Sen. Rand Paul Asks FBI Why Investigation into Omar Mateen Was Closed

Paul’s remarks came in response to the Democratic-led filibuster from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday, where Murphy led a group of Democrats and some Republicans, including Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), to push for more gun control.

“I’m friends with Sen. Murphy, he and I have worked together on several resolutions with regards to war and with regards to foreign policy,” Paul said. “However, I’m not so sure he’s right on this issue.”

Specifically, Paul was referring to how Murphy was pushing for people on the government’s terrorism watch lists to be banned from buying weapons. After Paul surveyed the room by a show of hands asking if they felt that people on the terrorism watch list should or should not be able to buy guns, Paul then explained why the Democrats’ logic was off.

“So we have to ask why is it a good or bad idea? The first sort of impression from all of us is: Why the hell should a terrorist have a gun?” Paul said. “If you’re a terrorist, you shouldn’t have a gun. Then we have to ask: Well, how do they make the list and is everybody on the list a terrorist? This is a pretty important thing if you’re going to take away somebody’s rights.”

Paul then laid out how the terror watch list has “probably a million people on it” and “most live outside the country, or are foreigners” who don’t have constitutional rights. “But let’s say you’re here and you’re on the list: How did you get on the list?” Paul asked. He continued:

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/16/sen-rand-paul-asks-fbi-why-investigation-into-omar-mateen-was-closed/

 

Gun store owners: Facebook is messing with us

CBS12 gets answers for firearms dealers and gun store owners claiming social media giant Facebook is banning them as users.

This week, two different gun store owners told CBS12 the same story: after the Orlando terror attack, they were personally suspended from Facebook and their business pages were suddenly unpublished.

Andy Hallinan, the owner of Florida Gun Supply in Inverness, Florida, first made headlines for turning his gun store into a “Muslim-free” zone.

He told us that, this week, he experienced problems on Facebook.

“I woke up this morning to my phone just lighting up. People couldn’t access my Facebook page,” said Hallinan.

http://cbs12.com/news/local/gun-store-owners-facebook-is-messing-with-us

EX-CIA DIRECTOR DAVID PETRAEUS WARNS UK WILL BE MORE OPEN TO TERROR THREAT IF BRITAIN LEAVES THE EU

In the wake of the Brussels attack last week – the second deadly terrorist atrocity to hit a European capital within five months – the retired four-star US general said it would be the worst time for Britain and the EU if voters opted to leave in June’s referendum.

General Petraeus, who led US and Nato forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said it would ‘deal a significant blow to the EU’s strength and resilience at exactly the moment when the West is under attack from multiple directions’.

His comments directly contradict his fellow ex-CIA director General Michael Hayden, who said on Friday that Britain’s national security will not be harmed if it leaves the EU.

He said membership of the 28-state bloc ‘in some ways gets in the way of the state providing security for its own citizens’ and dismissed claims by In campaigners that the UK would lose out from shared intelligence if it voted to leave.

http://www.infowars.com/ex-cia-director-david-petraeus-warns-uk-will-be-more-open-to-terror-threat-if-britain-leaves-the-eu/

France Clears Bill That Could Force Apple to Unlock Terror Data

French lawmakers backed a plan to impose penalties including jail time on technology executives who deny access to encrypted data during a terrorist investigation, giving security services and prosecutors the power to force companies such as Apple Inc. to cooperate.

An amendment providing the new power was submitted by the opposition party The Republicans and, while the government hasn’t officially supported the measure, it was included in Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas’s bill to overhaul legal procedures and fight organized crime in the wake of the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks that killed 130 people in Paris.

The lower of chamber of parliament cleared the bill on first reading by 474 votes to 32.

“The rule aims to force phone makers to give investigators data and it will be up to the manufacturer to use whatever technique is necessary,” Republican lawmaker Philippe Goujon, who proposed the amendment, said in an interview. “The target is to have them cooperate. The aim is not to break the encryption — the principle is that manufacturers should cooperate.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-08/france-votes-on-bill-that-could-make-apple-unlock-terrorist-data

Pentagon’s Guantanamo closing plan lays out costs, savings

President Barack Obama says the detention center at Guantanamo Bay undermines America’s national security and needs to be closed.

Obama says the detention center is counterproductive in the fight against terrorism because it’s used as propaganda to recruit terrorists and drains military resources.

The White House released Obama’s plan to close the facility on Tuesday, but the plan faces stiff opposition from the GOP-led Congress.

The plan calls for transferring remaining detainees to the United States and seeks up to $475 million in construction costs that would ultimately be offset by as much as $180 million per year in operating cost savings. It does not specify where in the U.S. the detainees would go.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/23/pentagon-guantanamo-closing-plan-lays-out-costs-savings.html

FBI Won’t Explain Its Bizarre New Way of Measuring Its Success Fighting Terror

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has quietly developed a new way to measure its success in the war on terror: counting the number of terror threats it has “disrupted” in a year.

But good luck trying to figure out what that number means, how it was derived, or why it doesn’t jibe with any other law enforcement statistic, most notably, the number of terror suspects actually charged or arrested

In the section on “Performance Measures” in the FBI’s latest financial statement, the bureau reports 440 “terror disruptions” in the 12-month period ending on September 30, 2015. That’s compared to 214 in fiscal year 2014. And it’s more than three times the 2015 “target” of 125.

In a vacuum, that would appear to suggest that the FBI’s terror-fighting mission — which sucked up $5.3 billion, or 54 percent of the bureau’s $9.8 billion budget in 2015 — is exceeding expectations.

But that number — 440 — is much higher than the number of arrests reported by the FBI. The Washington Post counted about 60 terror-related arrests in 2015; a study by George Washington University found 71 arrestsrelated to the Islamic State from March 2014 to the end of 2015.

Of those arrests, many were of people trying to travel abroad or trying to help others do so. Many more involved people planning attacks that were essentially imaginary, often goaded by FBI informants.

And according to a document from the Department of Homeland Securityobtained by The Intercept in November, there was only one genuinely “foiled attack” in the United States between January 2014 and September 2015. And that one, involving would-be shooters in Garland, Texas, targeting a cartoon-drawing event inspired by the Prophet Muhammad, was stopped by the local police department.

The FBI didn’t respond to emails asking basic questions such as what qualifies as a disruption, why the number is so much higher than the bureau’s recorded arrests, or how it comes up with its annual “target.”

In a January 2015 Performance Report, Justice Department officials explained that the “targets reflect the number of expected disruptions based on the estimated threat, yet account for potential fluctuations.”

The officials acknowledged that “disruptions can be a challenge to quantify for future years” because the number of potential plots is “outside of FBI control.” Nevertheless, they wrote: “Based on past data trends, coupled with current and emerging threat pictures, the FBI expects to achieve its FY 2015 and FY 2016 targets.”

https://theintercept.com/2016/02/18/fbi-wont-explain-its-bizarre-new-way-of-measuring-its-success-fighting-terror/

FBI WON’T EXPLAIN ITS BIZARRE NEW WAY OF MEASURING ITS SUCCESS FIGHTING TERROR

But good luck trying to figure out what that number means, how it was derived, or why it doesn’t jibe with any other law enforcement statistic, most notably, the number of terror suspects actually charged or arrested.

In the section on “Performance Measures” in the FBI’s latest financial statement, the bureau reports 440 “terror disruptions” in the 12-month period ending on September 30, 2015. That’s compared to 214 in fiscal year 2014. And it’s more than three times the 2015 “target” of 125.

In a vacuum, that would appear to suggest that the FBI’s terror-fighting mission — which sucked up $5.3 billion, or 54 percent of the bureau’s $9.8 billion budget in 2015 — is exceeding expectations.

http://www.infowars.com/fbi-wont-explain-its-bizarre-new-way-of-measuring-its-success-fighting-terror/

Profit or patriotism? What’s driving fight between US, Apple

 Apple Inc. and the U.S. government are making their cases before anyone steps into a courtroom over a judge’s order forcing Apple to help the FBI hack into an iPhone in a terrorism case.

Their legal arguments are expected to pit digital privacy rights against national security interests, and could affect millions of cellphone users.

Apple has until next Friday to protest in court the decision by a U.S. magistrate judge in California, according to a person familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe ongoing, private legal discussions.

It wasn’t immediately clear why Apple was given more time. The publicly available court docket wasn’t immediately updated to reflect the new schedule.

Meanwhile, the public relations campaigns are already under way.

Is Apple adequately cooperating with federal agents investigating last year’s deadly attack in San Bernardino, California? Is this simply a dispute to recover information from an iPhone used by the gunman, or a broader fight affecting the privacy rights of citizens who use Apple’s flagship product? Is this about profits or patriotism?

The Justice Department asked the judge to order Apple to create sophisticated software that the FBI could load onto the phone to bypass a self-destruct feature that erases all data after 10 consecutive, unsuccessful attempts to guess the unlocking passcode. Prosecutors said Apple could help the FBI “but has declined to provide that assistance voluntarily,” and they said Apple could perform the task easily.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/19/profit-or-patriotism-what-driving-fight-between-us-apple.html

Terror threat a reality to Europe’s financial budget

The two terror  attacks by the Islamic militants last year in Europe has led to the shift in the current approach of Europe towards fighting terrorism. The European leaders are encouraging for more financial power to be granted to the defense forces to curb the growing threat which means more on security financial budget.

http://www.fxnewscall.com/why-terror-threat-is-driving-europe-on-the-edge-of-its-financial-budget/1932556/

 

FOILED NEW YEAR’S TERROR ATTACK IS 76TH ISLAMIST PLOT IN US SINCE 9/11

Lutchman planned to attack a local restaurant/bar armed only with a machete, knives, and supplies to take hostages.

This marks the 76th Islamist-inspired terror attack/plot on the United States since 9/11 and the 13th in 2015—making 2015 the year with the greatest number of attacks or plots over the past 14 years.

Lutchman is a 25-year-old U.S. citizen who has a history of arrests and in 2006 was sent to prison for five years for robbery. Beginning in November of 2015, he started confessing his allegiance to ISIS online. It wasn’t until after purportedly getting in contact with a member of ISIS within Syria that the planning of an attack began.

Foiled New Year’s Terror Attack Is 76th Islamist Plot in US Since 9/11