France: New Anti-Terrorism Law Takes Effect

Authored by Soren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• The new law authorizes prefects to order the closure of mosques or other places of worship for a period of up to six months if preachers are deemed to express "ideas or theories" that "incite violence, hatred or discrimination, provoke the commission of acts of terrorism or express praise for such acts."


• French police and intelligence services are surveilling around 15,000 jihadists living on French soil, Le Journal du Dimanche reported on October 9. Of these, some 4,000 are at "the top of the spectrum" and most likely to carry out an attack.


• Of the 1,900 French jihadists fighting with the Islamic State, as many as one-fifth have received as much as €500,000 ($580,000) in social welfare payments from the French state, Le Figaro revealed on October 26.

French President Emmanuel Macron has formally signed a new counter-terrorism law which gives prefects, police and security forces wide-ranging powers — without the need to seek prior approval from a judge — to search homes, place people under house arrest and close places of worship. The measure also authorizes police to perform identity checks at French borders.

The new law, adopted by the French Senate on October 18, makes permanent many of the previously exceptional measures imposed under a two-year-old state of emergency, which was introduced after the jihadist attacks in Paris in November 2015. That state of emergency was slated to expire on November 1.

During a signing ceremony at the Élysée Palace on October 30, Macron said the compromise measure strikes the right balance between security and respect for civil liberties. Hardliners counter that the new law does not go far enough, while human rights groups complain that it will leave France in a permanent state of emergency.

The new law — Law to Strengthen Internal Security and the Fight Against Terrorism (Loi renforçant la sécurité intérieure et la lutte contre le terrorisme) — consists of seven main parts:

Security Zones. The new law gives prefects, the top government official in each of France"s departments or regions, the power to designate public areas and sporting or cultural events, including music concerts, that are deemed to be at risk of terrorism, as security zones. The law authorizes police to search all persons or vehicles attempting to enter such areas or events. Anyone refusing to submit to such searches will be denied access.

 

Closing Places of Worship. The new law authorizes prefects to order the closure of mosques or other places of worship for a period of up to six months if preachers are deemed to express "ideas or theories" that "incite violence, hatred or discrimination, provoke the commission of acts of terrorism or express praise for such acts." Violations are punishable by six months in prison and a fine of €7,500 ($8,750). Opponents of the law argue that "ideas" and "theories" are subjective and therefore open to abuse.

 

House Arrest. The new law authorizes the Minister of the Interior to confine suspected Islamists, even those who are not accused of a specific crime, to the town or city of their domicile. Any individual for whom there are "serious reasons to believe that his or her conduct constitutes a particularly serious threat to public security and public order," may be placed under house arrest — without the prior approval of a judge — for a period of three months, renewable for additional periods of three months to a maximum period of one year. Individuals subject to such confinement will be required to report to their local police station once a day. Alternatively, individuals may be placed under mobile electronic surveillance. The Minister of the Interior may also prohibit individuals from being in direct or indirect contact with certain persons, named by name, who are believed to pose a threat to public security. Violations of the measures are punishable by three years in prison and a fine of €45,000 ($52,500).

 

Search and Seizure. The new law authorizes a prefect to ask a judge for a warrant to search the home of anyone suspected of posing a threat to public security. The individual being searched may be detained for up to four hours if he or she represents "a threat of particular gravity for security and public order" and has "habitual contact to persons or organizations with terrorist aims" or supports and adheres to ideas inciting to such acts. The law also authorizes police to seize any documents, objects or electronic data at the place being searched.

 

Radicalized Public Servants. A civil servant working in fields related to national security or defense can be transferred or even dismissed from the public service if he or she is found to hold beliefs that are "incompatible with the exercise of his or her duties." Soldiers can also be discharged for similar motives.

 

Electronic Surveillance and Data Collection. The new law authorizes the Minister of the Interior, the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Transport to collect the telephone and email communications of suspicious individuals "for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offenses and serious crimes." The law also allows security services to access travel information, including from travel agencies, about airline and maritime passengers. Data collection "shall exclude personal data that may reveal a person"s racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs, political opinions, trade union membership, or data relating to the health or sexual life of the person concerned."

 

Border Checks. The new law authorizes police to conduct warrantless identity checks at more than 118 border areas and 373 airports, seaports and train stations, as well as the surrounding areas up to a radius of 20 kilometers. This encompasses 28.6% of French territory and 67% of the French population, according to Le Monde. Critics say this includes many mainly immigrant suburbs and could lead to harassment of ethnic minorities.

Macron insisted that the new law will allow authorities to combat terrorism "without abandoning our values and principles" and that it will enshrine "full and permanent respect for France"s constitutional order and traditions of liberty." He also pledged to review the law in two years and to make any changes deemed necessary.

Pictured: Police patrol the Champs-Élysées in Paris after a terrorist attack on April 21, 2017, in which one police officer was killed and another wounded. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the anti-immigration National Front party, criticized the law for being too weak:

"This law is a scam, it is a sub-state of emergency, we will not vote for this harmful text. It will be even less effective than the state of emergency because it is less applicable. This text does not address either the specific Islamic dimension of terrorism or the Islamist ideology that has declared war on us."

Civil rights groups, by contrast, complained about what they have described as a "normalization of emergency powers." Human Rights Watch wrote:

"The law takes elements of emergency practices — intrusive search powers, restrictions on individuals that have bordered on house arrest, closure of places of worship — that have been used abusively since November 2015, and makes them normal criminal and administrative practice. It does all this in a way that weakens the judiciary"s control over and ability to check against abuse in the way the new counterterrorism powers are used by prefects, the Interior Ministry"s appointed delegates in each region."

Amnesty International echoed these concerns:

"Rather than ushering in a period of restored freedoms and civil liberties, the legislation threatens to do the opposite by embedding a raft of repressive measures into ordinary law."

The new law has encountered little resistance from the public. A September 26 poll conducted for Le Figaro found that 57% of respondents said they were in favor of the new law; 62% of respondents said the measure will infringe on civil liberties; 85% said it would improve their security.

More than 230 people have been killed in jihadist attacks in France since January 2015, when Islamic radicals attacked the headquarters of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in central Paris.

The latest fatalities occurred on October 1, when a 29-year-old illegal immigrant from Tunisia stabbed two women to death at the central train station in Marseille. The man, identified as Ahmed A., was using seven different identities and had a long history of petty crime. He had been arrested just days before the attack for shoplifting, but those charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence. It remains unclear why he was never deported.

French police and intelligence services are surveilling around 15,000 jihadists living on French soil, Le Journal du Dimanche reported on October 9. Of these, some 4,000 are at "the top of the spectrum" and most likely to carry out an attack.

Of the 1,900 French jihadists fighting with the Islamic State, as many as one-fifth have received as much as €500,000 ($580,000) in social welfare payments from the French state, Le Figaro revealed on October 26.

Terrorism In Europe

Authored by Drieu Godefridi via The Gatestone Institute,

• The problem, of course, resides in the European definition of terrorism. The EU definition of terrorism, wittingly or unwittingly, confuses the issue. It needs to be revised.


• Under the definition of terrorism in American law (18 U.S. Code § 2331), no act can be qualified as terrorist if there is no terror intended.

Terrorism is booming in Europe - even though the European Union statistics say it is not. The EU"s statistics on terrorism, simply put, confuse the issue. They are a fairy-tale.

Since 9/11, in report after report, experts, ministers and public authorities have been saying the same thing: that in Europe (meaning the EU), Islamic terrorism is merely a marginal aberration. Nothing to be afraid of, and if you show too much interest in the matter you are probably on the far-right, aren"t you! Do you want to persecute the Muslims and make them the Jews of today"s Europe?

As experts always do when they want to shut down a debate, they turn to statistics, preferably European statistics. Since July 1, 1999 — the date of its inception — Europol (European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation) has regularly published an assessment of terrorism in the EU.

Europol headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands. (Image source: OSeveno/Wikimedia Commons)

If you read Europol"s last ten EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports (TE-SAT), you will find, year after year, the number of "failed, foiled or successfully executed" terror attacks and the subsequent number of victims - all you supposedly need to assess the true nature of terrorism in the EU.

For the number of terror attacks in Europe during the last ten years, here is a chart based on Europol"s data:

Number of terror or terrorist attacks in the EU since 2007 (Data: EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports; chart D. Godefridi)

The first surprise is that according to Europol, the trend is clearly downward: far fewer terror attacks in Europe in 2016 than ten years ago!

Does that seem a bit counter-intuitive? But, hey, those are the official statistics.

Then there are the number of fatalities:

People killed by terror attacks in the EU since 2007 (Data: EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports; chart D. Godefridi)

This second chart looks much more in line with the feelings of the common man, don"t you think? Approximately 150 dead in the EU from terror attacks in 2015 and 2016, compared to zero in 2007, or 4 in 2014. (That is what is so endearing about statistics: you can manipulate many things, such as the psychological and emotional damage or the consequences of a "foiled attack" -- but not the number of dead bodies).

If you superimpose the two preceding charts, there is, obviously, zero correlation between the number of attacks and the number of dead. Even if there are fewer attacks, more people are being killed. In 2007, there were 583 attacks but zero people killed. In 2016, there were 142 attacks with 142 killed.

Terror attacks and people killed by terror attacks in the EU since 2007 (Data: EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports; chart D. Godefridi)

Where is the wolf? The problem resides in the European definition of terrorism. Look at the TE-SAT report of 2009:

"What the term "terrorist offences" includes is indicated in Article 1 of the Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on combating terrorism (2002/475/JHA), which all member states have implemented in their national legislation. This Framework Decision specifies that terrorist offences are intentional acts which, given their nature or context, may seriously damage a country or an international organisation when —

• committed with the aim of seriously intimidating a population, or


• unduly compelling a government or international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act, or


• seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation".

On this legal basis, Europol distinguishes between different categories of terror attacks; jihadist terrorism; ethno-nationalist and separatist terrorism; left-wing and anarchist terrorism; right-wing terrorism; and finally, "single issue terrorism" (such as animal rights).

There is nothing wrong with these definitions except that one thing has gotten lost: terror. We have known, ever since ancient Rome"s system of law, the importance of accurate definitions; and before that, in ancient Greece, of correct hypotheses. If an attack is not intended to terrorize the public, presumably it should not qualify either as terrorism or as a terrorist attack.

Here is the EU magic: the second part of EU definition — "unduly compelling a government or international organisation to perform or abstain from performing an act" — whatever act — authorizes one to qualify as "terrorism" countless deeds that are certainly criminal but do not actually terrorize anyone.

That is why for years, the number of Islamic terror attacks has looked so ridiculously small and the other categories so impressively large. In 2007, of the 583 reported attacks, 517 were claimed or attributed to separatist groups in Spain and France. In 2012, Europol reported:

"In 2011, ETA [Basque separatists] committed one terrorist attack in France (Valliere, Creuse). Two ETA members opened fire against the Gendarmerie while trying to escape from a police checkpoint."

Criminal, no doubt! But where is terrorism? Furthermore:

"In France, 62 completed attacks and 13 attempted attacks were reported. All these attacks were carried out by Corsican terrorist groups. Their main target, however, remains the tourism sector. Holiday homes and restaurants are often targeted."

Corsican nationalists want more autonomy for their island. These "nationalists," however, never kill anyone, and they almost never hurt anyone except themselves; and when they burn a paillote (a small restaurant in the form of a hut on the beach) owned by some Frenchman from the continent, you never know if it is to preserve the beauty of Corsican nature, to take over his business, or because the kitchen was dirty. To qualify all of those acts indiscriminately as terrorism, and to classify them in the same category as the Islamist in Marseille who shouted "Allahu akbar" before slitting the throat of a girl and eviscerating her cousin, is morally repugnant. That atrocity in Marseille received worldwide press coverage and was indeed a terror attack in the purest sense of the word.

In short, the EU definition of terrorism, wittingly or unwittingly, confuses the issue. It needs to be revised. One can imagine a new category, such as "political violence," to designate acts that are neither intended to terrorize the public nor that actually do so, but are nonetheless political and violent by nature, such as public political riots, so common, in France. Or the definition of terrorism in American law (18 U.S. Code § 2331), under which no act can be qualified as terrorist if there is no terror intended.¹

As for actual terrorism in the EU, it is in fact a simple matter. Here are the facts:

1. In 2015: Of the 151 killed by terror attacks in Europe, 150 were killed by Islamic terrorism (99%, according to TE-SAT 2016);


2. In 2016: Of the 142 fatalities of terror attacks in Europe, 135 were caused by Islamic terrorism (95%, according to TE-SAT 2017);


3. From 2007-2014: the average number of dead from terror attacks in Europe was 6.1 each year (2, 4, 7, 7, 1, 17, 7, 4; source: TE-SAT 2008-2015);


4. The increase in the number of dead from terror attacks in 2015-2016 compared to the period 2007-2014 is a staggering 2,291%.

The trend appears the same in 2017. The rest is EU sophistry.

Britain To Criminalize Reading Online Extremist Content

Authored by Stephen Lendman,

Like America, Britain is unfit and unsafe to live in – both countries police states, serving privileged interests exclusively, allied in waging wars OF terror in multiple theaters, along with abolishing fundamental homeland freedoms.

The latest civil rights abuse came from hardline home secretary Amber Rudd.

She’s spearheading a Tory effort to criminalize readership of so-called extremist content online – punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The same holds for anyone publishing content Tories call extremist, especially about Britain’s military, intelligence services and police that could be considered related to preparing terrorist acts.

“I want to make sure those who view despicable terrorist content online, including jihadi websites, far-right propaganda and bomb-making instructions, face the full force of the law,” Rudd blustered, adding:

“There is currently a gap in the law around material (that) is viewed or streamed from the Internet without being permanently downloaded.”

“This is an increasingly common means by which material is accessed online for criminal purposes and is a particularly prevalent means of viewing extremist material such as videos and web pages.”

A Home Office analysis showed thousands of online ISIS tweets and other material over the past year.

Unmentioned was US and UK support for the terrorist group, recruiting, arming, funding, training and directing its fighters, using them as imperial foot soldiers in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.

The way to end extremist online content from ISIS and likeminded terrorist groups is by no longer supporting them, combating their fighters instead of using them.

Most important is ending US-led imperial wars in multiple theaters. ISIS and likeminded terrorist groups were created to serve as imperial ground forces, aided by Pentagon-led terror-bombing.

Changes Rudd proposed aim to strengthen Britain’s 2000 Terrorism Act. It authorizes civil liberties-destroying police powers, including repressive stop-and-searches ruled illegal by the European Court of Human Rights.

It criminalizes being a member of, supporting, or wearing clothing arousing suspicion of involvement with a proscribed group. Dozens named are nearly all Muslim ones.

Current UK law applies only to downloaded and saved extremist material. Proposed changes criminalize reading it online.

Commenting on the proposed measure, Law Professor Jonathan Turley noted that “civil libertarians have warned that Great Britain has been in a free fall from the criminalization of speech to the expansion of the surveillance state.”

Tories aren’t “satiated by their ever-expanding criminalization of speech. They now want to criminalize even viewing sites on the Internet.”

“As always, officials are basically telling the public to ‘trust us, we’re the government.’ “ Criminalizing readership of online content amounts to “an anti-civil liberties campaign.”

A previous article discussed Prime Minister Theresa May wanting greater government control of the Internet.

If readership of material Tories call unacceptable is criminalized, what’s next?

Thought control? Criminalizing legitimate criticism of government policies? Public protests against government policies? Banning free expression on any topics online or in public spaces altogether?

Turley quoted from Orwell’s 1984 as follows:

“We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.”

“The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.”

“They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.”

“We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end.”

“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”

America, Britain and other Western nations are heading toward instituting full-blown tyranny.

Perhaps another state-sponsored 9/11-type incident will assure it.

Maxine Waters: "They're Trying To Kill Me!"

California Democrat Maxine Waters thinks white nationalists and the KKK are trying to kill her.

At least she suggested as much during a House subcommittee hearing on terrorism and illicit financing when she asked what she and others could do about white nationalists and KKK members who threaten them on the Internet.

“What can we do to deal with the KKK, the white nationalists, the extremists, the alt-right?” Waters, who serves as ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services, asked during a Subcommittee on Terrorism and Illicit Finance hearing. ‘They’re on the internet, they’re Breitbart. If you look at the YouTube, you see how much they want to kill me and others. What can we do?’”

“Extremists radicalized by foreign terror groups are not the only terrorists with the capacity to target and kill American citizens,” Waters said. “Indeed, domestic terror attacks have become more frequent in recent years.”

The hearing was intended to discuss “lone-wolf” terrorist threats, with a focus on the financial aspects of terror plots, according to PJ Media.

Seamus Hughes, deputy director for George Washington University’s Program on Extremism and former senior counterterrorism advisor for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told Waters that domestic terrorists are just as big a threat as foreign born terrorists.

“You should be worried about the Orlando shooters, the Omar Mateens of the world as much as you are the James Fields and the Dylann Roofs of the world,” Hughes said.

Waters responded by reeling off a long list of domestic attacks including the Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting in 2009, the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting in 2012, the Los Angeles International Airport shooting in 2013, the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting in 2015, the Portland train attack this year and, of course, Charlottesville.

“Extremists radicalized by foreign terror groups are not the only terrorists with the capacity to target and kill American citizens,” Waters said. “Indeed, domestic terror attacks have become more frequent in recent years.”

Hughes, who testified at the hearing, described the creative ways in which domestic terror groups like an offshoot of the Aryan Nation finance their activities. The group robbed several armored vehicles in the 1980s and successfully laundered more than $4 million to be used in financing and arming white nationalist groups. Hughes explained how Army Private Isaac Aguigui murdered his pregnant wife in 2011, collected about $500,000 in insurance money and then purchased $30,000 worth of guns and ammunition for his militia group Forever Enduring Always Ready, a group that had planned to assassinate President Barack Obama.

Watch the webcast of the hearing below

You stand a higher chance of being crushed by a vending machine.

Via The Daily Bell

There’s something I’ve always found mesmerizing about watching animals in the wild.

They have the most incredible instincts, honed from countless generations of survival against constant threats.

Animals have a keen sense of danger. They know immediately when something doesn’t feel right, and they act on it without hesitation.

I saw an incredible example of this last year when I was visiting a remote wildlife reservation in Zimbabwe.

It was late in the afternoon on a hot summer day, and my friends and I were ensconced in a hidden observation bunker situated on the edge of a water hole.

The animals all began to arrive, one species at a time, to cool off before nightfall. First the elephants. Then Rhinos. Zebras. Giraffes. Baboons.

It was a playful mood; all the animals seemed to be enjoying the water, when without warning, there was a stillness. The gazelles froze. The zebras’ ears perked.

Something wasn’t right. A smell. A sound. Something.

So they got the hell out of there.

We found out later that a ravenous pack of hyenas was on the prowl nearby, so the animals’ instincts were spot-on.

Deep, deeeep down, human beings have the same highly refined instincts.

Our long-lost ancestors struggled against every imaginable danger. And those lessons are hard-coded in our DNA.

We sense threats. We can feel it when something’s wrong.

The difference between our species and animals in the wild, though, is that we humans have way too many external influences that muck it all up.

Case in point: last week was obviously a tough one for anyone with any sense of humanity.

Acts of terrorism are scary.

And hearing about completely innocent people on a popular pedestrian promenade getting mowed down like bowling pins by some madman is definitely going to cause some discomfort.

But down here in Latin America at least, there was ensuring wall-to-wall news coverage for the next several days in a way I hadn’t seen since 9/11.

It’s all we saw. Terrorism. Terrorism. Terrorism.

This really amps up the fear factor for something that is already difficult to stomach.

So it’s easy to understand why I keep hearing people say things like, “We’re living through the most dangerous times in human history.”

It’s easy to lose perspective. But on the balance we have it pretty good.

13th century Europeans faced a far greater threat with the approaching Mongol hoard.

A century later they faced an even more terrible fate with the onset of the Bubonic Plague, which ultimately wiped out around 30% of Europe’s population.

Even in more recent times, the threat of nuclear annihilation between East and West posed a constant threat.

Yes, acts of terrorism are appalling. But taken in historical and mathematical context the danger is actually quite low.

The Cato Institute published some data recently showing that the chances of dying in a terror attack are around 1 in 3 million.

Statistically speaking, you have a better chance of being crushed to death by a vending machine.

But we don’t demand that our governments spend hundreds of billions of dollars that taxpayers cannot possibly afford in order to protect us from vending machines.

That’s because deep down we sense that vending machines don’t truly pose a threat.

But with terrorism our senses are heavily manipulated until we believe that the threat is far greater than what the statistics show.

The real irony is that the manipulation works both ways.

Just as we are manipulated into being terrified of certain risks that pose no real statistical threat, we are manipulated into ignoring other risks that are far more likely.

I would raise financial markets as an obvious example.

The stock market in the United States is at an all-time high, with valuation metrics that have rarely been higher in more than 100 years of data.

Bond markets around the world have literally never been more expensive… EVER.

In order to return to levels that are more in-line with long-term historical averages, stock and bond markets would both have to suffer steep losses.

But instead of encouraging investors to independently assess these financial risks, mainstream media often dismisses such assertions as pessimistic bugaboo.

Or another obvious long-term risk– that Social Security is going to run out of money.

I write about this one frequently. The Social Security Trustees, including the Treasury Secretary of the United States, state very clearly in their annual report that Social Security’s major trust funds “will be depleted in 2034.”

Yet despite the totally predictable, unavoidable, widespread consequences to Americans’ primary source of retirement income, the public is manipulated into ignoring this threat as well.

Instead of the truth, we continue to hear the same tired mantra– “Social Security is just fine,” despite every shred of objective evidence to the contrary.

We’re also told to believe ridiculous axioms like “the US government’s debt doesn’t matter,” even though they have $20+ trillion of it and spend like drunken sailors.

But no. The experts tell us that this is not a risk worth concerning ourselves with. Angry brown people want to kill us. Focus on that instead.

Human beings have a 1 in 3,000,000 chance of suffering from a terror attack.

Yet there is currently a 100% chance that Social Security runs out of money in 2034.

Only one of these manages to find its way into the news.

Not to mention, if properly informed, people can actually DO SOMETHING about the latter. There’s plenty of time for intelligent people to prepare.

How The Elites Are Divorcing From Reality: The Economist's "What If"

Via GEFIRA,

The Western globalist elites have not digested Trump’s victory or Brexit yet. They are having a hard time dealing with their ideological failures, and when the reality dares not to comply with their day dreaming, they go online and create a parallel world, where their “expert” predictions always turn right and their failures cannot be questioned.  

The Economist‘s portal named “what if”, a neo-liberal, wishful thinking echo chamber, is the point in case.

Its latest piece attributes magical powers to the new hero of the elites, Emmanuel Macron, who soundly defeated “evil” Marine Le Pen in May. For The Economist, Macron is nothing short of Jesus as he was correspondingly depicted on the monthly’s cover walking on water:

The hypothetical scenario of Macron’s success is based on magical reforms that will somehow create enormous numbers of jobs after an initial friction and fix the out-of-control state budget. The text provides no answer how exactly all this is going to be done. The happy predictions do not stop there. Macron’s miracle, would turn France into another Silicon Valley, a paradise for start-ups. Does it not make us think back to the internet bubble of the 90s? After “making France great again” and defeating Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, Marine’s niece (who for the record has already retired from politics, but don’t tell The Economist, it’d break their narrative, they need an evil antagonist), Macron’s magic would next make Europe great again. Academic papers on the “French Renaissance” are beginning to appear, says the article’s author, an intellectual liberal himself and Macron’s flunky. He speaks of “EU-funded military operations in the Sahel”, because clearly that’s what Europe needs most. Why, destabilizing surrounding countries has worked very well so far, hasn’t it? Islamic terrorism isn’t even touched in the article, so we gather it will magically disappear as will the problems of the banlieu which do not deserve much mention either. Here, too, no solution is offered, just pure magic.

Another article,”If borders were open“, tackles immigration.According to the article, the world would suddenly become richer by 78$ trillion because “Mexicans in the US could make 150% more, Nigerians 1000% more”. Never mind the fact that basic economic logic says the infinite increase in labour supply sends wages crashing down to zero. It also claims that “a Nigerian in the United States cannot be enslaved by the Islamists of Boko Haram” because, clearly, mass migration to the West so far has not resulted in events related to Islamic terrorism nor separated communities. All our concerns about low wages and terrorism are are dismissed as “little besides conjecture and [have] anecdotal evidence to support it”. Reality is anecdotal evidence. The entire article is a massive exercise in intellectual dishonesty, ignoring or downplaying contrary evidence while highlighting potential and rather illusory benefits. Although it covers briefly the possibility that an ethnic group of a radically different culture could numerically overwhelm that of the host country and abolish democracy, no conclusion is drawn. And yet a “what if” scenario is important because a failure in creating a brave new world might result in an ethnic conflict the likes of which we are seeing in Syria now. But that’s not a politically correct answer and thus must be ignored. What matters is the alleged 78$ trillion, which for the record would never happen if ethnic conflicts and societal collapses erupted. The first line of the article says: “the potential gains are so vast that objectors could be bribed to let it happen” and that answers the pertinent question, who would get those 78$ trillion? The elites, and next they will bribe academics and intellectuals to post articles like that one. Indeed The Economist is owned by the world’s most elitist family, the Rothschilds. Very much like their puppet, Macron, who by the way worked for a Rothschild bank. Is this love a coincidence?

We surveyed The Economist‘s past articles. None of them actually predicted today’s world even remotely accurately. For 2015 there was a Russia break-up potential scenario a fantasy that resembles those spun by the late ideologist Zbigniew Brzezinski in his book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. Then there’s “The first 100 days” of President Hillary Clinton.

The prediction of Trump’s victory is the only accurate thing in the article. The conclusions drawn are all false. The subtitle hints that Trump’s inexperience would cause “real-world crises”. Once again, clearly, Hillary Clinton’s “we came, we saw, he died” about Libya did not cause a civil war, a collapsed society and an immigration crisis in the Central Mediterranean, very much like Obama and Hollande’s “Assad must go” approach towards Syria did. To say something like this would be dismissed as “anecdotal evidence”. There’s a claim that his first international visit would be to Russia; it turned out it was to Poland.

Hillary was supposedly toppled by “Russian hackers”, which only confirms that the fantasy was always present in the minds of her supporters. Too bad. The narrative has now shifted to “Russian collusion”. Russia would also be “shooting Estonian helicopters” because Russians are evil. The Russophobic narrative is The Economist‘s recurring leitmotif.

The other claims include Mexico, which would be now a “humanitarian” superpower because it won’t deport “unaccompanied minors”, also known as illegal immigrants to Central American countries, thus teaching Trump a lesson in morality. Oh no, wait, Mexico is actually considering building a wall along the border with Guatemala. What else did they predict?

Trump won’t pass his “Muslim ban”; the travel ban has actually been passed. There will be a trade war with China; there is none as yet. Deportations of illegal immigrants won’t happen; arrests are actually up 40%.

In short, none of The Economist‘s predictions have come true. It must be Russia’s fault or anecdotal evidence.

Liberal intellectuals are too busy living in a parallel world to notice their miscalculations. Are they then worth listening to?

US Launches Quiet Crackdown On Cryptocurrencies

While all eyes were distracted with the Trump-demeaning headlines of the foreign sanctions bill, few spotted the hidden mandate that foreign governments monitor cryptocurrency circulations as a measure to combat "illicit finance trends" in an effort to "combat terrorism."

As Coinivore reports, the bill requires the governments to develop a “national security strategy” to combat the “financing of terrorism and related forms of illicit finance.”

Governments will be further required to monitor “data regarding trends in illicit finance, including evolving forms of value transfer such as so-called cryptocurrencies.”

According to the bill, an initial draft strategy is expected to come before Congress within the next year, and will see input from U.S. financial regulators, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department.

The bill calls for:

“[A] discussion of and data regarding trends in illicit finance, including evolving forms of value transfer such as so-called cryptocurrencies, other methods that are computer, telecommunications, or internet-based, cybercrime, or any other threats that the Secretary may choose to identify.”

Interestingly enough, Coindesk reports, “the new bill echoes another submitted in May as part of a wider Department of Homeland Security legislative package.” That measure, as CoinDesk reported at the time, calls for research into the potential use of cryptocurrencies by terrorists. 

Like the DHS bill, the new sanctions law doesn’t constitute a shift in policy, but rather indicates that Congress is taking steps to explore the issue more closely.

Just more examples of the U.S. government trying to impose its will upon other nations and citizens who never lived there, as witnessed with the arrest of Alexander Vinnik in Greece, BTC-E’s alleged CEO according to the Department Of Justice.

Australian City Council Halts Construction Of Synagogue Over Fears That ISIS Could Target It

Authored by Daniel Lang via SHTFplan.com,

People living in the West have given up a lot to satisfy their government’s concerns over terrorism. Here in the US for instance, our right to privacy in our homes, on our persons, and especially in our communications, has essentially died since 9/11. Everything we say on our phones or search on the internet is catalogued by the NSA without a warrant, we can’t fly on an airplane without being groped and prodded by TSA agents, it’s now fairly common to be forced through police checkpoints many miles away from any border.

The US isn’t alone in this regard. Across the board, every Western nation has sacrificed essential freedoms in the name of combating terrorism. The only difference is that unlike in the US, most Western nations have sacrificed more speech related freedoms rather than privacy (though all Westerners have lost both rights to some degree). This is especially true in Europe and Canada, where expressing right wing opinions or criticizing Islam is now considered a hate crime, and is believed to be an invitation for more terrorist attacks.

Australians however, seems to be close to losing their right to practice any religion they want. That’s what the Jewish community in Sydney learned recently when they tried to build a synagogue. Residents and city council members decided to not let the structure come to fruition because they feared it would invite terrorist attacks.

The temple was to be built in Bondi, a short walk from Australia’s famous Bondi Beach. But locals worried that the space would pose a security risk to nearby residents, motorists and pedestrians. As evidence of that threat, the council pointed to the synagogue’s own design, which included setback buildings and blast walls. They also said the design would have an “unacceptable impact” on the street and neighbourhood.

“A number of residents agreed with the contentions … and provided additional evidence against the development of the site,” the council said in a statement.

And on top of that, the courts complained that the building’s design would only protect the worshipers inside.

But the court sided with the council. In its decision, the court explained that western countries are under threat from Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and that the potential of an attack in Australia is considered “probable” by government officials. The court also noted that the designs would serve only to protect those inside the building, not those outside.

You know the West is slipping into collectivist madness, when you can’t construct a building that is only designed to protect the people inside of it from an external threat. That would be like saying that you’re not allowed to own body armor because it doesn’t protect bystanders from gunfire. (Oh wait, body armor is highly regulated in Australia and most people who aren’t cops, soldiers, or security guards can’t own it? Color me shocked.) But worst of all, the refusal to let this synagogue be built is nothing more than an admission that the terrorists have won.

“The decision is unprecedented,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman told news.com.au. “Its implications are enormous. It basically implies that no Jewish organization should be allowed to exist in residential areas. It stands to stifle Jewish existence and activity in Sydney and indeed, by creating a precedent, the whole of Australia, and by extension rewarding terrorism.”

It’s such a big win for terrorism that I doubt any terrorist organization ever expected to have these results. Here’s a country of 24 million people that has lost less than 10 people to terrorism over the past 20 years. They all died at the hands of Islamic radicals, who are known to despise Judaism. Sydney’s response is to prevent a Synagogue from being built in a vain effort to prevent more terrorist attacks. The city is doing exactly what Islamic terrorists want them to do, and these terrorists barely had to lift a finger.

If this kind of moral weakness isn’t overcome in the West, then our freedoms will not survive the next generation.

May Vows "Enough Is Enough", Slams "Evil Islamist Extremism" As "One Of Great Challenges Of Our Time"

After the third deadly terrorist attack on UK soil in less than three months (and one which paradoxically took place just days after the UK lowered its "imminent attack" terror alert), Prime Minister Theresa May - facing a crucial election on Thursday - vowed to (finally?) step up Britain’s fight against Islamist extremism, saying “enough is enough” after Saturday night"s terrorist attacks left seven dead and 48 injured.

Calling for the country to unite, which incidentally is what she did after the last two terror attacks in a well-meaning gesture that achieved nothing, the British Prime Minister said in a Sunday statement that "it is time to say enough is enough, everybody needs to go about their lives as they normally would. Our society should continue to function in accordance with our values. But when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism, things need to change."  It was not immediately clear just what #hashtag campaign on Twitter would embody this particular vow.

In her words:

We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are. Things need to change, and they need to change in four important ways.

First, while the recent attacks are not connected by common networks, they are connected in one important sense. They are bound together by the single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division, and promotes sectarianism. It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam. It is an ideology that is a perversion of Islam and a perversion of the truth.

Since the emergence of the threat from Islamist-inspired terrorism, our country has made significant progress in disrupting plots and protecting the public. But it is time to say enough is enough. Everybody needs to go about their lives as they normally would. Our society should continue to function in accordance with our values. But when it comes to taking on extremism and terrorism, things need to change

Incidentally, saying that "it is time to say enough is enough" is ironic, because those who have been saying the exact same thing and urging for more aggressive countermeasures, have been broadly branded as "racists", and muted by various social networks. This time, however, Trump"s appeal for less political correctness appears to have struck a chord and May called the threat from radical Islamism “one of the great challenges of our time”, and warned there was “far too much tolerance of extremism in our country”.

The prime minister said the recent attacks in England are bound together "by the single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism" and added that Britain"s counter-terrorism strategy must be reviewed due to "what we are learning about the changing threat."

"Since the emergence of the threat from Islamist-inspired terrorism, our country has made significant progress in disrupting plots and protecting the public," she said.

As after all previous terrorist attacks, May said the country"s response to the violence is the need to unite. "We must come together, we must pull together, and united we will take on and defeat our enemies." Alas, that promises in itself has had exactly zero impact on the dreaded and deadly "Islamist extremism."

So what did May propose?

In her address, she said that in light of the changing threat a review was needed of Britain’s current counter-terrorism strategy to “make sure the police and security services have all the powers they need." The focus of the review? Facebook. May called for tighter regulation of the internet to deny extremist ideology the “safe space it needs to breed”.  Because without access to Facebook and Twitter there would be fewer terrorist attacks, the argument supposedly goes.

Shortly after May"s speech, police said 12 people had been arrested in Barking, East London, as officers continued to search a number of addresses in the area. Which while a noble start, is woefully insufficient. As we reported last week, UK Intel Agencies have identified 23,000 potential Jihadis living in Britain, according to a report published in the Times of London on Saturday.  The report emerged ironically after U.K. May downgraded the terror threat to “severe,” after raising it “critical” on Tuesday in the aftermath of the attacks.

Of this "pool" of potential terrorists, 3,000 are suspected of posing an “imminent threat” and are being investigated accordingly, the Times reported. In light of last night"s events, the were clearly not being investigated closely enough.