Download A Book Get Arrested, Call For Terror Attacks - No Problem

Published on Saturday, May 31, 2008.

Source: Jones Report - Paul Joseph Watson


University employee jailed for researching Al-Qaeda, while Gingrich and others left alone for encouraging dead Americans
A University employee downloads a document from the Internet about Al-Qaeda for a colleague in the politics department as part of the University's required reading list, meanwhile, a former Speaker of the House publicly laments the fact that more Americans have not been killed in terrorist attacks. Who gets arrested under terrorism legislation? The University employee of course!

Welcome to the up is down, down is up twilight zone of the post-9/11 world!

Newt Gingrich can publicly encourage the government to allow terrorists to attack America to prove "we're in danger" and people barely batter an eyelid yet woe betide someone read something about terrorists, otherwise they'll be shackled and locked up quicker than you can say "police state".

"This is ... one of the great tragedies of the Bush administration," Gingrich said during a Long Island bookstore appearance. "The more successful they've been at intercepting and stopping bad guys, the less proof there is that we're in danger. And therefore, the better they've done at making sure there isn't an attack, the easier it is to say, 'Well, there never was going to be an attack anyway.' And it's almost like they should every once in a while have allowed an attack to get through just to remind us."

Just to remind us of what, Gingrich? The Bush administration's blood-soaked eight years in office, the near 3,000 dead on 9/11, the imperial looting and obliteration of Iraq, to remind us that these things really were worthwhile for the greater good? To remind us that "we're in danger"? And you're saying we wouldn't be in danger under a government that willingly allows terrorists to kill us?

Imagine if anti-war demonstrators or 9/11 truthers were calling for violence and killing people to ram through their political agenda? Do you think Homeland Security would turn the other cheek? Do you think Fox News might have something to say about it?

Yet they don't even need to go near advocating violence in order to draw the attention of the authorities - the dastardly crime of downloading a book off the Internet is enough to be labeled a terrorist and have your life ransacked these days, unless you're a frothing-at-the-mouth Neo-Con of course, in that case you can openly call for terror no questions asked.

Nottingham University employees Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza's deadly conspiracy to obtain a document about terrorism that was on their University's reading list resulted in their arrest, their homes being torn apart, their laptops searched and their friends and family members interrogated.

That's right - reading about Al-Qaeda is now tantamount to being a member of Al-Qaeda according to British cops.

After the arrests, which were cited as a textbook example of "totalitarianism" by Nottingham MP Alan Simpson, police attempted to deport Yezza on immigration charges to sweep their disgraceful actions under the carpet. Yezza subsequently won an appeal and he is free to continue living in Britain in fear of a midnight knock on the door if he dares punch the words "Al-Qaeda Training Manual" into a Google search engine ever again.

Meanwhile, people like Gingrich and his Neo-Con peer Stu Bykovsky, along with a host of other Bush administration cronies, routinely and publicly express their fetish for encouraging terrorist attacks and more dead Americans without a care in the world.

What is wrong with this picture? If we are fighting terrorists then why do those that align themselves with the Bush administration's war on terror mentally masturbate about seeing more terrorist attacks?

Neo-Cons are free to engage in one of the primary definitions of terrorism, spewing terrorist rhetoric by hyping the threat of terror to achieve a political objective.

But you want to download a book that's part of the University reading list to help you put together a research paper? Forget about it - you're a terrorist!

P.S. - I made the mistake of typing "terrorism" into Dictionary.com for the purposes of writing this article. I guess I'll see you all in Gitmo!

Chertoff Says Fingerprints Aren’t ‘Personal Data’

These people have lost their damned minds. Next to DNA, I think fingerprints are the MOST PERSONAL DATA there is. They have taken a “terrorist” event and used it to take away all of our privacy and civil liberties. Hell, Mr. Chertoff, No. 1, go find some REAL terrorists and No. 2 FOR ONCE, DO YOU DAMNED JOB AND DEPORT ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THIS COUNTRY AND ENFORCE ARTICLE 4 SECTION 4 OF OUR CONSTITUTION. All it would take is one call from our traitorous occupant of the White House the job could be done. To Rabbi-Commissar Chertoff, our very lives aren’t our personal property any more.
Tom

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has badly stumbled in discussing the Bush administration’s push to create stricter identity systems. Chertoff was recently in Canada discussing, among other topics, the so-called “Server in the Sky” program to share fingerprint databases among the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia.

In a recent briefing with Canadian press (which has yet to be picked up in the U.S.), Chertoff made the startling statement that fingerprints are “not particularly private”:

QUESTION: Some are raising that the privacy aspects of this thing, you know, sharing of that kind of data, very personal data, among four countries is quite a scary thing.

SECRETARY CHERTOFF: Well, first of all, a fingerprint is hardly personal data because you leave it on glasses and silverware and articles all over the world, they’re like footprints. They’re not particularly private.

Many of us should rightfully be surprised that our fingerprints aren’t considered “personal data” by the head of DHS. Even more importantly, DHS itself disagrees. In its definition of “personally identifiable information” — the information that triggers a Privacy Impact Assessment when used by government — the Department specifically lists: “biometric identifiers (e.g., fingerprints).”

Chertoff’s comments have drawn sharp criticism from Jennifer Stoddart, the Canadian official in charge of privacy issues. “Fingerprints constitute extremely personal information for which there is clearly a high expectation of privacy,” Stoddart said.

There are compelling reasons to treat fingerprints as “extremely personal information.” The strongest reason is that fingerprints, if not used carefully, will become the biggest source of identity theft. Fingerprints shared in databases all over the world won’t stay secret for long, and identity thieves will take advantage.

A quick web search on “fake fingerprints” turns up cheap and easy methods for do-it-at-home fake fingerprints. As discussed by noted security expert Bruce Schneier, one technique is available for under $10. It was tried “against eleven commercially available fingerprint biometric systems, and was able to reliably fool all of them.” Secretary Chertof either doesn’t know about these clear results or chooses to ignore them. He said in Canada: “It’s very difficult to fake a fingerprint.”

Chertoff’s argument about leaving fingerprints lying around on “glasses and silverware” is also beside the point. Today, we leave our Social Security numbers lying around with every employer and numerous others. Yet the fact that SSNs (or fingerprints) are widely known exposes us to risk.

There have been numerous questions raised about how this Administration is treating our personal information. Secretary Chertoff’s comments show a new reason to worry — they don’t think it’s “personal” at all.

Going fishing? Pack your passport

By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY

Rick Ungar's charter fishing service promises a great time on Lake Erie. But there's a catch — and it's not freshwater fish. It's the Homeland Security Department's new anti-terrorism rules.
When the 2008 charter season begins next month, U.S. citizens paying to fish on Lake Erie will have to bring either a passport or two other IDs if they plan to cross the northern border's invisible watery line.

When they get back to shore in the USA, they'll have to drive to a local government reporting station and pose for pictures. They won't be posing with their fish, but for Customs officers via a videophone connection.

That's because half of Lake Erie — as it happens, the half with the deeper and cooler waters that often spawn the best fishing — is in Canada. The Homeland Security Department intends to enforce new border security rules — largely focused on those coming into the country by land and air — on fishermen re-entering the country.

Ungar and many of his fellow charter boat captains — Lake Erie alone has 600-plus — are incensed.

They say the rules are difficult to follow, will dramatically cut down on tourism and won't protect against terrorism.

"How does this secure our country?" asks Ungar, a retired Cuyahoga Heights, Ohio, police chief. "I'm not insensitive to law enforcement issues, but these are fishermen, for God's sake."

The rules apply to all the Great Lakes, but opposition is most potent on Erie because the geography of the lake means the best fish are often over the international line.

Some operators haven't decided whether they'll continue fishing in Canadian waters. If they do, the operators will be required to:

•Fax in passengers' personal information — name, date of birth and government ID number — to the local Customs and Border Protection office an hour before they leave shore. The names will be run against terrorist watch lists.

•Make sure passengers carry either a passport or a government ID and a proof-of-citizenship document.

•Send the passengers to a local border protection reporting station after landing, so they can call in on a videophone.

Officers will be watching and doing spot checks on patrol boats and government aircraft. "Our concerns are anything from terrorists and terrorist weapons to drugs and undocumented aliens," says Brett Sturgeon, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.

Jim Bonner, whose Sunshine Charters business has been taking tourists fishing on Lake Erie for 25 years, calls the rules "a waste of taxpayers' money."

"It's a shame" he says. "It's just wide-open water."