RUTHFULLY YOURS

The House voted 256-164 on Thursday to reauthorize a surveillance law critical to America’s security for another six years. If the Senate follows up, this will mark a victory for sensible antiterror policy over exaggerated fears on the right and left.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authorizes intelligence agencies to surveil non-U.S. persons who are “reasonably believed” to be located outside the United States. Foreigners don’t enjoy U.S. constitutional protections, and as we have learned the hard way some of them may be plotting attacks on Americans at home or abroad.

Surveillance is an essential U.S. weapon to prevent such attacks, as officials across Democratic and Republican administrations have averred. The House Intelligence Committee notes the law “has been instrumental in preventing numerous acts of terrorism,” including by top Islamic State terrorist Haji Imam.

In 2009 FBI agents in Denver arrested Najibullah Zazi, who was planning to bomb the New York City subway. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency within the executive branch, has said that without Section 702 Zazi’s “subway bombing plot might have succeeded.”

The success of tools like 702 has made the terror threat seem less urgent, but it is as dangerous as ever as Islamic State jihadists disperse after their defeat in Syria and Iraq. In October 29-year-old Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov mowed down eight pedestrians with a truck in Manhattan. ISIS admirer Akayed Ullah tried to blow himself up in a New York subway tunnel in December.

There is no evidence that officials have abused Section 702, and there is multilayered oversight that includes top intelligence officials, Congress and the FISA judges. But the danger is that a left-right coalition in Congress will re-erect barriers between intelligence agencies and law enforcement that led to the failure to detect the 9/11 plot.

Michigan Republican Justin Amash and California Democrat Zoe Lofgren offered an amendment to force agencies to show probable cause to get an order even to query the Section 702 database. They worry the intelligence agencies are using 702 to conduct “backdoor spying” on Americans whose data is incidentally collected through Section 702 surveillance of a foreign suspect.

It cannot be repeated enough that the Marxist-anarchist radical left Antifa and Islamic jihadists have joined forces to destroy Western civilization. Known as the Red-Green Axis, this unlikely alliance of leftists with Islamic groups is actually a means to an end by Islamists.

Inexplicably, left-wing forces do not comprehend that they are merely one of the tools by which Islamists wish to impose a global caliphate. In his searing documentary Killing Europe, producer Michael Hansen makes the following cogent points.

The Islamic jihadists have found willing partners in the left for a number of reasons.

Particularly in Europe, the left’s traditional voting bloc was the workers or proletariat. But as communism produced only mass misery and the deaths of millions, those who had invested 20-30 years in left-wing ideology soon found themselves without an identity once the proletariat saw the true nature of communism.
Enter Muslim refugees, and the left now sees a new voting base. The fact that these migrants come from a culture completely at odds with the West does not faze the left, since leftists have never accepted historical facts and, even more telling, now tout a multicultural paradise, notwithstanding the irrevocable differences that an Islamic religious-based system contains. In essence, the left has found a new base to promote its own identity.
That sharia law permits the stoning of gays, endorses gender apartheid, and advocates rape and murder of the infidel seems not to have registered in the leftist mind. Although the left abhors religion, leftists cannot fathom that their reliance on Islamist partners will not end well. This was borne out when the communists and Islamists joined to overturn the shah of Iran; the Islamic fundamentalists took the reins, eliminated the communists, and imposed draconian sharia law to maintain control.

As Ayn Rand wrote, “[r]eason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it.” But as Kevin J. Johnston at Freedom Report explains, we need to be informed and realize that what is occurring is not to be denied even when political leaders reject the facts.

How, indeed, can a secularist or atheist even consider siding with a religiously mandated system that absolutely abhors secularism and atheism? How can leftists who are ostensibly concerned with women’s rights and gay liberation partner with a system that mandates the murder of gays and the dehumanization and killing of women?

On this new edition of The Glazov Gang, we feature Jamie Glazov discussing The Antifa-ISIS Romance Unveiled, where he offers a disturbing glimpse into the Left’s heart of darkness.

Don’t miss it!And make sure to watch Jamie’s stirring speech at the recentAmerican Freedom Alliance conference in Los Angeles — from which the above clip is taken. Jamie focused on United in Hate: The Left’s Romance With Jihad, reflecting on how: “I thought we escaped the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union came to us.”http://jamieglazov.com/2018/01/07/glazov-gang-the-antifa-isis-romance-unveiled/

Two weeks ago, a Bangladeshi man reportedly inspired by ISIS set off a pipe bomb strapped to his body sowing mass chaos in New York’s Port Authority, but fortunately causing few, if any injuries. It is believed the terrorist detonated his low-tech device prematurely.

Governor Cuomo said, “This is New York, the reality is that we are a target by many who would like to make a statement against democracy, against freedom.” Yes, but this was not a statement. This was an act of terror designed to instill panic.

Press Secretary Tyler Houlton said the terror suspect entered the U.S. in 2011 from Bangladesh on a chain migration visa and is a legal permanent resident. The suspect had a history of extensive overseas travel.

This most recent explosion is the second ISIS inspired attack in New York City in less than two months. On October 31 a terror attack killed eight people and injured eleven others after a man drove a rented truck into people walking and cycling on a bike path in lower Manhattan.

Sadly, many New Yorkers are growing accustomed to violence. As one person noted this is “the new normal.” However, the best way to combat terrorism is to be conscious of your surroundings and observe that which is different or unusual.

Cuomo noted that people should go back to work, “we are not going to allow them to disrupt us.” But disrupt they have. The entire west side of Manhattan was paralyzed. If panic is the goal, this terrorist met his mark. Chaos prevailed.

A tow truck driver with Marine Corps training from California’s San Joaquin Valley is accused of plotting to execute a Christmas attack at Pier 39, a popular tourist spot in San Francisco.

Everitt Aaron Jameson, 26, of Modesto, Calif., was arrested today and brought before a magistrate in Fresno on charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The FBI says he was inspired by the Halloween attack on a Manhattan bike path, and soon after offered his jihadi services.

According to the criminal complaint, Jameson “espoused radical jihadi beliefs, including authoring social media posts that are supportive of terrorism, communicating with people he believes share his jihadi views and offering to provide services to such people, including in the form of his presumably employer-provided tow truck in service of the ’cause.'”

The complaint says Jameson communicated with an undercover FBI employee about “his interest in planning and undertaking a violent attack in San Francisco in support of ISIS” and also talked about providing financial support to jihad.

The FBI was originally tipped off about Jameson because of his pro-ISIS “like” and “love” activity on Facebook. He loved with a heart, for example, a recent poster from ISIS supporters showing Santa overlooking Times Square with a box of dynamite at his side.
Everitt Jameson

The source who tipped off the FBI began private messaging with Jameson on Oct. 24, the FBI says. Three days later, Jameson allegedly messaged the FBI source that he was “here to beg to join the cause against darul kuffar [land of disbelievers]. I’m ready.” Asked two days later if he was a convert to Islam, Jameson replied he was and “that is what will make me more useful.”

“I can blend in. Or shock and awe,” Jameson reportedly added, telling the source that he took his shahada — profession of belief — two years ago at the Merced Islamic Center. “I am a tow truck driver. So I can make these services available as well,” he said.

On the day of the Manhattan attack, in which Sayfullo Saipov killed eight people with a rented pickup truck, the FBI says Jameson posted a GIF of a crowd giving a standing ovation next to the story. “I’m glad to know we Muslims are finally hitting back,” he allegedly told the FBI source. “Allahu Akbar! The Kuffar deserve everything and more for the lives they have taken.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Multiple law enforcement agencies are investigating a shooting spree in Pennsylvania’s state capital of Harrisburg earlier today.

According to the area district attorney, it appears there were three sites where 51-year-old Ahmed Amin El-Mofty intentionally engaged police. One Pennsylvania State Trooper was injured.
Felix Rodrigues Lima

✔ @FelixReports

To recap, according to DA Marsico: @fox43
#1: 4pm, 3rd/State, suspect shoots at Capitol Police car, officer unhurt
#2: 5th/Market, suspect shoots at PSP car, female officer minor injuries but not wounded
#3: 6pm, 17th/Mulberry, suspect & police exchange gunfire, suspect killed

The suspect was eventually shot and killed by police. Possible explosives were found on his body, which a bomb squad had to render inert.

El-Mofty has been identified as a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Turkey.

He had reportedly recently taken a trip to the Middle East.

Perhaps related, ISIS supporter Jalil Aziz was sentenced to 12 years in prison today in Harrisburg.

No motive has been identified for today’s shootings as yet, but authorities nationwide and across the globe are on high alert for terror attacks during the Christmas holiday.

He’s not actually the third. But this is the third major scandal of this sort this year. And that was only because Memri has been highlighting and translating some of these mosque videos. This is only a fraction of what’s out there.

In his Friday, December 8, 2017 sermon titled “Our Duties Towards Al-Quds [Jerusalem]” at the Tajweed Institute’s Houston, Texas branch, the institute’s imam and founder, Sheikh Raed Saleh Al-Rousan, speaking in a combination of Arabic and English, referenced the widely quoted Hadith stating that on Judgment Day, the Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them, saying:

“My brothers, the Prophet Muhammad brought the good tidings, when he said: ‘Judgment day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims will kill the Jews, and the Jews will hide behind the stones and the trees, [which] will say: Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him… This is the promise of Allah.” He added: “The hour [i.e. Judgment Day) will not start until Muslims fight the Jews there, in Palestine.”

According to its Facebook page and its website, the Tajweed Institute, which Sheikh Al-Rousan established in Florida in 2013, with its Houston branch opening in mid-2017, is “a non-profit, 501(c)(3), institute that strives to teach and spread the authentic knowledge of the Glorious Quran. Our goal is to spread the skills of Tajweed [correct recitation of the Koran]to all Muslims, young and old, so they can carry on this knowledge to future generations.​”

…and not misunderstand Islam.

In this week’s piece, I delved into two recent cases, in California and New Jersey. Now we have a third case in Texas.

It was another Friday night in the Islamic Center of Jersey City. And its imam, Sheikh Aymen Elkasaby, had some thoughts about the Jews.

“So long as the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains a humiliated prisoner under the oppression of the Jews, this nation will never prevail,” he screamed belligerently in the World Trade Center bomber’s old mosque.

“Count them one by one, and kill them down to the very last one. Do not leave a single one on the face of the Earth.”

On another Friday this year, in the Islamic Center of Davis, Imam Ammar Shahin implored, “Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews.”

“Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one.”

The Islamic Center of Davis’s initial response was, “If the sermon was misconstrued, we sincerely apologize to anyone offended. “

You can expect the same routine again. We apologize if you misunderstood our genocidal threats.

It was another Friday night in the Islamic Center of Jersey City. And its imam, Sheikh Aymen Elkasaby, had some thoughts about the Jews.

“So long as the Al-Aqsa Mosque remains a humiliated prisoner under the oppression of the Jews, this nation will never prevail,” he screamed belligerently in the World Trade Center bomber’s old mosque.

“Count them one by one, and kill them down to the very last one. Do not leave a single one on the face of the Earth.”

“Kill the Jews” is as much a standard at Friday night mosque services as Springsteen’s Born to Run is on Friday night in bars well downwind of the Islamic Center of Jersey City. But the politicians who stop by the mosques before elections have to pretend that they’re shocked at all the gambling going on.

The Islamic Center of Jersey City’s president had been a member of the New Jersey Homeland Security Interfaith Advisory Council. Senator Cory Booker had invited him as a guest to the State of the Union and praised him as an example “of how the diversity of America makes us all better.”

Was his imam calling the Jews “apes and pigs” really making us all better? And if the Islamic Center of Jersey City wasn’t making America better with its diversity, then just maybe neither was Senator Cory Booker, the Democrats and their entire Islamic immigration program.

The diversity bus had taken a wrong turn on the road to Utopia and ended up in Nazi Germany

Senator Booker demanded that the mosque disavow its imam and the mosque’s president gaslit the media by claiming that his imam had the wrong idea about Islam and had been misunderstood.

It’s a commonplace misunderstanding.

On another Friday this year, in the Islamic Center of Davis, Imam Ammar Shahin implored, “Oh Allah, liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews.”

“Oh Allah, count them one by one and annihilate them down to the very last one.”

Cybersecurity isn’t easy, but simple principles still apply. Accountability is one, cooperation another. They are the cornerstones of security and resilience in any society. In furtherance of both, and after careful investigation, the U.S. today publicly attributes the massive “WannaCry” cyberattack to North Korea.

The attack spread indiscriminately across the world in May. It encrypted and rendered useless hundreds of thousands of computers in hospitals, schools, businesses and homes. While victims received ransom demands, paying did not unlock their computers. It was cowardly, costly and careless. The attack was widespread and cost billions, and North Korea is directly responsible.

We do not make this allegation lightly. It is based on evidence. We are not alone with our findings, either. Other governments and private companies agree. The United Kingdom attributes the attack to North Korea, and Microsoft traced the attack to cyber affiliates of the North Korean government.

The consequences and repercussions of WannaCry were beyond economic. The malicious software hit computers in the U.K.’s health-care sector particularly hard, compromising systems that perform critical work. These disruptions put lives at risk.

The world is increasingly interconnected with new technologies, devices, networks and systems creating great convenience. Unfortunately, that provides bad actors opportunities to create mayhem with the hope of anonymity, relying on the complex world of ones and zeros to hide their hand. They have stolen intellectual property and done significant damage in every sector.

North Korea has acted especially badly, largely unchecked, for more than a decade, and its malicious behavior is growing more egregious. WannaCry was indiscriminately reckless.

Stopping malicious behavior like this starts with accountability. It also requires governments and businesses to cooperate to mitigate cyber risk and increase the cost to hackers. The U.S. must lead this effort, rallying allies and responsible tech companies throughout the free world to increase the security and resilience of the internet.

Change has started at the White House. President Trump has made his expectations clear. He has ordered the modernization of government information-technology to enhance the security of the systems we run on behalf of the American people. He continued sanctions on Russian hackers and directed the most transparent and effective government effort in the world to find and share vulnerabilities in important software. We share almost all the vulnerabilities we find with developers, allowing them to create patches. Even the American Civil Liberties Union praised him for that. He has asked that we improve our efforts to share intrusion evidence with hacking targets, from individual Americans to big businesses. And there is more to come. CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON — The ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee charged Wednesday that there’s been “a slow, unexplained erosion” at the State Department under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that threatens national and global security and the “values that it promotes and the vital role it plays around the world.”

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) noted that more than 30 key ambassadorships still lack a nominee, dozens of senior-level posts remain vacant, the Foreign Service is “being hollowed out” with a sharp drop in recruits, and the most experienced career officials not tied to any presidential appointment are leaving or being forced out.

“I honor the experienced career officials stepping in to fill vacancies and carry out the Department’s important work, but there are limits to what officials can accomplish in an acting role,” he said. “It is now December… we cannot afford to have a department that remains hamstrung because of rudderless stagnation at the top.”

Morale at the State Department is “devastatingly low,” he noted.

At a House Foreign Affairs hearing last week, Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan admitted that “morale hasn’t improved — it’s not something that I’m proud to say.”

“I think one of our greatest failings has been a lack of communication,” Sullivan said. “Communication particularly with our own career professionals, both at state and in the field. And a rededication to do a better job of that.”

Cardin said that Tillerson’s corporate-style redesign of the department “continues to tinker around the edges while the department’s core functions are deliberately hollowed out.”

“Why should we tolerate a massive exodus of diplomatic and development expertise at the State Department and USAID? Our president said recently that we do not need to worry about the fact that many of the senior level positions at the State Department remain unfilled because when it comes to foreign policy his opinion is the only one that matters. Why on earth would he say that?” the senator asked. “For the thousands of FSOs around the world working to advance the ideals of United States, this was a horrible and offensive message.”

He asked if the administration even understands that the State Department and USAID “are every bit as vital and critical an element of our national security as the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, our law enforcement, or the countless others in the federal government who work tirelessly every day to protect our security, extend our prosperity, and promote our values.”

“Diplomacy is an investment we make so we don’t have to go to war. Nickel-and-diming it is not in our national security interest.”

Stressing that U.S. foreign policy leadership is “paying the price and will continue to pay the price if things aren’t turned around quickly,” Cardin called for more transparency from Tillerson including regular briefings to the Foreign Relations Committee, a detailed timeline for Tillerson’s department reorganization, movement to fill senior vacancies and ambassadorships, and a vow that “the promotion of democracy and respect for human rights around the world must remain a central part of the State Department’s overall mission.”

Tillerson argued in May that putting human rights foremost in policy can create “obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests.”

Cardin said “improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the Department is critical to our national security given the countless challenges our nation faces,” and “reforms to information technology, human resources, and procurement systems are long overdue.”

“However, if the department continues down its current path my colleagues and I will be forced to turn to legislative options to address our many concerns,” he vowed. “My goal is to ensure that the employees of the State Department have all the resources and support they require to complete their tasks and ensure the United States remains a global diplomatic leader. And, I will do everything in my power to guarantee this goal is accomplished.” CONTINUE AT SITE