RUTHFULLY YOURS

Expiring Section of Law, Targeted by Critics of NSA Phone Program, Underpins Requests for Hotel, Credit-Card Bills

WASHINGTON—U.S. officials and some lawmakers are worried that key tools used to hunt down terrorists and spies could fall victim to the fight over the government’s controversial phone-surveillance program.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, using authority conveyed by a soon-to-expire section of the 2001 Patriot Act, is currently allowed to seek “tangible things’’ to aid in terrorism or intelligence probes, such as hotel bills, credit-card slips and other documents. Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the FBI, with a court order, to take “books, records, papers, documents, and other items.’’

The authority is often used as a way to secretly collect evidence on suspected foreign spies operating in the U.S., according to current and former officials. Unlike a grand-jury subpoena, a person or company receiving a Section 215 order to provide documents is barred from revealing to anyone that they received such a request, these people said.

Canadian law professor William Schabas resigned this week as chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza conflict. He did so after Israeli diplomats revealed he was paid by the Palestine Liberation Organization to render an opinion on the legal consequences of a U.N. General Assembly resolution upgrading “Palestine” to a nonmember state. Now there’s a nonsurprise.

When the conflict of interest came to light last week, Mr. Schabas insisted his 2012 work for the Palestinians was purely “academic.” But by Monday he had resigned his U.N. post. In his resignation letter, he blamed his departure on “Israel’s campaign against the Commission of Inquiry on the Gaza Conflict” rather than his own failure to disclose a material conflict of interest.

Please watch the 6 minute bullet video: http://bit.ly/1ze66dS

Conventional wisdom suggests that US-Israel ties constitute a one-way-street: The US gives and Israel receives. However, in recent years the one-way-street has been transformed into a two-way-street, mutually-beneficial, win-win set of ties:

1. US special operations units trained in Israel before arrival to Iraq and Afghanistan;
2. Israel armor plating technology protects US soldiers;
3. Israel is a cost-effective, battle-tested laboratory for the US defense industries;
4. Israel provides the US more intelligence than all NATO countries combined;

If several alarming media reports are true, US President Barack Obama
is moving perilously closer to a nuclear deal with Iran that will
endanger Israel and all of Western civilization.

Far away from the glare of the cameras, it appears that the
commander-in-chief and his colleagues are swiftly caving in to the
ayatollahs, hoping to buy some short-term quiet by allowing Iran to
remain a threshold nuclear state.

Is Annexation a Near Term Option?

By Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis). 5 February 2015

On February 3, 2015, Bayit Yehudit (Israeli political party) distributed a short video describing Naftali Bennett’s plan to annex Area C, the area where Jewish communities are located, while leaving the remainder as a Palestinian autonomy with Israel making great efforts to facilitate improved conditions in the autonomy. Palestinians in Area C would each have the choice of full Israeli citizenship or permanent resident status.

Minister Bennett’s Facebook page introduced the video with the line “Give us 20 mandates”

The end of the video has the line ”Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria today”.

The clip didn’t get much media attention or discussion.

And Bayit Yehudi itself doesn’t seem to have initiated any follow up (at least as of now).

I hope it does. Because annexation deserves serious consideration. And not just for some far off time.