Tag: terrorism

More airplane news


It’s amazing what takes place in today’s post 911 world.  It seems people all over the world have been struck with the disease of stupidity.  Take for example this story coming out of Europe, the land of the world’s last two major wars.

Sunday morning, a teenager named Sarah allegedly took to Twitter and tweeted the following threat to American Airlines:

Twitter

Twitter

American Airlines responded with the following:

Tweet

Twitter

Good for American Airlines, one of the airlines that suffered the most on that day of infamy in 2001.  Their no nonsense approach will hopefully help land this poster in jail and if she doesn’t go to jail then her guardian should for allowing such a monumentally stupid act to be perpetuated. I hope authorities aren’t put off with her excuse that white people aren’t terrorists.

US Air pornOne another note is the embarrassing tweet made on the account of US Airways in response to a customer complaint.  It wasn’t what was said on the 120 character app it was the picture (above) that was displayed.  How the pornographic image made it on US Airways is a sleuthing story worthy of the best espionage novel but fortunately US Air is only guilty of  not taking it down before it could be captured on the ‘net for all to see.    It’s pathetic to see such disregard and disrespect for an industry associated with one of the most horrific acts of modern civilization.

I Have Figured Out Where the Lost Plane Is


….well not me, miscellany101 but rather Ted Vaill

For the past week, the Malaysian Airlines plane that took off from Kuala Lumpur headed for Beijing with 239 passengers and crew, including about 150 Chinese citizens, has been lost somewhere in the world, perhaps at the bottom of the sea. Or not.

Information I have received supports the theory that the plane is safe on the ground at an airstrip on a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, and that the passengers and crew have been kidnapped by an extremist Uyghur group from Xinjiang Province, China. Their intent is to ransom the kidnapped passengers and crew and to call attention to the poor treatment of the Uyghur minority population by the majority Han Chinese in Xinjiang Province, China’s most westerly province, north of Tibet.

The Uyghurs (pronounced “wee-gurr”) are of Turkic ethnicity, and have a swarthy western, Caucasian appearance, and are much hairier than the Han Chinese majority. They are also Muslim, and have been regularly persecuted by the Chinese government, causing rioting and uprisings since the Uyghurs’ arrival across the Silk Route from Central Asia many centuries ago. I have visited Xinjiang Province, and have met many Uyghurs.

In recent years, the Uyghurs have carried their protests eastward to Beijing, and in the past year a Uyghur group drove a large SUV onto Tien An Mien Square in Beijing, killing and injuring many people before their SUV caught fire and exploded, killing all inside. Recently, several Uyghurs have been deported from Malaysia, which is also a Muslim country.

The Hijacking

The pilots of the Malaysian Airlines 777 are Zaharie Ahmed Shah, 53, a pilot since 1981 with over 18,000 hours of flight time, and Fariq Abdul Hamid, 27, the co-pilot, with 2,783 hours of flight experience. Hamid is the son of a high ranking Malaysian civil servant, engaged to be married, and only recently started flying the 777. They seem to be steady, experienced pilots.

The Malaysian Airlines’ 777 airplanes have been known to have weak cabin door protections against unlawful entry to the cockpit compared to American aircraft. This could mean that a group of four of so terrorists could take over the plane relatively easily, bursting into the cockpit, disabling or killing one of the pilots, and then having the airplane’s communications systems shut down at 1:07 am, followed by the shutdown of the transponder at 1:21am. At the same time, others in the gang could go down the aisles collecting all cellphones, and warning that anyone who kept their cell phone or tried to use it would be killed on the spot. Perhaps they singled out one passenger to sacrifice to prove that they were serious.

They had the plane turn abruptly in the opposite direction back over Malaysia and Indonesia and on into the Indian Ocean, the third largest ocean in the world with 20% of the world’s water and a span of 6,200 miles from the tip of South Africa to Western Australia. There are a number of remote islands and archipelagos in the Indian ocean, and some of them have landing strips capable of handling a 777.

Diego Garcia

Typical of these are the Chagos Archipelago, a group of more than 60 tropical islands 310 miles due south of the Maldives, an island group south of India. The only inhabited island in the Chagos Archipelago is Diego Garcia, which not many Americans know has been developed over the past 40 years into a huge American military base, in cooperation with the British, who obtained the island from the French in the 1815 Treaty of Paris. In November, 1965, the UK purchased all rights to Diego Garcia and the archipelago from Mauritius for 3 million pounds, and leased the island to the U.S. for 50 years, with an option to extend it 20 years to 2036.

In 1971 U.S. Seabees arrived and began construction of a communications station and airfield, which today has grown to two parallel 12,000-foot runways for B-52s and other long-range aircraft to operate. There is also a huge port which can handle the largest American naval vessels, and a nuclear submarine base. It is rumored that the island is also a CIA dark site, and that “renditions” have happened there.

In recent years, it has been an important staging area for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and in dealing with Pakistan. The Chagos Archipelago is about the same distance from Kuala Lumpur as Beijing.

Where Is the Plane?

malaysia-airlines-flight-mh370It is quite possible that the Malaysian Airlines plane was forced down by its hijackers at one of the 60 unpopulated islands in the Chagos Archipelago which has a level stretch of land suitable for handling a Boeing 777, or a rough landing strip bulldozed out of the jungle. Even if the plane crash-landed there, it was not of concern to the hijackers, so long as the injuries were slight, since the plane was never intended to take off again. The passengers and crew were offloaded, the plane was camouflaged to avoid detection, and the passengers’ luggage was gone through thoroughly for valuables. The passengers and crew were taken to the shoreline, and forced to board a waiting ship. The hijacking entered a new phase.

The ship with its 239 or so passengers then travelled a circuitous path northward, away from Diego Garcia, (which is on the south end of the archipelago), heading for its next destination. The hijackers have no intention of going public with their plans until they get themselves in the best position to accomplish their objectives. Those objectives could be:

  • ransom money for each of the hostages;
  • publicity for the plight of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang, and an apology from the Chinese for treating them as they have over the centuries; and/or
  • independence from China of Xinjiang Province, and the establishment and recognition of a Uyghur state.

After the recent mass stabbing attacks in China which have been blamed on the Uyghurs, quite naturally in today’s world it’s possible to link this latest atrocity to Muslims in China without even blinking an eye, however because of stolen passports and flying planes this looks more to me like 911 all over again with all its attendant controversy and conspiracy theories.

 

Terrorism rears its ugly head again


This time it was in a mall in New Jersey state.  We were fortunate no one was killed except the terrorist, but he leaves behind a thousand or more on the scene people who will never be the same and a society that is losing this war of attrition on its collective psyche finds itself unnerved again at how unsafe ordinary activity has become.

shoopA 20 year old young white man using his brother’s firearm decided to terrorize the citizens at Westfield Garden State Plaza because, some say, he wanted to die.  What’s troublesome is the way in which he chose suicide….by scaring, frightening, terrorizing Americans.  He probably didn’t consider himself a terrorist; most white people don’t and that begs the question why don’t they?  I think I found the answer

They (white males) didn’t start out mad. No, they were driven crazy by the sense that the world had spun so far off its axis that there was no hope of righting it. Underneath that sense of victimhood, that sense that the corporations and the government were coconspirators in perpetrating the great fleecing of the American common man, lay a defining despair in making things right. And under that despair lay their tragic flaw, a deep and abiding faith in America, in its institutions and its ideals….. they believed that if they worked hard and lived right, they, too, could share in the American Dream. When it is revealed that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, that dreams are for Disneyland, then they morph into a tragic American Everymen, defeated by circumstances instead of rising above them.

In the near–ghost towns of America’s factory cities, white workers seethe into their beers, wondering where it all went wrong—and how it all went to hell so fast. Perhaps more menacingly, some of these obedient men have now been replaced by violent men, who lash out at their spouses, while their sons learn their lessons well, as they drive through suburban neighborhoods looking for immigrants to beat up, and even to kill…..

The white working class and the white middle class have rarely been so close emotionally as they are today; together they have drifted away from unions, from big government, from the Democratic Party, into the further reaches of the right wing. Together they listen to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. And together they watched Brad Pitt initiate Ed Norton into “Fight Club,” searching for something— anything—that would feel authentic, that would feel real. Middle-and working-class white men—well, they just are beginning to actually understand each other.

Add to this mix belief by far too many that Democrats, government and America’s first black President are intent on taking away their guns along with their  money and redistributing their wealth to those who don’t deserve….to those who they fear…..to Americans who they consider a threat to their very existence, then you can see why and how America’s white males strike out in ways that are reminiscent of terrorism. Yet because we don’t label these acts of murder and mayhem what they are, there is no need on the part of anyone to denounce them…far from it.  In fact to do so with an emphasis on the method of terrorism has been vehemently opposed by people on the right because it strikes too close to their notions of gun control.  So we are stuck in a cycle of violence, some say it is as American as apple pie, and terrorism and has been the case for most of our existence as a Nation, our biggest threat is ourselves.

 

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Altered images


Interesting find by the BBC; an act of terrorism committed by a terrorist who was first identified as the picture on the left.  Imagine all of the negative connotations conjured up by that image and it was for just those reasons it was released when in fact it’s the image on the right that belongs to the official document of the perpetrator.  altered states  The western world’s desire to incite the war of civilizations is so reflexive the even go to the extreme of altering images to make this a reality. 

Hours after six people died in a bus suicide bombing, pictures of a passport – showing the suspect wearing a headscarf – were aired on Russian TV. But they were soon called into question.

The first page of Naida Asiyalova’s passport had been published via a National Anti-Terrorism Committee Twitter account, recalls twice-weekly paper Novaya Gazeta. It says that initially no-one picked up on the fact that, under Russian law, it’s forbidden to be photographed for documents in a hijab and simply reported that it had been found at the blast scene. “Only individual bloggers began to wax indignant,” it reports, noting that Asiyalova would not have been able to board a long-distance bus to get from her home in Dagestan to the scene of Monday’s blast, in Volgograd, with that photo in her passport.

 

The GOP is a bad joke

“radical Islamists” were learning Spanish “because we don’t have any fear of Hispanics coming into the country.”


Louie Gohmert - Caricature
Louie Gohmert – Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

Perhaps this is why Republicans are against immigration because they see an Islamist in every Hispanic immigrant that comes into this country.

‘Radical Islamists’ Learn Spanish, Pretend To Be Hispanic, Claims Rep. Louie Gohmert

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, believes he has solved a terrorist tactic.

While speaking to the Longview, Texas Chamber of Commerce on Thursday, Gohmert claimed “radical Islamists” were learning Spanish “because we don’t have any fear of Hispanics coming into the country.”

Gohmert added that he is opposing immigration reform based on the theory, noted News-Journal.com.

“The FBI director has confirmed more than once that we know that there are radical Islamists that change their names to Hispanic-sounding last names, they come to Mexico and get and ID, and some of them even learn a little bit of Spanish so that they can try to act as if they’re Hispanic,” Gohmert said (video below). “Why? Because we don’t have any fear of Hispanics coming into the country, but we’ve got concerns about radical Islamists.”

He also suggested that real undocumented Hispanic immigrants might lie about how long they have been in the United States in order to stay under the DREAM Act, which is supposed to be for immigrant children who were brought to America by their undocumented parents.

Gohmert also said the United States was the best country “because most Americans, generally speaking, had a faith in God, they had a devotion to family and they had a hard worth ethic,” but lamented that might not be true today.

It seems the only policy this demented party has is to instill fear and hatred in the hearts of Americans against others who are different.  The GOP accentuates differences, points them out and builds policy around them which is not very constructive in a country of over 300 million people from all walks of life, if not suicidal for a political party.  All of that doesn’t seem to matter to the likes of Gohmert, who has taken boorish behavior to a new level as a member of Congress.  Want to see more of his outlandish actions go here, here , here and here.  A four time elected US representative, Gohmert resonates with that part of the DemonicGOP that believes Obama is a foreign socialist Muslim who wants to destroy the American way of life….and did I mention he’s been elected FOUR times!  God help us!!

Real home spun terrorists preying on America’s other “terrorists”


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
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
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.

Crawford is also listed on Tea Party Patriots as the “coordinator” of Americans Demanding Liberty and Freedom, which was founded in April 2009 in Galway.

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.”

 

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No Comment


Nabil sounds off on the Woolwich attacks and says exactly what Miscellany101 would say!  This is a brilliant No Comment segment!

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I’ve tried to make this point several times here, so I’ll let someone else do it more eloquently than I could


Radically Wrong: Misstated Threats – Terrorism isn’t an American-Muslim Problem

By Dena Sher, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

blog-muslimprofiling-500x280-v01None. Zero. That’s the number of fatalities or injuries from terrorist acts by American Muslims over the last two years, according to a recent report from the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. Here are some other numbers from the report worth noting: In the United States in 2012, there were nine “terrorist plots” by American Muslims—only one of which led to violence. Of those nine plots, only 14 suspects were indicted. Separately, six suspects were indicted for support of terrorism.

Terrorism is not a “Muslim” phenomenon. Indeed, last year, the author of the report called terrorism by American Muslims “a minuscule threat to public safety.” Yet far too many policymakers assume the opposite is true, and too many policies are predicated on the false and bigoted assumption that Muslims are more likely to engage in terrorism than other Americans. The numbers above show how false the premise is. So why are we willing to undermine civil liberties, target an entire religious community, and devote countless resources to this “minuscule threat?”

The answer: a widely debunked “theory” on describing the “process” that drives people to become terrorists. This “theory” is based on the mistaken notion that adopting “radical” ideas (which, under the theory, includes religious beliefs) is a dangerous first step toward committing terrorist acts. Countering terrorism, the thinking goes, begins with countering “radicalization.”

Although it’s been refuted, the “theory” continues to drive policy. Recent Congressional Research Service reports cite it, and the White House issued a plan to counter violent extremism based on it. While the White House deserves some credit for using more careful language and for emphasizing the need for community engagement, it still perpetuates the notion that “how individuals are radicalized to violence” is something we can and should study and understand. And the number of agencies, task forces, working groups, and committees across government that are engaged in the White House’s plan is, well, staggeringly high.

Not surprisingly, when flawed theory drives policy, implementation of the policy is flawed too. If counterterrorism officials believe that adopting radical beliefs is a necessary first stage to terrorism, they will obviously target religious communities and political activists with their enforcement measures.

Take for example, the practice of “preventive policing” by which law enforcement doesn’t focus on crime, but rather tracks legal activities. It has a real and negative impact on individuals: the FBI conducts “assessments” or uses informants, conducts interviews, and surveils people based on their ideas or religious beliefs, or whether they are a certain religion, race, or ethnicity rather than information suggesting they might be involved in criminal activity. Preventive policing also affects entire communities. Through “domain management,” the FBI monitors and tracks entire religious, ethnic, and racial communities based on false stereotypes that ascribe certain types of crimes to entire minority communities. Targeted groups include Muslim- and Arab-Americans in Michigan, and also African-Americans in Georgia, Chinese- and Russian-Americans in California, and broad swaths of Latino-American communities in multiple states.

The FBI has increasingly relied on another tactic based on this flawed theory: the agent provocateur. Remarkably, most of the nine terrorist plots carried out by American Muslims uncovered in 2012 involved informants and undercover agents. According to a recent investigation, undercover agents and informants have targeted “Muslims who espouse radical beliefs, are vocal about their disapproval of American foreign policy, or have expressed sympathy for international terrorist groups”—otherwise known as First Amendment-protected activity. The investigation shows that these targets are fairly unsophisticated and “clearly pose little real threat” on their own. With all essential materials (like money and weapons) coming from government agents and informants, these plots are more manufactured by the government than interdicted.

It’s also clear that preventive policing won’t be tied to an empirical analysis of where significant violence occurs. According to West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, violent acts by far-right extremists significantly outnumber those by American Muslims, but have been virtually ignored by policy makers (though the report has its own problems). While there have been multiple congressional hearings on so-called radicalization of Muslims, there have been none on political violence emanating from the Far Right.

When we implement law enforcement practices that say those who hold “radical” political ideas or religious beliefs, for instance, are dangerous, we could all be in danger. What’s a “radical” idea or belief? It’s one that “reject[s] the status quo.” It’s not hard to imagine that almost all of us hold some “radical” beliefs, which is why it’s not surprising that so many groups come under government suspicion. Anti-government militiamen, misfit anarchists, PETA, Greenpeace, and the Catholic Worker have already been targeted. Who’s to say the group you belong to won’t be next.

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Scared yet? You shouldn’t be!


scared_faceThere’s good news on the horizon for all of you who have believed the news pounded in the Nation’s subconscious since 911 that there’s some sort of Muslim plot to terrorize the homeland into submission.  We’ve always said such notions simply don’t exist among Muslim citizens of America and each year we’ve been proven right.  Well the trend keeps supporting that notion, with the latest news describing the prospects of terror from America’s Muslims as “nil”.

Try as al-Qaida might to encourage them, American Muslims still aren’t committing acts of terrorism. Only 14 people out of a population of millions were indicted for their involvement in violent terrorist plots in 2012, a decline from 2011′s 21. The plots themselves hit the single digits last year.

So much for a widespread stereotype. According to data tracked by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in North Carolina and released Friday (.PDF), there were nine terrorist plots involving American Muslims in 2012. Only one of them, the attempted bombing of a Social Security office in Arizona, actually led to any violence. There were no casualties in that or any other incident. And the Triangle study tracks indictments, not convictions.

……The sample of Muslim Americans turning to terror is “vanishingly small,” Kurzman tells Danger Room…..Yet the scrutiny by law enforcement and homeland security on American Muslims has not similarly abated. The FBI tracks “geomaps” of areas where Muslims live and work, regardless of their involvement in any crime. The Patriot Act and other post-9/11 restrictions on government surveillance remain in place.

So while you don’t have anything to fear from your Muslim neighbors, you still have an intrusive, bloated, super secret, covert government that is finding ways to insert itself into your daily routines at your expense.  What the government and most Americans fail to realize is America’s Muslims are busy living their lives and finding their niche on this multi-cultural landscape like this Muslim American8424302590_8c1284e1c2 , Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first Muslim woman to compete on behalf of the United States in international competition.

Ibtihaj, a two-time U.S. National Fencing Champion and a member of the U.S. National Fencing Team since 2009, began fencing at the age of 13. She was raised in an athletic household with four siblings and played many recreational sports growing up. After searching for a sport that would enable her to comply with the Muslim requirement of modesty by remaining fully covered, her mother pointed out students fencing in full body uniforms while driving by their local school. Muhammad said because of this chance moment, “I’d like to think fencing found me.” Reminding students again of the ability to find a passion regardless of circumstance she added, “Don’t let anyone tell you no. There’s nothing you can’t achieve.”

America, it’s time to throw off your shackles of fear and embrace those who make up a part of the American fabric, albeit with different names and clothing than your own, but who are your equal in their fealty to the rule of law and the pursuit of happiness.  You can do it America if you stop being afraid.

Hat tip to @ZahraBillo

Zip, zero, nada….


Patch of New York City Police Department
Patch of New York City Police Department (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

That’s what the New York City Police Department’s six year investigation, read spying, on American Muslims (it should be noted this spying took place in places outside of New York city) turned up in terms of terror suspects, indictments, cases, leads, you name it.

 

In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloging mosques, the New Yorkpolice department’s secret demographics unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday.

The demographics unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and cataloged every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

Police hoped the demographics unit would serve as an early warning system for terrorism. And if police ever got a tip about, say, an Afghan terrorist in the city, they’d know where he was likely to rent a room, buy groceries and watch sports.

But in a 28 June deposition as part of a longstanding federal civil rights case, assistant chief Thomas Galati said none of the conversations the officers overheard ever led to a case.

“Related to demographics,” Galati testified that information that has come in “has not commenced an investigation.”

The NYPD is the largest police department in the nation and mayor Michael Bloomberg has held up its counterterrorism tactics as a model for the rest of the country. After the Associated Press began reporting on those tactics last year, supporters argued that the demographics unit was central to keeping the city safe. Galati testified that it was an important tool, but conceded it had not generated any leads.

“I never made a lead from rhetoric that came from a demographics report, and I’m here since 2006,” he said. “I don’t recall other ones prior to my arrival. Again, that’s always a possibility. I am not aware of any.”

Galati, the commanding officer of the NYPD intelligence division, offered the first official look at the demographics unit, which the NYPD denied ever existed when it was revealed by the AP last year. He described how police gather information on people even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing, simply because of their ethnicity and native language.

As a rule, Galati said, a business can be labeled a “location of concern” whenever police can expect to find groups of Middle Easterners there.

Galati testified as part of a lawsuit that began in 1971 over NYPD spying on students, civil rights groups and suspected communist sympathizers during the 1950s and 1960s. The lawsuit, known as the Handschu case, resulted in federal guidelines that prohibit the NYPD from collecting information about political speech unless it is related to potential terrorism.

Civil rights lawyers believe the demographics unit violated those rules. Documents obtained by the AP show the unit conducted operations outside its jurisdiction, including in New Jersey. The FBI there said those operations damaged its partnerships with Muslims and jeopardized national security.

In one instance discussed in the testimony, plainclothes NYPD officers known as “rakers” overheard two Pakistani men complaining about airport security policies that they believed unfairly singled out Muslims. They bemoaned what they saw as the nation’s anti-Muslim sentiment since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Galati said police were allowed to collect that information because the men spoke Urdu, a fact that could help police find potential terrorists in the future.

“I’m seeing Urdu. I’m seeing them identify the individuals involved in that are Pakistani,” Galati explained. “I’m using that information for me to determine that this would be a kind of place that a terrorist would be comfortable in.”

He added, “Most Urdu speakers from that region would be of concern, so that’s why it’s important to me.”

About 15 million Pakistanis and 60 million Indians speak Urdu. Along with English, it is one of the national languages of Pakistan.

In another example, Galati said, eavesdropping on a conversation in a Lebanese cafe could be useful, even if the topic is innocuous. Analysts might be able to determine that the customers were from South Lebanon, he said, adding, “That may be an indicator of possibility that that is a sympathizer to Hezbollah because Southern Lebanon is dominated by Hezbollah.”

After the AP began reporting on the demographics unit, the department’s former senior analyst, Mitchell Siber, said the unit provided the tip that ultimately led to a case against a bookstore clerk who was convicted of plotting to bomb the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan. Galati testified that he could find no evidence of that.

Attorney Jethro Eisenstein, who filed the Handschu case more than 40 years ago and questioned Galati during the deposition, said he will go back to court soon to ask that the demographics unit be shut down. It operates today under a new name, the zone assessment unit. It recently stopped operating out of state, Galati said.

“This is a terribly pernicious set of policies,” Eisenstein said. “No other group since the Japanese Americans in World War II has been subjected to this kind of widespread public policy.”

Dozens of members of Congress have asked the justice department to investigate the NYPD. Attorney general Eric Holder has said he was disturbed by the reports. But John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, has said he is confident the NYPD’s activities are lawful and have kept the city safe.

Is anyone concerned with how much all of this cost the taxpayer?  No matter what the investment was the return worth the money it cost?  Why hasn’t Congreeman Peter King of NY asked these questions during a Congressional hearing….or better yet, why haven’t any of the hearings he held led to the NYPD questioning or indicting anyone?  We have been bamboozled America! It’s time to stop this madness.

 

More terrorism news you won’t find anywhere but here!


English: FBI agents from the Washington Field ...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another terrorist plot has been thwarted by the FBI who arrested a NYC man because of his plans to kill a Pennsylvania bank’s employees.  First off, this bit of news goes to show you the federal government can monitor threats just fine, without the need of the New York city police department which has, when it comes to Muslims, decided to expand its jurisdiction to everywhere along the east coast of America. This bit of news also underscores the terrorist threat that lies within the shores of this great Nation that has nothing to do with or is not based on Islam and Muslims.

Michael Chung, 52, allegedly faxed a letter to a Pottsville, Pennsylvania branch of Sovereign Bank on Monday in which he cited the second amendment of the Constitution and threatened to kill workers at the bank.

“The 2nd Amendment to the National Constitution authorizes the use of deadly force to protect my interests as a national citizen,” said the fax, according to the criminal complaint. “I believe I have a basis to act in that manner.”

According to a law enforcement official, Chung told investigators he is a “sovereign citizen,” one of a group of people who reject government authority and resist paying taxes. The FBI monitors the “sovereign citizen” movement as a potential domestic terror threat.

Lest anyone forget this is the definition of terrorism from which Miscellany101 works

The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property in order to coerce or intimidate a government or the civilian population in furtherance of political or social objectives.

After the last two examples of domestic terrorism America continues her denial about the contributions she makes towards terrorism which began back in 2009 after the report that shook the world, entitled Right Wing Terrorism.  If there is any doubt about the backlash one faces when talking about America’s terrorism and especially terrorism fueled by conservative thought unrelated to Islam look no further than to this brilliant piece in Wired

in April 2009, (Daryl) Johnson warned that the election of the first African-American president, combined with recession-era economic anxieties, could fuel a rise in far-right violence. “DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities,” he wrote. And so began a brief media firestorm. Conservative writers feared that the DHS was demonizing — even, potentially, criminalizing — mainstream right-wing speech.

Stung, DHS responded by cutting “the number of personnel studying domestic terrorism unrelated to Islam, canceled numerous state and local law enforcement briefings, and held up dissemination of nearly a dozen reports on extremist groups,” the Washington Post reported in June 2009.

According to Johnson, his former team now consists of a single analyst tasked with tracking all domestic non-Islamic extremism. His database has been shuttered.

It’s obvious any act of violence that aims to influence public opinion, government policy or otherwise terrorize people is considered terror only if committed by Muslims even though that is NOT the definition crafted by  policy makers and law enforcement.  In an effort to get people on board with the idea of terrorism, a very broad definition was made, but in practice, even by the federal government headed by the first black president, terrorism is recognized exclusively on the ethnic, racial, and religious characteristics of the one(s) committing the act.  That is typical of America’s politicians reaping scorn on one group of Americans or another for political gain, which is why we here at Miscellany101 will continue to remind America of what she has committed to in writing and call a terrorist a terrorist even if he’s not Muslim.

 

Related articles

Not many terrorists left in Gitmo Bay


We’ve talked a lot about the non-existent threat of Islamic terrorists on the main land because of the absence of any Muslim terrorists here, except for those dredged up by the federal authorities whenever they need to distract America’s attention away from more pressing issues like the economy or the encroachment on our human and civil rights and focus it instead on the latest boogey man story of the day.  Well it’s looking like there aren’t many terrorists in Guantanamo Bay either, not that there ever were.

We’ve spent an inordinate amount of money housing people we picked up in various places all over the world, and it’s starting to look like a lot of them are completely innocent.  The latest batch from Algeria turned out that way.  El Houari Abar, in his forties, and Ahmed El Abed, aged over 50 were detained at Gitmo Bay for six years and charged with being members of a terrorist organization.  One was captured in Afghanistan and the other in Georgia.  They were released to their country, Algeria in 2008 which only  acquitted them of the charge and are now free.  Six other Algerians held by the US military in Gitmo have also been similarly cleared of charges in Algerian courts, which says something about the importance of a transparent legal system and being brought to trial.  These two have been denied their freedom for the last 10 years ostensibly for something they didn’t do.  For too long America has been dispensing old style western justice where the military arm of the government was the police, the judge, jury and executioner, most likely of a lot of innocent people.  The two mentioned in this story have no legal redress with the government that captured them and took six years from their lives unfortunately and that taints our image all the more within  the international community.

Watching FoxNews makes you dumb


There I said it, if you look at FoxNews the chances are you don’t know much about anything. Sure the anchors there provide a certain amount  of gratification with their quick retorts aimed at people or issues we don’t like, but the business of news is non-existent at FoxNews. Rather what we get as a society is targeted opinion that too often isn’t informative, or even remotely true.

Such is the case with the latest pronouncement made by one Eric Bolling who earlier this month uttered the demonstrably proven lie, ‘How is it every terrorist on American soil has been a Muslim?’ How is it that in the year of our Lord, 2012 there are still people making such a ridiculous claim, except that they do so in exchange for a heckuva lot of money.  We’ve outlined here in the pages of Miscellany101 as many instances as the number of Muslims who were charged with terrorism in 2011…that number was 20 indicted .  In 2010 the number of Muslims indicted for terrorism in America was 26, and the total number of Muslims in America indicted for terrorism since 911 is 193.  Yet we’re told the threat is so large that congressional committees must be held, repeatedly, expenditures of money from an already cash strapped country must be allocated and inevitably the rights of American citizens must be abridged because of a threat that represents less than 5% of all domestic terrorism in America.  Did you catch that America?!?!?! Muslims account for less than 5% of all terrorism cases in America between 2002-2005…..not all of them…..5% of them.  So who makes up the other 95% of terrorism in America?!?!?  You do America!

Since September 11, the threat of internationally based Islamic extremist networks has dominated concerns of Homeland Security officials. And while authorities say the threats posed by homegrown Islamic extremism is growing, the FBI has reported that roughly two-thirds of terrorism in the United States was conducted by non-Islamic American extremists from 1980-2001; and from 2002-2005, it went up to 95 percent.

What’s duplicitous about Bolling and his inaccuracies is the above linked report is dated more than a year ago!!!  If  journalism was truly involved over there at FoxNews Bolling would have surely run across the above mentioned document, but there’s a large segment of the population that likes disinformation that reinforces Bolling’s misstatement.

Here are just a few cases we’ve mentioned that fit the definition of terrorism that Bolling probably knows about but doesn’t want you to know about. There’s the knife in the  mayonnaise  jar guy who tried to sneak onto an airplane in Kennedy Airport of all places; there’s the Atlanta editor who thinks President Obama should be killed because of his soft support for Israel. (As far as I know he nor anyone else who has threatened a standing president of the United States has seen the inside of a jail cell); the case of  a US soldier getting on TWO planes with military grade explosives is something that would raise alarms with anyone, but Bolling, since the perpetrator was not Muslim; nor did the US park ranger killer seem alarming to Bolling; the group in Georgia accused of terrorizing America to which two of them pleaded guilty was mentioned here on Miscellany101, but probably didn’t receive a ripple on Bolling’s radar; Gary Mikulich placed  a bomb next to a federal office building but according to Bolling he can’t be  a terrorist because he’s not a Muslim; of course we all know of the political assassination that took place in Arizona at the hands of a deranged Jared Loughner and resulted in the deaths of six people and the termination of the political career of Gabrielle Giffords.   We haven’t even begun to talk about how exaggerated and non-existent the threat of so called Islamic terrorism is to America.  However, in June, 2012 FoxNews is still publicizing the canard that every terrorist on America’s soil is a Muslim and we haven’t touched on the pro-life movement and its followers the likes of Scott Roeder who believe killing abortion providers, who are operating legally in America, is a way of bringing them to justice.  But it’s what Bolling doesn’t say that  is as onerous as what he does….the American Muslim community has steadily refuted terror and been a source of information for federal authorities investigating terrorism in their midst.  None of that matters to an organization that wants to vilify one segment of the American population and will go to any lengths to insure that.  The solution is as has been said here time and time again, kick FoxNews and main stream media to the curb and embrace citizen journalism.  Or you can be dumb.

“Other” Terrorism News


I like to highlight terrorism that’s committed by “other” terrorists throughout the Homeland because main stream media doesn’t.  Why anyone would want to do anything suspicious in and around an airplane is beyond me, but this “unnamed” individual did the unspeakable, sneaking a Leatherman KNIFE in a bottle of mayonnaise that he wanted to take on to a plane departing JFK Airport. Anyone who has flown in post 911 America from that airport knows how incredible this story is.  The act of putting a knife in a jar of mayonnaise, then sealing it not only speaks to his poor culinary tastes….mayonnaise is most likely not something you could add to airplane food to make it better but our Nation’s history where people  used such instruments to hijack planes must never be forgotten.   It is for that reason TSA was formed and they did their job to perfection in this case, discovering the weapon but what happened next is beyond me?!?!?!  They let this “unnamed” person get on his plane!  Is it possible they think he accidentally put the knife in the mayonnaise jar while making a bologna sandwich?  Undoubtedly this passenger was NOT a Muslim, otherwise he would be in Gitmo Bay by now and his name and picture splashed all over the pages, bandwidth and airwaves of main stream media.  For now he/she remains unnamed, and their religious/ethnic identity is neither mentioned nor regarded by most of those who read this news story; but that’s how it should be America….for EVERYBODY.

This next story is a typical American tragedy.  Back when it happened a lot we used to call it going postal…someone in the workplace snaps and takes out his/her frustration….but because a lot more political mileage can be garnered by calling it terrorism when it applies to certain groups it’s very difficult to see it any other way when anyone else does it.  One L. Goh went postal in Oakland, Ca and killed 7 people at one of the local colleges there.  The reason why he went on this killing spree is he felt disrespected by the school’s administrators and his classmates.  Such disrespect and frustration happen to almost all of us, but rarely results in such extreme actions and when it does it gets mentioned but not magnified in America’s media…much like this story….because we’ve come to accept this is a by product of a large heterogeneous society that has a violent edge that manifests itself in such ways.  Up until recently religious, ethnic motives were not examined nor mentioned when reporting such stories.  The perpetrator(s) was seen as a cultural aberration that we as a society needed to let the judicial system deal with while we not focus on him or her.  That’s the way it should be no matter who commits such insanity, or if we insist on attaching cultural identities to violence when none exists, then we should do it for all.  One and “unnamed” in the previous story are either anonymous criminals or terrorists.  You decide…but be consistent.  If our system of justice is truly blind, then so should our labeling of those who must face that justice.

Another terrorist who has managed to avoid being labelled as one


In our effort to always inform you about those “people” who somehow escape being called terrorist for the very same actions that others are so easily handed that appellation, we present to you Andrew Adler, owner and editor of The Atlanta Jewish Times who had this to say in an op ed piece he wrote for his paper earlier this month

Three, give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice-president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.

Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?

How far would you go to save a nation comprised of 7 million lives – Jews, Christians and  Arabs alike? You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table

It seems Adler suggests there are agents of a foreign government here in the US who are willing and able to assassinate the leader of the free world in the interests of that foreign government and what’s worse that leaders of that government have even entertained the notion that should happen!  I thought that the full weight of the American government was necessary to bear on people who wanted to institute sharia law in order to keep such a scenario from happening, not at the hands of an ally.  What’s more, Adler is conjuring up images of a fifth column of Americans  dedicated to serving the interests of another country at the expense of their own….something we’ve also been told is the definition of a terrorist most commonly a Muslim terrorist, yet no such tag has been put at the feet of this newspaper editor.

He has been roundly condemned by many, even people of his own faith, and rightfully so….he is calling for sedition, but no one has dared suggest he is a terrorist.  Perhaps he will be labelled mentally disturbed…that seems to be the way things are done for others who commit heinous crimes of treason and terror but are not the right color or faith to whom the label terrorist apply.  Moreover, guilt by association…a common principle of terrorism has not been reaped on the radical members of Adler’s faith based community.  No one has said that not all Jews are terrorists but those who kill or plot to kill  American politicians in defense of Israel are terrorists; perish the thought, such formulas don’t see the light of day in this kind of discourse, and quite frankly they shouldn’t here as they shouldn’t when talking about any other types of terrorists.  But of course it never shakes out that way.  America, for the moment, has latched onto a shadowy apparition and simply won’t let go.

Adler is a terrorist; oh sure, he has resigned his position at his own newspaper but it should neither be the source of his income or his solace.  Rather, he should be locked up in a federal penitentiary for suggesting the President of the United States be killed and any co-conspirators of this plot of his, let’s start with the five employees at his paper should join him as well as his paper be closed.  That’s the fate of terrorists in contemporary America that have been discovered before him and so it should be his too.

The terrorists that got away


We here like to highlight the terrorists that manage to escape mention at the hands of neo-cons and Islamophobes who like to always remind us of the Muslim terrorists in our midst.  Usually you find their terrorist committing all the crimes of murder, plunder and violence on the homeland so much so that they account for not a single U.S. civilian being killed by a Muslim terrorists looking to take his place among the 72 virgins since 9/11…not one.   However, fourteen soldiers have been killed, thirteen of those during the Fort Hood Shooting.  And did you know for the 25 years between 1980 and 2005, only 6% of all acts of terror were committed by those fanatical jihadists Muslims, yet the phobes would have you believe that all terrorists are Muslims.

So here are a few of the non Muslim terrorists they forgot to mention to you, and these have popped up within the last week.  First place goes to the guy who killed a park Ranger in Washington state and is being hunted by law enforcement there.  He’s not Muslim, his excuse for terror is he’s a veteran with PTSD back from Iraq and not able to handle the stress of living in peace.  We had to breed people like this guy……those who need war to survive or find meaning in killing to get them to do things against human nature, like invading and killing people in their own country for no reason whatsoever.  We just haven’t figured out how to turn the switch off, so Benjamin Colton Barnes, killed a Mt. Rainier park ranger in cold blood.  Along the way to perdition, he had run ins with the mother of his baby who was smart enough to see the danger he posed and requested a court order to keep him away from her and their baby because of his constant threats of violence against them and himself.  A ticking time bomb if there ever was one, and his singular act of murder against a federal employee is certainly one of terrorism, but the only place you will read him being called that is here on the pages of Miscellany101.

The next act of terrorism that more closely reminds us of 9/11 since the Christmas underwear bomber than any other is this young man of distinction…..a man with a military background as well who tried to get on an airplane with explosives.  Racial profiling was probably not being used when he tried to board a plane, just good old fashioned application of the rules for everyone.  Perhaps there are some people who normally carry explosives in their luggage whenever they travel, but we usually call such people terrorists, splash their pictures across the pages of all the papers and make sure they are public enemy #1.  Trey Scott Atwater tried to board a plane in Texas’ Midland Airport over the weekend and was found to be carrying military-grade explosives.  We have the dreaded TSA to thank for this guy’s arrest.  Atwater’s charge is attempting to board an aircraft with an explosive, yet no mention is made of the amount of explosive in his possession.  Atwater is of the right persuasion to escape the terrorist charge, but not here at Miscellany101.

Finally, it appears there is a gang of terrorists running amok in the New York city area, targeting Muslim places of worship.  I don’t know how else to classify such miscreants other than with the designation terrorist for they seem to operate at night via drive by bombings of random targets in the area.  They are reminiscent of that other all American terrorist organization, the KKK, but you don’t hear them called that anymore these days either.  It appears, in the minds of too many in America, terrorist is a pejorative term with a specific connotation that means only Muslim or Islam.  As we noted before however, that group should be the last one you should worry about for they are the ones who commit the smallest amount of  terrorist acts in America, unless you categorize all the other acts of terrorism committed by non Muslims as something other than terrorism.

 

firebombed house courtesy of the New York Times

hat tip to Loonwatch.com

 

Terror from within


At the moment America is too consumed with news about Herman Cain’s sexual predilections to hear or be interested in the the latest terror plot. It seems, sex sells even better than terror, or at least good enough to obscure news about terror. The fact that the defendants are not the types we like to associate with terror, although they are of the demographic that is more likely to be terrorists here in America than any Muslim, makes our fascination with their case even more fleeting if not downright non existent.  Four men in their 60s and 70s have been charged with offenses that could only be considered terrorism given what it was they were accused of doing.

Federal authorities said the men held clandestine militia meetings, beginning in March, in which they discussed using toxic agents and assassinations to undermine federal and state government…

This will never get the play in the media that foreigners or foreign sounding terrorist names would get in the face of such revelations and that is one of the many problems with the politicization of terrorism in today’s America.  The four defendants aren’t just some  cranky old men hatching another isolated incident of terror inspired violence on America, they are a side of America which has always been around and views change as violent and necessarily so.

During the 60s and 70s people of similar mindset were paraded in front of our televisions and on the front pages of our newspapers as threats to our society, and politicians made their political fortune denouncing the likes of the Black Panthers, SDS, SNCC, SCLC and other alphabet soup organizations that we were told posed an imminent threat to our democracy.  These organizations and the people that participated in their activities bore the full brunt of an enraged federal government and its police agencies that trampled on their rights, spied on and at times even killed them because some one said it was necessary and the right thing to do and very few of us flinched nor protested. Rather we cheered on and elected those politicians who said such actions were necessary in order to preserve the social order.  That was the same response we had to the cries from neocons about the clash of civilizations meme.

Somehow we are not quite able to see the threat the same way when it’s presented to us in the form of four senior citizen white males who are members of groups we’ve been told since the beginning of the Obama Administration were equally vicious and threatening to the American fabric. (On a side note, I wonder how vociferous  would our denunciation be if Obama decided to unilaterally send a drone attack over one of the meetings these four defendants had to hatch their plots and  killed them and any of their relatives?)  Our minds still seem to be  focused only on the dark, seedy,murderous, savage fundamentalist Muslims who want to destroy what we stand for because they are unable to reach the greatness that is America.  Such imagery when attached to anything evokes a response of horror and disgust, revulsion and abject rejection even when that thing is notable and essential to the life of our Nation.  How else can we look at our indifference to the various  Occupy movements spreading across the country, and the hostility they face from political leaders and members of the media who conjure up images of opponents of a bygone era or radical associations of a more recent time.

This is the story that will probably not receive the attention it deserves, not because these men wanted to overthrow the country….they couldn’t, or not because they are symptoms of a wider problem, they are but we are a country of over 300 million people and we’ve got a lot of problems.  This story deserves attention because there are too many people who believe that in order to defend this country they have to go out and kill somebody to do it. How did we get to this point that people like 73 year old Frederick Thomas think, ‘when it comes to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die.”  Perhaps, his time would have been better spent joining #OccupyWallStreet in Atlanta where he could have affected real change rather than plotting acts of terror that would only lead, as it has, to his own ruin.

 

The American Media is useless to the American people


Why? Because it is built on sensationalism. The weekend of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, comes this headline

Federal Authorities Probe Possible Terror Threat Around 9/11 Anniversary

Federal authorities are warning local law enforcement agencies of a potential terrorist threat involving car bombs that could coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, several sources told Fox News on Thursday.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that it had information about a “specific, credible but unconfirmed threat,” and the White House said President Obama was briefed Thursday morning and has been updated throughout the day.

Of course reading that sends chills and hot flashes throughout one’s body.  (Did you notice the words in bold and how they might alter or affect one’s  understanding of the “threat”?) How dare, the reasoning would go, someone should attack us while we honor our dead.  This is what such articles as the one above DON’T tell you

How many Americans have been killed in terrorist attacks inside the United States since the September 11, 2001, atrocities? Arguably 16. Egyptian Hesham Mohamed Hadayet killed two Israelis at the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles airport on July 4, 2002. On June 1, 2009, Abdulhakim Muhammed killed one soldier at a recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan killed 13 soldiers during a shooting rampage in at Fort Hood, Texas in November 2009.

Checking the Global Terrorism Database, one finds that an additional 14 Americans were killed in broadly defined domestic terrorism incidents since September 2001. Five died from anthrax attacks (2001); two died in an attack on a Knoxville church (2008); two are suspected to have been killed by members of the Minutemen American Defense group in Arizona (2009); an abortion provider was killed in Wichita, Kansas (2009); a guard was stabbed to death at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., (2009); two died in Austin when a man crashed his light plane into a government building over a dispute with the IRS (2009); and a neo-Malthusian terrorist was shot by police during a hostage incident at the Discovery Channel in Silver Spring, Maryland (2009). That adds up to a grand total of 30 Americans killed in terrorist incidents inside the United States in the last 10 years.

In addition, the National Counterterrorism Center has been compiling worldwide deaths of private U.S. citizens due to terrorism since 2005. Terrorism is defined as “premeditated, politically motivated violence, perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.”

In 2010 (the latest report), 15 Americans were killed in terrorist attacks; nine died in 2009; 33 in 2008; 17 in 2007; 28 in 2006; and 56 in 2005. The vast majority of private U.S. citizens killed in terrorist attacks died in the war zone countries of Iraq and Afghanistan. So the sad tally of Americans killed by terrorists around the world since 2005 comes to a total of 158, yielding an annual rate 16 Americans killed by terrorists outside of the borders of the United States.

Taking these figures into account, a rough calculation suggests that in the last five years, your chances of being killed by a terrorist are about one in 20 million. This compares annual risk of dying in a car accident of 1 in 19,000; drowning in a bathtub at 1 in 800,000; dying in a building fire at 1 in 99,000; or being struck by lightning at 1 in 5,500,000. In other words, in the last five years you were four times more likely to be struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist.

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has just published, Background Report: 9/11, Ten Years Later [PDF]. The report notes, excluding the 9/11 atrocities, that fewer than 500 people died in the U.S. from terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2010. The report adds, “From 1991-2000, the United States averaged 41.3 terrorist attacks per year. After 2001, the average number of U.S. attacks decreased to 16 per year from 2002-2010.”

Of course, the police and politicians will cite the lack of deaths from terrorism as evidence that their protective measures are working. Earlier this year, the conservative Heritage Foundation compiled a list of 39 terror plots that had been foiled since September 2001. Going through the list, about 23 of the plots might plausibly have resulted in terror attacks of one sort or another. Several were aimed at subways, military bases, and shopping malls. To get a feel for the number of people that might be killed in typical terrorist attacks, consider that four subway bombs killed 52 people in London in 2005; the deadliest attack on a military base killed 13; and blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, killed 187 people in 1995.

Making the huge assumption that all 23 plausible plots would have succeeded in killing an average of 100 Americans each, that means that 2,300 would have died in the last 10 years, or about 230 per year. (This implies a rate that is 10 times higher than the rate between 1970 and 2010, excluding the 9/11 attacks, by the way.) Even at this higher rate, your chances of dying in a terrorist attack would be about 1 in 1.7 million.

Ohio State University political scientist John Mueller and Mark Stewart, an engineering professor at University of Newcastle in Australia recently estimated that the U.S. has spent $1 trillion on anti-terrorism security measures since 2001 (this figure does not include the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Assuming that 2,300 Americans might have been killed by terrorists inside the United States, this implies a cost of more that $400 million dollars per life saved. Typically when evaluating the costs of protective regulations, federal government agencies set the value of a life at about $9 million.

However, terrorism is especially frightening (that’s why they call it “terrorism”), so the average citizen might want to spend double the usual amount to prevent a death. But still suggests that on a reasonable benefit-cost basis public and private spending is 20 times too much to prevent deaths from terrorist attacks. Now let’s retrospectively add the tragic 3,000 deaths from the 9/11 attacks to take into account the remote possibility that terrorists might be able to pull off another similarly spectacular assault; that still means that nearly $200 million is being spent per plausible life saved.

A good bit of the trillion dollars has supported measures that threaten our liberties by beefing up the national security state. Since 2001, we all get to enjoy airport security theater; we must carry proper “papers” in order to gain admission to federal buildings; and federal minions have felt free to wiretap without warrants.

On this 10th anniversary, we will certainly remember those who died so tragically. But we should also recognize that terrorism is a hollow threat to which we should not surrender one iota of our liberties.