In Tijuana on the Mexican-US border, Islam is beginning to establish a presence – not just imported by Muslim immigrants but also chosen by native Mexicans, despite occasional disapproval and suspicion from their families. Amy Leang reports
Naima (née Nancy) Carr, 29, seated in black hijab, and Jamila (née Daniela) Ortiz, 24, standing in red hijab, pray at the Masjid Al-Islam located in the Las Playas neighborhood of Tijuana. ‘A lot of my family has stopped talking to me because of my religion,’ said Carr who married an American convert but chose to follow Islam of her own volition after witnessing his dedication to ritual during Ramadan two years ago. –
Jamila Ortiz, a 24-year-old divorced mother of two and massage therapist in Tijuana, Mexico, belongs to a growing number of “reverts”, the name given to Mexicans who believe they were born into Islam but had their original faith changed by their families. For them, this is not a conversion but a return.
While the majority of Mexico is Catholic and generally tolerant of other religions, “reverts” face challenging circumstances at home: their families are often the last to accept their conversion. A turn towards Islam, they fear, is a turn away from them and what it means to be Mexican. Ortiz’s own sister told her she had been “brainwashed” when she first wore a headscarf last year. They stopped speaking for a month.
“Then they decided to be my family again,” says Ortiz. “We just can’t talk about religion.”
TJ, as it is commonly known, is a border town in Baja California that sprang up in the late 19th century and quickly became a popular tourist destination. In more recent times, it was regarded as a violent battleground for drug cartels. At its brutal peak, according to the Trans-Border Institute of the University of San Diego, one out of every eight drug-related killings in Mexico occurred in Baja California. Today the streets are much quieter. Instead of the rattle of gunfire, another sound reverberates; the call to prayer. Since 2010, six new mosques and Islamic centres have opened up in Tijuana and its neighbouring cities throughout the state of Baja California, Mexico.
“When we started here, there were just 30 to 40 Muslims. In three years, it became 200,” says Muhanna Jamaleddin, the Palestinian-American imam of the Masjid Al-Islam in Tijuana’s sleepy, idyllic Las Playas neighbourhood.
Masjid Al-Islam imam Muhanna Jamaleddin, 37, leads a sermon on love at their mosque located in the Las Playas neighborhood of Tijuana. ‘Wherever you go in the USA and Canada, people are defending themselves. ‘No we are not terrorists.’ They don’t even have time to do the da’wah. Don’t spend time defending yourself. Just do. Act as a Muslim. I see Muslims these days. They are not Muslims. There’s a lot of challenges in this country. We are growing. If we don’t start it right, we will not succeed,’ advised Jamaleddin, a Palestinian American entrepreneur in the gold and silver business who donates his time and money to the mosque. ‘Crossing back and forth was difficult. I do all of this for the sake of Allah because I love my religion. I want everyone to know more about my religion. The problem is that we really need an imam who speaks Spanish.’
His congregation is a mix of Muslim immigrants from around the Arab world and Mexican nationals. Mexico has always had a population of immigrants from Lebanon and elsewhere, and religious growth has largely been spearheaded by people like Ortiz. While there are male reverts, the majority are women who discovered Islam through their spouses, from other Mexican Muslims or via social networking sites.
That’s how Maryam Alvarez came to develop the Muslim community in Tijuana. An acquaintance had earlier introduced her to the faith and her curiosity led her to seek out other Muslims online.
“I found a sister and then I found another. I put ads up on Facebook and MySpace. They would all meet at my house,” says Alvarez, who was then living in nearby Rosarito. She was one of the first reverts in 2009. A group of 10 women – college students, a teacher, an accountant, an estate agent and a factory worker – followed. They would gather at her home to pray and study Arabic and the Quran, but soon outgrew the space, pooled their money together and created Masjid Al-Islam.
Maryam Alvaarez
“This has grown so fast,” says Alvarez, who has plans to create another centre that will incorporate a school and a place to help single mothers and the disabled.
At his home not far from the Masjid Al-Islam, Amir Carr carefully leads Abdullah, who converted nine months ago, in a lesson on the character endings of Arabic at his home. Abdullah traces a series of “wah”s over and over on lined paper as Amir’s wife Naima sorts through piles of clothing donations in the next room.
“The difficult thing about Islam in Mexico is illiteracy. Our goal is to get brothers and sisters to study. It’s important to study Arabic so that we capture the true inspiration of the Quran itself and not the interpretation,” says Carr, who moved to Mexico in 2009 to join his wife. He taught himself Arabic after converting to Islam in a Texas prison, where he was held for a short period for an attempted car robbery. Now his focus in life is to obtain a degree in Islamic studies through an online university. “Islam, the study of it, teaching it and practising it are the few things that have given me a sense of balance and satisfaction,” he says.
Amir Carr
In the most unexpected of places and with limited resources, Islam has begun to prosper due to the enthusiasm of a handful of believers. The community hopes it will soon be able to find an imam who speaks Spanish.
“We are looking for a teacher,” says Amir Carr. “We sent a letter to the Egyptian embassyin Mexico City but heard no response so far. We’re looking for volunteers. We need help with materials and things. We’re not going to stay in this mosque forever.”
I haven’t seen this news splashed across the front and home pages of America’s media as much as I would say, if the bad guys were Muslims, but I was happy to see it here. Seems America’s real terrorists are at it again out to wreck mayhem and sew dissension and chaos as far and wide as they can. In the case of the terrorists mentioned below, targeted Muslims and anyone who was against Israel (?) and I’ve got to wonder were they able to make contact with members of the Jewish community as the article below implies and what was the result of that contact?
2 accused of plot to kill Muslims with X-ray weapon
A Ku Klux Klansman working for General Electric and an accomplice are facing terrorism charges in Upstate New York for allegedly planning to build a mobile X-ray weapon to kill Muslims and other “enemies of Israel,” federal authorities announced Wednesday.
Eric J. Feight
Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, of Galway, N.Y., and Eric J. Feight, 54, of Hudson, N.Y., were charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, which carries a maximum prison term of 15 years, U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian said. They were due in federal court in Albany on Wednesday.
Crawford, an industrial mechanic with GE, claimed the “Hiroshima on a light switch” device could fit in a van, be triggered remotely and deliver lethal doses of ionizing radiation that would kill its targets as they slept, the complaint stated. Feight allegedly agreed to build the electronic controls.
Glendon Scott Crawford
Their target was the Muslim community, the complaint stated, and they had successfully tested the remote trigger from about a half-mile away.
Crawford, a married father of three, is a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the criminal complaint said. In disrupting the alleged plot, undercover agents posed as Klansmen in North Carolina who offered to finance and buy the device, which the FBI said was constructed but never operable or a public danger.
Feight works for a GE contractor in Columbia County, authorities said. He formerly was employed as a computer software expert and project engineer for Smith Control Systems, in Hudson, the Albany Times-Union reported in its detailed account.
Up to six unidentified people, including another GE employee, were assisting Crawford, and some may have known his intentions, according to an FBI affidavit.
GE said in a statement that the company has “no reason to believe the act took place on GE property nor is there any information indicating that our employees’ safety was ever compromised. Since this incident, Mr. Crawford has been suspended. We are cooperating fully with the authorities on their investigation.”
In April 2012, authorities were notified that Crawford had gone to an Albany-area synagogue and and(sic) contacted a local Jewish organizations(sic)”seeking out individuals who might offer assistance in helping him with a type of technology that could be used against people he perceived as enemies of Israel” and the United States. He called these perceived enemies and Muslims “medical waste” and “scumbags.”
Crawford told an informant he planned to buy or build a battery-powered, industrial-strength X-ray device and hoped to land a part-time job in a metal shop with X-ray tubes, according to the complaint.
A year later — April 15, the day of the Boston Marathon bombings — Crawford said in an e-mail exchange monitored by the FBI that he had found a power supply. He railed against President Obama, whom he derided as “your treasoness bedwetting maggot in chief,” for “bringing the muzzies here without background checks.”
Crawford was aware that authorities might monitor his cellphone, e-mail and text messages — which they did with search warrants — so he used pseudonyms and code words.
Hartunian, the U.S. attorney, said the case “demonstrates how we must remain vigilant to detect and stop potential terrorists, who so often harbor hatred toward people they deem undesirable.”
The nation that killed protesters at Jackson and Kent State Universities. The nation that executed Fred Hampton in his bed, without so much as a warrant. The nation that still, still, still holds Leonard Peltier in prison. The nation that supported Noriega, the Shah, Trujillo, and dozens of other fascist monsters who did nothing but fuck over their own people and their neighbors. The nation of Joseph McCarthy and his current-day descendants. The nation that allows stop-and-frisk.
Joseph Raymond McCarthy.
Before all that: The nation that enforced Jim Crow laws. Before that, the nation that built itself on slavery and the slave trade. And before all of that, the nation that nearly succeeded in the genocide of this continent’s indigenous peoples.
So why are you so surprised that our government is gathering yottabytes of data on our phone calls?
Some of us outgrew this level of shock and outrage in our 20s. Which in no way means we don’t want to work to repeal the Patriot Act, or fight the current NSA invasion of our private lives.
In the interest of full disclosure, though I’ve stated it elsewhere: I’m a red-diaper baby raised in a multicultural environment. My parents were doggedly tracked by Tailgunner Joe McCarthy and his pals. They were under constant threat, and their careers compromised as a result.
Our phone was tapped. Our mail was opened. We were followed by G-men in black suits with white socks. Our homes were broken into by the same guys.
When my brother was able to file for his FBI files under the FOIA, the delivery of the materials filled his sizable living room from wall to wall and floor to ceiling. We were all in there, sometimes accurately, sometimes with laughable inaccuracy.
During the Vietnam years, I was tear-gassed and beaten with batons by police multiple times.
I’ve worked closely with the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, SDS, and Occupy.
And some of you are angry that we’re not all as up in arms as you about the NSA collecting data?
Headquarters of the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland.
The shocked reactions to what happened to Occupiers, for example, leaves me astonished. I was, in truth, equally astonished that police brutality had regressed to 1968, but it wasn’t completely unexpected. Particularly in NYC, given who the city’s mayor is. And, of course, the level of weaponry used against citizens has become so much more powerful (and often illegal, even in the hands of the police). But still — shock? Really?
Welcome to the world many of us have lived in for decades.
These things have never stopped activists from focusing on the problems. On assessing them fully. On finding the most appropriate ways to fight back against the problems.
Those of you angry at some of us because we don’t seem as angry as you have demonstrated what I can only call a naive sense of privilege in your unfettered name-calling, slandering of our good names, and total failure to even ascertain what our views on the subject of NSA data collection are. Instead you gleefully reply to us with insults and write about us as idiots, ‘bots, blind supporters of the President, and “cheerleaders.”
The essence of community building — and, in fact, the building of any kind of successful movement — is forming alliances and coalitions.
So the question is, where do we go from here?
Do we remain two discrete groups essentially in agreement about the issue but opposed to — and distrusting of — one another’s methods?
Or do we cast that all aside and work together to approach this problem? Lord knows, there’s a shitload of work to be done on it.
How do we move on from the vast chasm that keeps us from interacting in a productive way?
The truth of the matter is I’m every bit as incensed and disgusted as most of the people on this site. But no one asks; no one offers a dialogue. Mostly they just hurl invective because I’m not tearing out my hair or rending my garments.
If the best we can hope for is throwing shit at each other, we’ll implode just as fast as the GOP has.
The key difference seems to be that some of us don’t hate Obama enough. Those of us who don’t hate Obama don’t hate him because he never presented himself as liberal — always self-identified as moderate. I didn’t expect miracles. But what I got were some of the most profound changes in social issue and social justice legislation this country has ever seen. I got troops pulled out of Iraq and, in progress, out of Afghanistan. I saw a president who’d inherited more of a shitstorm than any in history make choices based on what was practical and what would be impossible with a completely recalcitrant GOP controlling the House — not to mention a bunch of half-assed Democrats in the Senate.
Divisiveness is what the Right wants. And divisiveness is what we’re giving them.
There’s practically no one in my life I can’t make peace with, given the opportunity. There’s not a soul among my friends who is anything less than kind in their intentions or uses meanness as a debating technique. Life’s too short and too easily poisoned for that. And that’s a choice I made in the second grade, long before I had a really strong read on the world.
So can we, in the interest of productive political unity, work something out?
…and there’s no way it will be put back in the bottle. The genie I’m referring to here is government surveillance on American citizens. Ever since government has felt threatened by its citizens there has been surveillance of the same; it’s a natural reaction. You can choose for yourself when you think that “fear” manifested itself in illegal spying on Americans. I tend to think it started
around the time J.Edgar Hoover surreptitiously gathered information on people who participated in the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, but the federal government has made it its raison d’etre to know any and everything about any and everyone it felt imperiled government’s existence, no matter how big or small, real or imagined the threat.
The events of 911 changed all of that however, so that now government no longer cares if you know of its spying on you and the extent to which it does so; it claims for itself complete and unfettered access to all information generated over any medium, whether you like it or not. Obama is only the most recent figure to sign on to this idea that the federal government has this right and joins a long line of presidents who’ve embraced the concept of total government access to information. The Snowden revelations are equally not new. People have clamored for quite some time that this kind of spying was going on on the part of government. Below is the story, as told by USA Today of three who made similar claims a decade or more ago. It’s alleged that the spying going on is on such a scale that even the President doesn’t know its full extent and that despite the possibility spying can be done with proper constitutional safeguards people in charge of this are not at all concerned with people’s right to privacy or other rights and privileges we expect as citizens; rather the aim of such spy programs is solely determined by those in charge and in power without any proper oversight by any branch of government. It’s a sobering article you must read in its entirety.
3 NSA veterans speak out on whistle-blower: We told you so
NSA whistle-blowers, from left, Thomas Drake, J. Kirk Wiebe and William Binney. (Photo: H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY)
When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government’s collection of Americans’ phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a sigh of relief.
Thomas Drake, William Binney and J. Kirk Wiebe belong to a select fraternity: the NSA officials who paved the way.
For years, the three whistle-blowers had told anyone who would listen that the NSA collects huge swaths of communications data from U.S. citizens. They had spent decades in the top ranks of the agency, designing and managing the very data-collection systems they say have been turned against Americans. When they became convinced that fundamental constitutional rights were being violated, they complained first to their superiors, then to federal investigators, congressional oversight committees and, finally, to the news media.
To the intelligence community, the trio are villains who compromised what the government classifies as some of its most secret, crucial and successful initiatives. They have been investigated as criminals and forced to give up careers, reputations and friendships built over a lifetime.
Today, they feel vindicated.
They say the documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former NSA contractor who worked as a systems administrator, proves their claims of sweeping government surveillance of millions of Americans not suspected of any wrongdoing. They say those revelations only hint at the programs’ reach.
On Friday, USA TODAY brought Drake, Binney and Wiebe together for the first time since the story broke to discuss the NSA revelations. With their lawyer, Jesselyn Radack of the Government Accountability Project, they weighed their implications and their repercussions. They disputed the administration’s claim of the impact of the disclosures on national security — and President Obama’s argument that Congress and the courts are providing effective oversight.
And they have warnings for Snowden on what he should expect next.
Q: Did Edward Snowden do the right thing in going public?
William Binney: We tried to stay for the better part of seven years inside the government trying to get the government to recognize the unconstitutional, illegal activity that they were doing and openly admit that and devise certain ways that would be constitutionally and legally acceptable to achieve the ends they were really after. And that just failed totally because no one in Congress or — we couldn’t get anybody in the courts, and certainly the Department of Justice and inspector general’s office didn’t pay any attention to it. And all of the efforts we made just produced no change whatsoever. All it did was continue to get worse and expand.
Q: So Snowden did the right thing?
Binney: Yes, I think he did.
Q: You three wouldn’t criticize him for going public from the start?
J. Kirk Wiebe: Correct.
Binney: In fact, I think he saw and read about what our experience was, and that was part of his decision-making.
Wiebe: We failed, yes.
Jesselyn Radack: Not only did they go through multiple and all the proper internal channels and they failed, but more than that, it was turned against them. … The inspector general was the one who gave their names to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act. And they were all targets of a federal criminal investigation, and Tom ended up being prosecuted — and it was for blowing the whistle.
Q: There’s a question being debated whether Snowden is a hero or a traitor.
Binney: Certainly he performed a really great public service to begin with by exposing these programs and making the government in a sense publicly accountable for what they’re doing. At least now they are going to have some kind of open discussion like that.
But now he is starting to talk about things like the government hacking into China and all this kind of thing. He is going a little bit too far. I don’t think he had access to that program. But somebody talked to him about it, and so he said, from what I have read, anyway, he said that somebody, a reliable source, told him that the U.S. government is hacking into all these countries. But that’s not a public service, and now he is going a little beyond public service.
So he is transitioning from whistle-blower to a traitor.
Thomas Drake: He’s an American who has been exposed to some incredible information regarding the deepest secrets of the United States government. And we are seeing the initial outlines and contours of a very systemic, very broad, a Leviathan surveillance state and much of it is in violation of the fundamental basis for our own country — in fact, the very reason we even had our own American Revolution. And the Fourth Amendment for all intents and purposes was revoked after 9/11. …
He is by all definitions a classic whistle-blower and by all definitions he exposed information in the public interest. We’re now finally having the debate that we’ve never had since 9/11.
Radack: “Hero or traitor?” was the original question. I don’t like these labels, and they are putting people into categories of two extremes, villain or saint. … By law, he fits the legal definition of a whistle-blower. He is someone who exposed broad waste, abuse and in his case illegality. … And he also said he was making the disclosures for the public good and because he wanted to have a debate.
Q: James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, said Snowden’s disclosures caused “huge, grave damage” to the United States. Do you agree?
Wiebe: No, I do not. I do not. You know, I’ve asked people: Do you generally believe there’s government authorities collecting information about you on the Net or your phone? “Oh, of course.” No one is surprised.
There’s very little specificity in the slides that he made available (describing the PRISM surveillance program). There is far more specificity in the FISA court order that is bothersome.
Q: Did foreign governments, terrorist organizations, get information they didn’t have already?
The National Security Agency’s data center in Bluffdale, Utah. Former NSA employees interviewed by USA TODAY offered insight on the recent leak of documents by Edward Snowden.(Photo: Rick Bowmer, AP)
Binney: Ever since … 1997-1998 … those terrorists have known that we’ve been monitoring all of these communications all along. So they have already adjusted to the fact that we are doing that. So the fact that it is published in the U.S. news that we’re doing that, has no effect on them whatsoever. They have already adjusted to that.
Radack: This comes up every time there’s a leak. … In Tom’s case, Tom was accused of literally the blood of soldiers would be on his hands because he created damage. I think the exact words were, “When the NSA goes dark, soldiers die.” And that had nothing to do with Tom’s disclosure at all, but it was part of the fear mongering that generally goes with why we should keep these things secret.
Q: What did you learn from the document — the Verizon warrant issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — that Snowden leaked?
Drake: It’s an extraordinary order. I mean, it’s the first time we’ve publicly seen an actual, secret, surveillance-court order. I don’t really want to call it “foreign intelligence” (court) anymore, because I think it’s just become a surveillance court, OK? And we are all foreigners now. By virtue of that order, every single phone record that Verizon has is turned over each and every day to NSA.
There is no probable cause. There is no indication of any kind of counterterrorism investigation or operation. It’s simply: “Give us the data.” …
There’s really two other factors here in the order that you could get at. One is that the FBI requesting the data. And two, the order directs Verizon to pass all that data to NSA, not the FBI.
Binney: What it is really saying is the NSA becomes a processing service for the FBI to use to interrogate information directly. … The implications are that everybody’s privacy is violated, and it can retroactively analyze the activity of anybody in the country back almost 12 years.
Now, the other point that is important about that is the serial number of the order: 13-dash-80. That means it’s the 80th order of the court in 2013. … Those orders are issued every quarter, and this is the second quarter, so you have to divide 80 by two and you get 40.
If you make the assumption that all those orders have to deal with companies and the turnover of material by those companies to the government, then there are at least 40 companies involved in that transfer of information. However, if Verizon, which is Order No. 80, and the first quarter got order No. 1 — then there can be as many as 79 companies involved.
So somewhere between 40 and 79 is the number of companies, Internet and telecom companies, that are participating in this data transfer in the NSA.
Radack: I consider this to be an unlawful order. While I am glad that we finally have something tangible to look at, this order came from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. They have no jurisdiction to authorize domestic-to-domestic surveillance.
Binney: Not surprised, but it’s documentation that can’t be refuted.
Wiebe: It’s formal proof of our suspicions.
Q: Even given the senior positions that you all were in, you had never actually seen one of these?
Drake: They’re incredibly secret. It’s a very close hold. … It’s a secret court with a secret appeals court. They are just not widely distributed, even in the government.
Q: What was your first reaction when you saw it?
Binney: Mine was that it’s documentary evidence of what we have been saying all along, so they couldn’t deny it.
Drake: For me, it was material evidence of an institutional crime that we now claim is criminal.
Binney: Which is still criminal.
Wiebe: It’s criminal.
Q: Thomas Drake, you worked as a contractor for the NSA for about a decade before you went on staff there. Were you surprised that a 29-year-old contractor based in Hawaii was able to get access to the sort of information that he released?
Drake: It has nothing to do with being 29. It’s just that we are in the Internet age and this is the digital age. So, so much of what we do both in private and in public goes across the Internet. Whether it’s the public Internet or whether it’s the dark side of the Internet today, it’s all affected the same in terms of technology. …
One of the critical roles in the systems is the system administrator. Someone has to maintain it. Someone has to keep it running. Someone has to maintain the contracts.
Binney: Part of his job as the system administrator, he was to maintain the system. Keep the databases running. Keep the communications working. Keep the programs that were interrogating them operating. So that meant he was like a super-user. He could go on the network or go into any file or any system and change it or add to it or whatever, just to make sure — because he would be responsible to get it back up and running if, in fact, it failed.
So that meant he had access to go in and put anything. That’s why he said, I think, “I can even target the president or a judge.” If he knew their phone numbers or attributes, he could insert them into the target list which would be distributed worldwide. And then it would be collected, yeah, that’s right. As a super-user, he could do that.
Q: As he said, he could tap the president’s phone?
Binney: As a super-user and manager of data in the data system, yes, they could go in and change anything.
Q: At a Senate hearing in March, Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden asked the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, if there was mass data collection of Americans. He said “no.” Was that a lie?
Drake: This is incredible dissembling. We’re talking about the oversight committee, unable to get a straight answer because if the straight answer was given it would reveal the perfidy that’s actually going on inside the secret side of the government.
Q: What should Clapper have said?
Binney: He should have said, “I can’t comment in an open forum.”
Wiebe:Yeah, that’s right.
Q: Does Congress provide effective oversight for these programs?
Radack: Congress has been a rubber stamp, basically, and the judicial branch has been basically shut down from hearing these lawsuits because every time they do they are told that the people who are challenging these programs either have no standing or (are covered by) the state secrets privilege, and the government says that they can’t go forward. So the idea that we have robust checks and balances on this is a myth.
Binney: But the way it’s set up now, it’s a joke. I mean, it can’t work the way it is because they have no real way of seeing into what these agencies are doing. They are totally dependent on the agencies briefing them on programs, telling them what they are doing. And as long as the agencies tell them, they will know. If they don’t tell them, they don’t know. And that’s what’s been going on here.
And the only way they really could correct that is to create billets on these committees and integrate people in these agencies so they can go around every day and watch what is happening and then feed back the truth as to what’s going on, instead of the story that they get from the NSA or other agencies. …
Even take the FISA court, for example. The judges signed that order. I mean, I am sure they (the FBI) swore on an affidavit to the judge, “These are the reasons why,” but the judge has no foundation to challenge anything that they present to him. What information does the judge have to make a decision against them? I mean, he has absolutely nothing. So that’s really not an oversight.
Radack: The proof is in the pudding. Last year alone, in 2012, they approved 1,856 applications and they denied none. And that is typical from everything that has happened in previous years. … I know the government has been asserting that all of this is kosher and legitimate because the FISA court signed off on it. The FISA court is a secret court — operates in secret. There is only one side and has rarely disapproved anything.
Q: Do you think President Obama fully knows and understands what the NSA is doing?
Binney: No. I mean, it’s obvious. I mean, the Congress doesn’t either. I mean, they are all being told what I call techno-babble … and they (lawmakers) don’t really don’t understand what the NSA does and how it operates. Even when they get briefings, they still don’t understand.
Radack: Even for people in the know, I feel like Congress is being misled.
Binney: Bamboozled.
Radack: I call it perjury.
Q: What should Edward Snowden expect now?
Binney: Well, first of all, I think he should expect to be treated just like Bradley Manning (an Army private now being court-martialed for leaking documents to WikiLeaks). The U.S. government gets ahold of him, that’s exactly the way he will be treated.
Q: He’ll be prosecuted?
Binney: First tortured, then maybe even rendered and tortured and then incarcerated and then tried and incarcerated or even executed.
Wiebe: Now there is another possibility, that a few of the good people on Capitol Hill — the ones who say the threat is much greater than what we thought it was — will step forward and say give this man an honest day’s hearing. You know what I mean. Let’s get him up here. Ask him to verify, because if he is right — and all pointers are that he was — all he did was point to law-breaking. What is the crime of that?
Drake: But see, I am Exhibit No. 1. …You know, I was charged with 10 felony counts. I was facing 35 years in prison. This is how far the state will go to punish you out of retaliation and reprisal and retribution. … My life has been changed. It’s been turned inside, upside down. I lived on the blunt end of the surveillance bubble. … When you are faced essentially with the rest of your life in prison, you really begin to understand and appreciate more so than I ever have — in terms of four times I took the oath to support the Constitution — what those rights and freedoms really mean. …
Believe me, they are going to put everything they have got to get him. I think there really is a risk. There is a risk he will eventually be pulled off the street.
Q: What do you mean?
Drake: Well, fear of rendition. There is going to be a team sent in.
Radack: We have already unleashed the full force of the entire executive branch against him and are now doing a worldwide manhunt to bring him in — something more akin to what we would do for Osama bin Laden. And I know for a fact, if we do get him, he would definitely face Espionage Act charges, as other people have who have exposed information of government wrongdoing. And I heard a number of people in Congress (say) he would also be charged with treason.
These are obviously the most serious offenses that can be leveled against an American. And the people who so far have faced them and have never intended to harm the U.S. or benefit the foreign nations have always wanted to go public. And they face severe consequences as a defector. That’s why I understand why he is seeking asylum. I think he has a valid fear.
Wiebe: We are going to find out what kind of country we are, what have we become, what do we want to be.
Q: What would you say to him?
Binney: I would tell him to steer away from anything that isn’t a public service — like talking about the ability of the U.S. government to hack into other countries or other people is not a public service. So that’s kind of compromising capabilities and sources and methods, basically. That’s getting away from the public service that he did initially. And those would be the acts that people would charge him with as clearly treason.
Drake: Well, I feel extraordinary kinship with him, given what I experienced at the hands of the government. And I would just tell him to ensure that he’s got a support network that I hope is there for him and that he’s got the lawyers necessary across the world who will defend him to the maximum extent possible and that he has a support-structure network in place. I will tell you, when you exit the surveillance-state system, it’s a pretty lonely place — because it had its own form of security and your job and family and your social network. And all of a sudden, you are on the outside now in a significant way, and you have that laser beam of the surveillance state turning itself inside out to find and learn everything they can about you.
Wiebe: I think your savior in all of this is being able to honestly relate to the principles embedded in the Constitution that are guiding your behavior. That’s where really — rubber meets the road, at that point.
Radack: I would thank him for taking such a huge personal risk and giving up so much of his life and possibly facing the loss of his life or spending it in jail. Thank him for doing that to try to help our country save it from itself in terms of exposing dark, illegal, unethical, unconstitutional conduct that is being done against millions and millions of people.
Drake: I actually salute him. I will say it right here. I actually salute him, given my experience over many, many years both inside and outside the system. Remember, I saw what he saw. I want to re-emphasize that. What he did was a magnificent act of civil disobedience. He’s exposing the inner workings of the surveillance state. And it’s in the public interest. It truly is.
Wiebe: Well, I don’t want anyone to think that he had an alternative. No one should (think that). There is no path for intelligence-community whistle-blowers who know wrong is being done. There is none. It’s a toss of the coin, and the odds are you are going to be hammered.
Q: Is there a way to collect this data that is consistent with the Fourth Amendment, the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure?
Binney: Two basic principles you have to use. … One is what I call the two-degree principle. If you have a terrorist talking to somebody in the United States — that’s the first degree away from the terrorist. And that could apply to any country in the world. And then the second degree would be who that person in the United States talked to. So that becomes your zone of suspicion.
And the other one (principle) is you watch all the jihadi sites on the Web and who’s visiting those jihadi sites, who has an interest in the philosophy being expressed there. And then you add those to your zone of suspicion.
Everybody else is innocent — I mean, you know, of terrorism, anyway.
Wiebe: Until they’re somehow connected to this activity.
Binney: You pull in all the contents involving (that) zone of suspicion and you throw all the rest of it away. You can keep the attributes of all the communicants in the other parts of the world, the rest of the 7 billion people, right? And you can then encrypt it so that nobody can interrogate that base randomly.
That’s the way of preventing this kind of random access by a contractor or by the FBI or any other DHS (Department of Homeland Security) or any other department of government. They couldn’t go in and find anybody. You couldn’t target your next-door neighbor. If you went in with his attributes, they’re encrypted. … So unless they are in the zone of suspicion, you won’t see any content on anybody and you won’t see any attributes in the clear. …
It’s all within our capabilities.
Drake: It’s been within our capabilities for well over 12 years.
Wiebe: Bill and I worked on a government contract for a contractor not too far from here. And when we showed him the concept of how this privacy mechanism that Bill just described to you — the two degrees, the encryption and hiding of identities of innocent people — he said, “Nobody cares about that.” I said, “What do you mean?”
This man was in a position to know a lot of government people in the contracting and buying of capabilities. He said. “Nobody cares about that.”
Lawyer Jesselyn Radack, left, with whistle-blowers J. Kirk Wiebe, standing; William Binney, center; and Thomas Drake.(Photo: H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY)
Drake: This (kind of surveillance) is all unnecessary. It is important to note that the very best of American ingenuity and inventiveness, creativity, had solved the major challenge problem the NSA faced: How do you make sense of vast amounts of data, provide the information you need to protect the nation, while also protecting the fundamental rights that are enshrined in the Constitution?
The government in secret decided — willfully and deliberately — that that was no longer necessary after 9/11. So they said, you know what, hey, for the sake of security we are going to draw that line way, way over. And if it means eroding the liberties and freedoms of Americans and others, hey, so be it because that’s what’s most important. But this was done without the knowledge of the American people.
Q: Would it make a difference if contractors weren’t used?
Wiebe: I don’t think so. They are human beings. You know, look at what’s going on with the IRS and the Tea Party. You know, there (are) human beings involved. We are all human beings — contractors, NSA government employees. We are all human beings. We undergo clearance checks, background investigations that are extensive and we are all colors, ages and religions. I mean this is part of the American fabric.
Binney: But when it comes to these data, the massive data information collecting on U.S. citizens and everything in the world they can, I guess the real problem comes with trust. That’s really the issue. The government is asking for us to trust them.
It’s not just the trust that you have to have in the government. It’s the trust you have to have in the government employees, (that) they won’t go in the database — they can see if their wife is cheating with the neighbor or something like that. You have to have all the trust of all the contractors who are parts of a contracting company who are looking at maybe other competitive bids or other competitors outside their — in their same area of business. And they might want to use that data for industrial intelligence gathering and use that against other companies in other countries even. So they can even go into a base and do some industrial espionage. So there is a lot of trust all around and the government, most importantly, the government has no way to check anything that those people are doing.
Q: So Snowden’s ability to access information wasn’t an exception?
Binney: And they didn’t know he was doing (it). … That’s the point, right? …They should be doing that automatically with code, so the instant when anyone goes into that base with a query that they are not supposed to be doing, they should be flagged immediately and denied access. And that could be done with code.
But the government is not doing that. So that’s the greatest threat in this whole affair.
Wiebe: And the polygraph that is typically given to all people, government employees and contractors, never asks about integrity. Did you give an honest day’s work for your pay? Do you feel like you are doing important and proper work? Those things never come up. It’s always, “Do you have any association with a terrorist?” Well, everybody can pass those kinds of questions. But, unfortunately, we have a society that is quite willing to cheat.
It’s a common place phenomenon for Africa-American males in America; they automatically come under suspicion by members of the law enforcement community, but sometimes that unwanted and unwarranted attention comes at rather extreme measures
Jessie Thornton sleeps during the day and runs errands and works out during the night.
“My wife, she’s an ER nurse and works three 12-hour shifts, so I adjusted my schedule to be like her schedule,” said Thornton.
The 64-year-old retired firefighter moved to a Surprise retirement community from Ohio.
Jessie says his late hours have put him in the police spotlight.
“I’ve been stopped 10 times in Surprise and given four tickets, it’s amazing,” said Thornton.
His latest incident with Surprise police officers prompted Thornton to hire a lawyer with plans to sue the department.
Around 11 p.m. Thornton, according to Surprise Police Department paperwork, was pulled over for crossing the white line in his lane.
“He (the officer) walked up and he said ‘I can tell you’re driving DUI by looking in your eyes,'” said Thornton.
The 64-year-old says his eyes could have been red because he had just left LA Fitness where he was in the pool swimming.
“I take my glasses off and he says, ‘You’ve got bloodshot eyes.’ I said, ‘I’ve been swimming at LA Fitness,’ and he says, ‘I think you’re DUI,'” said Thornton. “He (the officer) goes, ‘Well we’re going to do a sobriety test.’ I said, ‘OK, but I got bad knees and a bad hip with surgery in two days.'”
Medical documents show Thornton was scheduled to have hip replacement surgery two days after the incident.
According to the police report, the officer notes that Thornton does have a hip and knee problem.
Thornton said two other officers arrived and he conducted the sobriety test.
“At one point, one of the officers shined the light in my eye and said, ‘Oh, sorry,’ and asked the other officer if he was doing it right,'” said Thornton.
Thornton said he was then placed in handcuffs and told to sit on the curb.
“I couldn’t even sit on the ground like that and they knew it and I was like laying on the ground, then they put me in the back of an SUV and when I asked the officer to move her seat up ’cause my hip hurt she told me to stop whining,” said Thornton.
According to documents provided to ABC15 from the City of Surprise, Thornton was taken to police headquarters where he took a breathalyzer test.
The test, according to the police documents came back with a blood alcohol level of 0.000.
“Yes, I do the breathalyzer and it comes back zero, zero, zero,” said Thornton.
While in custody, a “DRE” or drug recognition expert is called to test Thornton.
“After he did all the tests, he says, ‘I would never have arrested you, you show no signs of impairment,'” said Thornton.
The Surprise resident is right. The police documents show the drug recognition officer wrote, “I conducted an evaluation of Jessie, in my opinion Jessie was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
According the documents from the Surprise Police Department, the blood analysis showed no drugs were detected in Thornton’s blood.
Jessie’s car had been impounded and the MVD notified of the DUI charge.
“I then get this message that my license is being suspended and I have to take some sort of drinking class or something,” said Thornton.
According to the police documents, Thornton was later released to his wife.
“She was at work and had to come get me, it was a mess, I couldn’t believe it,” said Thornton. “On top of that my car was impounded on a Friday night and they said I couldn’t get it until Monday..”
Thornton now claims this wasn’t DUI.
“It was driving while black,” said Thornton.
“This is a case of D-W-B, driving while black,” said Thornton’s attorney Marc Victor.
Victor’s office has filed a notice of claim against the City of Surprise seeking $500,000.
“It’s not totally about the money, although I’m already out more than $5,000, that’s $5,000 that I don’t have,” said Thornton.
“This is not the way American citizens ought to be treated by officers or treated by anybody for that matter,” said Victor.
To be clear, ABC15 provided the Surprise Police Department an opportunity to talk about Thornton’s incident, however, due to standard policy, the Department was unable to comment due to pending legal action.
The DUI charge was recently dropped, but Victor’s office claims it’s not enough.
“Here he (Jessie) is being harassed for no other reason than the color of his skin,” said Attorney Charity Clark. “It’s frustrating that somebody had to go through this type of experience, they poke and prod him and arrest him for nothing.”
Thornton said his daughter, who is in law enforcement, has filed an official complaint with the City of Surprise.
“Listen, I was a firefighter and firefighters work hand in hand with police officers, I have nothing against police officers, this just wasn’t right.”
As for Jessie’s hip, medical documents show he did have hip replacement surgery days after the arrest.
“I just don’t want any of this to happen to somebody else,” said Thornton.
I saw this headline, Tremaine McMillian, 14 year old with puppy, choked by Miami-Dade Police over ‘Dehumanizing Stares’ and thought almost immediately of Emmit Till another 14 year old African-American boy who was set upon and murdered by a gang because of a loud wolf whistle and wondered what is it about gestures and body language of 14 year old black boys that makes people in power go bonkers?
I don’t remember much about being 14 years old, it happened so very long ago, but I didn’t weigh 150 pounds soaking wet so it wouldn’t have taken much or too many to subdue me, but in the most recent case a half naked McMillian was set upon by two officers because of how he looked at them. It was clear he didn’t have a weapon…he barely had on any clothes; he was carrying an animal and he probably weighed less than I did when I was his age but there’s something about skin color and uniforms that makes people act in strange ways, and policemen and especially white policemen seemed threatened by black boys.
What happened to McMillian is the same as what happened to Emmit Till almost 60 years ago with the exception Till’s encounter with white authority resulted in the loss of his life. He too was accused of indecent body language that his accusers felt deserved their attention and correction. Although Till’s killers were widely known they were never brought to justice which is almost akin to McMillian being charged with a felony because of his stare and demeanor…the demeanor of being a black 14 year old boy in the south which will result if not in a jail sentence, more attention from authorities because of the stigma such charges will bring.
What is it about this toxic mix of black male youths who are primarily defenseless and white authority that usually ends up so tragically for the former? I know young people can be especially petulant and unyielding but is that reason enough to exert force that causes physical harm or even death which seems to be the outcome whenever these two ingredients of race and power come together. There are other parallels to be drawn from this combination of race and power….many of which are being played out in Washington, DC. I wonder whether these young boys are being made examples of so that others don’t grow up and become ambitious enough to think they can sit in the halls of power and tell others what to do; what is going on with Obama is motivated by the same forces which are signaling to young aspirant black youth that Obama’s example is what will happen to them should they get too uppity and seek to grab the rings of power that have previously been reserved for only some. The revolving door of race and politics continues to trap us until and unless we stop it and figure out how to get out of it! Fix this America!
This title caught my eye and upon reading it I was amused and perplexed at the same time. Why, I asked my self, would Muslims venture into a state that has shown its hostility towards them with rhetoric meant to demean them by singling Muslims as a religious group out to be legislated against in their anti-sharia ballot initiative of 2010 only to follow that up with House Bill 1060 which even some Oklahomans see as something that will only inflame passions and whip up hysteria against Muslims. With that backdrop, Muslims offering to help fellow American citizens is something strange or unusual to say that least. Read on
While Muslim teams have been deployed to help those in need, US Muslim leaders have appealed to the sizable minority to join efforts to aid victims of a devastating tornado in Oklahoma that wiped whole blocks of homes and killed scores.
“Our hearts go out to the victims’ families, and especially to the parents of little children who lost their young lives in this natural disaster,” Imam Mohamed Magid, President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), told OnIslam.net.
“We stand by the citizens of Moore in their effort to rebuild their lives.”
At least 24 people have been killed after a massive tornado ripped through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore.
Trapping victims beneath the rubble, the deadly storm destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses, wiped out two schools and a hospital and left at least 237 people injured, including many children.
Emergency workers have pulled more than 100 survivors from the rubble of homes, schools and a hospital.
ISNA has called on Americans to offer aid to those in need of emergency assistance and to make generous contribution to relief efforts through national relief organizations.
……….
Muslim relief agencies have activated disaster response teams to help in the relief efforts for Oklahoma victims.
Islamic Relief’s Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) is on the ground and helping those devastated by the tragedy.
Islamic Relief is working closely with the American Red Cross and local authorities to ensure aid reaches those affected in a timely manner.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)’s Relief has also activated its disaster response team which is set for immediate deployment in the area.
“We are saddened at the loss of so many lives including many children caused by this tornado,” said ICNA President Naeem Baig.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families who have lost their loved ones in Oklahoma today.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), … chapter in Oklahoma is teaming up with the Islamic Society of Tulsa and the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City to collect items to prepare disaster relief kits for the victims of the storms.
Awad said the home of CAIR’s Oklahoma chapter board chair, Saad Mohammed, was destroyed while his family sought shelter from the tornado in a closet. No one in the family was injured.
“CAIR-Oklahoma will coordinate with disaster officials to help facilitate the Muslim community’s role in the recovery effort,” said the chapter’s Executive Director Adam Soltani.
Now compare that response on the part of America’s political outcasts to this
Humanist groups and atheists across the U.S. have banded together to help a fellow atheist who survived the massive tornado that struck Moore, Oklahoma earlier this week.
At the fund-raising website Indiegogo, atheists have set up a relief fund for Vitsun, (Rebecca Vitsmun) who lost her house in the storm and most of her possessions.
“Let’s show the world that you dont need to believe in a god to have human compassion nor does all charity fall under the banner of religion,” says the site. “Let’s get this courageous woman and her family back in their own home.”
The site has already passed its goal of $50,000 by nearly $700 at press time, with 60 days in the fund-raiser still to go.
Imagine, I tweeted, what would be the outcry of Islamophobes if a news report spoke of how Muslims were targeting their relief efforts to just Muslims in the face of a widespread, devastating natural disaster that affected all Americans. Cries of discrimination and self imposed racial/religious isolation and an unwillingness to integrate in American society would ring out from every nook and cranny of the American landscape. I dont’ know how many people in Oklahoma were helped by Islamic organizations after the tornados of May, 2013 but that one act of unity and resolve gave more to Oklahoma than Oklahoma gave them.
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