Obama administration seeking warrantless tracking of cell phones
Remember the cries of George Bush’s evil warrantless wiretapping program? The program where domestic calls may be tapped if you happened to call foreign terrorists? Well, now there is a real warrantless program – this time courtesy of the Obama administration – who want to tap the locations of mobile phones. Patiently awaiting the outcry from the watchdog media and civil rights groups.
From cnet news (emphasis mine):
Even though police are tapping into the locations of mobile phones thousands of times a year, the legal ground rules remain unclear, and federal privacy laws written a generation ago are ambiguous at best. On Friday, the first federal appeals court to consider the topic will hear oral arguments (PDF) in a case that could establish new standards for locating wireless devices.
In that case, the Obama administration has argued that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their–or at least their cell phones’–whereabouts. U.S. Department of Justice lawyers say that “a customer’s Fourth Amendment rights are not violated when the phone company reveals to the government its own records” that show where a mobile device placed and received calls.
Now I don’t care whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, but the aforementioned media and so-called civil rights groups certainly do. Our Fourth Amendment rights are just as infringed whether it’s Obama or Bush doing so.
While not doing anything illegal is usually a good defense against breaking the law, we now have a government who considers abortion opponents, war veterans, and Tea Party attendees as potential terrorists, and not openly-serving jihadists in our armed forces. Perhaps it would behoove us to see whether the Constitution protects us from the government tracking our locations through our cell phones before going with what the Holder Justice Department says.
In: Politics · Tagged with: Fourth Amendment, Justice Department, Obama administration, warrantless wiretaps
Government must drop partisan politics on national security
In an opinion piece for a major newspaper, a White House official lashed out at critics of the Obama administration’s ability to defend against terrorism. John Brennan, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, wrote in a USA Today op-ed on Tuesday, “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”
Does Brennan truly think criticizing government’s self-admitted “shortcomings” and “systemic failures” constitutes serving the goals of al Qaeda? And with the spate of al Qaeda attacks on our homeland, our concerns are anything but “unfounded fear-mongering.”
What Brennan sees as attempts to score “cheap political points” might be more accurately viewed as Americans expressing unease with poor handling of the War on Terror.
His sub-heading reads “Administration disrupts terrorists’ plots, takes fight to them abroad.” But the administration certainly didn’t disrupt the Fort Hood jihadist massacre. To be fair, the shooter served under both Obama and Bush – despite being a card-carrying member of Soldiers of Allah (literally). While the government can’t disrupt every attack, officials should at least correctly identify the reason the attack happened in the first place. In this respect, the government failed miserably.
The 86-page report on Ft. Hood released by the Pentagon following the attack avoided any mention of the jihadist ideology that appears to be the motivation behind the attack. But the report did mention “animal rights,” “disgruntled employees,” and “white supremacy” as factors in terrorist attacks.
I ask Mr. Brennan: Does the administration’s whitewashing of the jihadist attack on Fort Hood help or hurt al Qaeda?
In: National Security · Tagged with: al Qaeda, Fort Hood tragedy, George W. Bush administration, jihad, John Brennan, Obama administration, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Taliban public service announcement
Obama wants to engage the Taliban (not at gunpoint). But the problem is that the Taliban are ruthless barbarians – definitely not the crew you want to be seen negotiating with, let alone sending billions of taxpayer dollars to.
His solution: have your propagandists reinvent the Taliban as something far less savage. Reality simply doesn’t matter to the Obama administration – so they create a ‘virtual’ reality in order to carry out their policies. Jimmy Kimmel makes fun of the Taliban with this hilarious video:
In: Geopolitics · Tagged with: Obama administration, Taliban
Has the Obama admin removed Hamas from terrorist blacklist?
Update: The Treasury Dept. has in fact not removed Hamas members from their terrorist blacklist, but the counterterrorism measure is largely ineffective as you can read in this update.
Obama has been supportive of the Palestinian Islamic terrorist group from way back. Candidate Obama told the New York Times last year that Hamas (and Hezbollah) had “legitimate claims.” And in April, he pledged $900 million to Gaza, but assured us that somehow it would not make it to Hamas.
Why, because he said so?
Since Hamas runs Gaza, how on earth can we believe that most if not all of the money won’t go directly to Hamas? The Creeping Sharia blog has an excellent post documenting the administration’s efforts to ram the funding through, which really needs to be read in full.
Well, now his administration has figured out a way to get money to them: simply take the terrorists off the international terrorist list.
Brilliant! But why would they do that? Hamas clearly hasn’t reneged on their plans to eliminate Israel, and they have made no moves in that direction either.
Imagine the outcry if our tax dollars funded a radical Christian group that was elected in order to wipe out Muslims. That plan would last about three seconds, and so would the asinine administration that made it happen. So why is it no big deal for Obama to send nearly a billion of our hard-earned dollars to Islamic terrorists who desire nothing more than the annihilation of Jews in Israel (and they have no plans of stopping there).
Nazi Germany tried that as well, and we destroyed them, not funded them. Is Islamic supremacy somehow better than Aryan supremacy?
In: National Security · Tagged with: Barack Obama, Hamas, Obama administration, Treasury Department
Al Qaeda Attackers: Common Criminals or Enemy Combatants?
David A. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey published an excellent piece at National Review Online addressing the line between trying our enemies as enemy combatants subject to the rules of war; or criminals subject to our Constitution (emphasis added).
The right way to proceed, consistent with the law, morality, and history, is to treat captured enemy personnel as enemy combatants, subject to the laws of war. By contrast, criminals — including individuals who commit terrorist acts but, whatever their ideological predilections, are not members of entities such as al-Qaeda that have been engaged in an armed conflict with us (this would include Timothy McVeigh and Major Nidal Malik Hasan) — should be treated as criminal suspects subject to the workings of the criminal-justice system. Treating an al-Qaeda operative who enters the United States to carry out an attack as a common criminal not only denies the nature of this challenge we face, but it works to level the playing field to our disadvantage.
Retired Special Forces Colonel Gordon Cucullu told me in an interview that we actually give our terrorist enemies more rights than the Geneva Conventions afford them. According to Common Article 3, non-uniformed combatants are to be shot on sight, and for good reason when you consider the effect that they have on humanity. War is best fought by uniformed members of the military.
But all we have done since the Iranian Embassy takeover in 1979 is placate jihadists. Trying foreign operatives as criminals simply because they perpetrate their acts on or above our soil not only endangers American citizens, but further emboldens our enemies and grants them access to the very Constitution that they are trying to destroy.
The NRO article is in response to a New York Times op-ed defending Obama administration’s decision to treat Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the al-Qaeda operative who attempted to blow up an airliner over Detroit) as a criminal defendant. No surprises there.
[Originally posted at Blackfive]
In: National Security · Tagged with: al Qaeda, Constitution, Gordon Cucullu, jihad, New York Times, Nidal Malik Hasan, Obama administration
INTERPOL no longer limited by Constitution in U.S.
In December, President Obama quietly signed an Executive Order that has elevated the international police force INTERPOL above our Constitution, allowing them to operate on American soil with impunity.
Signed on the 16th and released on the 17th, the order designates INTERPOL as a public international organization effectively allowing it to “enjoy certain privileges, exemptions, and immunities” according to the United States International Organizations Immunities Act.
Language found in section 2(c) of that act is especially concerning:
“Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search […] and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable.”
Just what “property and assets” could INTERPOL be hiding? The group’s U.S. headquarters is conveniently located in Eric Holder’s Justice Department, so perhaps there will no longer be a need for Sandy Berger to raid the National Archives.
“Inviolable archives means INTERPOL records are beyond US citizens’ Freedom of Information Act requests and from American legal or investigative discovery,” writes Steve Schippert and Clyde Middleton at ThreatsWatch.org. But why would the Obama administration want to allow an international police force to operate on American soil without constitutional restraints?
Obama’s order actually amended an earlier executive order signed by Ronald Reagan in 1983. The original order recognized INTERPOL as an international organization therefore extending some immunities to the group, but also held the organization accountable to Fourth Amendment search and seizure protections and to the Freedom of Information Act that limit our own law enforcement agencies.
Essentially, INTERPOL is the enforcement branch of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as the FBI is to the Justice Department. While in office, George W. Bush withdrew the U.S. from being a signatory to the Rome Statute – the treaty establishing the ICC – and refused the international court’s jurisdiction over U.S. citizens and military members. However when questioned during the campaign, Obama did not oppose giving the ICC jurisdiction over American citizens.
Why is it that the Obama administration offers constitutional protections to foreign terrorists who kill Americans, yet at the same time immunizes international police organizations from our Constitution?
[Originally published at The US Report]
In: Politics · Tagged with: Barack Obama, Executive Order 12425, INTERPOL, Justice Department, Obama administration, sovereignty
Navy SEALs Face Charges for Capturing Most-Wanted Terrorist
The "alleged" terrorist's handiwork: two of the four American contractors who were mutilated and burned in Fallujah, 2004.
Can you believe the world we live in?
NavyTimes.com reports that three SEALs are facing charges of alleged mishandling of a high-value target. The SEALS captured Ahmed Hashim Abed – who allegedly was the mastermind of the 2004 ambush in Fallujah that resulted in the deaths and subsequent mutilation of four Blackwater employees – one a former SEAL himself, two former Rangers, and a former Army Night Stalker. The SEALs refused non-judicial punishment and opted for the court-martial.
One defense attorney said they had refused to accept nonjudicial punishment, administrative actions that some in the military may consider as a admission of guilt.
Neal Puckett, a defense attorney who is representing McCabe, said the SEALs are being essentially charged for allegedly giving the detainee “a punch in the gut.”
The “alleged” terrorist claims to have a fat lip. How much more FUBAR is our military going to become? For crying out loud: Even the French military is attacking the pirate terrorists off the coast of Somalia, while our Navy can only do so after finding a loophole in the Obama administration’s legal gauntlet.
In: Military, Politics · Tagged with: Army Rangers, Blackwater, Iraq, Navy SEALs, Night Stalkers, Obama administration, US Navy
Obama’s Ft. Hood remarks are Way Off Base
From Barack Obama’s remarks at Fort Hood:
It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy.
Really Mr. President? Perhaps you missed the whole Allahu Akbar/al Qaeda/Muslim first, American second/beheading non-Muslims and pouring boiling oil down their throats thing.
But this much we do know – no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts…
Maybe you should brush up on the Qur’an.
…no just and loving God looks upon them with favor.
But Allah is apparently quite pleased with the murder of infidels, and Muhammad – his prophet – was a terrorist himself.
And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice – in this world, and the next.
With the same Justice Department that allows the Black Panthers to intimidate white voters? Not likely.
In: National Security, Religion · Tagged with: Barack Obama, Fort Hood tragedy, Justice Department, New Black Panthers, Nidal Malik Hasan, Obama administration
GITMO Recidivism
In April, the Defense Intelligence Agency revealed that as many as 74 former Guantanamo Bay detainees returned to the battlefield. An unclassified fact sheet shows that 27 terrorists were confirmed to have rejoined the fight, while 47 were suspected of returning.
Not exactly the kind of folks we want staying in downtown Charleston, S.C.
Additionally, the New York Times reported that the report may have been held up for political reasons:
Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House, at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Mr. Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo.
In: National Security, Politics · Tagged with: Guantanamo Bay, Obama administration
Obama adviser defends Shariah Law
Hizb ut-Tahrir flyer depicting a beheaded Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline on fire.
Dalia Mogahed, the White House adviser on Muslim affairs, appeared on an British television show that was hosted by a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), an Islamic supremacist group who calls for the destruction of capitalism and the establishment of and Islamic caliphate ruled by Shariah law.
In July, HT – which has been labeled as a terrorist group by Russia and banned by numerous other countries (although not the U.S.) – held a conference in a suburb of Chicago entitled “The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam,” where the group condemned democracy and promoted a global Islamic caliphate.
“The portrayal of Sharia has been oversimplified in many cases,” said Mogahed during the interview.
The problem isn’t bigotry and small-mindedness, it’s that Shariah law is barbaric. Among numerous other unpleasantries, Shariah law commands that adulterers are to be stoned to death. Problem is according to Shariah Law, rape is also considered adultery. Does Mogahed tacitly approve of the stoning of little girls being stoned to death after having been gang-raped by Muslim men? It happens.
“The majority of women around the world associate gender justice, or justice for women, with sharia compliance,” said Mogahed.
Really? It is worth pointing out then that a woman’s testimony does not count in Shariah. And only eye-witness testimony is considered, not actual evidence.
This may be an “oversimplified” statement, but Shariah also calls for female genital mutilation. Homosexuals are also stoned to death. Plus in Taliban-controlled areas, women are not allowed to buy cucumbers in markets, and are brutally murdered for merely attending school.
How exactly is this “justice for women,” Miss Mogahed? And how on earth do we have White House officials interacting and agreeing with a group that seeks the destruction of our society?
Perhaps “gender justice” means something altogether different to Mogahed: During HT’s July conference, the group distributed pamphlets which condemned “Women’s groups engaged in gender equality campaigns.” She did not challenge any of HT’s platform during the interview, so that is entirely possible.
Barack Obama is all about Muslim outreach, but the Muslims he reaches out to are quite troublesome. Mazen Asbahi, his Muslim Outreach adviser, had to step down last year due to his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and their Palestinian chapter – the terrorist group Hamas. But Mogahed’s interaction with a group that openly admits that they would replace the Constitution with Shariah law merits a much closer inspection of her background.
In: Religion · Tagged with: Dalia Mogahed, Hamas, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Islamic Supremacism, Mazen Asbahi, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama administration, Shariah law
