or service procured to provide the security service of data confidentiality for a computer system owned and operated by the Government to include recoverability features or functions that enable the timely decryption of encrypted data or timely access to plaintext by an authorized party without the knowledge or cooperation of the person using such products or services.
Requires the President to ensure that all encryption products purchased or used by the Government are supportive of and consistent with: (1) all statutory obligations to protect sources and methods of intelligence collection and activities; and (2) those needs required for military operations and the conduct of foreign policy.
(Sec. 202) Authorizes the President to direct that any communications network established for the purpose of conducting the business of the Government use encryption products that: (1) include features or functions that enable the timely decryption of encrypted data or timely access to plaintext by an authorized party without the knowledge or cooperation of the person using such products or services; and (2) are supportive of and consistent with all statutory obligations to protect sources and methods of intelligence collection and activities and those needs required for military operations and the conduct of foreign policy.
(Sec. 203) Authorizes the President to require as a condition of any Government contract that any encryption product used by a private vendor in carrying out the contract include features or functions that enable the timely decryption of encrypted data or timely access to plaintext by an authorized party without the knowledge or cooperation of the person using such products or services.
(Sec. 204) Permits an encryption product to be labeled to inform Government users that the product is authorized for sale to or for use by Government agencies or Government contractors in transactions and communications with the Government under this title.
(Sec. 205) Bars the Government from requiring the use of encryption standards for the private sector, except as otherwise authorized by section 204.
(Sec. 206) Makes this title inapplicable to encryption products and services used solely for access control, authentication, integrity, nonrepudiation, digital signatures, or other similar purposes.
Title III: Exports of Encryption - Directs the President to control the export of all dual-use encryption products. Authorizes the President to deny the export of any encryption product on the basis that its export is contrary to national security. Provides that any decision made by the President or his designee regarding the export of encryption products under this title shall not be subject to judicial review.
(Sec. 302) Makes encryption products with encryption strength of 64 bits or less eligible for export under a license exception if: (1) such encryption product is submitted for a one-time technical review, does not require licensing under otherwise applicable regulations, and is not intended for a country, end user, or end use that is by regulation ineligible to receive such product and is otherwise qualified for export; (2) the exporter, within 180 days after the export of the product, submits a certification identifying the intended end use and intended recipient of the product and provides the names and addresses of its distribution chain partners; and (3) the exporter, at the time of submission of the product for technical review, provides proof that its distribution chain partners have contractually agreed to abide by all U.S. laws and regulations concerning the export and reexport of encryption products designed or manufactured within the United States.
Requires the technical review to be completed within 45 days after submission of all required information. Directs the President to specify the information that must be submitted for the one-time technical review. Prohibits the exportation of an encryption product during the technical review of that product.
Provides for: (1) periodic review of the license exception eligibility level; and (2) an export license exception for an encryption product whether or not it contains a method of decrypting encrypted data.
(Sec. 303) Authorizes the President to permit the export of encryption products with an encryption strength exceeding the maximum level eligible for a license exception if the export is consistent with national security.
(Sec. 304) Directs the President to establish procedures for the expedited review of commodity classification requests, or export license applications, involving encryption products that are specifically approved by regulation for export.
(Sec. 305) Authorizes the President to grant an export license for encryption products with an encryption strength exceeding the maximum level eligible for a license exception which are designed or manufactured within the United States (with an exception) under the following conditions: (1) there shall not be any requirement, as a basis for an export license, that a product contains a method of gaining timely access to plaintext or decryption information; and (2) the export license applicant shall submit the product for technical review, a certification under oath identifying the intended use of the product and the expected end user or class of end users of the product, proof that its distribution chain partners have contractually agreed to abide by all U.S. laws and regulations concerning the export and reexport of encryption products designed or manufactured within the United States, and the names and addresses of its distribution chain partners.
Requires the technical review to be completed within 45 days after submission of all required information. Bars exportation of an encryption product during the technical review.
Requires all exporters of encryption products designed or manufactured within the United States to: (1) submit a report to the Secretary of Commerce (the Secretary) at any time the exporter has reason to believe any such exported product is being diverted to a use or a user not approved at the time of export; (2) report any pirating of their technology or intellectual property to the Secretary as soon as practicable after discovery; and (3) submit to the Secretary a report specifying the particular product sold, the name and address of the ultimate end user of the product (if known), or the name and address of the next purchaser in the distribution chain, and the intended use of the product sold.
Authorizes the Secretary, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of State to exercise the authorities they have under other provisions of law to carry out this title.
Grants the President specified waiver authority.
(Sec. 306) Establishes an Encryption Industry and Information Security Board, which shall undertake an advisory role for the President. Sets forth provisions regarding the Board's purposes, membership, meetings, findings and recommendations, and termination. Specifies that the Board shall have no authority to review any export determination made under this title and that the consideration of foreign availability by the Board include computer software that is distributed over the Internet or advertised for sale, license, or transfer.
Title IV: Liability Limitations - Provides that, except for a person who provides plaintext or decryption information to another in violation of this Act, no civil or criminal liability shall attach to anyone for disclosing or providing: (1) the plaintext of encrypted data; (2) the decryption information of such data; or (3) technical assistance for access to the plaintext of, or decryption information for, such data.
(Sec. 402) Makes compliance with this Act a complete defense for any civil action for damages based upon activities covered by this Act, other than an action founded on contract.
(Sec. 403) Specifies that an objectively reasonable reliance on the legal authority provided by this Act authorizing access to the plaintext of otherwise encrypted data or to decryption information that will allow the timely decryption of data that is otherwise encrypted shall be an affirmative defense to any criminal or civil action that may be brought under the laws of the United States or any State.
Title V: International Agreements - Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) the President shall conduct negotiations with foreign governments for purposes of establishing binding export control requirements on strong non-recoverable encryption products; and (2) such agreements should safeguard the privacy of U.S. citizens, prevent economic espionage, and enhance U.S. information security needs.
(Sec. 502) Authorizes the President to consider a government's refusal to negotiate such agreements when considering U.S. participation in any cooperation or assistance program with that country.
(Sec. 503) Sets forth reporting requirements.
Title VI: Miscellaneous Provisions - Directs the Attorney General to compile, and maintain in classified form, data on: (1) the instances in which encryption has interfered with, impeded, or obstructed the ability of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to enforce U.S. law; and (2) the instances where DOJ has been successful in overcoming any encryption encountered in an investigation. Requires that such information, including an unclassified summary, be submitted to Congress annually beginning October 1, 2000.
(Sec. 603) Authorizes appropriations for the Technical Support Center of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for FY 2000-2003.
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Security, Technology, ICT 