RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2017/07/13/cia-defends-the-muslim-brotherhood-as-western-intel-agencies-warn-of-dangers-links-to-terror/

As the CIA continues to defend their investment in the Muslim Brotherhood to bring “moderate Islamist democracy” to the Middle East, much of the Middle East and our European allies are moving against the group.

I noted here at PIn fact, the Muslim Brotherhood is one of the central issues in the current Qatar crisis, where these Arab nations are taking active measures against Qatar for its support of the the Brotherhood:J Media last month that many of America’s Arab allies (Egypt, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia), as well as Israel, had moved well ahead of the U.S. in addressing the group’s toxic influence:Just last week the foreign minister of Bahrain, whose legislature includes representatives from the Muslim Brotherhood, said that the group is a terrorist organizations and its sympathizers must be prosecuted:

Back in February, I reported that the CIA and the National Intelligence Council (NIC) provided the funds to support Nixon Center researchers Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke to create the “moderate Muslim Brotherhood” narrative during the Bush administration. That became the basis for their Foreign Affairs article of that same title:And the CIA still supports and defends the Muslim Brotherhood today:

Yet across Europe, intelligence agencies are warning about the group’s operations in their respective countries — and some are taking action.

Here’s a rundown of the actions being taken by our European allies and our Arab allies against the Muslim Brotherhood.

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France

Since the terror attack in Nice nearly a year ago, France has taken active measures against the Muslim Brotherhood that include shutting down the group’s mosques and charities as well as banning leading members.

The Nice attacker, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, was the son of a well-known Tunisian Muslim Brotherhood figure. And earlier this year an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood fanboy, Abdallah El-Hamahmy, attacked police in front of the Louvre with a machete.

One of the concerns has been that the Muslim Brotherhood had been using France as a safe haven to engage in activity against their own foreign policy:

For decades, the Muslim Brotherhood exploited their opposition to the Egyptian and other Arab regimes as a means to request political asylum in some European countries on the grounds that they were persecuted in their own countries. However, they violated the internationally recognised rules of asylum by continuing their political activities in the host countries. Western nations turned a blind eye to these illegal activities until the forces of terrorism started to bite the hand that fed them. That was when some of those countries (not all) grew alert to the beast that they were sheltering within their borders.

The secret meeting that Muslim Brotherhood leaders held in France 17 December was a glaring example of the Brotherhood’s persistence in violating the principles of political asylum. The meeting took the guise of an intellectual seminar but, in fact, its purpose was to design a plan of action for the coming phase. It was held at the Centre for Arab and Developmental Studies, on Rue de Ste Helene in the 13th Arrondissement, ostensibly to mark the sixth anniversary of Tunisia’s “Jasmine” Revolution. As many journalists in France will tell you, the centre itself was built by a member of the Tunisian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Hanid, with Qatari money.

Participants in that meeting called for, among other things, a revolution in Algeria similar to the Tunisian one, support for the terrorist Islamist groups fighting in Syria and a coup against Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi. I learned from some French journalists who have been following the activities of Islamist groups in France that the original plan had been for a mass rally in which Muslim Brotherhood leaders, bent on escalating their confrontation against Arab states, would urge Arab masses in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Syria to rise up against their governments.

The question is, then, whether Sofian Zakkout’s attachment to Hamas is “merely” emotional, or whether he is an official member of the terrorist organization. All evidence points to the latter.

It is time for the FBI to investigate Zakkout and his activities, and for all the groups that provide him an ill-deserved virtuous reputation to recognize him for the threat he poses to the coexistence and “understanding” he purports to be promoting.

There is good reason to suspect that a pillar of the Muslim community in South Florida, who sits on the boards of many civil rights groups and charities, is actually a member of Hamas, the terrorist organization ruling the Gaza Strip. Sofian Zakkout, the founding president of the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA), was born and partly raised in Gaza, which he has referred proudly to as “my nation, my hometown.”

His fondness for his birthplace, however, is not what is worrisome about Zakkout. It is, rather, that he has spent decades cloaking himself in a veil of respectability, while actively promoting violent Hamas propaganda, including virulently anti-Semitic speech.

To grasp how dubious a character Zakkout is, one need only compare AMANA’s self-described mission – and Zakkout’s positions, for example, in the Florida State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the Florida Regional Interfaith/Interagency Emergency Network in Disaster, the Miami Dade County Citizen Corps and even the Jewish-Arab Dialogue — with his activism on behalf of Hamas.

On Amana’s Facebook page, the group, established in 1992, states:

“Our mission at AMANA is to make our communities stronger, safer, and best prepared to respond to the danger of Islamophobia and the threats of terrorism, hate crimes, public health issues and disasters of all kinds (may Allah forbid). Our mission is to provide a better understanding of Islam to Muslims and information on Islam and Muslims to non Muslims. Our mission is to build more understanding, more knowledge and respect between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

“It is important to work with other community leaders with no exception of race, color, religion and origin hand by hand so that our country the United States of America will be a safer and more secure place to live in.”

its goal is:

“to make our communities stronger, safer, and best prepared to respond to the danger of Islamophobia and the threats of terrorism, hate crimes, public health issues and disasters of all kinds (may Allah forbid)…, to provide a better understanding of Islam to Muslims and information on Islam and Muslims to non-Muslims…, [and] to build more understanding, more knowledge and respect between the Muslim and non-Muslim communities.”

In addition, according to a Harvard University Pluralism Project overview, “AMANA does not think Muslims have any problem with other religious groups, such as Jews or Christians, but rather appreciates and supports each other.”

A U.S. Army soldier stationed in Hawaii pledged allegiance to ISIS and offered the terror group documents and training according to the FBI.Ikaika Erik Kang was arrested this past weekend for alleged ties to the Islamic State after a year-long investigation.

Hawaii News reports:

An active duty Hawaii soldier who was arrested for allegedly trying to provide material support and training to the Islamic State terrorist group told an undercover federal agent Saturday that he wanted to “kill a bunch of people.”

A criminal complaint alleges that Ikaika Erik Kang, 34, was arrested at his Waipahu apartment Saturday, shortly after pledging his loyalty to ISIS and making the threatening statement.

“A probable cause arrest was made in the interest of public safety,” Honolulu FBI Special Agent in Charge Paul D. Delacourt said Monday, after Kang’s first appearance in federal court. He added, “We believe that Kang was a lone actor and was not associated with others who present a threat to Hawaii.”

Delacourt said Kang’s arrest came after an investigation that lasted for more than a year, and involved multiple agencies.

Kang, who has two registered firearms and extensive “combatives training,” is assigned to the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks.

A criminal complaint alleges that he “attempted to provide material support to ISIS by providing both classified military documents, and other sensitive but unclassified military documents, to persons he believed would pass the documents to ISIS.”

Kang has reportedly served tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the simplest terms, Internet of Things (IoT) is the addition of some internet connectivity to everyday objects. Security cameras, for example, previously had to be hardwired. Now they are generally WiFi-connected, allowing camera information to be transmitted to the security control system and allowing the security control system to broadcast its collected information to a remote command center or even to a tablet or smartphone. Then, if the camera has PTZ (pan, tilt, and zoom) functions, the user can redirect the camera, zoom in on an anomaly, or follow an object.

There is hardly a new product that does not try in some way to offer IoT capability. The simplest products gather information from the broader internet and relay it to the user. A “smart” refrigerator can tell you when your grapes are getting low or close to spoilage. It can order grapes for you and have them delivered, or tell you where grapes are on sale and how close to your house the sale is. A “smart” TV can search out genres of programs for you based on preferences you pre-load, or by deriving recommendations by tracking your use behavior on the internet. A “smart” TV can become a point of sale device linked to Amazon, eBay or other outlets, letting you order on impulse while watching your favorite sports or house-hunting program. (“We can deliver a pizza now!” “How about calling Joe at Friendly Realty? He can find you a great home at a terrific price.”)

As artificial intelligence (A.I.) gains ground, home and business assistants will answer your questions or even make suggestions. Alexa from Amazon already has a large user base, with Google and Apple coming along. “Would you like me to turn on the lights downstairs as it is past 9PM?” “Can I recommend a really great restaurant that just opened near you? I can make a reservation for you; just tell me when you would like to try it.” Or “Keep in mind that you need to take into account local taxes when figuring prices for your latest product. Do you want me to calculate that for you?”

Intelligent assistants will start doing a lot of the work that paid help once provided, will do it 24×7 without complaint, with minimal overhead, and will not only be cost-effective, but can also be a profit center. For example, a really great sales digital assistant will not only call customers, but be capable of managing a conversation, promoting new offers, providing technical help, and even asking for customer opinions and integrating findings into a master package for the company. These go far beyond current-day answering systems. (“Press 1 if you want to speak to a nurse, 2 to make an appointment, or 3 to collect the dead body.”)

This is an environment wide open to mischief, and the mischief is starting. Suppose I turn on your smart TV camera (yes, you have one) and record activity without your knowledge. Suppose I misdirect your GPS and send you off in the wrong direction or to the wrong destination. Suppose I create a fake traffic jam ahead (this has already been done) and make you take a dead-end detour. Suppose I order products you did not buy. Or deliver a pizza, an Uber, or a new car to your front door.

A former Ohio State student has pleaded guilty to support for al-Qaeda and trying to hire a hitman to kidnap and kill the judge who was overseeing his terror case.

Yahya Farooq Mohammad, 39, is an Indian citizen who came to the U.S. to study engineering in 2002. In 2008, he married an American citizen. He was indicted with his brothers, Ibrahim Mohammad, Asif Ahmed Salim and Sultane Room Salim, all of whom have pleaded not guilty, in September 2015.

A year after he was wed, Mohammed traveled to Yemen to give $22,000 that he and associates had raised to Anwar Al-Awlaki, the New Mexico-born al-Qaeda recruiter killed in a 2011 drone strike.

While being held in the Lucas County Corrections Center in Toledo, Ohio, on the pending terror charges, Mohammed, according to the indictment, told another inmate that he wanted to kill the judge in his case, U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary. The inmate introduced Mohammed to a hitman who was actually working undercover for the FBI.

The undercover operative told Mohammed it would cost $15,000 to kidnap and murder the judge, with a $1,000 down payment. The terror suspect said he could sent the money through a courier or the “hitman” could meet his wife in Chicago to collect. “The sooner would be good, you know,” Mohammed told the FBI operative of the timing.

Mohammed called his wife, who arranged to meet the would-be hitman at a post office in Bolingbrook, Ill., on May 3, 2016, and gave him $1,000 cash in a white envelope. Mohammed told the undercover agent May 11, 2016, that the balance of payment would be coming from Dubai, routed through Texas.

He pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to provide and conceal material support or resources to terrorists and one count of solicitation to commit a crime of violence.

Under the terms of his plea agreement, Mohammed is expected to serve 27.5 years in prison then be deported at the conclusion of his term.

“This defendant conspired to attack our service members abroad as well as a judge in Toledo,” Acting U.S. Attorney David A. Sierleja said in a statement. “He threatened the hallmarks of our democracy. He is a dangerous criminal who deserves a long prison sentence.”

Fake statistics die as hard as fake news.

This is especially true when statistics are used to reinforce entrenched positions during highly charged political debates.

One particular false statistic — even under the most charitable reading of the data, it’s highly misleading — is trotted out after virtually every major terrorist attack in order to claim that Islamic terrorism is a big nothingburger.

I’ve had to deal with various incarnations of this here before:

It goes something like this:

94% of all terror attacks are committed by non-Muslims

Another version:

Only 6% of terror attacks in the U.S. are by Muslims

And yet another (one that is flatly false, because the data cited is never broken out by sex or race) says:

94% of terror attacks are committed by white men

The data behind this statistic comes from the FBI’s Terrorism 2002-2005 report. You can find it on the FBI’s website here.

First thing to consider when you see this statistic bandied about: realize the data is more than a decade old.

Including the data from 2006-present will give very different results (results that purveyors of these claims may not like), but since this is the data set they choose to use, I will use their preferred source.

Second, note that this statistic is counting “incidents.” The data ends up being portrayed like this:The problem with using this standard of measure is that it is basically useless. An ecoterrorist mailbox bomb that doesn’t injure or kill anyone is given the exact same weight as the Oklahoma City bombing or the 9/11 attacks. So how does measuring terrorism in this way tell you anything important?

Chuck Brooks serves as vice president for government relations and marketing for Sutherland Government Solutions and as chairman of the CompTIA New and Emerging Technologies Committee.

David Logsdon is the senior director of public advocacy for CompTIA.

The General Services Administration recently announced its plans to accept quotes from companies for implementing blockchain and other automated machine-learning technologies to enhance GSA’s Multiple Award Schedules FASt Lane program. The program focus is to speed up the process review time for adding products and services to contract vehicles.

The RFQ states, “GSA seeks to intelligently automate the current MAS FASt Lane contract proposal review processes by utilizing distributed ledger technology, automated machine learning, and/or artificial intelligence based technologies.”

Also, on July 18, the U.S. Federal Blockchain Forum, a program of GSA’s Emerging Citizen Technology program, organized in partnership with the Secretary of State’s Office of Global Partnerships and GSA’s Office of Information Technology Category, will be hosting a ground-breaking event. The event will:

Develop, share and discuss practical use cases for blockchain technology among federal government missions.
Identify resource, policy and compliance needs for the effective and efficient evaluation and implementation of blockchain technology in the federal government.
Develop a U.S. Federal Blockchain Atlas and road map for the next six months on how agencies can collaborate to achieve our goals and support the creation of shared services for blockchain technology.

What is Blockchain?

In a nutshell, blockchain is a technology and process for managing data and digital assets. It can be characterized as a public decentralized and distributed ledger technology that records historical transactions of any asset or currency. It functions as a peer-to-peer community network via a consensus-driven process. It is the technology behind cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain acts both as the information and the conduit. It also creates an audit trail that makes it appealing for reconciliation purposes of historical records, transactions and regulations that will impact a whole host of future government functions and services.

Most importantly, blockchain can offer government transparency and better efficiency.

A new white paper, “Realizing the Potential of Blockchain,” published by the World Economic Forum provides a good overview of the implications of blockchain for both the public and private sectors. The paper states that “blockchain appears likely to transform a number of important industries that supply or rely upon third-party assurance. It could prove to be a broader force for transparency and integrity in society, including in the fight against bribery and corruption. It could also lead to extensive changes in supply chains and governmental functions.”

The paper further says blockchain’s ability to generate unprecedented opportunities to create and trade value in society will lead to a generational shift from an internet of information to a new-generation internet of value.