The Senate's Bankers

Politically directed credit – again.

You might think lawmakers would have had enough of politically directed credit after the $200 billion fiasco of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But you'd be wrong.

On Wednesday, Senators Chuck Schumer (D., Fannie), Jack Reed (D., Freddie) and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) called on the Treasury to set "lending goals" for banks receiving capital injections under Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's rescue plan. The press release issued by Senator Schumer's office complained that banks receiving public capital "may not fulfill the main goal of the Treasury program, which was to increase lending activities in order to unfreeze the credit markets." Instead, these Senators said, the banks might choose to "hoard" the cash.

"Banks must understand that these funds aren't a gift," Senator Menendez warned, ominously. And here we thought that "not a gift" was covered in the part of the plan that requires the banks to pay interest on the capital to taxpayers on a preferred basis over private shareholders.

Note to Senator Schumer, et al.: Banks don't make money by "hoarding" it, or "stuffing it under mattresses," in the New York Democrat's words. They make money by lending. But lending has been constrained in part because losses on past lending and investment have left the banks short of capital. If a bank should decide that keeping that capital unfettered is better than going bankrupt, for example, that should not be taken as evidence of greed or a lack of public spiritedness. Nor would compelling banks to make loans ensure that "taxpayers are protected," as Senator Reed claimed. In fact, the opposite could be true, depending on the magnitude of potential losses from loans already on the books and the quality of the new loans.

Naturally, the Senators claim merely to want the banks to engage in responsible lending. Their letter includes disclaimers about not using "this capital to do the types of inappropriate lending or leverage with the exotic instruments that fueled this crisis." Of course! If only Citigroup had thought of that sooner: No Inappropriate Lending.

After more than a year of losses on mortgage investments, declining home prices and credit-market turmoil, the banks are busy rebuilding their balance sheets. More banks are likely to fail before this thing is over, and some of them will likely have received money from the Treasury along the way. The first priority for banks has to be to build up their capital base and dispose of dodgy assets so taxpayers don't take those losses.

What the banks need from each other is confidence that their balance sheets are sound. Calling on them to return to pre-crisis levels of lending, as the Senators do, has exactly the opposite effect: It increases the odds that they will take on business to please political masters, not because they can afford to do so.

Now that Treasury is buying bank stakes, the danger is that every politician in the Beltway will want a special dividend payable to him. This is one more reason for the Treasury, in this Administration or the next, to appoint someone to run this program who cannot be bullied. Mr. Paulson is still asleep at that switch. The Senators' letter is another reminder, if one were needed, that the sooner the feds get out of the banking business, the better for the banks, the economy and the country.

Eyeing Obama Administration, Defense Sec'y stops talking about "Islamist" terrorism

by Robert Spencer

Hoping President Obama might let him keep his job, Gates toes the PC line and opts to ignore the one single explanation of their own motives and goals that the terrorists have offered to us.

"As Obama era looms, Gates drops 'Islamist' from characterization of terrorism," from the World Tribune, October 24 (thanks to Rosanne):

Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week referred to Islamist terrorism by the politically-correct term “violent extremism” during a speech to the U.S. Institute of Peace. The use of the non-Islamist terminology highlights the ongoing debate in government over the use of terms like jihad and Islamic extremism in public discussions of terrorism.

Gates said Oct. 15 that “in violent extremism, we face an adversary today that seeks to eject all Westerners and Western influence from the Middle East and Southwest Asia, to destroy Israel and overthrow all secular and Western-oriented governments in the region.”

In a second reference, he said “the long reach of violent extremism emanating from failed and failing states, from ungoverned spaces brought terror to America's shores and subsequently brought America and our allies to Afghanistan.”

The State Department and Department of Homeland Security recently issued guidelines for U.S. government officials that said American Muslim groups had recommended not using “jihad” or Islamic extremism in labeling Muslim extremist violence in order not to offend Muslims.

A U.S. Central Command Red Team of experts however, stated in a recent report that honest reports require labeling the terrorists as Islamic and jihadist since the roots of the violence lie in Islamic law. The controversial report called for “freedom of speech in jihad analysis” and sought to debunk the State and DHS reports claiming that the use of Islamic terms in describing terrorists was offensive speech and was opposed by some U.S. Muslim groups.

Several Democrats in recent weeks have said Gates should stay on if Barack Obama wins the presidential election, an appeal that has not been rejected by Gates, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

The Depraved World of Jihadi Child Porn

By Stephen Brown

Besides their well-known penchant for anti-Semitism, misogyny and nihilistic violence, Muslim extremists are also gaining a disturbing reputation among British security agencies as collectors of child pornography.

According to a report on The Times website last week, police in Great Britain are discovering that their investigations into Muslim terrorism are leading them into the depraved world of child sexual exploitation. The reverse is also occurring with child protection officers encountering people who are “preparing to carry out terrorist acts.”

At one time, the link between the two deviant behaviours was considered so strong that security officials considered establishing an anti-terrorism project involving child welfare experts, but never followed through because Scotland Yard’s hands were too full with other terrorist investigations.

But demand is growing in Great Britain for the setting up of such a task force that could help security agencies understand the terrorist mindset and prevent future attacks.

“This is an important development,” said Labor MP Andrew Dinsmore. “We have to do more than just police work. It needs child protection, criminological and psychological work. It could become a very important weapon in the fight against terrorism.”

Police say they are already noticing a similarity in methods Muslim terrorists and paedophiles use in manipulating and grooming young people for their corrupt purposes. This usually involves introducing them to their deviant behaviour and then convincing them over time that it is normal.

British security personnel first became aware of a connection between Muslim extremism and child pornography in 2006. When investigating the terrorist connections of an east end London mosque preacher, Abdul Makim Khalisadar, a former primary school assistant, the 26-year-old’s DNA was found to match that of an unsolved rape case of a woman. Upon his arrest, police discovered Khalisadar also had a large amount of hardcore child pornography material on his computer.

In the same year, police made a similar discovery after raiding a suspected Muslim terrorist’s home, looking for a chemical bomb. While no explosive device was found, police did discover 44 “indecent” pictures of children on the 23-year-old man’s home computer and cell phone. Child porn, The Times reports, has been found “during investigations into some of the most advanced suspected plots.”

European security officials first discovered child porn images in a Muslim extremist’s possession when they raided a mosque in Milan, Italy, in 2001. Embedded in the disturbing images, though, they found hidden messages sent by fellow Islamists, causing Italian security agents to believe the terrorists were copying a clandestine method paedophiles use in communicating with one another. At that time, police believed this form of communications camouflage (called steganography) accounted for the child porn’s presence in the mosque.

But other, less doubtful, cases have cropped up since then. When arrested, Abdelkader Ayachine, a suspected Muslim terrorist currently awaiting trial in Spain, possessed almost 40,000 child pornographic movies and images, a number far exceeding any need for encoded communications. Ayachine was connected to the Casablanca bombing terrorist group that killed 45 people in 2003 and stands accused in the Spanish court of inciting jihad and recruiting fighters for the Iraq war. Prosecutors say his child pornography collection consisted mainly of “minors having sex, among themselves and with adults.”

Muslim extremists’ attraction to child pornography has been attributed to cultural factors. An Italian magistrate involved in the Milan mosque case said possession of child porn by Islamists did not necessarily indicate paedophilic tendencies, but rather was the result of cultural differences. Girls, he stated, often become wives in the Muslim world at age 11 and 12.

The Islamists’ interest in boys as sex objects is generally owed to their beliefs and social milieu. Their strict religious convictions do not allow them to be with a woman outside their own families, let alone touch one, before marriage. Moreover, in some Muslim countries, males can’t even catch a glimpse of the demonized female form because of the body-encompassing clothing she is forced to wear. In such a gender segregated environment, homosexual behavior develops, especially towards boys.

Even the Taliban, which executed homosexuals when it ruled Afghanistan, could not eradicate the sexploitation of boys, even in its own ranks. Among the 30 commands it issued to its fighters, Rule No. 19 forbid them from taking young boys without facial hair into their barracks. After the Taliban regime fell, a Fox news report indicated pederasty in Afghanistan returned to its previous place as an accepted social norm.

Sexual exploitation of boys in Muslim countries also has a long history. The Asia Times columnist, Spengler (an anonymous pseudonym), wrote in his column, Sufism, Sodomy and Satan, that, in the High Middle Ages, Sufism, Islam’s mystic branch, “is the only case in which a mainstream current of a major world religion preached pederasty as a path to spiritual enlightenment.” He then cites a German historian who claims this Sufi practice “persisted in many Islamic countries until very recent times.” The 2007 movie, The Kite Runner, located in Afghanistan, showed a “last vestige” of Sufism’s pederast side when dancing boys appeared in female dress.

Perhpas not altogether insignificant in this grotesque phenomenon is that the Koran itself promises to put pre-pubescent boys at the service of jihadi martyrs not interested in the female virgins awaiting them in paradise. The boys will be like “scattered pearls” of “perpetual freshness” (Suras 52:24, 56:17, 76:19).

The consequences of Islamist misogyny, gender segregation and sexual abuse of Muslim boys are far-reaching. Besides growing up to be sexual deviants who collect child pornography and may victimize other children, such sexually traumatized Muslim boys are predisposed to become involved in terrorism as a way of expressing their sexual rage. It therefore comes as no surprise that one anti-terror source told the Times: “A way of finding who the extremists and terrorists are is to go through the child porn sites.”

---

Stephen Brown is a contributing editor at Frontpagemag.com. He has a graduate degree in Russian and Eastern European history.

Washington Is the Problem

By STEPHEN MOORE - Wall Street Journal On-line

Fred Smith is in an agitated state. He's just returned from a Washington Redskins game -- played in FedEx field in Washington -- and the team has been upset by the St. Louis Rams. "It was just awful," he grouses. "My son's one of the coaches, and he was ready to jump off the ledge of the stadium."

There are few better people to ask about our current economic precipice than Mr. Smith -- or, as some people call him, "Fred Ex." His company has $38 billion in sales, employs four football stadiums full of workers, owns 300 jet airplanes, and tens of thousands of trucks and vehicles. FedEx moves an incomprehensible seven million packages each day to every corner of the globe. And the good news is that Fred is optimistic -- sort of.

Ismael Roldan

"Oh, the country is going to get through this and the financial markets will stabilize," he assures me, but only after we go through a period of "trauma and readjustment."

I ask him just what he means by "trauma." He attributes the financial crisis to "the intersection of four long-term developments." Reckless mortgage lending policies; high energy prices; mark-to-market accounting rules; and national policies that favor what he calls "the financial sector over the industrial sector."

"Rather than in our business where you have to have a dollar of equity for, 10 cents or 15 cents of debt," he explains, "it's exactly the opposite in the financial sector where you have one dollar of equity for 10, 25, 50 times risk." "Things became so flipped upside down," he explains, that "the assets at these banks became the liabilities and the liabilities became the assets. These people were making these fantastic returns -- at places like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- but in reality they weren't adding a lot of value. I have said time and again that there is a fundamental tendency in good times in the financial sector to over-leverage. Our national policies actively encouraged all this debt."

How so? "The United States has a completely uncompetitive tax structure in general and it has a particularly onerous tax structure for firms that are asset-intensive. If you run an industrial company like FedEx, which employs 290,000 folks, most of whom are blue-collar people, the way we have to run this business is to equip those workers with billions of dollars of assets that allow them to pick up and deliver millions of things around the world."

His theory is that the tax bias against capital explains why so much top U.S. talent got whisked off to become investment bankers. "Not too many young people coming out of school are studying to be production managers at General Motors." He says that most of FedEx's first line managers come not from the top flight universities, but out of community colleges and the military. "The top talent has wanted to go to Wall Street."

He has come to hold the get-rich-quick Wall Street financiers in more than a little disdain. He views the heroes of the U.S. economy as the companies that actually produce real goods and services. He sees the Wall Street collapse as an inevitable byproduct of investment bankers building multitrillion dollar debt pyramid structures.

So how do we fix this problem and retool our industrial sector in a pro-competitive fashion? "We've got to reduce the taxes on equity. Let companies expense their capital purchases."

He uses an example from FedEx. "Look, our capital budget as we went into this year was about $3 billion. We went out to Boeing in July for our board meeting to see the new triple seven, [the Boeing 777] which we have bought. If we had a lower corporate tax rate with the ability to expense capital expenditures, guess what? We'd buy more triple sevens. We absolutely have to cut the corporate tax. Our current tax rate is about 38%. Even Germany has a 25% rate."

We turn to the election. Mr. Smith is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of John McCain among the Fortune 50 CEOs. When I ask why, he says instantly: "Because I agree with him on trade, taxes, energy and health care."

Next I ask Mr. Smith about the class warfare theme of the political debate. "The politicians deplore the fact that we have a disparity of income," he says, but "the only way to make a blue-collar person earn more is to invest in capital, training and infrastructure. So the more you tax capital, the more you hurt workers." He estimates that about 70% of the return from FedEx capital expenditures is captured by workers in the form of higher wages as their productivity rises.

He sees a big problem in that so few Americans now pay any income tax. "We're now at a point where a very large part of the population pays no federal income tax at all. When you have a majority of the population that realizes that you can transfer money from the productive to themselves, that's one of the great questions for the future of civilization, as far as I'm concerned."

As for CEO pay, Mr. Smith concedes that in some cases corporate management pay scales have gotten far out of line with shareholder interests. But he is quick to add: "I don't think anybody begrudges somebody making a large amount of money as long as it benefits everyone else. The problem is when they make a large amount of money and the shareholders get clobbered." As he sees it, "There's only one solution, and that is for a competent board of directors to oversee managers and give them incentives which are long-term in nature and which are irrevocably tied to the fortunes of the shareholders."

I tour the FedEx command and control center outside the Memphis airport. It's an awesome sight. FedEx operates its own air traffic control system and its own weather monitoring services. It takes over whole airports at night, and it operates its own risk mitigation operation to prepare for every possible contingency. "We have to know instantly how we reroute our planes if that storm in Tulsa turns into a tornado," the operations manager explains. There's a massive screen covering an entire wall that monitors the location and progress of every FedEx plane in the sky.

The computer technicians show me a jaw-dropping display on the computer screen of a fast-motion day of FedEx plane travel. Starting in the wee hours of the morning, the planes descend from all over the country into the Memphis airport. A few hours later, after being loaded with packages, the jets begin their assault on the major cities of the nation and world. They call this the "ant farm," because it resembles armies of ants scurrying to every corner of the globe. This is a company that has staked its entire reputation on getting packages to their appointed destination, "absolutely, positively overnight."

I keep thinking how many tens of billions of dollars Uncle Sam would save if it were one-third this efficient. These are the people that should have been in charge of the rescue operation during Hurricane Katrina. "We got all our people out -- no problem," Mr. Smith tells me.

Considering FedEx's world-wide operations, and its rapid expansion in China, it occurs to me that there is perhaps no other company in the world more dependent on international trade. Sure enough, Fred Smith is a fanatical supporter of free trade. So much so that he says, "I think the best thing the United States could do is to unilaterally disarm. It should open up markets. The agricultural subsidies are terrible. They're just immoral."

On economic grounds, he continues, "I think the history is very clear, that trade is the main reason that the world has enjoyed the prosperity. Look at China. They've drug hundreds of millions of people out of poverty through trade."

Trade aside, no issue is of greater consequence to FedEx than energy policy. FedEx consumes 1.3 billion gallons of jet fuel a year, and is the largest user of energy in the world next to the U.S. military. Mr. Smith sits on the board of the Energy Security Leadership Council, which issued a report a few months ago advocating a huge expansion of domestic energy supply. How do we do this?

"Two things," he insists. "The first is we should maximize oil production in the United States in every respect. Everything, offshore, Alaska, shale, nonconventional, coal to liquid, gas to liquid, and nuclear. Let the market work.

"Second, and this is where I am an apostate on the free market, and also where I disagree in the main with, with Boone Pickens," Mr. Smith adds. "The United States has only one real way to reduce our dependence on foreign petroleum, in terms of reducing demand while we're increasing our domestic supply, and that is to electrify the short haul transportation system, to go to battery powered cars. The technology that brought us laptops and cell phones has reached a point where these lithium ion batteries can now produce cars like the Chevy Volt and the new plug-in Toyota Prius." Many FedEx trucks are already using this technology, though he admits they aren't yet cost efficient but are 42% more fuel efficient.

Mr. Smith ends our interview with a little sermon about what the U.S. must do to retain its global economic superpower status. "Many of our current policies are not conducive to continued economic leadership. We restrict immigration when we have thousands of highly educated people that want to come to the United States, and some of our greatest corporations [are] crying out that we don't have the scientific talent that we need to develop the next generation of innovations and inventions . . .

"That's where all wealth comes from . . . It's not from the government. It's from invention and entrepreneurship and innovation. And our policies promote a legal and regulatory system which impedes our ability to grow entrepreneurship. Lastly, if we want to make [America's workers] wealthier we have to quit demonizing quote, big corporations."

As I walk out the door I ask Mr. Smith if he's communicated these ideas directly to Barack Obama. "I haven't met Barack Obama," he replies. "He's certainly a charismatic fellow and well-spoken. I just disagree with him on trade and taxes and energy and health care."

Note: Smith is a former Marine Corps officer and Vietnam veteran.

School lessons on terrorism rubbished

from the Weston Mercury Newspaper

GOVERNMENT plans for teachers to educate children about terrorism have been rubbished by a senior North Somerset councilor.

Teachers now have access to new guidance on how to spot children who are 'vulnerable' to extremism.

Secretary of state for Children, Schools and Families, Ed Balls, says that schools have a 'key role' to play in getting youngsters to reject unsavoury views.

He introduced the Learning Together to be Safe booklet to encourage teachers to:

*Raise awareness of the threat from violent extremist groups.

*Provide information about its causes.

*Protect the wellbeing of particular pupils or groups who may be vulnerable to being drawn into violent extremist activity.

However, the unitary authority's member for children and young people, Cllr Jeremy Blatchford, says that counter extremism should be left to the experts.

Cllr Blatchford said: "It is a very dangerous thing for a people who are not members of the security and intelligence services to deal with.

"I think that it should be left to the professionals."

But the guidance has received backing from the National Union of Teachers.

Acting general secretary, Chritine Blowers, said: "Tiny, violent political groups can present a significant threat to large numbers of people.

"Terrorist threats have to be tackled. It's worth remembering that groups such as those from the far right can pose intimidatory threats to their communities, as serious as those from al-Qaeda.

"There is a very strong argument for providing the time and space in schools to enable teachers to work through the issues posed by determined individuals who are committed to recruiting young people to violent causes.

"No teacher will ignore obvious information about a specific, real threat, but it is vital that teachers are able to discuss with and listen to pupils, without feeling that they have to report every word."

Muslim's film warns about radical Islam

By Ari Cohn

MESA — "We all know about terrorism. This is the war you don't know about," Dr. Zuhdi Jasser intones from the movie screen over images of radical followers of Islam burning the American flag after Sept. 11.

Jasser, who lives in Scottsdale and practices medicine in Phoenix, is the narrator of the documentary "The Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision for America," which opened in selected cities across the country Thursday. The film contends that there is more to jihad than acts of violence.

There's also "cultural jihad," in which radical groups use laws and rights given to them by free societies in a duplicitous way to try to overthrow those societies, Jasser said. The vehicles for cultural jihad in the U.S. include Saudi government funding of Middle Eastern studies departments at universities, radical teachings in mosques and prisons, and hate-filled textbooks in Islamic schools, he said.

This is the "third jihad," according to the film. The first was when Muslim armies spread from Arabia throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. The second jihad happened later, when Islamic armies toppled Constantinople and spread into Europe, India, and further into Africa.

Jasser, a regular worshipper at the Islamic Center of the Northeast Valley in Scottsdale, an ex-lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy and former physician to the U.S. Congress, urged viewers not to confuse the religion of Islam with political Islamism — a movement that he said seeks to establish governments ruled by Islamic law called Shariah. Countries that enforce Shariah are "human-rights disasters," he said.

The silent majority of Muslims are not radical and love the U.S., Jasser said.

"I'm also a Muslim and I've dedicated my life to fighting the threat of radical Islam," he said. Jasser and six other Scottsdale Muslims formed the nonprofit American Islamic Forum for Democracy in 2003 to foster an alternative school of thought to Islamism.

Jasser is not without his detractors. In 2005, the Arizona Muslim Voice newspaper published an editorial cartoon depicting Jasser as a dog dismembering and devouring another Muslim. His views have been criticized by members of his own mosque.

The Scottsdale film premiere at a Harkins theater attracted about 300 people, including Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., who serves on the Armed Forces and Judiciary committees. Franks said he believes Jasser is dedicated to the cause of human freedom and peace. "I have just the highest affection for (Jasser)," he said. "If there were just a few more of him, we'd have a chance of defeating this sooner."

The film opens with scenes from the 2004 massacre of schoolchildren in Beslan, Russia, by Chechen terrorists. Franks said he visited Beslan soon after the massacre.

"This film was, in my judgment, very accurate," he said. "Terrorism and the murder of innocents does not serve anyone on Earth and it does not serve any God that is real."

Brent Lowder, a partner in Frontline Strategies LLC, represented the non-profit Clarion Fund, which produced the film. He said the turnout for the free Scottsdale screening was heavy.

"We had to move to a larger theater," Lowder said.

The Clarion Fund describes itself as a non-partisan organization aimed at educating Americans about national security issues, particularly about the threat of radical Islam. Lowder said the U.S. should start translating the books that established the foundation for American democracy by thinkers like Thomas Jefferson into Middle Eastern languages and putting them into the region, just as the Saudi government attempts to influence thought in the U.S.

Cleric in Iran issues fatwa against US-Iraqi pact

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

An influential Iraqi cleric living in Iran on Wednesday issued a fatwa condemning a U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would keep American troops in Iraq for three more years and warned Iraqi leaders not to back the deal.

The Iranian-born Ayatollah Kazim al-Hosseini al-Haeri called the proposed agreement "haram" _ which in Arabic means forbidden by Islam _ and said that approving the deal would be "a sin God won't forgive."

Al-Haeri, based in the Iranian holy city of Qom, has Iraqi nationality and is believed to be a mentor of anti-U.S. Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose followers oppose the deal. The fatwa, or religious decree, was posted on al-Haeri's Web site. ...

Islamic Radicals Shut Down Al Qaeda

from Strategy Page

October 23, 2008: Shia and Sunni radicals are attacking each other's web sites for the past six weeks. It began with a Shia attack on the two main web sites for Sunni radical religious propaganda (including al Qaeda) on September 11, 2008. Sunni hackers retaliated shortly thereafter by defacing 300 web sites belonging to Shia clergy and religious organizations. Shia hackers then came back with more attacks on Sunni clergy, media and religious sites. The two main Sunni radical propaganda sites, Al-Ekhlaas.net and Alhesbah.net, have been down most of the time since September 11.

Arab media and religious leaders have been pleading for the hackers to stop. Some have chastised the hackers for fighting fellow Moslems, rather than going after infidels (particularly Israel.) Moslem hackers don't like tangling with the Israelis, who have a much deeper bench in the hacking department.

This particular Cyber War seems to have attracted Arab and Iranian hackers who do not normally get involved in Islamic radicalism. The animosity between the Shia and Sunni sects goes back nearly a thousand years, and has led to much bloodshed in that time. While Sunni and Shia leaders try to play down this feud (over who should have inherited the leadership of Islam over a thousand years ago), grass roots hatred is tolerated. Thus lower ranking religious leaders in Iran and the Arab world spew hatred for each other's religious beliefs. This has little to do with the current plague of Sunni terrorism (al Qaeda and so on), but is more of a deep seated cultural dispute.

Western counter-terrorism organizations are sitting this one out.

European takes closer look at Islamic financing

PARIS: With commercial bank financing tight, Europeans have been taking a closer look at Islamic banking.

"The potential is there," Ahmad Jachi, the first deputy governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, said at a conference this past week in Paris. "It's a matter of really enabling and creating the market."

Islamic banking has already been integrated into the British and German banking systems, and banking executives at the conference said efforts were under way to allow Muslims in France to bank and invest under regulations that conform to Shariah, the legal code of Islam.

Estimates of the Islamic banking market's current size vary from $500 billion to $1 trillion. It has only about 5 percent of the overall banking market, but attendees at the conference, which was sponsored by The Economist, said Islamic banking has a huge potential for growth, since one-sixth of the world's population is Muslim.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that the Islamic banking sector has grown 10 percent to 15 percent a year over the past decade.

There is no specific code to govern Islamic financing. Businesses that are trying to be compliant usually set up a board of Islamic scholars who study the investment structures and products and reassure investors or customers that their money is being held under Shariah guidelines. Mufti Abdul Kadir Barkatullah, an imam in Britain and a Shariah scholar who is regularly consulted by corporations, said Islamic banking regulations generally require investors to be "very prudent and careful with your money, and you only put your money to very good uses."

One general principle that has proved useful of late is that banks are not allowed to be heavily leveraged or to take too many risks.

The lender and the borrower share the risks and the rewards of a loan - which means loans can have no interest rates attached. Investments are also not allowed to profit from an enterprise involved with conventional finance, weapons, tobacco, gambling, pornography or alcohol.

But Haider Ala Hamoudi, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, said the differences between Islamic and Western-style banking were "more rhetoric than reality."

"It really is effectively the same thing economically," he said by telephone. "I think it's going to grow for some time," he added.

One company to benefit from Islamic banking is Velcan Energy, which has 200 employees, is based in Paris and develops hydropower plants in Brazil and India. Antoine Decitre, managing director at Velcan, said he was contacted by an Islamic bank, which he was not authorized to identify, that said it was interested in the company because it was environmentally friendly and its projects helped poor people in developing countries.

Velcan was able to get capital to execute its projects without having to wait for credit markets in the West to unfreeze, Decitre said. But the process has taken some time because the practices were new to Velcan. "There are many conflicting views about what you and cannot do," he said. "So take your time well in advance."

U.S. to target Taliban drug traffic

WASHINGTON — A stepped-up anti-drug-trafficking effort is emerging as a key part of a broad Bush administration revision in strategy for the war in Afghanistan, U.S. officials say.

The strategy review comes as U.S. forces face increased violence in Afghanistan and reflects a growing consensus that drug trafficking has become essential to a Taliban resurgence. ....

Starving cattle amid high prices for feed in Neb.

By NATE JENKINS

BUTTE, Neb. (AP) - The dead were stacked in two piles, 70 cows in one, 30 in another, hidden away in the crevices of this scenic, hilly ranch country where cattle outnumber people.

Carl Schuman, a former county prosecutor who owned the cattle with his two brothers, says he knows what happened: They died "mostly of old age, and some younger ones got pneumonia."

But state investigators have another theory about what happened earlier this year on the Schuman ranch, where pastures this summer were nearly stripped bare from overgrazing while grass in adjoining pastures was about a foot high.

They think the animals might have starved to death.

Investigators haven't had to go out of their way to find dead cattle in Nebraska, where 6.5 million head roam. Since early this year, three cases of alleged starvation deaths involving a total of about 240 cattle have been reported in Nebraska - more than some officials can recall.

The state Attorney General has been investigating the Schuman ranch deaths since shortly after the piles were found March 15. No charges have been filed.

The latest case of alleged neglect surfaced earlier this month in southeastern Nebraska near Fairbury. Officials said they found many of the cows in a herd of about 80 near death at a defunct dairy farm.

The third case came in late April, when 25 cattle carcasses were found in a Merrick County pasture just outside of Grand Island. Ted Robb and Dustin Dugan pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of improper disposal of carcasses after felony animal neglect charges were dropped. They now face fines instead of jail time.

And in January, 111 cattle were found starved to death and another 140 emaciated in Red Willow County. Charges were never filed against the owner.

"Neglect cases are on the rise, and what's causing it, I'm not sure," said Steven Stanec, executive director of the Nebraska Brand Committee, a state agency that helps police the cattle industry. "We're having whole herds of hundreds of cattle being neglected."

Stanec and others say the cases from early this year don't share a clear-cut cause. But, he said, "I would say the higher price of feed has something to do with it."

In recent months the per-ton cost of hay has risen by about 80 percent, adding to the already high costs of other feed caused by lofty corn prices, which have slipped recently.

High commodity and fuel prices have encouraged farmers to stop raising hay, which is mostly used to feed cattle in the winter and early spring, said Neil Tietz, editor of Hay & Forage magazine. Tietz said hay prices are "certainly the highest I've ever seen."

And even with the recent drops in oil and commodity prices, Tietz expects hay prices to creep higher this coming winter, which could cause even more cases of starvation.

Livestock experts and those who track animal abuse cases nationally, including the Humane Society of the United States, say they don't know whether livestock neglect cases are on the rise across the country.

But they predict high hay prices will lead to more cattle herds slowly wasting away from starvation in remote pastures.

"We are going to have more cases of this," said Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University. She said starvation that can often take months to cause death is the worst type of animal abuse.

"There's no excuse for livestock starving to death," Grandin said angrily when told of the Nebraska cases. "You can always sell them. They might not be at a good price, but you can always sell them."

The cattle industry is already nursing a black eye following widespread circulation of videos recorded by undercover investigators for the Humane Society of the United States. They showed alleged abuse of livestock in slaughterhouses and sale barns, including a video from early this year of crippled and sick cows at a California slaughterhouse being shoved with forklifts.

In the Red Willow County case where 111 cattle were found starved to death, an investigator who went to the ranch described a grim, surreal scene. Some of the carcasses were frozen in a pond. The cattle had broken through the ice trying to get water.

An investigator who went to the ranch described a grim, surreal scene. Some of the carcasses were frozen in a pond. The cattle had broken through the ice trying to get water.

The owner had gone through a divorce, his tractor had broken down and "hay was too high and he couldn't afford to buy it," said David Horton, an inspector with the Nebraska Brand Committee.

"He just kinda gave up on life," Horton said.

The man wasn't charged with any crimes. Red Willow County Attorney Paul Wood said doing so would have cost too much because the county would have had to take custody of the remaining live cattle during court proceedings.

"We were going to have to take care of 140 head of cattle - feed, water and get vet care for them for a long time," Wood said. He estimated the cost at around $80,000.

"It was an unfortunate decision, but we made the best decision with the best interests of the live cattle," which the man sold, Wood said.

Similar decisions aren't uncommon in close-knit rural areas where it's "harder to throw the book" at offenders, said Dale Bartlett of the Humane Society of the United States.

Prosecution is also bypassed because livestock abuse doesn't cause the same level of public uproar as abuse to pets such as dogs, said Bartlett.

Obama Would Fail Security Clearance

by Daniel Pipes

With Colin Powell now repeating the lie that Barack Obama has "always been a Christian," despite new information further confirming Obama's Muslim childhood (such as the Indonesian school registration listing him as Muslim), one watches with dismay as the Democratic candidate manages to hide the truth on this issue.

Instead, then, let us review a related subject – Obama's connections and even indebtedness, throughout his career, to extremist Islam. Specifically, he has longstanding, if indirect ties to two institutions, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), listed by the U.S. government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding trial; and the Nation of Islam (NoI), condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for its "consistent record of racism and anti-Semitism."

First, Obama's ties to Islamists:

• The cover of one of Khalid al-Mansour's books, "The Mind and the Mindless - Will the West Rule Forever."

  The Khalid al-Mansour connection: According to former Manhattan Borough president Percy Sutton, Al-Mansour "was raising money for" Obama's expenses at Harvard Law School. Al-Mansour, a black American (né Don Warden), became advisor to Saudi prince Al-Walid bin Talal, CAIR's largest individual donor. Al-Mansour holds standard Islamist views: he absolves the Islamist government in Sudan of sponsoring slavery, he denies a Jewish tie to Jerusalem, and he wrote a booklet titled "Americans Beware! The Zionist Plot Against S. Arabia." (Both Obama and al-Mansour deny Sutton's account.)

• The Kenny Gamble (also known as Luqman Abdul-Haqq) connection: Gamble, a once-prominent pop music producer, cut the ribbon to the Obama campaign headquarters housed in a south Philadelphia building he owns. Gamble is an Islamist who buys large swaths of real estate in Philadelphia to create a Muslim-only residential area. Also, as the self-styled "amir" of the United Muslim Movement, he has many links to Islamist organizations, including CAIR and the Muslim Alliance in North America. (MANA's "amir" is Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.)

• Kenny Gamble

  The Mazen Asbahi connection: The Obama campaign's first Muslim outreach coordinator resigned after it came to light that he had served on the board of a subsidiary of the Saudi-sponsored North American Islamic Trust, with Jamal Said, another unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007 Hamas funding trial. Asbahi has ties to CAIR's Chicago and Detroit offices, to the Islamic Society of North America, yet another unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas funding trial, and to other Islamist organizations.

• The Minha Husaini connection: The campaign's second Muslim outreach coordinator has an Islamist background, having served as an intern in the Muslim Public Service Network. Immediately upon her appointment by Obama, she met with a group of about thirty Muslims including such notorious figures as CAIR's Nihad Awad; the Muslim American Society's Mahdi Bray, who has publicly supported the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups; and Johari Abdul Malik of the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Va., who has advised American Muslims: "You can blow up bridges, but you cannot kill people who are innocent on their way to work."

Second, Obama's ties to the Nation of Islam:

Louis Farrakhan, who calls Obama "the Messiah."

Obama's long-time donor and ally Antoin "Tony" Rezko partnered for nearly three decades with Jabir Herbert Muhammad, a son of NoI leader Elijah Muhammad, and says he gave Jabir and his family "millions of dollars over the years." Rezko also served as executive director of the Muhammad Ali Foundation, a rogue organization that, without Ali's permission, exploited the name of this CAIR awardee.

Jeremiah Wright, Obama's esteemed pastor for twenty years, came out of a Nation background, recently he accepted protection from an NoI security detail, and has praised Louis Farrakhan, the NoI's leader, as one of the "giants of the African American religious experience." Wright's church celebrated Farrakhan for his having "truly epitomized greatness."

Farrakhan himself endorsed Obama, calling him "the hope of the entire world," "one who can lift America from her fall," and even "the Messiah."

That Obama's biography touches so frequently on such unsavory organizations as CAIR and the Nation of Islam should give pause. How many of politicians have a single tie to either group, much less seven of them? John McCain charitably calls Obama "a person you do not have to be scared [of] as president of the United States," but Obama's multiple links to anti-Americans and subversives mean he would fail the standard security clearance process for Federal employees.

Islamic aggression represents America's strategic enemy; Obama's many insalubrious connections raise grave doubts about his fitness to serve as America's commander-in-chief.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oct. 23, 2008 update: A reader points out that Sutton has apparently retracted his statement about Obama and Al-Mansour: On Sep. 6, shortly after Sutton's statement attracted attention, Kevin Wardally, a " a spokesman for Sutton's family," e-mailed to Ben Smith of Politco a statement:

The information Mr. Percy Sutton imparted on March 25 in a NY1 News interview regarding his connection to Barack Obama is inaccurate. As best as our family and the Chairman's closest friends can tell, Mr. Sutton, now 86 years of age, misspoke in describing certain details and events in that television interview. We regret this unfortunate incident and we ask good conscientious people to extend compassion and grace to Percy Sutton.

But then Kenneth R. Timmerman of NewsMax.com contacted the Sutton family, which in turn denied that Wardally spoke for them:

Newsmax contacted the Sutton family and they categorically denied Wardally's claims to Smith and the Politico.com. So there was no retraction of Sutton's original interview, during which he revealed that Khalid Al-Mansour was "raising money" for Obama and had asked Sutton to write a letter of recommendation for Obama to help him get accepted at Harvard Law School.

Sutton's personal assistant told Newsmax that neither Mr. Sutton or his family had ever heard of Kevin Wardally. "Who is this person?" asked Sutton's assistant, Karen Malone. When told that he portrayed himself as a "spokesman" for the family, Malone told Newsmax, "Well, he's not."

According to a 2006 New York magazine profile, Wardally is part of a "New New Guard" in Harlem politics that has been challenging the "lions" of the old guard, Charles Rangel and Percy Sutton. That makes him an unlikely candidate to speak on behalf of Sutton. Sutton maintains an office at the Manhattan headquarters of the firm he founded, Inner City Broadcasting Corporation. ICBC owns New York radio stations WBLS and WLIB.

Sutton's son Pierre ("Pepe") runs ICBC along with his daughter, Keisha Sutton-James. Malone told Newsmax that she had consulted with Sutton's family members at the station and confirmed that no one knew Kevin Wardally or had authorized him to speak on behalf of the family.

For someone claiming to be a "spokesman" for the Sutton family, who was authorized to call Percy Sutton a liar, Wardally even got Percy Sutton's age wrong. Sutton is not 86, as Wardally said, but close to 88. He was born on Nov. 24, 1920.

Wardally responded to a several Newsmax phone messages and emails with a terse one-line comment, maintaining his statement that Percy Sutton "misspoke" in the television interview. "I believe the statement speaks for itself and the Sutton Family and I have nothing further to say on the topic," he wrote in an email. Asked to explain why it was that no one at Inner City Broadcasting Corp. knew of him or accepted him as a family spokesman, Wardally responded later that he had been retained by a nephew of the elder Sutton.

Comment: (1) It appears that Sutton is standing by his statement. In any case, it would be hard to credit Wardally's statement that Sutton's recollections were pure fantasy. (2) Timmerman also points out that Al-Mansour did not fully deny the Sutton statement, but that he was determined to keep a low profile so as to avoid embarrassing Obama.

Jihad and Congressional Elections - You Decide

(Compiler's note: This is far more important to our national security than many seem to think and is thus a "must read" article.)

by Jeffrey Imm

On November 4, 2008, the voters of America will have the opportunity to elect all 435 seats of the United States House of Representatives, who will serve in the 111th United States Congress from January 3, 2009 until January 3, 2011.

What will the priority of Congressional representatives' position on Jihad be when they make such decisions?

For those Americans who oppose Jihad and the ideology of Islamic supremacism, this provides a unique opportunity for their voice to be heard and for them to be able to personally impact future legislation on this issue. This is their chance to make a significant difference in how America will act on the war of ideas against Jihad and Islamic supremacism.

On July 16, 2008, an amendment to House Resolution 5959 was presented to the full Congress to vote on whether or not Congress was willing to honestly confront Jihad and its Islamic supremacist ideology in the war of ideas. There is a documented voting record on H.R. 5959 (see Section 507 "Jihadists") showing which Congressional representatives were willing to stand up and confront Jihad, and which Congressional representatives were afraid to confront Jihad.

The amendment to H.R. 5959 called for Congress to modify the 2009 intelligence funding bill to stop the efforts by some government agencies who have been creating a "terror lexicon" to instruct government employees not to discuss Jihad or ideologies such as Islamic supremacism (aka "Islamism"), when identifying the enemy. This Congressional effort passed by the margin of 249-180. (See my July 22, 2008 article for more details on H.R. 5959.)

There were 180 Congressional representatives who voted against this amendment to H.R. 5959 to confront Jihad, and there were 10 who "abstained" from taking a vote and a stand against Jihad. The Congressional representatives who voted against or abstained on this measure claim to be representing Americans in: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, American Samoa, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington state, West Virginia , and Wisconsin.

Do they truly represent the views of Americans in these states? Do they represent you?

Their voting record is public information.

On November 4, 2008, you decide.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Jeffrey Imm, formerly of the FBI, has his own counterterrorism research web site at UnitedStatesAction.com and is a part of the Anti-Jihad League of America.

[Postscript - see also Sources documents for additional reading and background information.]

House of Representatives Members Voting against H.R. 5959, Section 507 "Jihadists"
Voting Record - July 16, 2008 (List by State / Alphabetical List by Last Name)
These U.S. Congressional Representatives voted against H.R. 5959 Section 507 that sought to confront Jihad by stopping efforts at a "terror lexicon" which told government officials that they should not use the words "Jihad," "Islamism," when referencing Islamic supremacist terrorism

List by State

Alabama
Rep. Robert Cramer [D, AL-5]

Arkansas
Rep. Robert Berry [D, AR-1]
Rep. Victor Snyder [D, AR-2]
Rep. Mike Ross [D, AR-4]

Arizona
Rep. Edward Pastor [D, AZ-4]
Rep. Raul Grijalva [D, AZ-7]

California
Rep. C. Michael Thompson [D, CA-1]
Rep. Doris Matsui [D, CA-5]
Rep. Lynn Woolsey [D, CA-6]
Rep. George Miller [D, CA-7]
Rep. Barbara Lee [D, CA-9]
Rep. Ellen Tauscher [D, CA-10]
Rep. Jackie Speier [D, CA-12]
Rep. Fortney Stark [D, CA-13]
Rep. Anna Eshoo [D, CA-14]
Rep. Michael Honda [D, CA-15]
Rep. Zoe Lofgren [D, CA-16]
Rep. Sam Farr [D, CA-17]
Rep. Lois Capps [D, CA-23]
Rep. Adam Schiff [D, CA-29]
Rep. Henry Waxman [D, CA-30]
Rep. Xavier Becerra [D, CA-31]
Rep. Hilda Solis [D, CA-32]
Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard [D, CA-34]
Rep. Maxine Waters [D, CA-35]
Rep. Jane Harman [D, CA-36]
Rep. Laura Richardson [D, CA-37]
Rep. Grace Napolitano [D, CA-38]
Rep. Linda Sanchez [D, CA-39]
Rep. Joe Baca [D, CA-43]
Rep. Loretta Sanchez [D, CA-47]
Rep. Bob Filner [D, CA-51]
Rep. Susan Davis [D, CA-53]

Colorado
Rep. Diana DeGette [D, CO-1]
Rep. John Salazar [D, CO-3]

Connecticut
Rep. John Larson [D, CT-1]
Rep. Joe Courtney [D, CT-2]
Rep. Rosa DeLauro [D, CT-3]
Rep. Christopher Murphy [D, CT-5]

District of Columbia Congressional Representatives Who Abstained
Rep. Eleanor Norton [D, DC-0] - abstained from voting on H.R. 5959 Amendment to confront "Jihadists"

America at the Tipping Point in 2008

by Christopher Adamo

It is by no means severe to point out that if Leftists were wise and rational, they would not be Leftists. Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union’s first dictator and an icon of the Left, aptly described its devotees as “useful idiots,” owing to their enthusiastic and mindless devotion to causes that invariably would lead to their own destruction. Furthermore, it must be constantly reiterated that such minions only remain “useful” to the leadership as long as they remain, well, idiots.

A century has elapsed since Lenin’s demeaning characterization of his most loyal followers. Yet the consistent applicability of that term has done little to enlighten the ongoing ranks of new applicants for the label. And as Election Day approaches, much of America seems perfectly willing to take its place among that ignominious assembly.

Most appalling of all is that from the current day, back to Lenin’s reign of terror and even before, evidence abounded which should have been sufficient to warn any stumbling ideologue possessing even the tiniest shred of common sense that fawning subjugation to a corrupt leader is no guarantee of personal well being or safety. Unfortunately, then as well as now, common sense has proven to be a rare commodity.

Campaign rhetoric and media concocted “conventional wisdom” aside, it is important to elevate the current presidential debate out of the morasses of “political correctness” and consider the upcoming 2008 elections against the real backdrop of America’s present-day circumstances. To do otherwise is to minimize, perhaps fatally, the inherent strengths and virtues of this nation, thus tearing down the firewall necessarily established in recent years to protect it from the mortal threats it faces.

Pretending all was well during the 1990s did not negate the eventual attacks of confrontational Islamists. Nor would a return to that blissfully ignorant pre-September 11th national mindset accomplish anything but a repeat of its dreadful consequences. And this time around, America would undoubtedly face a far more serious onslaught of that enemy that waits patiently for any sufficient chink in the nation’s armor.

In order to shake present day America from the insipid discussions of gas prices, “global warming,” and even the alarming financial situation that dominates much of the news cycle, it is imperative to revisit the events of seven years ago on September 11. Recall, if you will, those horrific final moments before the planes flew headlong into buildings full of unwary, innocent people. In the pilots’ seats were crazed and hate-consumed Islamists who undertook such actions with inhuman glee, believing that they would shortly be rewarded for the horror, suffering, and death they were causing.

Yet those indescribably awful moments represent only a tiny portion of the larger picture. While America’s allies initially rallied to its comfort and aid, many on the world scene, who only occasionally feign to be supportive of this nation and its interests, offered conditional and tepid condolences, which were immediately followed by not-so-subtle finger wagging, ultimately accusing America for having been the root cause of the attacks. Over time, their simmering hostilities towards this nation, and transparent allegiance to the attackers, have surfaced. This is true not only for those overtly venomous entities abroad, but alarmingly within some domestic circles as well.

President George Bush, for all of his moral and political ambiguities, presented the situation in its stark clarity during his speech to Congress and the nation on September 20, 2001 with the statement “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” And despite the dulling of sensibilities that ensues with the passage of time, and all of the incessant media spin stupidly claiming the contrary, that defining reality has not changed. Nor will it ever do so.

Those who sought to drive back the fearsome and escalating forces of militant Islam, and who recognize its threat as an ongoing one, are on the same team as the good people of the United States who rallied in the wake of the attack and joined its military to wage war against the fiends that were behind it (along with all of their direct and indirect supporters). To this day they stand with real America and refuse to give ground to the diseased ideologies that fueled the attacks.

All of the rest, who either attempted to remain neutral and passive where no room for passivity or neutrality exists, or who actively worked to undermine the Terror War and thus contribute to America’s ultimate defeat, must be counted among the ranks of America’s enemies. And this immovable truth remains, to an absolutely equal degree, whether such enemies are foreign or domestic.

After sorting and digesting every criticism of the McCain/Palin ticket, few can deny that its principals have, or ever had, any intention or interest regarding the Terror War other than a total victory for the United States. Just as surely, it would be impossible to assign such motives of purity to Democrat candidate Barack Obama.

In ugly contrast to John McCain, Barack Obama has frequently made disparaging statements about the possibility or even the necessity of America’s triumph against the Islamists. Perhaps more significantly, he maintained alliances with the likes of “Reverend” Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, and Louis Farrakhan, all of whom voice overt hate for America while lauding the eventual success of its enemies. To such people, the suffering of innocent Americans in the process is perversely characterized as “justice,” perhaps best exemplified in Wright’s assertion of 9/11 as “America’s chickens coming home to roost.”

Barack Obama is perhaps the farthest left of a Leftist political party that has minimized every symbol of U.S. achievement against the Islamists (such as the triumphal Iraqi elections or President Bush’s spectacular landing on the Aircraft Carrier Abraham Lincoln), while magnifying to obscene levels every misstep throughout the process (Abu Ghraib and the phony episodes of flushed Korans immediately come to mind).

In these dangerous times, “ignorance” might only be “bliss” very briefly. America cannot bow out of the Terror War, no matter how “eloquently” a President Obama may think he can do so. America cannot befriend its mortal enemies. It will either defeat them or be ever after subject to their attacks, and ultimately, to their twisted ideology.

The cauldron of Islamic militancy seemed dormant until President Jimmy Carter’s nihilistic stupidity breathed life into it during the 1970s. Now Iran is the center of Islamic terrorism and insurgency. Soon, the world may be facing the terrible presence of a nuclear Iran.

Democrat vice-presidential candidate Joe Biden predicted a horrendous international “test” for Obama, should he be elected. He has since been effectively muzzled by the Obama camp, since such alarming truths pose great risks to the Democrat ticket. But Biden was right, more than he knows.

Boot Murtha: The Change America Deserves

.... seven Marines have been cleared or won case dismissals in the Iraq war incident Murtha recklessly adjudicated in the court of public opinion -- with willing mainstream accomplices at The New York Times, MSNBC and in the world press swinging their nooses to Murtha's beat.

No wonder the news hounds prefer to keep this race out of the headlines.

Republicans face tough odds across the country. A Russell upset over the nation's dirtiest Democrat promises a silver lining. Murtha's constituents are ready to throw the bum out. And not a moment too soon.

Investigators trying to determine whether access was illegal

By Randy Ludlow

"State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber."

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.

The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama's tax proposals.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. "It's outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama's allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question," he said.

Isaac Baker, Obama's Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay's statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. "Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully," he said.

The attorney general's office is investigating if the access of Wuzelbacher's BMV information through the office's Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway computer system was unauthorized, said spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi.

"We're trying to pinpoint where it came from," she said. The investigation could become "criminal in nature," she said. Brindisi would not identify the account that pulled the information on Oct. 16.

Records show it was a "test account" assigned to the information technology section of the attorney general's office, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Thomas Hunter.

Brindisi later said investigators have confirmed that Wurzelbacher's information was not accessed within the attorney general's office. She declined to provide details. The office's test accounts are shared with and used by other law enforcement-related agencies, she said.

On Oct. 17, BMV information on Wurzelbacher was obtained through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, records show.

Mary Denihan, spokeswoman for the county agency, said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services contacted the agency today and requested an investigation of the access to Wurzelbacher's information. Cuyahoga County court records do not show any child-support cases involving Wurzelbacher.

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

The LEADS system also can be used to check for warrants and criminal histories, but such checks would not be reflected on the records obtained by The Dispatch.

Sgt. Tim Campbell, a Toledo police spokesman, said he could not provide any information because the department only had learned of the State Highway Patrol inquiry today.

Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists, Cell Phone Jihadists

Could Twitter become terrorists’ newest killer app? A draft Army intelligence report, making its way through spy circles, thinks the miniature messaging software could be used as an effective tool for coordinating militant attacks.

For years, American analysts have been concerned that militants would take advantage of commercial hardware and software to help plan and carry out their strikes. Everything from online games to remote-controlled toys to social network sites to garage door openers has been fingered as possible tools for mayhem.

This recent presentation — put together on the Army’s 304th Military Intelligence Battalion and found on the Federation of the American Scientists website — focuses on some of the newer applications for mobile phones: digital maps, GPS locators, photo swappers, and Twitter mash-ups of it all.

The report is roughly divided into two halves. The first is based mostly on chatter from Al-Qaeda-affiliated online forums. One Islamic extremist site discusses, for example, the benefits of “using a mobile phone camera to monitor the enemy and its mechanisms.” Another focuses on the benefits of the Nokia 6210 Navigator, and how its GPS utilities could be used for “marksmanship, border crossings, and in concealment of supplies.” Such software could allow jihadists to pick their way across multiple routes, identifying terrain features as they go. A third extremist forum recommends the installation of voice-modification software to conceal one’s identity when making calls.

Then the presentation launches into an even-more theoretical discussion of how militants might pair some of these mobile applications with Twitter, to magnify their impact. After all, “Twitter was recently used as a countersurveillance, command and control, and movement tool by activists at the Republican National Convention,” the report notes.”The activists would Tweet each other and their Twitter pages to add information on what was happening with Law Enforcement near real time.”

Terrorists haven’t done anything similar, the Army report concedes - although it does note that there are “multiple pro and anti Hezbollah Tweets.” Instead, the presentation lays out three possible scenarios in which Twitter could become a militant’s friend:

Scenario 1: Terrorist operative “A” uses Twitter with… a cell phone camera/video function to send back messages, and to receive messages, from the rest of his [group]… Other members of his [group] receive near real time updates (similar to the movement updates that were sent by activists at the RNC) on how, where, and the number of troops that are moving in order to conduct an ambush.

Scenario 2: Terrorist operative “A” has a mobile phone for Tweet messaging and for taking images. Operative “A” also has a separate mobile phone that is actually an explosive device and/or a suicide vest for remote detonation. Terrorist operative “B” has the detonator and a mobile to view “A’s” Tweets and images. This may allow ”B” to select the precise moment of remote detonation based on near real time movement and imagery that is being sent by “A.”

Scenario 3: Cyber Terrorist operative “A” finds U.S. [soldier] Smith’s Twitter account. Operative “A” joins Smith’s Tweets and begins to elicit information from Smith. This information is then used for… identity theft, hacking, and/or physical [attacks]. This scenario… has already been discussed for other social networking sites, such as My Space and/or Face Book.

Steven Aftergood, a veteran intelligence analyst at the Federation of the American Scientists, doesn’t dismiss the Army presentation out of hand. But nor does he think it’s tackling a terribly seriously threat. “Red-teaming exercises to anticipate adversary operations are fundamental. But they need to be informed by a sense of what’s realistic and important and what’s not,” he tells Danger Room. “If we have time to worry about ‘Twitter threats’ then we’re in good shape. I mean, it’s important to keep some sense of proportion.”

Experts Urge Next President to Face BW Dangers

Scientific advances in biotechnology, the global proliferation of practitioners, and an increasing complacency about security risks, have combined to create major concerns that the next U.S. president will have to address, two experts said yesterday in Washington (see GSN, March 13).

Biological weapons are often considered to be the easiest WMD capability for terrorists to acquire, in part because potentially deadly toxins are used for legitimate purposes all over the world, said Brian Finlay of the Henry L. Stimson Center.

He noted the use of Botox, derived from botulinum toxin, for cosmetic uses, as well as similar interest in positive applications of ricin and tetradotoxin, or puffer fish venom.

Maintaining control of these materials as they are used across the globe is challenging, he told a meeting organized by the Center for National Policy.

“The bottom line is, this is a global regulatory nightmare,” Finlay said.

Margaret Hamburg, of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, warned that ongoing life sciences research could identify new lethal technologies to join already identified threats, such as anthrax and smallpox.

“It is a frightening set of scenarios,” she said. “How do we as a society and as a global community deal with these kinds of threats?”

The next U.S. president, the two said, will need to address these questions urgently by streamlining bureaucratic systems, improving cooperation between government and industry, and devoting more resources to prevention and response, they said (Matt Korade, Congressional Quarterly Homeland Security, Oct. 23).