RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/secrecy-surveillance-and-privacy-momus-and-moral-ambiguity

After each of the major terrorist attacks in the last few years, the various so-called Intelligence Services in the United States, Britain and elsewhere have disclosed two important things: first, the perpetrators of these horrendous deeds have been known to the officials and often for many years been “on the radar”; and second, the various security and anti-terrorist organizations claim that they did not have sufficient information or resources to keep these people-usually young men-under proper surveillance. In the light of what the media perceives as scandalous misuse of eaves-dropping technology-tracking all sorts of telephone, internet and other electronic and digital communications-do these two mitigating factors stand up to scrutiny? In other words, are governments engaged in too much secret intelligence work or not enough, or is it a matter of the actual quality of the intelligence deployed to make sense of the information gathered?

Moreover, should we worry about spying on citizens as in itself a justifiable cause of the current outrage, or is it just the sheer numbers of individual men and women and private organizations caught up in the compass or prism of the official spy-networks? Perhaps a lot of the anger and shock actually stems from the paradox of our new kind of world, a world wherein, on the one hand, millions of people link themselves into social networks, keep in touch with other millions of people frequently, and, in the process, willingly or not, expose sensitive information about themselves and their activities, things that were best left unstated, at least in the sense of not revealing them in a permanent way and into an uncontrollable system of electronic-digital form; whereas, on the other hand, the dangerous and explosive world we live in requires that different nations’ security agencies use this vast amount of information to try to protect the lives and well-being of their citizens.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/the-one-place-you-can-be-free-of-surveillance-is-a-mosque/print/

There is nothing wrong with law enforcement monitoring Muslim terrorists or potential Muslim terrorists. But unfortunately, as I wrote in the Dumb Police State, that’s not really the system we have.

Instead our system “spreads the pain” and specifically excludes Muslims from some of the same experiences to avoid “alienating” them and to win their cooperation.

And the results can often be schizophrenic.

Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.

Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.

We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel’s formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.

Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.

If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.

This is particularly disturbing in light of recent independent surveys of American mosques, which reveal some 80% of them preach violent jihad or distribute violent literature to worshippers.

We need enforcement and surveillance, but it needs to be smart and targeted surveillance. And that can only happen under leaders who stop apologizing for singling out members of an ideology responsible for our long war because of their beliefs.

We’re at war with an ideology. Singling out members of that ideology is the only rational way to fight that war.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/islamic-science/ For years now, as we all know, newspapers, magazines, and book publishers around the Western world have shrunk from publishing texts that touch on some of the more uncomfortable truths about Islam, preferring instead to give us all but idyllic accounts of Muslim history and belief and hagiographies of its prophet. Similarly, film, TV, […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/nyu-throws-out-blind-chinese-human-rights-activist/ The leftist-indoctrination centers that many of America’s college campuses have become added another despicable blot to their legacies yesterday. New York University (NYU) announced that blind, Chinese political dissident Chen Guangcheng has been tossed off campus. According to the NY Post, the Communist government of China is applying the pressure, using NYU’s expansion of its campus to a […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/the-islamic-republic-goes-to-the-polls/print/

Iran elects a new president today to replace the outgoing, obstreperous, openly genocidal-toward-Israel Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Does that mean there’s hope someone more moderate will win and steer Iran away from its confrontational course with the West?

Not really. For one thing, none of the candidates—up to the finish line, there appeared to be six of them—has genuine moderate credentials. For another, even if a real moderate was elected, true power over Iran’s nuclear program and foreign policy is in the hands of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is himself an apocalyptic ideologue.

The two presidential candidates best known in the West are Iran’s current nuclear negotiatior Saeed Jalili, an unequivocal hardliner, and Hassan Rouhani, who was nuclear negotiator from 2003-2005 under reputedly moderate president Mohammad Khatami. During the election campaign Rouhani leveled harsh criticism at Jalili, claiming it was his aggressive negotiating approach that led to the Western sanctions and UN Security Council resolutions against Iran.

Rouhani’s criticism of Jalili, however, boils down to style. Rouhani proudly takes credit that, during his own, more restrained tenure as nuclear negotiator, “the groundwork was laid for developing the country’s nuclear capability quietly and secretly, far from the tumult of the international system.”

The West, meanwhile, has been taking a breather from the Iranian nuclear issue while awaiting the results of the elections—despite the fact that just about all knowledgeable Iran analysts agree that, beyond a possible change in style, the elections will have no real impact on that issue.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/351021/freedom-unfolding-revolution-jonah-goldberg

Why are there no libertarian countries?”

In a much-discussed essay for Salon, Michael Lind asks: “If libertarians are correct in claiming that they understand how best to organize a modern society, how is it that not a single country in the world in the early twenty-first century is organized along libertarian lines?”

Such is the philosophical poverty of liberalism today that this stands as a profound question.

Definitions vary, but broadly speaking, libertarianism is the idea that people should be as free as possible from state coercion so long as they don’t harm anyone. The job of the state is limited to fighting crime, providing for the common defense, and protecting the rights and contracts of citizens. The individual is sovereign; he is the captain of himself.

It’s true, no ideal libertarian state has ever existed outside a table for one. And no such state will ever exist. But here’s an important caveat: No ideal state of any other kind will be created either. America’s great, but it ain’t perfect. Sweden’s social democracy is all right, but if it were perfect, I suspect fewer cars would be on fire over there.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/350911/why-irs-ig-stopped-audit-gerald-walpin

Among all the unanswered questions about the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative organizations, one is most crucial: Who ordered this extreme scrutiny?

Amazingly, IRS inspector general J. Russell George, responsible for the investigation asking those questions about the IRS, has testified that he did not obtain that information.

Details of that testimony are interesting. Representative Tom Graves (R., Ga.) asked, “Have you asked the individuals who ordered them to use this extra scrutiny to punish, or penalize, or postpone, or deny?” George turns around to confer with his assistant. Just the fact that the inspector general had to confer to know the answer to this crucial question is amazing. George’s assistant says something to him that is not recorded, but one can see the assistant shaking his head back and forth. Then George responds publicly to the question, saying, “During our audit, Congressman, we did pose that question and no one would acknowledge who, if anyone, provided that direction.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/12/nyc-school-english-teacher-assigns-students-write-/

Parents who send their children to an elite New York City private school are outraged at one recent English class assignment — to write a personal suicide letter.

Students of the Upper West Side private facility, some as young as age 14, were required to write the goodbye letter as an offshoot lesson plan from the best-selling book and movie, “The Secret Life of Bees,” The New York Post reported. The main character in that book killed herself.

The teacher told the students to include in their letters the rationale for their suicides — leaving at least a few of the kids rattled, and parents angered, The Post reported.

“We were pretty stunned at the scope of the assignment,” said one father of a ninth-grader, in The Post. “We thought this was such an outrageous assignment for a 14-year-old to get. We pay a lot of money to send our kids to the school.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/14/one-of-the-greatest-ironies-of-the-late-strongman-/ Domination by the Castros has accelerated since Chavez’s death One of the greatest ironies of the late strongman Hugo Chavez’s rule was that even as he attempted to personify Venezuelan nationalism, he was quietly outsourcing more and more of the country’s sovereignty to the Castro brothers in Cuba. Today, with conditions in the country […]

Attending an Ahmadinejad press conference in Cairo recently, I bumped into a rather unusual character from North Korea

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3785/north_korean_diplomats_dine_alone

The 12th Islamic Summit ostensibly served as backdrop for President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Cairo earlier this year, the first by an Iranian leader to Egypt since the 1979 revolution. Yet, following the conclusion of the summit the Iranian delegation had one more task: throw a party.

Or more precisely their goal was to throw a garden reception for the media and notables at a diplomatic residence not far from the Fairmont Hotel where Ahmadinejad had appeared.

The entry hall to the reception was decorated with a host of overtly political images. One wall featured the obligatory image of the late Grand Ayatollah Khomeini. Another included famous images from Egypt’s 2011 Revolution juxtaposed with similar images from the Iranian revolution of 1979. Another display featured Iranian scientific achievements including what appeared to be images from the Iranian space programme – which sadly did not include images of the monkey Iran recently sent into space.

The gathering did, however, include ministers, important judges, Islamic scholars, figures from the Coptic Church, and several diplomats, including some from European Union member states. One face I recognized was Ayman Nour who I interviewed in 2011 – a former dissident who faced persecution under Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and whose case was once specifically mentioned by then U.S President George W. Bush.

The authoritarian Iranian leader greeted several Egyptian notables in a private meeting upstairs before heading down to take his place at the front of the audience. Here, before a carefully selected group, the Iranian leader was to make a significant media appearance in Egypt. The press conference was in part to make up for a kerfuffle the day before at Al-Azhar, the world’s oldest university, where the Iranian leader was greeted with a shoe and frosty comments from Sunni Muslim scholars.

The stage was set replete with a large portrait of the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini and a few other banners declaring Egyptian-Iranian friendship. With cameras rolling and a sudden shout, a shoe was thrown that hit Ahmadenijad squarely on the chin. The Iranian bodyguards surprisingly failed to react for a minute before grabbing the clean-shaven Egyptian man who lobbed the shoe. At least Ahmadinejad now had a pair.

But, the show must go on and someone on the microphone asked people to take their seats as the crowd jockeyed to see what was happening. Suddenly, the Iranian national anthem began and Ahmadinejad snapped out of his chair. He soon took the stage to give his speech about Iranian-Egyptian relations. He was interrupted again – this time by an Iranian diplomat who wanted to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his skillful leadership. Thankfully

the translator declined to translate this outburst. Ahmadinejad’s ended his speech by switching to Arabic: “Long live Egypt! Long live Iran! Long live Egypt and Iran forever!”

With that the President’s speech was over and he was hustled away lest another Egyptian brandish a Bruno Magli loafer. Meanwhile the guests were invited to a sprawling buffet on a nearby lawn. Some Egyptian TV reporters I had met while waiting for Ahmadinejad’s speech to begin insisted I join them as they walked towards the buffet.

As we took our place in line I asked them what they thought of the man with the world’s most controversial nuclear energy programme. “I don’t like him; he wants to use Egypt to build Iran’s influence in the Middle East,” one replied.

Suddenly the lights went out and all pleasantries were thrown aside. A chaotic scramble ensued for morsels of flat bread, yellow rice, grilled kebab, baba ganouch and hummus. Journalists, civil society leaders, politicians and diplomats began looking after their own interests in the shadows. Mutterings in English, Arabic and Persian could be heard. For a moment it appeared Middle East politics centered on a buffet line.