Due to the actions of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, the National Security Agency is no longer allowed to spy on American’s phone calls and are no longer allowed to collect bulk phone data.
The action is considered temporary as eventually Senator Paul will not be able to stop passage of legislation that would allow certain spy programs to continue. The current Patriot Act had a Sunday night deadline to be renewed or all the spy programs approved by the law had to immediately end.
Several Republican senators were upset with their colleague stopping the law.
“We cannot go back to a pre-9/11 mentality,” New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte told Fox News.
“The Senate took an important–if late–step forward tonight,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement after the Senate moved forward with debate on the Act. “We call on the Senate to ensure this irresponsible lapse in authorities is as short-lived as possible.”
Officials with the NSA told CNN they officially shut down the program at 7:44 p.m. Sunday night ahead of the Senate’s inaction on the bill.
The Senate is waiting to vote on the USA Freedom Act, which makes big changes to the NSA’s ability to collect phone data but keeps other parts of the Patriot Act’s spying authorization attacks.
Islamic terrorist group ISIS has released a new propaganda video aimed at Americans saying there is “no safety” for any citizen and threatening to conduct a 9/11 style attack.
“America thinks it’s safe because of the geographical location,” the video states. “Thus you see it invades the Muslim lands, and it thinks that the army of the Jihad won’t reach in their lands. But the dream of the American to have safety became a mirage. Today there is no safety for any American on the globe. The mujahedeen before, although they had less resources, attacked New York and bombed the Twin Towers in September 11 attacks. That blessed incursion was a fatal blow. All praise is due to Allah, the American economy was shaken.”
In addition to the threats on America, the video features clips of ISIS attacks in the Middle East, the attack on Canada’s Parliament Hill and testimony of Amedy Coulibably, the French terrorist who was part of last year’s massacres.
ISIS burned down the homes of 10 Christian families in Nineveh on April 7th. The group is also setting up traps to kill Christians when they enter their homes.
“Some of the houses in the village are burned. Some are bombed and destroyed. Some are robbed. We heard of one man who tried to enter his house and as soon as he opened the door, the house exploded,” a Christian man named Ayad said in a video interview with the World Council of Churches. “As ISIS forces leave, they are planting explosions inside the houses so that if people return they will be victims of the blast.”
A man has been arrested on charges of assault and stalking after yelling death threats to members of a Miami Beach synagogue.
Diego Chaar accosted two members of the Ohev Shalom Congregation shouting “Allahu Akbar” and then threatened to cut off the heads of the synagogue’s members.
“That’s called assault. Threatening to kill,” said Rabbi Phineas Webberman. “His attitude was that this is his religious responsibility of carrying out killing infidels.”
The synagogue’s members rushed inside and called 911.
Charr denied saying anything and has been released on bond.
“It’s terrible,” Joe McCormack, a retired officer and longtime friend of Rabbi Webberman, told CBS Miami. “How would you feel if I said ‘I’ll cut your head off you Jew.’ It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t be allowed.”
The synagogue has hired extra security in the wake of the incident.
Critics say that America has lost their first cyberwar after Sony Pictures pulled the movie “The Interview” after repeated cyber attacks by North Korean hackers.
“No one should kid themselves. With the Sony collapse America has lost its first cyberwar. This is a very very dangerous precedent,” former House speaker Newt Gingrich said after Sony’s announcement.
Sony pulled the film…a comedy film about two bumbling reporters that assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il…even though it was due to open in theaters in just over a week.
The hackers had threatened to have “9/11 style attacks” on theaters in the U.S. that showed the movie. The threats caused the five biggest movie chains in the country to say they were not going to show the film because of fears of incidents.
President Obama addressed the matter in a Wednesday interview.
“The cyber attack is very serious. We’re investigating, we’re taking it seriously,” Obama said during the interview. “We’ll be vigilant, if we see something that we think is serious and credible, then we’ll alert the public. But for now, my recommendation would be that people go to the movies.”
The Department of Homeland Security says there is no credible threat against any movie theater in the U.S.
Security experts are raising the alarm over an Al-Qaeda plot to blow up at least five passenger airliners on Christmas in a 9/11 style coordinated attack.
The threat is so serious in the minds of British officials that they had considered a total ban on all carry on luggage as a way to thwart the plot.
“We’ve been told that five planes are being targeted in a high profile hit before Christmas. They’ve been waiting for the big one,” an airport security source told the London Express. “We have many scares but this one nearly got hand baggage pulled from all airlines. The threat is still alive and real.”
The source says the plot is aimed at European airports because U.S. security measures have increased significantly compared to their counterparts around the world.
The plot reportedly would include radicalized Britons who have returned to the country from being a part of the battles in Syria and the middle east. Some have received terrorist training in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“Crime profiling shows that white, middle class women, who are better than averagely educated, are susceptible to the terrorist narrative,” terrorism expert Dr. Sally Leivesley told the Express. “They see themselves at the forefront of attempts to change the world and are represent a very dangerous tool for the terrorists. These sleepers will have been from ordinary and not very religious families and not only is the threat from them here but also when they return battle hardened from Syria and Iraq.”
Western intelligence agencies are scrambling after discovering that 11 commercial aircraft have disappeared from the airport in Tripoli airport.
Islamist militias took control of the airport last month as they continue to take over the country. There have been continual battles around the airport between the rival Islamist groups that have resulted in intelligence agencies not being able to confirm which groups may have flown the aircraft to other locations.
The fear is that many of the planes will be used to make attacks on September 11th, the 13th anniversary of the attacks on New York and the 2nd anniversary of the attack on the Benghazi embassy assault.
The airport still has seven aircraft in various states of damage sitting around the terminal. However, Libyan Airlines had 14 planes this summer and state-owned Afriqiyah Airways had 13 aircraft. All but 11 have been found since the airport was closed in mid-July.
Military forces all across North Africa have been placed on a heightened alert because of the missing planes.
Republican congressmen have been raising the alarm about the Islamic terror group Islamic State, saying that the group already has plans in place for a takeover of the United States.
Now, NationaLReview has released an outline of the plan that is based on a tactical guide released after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The first phase is “attrition” where they carry out attacks in an attempt to recruit more terrorists and to build morale in the established group. The second phase is to build an army to keep ground gained from the initial offensive. The third phase is to use their army to launch “dramatic assaults” to destabilize the government of the country they wish to possess.
“By means of these mujahadin conventional forces, the mujahidin will begin to attack smaller cities and exploit in the media their successes and victories in order to raise the morale of the mujahidin and the people in general and to demoralize the enemy,” the terrorist author writes in a passage quoted by National Review. “The reason for the mujahidin’s treating of smaller cities is that when the enemy’s forces see the fall of cities into the mujahidin’s hands with such ease their morale will collapse and they will become convinced that they are incapable of dealing with the mujahidin.”
Versions of the plan have been found at Islamic terrorist training camps around the world since 2008.
The document clearly says multiple times the enemy are “Jews, Christians and their agents.”
A federal appeals court has told a group of anti-Christianists that “the cross at Ground Zero” is not an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.
The group American Atheists had demanded the cross be removed because it violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.
“American Atheists contend that the Port Authority and the foundation impermissibly promote Christianity in violation of the Establishment Clause and deny atheists equal protection of the laws by displaying the cross at Ground Zero in the museum unaccompanied by some item acknowledging that atheists were among the victims and rescuers on September 11,” read the opinion.
“American Atheists acknowledge that there is no historic artifact that speaks particularly to the loss of atheists’ lives or to atheists’ rescue efforts … we conclude that American Atheists’ challenge fails on the merits. Accordingly, we hereby affirm the judgment in favor of appellees.”
The president of American Atheists says it’s not fair that a cross is in the 9/11 Museum and his group can’t put up some kind of tribute to atheists, even though the “cross” wasn’t given by any Christian group but rather discovered as part of the debris of the Twin Towers.
“They’re trying to Christianize 9/11 with this cross and it’s not American and it’s not fair,” said David Silverman.
The anti-Christianist group will likely appeal the decision.
A federal court is telling a group of anti-Christianists to explain why the ground Zero cross is “offensive”, “repugnant” and a violation of the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.
American Atheists has been filing suit to have the Ground Zero Cross removed from the National 9/11 Museum in New York. The court has taken a surprisingly skeptical view of the plaintiffs and their claims of being harmed by the mere existence and display of the cross formed when two beams fell on each other during the collapse of the Twin Towers.
“Plaintiffs’ brief should, at a minimum, clarify both the injuries alleged and legal theories relied on to support standing,” the Second Circuit Court of Appeals asked. “Further, to the extent plaintiffs allege that they have been ‘injured in consequence of having a religious tradition that is not their own imposed upon them through the power of the state,’ First Am. Compl. because individual plaintiffs view use of the challenged ‘cross, a Christian symbol, to represent all victims of the 9/11 Attacks’ as ‘offensive,’ ‘repugnant,’ and ‘insult[ing]’ to them as atheists, plaintiffs should explain how such offense states a cognizable constitutional injury.”
The anti-Christian group had claimed in their filing that the cross’s existence alienates anyone who wishes to learn about events at the museum. They also state because the cross is bigger than any other religious artifact at the memorial, it means the government is endorsing Christianity over all other religions.
A group of atheists is trying to force the 9/11 Museum to remove the “Miracle Cross” because they say its existence in the museum violates the Constitution.
The “Miracle Cross” is a 17-foot cross-shaped beam that was found in the rubble of 9/11. The cross was displayed at Ground Zero and many workers on the site considered it a source of comfort and hope in the midst of the death and destruction.
The anti-Christian group American Atheists says the cross is part of religious history, not American history, and says that its existence in the 9/11 Museum that opens in May violates the separation of church and state.
The Museum is on land owned by the Port Authority and financed by taxpayers.
The atheist group says that if the cross is displayed, that his group wants a similar item such as a plaque that reads, “atheists died here too.”
Federal Judge Reena Raggi appeared to be skeptical of the claims by the atheists.
“There are countless cases of museums including religious artifacts in their exhibits and it’s going to be described in a way that talks about the history of the object,” Judge Raggi said. “What is the problem here? An argument has been made that you’re trying to censor history.”
A ruling is expected in several months.
