RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2018/08/22/emerging-tech-impacting-the-security-industry/#61e28aa5429a

Emerging technologies are already impacting how we live and work. They’re also changing how we approach, plan, and integrate security operations. With the advent of artificial intelligence, robotics, quantum computing, the Internet of Things, augmented reality, materials science, 3-D printing, and data analytics, the security industry is being transformed.

Certainly, we are living in an era where innovation, agility and imagination are all essential in order to keep pace with the exponential technological transformation taking place. For security, both physical and cyber, the equation is the same catalyzing many new potential applications for emerging technologies.

Some of the applied verticals in homeland security where I personally see emerging technologies are making an impact include:

Counter terrorism and law enforcement informatics via predictive analytics and artificial intelligence
Real-time horizon scanning and data mining for threats and information sharing
Automated cybersecurity and information assurance
Enhanced Surveillance (chemical and bio detection sensors, cameras, drones, facial recognition, license plate readers)
Simulation and augmented reality technologies for training and modeling
New non-lethal technologies such as: acoustics systems, chemicalsmarkers, communications systems, entanglement systems, optical devices, non-penetrating projectiles and munitions
Safety and security equipment (including bullet and bomb proof) made with lighter and stronger materials
Advanced forensics enabled by enhanced computing capabilities (including future quantum computing)
Interoperable communications, soon to be bolstered by 5G for First Responders
Situational awareness capabilities via GPS for disaster response and crisis response scenarios
Biometrics: assured identity security screening solutions by bio-signature: (every aspect of your physiology can be used as a bio-signature. Measure unique heart/pulse rates, electrocardiogram sensor, blood oximetry, skin temperature)
Robotic Policing (already happening in Dubai!)

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271106/us-iranian-spies-targeted-jewish-synagogue-terror-daniel-greenfield

Iran is an Islamic terror state. And its espionage looks a lot more like terrorism.

Two Iranian men were indicted on Monday for allegedly spying for Tehran in the United States, including conducting surveillance at a Jewish facility and gathering information on backers of the Iranian opposition group known as Mujahideen-e Khalq, or MEK, the Justice Department said.

Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, 38, a dual US-Iranian citizen, and Majid Ghorbani, 59, an Iranian citizen and resident of California, were charged in the indictment with acting on behalf of Iran by conducting the surveillance, the Justice Department said in a statement.

The surveillance had some interesting targets.

Doostdar and Ghorbani are alleged to have acted on behalf of Iran, including by conducting surveillance of political opponents and engaging in other activities that could put Americans at risk,” said Assistant Attorney-General for National Security John Demers. “With their arrest and these charges, we are seeking to hold the defendants accountable.”

Ghorbani attended an MEK rally in New York on September 20, 2017, to protest the current Iranian government, taking photographs of the participants, which he later passed on to Doostdar, who paid him about $2,000.

The Justice Department said Doostdar conducted surveillance in July 2017 of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish facility in Chicago, the Rohr Chabad House, including photographing its security features.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271112/allahu-akbar-rules-minnesota-vikings-stadium-matthew-vadum

As Islamic leaders with ties to terrorism addressed them, thousands of Muslims chanted the jihadist battle cry “Allahu Akbar” at taxpayer-funded U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis yesterday as part of a huge celebration of the Muslim festival of animal sacrifice known as Eid al-Adha.

One media estimate put the size of the crowd at 30,000.

“Allahu Akbar” is not an innocuous phrase. It is generally the last thing victims of Muslim terrorism around the world hear as their lives are cut short at the hands of groups like Islamic State or al-Qaeda. The phrase means “God is greater,” but there is more to it. It is a cheer that goes back to the still-celebrated Muslim slaughter of Jews at Khaybar in 628. It means the Muslim deity, Allah, is greater than the religions of those vanquished by Islam. It is an active, actionable threat to all non-Muslims, a belligerent statement of Islamic supremacy.

As Daniel Greenfield writes:

“Allahu Akbar” isn’t merely associated with terrorist attacks. It’s the reason for those attacks.

Muslims kill non-Muslims to prove that, “Allahu Akbar”: that Allah is greater [than] the religions of their victims.

“Allahu Akbar” is the motive for Islamic terrorism.

The organization putting on the event, Super Eid, previously said it hoped to attract 50,000 people to the morning event and to a celebration afterwards at a nearby park.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/08/21/clarity-about-clearances/

Last week, a dozen former directors and deputy directors of CIA in Democratic administrations (Robert Gates made the list bipartisan) chastised President Trump for removing their former colleague John Brennan’s security clearance. This week, another 150 lesser former officials, nearly all Democrats, joined in.

“Never before” they trumpeted, had they “seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool.”

On what planet?

It Isn’t a “Free Speech” Issue
The following are the cardinal facts about security clearances in the American legal system—unchallengeable and unchallenged—followed by an equally incontrovertible account of how President Trump has departed from the presidency’s management of security clearances—but in a way entirely opposite from that which his “deep state” detractors allege.

First, blow away the smoke. The former directors allege Trump’s removal of Brennan’s clearance had “nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances—and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.”

Note well: while reasonable people may disagree about the basis on which security clearances should be granted or removed, it is wholly distinct from the question of who has the authority to do so. About that, no disagreement is possible. The president of the United States has the sole, unquestionable, unrestricted authority to grant and withhold security clearances. Conflating those questions with that of all citizens’ freedom of speech confuses the public and suggests dishonestly that certain people have a right to special access to secrets. Not so.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/army-chaplain-disciplined-for-following-rules-threat-to-religious-liberty/

An Army chaplain and his assistant may be disciplined for following his denomination’s rules while accommodating a same-sex couple.

In my 16 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, both on active duty and now in the reserve, I have had the privilege of serving with many fine officers. I know firsthand that the difference between life and death is often a matter of leadership. Whether in combat or in training, strong and decisive leadership inspires confidence, improves morale, and contributes to the ethos of professionalism that has made the U.S. military the finest fighting force in the world.

As director of military affairs for a religious-liberty law firm, I have recently observed a disturbing trend that, if left unchecked, threatens to weaken our military from within. What began as passive-aggressive political correctness has devolved into open hostility to religious liberty in the military. Recent disturbing events within the U.S. Army are a perfect example of both.

An Army investigator under the command of Major General Kurt Sonntag recommended that Army chaplain Scott Squires be found guilty of “dereliction of duty” for rescheduling a marriage retreat that Squires is prohibited from facilitating so that another chaplain could handle it. A same-sex couple had registered for the retreat, and Squires is endorsed by the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board (NAMB), which prohibits its chaplains from conducting marriage-related events for same-sex couples. NAMB’s policy clearly states that “endorsed chaplains will not conduct or attend a wedding ceremony for any same-sex couple, bless such a union or perform counseling in support of such a union . . . nor offer any kind of relationship training or retreat, on or off a military installation.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/when-antifa-chants-no-america-at-all/

Apparently while countering the “Unite the Right” (which is neither) demonstration, the brown shirts of Antifa got a little upset there was no one there to fight them.

According to this article on Powerline, quoting an article in the Washington Post by Petula Drorak who covered the Antifa demonstration:

Masked — in black instead of KKK white — they pinballed around the empty streets of downtown D.C., randomly chanting and searching for a brawl .

“Bust some windows!” (Why?)

“Nazis, go home!” (They did.)

“No border! No wall! No USA at all!” (Huh?)

First, I want to say that if Ms. Drorak’s puzzlement at these slogans isn’t faked – is that possible – it might be time she paid some attention to what is happening in the party she (being a liberal) ostensibly endorses. That last chant is no surprise for those of us who have been awake for the last 15 years or so. The democratic party – whose violent arm the Antifa is – has long since become the Midgard Worm, gnawing at the root of all that allows it and its – generally helpless – supporters to exist.

For those I lost in the last paragraph: the Norsemen, people not known for their sunny outlook on the future, believed that at the root of the “world tree” (i.e the tree that supports our entire reality) there lay a worm, the Midgard Worm, which gnawed at the root and would eventually cause reality as we know it to cease to exist, thereby bringing about Ragnarok (which it turns out is more than just a movie, yes.)

Okay, that’s it, and I promise I won’t be inflicting any more reminders of my misspent – if you don’t think sitting in a corner and reading a lot is misspent, you must be me – youth on you. I also promise that there won’t be a test on Tuesday. (Perhaps next Wednesday, but not Tuesday!)

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/blind-sheikh-trial-link-to-new-mexico-child-abuse-case/

Named in the prosecutor’s letter in 1995, Siraj Wahhaj lost his grandson earlier this month to the mayhem of a squalid compound run by fundamentalist Muslims.

In an awful story out of New Mexico last week, five adults were arrested on charges of abusing children, conduct that allegedly resulted in the death of one child. Apparently, the defendants are fundamentalist Muslims who were running the squalid compound as a parallel society and preparing for violent action against law enforcement, the education system, and other institutions. It is alleged that this included training at least some of the children.

The child who died, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, was the disabled four-year-old son of the ringleader, a man named Siraj Wahhaj. The child, whose father allegedly abducted him from his estranged wife several months ago, appears to have died during an attempted exorcism — the defendants having allegedly deprived him of his medications and attributed his health problems to possession by demons. (A New Mexico state judge has rejected prosecutors’ request to detain them without bail. Sigh . . .)

When reporters googled the main defendant, they found that he is the son and namesake of Siraj Wahhaj, a well-known (some would say notorious) sharia-supremacist imam who runs a mosque in Brooklyn (Masjid al-Taqwa). That got my phone buzzing because the mosque featured in the terrorism case I prosecuted in the 1990s against Omar Abdel Rahman (the “Blind Sheikh”) and several other jihadists; Siraj Wahhaj the elder appeared as a character witness for some of the defendants.

The elder Wahhaj has for decades been an unapologetic extremist (America is “a garbage can . . . filthy and sick,” etc. etc.). Naturally, he was once invited to give the opening invocation at a session of Congress. (More sighing.) Although incendiary statements he has in fact made are occasionally reported, what is most often reported about him is something that is not true: viz., that the United States government, in a letter written by your humble correspondent some 23 years ago, accused him of being a co-conspirator in a terrorism plot that included the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

This urban legend never dies because the purpose of so-called co-conspirator lists is poorly understood. The misconception is that such lists, which are standard fare in big conspiracy cases, amount to public accusations of guilt. That misconception is reinforced by unidentified “former terrorism prosecutors,” who recently told the New York Times that my list was “later criticized for being overly broad.” To the contrary, these lists are a form of discovery for preparation of the defense at trial; they are meant to be inclusive because they preserve the prosecution’s discretion to offer important evidence and are not intended for public consumption.