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NYPD under fire over cop who ‘converted’ to Islam to spy on college students

RT | November 4, 2015

Civil rights activists are speaking out about revelations that an undercover detective with the New York Police Department “converted” to Islam in order to spy on Muslim students at Brooklyn College over a four-year period.

That work led to the recent arrest of two Queens women allegedly involved in a terrorist bomb plot.

The NYPD has already been under fire for running a demographics unit which conducted blanket surveillance of the Muslim community after 9/11 in New York and New Jersey, despite such activity being in violation of the Constitution.

“The problem has been that the courts who are tasked with determining what is and what is not unconstitutional, illegal – and what is and is not entrapment – have been complicit, and have expanded the prosecutorial and police powers to engage in predatory practices against Muslim communities in particular,” human rights attorney Lamis Deek told RT.

“While under law and logic this would be considered entrapment. If you look at the complaint, it is clear this case is entrapment. Unfortunately we are not going to find a court or a judge to do that,” Deek added.

The revelations about the NYPD’s undercover operation came from a Justice Department release announcing the arrest of two Queens women, Noelle Velentzas and Asia Siddiqui, on conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in April 2015. It revealed that a detective from the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau was heavily involved in bringing the girls to justice and foiling the bomb plot, according to the Gothamist.

“The work of the NYPD’s Intelligence Bureau, its undercover Detective, and its seamless collaboration with the Special Agents and the Detectives of the Joint Terrorism Task Force… should serve as a model for early detection and prevention of terrorist plotting,” said NYPD Commissioner William Bratton in the release.

Deek said that in a case like Velentzas and Siddiqui’s, where the plot is manufactured and orchestrated by a confidential informant – in this case, the officer went by “Mel” – and those working with the informant, law enforcement will make sure that the defendants’ lives are so “infiltrated” and controlled that they behave in a way that ensures they can have no defense.

“The law says that if defendants speak about political issues that relate to the case then [they] are predisposed to engaging in these acts, and that predisposition overcomes [their] defense of entrapment,” said Deek.

The Justice Department alleged the girls had researched how to construct bombs to use as a weapon of mass destruction on American soil. They obtained bomb-making instructions and materials, and used instructions provided by Al-Qaeda’s online magazine.

Deeks said that what is telling about the complaint is that the NYPD informant, Mel, had been working around young people at the college for four years. Yet there was no issue or suspicious activity until she met the two Queens women who were ultimately arrested in July 2014.

“The complaint only lists actions that these two girls took from August onwards, from the time they met this undercover informant and she built a relationship with them,” Deek said. “What we see instead is the Joint Terrorism Task Force informant was in the very least inciting them to engage in these actions that would later lead to their arrest.”

Mother Jones reported that the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force and its use of informants takes a majority share of the Bureau’s budget, requiring $3.3 billion to support a national network of 15,000 informants who are paid $100,000 per case, or who work off criminal or immigration violations.

“The problem with the cases we’re talking about is that defendants would not have done anything if not kicked in the ass by government agents,” says Martin Stolar, a lawyer who represented a man caught in a 2004 sting involving New York’s Herald Square subway station, told Mother Jones. “They’re creating crimes to solve crimes so they can claim a victory in the war on terror.”

On this point, Deek concurs, but she added that while this operation is not effective, it is creating fear.

“What they have done effectively is terrorize the Arab-Muslim-Pakistani communities of New York and the US. People are afraid to talk to each other. They don’t know who is who, and what is what. They are being disciplined and their First Amendment rights are being actively curtailed, so this is a very violative program that mimics tactics … of occupying governments,” Deek said.

November 4, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Intrusive’ and ‘secretive’: ACLU obtains government docs on Stingray surveillance

RT | November 3, 2015

The ACLU has acquired the Justice Department’s guidelines on the use of Stingray technology, showing the surveillance tools are capable of tracking targets, recording and listening in on calls – even of innocent parties – and bugging.

“The government is using intrusive new forms of technology to invade our privacy but it is shrouding its practices in secrecy, and Stingrays are a very poignant example of that,” Linda Lye, senior staff attorney with the Northern California American Civil Liberties Union, told RT.

“We shouldn’t have to surrender our privacy merely by using the modern conveniences of daily modern life like a cell phone.”

The documents confirm long-held suspicions that the controversial devices, which mimic cell phone towers and trick cell phones into thinking it is a legitimate tower, are capable of recording the numbers of a mobile phone’s incoming and outgoing calls, as well as intercepting the content of voice and text communications.

“The public and courts and criminal defendants have a right to know when the government is using intrusive new forms of technology. It raises cutting edge legal questions, like what kind of court authorization does the government need to get before it uses this technology?” Lye added.

According to the documents, the devices “may be capable of intercepting the contents of communications, and therefore, such devices must be configured to disable the interception function, unless interceptions have been authorized by a Title III order.”

Title III is a federal wiretapping law that allows law enforcement, with a court order, to intercept communications in real time.

The documents also discussed the possibility of “flashing” a phone’s firmware “so that you can intercept conversations using a suspect’s cell phone as a bug.”

The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice two years ago to force it to disclose its policies and procedures concerning Stingrays.

“By withholding information about this technology from courts in applications for electronic surveillance orders, the federal government is essentially seeking to write its own search warrants while engaging in a form of dragnet surveillance,” argued the ACLU in the complaint.

The documents, numbering over 70 pages, show the government had not been upfront about how the surveillance tool was being used by law enforcement, and that it was capable of spying on innocent bystanders.

“Stingrays … scoop up information not only from the target the government is investigating, but also third parties as to whom that the government has no reasonable cause or suspicion about whatsoever. That means innocent bystanders are having their rights compromised,” said Lye.

The surveillance tools go by a number of different names – Wolfpack, Gossamer, and swamp box – and are generally the size of a suitcase. They work by emitting a stronger signal than nearby towers in order to force a phone or mobile device to connect to them instead of a legitimate tower.

The Stingrays can be used to determine the location of phones, computers, and wireless PC data cards, also known as air cards, according to Wired. Once a mobile device connects and reveals its unique device ID, law enforcement can use a handheld device that can track a phone or mobile device, including pinpointing an exact office or apartment where it is being used.

Concerns about the use of Stingrays have been mounting as of late. The ACLU has identified 57 agencies that own stingrays or similar devices in 22 states and the District of Columbia.

In addition, federal rules don’t apply to local police departments, which purchase the Stingrays independently of the federal government and are among the most prolific users of the technology. They have been using them without obtaining warrants for years.

The Baltimore Sun reported that city police have used the technology 4,300 times since 2007, often without obtaining a search warrant. Defense attorneys and prosecutors are currently reviewing thousands of criminal cases involving the trackers.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, now require their agents to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before using the device in most cases.

Lye told RT that the courts serve as an “important, independent arbitrator to determine whether investigators have met probable cause that warrants invading privacy.” She said that applying for a warrant is a time-tested method for balancing government’s legitimate need to investigate in the name of public safety and the public’s need for privacy.

“The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution requires the government to get a warrant before it searches someone’s phone or seizes someone’s property. The reason we have that is before we adopted that provision, the British would engage in general searches anywhere they pleased in order to look for violations of British customs laws,” Lye said.

“Stingrays engage in the electronic equivalent of a general search. They search not only the target of an investigation but innocent third parties, and that kind of privacy intrusion is not what the framers intended.”

Congress is also concerned. Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said he plans to introduce a bill criminalizing any use of a Stingray without a warrant. The bill would apply to state and local agencies as well as federal ones.

The Washington Examiner was given a draft copy of the bill and reported that violations would be punishable by a fine and up to 10 years in prison, but that it includes wide exemptions, including for situations involving “emergencies that include an ‘immediate danger of death,’ national security or … the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”

November 3, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces storm, shut down Hebron radio station

Ma’an – November 3, 2015

HEBRON – Israeli forces on Tuesday morning stormed the offices of a Palestinian radio station in Hebron, where they destroyed equipment and ordered the station’s closure, in the latest violation of press freedoms in the occupied Palestinian territory.

353060CManbar al-Hurriyya (Freedom Tribune) radio station, which is reportedly affiliated with Fatah, wrote on its website that Israeli forces had destroyed equipment inside the offices and confiscated other equipment.

The soldiers then issued a military order notifying employees that the station was to be closed and its broadcast banned.

The Israeli army said in a statement that the station was shut down “as part of the ongoing battle against incitement.”

It continued: “Forces confiscated broadcasting equipment in order to prevent the incitement which has caused a flare of violence in the region over recent weeks.”

It accused the radio station of encouraging “stabbing attacks” and “violent riots,” and reporting “false and malicious claims of security forces executing and kidnapping Palestinians in order to provoke violence.”

The statement said that Israeli forces had shut down the station twice before, in 2002 and again in 2008.

The incident comes a day after a Palestinian press freedoms watchdog condemned more than 450 violations of media freedoms since the beginning of the year.

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms, known as MADA, said in a statement that it “condemns the ongoing violence against Palestinian journalists by the Israeli Occupying Forces,” including more than 100 violations in October alone.

It said that “continued impunity with lack of accountability” encouraged Israeli forces “to commit more crimes and assaults.”

The watchdog said that while press violations had not reached last year’s proportions, when 17 Palestinian journalists were killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, violations had “witnessed an enormous escalation this year.”

The group called for accountability, but also for “preventing censorship and persecution of journalists and activists regarding their opinions and comments on social media.”

November 3, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi authorities block contact with death row political prisoners

Reprieve | November 3, 2015

Reports have emerged that the family of political prisoners facing execution in Saudi Arabia have been unable to make regular, scheduled calls with the prisoners, raising concerns over their well being.

Ali Adubisi, the director of a Saudi human rights organisation in Europe who is assisting activist Sheikh Nimr and six other political prisoners, told Reprieve that Mr Nimr yesterday failed to make a regular weekly call – something which has never happened previously during over three years in prison.

Sheikh Nimr is facing beheading and crucifixion by the Saudi authorities over his involvement in political protests. Families of other political prisoners facing execution – including juveniles Ali al Nimr and Dawoud al Marhoon – have also expressed concern over their recent inability to make contact with them.

The highly secretive nature of the Saudi justice system means that prisoners are usually executed without their families or lawyers receiving any prior warning – making the apparent block on communications by the Saudi authorities particularly concerning.

The news comes as the UK Government reveals that, despite cancelling a bid to provide services to the Saudi prisons system, discussions with the Saudi Government over judicial cooperation are still “ongoing.” Reprieve is calling on the Government to provide further details on what such cooperation involves, and what safeguards are in place to ensure that the UK will not be complicit in Saudi Arabi’s death penalty system.

Commenting, Kate Higham, caseworker at international human rights organisation Reprieve said: “The apparent blocking of contact between families and political prisoners is deeply concerning – especially since those facing execution include several people sentenced to death as children over their involvement in political protests. The Saudi authorities need to ensure that legal representatives and families have unfettered access to their clients and loved ones, in addition to reviewing and overturning these unjust sentences.”

November 3, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

12 and 13 year-old minors face 4 years in prison for ripping up posters of Turkish president

RT October 30, 2015

Two Turkish boys, aged 12 and 13, could spend four years behind bars for “insulting” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Prosecutors accuse them of ripping up posters of the Turkish leader, while the boys’ lawyer says the charges themselves violate the law.

“There was no premeditation to insult the president. Also, they were unaware the face on the banners was the president himself,” Ismail Korkmaz, the teenagers’ lawyer, told RT.

The kids themselves say they just wanted to sell the paper.

“Tearing a banner is just a minor offence and should be subject to the law of misdemeanor, but even that law prohibits the punishment of children under 15 years old,” the lawyer said.

Korkmaz told RT the defense has a psychiatric report stating “these children have no ability of discernment, perception of legal meaning, consequences of the offence, or control of their behavior.”

Despite this, the prosecution went ahead with the indictment, which was accepted by the court, said the lawyer.

Turkey has witnessed a number of anti-government protests in recent days. Ankara’s decision to pull the plug on two television stations linked to President Erdogan’s political rivals triggered rallies in Istanbul.

The Turkish government’s crackdown on opposition media is gaining momentum on the eve of the general election slated for November 1.

On Thursday, two newspapers linked to the stations failed to appear on newsstands.

The internet activities of the opposition are suppressed with an iron fist and without a second thought. Re-tweeting of opposition statements or disputing the president in social networks could result in detention. In January, ex-Miss Turkey Merve Buyuksarac was arrested for posting a satirical poem that criticized Erdogan.

“Lately, the head of state has a more autocratic and totalitarian way of governing. He can’t handle any critics,” Ismail Korkmaz told RT.

Referring to the teenagers’ case, the lawyer said that after Erdogan was elected president, many people have been charged with insulting the national leader, and have been prosecuted and punished.

“Nowadays, the judiciary has a broad interpretation of this article. Even casual criticism within the framework of freedom of expression is being considered an insult, and become part of these trials,” Korkmaz said.

October 30, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Redefines Terrorism

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By Stephen Lendman | October 25, 2015

Rogue states make their own rules, mindless of inviolable international laws, norms and standards. On October 19, Israel’s repressive counter-terrorism bill passed its 2nd and 3rd readings – criminalizing legitimate resistance as terrorism, expanding regime authority to counter it extrajudicially.

Any activity can now be called terrorism or terrorist-related, innocent Palestinians subject to possible longterm imprisonment. Charity officials providing aid to anyone linked to or associated with Hamas or legitimate resistance groups can be arrested, charged and prosecuted.

Children wearing clothing bearing the Hamas name face arrest, detention, and grueling interrogations amounting to torture. The law authorizes Big Brother surveillance, more intrusive than already, replicating how the NSA operates, monitoring all phone and online communications.

Israeli Law Professor Yael Berda called the measure “scary and undemocratic…criminalizing an entire population for identifying with an organization that Israel considers terrorist (true or false)” – first introduced in 2011, redrafted several times, never brought to 2nd and 3rd readings until now, required for passage.

It expands the definition of terrorism to virtually anything considered a (real or invented) threat to public safety, well-being, property, infrastructure, the economy, religious sites or the environment.

It makes no distinction between alleged attacks against civilians, soldiers or police. Vandalism against (Israeli) religious sites is now terrorism.

Terrorist organizations are any authorities say so for any reason or none at all. Members or supporters face harsh punishment.

Any alleged terrorist crime incurs “double the penalty set for the same crimes, but no more than 30 years” imprisonment. Administrative detentions (without charges levied or trials) can be ordered more easily than before, subjecting victims to indefinite imprisonment.

Punishment for allegedly intending to conduct a terrorist act is equivalent to committing it. Noted Israeli lawyer, human rights champion Leah Tsemel calls the new law “not…about terrorism. It…remove(s) restrictions from everything to do with opposition to occupation,” criminalizing legitimate resistance.

“When it comes to the occupation, there is no rule of law,” she explained. Israel always operated extrajudicially – now with more police state authority than before.

A passage in the 100-page measure reads as follows:

“The law substantially strengthens and widens the powers of the police and the General Security Services (Shabak or Shin Bet) to suppress any legitimate protest activities against Israeli policies.”

“It also enables the use of ‘secret evidence’ in order to take preventative measures against these activities, which impedes the possibility of objecting to these repressive decisions based on their merits before the judiciary.”

According to Yael Berda, “(y)ou don’t have to do anything to be considered a terrorist. You can publish an article or make a comment in cyberspace, and you will be criminalized.”

“If you are located in the physical environment of terrorist activities, you are guilty.” The measure applies specifically for Palestinians and Arab Israeli citizens – Jews as well for opposing regime authority.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) denounced the new measure, saying “in its current form, (it) seeks to perpetuate and normalise problematic arrangements that are currently set out in emergency legislation and regulations from the time of the British mandate.”

“(D)efinitions included in the bill are very broad and could apply to people and organizations who are not engaged in terrorism. Such broad definitions give excessive discretion to law enforcement authorities to determine ‘who is a terrorist,’ with potentially serious implications.”

“For example, the definition of ‘terrorist act’ may apply to protests, including ‘disturbances.’ The definition of ‘member of a terrorist organization’ includes people who did not take any active part in the organization. The broad definitions contained in the bill and the draconian powers that it gives to authorities could potentially lead to serious human rights violations.”

The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel condemned the measure, saying it “substantially strengthens and widens the powers of the police and the Shabak to suppress any legitimate protest activities against Israeli policies.”

It’s specifically designed to criminalize legitimate resistance – “to further suppress the struggle of Palestinian citizens of Israel and the pursuit of their political activities in support of Palestinians living under Occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

Humanitarian and cultural activities are vulnerable. So is independent journalism, legitimately criticizing repressive state policies. Its passage assures greater collective punishment – all the more urgency to resist this vile, freedom-destroying regime.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.

October 30, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Police seize BBC journalist’s laptop using special terror power

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BBC’s Secunder Kermani
Press TV – October 29, 2015

British police have come under sharp criticism for seizing a personal laptop of a BBC journalist over the suspicion of his alleged links with Daesh or ISIL terrorist group in Syria.

It has emerged that the police seized the laptop belonging to Secunder Kermani earlier this year to ascertain the type of communications he had with a terrorist in Syria.

Kermani has been working for the current affairs program, BBC Newsnight for over one year and has extensively covered British ISIL recruits in the Middle East.

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UK’s counter-terrorism squad during a maneuver (File photo)

The police say they used special powers from the counter-terrorism laws in order to read communications between Kermani and a man who featured in his program and had publicly identified himself as a member of the Takfiri terrorist group in Syria.

“While we would not seek to obstruct any police investigation, we are concerned that the use of the Terrorism Act to obtain communication between journalists and sources will make it very difficult for reporters to cover this issue of critical public interest”, Ian Katz, the editor of Newsnight said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the British police have come under sharp criticism over the seizure of the laptop. “A hysteria around terrorism” is how Jo Glanville, director of the campaign group English PEN described the incident.

According to a BBC spokesman, the police had every right to use the special power but said “the man featured in Newsnight reports was not a confidential source.”

Orders obtained under the Terrorism Act leave journalists with little or no comeback when police use them to seek access to material. By contrast, a public interest defense has been used in the past to contest attempts by the police.

October 29, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Turkish police raid opposition TV station ahead of election

RT | October 28, 2015

Police in Turkey have stormed the offices of an opposition television station days before the country goes to the polls. The media outlet is linked to an Islamic preacher opposed to President Tayyip Recep Erdogan.

The incident took place outside the offices of Kanalturk and Bugun TV in Istanbul, while footage was broadcast live on Bugun’s website.

There were large scuffles outside the offices, where there was also a heavy police presence. Police seemed to be using pepper spray against those trying to block their path through the gate and into the building.

After a struggle, dozens of police eventually made their way through the crowd and into the building. A water cannon on the street was also used to keep demonstrators away.

The media groups are owned by Koza Ipek Holding, which has links to the Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who is a political foe of the current Turkish President Erdogan. Gulen lives in self-imposed exile in the United States.

On Tuesday, the authorities took over the management of 22 companies that were owned by Koza Ipek, Reuters reports.

Gulen was once an ally of Erdogan, but the two fell out after police and prosecutors seen as sympathetic to the preacher opened a corruption investigation against the inner circle of the Turkish president, then prime minister, in 2013. This is believed to have resulted in the crackdown against Gulen.

Gulen is facing charges of running a “parallel” structure within state institutions that was looking to topple Erdogan. Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of up to 34 years for Gulen.

October 28, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

RT Chief Outraged at ‘Shocking’ Proposal to Seize Channel’s US Assets

Sputnik – 27.10.2015

RT television channel Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said Tuesday that she was outraged at the proposal by a former US assistant secretary of state that the United States must freeze RT assets.

David Kramer, a former US assistant secretary of state for democracy and human rights, said in an op-ed published last week by The Washington Post that RT channel assets in the country must be seized in compliance with two European court rulings against Russia stipulating shareholder debt repayment in the now defunct Yukos oil firm.

“We are outraged at this call of a former US official,” Simonyan said. She blamed the US hype over RT broadcasts on a long-time smear campaign against the channel to “gag RT, the only opposition voice in a choir of mainstream media.”

“The US Broadcasting Board of Governors has already compared us to Islamic State and called to label us a ‘foreign agent.’ But remarks of the former US assistant secretary of state in The Washington Post are nevertheless shocking,” Simonyan said.

The RT chief pointed out there was no legal ground to back Kramer’s assertion. The former US government appointee claimed that an RT asset seizure was an option to pay an estimated $52 billion to Yukos shareholders after observing that the Russian Embassy and consulate property in the US were protected by diplomatic immunity.

Last year, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled that the Russian government owed tens of billions of dollars to Yukos shareholders. Yukos was declared bankrupt in 2006 and absorbed into the state-owned Rosneft company.

The Russian Justice Ministry refused to follow EU court rulings, saying this would put the ministry in breach of the Russian constitution. The ministry appealed the ruling, arguing that it was neither fair nor impartial.

October 27, 2015 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

EFF Disappointed as CISA Passes Senate

By Mark Jaycox | EFF | October 27, 2015

CISA passed the Senate today in a 74-21 vote. The bill is fundamentally flawed due to its broad immunity clauses, vague definitions, and aggressive spying authorities. The bill now moves to a conference committee despite its inability to address problems that caused recent highly publicized computer data breaches, like unencrypted files, poor computer architecture, un-updated servers, and employees (or contractors) clicking malware links.

The conference committee between the House of Representatives and the Senate will determine the bill’s final language. But no amount of changes in conference could fix the fact that CISA doesn’t address the real cybersecurity problems that caused computer data breaches like Target and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

The passage of CISA reflects the misunderstanding many lawmakers have about technology and security. Computer security engineers were against it.  Academics were against it. Technology companies, including some of Silicon Valley’s biggest like Twitter and Salesforce, were against it. Civil society organizations were against it. And constituents sent over 1 million faxes opposing CISA to Senators.

With security breaches like T-mobile, Target, and OPM becoming the norm, Congress knows it needs to do something about cybersecurity. It chose to do the wrong thing. EFF will continue to fight against the bill by urging the conference committee to incorporate pro-privacy language. And we will never stop fighting for lawmakers to either understand technology or understand when they need to listen to the people who do.

October 27, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Takes On the First Amendment

Free speech except regarding Palestine

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Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • October 27, 2015

I always enjoy reading the Washington Post each morning even though it drives my blood pressure up to stratospheric levels. Its embrace of the inexorability of a fabulous new Camelot-like Clinton White House is thrilling to witness as it unfolds, but it is the promotion of the neocon Israeli narrative that is most exciting. On October 23rd, the op-ed section outdid itself with a piece “Free speech is flunking out on campus” by Catherine Rampell, who described the increasingly sorry state of first amendment rights on politically correct American university campuses. Blacks, LGBTers, women and victims of sexual assault were all identified as constituencies demanding “safe spaces” resulting in curtailment of free speech but somehow Israel and its supporters screaming anti-Semitism at every drop of the hat were left out in spite of the fact that Jews on campus have been both extremely and successfully active in taking political action to pressure universities whenever they claim to feel “threatened.”

The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians has again reached a boiling point. Palestinian frustration over Israel’s fifty year occupation of the West Bank and its continued theft of Arab land and resources has produced an uprising of mostly young Palestinians that is being called in some circles a new intifada. The conflict is playing out with knives and bullets in Palestine and Israel but it is also being fought internationally in the media, through cultural and economic boycotts and, most pointedly, at many colleges and universities. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu realizes that the pressure on Israel is, for the first time, serious and has not hesitated to lie outrageously about the slaughter of Jews in Europe during the Second World War. According to Netanyahu, the Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem gave the idea to Hitler, presumably justifying whatever the Israelis of today choose to do to suppress the current unrest.

Israel has inevitably responded brutally, producing a death toll of significantly more Palestinians than Israelis. Netanyahu has been referring to the protesters as terrorists and has issued new rules of engagement which permit soldiers to shoot stone throwers. Israeli plainclothes soldiers and police have been identified as infiltrating the protesters while pretending to be Palestinians, urging the young Arabs to hurl stones before pulling out concealed handguns to beat protesters, shoot them and make arrests.

In Gaza five teenagers were shot dead by Israeli soldiers for the crime of coming too close to the separation barrier, which government press releases described as the “frontier.” Killing teenagers in Gaza is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel as they are fenced in and have in reality no way to actually confront the Israeli border guards. On the day following the killing of the boys a mother and infant were killed in an Israeli airstrike. Within Israel an Eritrean was even mistakenly killed by Israeli police because he was reportedly acting oddly.

Because of a hostile media’s self-censorship buttressed by an unfriendly political class, here in the United States one of the few places in which the Palestinians can exercise something like free expression relating to their national aspirations is on college campuses. Israel and its powerful supporters understand that gap in their ability to control the narrative and are doing everything possible to shut down the option.

Friends of Israel, as ever, work from the same playbook orchestrated by the large donors who fund them. They claim that anti-Israel protests on campus to include even letters to the editor in college newspapers constitute a “threatening environment” for Jewish students. The argument is based on a fundamental falsehood, which is that criticism of the actions of a foreign government is equivalent to hatred for the dominant religion of that country, that religion is exactly the same as nationality. Applying that notion liberally would mean that criticism of any country where there is de facto or de jure a dominant state religion would be unacceptable speech. If applied liberally countries spanning the globe would be exempt from criticism, to include not only Israel but also Saudi Arabia and Iran.

But this is not about Christian or Muslim sensitivities. It is all about protection against insult for Jews and it relies on a perception of perpetual victimhood, which can be and is produced on demand to stifle any criticism that might be regarded by some as objectionable. Indeed, if calls for violence directed against Jews as a race or religion were occurring pleas for some form of mitigation might have some very slim cogency, but campus protest movements have very carefully and deliberately avoided falling into that trap. And it might also be pointed that on many campuses a considerable proportion of the dissenters are themselves Jews who are appalled by Israeli behavior.

Criticism of Israel does not just include complaining about the policies of that country’s government. It also has inevitably involved the so-called BDS movement, “boycott-divest-and sanction” which aims to make Israel pay an economic and social price for its behavior, similar to the pressure that was once directed against apartheid South Africa. This second narrative has been cleverly woven into the complaints about “harassment,” labeling any campus calls for BDS ipso facto anti-Semitic and “hurtful.” School authorities have generally been accommodating to claims made by Jewish groups that students are feeling “threatened,” obstructing and intimidating critics of Israel and denying tenure to faculty members who are seen as troublemakers. They have looked the other way as organizations like Canary Mission began exposing college students on its website who are reported to be “anti-Freedom, anti-American and anti-Semitic” with the deliberate intention of damaging their future employment prospects.

Between January 2014 and June 2015 there were more than 300 incidents on 65 college campuses in 24 states involving intimidation or prevention of protests against Israel. Students at Northeastern University distributing flyers at dorms were interrogated by campus police and had their group suspended by college authorities. Some were disciplined. And faculty members have also been on the receiving end, with Steven Salaita at the University of Illinois, denied a teaching position after he sent tweets complaining about Israel’s 2014 assault against Gaza which killed more than 500 children.

Richard Blum, a member of the University of California’s regents, has demanded that students who criticize Israel be suspended for expelled because they are “intolerant,” exhibiting anti-Semitic bigotry. Blum is the multimillionaire husband of California Senator Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein has also hinted that she could have the government look into possible violations occurring at federally funded institutions. The definition of bigotry being promoted by Blum and Feinstein conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and includes in its purview what are increasingly being referred to as “speech crimes.” The university regents are currently considering new language for their statement of policy against intolerance on campus but are under intense pressure from Jewish organizations that are lobbying them aggressively.

Many of the groups involved in the harassment of pro-Palestinian demonstrators are perhaps not surprisingly not indigenous to the colleges themselves. Stand With Us (SWU) and “Campus Maccabees” are national organizations well-funded by billionaire Sheldon Adelson and SWU has close ties to the Israeli government as does the lawfare center Shurat HaDin, which has filed lawsuits against Muslim and progressive groups on campus. Predictably, Congress and state legislatures have gotten into the act, seeking to pass laws that make it impossible for colleges and universities supported by taxpayer money to fund student groups that call for boycotts. The bills are drafted in terms of rejecting all selective boycotts but they are really all about Israel and everyone knows it. The fact that advocating voluntary boycotts is very much a part of one’s First Amendment rights appears to be irrelevant.

How to deal with it? The brouhaha is impossible to ignore as the advocates for Israel are relentlessly in one’s face even when the argument is being constructed in a restrained fashion and purposely framed so as not to offend Jews. It is consequently necessary to disarticulate being Israeli from being Jewish. Judaism is a religion and Israel is a foreign country. And it is important to recognize that legitimate direct criticism of Jewish groups for their involvement in pressuring universities should not itself be off limits. If the organizations self-identify as Jewish and they are attempting to restrict the discussion on Israel contrary to the First Amendment they become fair game. The First Amendment exists, after all, to permit free and open discussion of all issues and if some Jewish individuals and organizations are mobilizing to deny fundamental American rights on behalf of a foreign nation the rest of us have the responsibility to object forcibly and to make transparent just who is doing what to whom.

October 27, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

NYT Hypes Russian Threat to the Internet

By Ben Schreiner | Working Left | October 25, 2015

As if Americans didn’t already have enough to worry about in regards to the recently resurrected Red Menace, we can now add the fear that those devious Russians are threatening to–horror of horrors–bring down the Internet.

As the New York Times‘ David Sanger and Eric Schmitt report, “Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of conflict.”

As Navy spokesman Cmdr. William Marks adds, “It would be a concern to hear any country was tampering with communication cables.”

Indeed. Well, unless those tampering with international communication cables happen to be working on behalf of the “good guys” in the National Security Agency, or their equally good partners in Britain’s GCHQ. In that case, don’t consider it “tampering,” but rather something more akin to protecting the homeland from 21st century threats.

Of course whenever official Washington warns of a looming foreign cyber threat (China and Iran being the other favorite punching bags of the Times in this regard), it’s worth remembering that it was in fact the U.S., in partnership with Israel, that was the first state to actually launch a major offensive cyber attack on a sovereign nation. The attack being the Stuxnet virus set loose back in 2009 on Iran’s peaceful nuclear program. Such aggression was codified earlier this year when the Pentagon formally unveiled a cyber warfare doctrine sanctioning the use of preemptive strikes. But down the memory hole, it appears, with all that.

And so with all that out of mind, it’s back to Russia’s rising “aggression.” At least as the paper of record would have it.

As Sanger and Schmitt continue, “American concern over cable-cutting is just one aspect of Russia’s modernizing Navy that has drawn new scrutiny.”

Adm. Mark Ferguson, commander of American naval forces in Europe, speaking in Washington this month, said the proficiency and operational tempo of the Russian submarine force was increasing.

Citing public remarks by the Russian Navy chief, Adm. Viktor Chirkov, Admiral Ferguson said the intensity of Russian submarine patrols had risen by almost 50 percent over the last year. Russia has increased its operating tempo to levels not seen in over a decade. Russian Arctic bases and their $2.4 billion investment in the Black Sea Fleet expansion by 2020 demonstrate their commitment to develop their military infrastructure on the flanks, he said.

Left unmentioned by either Adm. Ferguson or the Times is the fact that the U.S. Navy’s fiscal year 2016 budget comes in at an astounding $161 billion.  (For comparison, the entire Russian military’s FY 2016 budget is projected to come in just over $90 billion.) If scrutiny then is to be applied, one would think that the U.S. Navy’s budgetary windfall would offer plenty of fodder. For starters, it’s worth considering just how many food-insecure American children could be fed with $161 billion.

Capturing the essence of the official propaganda campaign seeking to depict Russia as some sort of dangerously revisionist power, Sanger and Schmitt go on in their piece to quote Adm. James Stavridis, NATO’s former top military commander and current dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. As Stavridis puts it, Russia’s supposed stepped up surveillance of undersea cables offers “yet another example of a highly assertive and aggressive regime seemingly reaching backwards for the tools of the Cold War, albeit with a high degree of technical improvement.”

Russia has indeed deployed its military forces in the last year to both Ukraine and Syria. (A fact Times readers are certainly well aware of.) But if that is a sign of a “highly assertive and aggressive regime,” what are we to make of a regime that in the past decade alone invaded and toppled governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya? What shall we call a regime that has bombed Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan? What about a regime that unleashed a preemptive cyber attack on Iran? How about a regime with over 800 foreign military bases? Or one that exported nearly $50 billion in arms in the last year alone?

Global public opinion has of course already settled on what we are to call such a regime. According to a 2013 WIN/Gallop poll surveying the opinions of individuals from 65 nations around the world, it is the U.S. that constitutes “the greatest threat to peace in the world.” Russia didn’t register in the poll.

The recent historical record, then, reveals the latest Russian hit piece offered by the Times to be little more than Washington projection. The Russian Navy, all propaganda aside, hardly poses much of a noteworthy threat to the U.S. Navy, let alone global Internet communications. To find the greatest threat to global Internet communications we must once again heed global public opinion and come face to face with the menace within.

October 26, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , | Leave a comment

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