US Court Approves Sharia Bankruptcy Plan....No Separation of Mosque & State

Longtime readers of this site know that I’ve been on the case of Arcapita, formerly known as First Islamic Investment Bank, for over a decade. Last year, when the company–owned by Jew-hating Gulf State sheiks (including the family that owns Al-Jazeera, the Qatari royal family)–filed for bankruptcy, I cheered. But my jaw dropped when I learned that the company had the gall to submit a sharia-compliant bankruptcy plan.That’ll never fly, I thought, because it’s unconstitutional. But I was wrong. As I’ve noted many times before, there truly is no Establishment Clause for Muslims in America or separation between mosque and state. These things apparently only apply to Christians and Jews. Yesterday, federal Judge Sean Lane of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, gushing how “fascinating” he found sharia, approved the sharia bankruptcy. Disgusting. It’s just the latest instance in which a U.S. Court recognizes Islamic law. Look for more and more of that. When an American bankruptcy court recognizes Islamic law, it opens the door for other American courts and institutions to recognize Islamic law.


Judge Sean Lane “Fascinated” By Sharia Bankruptcy, Which He Granted/Approved




Arcapita CEO Atif Abdulmalik Gets Dhimmi Judge to Grant His Company ShariaBankruptcy

In 2002, Arcapita, the former owner of Caribou Coffee, appointed Muslim Brotherhood cleric and America-hating, Jew-hating scumbag Yusuf Al-Qaradawi as one of its top executives, to make sure that all of its products and services–at Caribou and its other businesses–were sharia-complaint. When I exposed this in a 2002 New York Post column (a longer version of which appears here) and appearances on FOX News’ “O’Reilly Factor” and MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” the bank claimed to fire Qaradawi, but it didn’t matter. Caribou (which is now owned by a German company, which is closing or renaming most Caribou stores) had its worst sales quarter ever, and the bank fired its then-CEO, replacing him with a far-left Jewish yes-man who flashed his Jewish credentials to try to get people to patronize Caribou. A few years ago, a friend of mine repeated my work in a newsletter he sent out to the Jewish community and found himself on the receiving end of lawsuit threats from Arcapita. I represented my friend and told Arcapita’s retained Jewish lawyer that we would be looking forward to deposing the sheik shareholders who own Arcapita and looking over their finances, including donations to Islamic terrorists. That shut them up.

You should note that, per usual, the extremist Arcapita–whose board members and shareholders included a cleric with ties to Al-Qaeda and a sheikh who apparently donated money to a Palestinian terrorist telethon–had a Jewish lawyer in the bankruptcy. Yup, they hate the Jews, but they always hire them as legal counsel. Clearly, lawyer Michael Rosenthal of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm wasn’t bothered by the fact that Arcapita’s hand-picked exec, Qaradawi, urged Muslims to give up their dowries and instead spend the money to fund Palestinian homicide bombers and spill “Zionist blood” or that he urged Muslims to blow up U.S. soldiers in Iraq as a religious duty.

Bahrain investment firm Arcapita Bank received approval from a U.S.Bankruptcy Court on Tuesday for its plan to repay creditors, thought to be the first that is compliant with sharia, Islamic law. “I’m happy to confirm the plan,” said Judge Sean Lane of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. “This has been a fascinating case for me.”

Under the plan of reorganization, Arcapita will repay its only secured creditor, Standard Chartered Plc, in full. Arcapita will transfer its assets to a new holding company which will dispose of its investments over time, in an attempt to avoid a firesale liquidation.

The company’s unsecured creditors will receive the equity in the new holding company as well as their pro rata share in a sharia-compliant loan. General unsecured creditors are expected to receive around 7.7 percent of the $1.9 billion they are owed, according to court documents. The largest unsecured creditor is the Central Bank of Bahrain, which was owed $255.1 million.

The company provided alternative investment opportunities for rich families, institutions and sovereign wealth funds in the Gulf region, but sought bankruptcy last year as a $1.1 billion loan came due. The fund’s investment were sharia-compliant, as is the $350 million loan that Arcapita arranged to fund its wind-down operations after its exits bankruptcy.

Sharia prohibits borrowing money with interest. Instead, the so-called murabahah structure effectively treats the arrangement as a sale, incorporating a profit margin and fees instead of interest.

Arcapita filed for bankruptcy protection in March 2012 with about $7.4 billion in assets under management. . . . Arcapita was represented by Michael Rosenthal of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The case is In Re: Arcapita Bank BSC et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 12-11076.

Say good-bye, America. Today, Manhattan’s U.S. Bankruptcy Court submits to sharia. Tomorrow, it will be your town.

Exit Question: Do you think a U.S. federal bankruptcy court would approve a Christianity-compliant or Jewish-compliant bankruptcy plan (whatever that might be)? Think again.

Debbie schlussel

Trigonometry and Hyperspaces - Chuck Missler

Think at Your Own Risk

Russia to Fast-Track New Online Censorship Bill

MOSCOW, June 12 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian parliamentary committee approved for review a new controversial anti-piracy law dubbed “the Russian SOPA” by critics after a similar US bill.

The bill will undergo on Friday the first of three required readings in the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, and may be passed by mid-July, lawmaker Robert Shlegel said Tuesday, Vedomosti daily reported Tuesday.

Duma’s legislation committee approved the bill on Tuesday despite outcry from Russian internet companies and advocates of internet freedom.

The bill is unofficially endorsed by the Kremlin, Vedomosti said, citing unnamed governmental sources.

The bill would allow copyright holders to have access to allegedly pirated content online blocked on a court order. Whole websites can be blacklisted under the law, which appoints a single court in Moscow to handle all copyright-related complaints nationwide.

Yandex, Russia’s biggest online search engine, slammed the bill in its corporate blog last week, saying it is ridden with technical flaws that could allow to indefinitely ban almost any website.

The bill protects the interests of copyright holders at the expense of web users and the internet industry, whose representatives were not consulted by the authors, Yandex said. The legislation was co-penned by an actress, an opera singer and a film director, all of them federal lawmakers.

Prominent anti-censorship website Rublacklist.net compared the bill to US SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), a draconian anti-piracy legislation introduced in the US Congress in 2011, but mothballed after a wave of protests, including by the English Wikipedia.

Ironically, bill co-author Yelena Drapeko, a former actress, admitted on Vesti.ru to downloading films on torrents.

“I don’t quite understand whether it is legal or not,” she said about the torrents she was using.

Russia introduced last November an internet blacklist that allows for extrajudicial ban of websites accused of promoting child abuse, suicide and illegal drug use. More than 6,600 websites are currently blacklisted, 97 percent of them blocked by mistake over technicalities, according to Rublacklist.net.

RIANovosti

Regulation is what keeps bankers out of prison

Full Throttle baby

We as a nation are already off of the cliff and in mid air towards our national doom. We are free falling at present with our foot to the floor with fatal impact moments away, but yet scoffers and kool-aid drinkers abound, the low info crowd stays..."low info'd...,  conservatives trust that there still is a chance to save our nation which is saturated with lawlessness, moderates trust that compromise with lawlessness will fix our nation and the progressive Left believe and trust that America's utopia is just around the corner. 

All these groups have one thing in common, they all are oblivious to REALITY, deceived and subjective in their thinking (Rom. 1:18-24). All these groups REFUSE to believe what Almighty God's Word states ever so clearly about ETERNAL salvation, mankind's fall, the Day of the Lord, Almighty God the Son's glorious return, His 1000 year Kingdom reign in RIGHTEOUSNESS and ETERNITY in a new heavens and earth (Acts 4:12, Rom. 1:18-32, 10:2-4, 2 Peter 3:3, Isa 2:1-4, 11:1-10, Mic 4:1-4, Zech.14:16-21, Rev 19:11-21,20:11-15, 21-22:1-5). Thus all these groups are ETERNALLY doomed unless they wake up to REALITY and receive the mercy and grace of Almighty God which He has provided for the world in His precious Son (John 3:16-17).

You see my dear friends... the Bible is not a "religious" book, its spiritual and moral absolutes, precepts and word are RIGHTEOUS, REALITY and TRUTH which transcends time and ETERNITY.

You see my dear friends... the Bible is not a "religious" book, its spiritual and moral absolutes, precepts and word are ABSOLUTE, RIGHTEOUS, REAL and TRUE and transcends the temporal confines of time and ETERNITY(Psalm 138:2, John 17:17, Rev. 21-22:15). You see my dear friend, the Lord Jesus was not a weak frail failure, a "victim" of the powers that be, a "good" man or teacher, a social engineer, a moral relativist or your homeboy. He is Almighty God the Son who holds ETERNITY in His nail pierced hands (Isa. 9:6-7, Mic 5:2, Rev. 1:11). He is the Creator of the Heavens (the billions of galaxy's and Universe) and the earth (John 1:1-3, Heb. 1:2-3). He is the King of ETERNAL glory who left Heaven's ETERNAL glorious throne in Divine Love to be the Savior of the world and to be the RIGHTEOUS propitiation (John 1:14, Phil. 2:5-10, John 3:16-17, 1 John 2:2, 4:10) for a big old godless world that absolutely hates and despises His guts and RIGHTEOUSNESS (John 1:10-12, Rom. 1:18-32, Eph. 2:1-10, 1 Peter 3:18).

You see my dear friend, Jesus was not a weak, frail failure, a "victim" of the powers that be, a "good" man and teacher, a social engineer, a moral relativist or your homeboy. He is Almighty God the Son who holds ETERNITY in His nail pierced hands.

Christ arose FOREVER VICTORIOUS from the grave and crushed death's reign, who's shackles since the fall have bound the sons and daughters of Adam (Rom. 5:12-21, ! Cor. 15:58, Heb. 2:14-15). He has liberated the souls of men who have placed their trust in His saving work (John 1:12, Rom. 7:24-25, 1 Cor. 15:55-58, Gal. 1:4, Eph. 2:1-12, Heb. 2:14-15) and has proclaimed the certain ETERNAL doom of lawless and godless men and women as well(John 3:36, 8:24). HE then ascended to the Right Hand of Almighty God the Father and WILL come again in glory to crush Lucifer's angelic rebellion and mankind's as well (Psalm 110:1, Zech. 14:3-9, Heb. 1:2-3, Rev. 19:11-21, 20:1-3,10). He WILL then establish His Kingdom reign which will NEVER end and He will rule with RIGHTEOUSNESS, MERCY and GRACE for a thousand years (Isa. 11:1-10, Dan. 2:44-45, 7:13-14, Zech. 14:3-21, Rev. 19:15, 20:5-6). He WILL then judge the sons and daughters of Adam in RIGHTEOUSNESS (Rev. 20:11-15, 21:8, 22:11) and then dissolve time and commence the ETERNAL estate of the redeemed in which they WILL reign with Him FOREVERMORE in RIGHTEOUSNESS, JOY and PEACE (John 14:1-4, 1 Cor. 2:9, Rev. 21-22:1-5).

...but yet these WILL continue to refuse and reject the WONDROUS redeeming LOVE of Almighty God and WILL hold unto their godless delusion unto the end and WILL call TRUE REALITY a delusion and tyrannical and those who believe Almighty God bigots and crazy.

My dear friends, this is REALITY and this is what all human beings throughout the world today need to receive, but yet these WILL continue to refuse and reject the WONDROUS redeeming LOVE of Almighty God and WILL hold onto their godless delusion unto the end and WILL call TRUE REALITY a delusion and tyrannical and those who believe Almighty God bigots and crazy (Isa. 5:20, John 3:19-21, Rom. 1:18-32, 1 Cor. 1:18-31, Rev. 9:20-21).

My dear friends, Almighty God cries out to you today and this fallen and godless world to repent and be saved from the wrath which is to come, for it IS coming (John 3:36, Rev. 6-19). There can NEVER be any place for lawlessness in Almighty God's RIGHTEOUS ETERNITY for then it would be no different than here on the doomed and fallen planet of earth (1 Cor. 6:9-10, 15:50, Rev. 21:27, 22:11).

My dear friends, Almighty God cry's out to you today and this fallen and godless world to repent and be saved from the wrath which is to come, for it IS coming.

Today, even if you are a scoffer but want to truly know, call out to Him and ask Him to bring you and show you the TRUTH (John 4:24, 14:6) and He most surely will. Believe me, I know my friends. Before I came to ChristI had my lists of justifications for my godless life and God knows I beat my drum but in the end Almighty God showed me in His mercy and grace how right He was and how doomed and wrong I was(Eph. 2:1-2). Oh my dear friends DO NOT be a fool! Almighty God does very much care for you and has not forsaken you but you have forsaken Him and His RIGHTEOUSNESS (Rom. 5:6-8, 8:32). The whole world has forsaken God - John 1:10) and those who have Almighty God's pardon through receiving His precious Son can testify that ONLY Jesus saves and sets one free from the bondage of this fallen world and its oppressors and from the ETERNAL consequences of a lawless and godless life (Eph. 2:1-10, Rev. 20:11-15).

May you see the ETERNAL picture of what this life (existence - born -die) is TRULY about. The Son and TRUTH will set you FREE and you will be liberated (FREE) indeed (John 8:32,36)!

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!

DJP I.F.
The Ignorant Fisherman Blog

Crisis And Chaos Return To Greece Following National TV Shutdown

A week ago we joked that Greece was rapidly sliding into the "fourth world" (and had the photos to prove it). Well, today Equity Index provider MSCI took our joke and made it into something way too serious when overnight it made Greece the first developed nation ever to be downgraded into "emerging market" status. Not quite fourth world, but that too will come. However, what's worse for Greece is that as we reported yesterday, the majority of Greeks have no way of learning about this following the governmental "temporary" shutdown of its one national TV prodier, ERT. Kathimerini followed up with news that ERT would be renamed to NERIT, the New Hellenic Radio Internet and Television - a state company owned by the public sector and regulated by the state, and relaunched by the end of August, however what matters to the public is that the vast majority of employees would likely be let go permanently.

However, the biggest news out of Greece is that the events in the 24 hours have pushed the depressed country right back into crisis mode, with political bickering front and center (the opposition leader called the uncoordinated move "a coup" even as coalition partners blasted the broadcaster shutdown while Europe washed it hands), while the economic contraction is set to accelerate once more following what is certain to be another escalation in daily protests and riots. And who can blame them - with that last civilizational "premium" - free TV for all - gone, what else is there to do?

From Reuters:

Greece's fragile government faced an internal revolt and fierce public protest on Wednesday over the sudden closure of state broadcaster ERT, hours after the humiliation of seeing its bourse downgraded to emerging market status. The twin setbacks, coupled with the derailing of a troubled privatization program, blew a hole in rising investor confidence that had prompted Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to declare the risk of a "Grexit" from the euro was dead and a "Greekovery" was under way.

Yields on Greece's 10-year benchmark bond crept back above 10 percent after Athens failed to sell state gas firm DEPA on Monday, leaving it short of cash to meet its international bailout targets.

The stock market traded at two-month lows after Greece became the first developed nation ever to be lowered to emerging market by equity index provider MSCI.

Prime Minister Antonis Samaras's government declined comment on the market reclassification as it tried to fend off a growing media backlash against ERT's dramatic closure. The public broadcaster was yanked off air just hours after the shutdown was announced in what the government said was a temporary measure to staunch an "incredible waste" of taxpayers' money prior to relaunching a slimmed-down station.

Labor unions called a 24-hour national work stoppage for Thursday and journalists went on an open-ended strike, forcing a news blackout on privately owned television and newspapers. "The strike will only end when the government takes back this coup d'etat which gags information," the journalists' union said.

Some ERT journalists were occupying the broadcaster's building in defiance of police orders and broadcasting over the Internet. Hundreds of employees and protesters gathered outside.

Ah, the smell of Greek chaos in the morning - it smells like normalcy. In retrospect, it appears only the Greeks did not see this coming. When the country handed over its sovereignty to the European Commission, all of the subsequent events were perfectly clear for all to see.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that the state broadcaster was one of the more fervent supporters of the regime, gladly ignoring the flaws in the administration and focusing on what little positives there was. It will no longer have this chance:

Many Greeks have little love for ERT journalists and the state broadcaster is often cited as an example of inefficiency, overspending and jobs given in return for political favors.

But the speed and suddenness of the shutdown - ERT screens abruptly went black just before midnight - stunned Greeks long used to the slow pace of public sector restructuring.

"This government's ways are dictatorial: they decide and they order," said 45-year old Panagiotis, who declined to give his full name for fear of losing his own public sector job.

"It was a wrong move. Yes, the public sector needs to be downsized and we all knew that ERT was being used for political favors but they did not need to fire them all."

Coming back full circle, once more the biggest threat to Greece, to Europe and the Euro, is coming from Greece, where the events in the 24 hours may have destabilized the government enough to hand over power to the anti-bailout party, Syriza:

Many Greeks have little love for ERT journalists and the state broadcaster is often cited as an example of inefficiency, overspending and jobs given in return for political favors.

But the speed and suddenness of the shutdown - ERT screens abruptly went black just before midnight - stunned Greeks long used to the slow pace of public sector restructuring.

"This government's ways are dictatorial: they decide and they order," said 45-year old Panagiotis, who declined to give his full name for fear of losing his own public sector job.

"It was a wrong move. Yes, the public sector needs to be downsized and we all knew that ERT was being used for political favors but they did not need to fire them all."

The closure opened cracks in Samaras's fragile three-party coalition. Samaras's two junior partners, the Socialist PASOK and the Democratic Left said they would oppose the decision.

Both parties said they had not been consulted but stopped short of saying the row could bring the government down.

So-called experts are appalled by the possibility of early elections:

"It's anyone's guess what would happen in elections now and what impact it would have on the economy at a time when a so-called Greekovery is visible on the distant horizon." The decision was taken by ministerial decree, meaning that it can be implemented without immediate reference to parliament. But the communist opposition said it would put a legislative amendment to parliament on Wednesday to annul the decision. Opposition leader Alexis Tsipras was to meet State President Karolos Papoulias to protest against the decision. On Tuesday, he called the closure "a coup, not only against ERT workers but against the Greek people", and accused the government of the "historic responsibility of gagging state TV".

Wait, Greekovery? That's a new (if idiotic) one. Is that abbreviated to "reek"? And in what nation is your GDP crashing to Year 2000 levels indicative of even the faintest "recovery"?

Oh yes, Greece.

Zero Hedge

Is the mail censorship next?

Sen. Lindsey Graham would propose censoring Americans' "snail" mail if he thought it would help protect national security, the South Carolina Republican said Tuesday. But for now, he says he doesn't think it's necessary.

Faced with questions about the disclosure that the National Security Agency has been collecting phone and email records of citizens, Graham pointed to a World War II-era program in which the federal government censored mail. He said it was appropriate at the time and that he would support reinstating the program if it aided security efforts.

"In World War II, the mentality of the public was that our whole way of life was at risk, we're all in. We censored the mail. When you wrote a letter overseas, it got censored. When a letter was written back from the battlefield to home, they looked at what was in the letter to make sure they were not tipping off the enemy," Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill. "If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don't think it is."

The Guardian newspaper revealed last week details of a government surveillance program enacted in response to terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, that secretly collects digital communication data from U.S. citizens. The source who provided the information to The Guardian, a Hawaii-based former government contractor named Edward Snowden, fled to Hong Kong and his whereabouts are currently unknown.

The new details about the program have sparked a debate over civil liberties and the extent of lawful government surveillance. On Tuesday, Graham suggested that Americans should be more willing to give up certain civil liberties to prevent future terrorist attacks.

"The First Amendment right to speak is sacrosanct, but it has limits," Graham added. "In World War II, our population understood that what we say in letters could be used against [us by] our enemies. It was designed to protect us and ensure that we would have First Amendment rights because under the Japanese and Nazi regime, they weren't that big into the First Amendment. We don't need to censor the mail, but we do need to find out what the enemy's up to."

Yahoo news

Catholic Archbishop: Wake Up! Religious Liberty at Risk in US

(CNSNews.com) - Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is calling on Americans to wake up and recognize that the Founding Fathers' vision of religious freedom is now threatened by the federal government.

"The day when Americans could take the Founders' understanding of religious freedom as a given is over," said the archbishop. "We need to wake up."

Chaput, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, pointed to Obamacare's sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation as one example. The regulation, issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, requires almost all health-care plans in the United States to provide coverage for sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to all women of reproductive age--even if the person or employer providing the insurance coverage and even if the female beneficiaries themselves do not want the coverage and believe it is morally wrong and violates their religious beliefs.

"[T]he HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion," the archbishop wrote in a recent column posted on the website of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The column is entitled, "Religious Freedom and the Need to Wake Up."

Last year, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously approved a statement describing the HHS regulation as an "unjust and illegal mandate." The unanimous bishops said the regulation not only violated the religious freedom of religious institutions but also the "personal civil rights" of individual Americans who will be forced to comply with it either as employers or employees.

Archbishop Chaput noted that the bishops believe "basic medical care is a matter of social justice and human dignity." That principal, however, does not empower the government to force Americans to violate their moral and religious convictions.

"But health care has now morphed into a religious liberty issue provoked entirely--and needlessly--by the current White House," the archbishop wrote. "Despite a few small concessions under pressure, the administration refuses to withdraw or reasonably modify a Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate that violates the moral and religious convictions of many individuals, private employers and religiously affiliated and inspired organizations."

The archbishop noted that the administration's disregard for religious liberty in the enforcement of this regulation is in line with its refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and its advocacy in the Hosanna-Tabor case.

The Defense of Marriage Act says that a state cannot be forced to recognize a same-sex marriage contracted in another state and that for federal purposes marriage is between one man and one women. The Supreme Court is now considering the constitutionality of DOMA, and the administration has asked the court that the law be thrown out, arguing that opposition to same-sex marriage (which is the position of the Catholic Church and many other religious denominations) is the constitutional equivalent of racial discrimination.

In the Hosanna-Tabor case, the administration argued unsuccessfully in the Supreme Court that the government could tell a Lutheran school it must restore as a "commissioned minister" a person who violated the teachings of the Lutheran faith.

"Coupled with the White House's refusal to uphold the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, and its astonishing disregard for the unique nature of religious freedom displayed by its arguments in a 9-0 defeat in the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court decision, the HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion," wrote the archbishop.

"Access to inexpensive contraception is a problem nowhere in the United States," he said. "The mandate is thus an ideological statement; the imposition of a preferential option for infertility. And if millions of Americans disagree with it on principle--too bad."

The archbishop went on to observe that abortion advocates use fraudulent language in describing their position.

"The fraud at the heart of our nation's 'reproductive rights' vocabulary runs very deep and very high," he wrote. "In his April 26 remarks to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the president never once used the word 'abortion,' despite the ongoing Kermit Gosnell trial in Philadelphia and despite Planned Parenthood's massive role in the abortion industry."

The archbishop noted that the scandal "involving IRS targeting of 'conservative' organizations ... also has a religious dimension."

"But the latest IRS ugliness," he wrote, "is a hint of the treatment disfavored religious groups may face in the future, if we sleep through the national discussion of religious liberty now. The day when Americans could take the Founders' understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up."- See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/catholic-archbishop-wake-religious-liberty-risk-usa#sthash.6hFqJuFU.dpuf

THEY 'WANTS TO KNOW EVERYTHING'

It may not stay that way, if Ira Hunt, the agency’s chief technology officer, is right.

At a recent conference held by GigaOm Structure Data, Hunt said the agency wants to know everything there is to know and keep all the information forever so that it can “connect the dots” whenever it chooses.

“We have learned … that information has time value,” he said. “The value of any piece of information is only known when you connect it to something else in a further point of time,” he said.

That means, Hunt said, the agency is driven “into the mode of fundamentally trying to collect everything and hang onto it forever.”

Hunt’s comments came before whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed NSA programs to scan and record all telephone calls and database details about Americans from a wide range of companies.

On its website, the agency explained that every day the amount of data available is a deluge.

“Cell phones, smart houses, satellite sensors and countless other sources are creating huge amounts of information – known collectively as ‘big data,’” Hunt said.

“It’s the CIA’s job to leverage the world of big data, find out what actually matters, connect the dots and figure out what our adversaries are intending to do,” he said.

For example, Hunt told the conference there are 4,500 “tweets” per second on Twitter. Globally, there are an estimated 193,000 text messages sent per second. Americans make 2.2 trillion minutes of cell calls a year.

He said the agency found it easier to work with the old model, when the the sources of information were fewer and dominated by the likes of NBC News and the Russian news service Tass.

“We really liked the few to the many model,” he said, because it was “really easy to take advantage.”

When everyone is sharing information, he said, it’s hard for analysts to pick out a significant message.

He said the privacy risks are abundant. Most smart phones are built with technology that allows someone else to know where they are at all times. Sometimes owners even can be identified, through their smart phone, by how they walk, he said.

Hunt forecast the problem of hackers breaking into someone’s health database or health maintenance program.

He said the CIA’s assignment is to obtain information and analyze it so that commanders and the military can be warned about enemy plans, such as the case of the “underwear bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

But technology is “moving faster, I would argue, than you can keep up,” he said. “You should be asking the question …. what are your rights and who owns your data.”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/cia-says-it-wants-to-know-everything/#6mK8QWVvj1dQ8Ouc.99

Thousands of Germans evacuate as dam on Elbe river breaks

Thousands of people left their homes in eastern Germany on Sunday as a dam burst on the swollen River Elbe and swathes of farmland were flooded in an attempt to spare towns, with meteorologists forecasting more rain.

In Magdeburg, one of the oldest cities in eastern Germany and a regional capital, some 23,000 people were asked to evacuate as water levels in the Elbe rose to a record 7.48 meters, around 5 meters above normal and surpassing the level reached in devastating floods in 2002.

"We helped yesterday to carry sandbags to secure the town. The mood is very depressed and frightened because many people have to leave their homes," said resident Liane Nagen.

There have been at least a dozen deaths as a result of floods that have hit Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic over the past week.

Officials said more than 8,000 people were evacuated by bus from towns and villages around Aken, south of Magdeburg. Some took their pets or farm animals with them.

A dam at the confluence of the River Elbe and the River Saale south of Magdeburg burst despite attempts to stabilize it. A dike was also breached, and a crisis unit said the high waters were likely to put further pressure on dikes in coming days.

Holger Stahlknecht, Interior Minister for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where Magdeburg is located, said air and land surveillance would be stepped up in response to a threat from a previously unheard-of group calling itself the Germanophobic Flood Brigade to attack the sodden dikes.

More than 36,000 people were evacuated across Saxony-Anhalt. In Brandenburg, a largely rural state that surrounds the capital Berlin, some residents were evacuated and flooding of uninhabited areas was planned.

In Hungary, the Danube was also set to reach record levels in the capital Budapest on Sunday night and Prime Minister Viktor Orban said dikes had been strengthened at critical points to protect the city from flooding.

The deluge reached Hungary on Friday but so far authorities, soldiers and thousands of volunteers have managed to defend the villages and towns along the Danube, piling more than three million sandbags beside its dikes.

Carmaker Suzuki, one of Hungary's main exporters, said it would will halt production at its plant in Esztergom, north of Budapest, on Monday because of the floods.

GERMAN ELECTION FACTOR

The damage from the floods in Germany could amount to more than 6 billion euros ($7.93 billion), according to the Cologne Institute for Economic Research.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, who faces an election in September, has promised 100 million euros ($130 million) in aid for flooded areas.

"We'll do everything humanly possible when it comes to reconstruction. Germany is sticking together in an admirable way at the moment and it should stay like that," she said.

She has been seen visiting flooded regions and speaking to victims and helpers, unlike her Social Democrat (SPD) challenger Peer Steinbrueck, who told German state television on Sunday he would not get involved in a "rubber boot competition".

"When the worst is over, I'd like to sit down with those affected and discuss in concrete terms what kind of help we can give," he said, adding that he wanted to create an ombudsman to coordinate aid for the victims of flooding.

The pair's response to the flooding could affect their respective chances in the election on September 22. During the floods of 2002, decisive crisis management by SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder gave him a boost in the polls which helped him win a second term.

Reuters