SISTERHOOD 360 WORLD NEWS & EVENTS
Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show a disturbingly large interest in drone surveillance within the United States, with a number of city police departments preparing to turn the Obama Administration’s favorite weapon of war inward as a tool of mass surveillance.
Included were a list of all public and private entities that have sought authorization for drone flights, and a number of certificates issued to drone manufacturers showing that the domain of military and CIA spies could soon blanket the entire nation.
An indication of how hush-hush this whole thing is, the documents came only after lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to force the FAA to comply with the FOIA requests.
EFF warned that the drones pose a serious threat to personal privacy, which of course is the whole point since they are surveillance drones. The documents suggest this is a threat the American public will have to deal with sooner rather than later.
The FAA says it has approved dozens of nonmilitary uses of unmanned aircraft, ranging from law enforcement to firefighting to wildlife monitoring. Drones also have been used for news coverage, mapping and agricultural applications.
By Nisa Islam Muhammad
The Center for Responsible Lending conducted a survey of 32 people who reported serving over 2,100 clients with auto finance-related issues during the 12 months prior to taking the survey. Finalcall.Com News
Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show a disturbingly large interest in drone surveillance within the United States, with a number of city police departments preparing to turn the Obama Administration’s favorite weapon of war inward as a tool of mass surveillance.
Included were a list of all public and private entities that have sought authorization for drone flights, and a number of certificates issued to drone manufacturers showing that the domain of military and CIA spies could soon blanket the entire nation.
An indication of how hush-hush this whole thing is, the documents came only after lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to force the FAA to comply with the FOIA requests.
EFF warned that the drones pose a serious threat to personal privacy, which of course is the whole point since they are surveillance drones. The documents suggest this is a threat the American public will have to deal with sooner rather than later.
The FAA says it has approved dozens of nonmilitary uses of unmanned aircraft, ranging from law enforcement to firefighting to wildlife monitoring. Drones also have been used for news coverage, mapping and agricultural applications.
In the first quarter of 2012, foreclosure activity increased in 114 out of America's 212 metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more, showing a 54-perncent increase, according to a report released by Realtytrac, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties.
First quarter foreclosure activity increased from the previous quarter in 26 out of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas.
Stockton, Calif., posted the nation’s highest metropolitan foreclosure rate in the first quarter, it said. One in every 60 housing units in the Stockton metro area had a foreclosure filing during the quarter - more than three times the national average.
There were a total of 3,912 Stockton properties with foreclosure filings in the first quarter, down 13 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011 and down 19 percent from the first quarter of 2011.
For the year, foreclosure activity is down in 64% of metro areas despite the quarterly increase in more than half of the metro areas tracked in the report.
Cyrus McGoldrick, CAIR-NY civil rights manager, says what has happened to an American citizen because of suspicion over Islamic texts and pictures in his computer have become a “matter of policy” in America. In an interview with Press TV’s US Desk, he said that things in this regard have not become much better in Obama’s administration: “President Obama has been almost worse than President Bush on all these issues.” Pascal Abidor, a McGill University student, was detained on the U.S. border with Canada, held for several hours, interrogated, had his personal belongings searched and his computer confiscated for over a week.
Number of homeless American women veterans is on the rise, according to a Government Accountability Office report. It's a challenge that organizations across the country are dealing with, including in New Orleans. According to the GAO, the number of homeless American women veterans has doubled, from 4 percent in 1990 to 8 percent today. It estimates that 1.8 million American women veterans are homeless. Unity of Greater New Orleans estimates that the number of homeless women veterans has increased by 10 percent, compared to last year. The GAO report found that as more female service women return from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan the number of homeless women continues to rise.
Islam the Focus of More Attacks
Nisa Islam Muhammad
April 20, 2012
Hate crimes against Muslims continue to rise according to the FBI and the latest attack against Islam is by ACT! for America Education. The group is targeting public school textbooks for revisions.
Their 228-page report, which was sent to 70,000 school board members across the country, researched 38 regularly used textbooks for grades 6th -12th published by names including Macmillan/McGraw Hill, Pearson Prentice Hall and Houghton Mifflin. The report revealed what they call, “historical revisionism, omissions and bias in the treatment of Islam in American textbooks”.
According to the report, “the errors in how Islam is portrayed are so pervasive and consistent it is difficult to conclude they are inadvertent. In other textbooks, the common errors may just be a matter of parroting “conventional wisdom”.
“Whatever the intention or the reason, the result is the same: historical revisionism that amounts to a falsification of history. Students should not be force-fed falsified or revisionist history in their schools, and state textbook selection agencies and school boards should not finance or subsidize its dissemination.”
Bridgitte Gabriel is the President of ACT. Their mission is to be the definitive source of education, information and research about the multiple threats posed by radical Islam, in order to awaken and empower freedom loving people everywhere.
“What is taught to children in U.S. classrooms must be highly scrutinized so that what takes place is ‘education’ rather than ‘indoctrination,’ especially when the subject matter is world religions,” said Brigitte Gabriel, President of ACT! for America Education, who was born and raised in Lebanon.
“Our research shows that textbooks commonly used in public schools today lack objectivity and accuracy in their treatment of Islam, amounting more to indoctrination than education.”
According to ACT, an example from a textbook that they consider to be indoctrination includes the following:
“The Quran granted women spiritual and social equality with men.”
ACT refutes this by writing, “The Quran does not grant “social equality” to women, Muslim or non-Muslim. In fact, Muslim women cannot divorce except in limited circumstance—men can divorce at any time for any reason—and the testimony of one man equals that of two women in legal proceedings.”
Ahmed Mubarak, has a degree in Islamic Studies from DePaul University. He told The Final Call, “What ACT either chose to leave out or are just ignorant of is that the Quran does in fact give women an equal status in society. The Quran says; “For Muslim men and women,- for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in Charity, for men and women who fast (and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in Allah's praise,- for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward. (33:35). “
“In another verse the Quran states in regards to women’s equity: “Nor should ye treat them with harshness, that ye may take away part of the dower ye have given them...on the contrary live with them on a footing of kindness and equity” (Quran 4:19)”
Their report asks the questions, “Is Islam presented in a manner in which facts are embellished and its virtues exaggerated, while unfavorable, negative or detrimental information about the religion is omitted, glossed over, understated, or rationalized, thus amounting to “indoctrination” rather than education?”
“Is Islam presented in a manner that leads students to predetermined conclusions about the religion that are unsupported by historical facts and critical analysis, amounting to “teaching (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically?”
Dr. Larry Muhammad, national director of Muhammad University of Islam headquartered in Chicago told The Final Call, “My position on this organization is centered around the sad truth that the war on Islam must be taken into the schools by the open enemies to the rise of Islam. “
“When 9/11 took place I was an administrator in a suburban school district where in the morning administrative meeting with the Superintendent that took place every Monday morning, he informed us that they had received instructions from the federal government to not accept or distribute any Qurans that were being donated and distributed by the Saudi embassy in Washington as a gesture of support and solidarity.”
If ACT is not satisfied with the portrayal of Muslims in textbooks what do Muslims think?
“American textbooks and curriculums are in no way propagating Islam. In most instances it needs more attention, but I have seen fair and true explanations, much better than the history of slavery is treated. Nonetheless, this group is twisting the little truth that's there and seeking to distort and falsely label it to create more panic and confusion among the American people to do what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said would happen one day; The ban of Islam in America!” said Dr. Muhammad.
“We are working on assembling a team to really begin working on the development of textbooks and supplemental learning material. This is crucial to our community and Minister Farrakhan has reinforced this in the past publicly, including mentioning key educators and scholars in our communities around the country that are very important to this process which begins with curriculum development.”
He added, “It is time consuming and takes sacrifice and an investment on the part of our educators and those skilled in writing, particularly curriculum and learning plans. If we utilize the technology of the internet and work consistently with teams from across the country representing K-12 plus college level educators we can speed the process up and see success in this effort.”
The US government is requesting proposals for the development of a software system that can mine social media.Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are looking to use it to anticipate everything from terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings by sifting through billions of posts from Twitter and other social networks.The proposals already have raised privacy concerns among advocates who worry that such monitoring efforts could have a chilling effect on users.The FBI says the proposed system would only monitor publicly available information.Hundreds of intelligence analysts already sift overseas Twitter and Facebook posts to track events such as the Arab Spring. But in a formal notice to potential contractors, the FBI recently outlined its desire for a digital tool to scan the entire universe of social media - more data than humans could ever crunch.The Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence also have solicited the private sector for ways to automate the process of identifying emerging threats and upheavals using the billions of posts people around the world share every day.
Government Restrictions on Protests-American Dream-09-05-2011
BY CORRESPONDENT SIS. NISA ISLAM
US cities plan spy drone fleetsDocuments obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show a disturbingly large interest in drone surveillance within the United States, with a number of city police departments preparing to turn the Obama Administration’s favorite weapon of war inward as a tool of mass surveillance.
Included were a list of all public and private entities that have sought authorization for drone flights, and a number of certificates issued to drone manufacturers showing that the domain of military and CIA spies could soon blanket the entire nation.
An indication of how hush-hush this whole thing is, the documents came only after lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to force the FAA to comply with the FOIA requests.
EFF warned that the drones pose a serious threat to personal privacy, which of course is the whole point since they are surveillance drones. The documents suggest this is a threat the American public will have to deal with sooner rather than later.
The FAA says it has approved dozens of nonmilitary uses of unmanned aircraft, ranging from law enforcement to firefighting to wildlife monitoring. Drones also have been used for news coverage, mapping and agricultural applications.
BUSINESS & MONEY
Let’s make a deal: The lure and danger of 'yoyo' car scams
By Nisa Islam Muhammad
The Center for Responsible Lending conducted a survey of 32 people who reported serving over 2,100 clients with auto finance-related issues during the 12 months prior to taking the survey. Finalcall.Com News
Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show a disturbingly large interest in drone surveillance within the United States, with a number of city police departments preparing to turn the Obama Administration’s favorite weapon of war inward as a tool of mass surveillance.
Included were a list of all public and private entities that have sought authorization for drone flights, and a number of certificates issued to drone manufacturers showing that the domain of military and CIA spies could soon blanket the entire nation.
An indication of how hush-hush this whole thing is, the documents came only after lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to force the FAA to comply with the FOIA requests.
EFF warned that the drones pose a serious threat to personal privacy, which of course is the whole point since they are surveillance drones. The documents suggest this is a threat the American public will have to deal with sooner rather than later.
The FAA says it has approved dozens of nonmilitary uses of unmanned aircraft, ranging from law enforcement to firefighting to wildlife monitoring. Drones also have been used for news coverage, mapping and agricultural applications.
In the first quarter of 2012, foreclosure activity increased in 114 out of America's 212 metropolitan areas with a population of 200,000 or more, showing a 54-perncent increase, according to a report released by Realtytrac, the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties.
First quarter foreclosure activity increased from the previous quarter in 26 out of the nation’s 50 largest metro areas.
Stockton, Calif., posted the nation’s highest metropolitan foreclosure rate in the first quarter, it said. One in every 60 housing units in the Stockton metro area had a foreclosure filing during the quarter - more than three times the national average.
There were a total of 3,912 Stockton properties with foreclosure filings in the first quarter, down 13 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011 and down 19 percent from the first quarter of 2011.
For the year, foreclosure activity is down in 64% of metro areas despite the quarterly increase in more than half of the metro areas tracked in the report.
Cyrus McGoldrick, CAIR-NY civil rights manager, says what has happened to an American citizen because of suspicion over Islamic texts and pictures in his computer have become a “matter of policy” in America. In an interview with Press TV’s US Desk, he said that things in this regard have not become much better in Obama’s administration: “President Obama has been almost worse than President Bush on all these issues.” Pascal Abidor, a McGill University student, was detained on the U.S. border with Canada, held for several hours, interrogated, had his personal belongings searched and his computer confiscated for over a week.
Number of homeless American women veterans is on the rise, according to a Government Accountability Office report. It's a challenge that organizations across the country are dealing with, including in New Orleans. According to the GAO, the number of homeless American women veterans has doubled, from 4 percent in 1990 to 8 percent today. It estimates that 1.8 million American women veterans are homeless. Unity of Greater New Orleans estimates that the number of homeless women veterans has increased by 10 percent, compared to last year. The GAO report found that as more female service women return from conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan the number of homeless women continues to rise.
Islam the Focus of More AttacksNisa Islam Muhammad
April 20, 2012
Hate crimes against Muslims continue to rise according to the FBI and the latest attack against Islam is by ACT! for America Education. The group is targeting public school textbooks for revisions.
Their 228-page report, which was sent to 70,000 school board members across the country, researched 38 regularly used textbooks for grades 6th -12th published by names including Macmillan/McGraw Hill, Pearson Prentice Hall and Houghton Mifflin. The report revealed what they call, “historical revisionism, omissions and bias in the treatment of Islam in American textbooks”.
According to the report, “the errors in how Islam is portrayed are so pervasive and consistent it is difficult to conclude they are inadvertent. In other textbooks, the common errors may just be a matter of parroting “conventional wisdom”.
“Whatever the intention or the reason, the result is the same: historical revisionism that amounts to a falsification of history. Students should not be force-fed falsified or revisionist history in their schools, and state textbook selection agencies and school boards should not finance or subsidize its dissemination.”
Bridgitte Gabriel is the President of ACT. Their mission is to be the definitive source of education, information and research about the multiple threats posed by radical Islam, in order to awaken and empower freedom loving people everywhere.
“What is taught to children in U.S. classrooms must be highly scrutinized so that what takes place is ‘education’ rather than ‘indoctrination,’ especially when the subject matter is world religions,” said Brigitte Gabriel, President of ACT! for America Education, who was born and raised in Lebanon.
“Our research shows that textbooks commonly used in public schools today lack objectivity and accuracy in their treatment of Islam, amounting more to indoctrination than education.”
According to ACT, an example from a textbook that they consider to be indoctrination includes the following:
“The Quran granted women spiritual and social equality with men.”
ACT refutes this by writing, “The Quran does not grant “social equality” to women, Muslim or non-Muslim. In fact, Muslim women cannot divorce except in limited circumstance—men can divorce at any time for any reason—and the testimony of one man equals that of two women in legal proceedings.”
Ahmed Mubarak, has a degree in Islamic Studies from DePaul University. He told The Final Call, “What ACT either chose to leave out or are just ignorant of is that the Quran does in fact give women an equal status in society. The Quran says; “For Muslim men and women,- for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in Charity, for men and women who fast (and deny themselves), for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in Allah's praise,- for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward. (33:35). “
“In another verse the Quran states in regards to women’s equity: “Nor should ye treat them with harshness, that ye may take away part of the dower ye have given them...on the contrary live with them on a footing of kindness and equity” (Quran 4:19)”
Their report asks the questions, “Is Islam presented in a manner in which facts are embellished and its virtues exaggerated, while unfavorable, negative or detrimental information about the religion is omitted, glossed over, understated, or rationalized, thus amounting to “indoctrination” rather than education?”
“Is Islam presented in a manner that leads students to predetermined conclusions about the religion that are unsupported by historical facts and critical analysis, amounting to “teaching (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically?”
Dr. Larry Muhammad, national director of Muhammad University of Islam headquartered in Chicago told The Final Call, “My position on this organization is centered around the sad truth that the war on Islam must be taken into the schools by the open enemies to the rise of Islam. “
“When 9/11 took place I was an administrator in a suburban school district where in the morning administrative meeting with the Superintendent that took place every Monday morning, he informed us that they had received instructions from the federal government to not accept or distribute any Qurans that were being donated and distributed by the Saudi embassy in Washington as a gesture of support and solidarity.”
If ACT is not satisfied with the portrayal of Muslims in textbooks what do Muslims think?
“American textbooks and curriculums are in no way propagating Islam. In most instances it needs more attention, but I have seen fair and true explanations, much better than the history of slavery is treated. Nonetheless, this group is twisting the little truth that's there and seeking to distort and falsely label it to create more panic and confusion among the American people to do what the Honorable Elijah Muhammad said would happen one day; The ban of Islam in America!” said Dr. Muhammad.
“We are working on assembling a team to really begin working on the development of textbooks and supplemental learning material. This is crucial to our community and Minister Farrakhan has reinforced this in the past publicly, including mentioning key educators and scholars in our communities around the country that are very important to this process which begins with curriculum development.”
He added, “It is time consuming and takes sacrifice and an investment on the part of our educators and those skilled in writing, particularly curriculum and learning plans. If we utilize the technology of the internet and work consistently with teams from across the country representing K-12 plus college level educators we can speed the process up and see success in this effort.”
The US government is requesting proposals for the development of a software system that can mine social media.Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are looking to use it to anticipate everything from terrorist attacks to foreign uprisings by sifting through billions of posts from Twitter and other social networks.The proposals already have raised privacy concerns among advocates who worry that such monitoring efforts could have a chilling effect on users.The FBI says the proposed system would only monitor publicly available information.Hundreds of intelligence analysts already sift overseas Twitter and Facebook posts to track events such as the Arab Spring. But in a formal notice to potential contractors, the FBI recently outlined its desire for a digital tool to scan the entire universe of social media - more data than humans could ever crunch.The Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence also have solicited the private sector for ways to automate the process of identifying emerging threats and upheavals using the billions of posts people around the world share every day.
Government Restrictions on Protests-American Dream-09-05-2011
http://www.presstv.com/Program/229062.html
To forestall a planned protest, San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) turned off cell phone service, angering passengers and raising questions about First Amendment rights in an age of social media protests. The decision by Bay Area Rapid Transit officials to cut off cell phone service Thursday evening to forestall a planned protest raises a fundamental question: Do Americans have a basic right to digital free speech or to digitally organized assembly?
2012 National Defense Authorization Act, approved by the Senate that would allow the military to detain without a trial any American citizen accused of being a terrorist, or of supporting terrorists who plot attacks against the United States. The ACLU called the proposal “an extreme position that will forever change our country.” The indefinite detention provision is just one of many trends in policing and law enforcement that have civil liberties advocates alarmed. New external threats, as well as technological advancements, are posing new challenges to our Constitutional rights, advocates say. Policymakers are debating those issues in Congress and in the courts right now, and the decisions they make could have fundamental consequences for what it means to be an American.
To forestall a planned protest, San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) turned off cell phone service, angering passengers and raising questions about First Amendment rights in an age of social media protests. The decision by Bay Area Rapid Transit officials to cut off cell phone service Thursday evening to forestall a planned protest raises a fundamental question: Do Americans have a basic right to digital free speech or to digitally organized assembly?
2012 National Defense Authorization Act, approved by the Senate that would allow the military to detain without a trial any American citizen accused of being a terrorist, or of supporting terrorists who plot attacks against the United States. The ACLU called the proposal “an extreme position that will forever change our country.” The indefinite detention provision is just one of many trends in policing and law enforcement that have civil liberties advocates alarmed. New external threats, as well as technological advancements, are posing new challenges to our Constitutional rights, advocates say. Policymakers are debating those issues in Congress and in the courts right now, and the decisions they make could have fundamental consequences for what it means to be an American.
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