Larry Klayman
Looking for terrorism in all the wrong places
By Larry Klayman
Once again our national security agencies failed at detecting dangerous terrorists. The recent shooting in San Bernardino, California, adds to the incidents that massive, dragnet National Security Agency surveillance did not prevent. Who knew that collecting massive amounts of irrelevant data on tens of millions of innocent Americans unrelated to terrorism does not prevent terrorist attacks? Actually, making the data haystack bigger makes it harder to find the needle.
Like the country music song "Looking For Love in All the Wrong Places," our country is determined to look for terrorists in all the wrong places. Our government responded by patting down grandmothers and young children at airport security screening, after the trauma of the terrorist attacks on September 11, while waving through single, military-age, foreign Islamic men in particular with broken English but excellent Arabic and Farsi. The United States has implemented the exact opposite of Israel's proven security successes.
Similarly, self-proclaimed national security hawks now have renewed calls to collect surveillance on tens of millions of innocent Americans. They don't want to track actual terrorists or monitor high-risk persons or institutions. Fake hawks like Sens. Marco Rubio, John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bush want to get tough with innocent U.S. citizens. Yet these Gen. Patton imitators do not want to zero in on those who actually pose real dangers.
Reports out of San Bernardino are that a Muslim couple recently returned from the Middle East. Syed Rizwan Farook and Tafsheen Malik viewed al-Qaida videos online and downloaded plans for pipe bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from al-Qaida's website magazine Inspire. They were in contact with terrorism suspects. They amassed a huge weapons cache costing around $30,000. Neighbors noticed many packages arriving in a short time. They learned or received training on the use of advanced weaponry and tactics for disciplined, organized attacks. They purchased tactical vests and gear. They had five thousands rounds of ammunition.
But reportedly, a Christian co-worker, Nicholas Thalasinos disputed with Farook about whether Islam is a religion of peace. Instead of waiting for the right time to launch his small war, Farook snapped, went home to get some of the weapons from his vast arsenal and returned to the office Christmas party. So angry was Farook over criticisms that Islam is not a religion of peace – you can't make this stuff up – he came back with guns, shot up the party, killing 14 and injuring 21, and then engaged in a running gun battle with police. This is what apologist for Farook and Islam would have you believe. To the contrary, evidence amassed by law enforcement authorities now shows that the attack and likely others was in the planning stages for quite a long time and that foreign terrorists and their organizations were behind this.
Yet our massive, warrantless, dragnet surveillance of the entire country failed – again. People accessing al-Qaida's website from America would raise red flags. A man who travels to the Middle East and returns with his new wife while also reading Inspire online should be noticed.
Reuters and CNN both report that Malik posted a note on Facebook pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi just before going to war in San Bernardino. One would think that the NSA would be focused on people like her instead of collecting private information on U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, hundreds of federal judges and politicians, as whistleblower Dennis Montgomery has disclosed in court pleadings.
That refusing to focus on actual dangers doesn't work surprises only politicos, those who have spent too much time inside the beltway ... unless there is an ulterior motive. Every time we face a threat, cold warriors want to take away the constitutional and civil rights of innocent Americans.
It is almost as if the furious hunger to spy on innocent American citizens has absolutely nothing to do with keeping anyone safe or preventing terrorism. If you were going to design massive surveillance for the purpose of controlling the people and neutralizing dissent or threats to those in power, it would look a lot like what the government is doing right now. If you were going to design a security system to actually keep the country safe, it would not look very much like what we are doing. It is fundamental logic that the design expresses the purpose. What goals best explain the design of America's security tactics?
We do not monitor real threats. Neighbors didn't want to call in a tip about the San Bernardino killers because they didn't want to profile. The administration's "if you see something say something" has turned into a $15 million lawsuit by the "clock boy" Ahmed Mohamed who brought an obvious mock-up of a bomb to school. Obama rewarded Ahmed with a trip to the White House.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch pledged that she would prosecute anyone who uses "anti-Muslim rhetoric" that "edges toward violence," she told attendees at the Muslim Advocate's10th anniversary dinner Dec. 3. Our attorney general said her "greatest fear" is the "incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric" in America and vowed to prosecute any guilty of what she deemed violence-inspiring speech. Regrettably, Lynch is simply another Eric Holder in a skirt, someone who plays racial politics whenever it suits her and the president's political agenda.
There is something pathological or Freudian about this denial. By refusing to recognize the real danger, these leftist sycophants of Obama and the Democrat and Republican establishment engage in a delusion: We know down deep that the fake threats won't hurt us. We pretend that dangerous threats aren't there, because we know they could kill us. There is a delusional relief in screening grandmothers and finding them to be safe or monitoring harmless Americans who won't hurt us, or putting the sensitivities and interests of Muslims ahead of the populace as a whole. We ignore the real dangers facing us. None of this justifies taking away the constitutional rights of innocent Americans.
© Larry Klayman
Once again our national security agencies failed at detecting dangerous terrorists. The recent shooting in San Bernardino, California, adds to the incidents that massive, dragnet National Security Agency surveillance did not prevent. Who knew that collecting massive amounts of irrelevant data on tens of millions of innocent Americans unrelated to terrorism does not prevent terrorist attacks? Actually, making the data haystack bigger makes it harder to find the needle.
Like the country music song "Looking For Love in All the Wrong Places," our country is determined to look for terrorists in all the wrong places. Our government responded by patting down grandmothers and young children at airport security screening, after the trauma of the terrorist attacks on September 11, while waving through single, military-age, foreign Islamic men in particular with broken English but excellent Arabic and Farsi. The United States has implemented the exact opposite of Israel's proven security successes.
Similarly, self-proclaimed national security hawks now have renewed calls to collect surveillance on tens of millions of innocent Americans. They don't want to track actual terrorists or monitor high-risk persons or institutions. Fake hawks like Sens. Marco Rubio, John McCain and Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bush want to get tough with innocent U.S. citizens. Yet these Gen. Patton imitators do not want to zero in on those who actually pose real dangers.
Reports out of San Bernardino are that a Muslim couple recently returned from the Middle East. Syed Rizwan Farook and Tafsheen Malik viewed al-Qaida videos online and downloaded plans for pipe bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from al-Qaida's website magazine Inspire. They were in contact with terrorism suspects. They amassed a huge weapons cache costing around $30,000. Neighbors noticed many packages arriving in a short time. They learned or received training on the use of advanced weaponry and tactics for disciplined, organized attacks. They purchased tactical vests and gear. They had five thousands rounds of ammunition.
But reportedly, a Christian co-worker, Nicholas Thalasinos disputed with Farook about whether Islam is a religion of peace. Instead of waiting for the right time to launch his small war, Farook snapped, went home to get some of the weapons from his vast arsenal and returned to the office Christmas party. So angry was Farook over criticisms that Islam is not a religion of peace – you can't make this stuff up – he came back with guns, shot up the party, killing 14 and injuring 21, and then engaged in a running gun battle with police. This is what apologist for Farook and Islam would have you believe. To the contrary, evidence amassed by law enforcement authorities now shows that the attack and likely others was in the planning stages for quite a long time and that foreign terrorists and their organizations were behind this.
Yet our massive, warrantless, dragnet surveillance of the entire country failed – again. People accessing al-Qaida's website from America would raise red flags. A man who travels to the Middle East and returns with his new wife while also reading Inspire online should be noticed.
Reuters and CNN both report that Malik posted a note on Facebook pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi just before going to war in San Bernardino. One would think that the NSA would be focused on people like her instead of collecting private information on U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, hundreds of federal judges and politicians, as whistleblower Dennis Montgomery has disclosed in court pleadings.
That refusing to focus on actual dangers doesn't work surprises only politicos, those who have spent too much time inside the beltway ... unless there is an ulterior motive. Every time we face a threat, cold warriors want to take away the constitutional and civil rights of innocent Americans.
It is almost as if the furious hunger to spy on innocent American citizens has absolutely nothing to do with keeping anyone safe or preventing terrorism. If you were going to design massive surveillance for the purpose of controlling the people and neutralizing dissent or threats to those in power, it would look a lot like what the government is doing right now. If you were going to design a security system to actually keep the country safe, it would not look very much like what we are doing. It is fundamental logic that the design expresses the purpose. What goals best explain the design of America's security tactics?
We do not monitor real threats. Neighbors didn't want to call in a tip about the San Bernardino killers because they didn't want to profile. The administration's "if you see something say something" has turned into a $15 million lawsuit by the "clock boy" Ahmed Mohamed who brought an obvious mock-up of a bomb to school. Obama rewarded Ahmed with a trip to the White House.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch pledged that she would prosecute anyone who uses "anti-Muslim rhetoric" that "edges toward violence," she told attendees at the Muslim Advocate's10th anniversary dinner Dec. 3. Our attorney general said her "greatest fear" is the "incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric" in America and vowed to prosecute any guilty of what she deemed violence-inspiring speech. Regrettably, Lynch is simply another Eric Holder in a skirt, someone who plays racial politics whenever it suits her and the president's political agenda.
There is something pathological or Freudian about this denial. By refusing to recognize the real danger, these leftist sycophants of Obama and the Democrat and Republican establishment engage in a delusion: We know down deep that the fake threats won't hurt us. We pretend that dangerous threats aren't there, because we know they could kill us. There is a delusional relief in screening grandmothers and finding them to be safe or monitoring harmless Americans who won't hurt us, or putting the sensitivities and interests of Muslims ahead of the populace as a whole. We ignore the real dangers facing us. None of this justifies taking away the constitutional rights of innocent Americans.
© Larry Klayman
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
