Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Use of China's Anti - Ship Missile Against U.S. Could Trigger Nuclear War
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsWant China Times
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

China's three DF-21D missile launchers. (Internet photo)

If China were to launch its DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile against a US carrier battle group in the Western Pacific, the US could respond with a full nuclear retaliation, according to Robert Farley, an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce of University of Kentucky in a recent article written for Washington-based National Interest magazine.

Because it takes at least 15 minutes for an anti-ship ballistic missile to reach its target, an aircraft carrier has enough time to avoid the attack in open sea. Farley said that the missile requires terminal guidance, as it must revise its flight path after reentering the atmosphere. It needs to be adjusted remotely or needs to have the capacity to identify the carrier on its own.

Facing this potential threat against its aircraft carrier, the United States Navy is working very hard to develop ship-borne anti-ballistic missile technology. "The development of the DF-21D may have contributed to the USN's decision to focus on air defense ships such as the Arleigh Burke Flight III capable of ballistic missile interception," said Farley. At the same time, the US Navy is also exploring ways of destroying DF-21D launch sites with cruise and hypersonic missiles in the event of a war.

Farley states that a DF-21D anti-ballistic missile is capable of sinking a US aircraft carrier and killing the 6,000 American personnel on board the ship. Like any other medium-range ballistic missile, the DF-21D is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, however China must count on very cool heads in Washington for the fifteen minutes between launch and impact, he said, as such a move could lead to a degree of escalation that China has not prepared for at all, he said.

In extreme circumstances it could start a decision process that will bring full nuclear retaliation from the United States, according to Farley. Without proper second strike capability against the United States, it makes the situation even less stable for China. The author concluded that the DF-21D cannot prevent the US Navy from destroying Chinese ships, only change the method by which they do so.

The Lyell Darwin Connection
Sep 25th, 2014
CommentaryRoger Oakland
Categories: Topical Study;Creation - Evolution

The human brain is an amazing organ that functions like a computer. Information that is gathered from our senses is fed to billions of neurons that record and analyze the data. Conclusions are drawn and ultimately decisions and choices are made.

The same process occurs when a scientist formulates a theory. As the result of careful observation, a scientist develops a hypothesis and then a theory. Years of data collection must be analyzed and experiments repeated with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

However, when it comes to the subject of formulating theories that attempt to explain events that have happened here on earth in the past, scientists often bypass the scientific method. For example, the basic ideas of geology and biological evolution are built upon previous theories that are accepted without evaluating the assumptions that were used to formulate the theories in the first place.

Such is the case with the Charles Darwin - Charles Lyell connection. Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, had argued that the geological past could best be understood in terms of what we observe happening in the world today. Although the “present is the key to the past” assumption was the key to his theory, it was not provable. If it was wrong, his whole theory that proposed the layers of the earth had been laid down over millions and millions of years would be faulty. In fact, it can be documented that the reason he proposed it in the first place was to cause people to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Bible and a global world-wide flood.

Charles Darwin read Lyell’s book while on his trip, just as John Henslow had suggested. His theory of uniformitarianism gave Darwin the time scale required for his theory of evolution that effectively rejected the view that life was created by a supernatural God. The idea was then given scientific respectability and soon embraced by other intellectuals who were also looking for a way to explain away God and creation.

Today, few who embrace the theory of evolution really understand how Lyell’s views influenced Darwin and why the theory of uniformitarianism has failed to explain the past. Evolutionists now say that 97% of the species on Earth have been wiped out on this planet on more than one occasion.[[1] How does this view differ from Lyell’s theory?]

Perhaps if it wasn’t for Lyell, Darwin’s theory would never have gotten off the ground. Maybe it’s time to reexamine Darwin’s evolutionary view based on the actual physical evidence. After all, isn’t that what science is all about?

Senior Hamas Official: PA to Manage Gaza Border Crossings
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Jerusalem Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, announced on Thursday that the Palestinian Authority government would soon manage all the border crossings in the Gaza Strip.

Abu Marzouk, who was speaking in Cairo after Hamas and Fatah reached an agreement to end their differences, said that the two sides agreed to facilitate the work of the PA government in the Gaza Strip.

In addition to the agreement on the border crossings, the official said that former PA civil servants would return to their jobs.

Second Wave of Air Strikes Targets Syrian Oil Fields
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Age
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

An F/A-18E Super Hornet lands aboard the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush. Photo: AFP

New York: The US has unleashed a new round of bombings on Islamic State targets in Syria as President Barack Obama recruited more allies to fight the jihadist "network of death".

US, Saudi and Emirati warplanes broadened their bombardment to target the oil fields in eastern Syria that have helped fund the jihadist group's brutal rise from rebel faction to alleged global threat.

The strikes came as Obama urged leaders gathered at the UN General Assembly to join his coalition and convinced the Security Council to back a resolution to stem the flow of foreign fighters.

Video released by US Central Command showed a building in Tall Al Qitar, Syria, moments after a US airstrike. Photo: AP

Belgium and the Netherlands committed warplanes to Iraq and Britain said its parliament would vote on Friday on following suit.

"The United States of America will work with a broad coalition to dismantle this network of death," Obama told the UN about the Islamic State group, which has grabbed vast areas of Iraq and Syria.

"Today I ask the world to join in this effort."

Meanwhile, an Islamic State (ISIL) linked group in Algeria which had demanded France halt its participation in the strikes posted video footage of the execution of an abducted Frenchman.

"We will use our military might in a campaign of air strikes to roll back ISIL," Mr Obama declared.

Early on Wednesday, US air raids targeted ISIL fighters threatening the Kurdish regional capital in Iraq and damaged eight militant vehicles operating in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border.

Then as night fell again on Wednesday, Arab jets joined the US-led bombardment again - as they had on Monday - as the target list was expanded to include economic assets.

"These operations are ongoing so we will not provide additional details at this time," Rear Admiral John Kirby said.

At the United Nations, Obama and French President Francois Hollande led international condemnation of the murder of the French hiker, 55-year-old Herve Gourdel, by the ISIL-linked Jund al-Khilifa.

Paris opposed the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq but has sent Rafale fighters into action over Iraq - but not to the parallel campaign in Syria - and Mr Hollande vowed not to give in to the ISIL group.

Russia Tops ISIS Threat, Ebola Worst of All? Lavrov Puzzled By Obama
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsRT
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (Reuters/Tiksa Negeri)

Following the US President’s speech at the UN, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov was puzzled with Barack Obama’s ranking of international threats: deadly Ebola virus top, followed by so-called Russian aggression and ISIS in Syria and Iraq only third?

Gathered at the UN headquarters in New York, the world leaders attending the 69th General Assembly heard Barack Obama highlighting the three most significant global threats today.

“As we gather here, an outbreak of Ebola overwhelms public health systems in West Africa, and threatens to move rapidly across borders. Russian aggression in Europe recalls the days when large nations trampled small ones in pursuit of territorial ambition. The brutality of terrorists in Syria and Iraq forces us to look into the heart of darkness,” the US leader said at the beginning of his statement.

Reacting to the speech, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke with astonishment.

“We earned the second place among the threats to international peace and stability,” Lavrov told journalists on the sidelines of the UN assembly.

Not only the ranking of international threats seemed bizarre to Lavrov, especially in the light of the current strikes in Iraq and Syria that bypassed the UN mandate, but also Obama’s certainty that the world has become “freer and safer.”

“I didn't understand whether he was serious or not and whether there was an Orwellian element in it. Because George Orwell invented the Ministry of Truth and it looks like this philosophy is lingering."

The Russian foreign minister assessed Obama’s words at the session as a “speech of a peacemaker – the way it was conceived” which he “failed to deliver if one compares it to real facts”.

The US President presented a US worldview stressing the exceptionality of himself and of his country, the Russian FM said:

“That's the worldview of a country that has spelt out its right to use force arbitrarily regardless of UN Security Council's resolutions or other international legal acts in its national defense doctrine.”

Regarding the sanctions, Lavrov lashed out that it was only the problem of the US which imposed them. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian conflict is a domestic problem that should be solved without US interference, he added.

“Ukrainians met in Minsk several times and signed two documents there. OSCE and Russian officials helped to foster this dialogue. It's all written in the protocol and the memorandum and they must be implemented,” he said. “This is what the Ukrainians themselves have agreed to, and it would be incorrect to dictate any of the implementation parameters to them.”

Moscow seeks to settle conflicts through equal dialogue and not through unilateral accusations, not by “shifting the blame,” Lavrov said adding that he will definitely point this out to US Secretary John Kerry in a meeting between the two later in the day.

Qatari Leader Tells CNN: We Do not Support Terrorist Movements
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Jerusalem Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The emir of Qatar denied accusations on Thursday that the Gulf sheikhdom is a sponsor and supporter of Islamist terrorist organizations.

In an interview with CNN, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani rejected suggestions that Doha was bankrolling organizations that the West regards as terrorist groups.

“We have to see the difference between movements,” Al-Thani told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I know that in America and some other countries they look at some movements as terrorist movements. In our part of the region, we don’t.”

The Qatari leader did say that his government opposed “certain movements in Syria and Iraq,” a reference to the Islamic State. He denied accusations that Qatar was funding IS or that his government was turning a blind eye to private citizens’ activities in support of the group.

PLA Navy Enters Persian Gulf As U.S. Bombs Islamic State
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsWant China Times
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

While the United States launched air strikes against the Islamic State in Syria with F-22 stealth fighters, a destroyer and a frigate belonging to the People's Liberation Army Navy entered the Persian Gulf to conduct joint naval exercises with Iran, according to our sister paper Want Daily.

The US airstrikes on Sept. 23 carried out with support from Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, primarily targeted an Islamic State stronghold in Raqqa in what the paper said was the first time F-22 Raptors have been seen in action against a terror organization.

Changchun, a Type 052C guided-missile destroyer, and Changzhou, a Type 054A guided-missile frigate from the East Sea Fleet of the PLA Navy, arrived at Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on their way to the Gulf of Aden. The warships plan to stay in Iran from Sept. 20-25. The joint exercises were launched by the PLA Navy and the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy on Wednesday.

The visit of two Chinese warships to the Iranian port is not an important event in itself; however, this is the first time that the People's Republic of China has conducted joint exercises with Iran.

China needs Iran's cooperation to penetrate a US maritime blockade if and when it is deployed, according to the Global Times, a nationalistic tabloid under the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily. The paper said that China must make sure that the Strait of Hormuz is not under US or Western control.

China is aware that the strait accounts for roughly 40% of all globally traded oil, and therefore Iran is an extremely important partner for China.

Huang Dong, a military analyst from Macau, said China is not provoking the United States but sending its warships to the Persian Gulf to let Washington know that the PLA Navy has the capability to defend the Strait of Hormuz and the Indian Ocean, both considered Beijing's new lifelines.

Obama Praises Muslim Cleric Who Backed Fatwa on Killing of U.S. Soldiers
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Washington Free Beacon
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

President Barack Obama addresses the United Nations General Assembly / AP

President Barack Obama favorably quoted and praised on Wednesday in his speech before the United Nations a controversial Muslim cleric whose organization has reportedly endorsed the terror group Hamas and supported a fatwa condoning the murder of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Obama in his remarks offered praise to controversial cleric Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah and referred to him as a moderate Muslim leader who can help combat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s (ISIL or ISIS) radical ideology.

However, Bin Bayyah himself has long been engulfed in controversy for many of his views, including the reported backing of a 2004 fatwa that advocated violent resistance against Americans fighting in Iraq.

This is not the first time that the Obama administration has extoled Bin Bayyah, who also has served as the vice president of a Muslim scholars group founded by a radical Muslim Brotherhood leader who has called “for the death of Jews and Americans,” according to Fox News and other reports.

The State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau (CT) was forced to issue multiple apologies earlier this year after the Washington Free Beacon reported on its promotion of Bin Bayyah on Twitter.

“This should not have been tweeted and has since been deleted,” the CT Bureau tweeted at the time after many expressed anger over the original endorsement of Bin Bayyah.

However, it appears that Obama and the White House are still supportive of Bin Bayyah, who, despite his past statements, is still hailed by some as a moderate alternative to ISIL and al Qaeda.

“The ideology of ISIL or al Qaeda or Boko Haram will wilt and die if it is consistently exposed, confronted, and refuted in the light of day,” Obama said before the U.N., according to a White House transcript of his remarks.

“Look at the new Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies—Sheikh bin Bayyah described its purpose: ‘We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace,’” Obama said, quoting the controversial cleric.

Concern over the administration’s relationship with Bin Bayyah started as early as 2013, when outrage ensued after he was reported to have met with Obama’s National Security Council staff at the White House.

While Bin Bayyah has condemned the actions of groups such as Boko Haram and ISIL, he also has taken controversial positions against Israel.

He issued in 2009 a fatwa “barring ‘all forms of normalization’ with Israel,” according to a Fox report on the White House meeting.

Additionally, the notorious 2004 fatwa permitting armed resistance against U.S. military personnel in Iraq reportedly stated that “resisting occupation troops” is a “duty” for all Muslims, according to reports about the edict.

Patrick Poole, a reporter and terrorism analyst who has long tracked Bin Bayyah, expressed shock that the Obama administration would endorse the cleric on the world stage.

“It is simply amazing that just a few months ago the State Department had to publicly apologize for tweeting out it’s support for Bin Bayyah, only to have Barack Obama go before the leaders of the entire world and publicly endorse Bin Bayyah’s efforts,” Poole said.

“It seems that nothing can stop this administration’s determination to rehabilitate Bin Bayyah’s image, transforming him from the Islamic cleric who issued the fatwa to kill Americans in Iraq and calling for the death of Jews to the de facto White House Islamic mufti,” he said.

This type of mentality has contributed to the administration’s foreign policy failures in the region,” Poole said.

“This is a snapshot of why this administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a complete catastrophe,” he said. “The keystone of their policy has been that so-called ‘moderate Islamists’ were going to be the great counter to al Qaeda. But if you take less than 30 seconds to do a Google search on any of these ‘moderate Islamists,’ you immediately find they are just a degree or two from the most hardcore jihadis and have little to no difference when it comes to condoning violence.”

A White House official said that the president’s remarks speak for themselves and declined to add anything further.

Let the Headlines Speak
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsFrom the internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Earthquake Hits Solomon Islands
Experts said it's too soon to know how bad the aftermath of the quake will be, but so far, there are no immediate reports of any deaths.  

5.1-magnitude earthquake hits southern Indonesia
Occurring at 4:06 p.m., it had an epicenter depth of over 121 miles (195 kilometers) from the sea and its tremors could be felt in Central Java province’s Yogyakarta city and East Java’s Trenggalek.  

Weather chief: Obama 'prostituting' climate science   Weatherbell Chief Forecaster Joe Bastardi is condemning the “prostituting” of climate science by Obama and others to further what he considers a political agenda.  

Digital jihad: ISIS, Al Qaeda Seek a Cyber Caliphate to Launch Attacks on US
Jihadists in the Middle East are ramping up efforts to mount a massive cyber attack on the U.S., with leaders from both Islamic State and Al Qaeda – including a hacker who once broke into former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Gmail account – recruiting web savvy radicals, FoxNews.com has learned.  

Iraqi woman activist killed by Islamic State
According to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, al-Nuaimi was tried in a so-called "Sharia court" for apostasy, after which she was tortured for five days before the militants sentenced her to public execution.  

During UN Speech Obama Praises "Moderate" Muslim Who Called For Slaughter of U.S. Troops
This is not the first time that the Obama administration has extoled Bin Bayyah, who also has served as the vice president of a Muslim scholars group founded by a radical Muslim Brotherhood leader who has called “for the death of Jews and Americans,” according to Fox News and other reports.  

New 'Bash' software bug may pose bigger threat than 'Heartbleed'
A newly discovered security bug in a widely used piece of Linux software, known as "Bash," could pose a bigger threat to computer users than the "Heartbleed" bug that surfaced in April, cyber experts warned on Wednesday. Bash is the software used to control the command prompt on many Unix computers. Hackers can exploit a bug in Bash to take complete control of a targeted system, security experts said.  

Use of China's anti-ship missile against US could trigger nuclear war
If China were to launch its DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missile against a US carrier battle group in the Western Pacific, the US could respond with a full nuclear retaliation, according to Robert Farley, an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce of University of Kentucky.  

Magnitude 6.3 quake strikes off Solomon Islands: USGS
An earthquake of magnitude 6.3 struck off the Solomon Islands on Thursday, the United States Geological Survey reported.  

Fukushima, Japan Rocked By Two Earthquakes in One Hour; Epicenter Near Nuclear Plants
A pair of moderate earthquakes struck just off the coast of Japan's Fukushima Prefecture Wednesday, close to the nuclear power plants crippled by the March 2011 tsunami. There were no early reports of damage, injuries, or new problems at the nuclear plants.  

Report: Syrian army retakes area northeast of Damascus
The Syrian army has taken full control of a formerly insurgent-held area northeast of Damascus, Hezbollah's al-Manar TV said on Thursday, as battles rage across war torn nation. Meanwhile, as France and the UK mull their roll in a US-led military campaign against the Islamic State group, scores of the group's members were killed in clashes with Kurdish forces in northern Syria.  

US strikes Isil's lucrative oil facilities in Syria
US-led airstrikes targeted Syrian oil installations held by the militant Islamic State group overnight and early Thursday, killing nearly 20 people as the militants released dozens of detainees in their de facto capital, fearing further raids, activists said.  

Obama’s breathtaking naivete at the United Nations
President Obama on Wednesday delivered a speech at the United Nations filled with his usual soaring rhetoric of global collectivism and the importance of “international norms.” But the president also displayed a shocking naivete about global affairs, religion, Islam — a Pollyannaish interpretation on the state of the world and America’s role in it.  

Sierra Leone widens Ebola quarantine to three more districts
Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has widened a quarantine to include three more districts in an attempt to curb the spread of Ebola. Port Loko and Bombali in the north and Moyamba in the south are in effect to be sealed off immediately. Nearly 600 people have died of the virus in Sierra Leone and two eastern districts have been isolated since the beginning of August.  

Islamic State fight: Cameron says UK will 'play its part'
David Cameron has said the UK is ready to "play its part" in fighting Islamic State, which he called an "evil against which the whole world must unite". Speaking at the UN in New York, the prime minister said "past mistakes" must not be an "excuse" for inaction. He spoke as US and Arab jets continued bombing Islamic State (IS) targets in Syria, after attacks began on Tuesday.  

Egypt slams Turkish leader Erdogan after UN speech
Egypt has accused Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan of supporting terrorists and seeking to provoke mayhem in the Middle East after he questioned the legitimacy of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in a speech at the UN General Assembly. Ties between Ankara and Cairo have been strained since then army chief Sisi toppled elected President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last year after mass protests against his rule.  

Mexico Shock as Kidnapped Lawmaker Killed, Burned
A Mexican federal lawmaker was killed and burned after being abducted in broad daylight, authorities confirmed on Wednesday, shocking his ruling party amid government assurances that violence is down.  

Trooper ambush suspect making manhunt a 'game'
The suspected killer of a state trooper, who has eluded a massive dragnet for nearly two weeks, might be treating the manhunt in the Pennsylvania woods as a game against law enforcement, according to police.  

Red Cross team attacked while burying Ebola dead
A Red Cross team was attacked while collecting bodies believed to be infected with Ebola in southeastern Guinea, the latest in a string of assaults that are hindering efforts to control West Africa's current outbreak.  

Grim reaping for east Ukraine sunflower farmers
Ukraine is the world's biggest exporter of sunflower oil, with more than half the global market, but fighting between separatist and government forces has left fields strewn with mangled metal shell casings and torn up clumps of mud.  

Japan: Apocalypse Now Or Apocalypse Later
Japan can’t do anything right. That’s not a criticism, mind you, but rather an observation of how truly bad Japan’s options are right now. If you want a “risk free” trade for the remainder of this decade, it would be this: short the yen. Let’s dig into the ugly details, starting with fiscal policy.  

Miss a Payment? Good Luck Moving That Car
The thermometer showed a 103.5-degree fever, and her 10-year-old’s asthma was flaring up. Mary Bolender, who lives in Las Vegas, needed to get her daughter to an emergency room, but her 2005 Chrysler van would not start. The cause was not a mechanical problem — it was her lender.  

Sheriff's comments criticizing Md. gun laws go viral
"As long as I'm the sheriff in this county," he says in the video, "I will not allow the federal government to come in here and strip my citizens of their right to bear arms. I can tell you this, if they attempt to do that, it would be an all-out civil war, no question about it."  

LA County to Collect More Personal Data Without Public Notice
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Center for Investigative Reporting
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy demonstrates a mobile fingerprint reader. Officials say biometric information would be retained indefinitely.

LOS ANGELES – Without notice to the public, Los Angeles County law enforcement officials are preparing to widen what personal information they collect from people they encounter in the field and in jail – by building a massive database of iris scans, fingerprints, mug shots, palm prints and, potentially, voice recordings.

The new database of personal information – dubbed a multimodal biometric identification system – would augment the county's existing database of fingerprint records and create the largest law enforcement repository outside of the FBI of so-called next-generation biometric identification, according to county sheriff’s department documents.

On Sept. 15, the FBI announced that the Next Generation Identification System was fully operational. Now that the central infrastructure is in place, the next phase is for local jurisdictions across the country to update their own information-gathering systems to the FBI's standards.

When the system is up and running in L.A., any law enforcement official working in the county, including the Los Angeles Police Department, would collect biometric information on people who are booked into county jails or by using mobile devices in the field.

This would occur even when people are stopped for lesser offenses or pulled over for minor traffic violations, according to documents obtained by The Center for Investigative Reporting through a public records request.

Officials with the sheriff’s department, which operates the countywide system, said the biometric information would be retained indefinitely – regardless of whether the person in question is convicted of the crime for which he or she was arrested.

The system is expected to be fully operational in two or three years, according to the sheriff’s department.

All of this is happening without hearings or public input, yet technology companies already are bidding to build the system, interviews and documents show. Officials would not disclose the expected cost of the project or which companies are bidding but said it would be a multimillion-dollar undertaking.

The new system is being readied as the public has become increasingly concerned about privacy invasions by the government, corporations and Internet sources. Privacy advocates worry the public is losing any sense of control over the widespread collection of data on its purchases, travel habits, friendships, health, business transactions and personal communications.

At the same time, cities and counties across the country are facing renewed scrutiny for accepting the transfer of military technology from the Pentagon. The national biometric database is part of the transition of military-grade technologies and information-gathering strategies from the Pentagon to civilian law enforcement. During the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past decade, the U.S. military collected and stored biometric information on millions of civilians and militants.

In 2008, President George W. Bush required the Defense, Homeland Security and Justice departments to establish common standards for collecting and sharing biometric information like iris scans and photos optimized for facial recognition. Law enforcement agencies have been testing mobile systems for documenting biometric information, including a facial recognition program uncovered in San Diego County last fall.

Authorities in California already collect DNA swabs from arrestees booked into county jails, a practice upheld last year by the U.S. Supreme Court and this year by a federal appeals court in California. Dozens of other states also collect DNA samples from arrestees.

Documents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department show its database will house information on up to 15 million subjects, giving the department a major stake in the Next Generation Identification program, a billion-dollar update to the FBI’s national fingerprint database and the largest information technology project in the history of the U.S. Department of Justice.

For privacy advocates, the development of the Los Angeles biometric system without any public oversight or debate and an indefinite data retention policy are causes for concern.

Jeramie Scott, national security counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said it’s critical for the public to be aware that this new technology is being rolled out, because the information held by law enforcement poses unique threats to privacy and anonymity.

“Biometric data is something you cannot change if it is compromised,” Scott said. “There are privacy and civil liberties implications that come from law enforcement having multiple ways to identify someone without their consent.”

Scott, whose organization has sued the FBI to release information related to Next General Identification, added: “It becomes a one-sided debate when law enforcement alone is making that decision to use new technologies on the public.”

Hamid Khan, an organizer with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition who studies police surveillance, said the arrival of Next Generation Identification means Los Angeles is now a frontier in the battle for privacy. 

“Now our whole bodies are up for grabs,” Khan said. 

The multimodal biometric system under development by the sheriff’s department will collect four out of the five “inputs” used by the Next Generation Identification program – fingerprints, mug shots, iris scans and palm prints. Voice recordings are the fifth input.

The L.A. system is designed to transmit and receive data to and from the FBI and the California Department of Justice, which has its own biometric database.

Originally announced in 2008, Next Generation Identification is being rolled out across the country this year after pilot projects were carried out in Michigan, Maryland, Texas, Maine and New Mexico. About 17 million facial records already were integrated into Next Generation Identification as of January.

Earlier this year, residents and city officials in Compton were outraged that Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials had experimented with a cutting-edge aerial surveillance tool known as wide-area surveillance without any prior public notice.

“A lot of people do have a problem with the eye in the sky, the Big Brother, so in order to mitigate any of those kinds of complaints, we basically kept it pretty hush-hush,” sheriff’s Sgt. Douglas Iketani told CIR earlier this year.

Sheriff’s Lt. Joshua Thai, who is in charge of implementing the county’s new biometric database, said the department currently is collecting only fingerprints and has used mobile devices since 2006 to check the fingerprints of people stopped on the street against the county’s records.

Thai said biometric information would be collected from people only when they are arrested and booked, but the mobile devices would be used to verify individuals’ identities in the field.

“It could be somebody gets pulled over for a traffic violation and he or she does not have a driver’s license on him or her, and the officer is just trying to identify this person,” he said.

Thai said the goal of the project is to help law enforcement officers better identify the people they contact and avoid wrongful arrests. “What we’re hoping is that based on the mug shot is that that will compensate some of the biometrics to maybe better identify this person,” Thai said.

The sheriff’s department declined to release information on which companies were already bidding to install the new system.

According to federal guidelines for the storage of biometric data in Next Generation Identification, information on an individual with a criminal record will be kept until that person is 99 years old. Information on a person without a criminal record will be purged when he or she turns 75.

The FBI's guidelines for keeping biometric data on individuals, regardless of whether they have criminal records, “amounts to an indefinite retention period,” said Peter Bibring, a senior staff attorney with the Southern California ACLU. If the Next Generation Identification database simply were an update to the FBI’s existing fingerprint database, Bibring said the project wouldn't be problematic. 

However, he said the biometric database “significantly expands the type of data law enforcement collects and creates a more invasive system” that may encourage police officers to make more stops in the field to gather photographs and biometric data for the new database.

Experts say the collection and storage of biometric information creates challenges for the legal system and personal privacy – challenges that have not been adequately considered in the planning and implementation of Next Generation Identification.

Bibring said the new database, if paired with facial recognition-enabled surveillance cameras, could drastically increase law enforcement's ability to track a person’s movements just as license-plate readers track vehicles.

“The federal government is creating an architecture that will make it easy to identify where people are and were,” Bibring said. “It threatens people's anonymity and ability to move about without being monitored.”

Scott, of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said FBI documents obtained by the center make it clear that uncertainty lingers about who has access to the biometric data that will be stored in the new federal database, and he has doubts regarding the security of such information.

Dozens of Southern California law enforcement agencies have been using mobile fingerprinting devices in the field for roughly a decade. Gang officers routinely submit fingerprints, mug shots and photographs of tattoos and unique scars of suspected gang members to the statewide CalGang database, which contains information on over 130,000 individuals statewide.

The national biometric database also has come under fire from privacy advocates and civil libertarians because it is being implemented without a thorough study of its impact on privacy – which is required by federal law.

“They need to do this before any pilot programs, of which they've done two for facial recognition and iris recognition,” Scott said. “They're not meeting their legal obligations, which is now being followed up by state and local authorities.”

Khan, of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, said such sensitive information in the hands of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department raises further questions about oversight and information security.

“When we look at the multiple contractors and subcontractors and who will have access to this information,” he said, “the whole issue of identity theft comes to mind.”

Islamic State Plan to Target Paris, U.S. Subway Systems, Iraqi PM Says
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Jerusalem Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

NEW YORK - Iraq has received "credible" intelligence that Islamic State militants plan to launch attacks on subway systems in Paris and the United States, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Thursday.

"Today, while I am here, I am receiving accurate reports from Baghdad where there were arrests and there are networks planning from inside Iraq to have attacks," he told a small group of US reporters.

"They plan to have attacks in the metros of Paris and the US," he added. "From the details I have received, yes it looks credible."

IAEA Rejects Arab Resolution to Curb Israel's Nuclear Capabilities
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Jerusalem Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Member states of the International Atomic Energy Agency rejected on Thursday an Arab resolution criticizing Israel over its assumed atomic arsenal, in a diplomatic victory for Western states that opposed the initiative.

Arab states had submitted the non-binding resolution - which called on Israel to join a global anti-nuclear weapons pact - to the annual meeting of the 162-nation UN nuclear agency, in part to signal their frustration at the lack of progress to move towards a Middle East free of nuclear weapons.

The United States and its allies argued that the resolution, if adopted, would be counterproductive. Fifty-eight countries voted against the text and 45 states for. Other countries either abstained or were absent.

Germany: We've Never Been so Close to Nuclear Deal With Iran
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Jerusalem Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Six world power have never been so close to a deal with Iran that would resolve the decade-long nuclear standoff once and for all, but the final phase of the negotiations will be the hardest, Germany's foreign minister said on Thursday.

"We have never been so close to a deal as now. But the truth is that the final phase of the talks that lay before us is probably the most difficult," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters after meeting Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

"Now is the time to end this conflict. I hope that Iran ... in view of the situation in the world and the situation in the Middle East, knows and senses that a collapse of the talks now is not permissible."

Fatah, Hamas Agree to Cede Control of Gaza to Unity Government
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Jerusalem Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Hamas and Fatah said on Thursday that they have reached agreement to allow the Palestinian Authority government to operate in the Gaza Strip.

Representatives of the two rival parties have been holding “reconciliation” talks in Cairo over the past two days in a bid to end their differences.

Hamas and Fatah leaders said that the agreement reached on Thursday calls for the PA government, headed by Rami Hamdallah, to “immediately” assume its responsibilities in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian sources said that the agreement allows the PA to take control over the border crossings in the Gaza Strip, including the Rafah terminal.

Musa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, announced that the Palestinian Authority government would soon manage all the border crossings in the Gaza Strip.

Abu Marzouk, who was speaking in Cairo after Hamas and Fatah reached an agreement to end their differences, said that the two sides agreed to facilitate the work of the PA government in the Gaza Strip.

In addition to the agreement on the border crossings, Abu Marzouk said that former PA civil servants would return to their jobs.

The PA has nearly 70,000 civil servants who have not been working since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007.

It was not clear whether the two parties had reached agreement over the fate of some 40,000 Hamas employees who have not received salaries for the past few months.

Hamas has been demanding that the PA government, headed by Rami Hamdallah, place its workers on its payroll. However, Hamdallah and other PA officials said they do not recognize the Hamas employees since they were appointed by an "illegitimate government."

Abu Marzouk said the two sides also agreed to form a joint committee to follow up the implementation of previous reconciliation agreements between Hamas and Fatah.

Fatah representative Azzam al-Ahmed told reporters that the two sides agreed to remove all hindrances obstructing the work of the PA government in the Gaza Strip.
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Fatah and Hamas delegates resumed reconciliation talks in Cairo on Wednesday, in another bid to end their dispute.

According to Palestinian negotiators, the main issue that hindered the implementation of previous reconciliation agreements between the two sides was the need to determine who is responsible for making crucial decisions pertaining to peace and war.

Fatah has long said it considers the decision over war and peace a national issue and not a factional matter.

As for indirect cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas -- negotiations have been delayed until the last week of October, a Hamas official said earlier this week.

Despite Strikes, Islamic State Still Going Strong
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsThe Jerusalem Post
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The Pentagon said on Thursday it is too early to say that the US-led coalition was "winning" against the Islamic State, pointing to the group's continued access to financing, volunteers and weapons even after bombings in Syria and Iraq.

"Your question gets at ... How do you know you're winning? And what I'm telling you is, it's going to take us a while to be able to say that," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters.

"Even after the hits they've taken and they have been hit they still have financing at their fingertips. They still have plenty of volunteers. They still have plenty of weapons and vehicles and the ability to move around," he said.

Briefcases That Imitate Cell Towers Help Agencies Track Phone Calls
Sep 25th, 2014
Daily NewsNext Gov
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

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In the last year, Americans have become more and more aware of the scope and prevalence of tracking technology. From Snowden’s revelations about the National Security Agency to privacy breaches, the fact that the government and law enforcement agents can track people’s movement and data has ignited a debate about just how much privacy people are willing to give up in the name of law and order. Recently a new piece of technology used by police departments has come into focus: the Stingray.

The Stingray is a briefcase-size device manufactured by Florida-based telecommunications company Harris Corporation. The purpose of the Stingray is to imitate a cell-phone tower—forcing all nearby phones to attempt to connect with it. When phones do try to connect, the Stingray logs the information on that phone, everything from location information to the metadata that reveals what phone numbers you've been been texting and calling.

The Stingray was invented for use by the military, but recently local law-enforcement groups have started using the device—a controversial move, and one that may not even be legal, according to a recent report by the American Civil Liberties Union.

By law, Harris Corporation is required to apply for a permit to sell Stingray devices to law enforcement agencies with each new incarnation of this technology. And acccording to the ACLU’s investigation, the application the Federal Communications Commission accepted from the Harris Corporation— the one that allows them to sell the Stingray to police departments—may have contained seriously misleading language describing how the device would be used.

In an email from 2010, a Harris employee told the FCC their application to sell these devices to police departments was only to “provide state/local law enforcement officials with authority to utilize this equipment in emergency situations,” the ACLU discovered. But that doesn’t seem to be what’s actually happening. In fact, there is substantial evidence the police departments that have obtained the Stingray device used it for anything but emergency situations.

“There has been plenty of experience already with how law enforcement was using versions of this technology,” Nathan Freed Wessler, staff attorney with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told me. In a letter to the FCC, the ACLU lays out a number of examples in which earlier versions of this technology have been in use by police departments around the country since as early as 2001. In Tallahassee, Florida, for example, the police department has used the Stingray well over 200 times since 2007 to investigate crimes like muggings and robberies. Less than a third of those reported cases involved an actual emergency, according to documents they’ve received.

In fact, the Miami-Dade police department wrote in a 2004 memorandum that earlier versions of the Stingray they had used proved to be an “invaluable tool” for the prevention of crime and the apprehension of criminals. “It's difficult to see how they would be able to prevent crime with one of these devices without sweeping in private information from large numbers of private and innocent individuals,” Wessler said. Police officers reportedly brought a Stingray to a Free Trade of the Americas conference in Miami to surveil protesters and hopefully learn of impending crimes before they were committed. In other words, the police used the device to spy on people practicing their First Amendment rights, Wessler said.

Police departments have argued that they cannot release information about their use of the Stingray for fear it would compromise national security investigations. According to Wessler, departments typically use grants from the Department of Homeland Security to obtain the device. But he noted that “it would be hard for them to use [national security] arguments in actual individual cases or examples of their use of this technology with a straight face.” In the case of Tallahassee, for example, none of the investigations involved national security issues.

Police departments have also been known to refuse to provide information about their use of the Stingray when journalists or organizations file Freedom of Information Act requests to learn about them because of a non-disclosure agreement the Harris Corporation forces them to sign. This stands in stark opposition to the Freedom of Information Act requests, which are supposed to be followed by the police whenever reasonably possible. Following such a non-disclosure agreement sends a clear message that police departments give more credence to the whims of a corporation than the requirements of the law. In Arizona, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Tucson Police Department over their refusal to disclose information about the Stingray. “State law should trump this agreement,” Dan Pochoda, legal director for the ACLU of Arizona, told the Tuscon Sentinel in March. “If they’re allowed to do this, it would eviscerate state law.”

You might think we can't blame the police departments for using the device as they see fit, because the application to the FCC was sent by the Harris Corporation, not the police. But according to the ACLU, many of these police departments knew the application was pending and sent letters to the FCC requesting they accept the application. “There would have been dialogue back and forth between Harris and local law enforcement that would have given Harris ample opportunity to know how these [Stingray devices] were already being used,” Wessler said. The police departments knew they were waiting on this application, and whether they knew the specific language of the application or not, there was certainly communication between the police and Harris that would have established for some of the people involved that the language was not accurate, as we can see from the emails the ACLU surfaced.

Regardless of the language used to justify the sale of the device to police departments, there might be other reasons to question the use of the Stingray device in general. “Even if law enforcement is tracking one particular suspect, they're capturing location information and identifying information of dozens, hundreds or even thousands of completely innocent bystanders, and that looks a whole lot like a dragnet search—the kind of general warrant the founders and the framers of the Fourth Amendment were trying to prevent.” The Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable search and seizure—if the police can search and seize information from your phone, even if you're a suspect of absolutely no crimes, then it's a violation of your constitutional rights.

The FCC has set up a task force to look into the unlawful use of the Stingray, but they're only looking to see if it has been used by foreign spies or domestic criminals. Their main objective is to find out if stalkers are using it to monitor citizens or if foreign governments are monitoring Congress or embassies in Washington, D.C.

The ACLU, on the other hand, wants to know if local police departments are using Stingrays to monitor citizens in a way that they feel should not be allowed. “At the very least, the FCC should be reevaluating these grants of authority to Harris to make sure that they're actually appropriate, in light of the actual effect,” Wessler told me. If the FCC investigated this possibility and found they were mislead in how the Stingray would be used by police, they could revoke the authorization for police departments using such technology.

Whether it be the crimes against minorities committed by police departments, the unprecedented militarization of the police in the past decade or the police acting as appendages of the NSA, it's becoming clear that policies of police forces in the United States are broken. The ACLU and human rights groups around the country are pleading for more information on what these authorities are doing in their day-to-day work, but they are forced to file information requests that only result in being given parts of the greater picture. Instead of a few emails between Harris and the FCC, the ACLU wants a copy of the actual application that was sent. But for now, they are limited to what the government is willing to give them—a string of emails between Harris employees and the FCC regulators who reviewed Harris's application. And from what they can tell based on those emails, today’s use of Stingrays lies in sharp contrast with how they were approved.