www.amperspective.com Online Magazine
Executive Editor: Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Chronology of Islam in America (2018)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
January 2018 - page two
DHS reports 73% of convicted international terrorists are foreign-born
Jan 16: Most people convicted of international terrorism charges in the U.S. are foreign-born, according to a report out Tuesday that President Trump asked to back his travel ban. The Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department report notes that three out of every four people convicted of international terrorism-related charges in the U.S between Sept. 11, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2016 were foreign-born. U.S. federal courts convicted at least 549 people with international terrorism-related charges between Sept. 11, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2016. Seventy-three percent of them, or 402, were foreign-born, and 148 of those convicted had become naturalized U.S. citizens. The report states that officials must “continue to enhance our screening and vetting” as well as “continually vet those who are here,” including legal permanent residents and others who were naturalized, according to DHS secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who appeared Tuesday before the Senate judiciary committee. “This report is a clear reminder of why we cannot continue to rely on immigration policy based on pre-9/11 thinking that leaves us woefully vulnerable to foreign-born terrorists,” Nielsen said in a statement. The joint agency report was called up by the President in the same executive order that banned immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. It essentially contradicts a DHS report leaked last year that did not support the administration’s position that individuals from the affected countries disproportionately threaten the U.S. The report leaked last year found that citizens from the original seven countries are rarely implicated in U.S.-based terrorism plots. [New York Daily News]
DOJ/DHS report on terror smears immigrants, ignores white supremacist violence
Jan 16: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today said a new Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report on international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts between 2001 and 2016 serves to smear all immigrants and ignores the troubling phenomenon of violence committed by white supremacists and other non-immigrants. CAIR said the report was required by one of President Trump's executive orders. In a statement, CAIR, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said: "This agenda-driven report is clearly designed to support the Trump administration's anti-immigrant and Islamophobic policies. It ignores violence committed by white supremacists and other non-immigrants, and instead seeks to tar all immigrants with the brush of terrorism. As President Trump's long history of racist and anti-immigrant statements and policy proposals have demonstrated, administration policies must be viewed through the lens of the Islamophobia, racism and white supremacy that are the main motivating factors for such policies." A report from the Cato Institute indicated that more than three times as many people were killed in terror attacks by native-born Americans than foreign-born attackers between the 9/11 attacks and the end of 2015. That report stated: "From September 12, 2001, until December 31, 2015, 24 people were murdered on U.S. soil by a total of 5 foreign-born terrorists, while 65 other foreign-born terrorists attempted or committed attacks that did not result in fatalities. During the same period, 80 people were murdered in terrorist attacks committed by native-born Americans and those with unknown nationalities." [CAIR]
Team Trump bypassed DHS analysts to produce bogus terror report
The document didn’t mince words. It claimed three-quarters of “international terrorism” convicts were immigrants, an assertion meant to bolster Donald Trump’s cherished Muslim-focused ban on entering the country. And the report put the claim in the mouths of an agency assembled to keep Americans safe after 9/11: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Working off the 549 federal international-terrorism convictions tallied by the Justice Department, the document stated: “An analysis conducted by DHS determined that approximately 73 percent (402 of these 549 individuals) were foreign-born.”But the Department of Homeland Security did not perform that analysis. DHS’ analysts did not contribute to the highly controversial report, The Daily Beast has learned. According to a government source familiar with the episode, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ office took charge of the report’s assemblage of statistics—which some terrorism analysts consider highly misleading—and sent it to DHS Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen for her imprimatur after it was all but finalized. “The Trump administration is trying to turn counterterrorism into an immigration issue,” said Charles Kurzman of the University of North Carolina, where he tracks Muslim-American involvement in terrorism. Almost immediately afterward, other terrorism studies came to starkly different conclusions about terrorism in the U.S. and immigration. On Wednesday, the Anti-Defamation League released its own analysis of terrorism inside the U.S. in 2017. Though its scope was different than the administration’s, the ADL found that 59 percent of extremist-related deaths in the U.S. in 2017 were caused by white supremacists and far-right extremists.Then, on Thursday, Kurzman, the North Carolina professor, published his annual index of Muslim-American involvement in terrorism. Like the ADL report, its focus is different than the Justice-DHS offering. But it found “no attacks in 2017 by Muslim-American extremists with family backgrounds in travel-ban countries.” Since 9/11, terrorists from ban countries “have caused zero fatalities and 32 injuries” domestically. For good measure, Kurzman’s report noted, “almost twice as many people were killed in the United States by mass shootings in 2017 as have been killed by Muslim-American extremists in the past 16 years.” Though the Justice-DHS report was an outgrowth of the travel ban, it notably did not associate its purported 73 percent of foreign-born terrorism convictions with travel-ban countries—an omission Kurzman believes occurred because “it would show there’s very little violence from folks from the travel-ban countries.” But a larger omission in the report intrigues Kurzman: domestic terrorism. According to data referenced by federal prosecutors around the country, there have been approximately 1,400 cases of domestic terrorism prosecuted since 9/11, a total more than twice the 549 cases of international terrorism that the Justice-DHS report examined. Since the data format excludes relevant information like case docket numbers, Kurzman and the Brennan Center have filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the missing domestic-terrorism information. If successful, they seek to use this much larger data set to determine, among other things, a more comprehensive picture of the relationship between terrorism and immigration. [By Spencer Ackerman – The Daily Beast /Jan 21]
Lawsuit filed challenging placement of U.S. Muslims on terror watch lists without due process
Jan 17: The Dallas Fort-Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-DFW), along with CAIR’s national civil rights department, today filed a lawsuit on behalf of several Muslims challenging their placement -- without due process -- in the government's Terrorist Screening Database - a watch list of "known or suspected terrorists.” The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court, Northern District of Texas, challenges the government’s widespread practice of designating Muslims on the watch lists without providing individuals notice of the basis for their placement and without offering a meaningful opportunity to contest this designation. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of five Muslims who are American citizens and have all experienced a range of severe consequences due to their placement on the watch list, including the inability to fly on airplanes, intrusive screenings at airports, and the denial of applications for credit cards and bank loans. Last year, CAIR defeated a motion to dismiss a similar lawsuit in a federal court in Virginia, allowing for the broadest ever challenge to the federal watch list to move forward. [CAIR]
Supreme Court urged to Reinstate Lower Court's Injunction Against Muslim Ban 3.0
Jan 19: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the U.S. Supreme Court to restore a Hawaii court's injunction against Muslim Ban 3.0. This afternoon, the Supreme Court made the decision to review a Hawaii court's broad injunction against Muslim Ban 3.0, a decision an appellate court -- the Ninth Circuit -- has already upheld. Just last month, the Supreme Court issued two orders staying the Hawaii and Maryland federal courts' injunctions that had, until December 4, 2017, largely prevented the Trump administration from implementing Muslim Ban 3.0's visa restrictions. Although the Supreme Court's December 4th decision allowed Muslim Ban 3.0 to go into effect now, today's decision means that the Supreme Court will soon have the opportunity to reinstate the injunctions issued by lower courts in October. "The illegal bigotry that animates Muslim Ban 3.0 should be as clear to the Supreme Court as it is to the Muslims it stigmatizes," said CAIR National Litigation Director Lena Masri. "If the First Amendment means anything at all, it means that the president of the United States cannot wield the federal government's powers in a way calculated to disfavor Muslims and demonize Islam," said CAIR Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas. "The Supreme Court -- along with the rest of us -- must do everything possible to oppose Muslim Ban 3.0."In October, CAIR and the Brennan Center for Justice filed suit against President Trump's Muslim Ban on behalf of six American Muslims impacted by the immigration restrictions. Civil rights attorneys, including CAIR National attorney Gadeir Abbas, delivered oral arguments against the ban in mid-October. On appeal, this case, Zakzok v. Trump, was consolidated with two others, and all are pending before the Fourth Circuit. Oral argument was held on December 8th, in Richmond, Va. The appeal regards a Maryland court's decision to prevent the Trump Administration from implementing most of Muslim Ban 3.0. In a broad ruling on October 18th, U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang granted CAIR and other groups' request for a nationwide injunction prohibiting the Trump administration from implementing its latest attempt to exclude Muslims from the United States. Judge Chuang ruled that the plaintiffs were likely to ultimately succeed in proving that anti-Muslim animus motivated the travel ban in violation of the Establishment Clause. He also noted that the ban violates federal law, which forbids the government from discriminating against visa applicants based on their nationality. In September, CAIR -- with the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and Profeta & Eisenstein -- filed an amicus brief with U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of seven American Muslims. [CAIR]
UK school forced to reverse hijab (scarf) ban
Jan 21: One of the UK’s leading state-funded schools which had hit the headlines as one of the first to impose a ban on the hijab (scarf) for girls under eight has been forced to reverse its decision after widespread criticism. St Stephen’s School in Newham, east London, had been planning to extend the ban to girls under 11 later this year but has chosen to withdraw the plans. “The school’s uniform policy is based on the health, safety and welfare of our children. The school has taken the decision to make changes to this policy with immediate effect and this follows on from conversations with our school community,” the school said in a statement. “We will work with our school community to continue to review this policy going forward in the best interests of our children,” it adds. Arif Qawi, the chair of governors of the school who had recently called on the UK government to take a firm stand on young children wearing the hijab and fasting during Ramadan, resigned from his post on Friday. According to ‘The Sunday Times’, the resignation followed offensive messages posted on social media against him and the school’s Indian-origin principal Neena Lall. The Department for Education said it is a matter for individual schools to decide how to “accommodate children observing Ramadan, and to set uniform policies”. “But we would expect them to consider the needs of their pupils, and to listen to the views of local parents,” a spokesperson said. In November 2017, St Stephen’s School had topped a prestigious primary schools league table published by ‘The Sunday Times’ annually. It was listed as the best school in England in the ‘Schools Guide 2018’ for a strong teaching record. [Indian Express]
The Rich 1% earned enough in 2017 alone to end world poverty
Jan 22: As world leaders gather at the Swiss resort of Davos for the World Economic Forum, an Oxford-based anti-poverty charity has reported that last year, 82% of the global wealth went to the richest 1% of the population. Titled Reward Work, Not Wealth, the Oxfam report on global economic trends, which was released today, said that the 3.7 billion people who make up the poorest half across the world saw their wealth flatline, while the biggest gains were made by billionaires. According to the report, roughly a third of billionaire wealth is derived from inheritance, and over the next 20 years, 500 of the world’s richest people will hand over $2.4 trillion to their heirs – a sum that is larger than India’s GDP. The wealth of billionaires is estimated to have risen by an average of 13% a year between 2006 and 2015 — six times faster than the wages of ordinary workers. It takes just four days for a CEO of one of the world’s five biggest fashion retailers to earn as much as a Bangladeshi garment worker will earn in her entire lifetime, it said. “Last year saw the biggest increase in billionaires in history, one more every two days. Billionaires saw their wealth increase by $762 billion in 12 months. This huge increase could have ended global extreme poverty seven times over,” the report said. Mark Goldring, Oxfam GB chief executive, said: “Something is very wrong with a global economy that allows the one percent to enjoy the lion’s share of increases in wealth while the poorest half of humanity misses out. “The concentration of extreme wealth at the top is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a system that is failing the millions of hard-working people on poverty wages who make our clothes and grow our food.” [Hindustan Times]
Thought Police for the 21st Century
Jan 23: The abolition of net neutrality and the use of algorithms by Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter to divert readers and viewers from progressive, left-wing and anti-war sites, along with demonizing as foreign agents the journalists who expose the crimes of corporate capitalism and imperialism, have given the corporate state the power to destroy freedom of speech. Any state that accrues this kind of power will use it. And for that reason I traveled last week to Detroit to join David North, the chairperson of the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site, in a live-stream event calling for the formation of a broad front to block an escalating censorship while we still have a voice.“The future of humanity is the struggle between humans that control machines and machines that control humans,” Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, said in a statement issued in support of the event. “Between the democratization of communication and usurpation of communication by artificial intelligence. While the Internet has brought about a revolution in people’s ability to educate themselves and others, the resulting democratic phenomena has shaken existing establishments to their core. Google, Facebook and their Chinese equivalents, who are socially, logistically and financially integrated with existing elites, have moved to re-establish discourse control. This is not simply a corrective action. Undetectable mass social influence powered by artificial intelligence is an existential threat to humanity. While still in its infancy, the trends are clear and of a geometric nature. The phenomena differs in traditional attempts to shape cultural and political phenomena by operating at scale, speed and increasingly at a subtlety that eclipses human capacities.”In late April and early May the World Socialist Web Site, which identifies itself as a Trotskyite group that focuses on the crimes of capitalism, the plight of the working class and imperialism, began to see a steep decline in readership. The decline persisted into June. Search traffic to the World Socialist Web Site has been reduced by 75 percent overall. And the site is not alone. AlterNet’s search traffic is down 71 percent, Consortium News is down 72 percent, Global Research and Truthdig have seen declines. And the situation appears to be growing worse.The reductions coincided with the introduction of algorithms imposed by Google to fight “fake news.” Google said the algorithms are designed to elevate “more authoritative content” and marginalize “blatantly misleading, low quality, offensive or downright false information.” It soon became apparent, however, that in the name of combating “fake news,” Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are censoring left-wing, progressive and anti-war sites. The 150 most popular search terms that brought readers to the World Socialist Web Site, including “socialism,” “Russian Revolution” and “inequality,” today elicit little or no traffic.Monika Bickert, head of global policy management at Facebook, told the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in a hearing Wednesday that Facebook employs a security team of 10,000—7,500 of whom “assess potentially violating content”—and that “by the end of 2018 we will more than double” it to over 20,000. Social media companies are intertwined with and often work for U.S. intelligence agencies. This army of censors is our Thought Police. [By Chris Hedges - Truth Dig]
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