Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Ahmadinejad: There's a US plot to save 'Zionist regime'
The US is engaged in plots to save Israel and protect its own interests, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday, according to a PressTV report.
Speaking at the inauguration of an oil refinery in the southern city of Abadan, Ahmadinejad slammed Washington, saying “Their scheme is to save the Zionist regime (Israel), global arrogance and US interests. The speech came after an explosion at the refinery killed two people and injured 12.
"The main enemies of nations are the US, its allies and the Zionist regime. All regional countries must be vigilant," he was quoted as saying.
Ahmadinejad further criticized the US, saying to Washington, "Anywhere there is a dictator, he is supported by you ... he is your stooge.”
On the US political establishment, the Iranian president asked, “What is the difference between a country ruled by one or two [dictators] for thirty to forty years and a country dominated by two parties for many years?” PressTV reported.
He accused the US of hatching schemes for every Arab country in the region, saying that Washington used countries "to reach its objectives but pushed them aside once it achieved its goals," PressTV said.
The US is scheming "to pit regional nations and countries against each other and to wage a war between them," the Iranian president added.
He reiterated earlier warnings that a "new Middle East and North Africa is about to emerge without the dominance of the US or the existence of the Israeli regime."
“The world of colonialism is about to fall apart and nations will see the collapse of capitalism in the near future,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.
Speaking at the inauguration of an oil refinery in the southern city of Abadan, Ahmadinejad slammed Washington, saying “Their scheme is to save the Zionist regime (Israel), global arrogance and US interests. The speech came after an explosion at the refinery killed two people and injured 12.
"The main enemies of nations are the US, its allies and the Zionist regime. All regional countries must be vigilant," he was quoted as saying.
Ahmadinejad further criticized the US, saying to Washington, "Anywhere there is a dictator, he is supported by you ... he is your stooge.”
On the US political establishment, the Iranian president asked, “What is the difference between a country ruled by one or two [dictators] for thirty to forty years and a country dominated by two parties for many years?” PressTV reported.
He accused the US of hatching schemes for every Arab country in the region, saying that Washington used countries "to reach its objectives but pushed them aside once it achieved its goals," PressTV said.
The US is scheming "to pit regional nations and countries against each other and to wage a war between them," the Iranian president added.
He reiterated earlier warnings that a "new Middle East and North Africa is about to emerge without the dominance of the US or the existence of the Israeli regime."
“The world of colonialism is about to fall apart and nations will see the collapse of capitalism in the near future,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.
Pakistan retakes naval base after attack
Reuters – Soldiers depart from the Mehran naval aviation base after troops ended operations against militants in … The assault casts fresh doubt on the military's ability to protect its bases after a raid on the army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi in 2009 and is a further embarrassment following the surprise raid by U.S. special forces on the al Qaeda leader's hideout north of Islamabad on May 2.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik said just six militants were believed involved in the attack on the PNS Mehran base in Karachi late on Sunday, destroying two aircraft and laying siege to a main building in one of the most heavily guarded bases in the unstable, nuclear-armed country.
"When they fired the first rockets, they were intercepted," said Pakistan's navy chief Admiral Noman Bashir. "Then they could not launch another attack on other aircraft and they tried to hide." He said it took three to four hours to sketch out a plan to contain the militants.
At least 10 military personnel were killed and 20 wounded in the assault that started at 10.30 p.m. on Sunday (1730 GMT), a navy spokesman said.
Malik said three militants were killed in the gunbattle while the body of a fourth was believed to be buried under the rubble of a collapsed wall. Two suspects were believed to have fled the scene, he added.
One of two attackers hiding in the building blew himself up while two others were gunned down elsewhere, Bashir said.
The Pakistan Taliban, who are allied with al Qaeda, said they had staged the attack to avenge bin Laden's death.
"It was the revenge of martyrdom of Osama bin Laden. It was the proof that we are still united and powerful," Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
LADDERS, GUNS, GRENADES
Malik said the militants, aged between 20 and 25, used two ladders to scale the walls of the base and jumped in by cutting barbed wire.
He said the militants had used guns and grenades in their attack on the base, 15 miles from the Masroor Air Base, Pakistan's largest and a possible depot for nuclear weapons.
PNS Mehran is ringed by a concrete wall with about 5 ft of barbed wire on top. An aircraft, armed with rockets, hangs on show on a stand outside.
As troops wound down their assault, some Karachi residents said they could not believe security could have been so lax.
"If these people can just enter a military base like this, then how can any Pakistani feel safe?" asked Mazhar Iqbal, 28, an engineering company administrator taking a lunch break in the shade outside the complex where a crowd had gathered.
"The government and the army are just corrupt. We need new leaders with a vision for Pakistan."
Malik said 17 foreigners -- 11 Chinese and six Americans -- were inside the base at the time. All had been evacuated safely. The Americans were contractors working for SAIC and Lockheed Martin doing maintenance on the aircraft.
Two P-3C Orions, maritime patrol aircraft supplied by the United States, were destroyed, said Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.
TALIBAN DENIES MULLAH OMAR KILLED
Pakistan has faced a wave of assaults over the last few years, many of them claimed by the Pakistani Taliban. Others have been blamed on al Qaeda-linked militant groups once nurtured by the Pakistani military and which have since slipped out of control.
The Taliban have stepped up attacks since bin Laden's death, killing almost 80 people in a suicide bombing on a paramilitary academy and an assault on a U.S. consular vehicle in Peshawar.
Malik said militants had planned to attack sensitive military installations as well as important figures at a meeting in North Waziristan -- a global hub for militants on the Afghan border -- after bin Laden's killing.
On Monday, at least seven militants, including three Arab nationals, were killed in a missile strike by a U.S. drone aircraft in North Waziristan, local intelligence officials said.
The Pakistani Taliban are led by Hakimullah Mehsud, whose fighters regularly clash with the army in the northwest, parts of which are bases for Afghan militants.
On Monday, an Afghan television station reported Taliban leader Mullah Omar had been killed in Pakistan, but the group denied it, saying he was safe and in Afghanistan.
The United States sees Pakistan as a key, if difficult, ally essential to its attempts to root out militant forces in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, however, sees militant groups as leverage to ward off the influence of its old enemy India in Afghanistan. The discovery that bin Laden was living in the town of Abbottabad has brought suspicion that militants may be receiving help from the security establishment.
Pakistan says its senior leadership did not know of bin Laden's whereabouts, but his presence, and his killing, have strained already fragile ties with the United States and deeply embarrassed Pakistan's military.
The military has come under intense domestic pressure for allowing five U.S. helicopters to penetrate Pakistan's airspace and kill the al Qaeda leader.
Many U.S. lawmakers are questioning whether to cut the billions of dollars of aid Pakistan receives to help root out militants.
On Monday, the Pakistani rupee fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar, partly because of concerns that growing tension with the West could choke off much needed foreign aid.
(Additional reporting by Chris Allbritton, Zeeshan Haider, Kamran Haider, Sahar Ahmed and Imtiaz Shah; Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110523/wl_nm/us_pakistan_blast
How the Left Went Wrong on Islam
What makes the creeping political correctness on Islam so startling is its very newness. It wasn't so long ago that the right and the left both agreed that as a religion and a political movement, it was dangerously backward and violent.
From Winston Churchill, "Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance" to Karl Marx, "Islamism proscribes the nation of the Infidels, constituting a state of permanent hostility between the Mussulman and the unbeliever", leading figures on the right and the left held a realistic understanding of Islam. They dismissed it as violent, barbaric, ignorant and dangerous. The right saw Islam as a threat to the Western Christian hegemony. The left viewed it as a reactionary movement of superstitious fanatics. They might praise Arab generals or scientists, but not the creed itself.
Where then did that lost consensus on Islam go? One answer can be found in the Soviet Union.
Unlike Western Europe, the Russian Empire had a large Muslim population. While Western socialists focused on a mostly Christian population, taking over the Russian Empire was nearly impossible without winning the allegiance of its Eastern Muslims. That difference would shape the socialist approach to Islam.
While the Communists disdained Christianity and Judaism as backward superstitions, they took a different approach to Islam. Lenin promised Muslims that their mosques would be protected under the revolution and emphasized an approach of cultural sensitivity that respected Muslim traditions. Female Communist activists donned veils or covered their hair to work with the locals. Most shockingly, while the Communists were dismantling the Orthodox Church and Jewish synagogues-- Sharia courts of Islamic law were being administered under a Soviet Commissariat of Justice.
One of the more notable effects of the alliance was the Communist attempt to find common ground by phrasing their doctrine in Islamic terms. The Communists campaigned against religion as superstition, but this was translated as Khurafat, a campaign to cleanse heretical forms of magic. The difference was substantial and fundamental. While Communists in the rest of the Soviet Union were outlawing religion, Muslim Communists were rooting out heresies under the authority of the revolution. The USSR had become the enforcer of Islam.
The translation of socialist ideas into the Islamic, created the illusion of common ground. Both sides heard what they want to hear. But the Communist and Muslim ideas of revolution were dramatically different. While Moscow was talking about women's equality, the Muslim Communists were filling their unwashed yurts with child wives. By the time Soviet leaders in Moscow realized what was going on, they had a civil war on their hands. The Communists won in the short term, but only at the cost of accepting Muslim practices such as polygamy. And the Muslims may have won the long war.
The awkward fusion of Islam and Communism did not last long, but it had an enduring impact on the left's view of Islam. It transformed Islam in the eyes of many Western socialists into a progressive movement. The temporary legitimacy granted to the Pan-Islamic Jadids and the bulletins trumpeting the progressive nature of the Koran and the brilliance of Mohammed coming out of the motherland of socialism, altered the view of many socialists and taught them to view Muslims as allies. It may have even given some of them the idea that introducing large Muslim populations into Europe would be the key to a successful revolution.
Slogans like, "Long live Soviet power, long live the sharia" echo today among the left. The Soviet approach of viewing Islam as an immature form of socialism colors most reporting on the Muslim Brotherhood. As it did on the Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iranian revolution.
The Fourth Congress of the Communist International's Theses on the Eastern Question treated Islam as part of the "great diversity of national revolutionary movements against imperialism". But diversity didn't mean equality. Diversity in the theses meant backwardness. Islam was Communism for savages. The Koran was Das Kapital for primitive people. "As the national liberation movements grow and mature", the theses said, "the religious-political slogans of pan-Islamism will be replaced by political demands."
Islam was an intermediate stage on the road to Communism. Eventually its religious baggage will fall away and it will become a fully political anti-imperialist movement. These same ideas are widely held on the left today. It is how they can justify allying with the Muslim Brotherhood. Like the Jadids, the Brotherhood is on the left, but doesn't know it yet. Muslims think that Moses and Jesus were Muslims but didn't know it. The left believes that Mohammed was a progressive, but didn't know it.
The Theses distinguished between Muslim ruling classes and all others. "Only among peoples like the nomads and semi-nomads, where the feudal-patriarchal system has not yet disintegrated to the point where the native aristocracy is completely split off from the masses, can representatives of the elite come forward as active leaders in the struggle against imperialist oppression (Mesopotamia, Morocco, Mongolia)". Two of the three listed examples were Muslim. This convoluted justification allowed them to include Muslim leaders and maintain tribal and Islamic rule as integrated with the masses. An unalloyed justification for maintaining the mini-caliphates that the Pan-Islamists wanted.
While the Communists of the twenties still distinguished between their creed as the higher and Islam as the lower, these distinctions have been eroded among the postmodern left to the point of non-existence. All revolutionary movements are treated as equal so long as they are aimed at Western imperialism. The Islamists are just part of that "great diversity". Their approach to social justice is an aspect of their culture. This perversity underpins the red-green alliance.
In 1920, the People's Congress of the Baku called for a "holy war", a "ghazavat" against Britain. "The Peoples of the East, united with the revolutionary proletariat of the West under the banner of the Communist International... summon our peoples to a holy war."
Invoking both "the green banner of the Prophet" and "the red banner of the Communist International", this "first real holy war" with the sanction of the Ulemas, Islamic clerics, the red-green alliance was built on a fault line. It was a fault line that Marx could have told them about, had they been willing to listen.
Karl Marx had observed that, "The Koran and the Mussulman (Muslim) legislation emanating from it reduce the geography and ethnography of the various peoples to the simple and convenient distinction of two nations and of two countries; those of the Faithful and of the Infidels" And added, "The Infidel is the enemy."
The Communists, like their modern counterparts, had not understood this simple and convenient distinction. They thought that they could blend the red and green banners together. That Muslim armies would fight holy wars for them and that Soviet secularism would eventually replace Islamism. Their failure to understand what Islam is, to think that they could ally and stand on the same side as the armies of the Faithful, that they could call for a Holy War against "against imperialist Britain" and have it "burn with unquenchable fire" and yet not get burned themselves, has been repeated not only by the left, but by America and Europe.
The Soviet Union had tried to turn Muslim identity into a Communist identity. And that effort failed badly. The Communists remained infidels. Now we are trying to turn Muslim identity into a Democratic identity, and failing just as miserably. Muslim identity will not broaden to include us. Just as it did not broaden to include the Communists. Our efforts to secularize Muslim identity into anything broader will never reach beyond a small number of people who agree with us.
Islam is not a developing identity, but a divisive identity. An identity that defines itself in its contrast with the infidel. And it needs the infidel to provide that contrast. "The corsair ships of the Berber States", Marx wrote, "were the holy fleet of Islam". Not because of any specific religious function the corsairs were performing, but through the mere fact that they were fighting infidels alone. That contrast is the essence of Islam. Only by maintaining distinctions between himself and the infidel-- can the Muslim know who he is.
Bertrand Russell identified political fanaticism as the common identity of both Muslims and Communists, writing that, "Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world." The obsession with winning "the empire of the world" has led the left into an alliance with the Islamists. The mutual irrationality of both sides, movements both marked by the inability to take stock of their own failures, has pushed them forward with brazen dreams of empire. The only thing they agree on is their opposition to the current system. But their new Ghazadat will not end in a better world, but in misery and failure for all.
Where then did that lost consensus on Islam go? One answer can be found in the Soviet Union.
Unlike Western Europe, the Russian Empire had a large Muslim population. While Western socialists focused on a mostly Christian population, taking over the Russian Empire was nearly impossible without winning the allegiance of its Eastern Muslims. That difference would shape the socialist approach to Islam.
While the Communists disdained Christianity and Judaism as backward superstitions, they took a different approach to Islam. Lenin promised Muslims that their mosques would be protected under the revolution and emphasized an approach of cultural sensitivity that respected Muslim traditions. Female Communist activists donned veils or covered their hair to work with the locals. Most shockingly, while the Communists were dismantling the Orthodox Church and Jewish synagogues-- Sharia courts of Islamic law were being administered under a Soviet Commissariat of Justice.
One of the more notable effects of the alliance was the Communist attempt to find common ground by phrasing their doctrine in Islamic terms. The Communists campaigned against religion as superstition, but this was translated as Khurafat, a campaign to cleanse heretical forms of magic. The difference was substantial and fundamental. While Communists in the rest of the Soviet Union were outlawing religion, Muslim Communists were rooting out heresies under the authority of the revolution. The USSR had become the enforcer of Islam.
The translation of socialist ideas into the Islamic, created the illusion of common ground. Both sides heard what they want to hear. But the Communist and Muslim ideas of revolution were dramatically different. While Moscow was talking about women's equality, the Muslim Communists were filling their unwashed yurts with child wives. By the time Soviet leaders in Moscow realized what was going on, they had a civil war on their hands. The Communists won in the short term, but only at the cost of accepting Muslim practices such as polygamy. And the Muslims may have won the long war.
The awkward fusion of Islam and Communism did not last long, but it had an enduring impact on the left's view of Islam. It transformed Islam in the eyes of many Western socialists into a progressive movement. The temporary legitimacy granted to the Pan-Islamic Jadids and the bulletins trumpeting the progressive nature of the Koran and the brilliance of Mohammed coming out of the motherland of socialism, altered the view of many socialists and taught them to view Muslims as allies. It may have even given some of them the idea that introducing large Muslim populations into Europe would be the key to a successful revolution.
Slogans like, "Long live Soviet power, long live the sharia" echo today among the left. The Soviet approach of viewing Islam as an immature form of socialism colors most reporting on the Muslim Brotherhood. As it did on the Ayatollah Khomeini during the Iranian revolution.
The Fourth Congress of the Communist International's Theses on the Eastern Question treated Islam as part of the "great diversity of national revolutionary movements against imperialism". But diversity didn't mean equality. Diversity in the theses meant backwardness. Islam was Communism for savages. The Koran was Das Kapital for primitive people. "As the national liberation movements grow and mature", the theses said, "the religious-political slogans of pan-Islamism will be replaced by political demands."
Islam was an intermediate stage on the road to Communism. Eventually its religious baggage will fall away and it will become a fully political anti-imperialist movement. These same ideas are widely held on the left today. It is how they can justify allying with the Muslim Brotherhood. Like the Jadids, the Brotherhood is on the left, but doesn't know it yet. Muslims think that Moses and Jesus were Muslims but didn't know it. The left believes that Mohammed was a progressive, but didn't know it.The Theses distinguished between Muslim ruling classes and all others. "Only among peoples like the nomads and semi-nomads, where the feudal-patriarchal system has not yet disintegrated to the point where the native aristocracy is completely split off from the masses, can representatives of the elite come forward as active leaders in the struggle against imperialist oppression (Mesopotamia, Morocco, Mongolia)". Two of the three listed examples were Muslim. This convoluted justification allowed them to include Muslim leaders and maintain tribal and Islamic rule as integrated with the masses. An unalloyed justification for maintaining the mini-caliphates that the Pan-Islamists wanted.
While the Communists of the twenties still distinguished between their creed as the higher and Islam as the lower, these distinctions have been eroded among the postmodern left to the point of non-existence. All revolutionary movements are treated as equal so long as they are aimed at Western imperialism. The Islamists are just part of that "great diversity". Their approach to social justice is an aspect of their culture. This perversity underpins the red-green alliance.
In 1920, the People's Congress of the Baku called for a "holy war", a "ghazavat" against Britain. "The Peoples of the East, united with the revolutionary proletariat of the West under the banner of the Communist International... summon our peoples to a holy war."
Invoking both "the green banner of the Prophet" and "the red banner of the Communist International", this "first real holy war" with the sanction of the Ulemas, Islamic clerics, the red-green alliance was built on a fault line. It was a fault line that Marx could have told them about, had they been willing to listen.
Karl Marx had observed that, "The Koran and the Mussulman (Muslim) legislation emanating from it reduce the geography and ethnography of the various peoples to the simple and convenient distinction of two nations and of two countries; those of the Faithful and of the Infidels" And added, "The Infidel is the enemy."
The Communists, like their modern counterparts, had not understood this simple and convenient distinction. They thought that they could blend the red and green banners together. That Muslim armies would fight holy wars for them and that Soviet secularism would eventually replace Islamism. Their failure to understand what Islam is, to think that they could ally and stand on the same side as the armies of the Faithful, that they could call for a Holy War against "against imperialist Britain" and have it "burn with unquenchable fire" and yet not get burned themselves, has been repeated not only by the left, but by America and Europe.
Islam is not a developing identity, but a divisive identity. An identity that defines itself in its contrast with the infidel. And it needs the infidel to provide that contrast. "The corsair ships of the Berber States", Marx wrote, "were the holy fleet of Islam". Not because of any specific religious function the corsairs were performing, but through the mere fact that they were fighting infidels alone. That contrast is the essence of Islam. Only by maintaining distinctions between himself and the infidel-- can the Muslim know who he is.
Bertrand Russell identified political fanaticism as the common identity of both Muslims and Communists, writing that, "Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world." The obsession with winning "the empire of the world" has led the left into an alliance with the Islamists. The mutual irrationality of both sides, movements both marked by the inability to take stock of their own failures, has pushed them forward with brazen dreams of empire. The only thing they agree on is their opposition to the current system. But their new Ghazadat will not end in a better world, but in misery and failure for all.
State Rep. Leo Berman says judges Dearborn, Michigan, practice Shariah law
Says judges are using Shariah law in Dearborn, Mich.
This legislative session isn’t just about the budget; state Rep. Leo Berman has won House approval of a proposal that would prohibit courts from making legal decisions based on foreign laws, such as Shariah, the religious law of Islam.
On May 9, House members attached Berman’s legislation as an amendment to House Bill 274, a tort reform measure that Gov. Rick Perry earlier declared emergency legislation, before sending the overall proposal to the Senate.
But Berman, R-Tyler, drew our attention April 4 when he told the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence that Shariah law is "being done in Dearborn, Mich," adding:"The judges in Dearborn are using, and allowing to be used, Shariah law. Also in England... in France and in Germany, the use of Shariah law is being allowed as well."
Keeping this fact-check stateside, we wondered if judges in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, practice Shariah law.
But first, what is it? According to an April 3 United Press International news article, Shariah is "roughly comparable to the Talmudic tradition in Judaism" — in other words, religious principles which adherents seek to live by.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on March 30, Farhana Khera, the president of Muslim Advocates, a legal resource for the Muslim community, said Shariah guides Muslims "in the way that religious law guides those everyday activities for Christians and Jews, and other faith communities in the United States."
When we sought back-up for Berman’s claim, his legislative director, Sharon Guthrie, guided us to Grand Prairie, Texas, resident Dorrie O’Brien, who told us she’s a speaker for Act! For America, a Florida-based group that describes itself as a citizen action network that "defends America and democratic values against the terror and tyranny of radical Islam."
O’Brien pointed us to a Feb. 24 post on "Creeping Sharia," a blog about "the slow, deliberate and methodical advance of Islamic law (Shariah) in non-Muslim countries," according to the blog’s "about" page. The blog says that on June 18, police at Dearborn’s annual Arab International Festival jailed four Christian missionaries, one of whom was "peaceably discussing his Christian faith with Muslim youths" and three others who were "allegedly ‘breaching the peace.’"
According to a June 20, 2010 Detroit Free Press news article, the missionaries were with the group Acts 17 Apologetics, which seeks to convert Muslims to Christianity. They were arrested and jailed for disorderly conduct. One of the four, Negeen Mayel, was also charged with failure to obey a police officer’s order — to put down the camera she was videotaping with — according to the article.
A July 27 Free Press news article says Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly and others had said the missionaries were trying to provoke festival goers, according to the article.
"Creeping Sharia" has a different take: "The Christians were led away in handcuffs by police to the applause and cheers of Muslim onlookers who just witnessed a victory of Shariah law over the Christians."
The blog post quotes Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, as saying: "Muslims dominate the political and law enforcement process in Dearborn. It seems that police were more interested in placating the mayor and Muslims than obeying our Constitution. Shariah law makes is a crime to preach the Gospel to Muslims. This a classic example of stealth Jihad being waged right here in America."
The Christians were charged with disorderly conduct after police said theyr eceived a complaint from a Christian volunteer working at the festival who said he was harassed by the group, according to a Sept. 25 Free Press news article.
When the missionaries stood trial in September, festival volunteer Roger Williams testified that at the festival, they "were making me nervous and I felt intimidated."
A jury acquitted the missionaries, according to the Free Press. Mayel was found guilty of failure to obey the officer’s order.
The Dearborn dust-up made national headlines that month, when U.S. Senate hopeful Sharron Angle of Nevada claimed that the city is subject to Shariah law. "We’re talking about a militant terrorist situation," she said.
Weeks later, O’Reilly appeared on CNN to dispute the characterization.
"There’s no Shariah law in Dearborn, Mich.," he said. In an Oct. 11 letter to Angle, he wrote: "Contrary to the Shariah law misconception, there are Christian Evangelists who proselytize to Muslims 365 days a year without resistance or interference from anyone."
On Feb. 22 of this year, the Thomas More Law Center, which describes itself as a law firm that defends and promotes Christians’ religious freedom, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Dearborn’s mayor, chief of police and two executives for the American Arab Chamber of Commerce, which puts on the festival. The case is still pending, and neither the city, police department or law center responded to our queries.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Detroit-based Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called Berman’s claim "complete rubbish." Shariah is a "spiritual compass" that Muslims live by, not a "thick codex of laws," he said. "Obviously the U.S. and Michigan Constitution are the law of the land in Dearborn, Mich."
He offered this example: Islamic law prohibits a Muslim from marrying a Hindu. "But obviously if a Muslim male wants to go to the justice of the peace with a Hindu woman, he can marry a Hindu woman," he said. "Actions guided by a person’s belief in what God wills for him is not anything that can be endorsed by the state."
However, as PolitiFact Florida reported this month, courts may use religious laws when interpreting a contract that specifies, for example, Shariah as the legal foundation, and both parties agreed to those laws from the beginning.
Markus Wagner, a professor of international law at the University of Miami’s School of Law, said: "It happens all the time... We could use Jewish law, Canaanite law, so long as it doesn’t contravene public policy."
Detroit attorney Noel Saleh, who specializes in civil liberties and immigration law, told us in an email that "judges in Michigan (like all judges in the United States) are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the state." The Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution makes the Constitution and the laws of the United States "the supreme law of the land."
As for the way Berman is suggesting judges use Shariah law, Saleh said: "There are no courts in Dearborn, Michigan that utilize Shariah law in any way, shape or form. This is an urban legend."
Lastly, we searched online and in the Lexis-Nexis database, which archives news articles, for evidence of Berman’s claim. We found nothing but unsubstantiated claims and speculation.
As we were finishing up this item, Mark Somers, chief judge for the 19th District Court in Dearborn, emailed us this statement: "As with every justice, judge and magistrate of this state, the judges and magistrates of Michigan’s 19th District Court are sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Michigan and to faithfully discharge the duties of the office to which they have been elected or appointed. There are no other laws that govern the adjudication of the matters within the jurisdiction of this court."
All told, Dearborn Muslims, like all U.S. Muslims, may follow Shariah law in their personal lives and may enter into contracts — such as pre-nuptial agreements — bound by their principles. So may adherents of other religious faiths. And judges may use religious laws to interpret such contracts, providing all parties agree from the beginning.
Far as we can tell, though, judges don’t use Shariah law in lieu of the U.S. Constitution or state laws — nor are they doing so in Dearborn. We rate the statement False.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/may/14/leo-berman/state-rep-leo-berman-says-judges-dearborn-michigan/
On May 9, House members attached Berman’s legislation as an amendment to House Bill 274, a tort reform measure that Gov. Rick Perry earlier declared emergency legislation, before sending the overall proposal to the Senate.
But Berman, R-Tyler, drew our attention April 4 when he told the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence that Shariah law is "being done in Dearborn, Mich," adding:"The judges in Dearborn are using, and allowing to be used, Shariah law. Also in England... in France and in Germany, the use of Shariah law is being allowed as well."
Keeping this fact-check stateside, we wondered if judges in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, practice Shariah law.
But first, what is it? According to an April 3 United Press International news article, Shariah is "roughly comparable to the Talmudic tradition in Judaism" — in other words, religious principles which adherents seek to live by.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on March 30, Farhana Khera, the president of Muslim Advocates, a legal resource for the Muslim community, said Shariah guides Muslims "in the way that religious law guides those everyday activities for Christians and Jews, and other faith communities in the United States."
When we sought back-up for Berman’s claim, his legislative director, Sharon Guthrie, guided us to Grand Prairie, Texas, resident Dorrie O’Brien, who told us she’s a speaker for Act! For America, a Florida-based group that describes itself as a citizen action network that "defends America and democratic values against the terror and tyranny of radical Islam."
O’Brien pointed us to a Feb. 24 post on "Creeping Sharia," a blog about "the slow, deliberate and methodical advance of Islamic law (Shariah) in non-Muslim countries," according to the blog’s "about" page. The blog says that on June 18, police at Dearborn’s annual Arab International Festival jailed four Christian missionaries, one of whom was "peaceably discussing his Christian faith with Muslim youths" and three others who were "allegedly ‘breaching the peace.’"
According to a June 20, 2010 Detroit Free Press news article, the missionaries were with the group Acts 17 Apologetics, which seeks to convert Muslims to Christianity. They were arrested and jailed for disorderly conduct. One of the four, Negeen Mayel, was also charged with failure to obey a police officer’s order — to put down the camera she was videotaping with — according to the article.
A July 27 Free Press news article says Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly and others had said the missionaries were trying to provoke festival goers, according to the article.
"Creeping Sharia" has a different take: "The Christians were led away in handcuffs by police to the applause and cheers of Muslim onlookers who just witnessed a victory of Shariah law over the Christians."
The blog post quotes Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, as saying: "Muslims dominate the political and law enforcement process in Dearborn. It seems that police were more interested in placating the mayor and Muslims than obeying our Constitution. Shariah law makes is a crime to preach the Gospel to Muslims. This a classic example of stealth Jihad being waged right here in America."
The Christians were charged with disorderly conduct after police said theyr eceived a complaint from a Christian volunteer working at the festival who said he was harassed by the group, according to a Sept. 25 Free Press news article.
When the missionaries stood trial in September, festival volunteer Roger Williams testified that at the festival, they "were making me nervous and I felt intimidated."
A jury acquitted the missionaries, according to the Free Press. Mayel was found guilty of failure to obey the officer’s order.
The Dearborn dust-up made national headlines that month, when U.S. Senate hopeful Sharron Angle of Nevada claimed that the city is subject to Shariah law. "We’re talking about a militant terrorist situation," she said.
Weeks later, O’Reilly appeared on CNN to dispute the characterization.
"There’s no Shariah law in Dearborn, Mich.," he said. In an Oct. 11 letter to Angle, he wrote: "Contrary to the Shariah law misconception, there are Christian Evangelists who proselytize to Muslims 365 days a year without resistance or interference from anyone."
On Feb. 22 of this year, the Thomas More Law Center, which describes itself as a law firm that defends and promotes Christians’ religious freedom, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Dearborn’s mayor, chief of police and two executives for the American Arab Chamber of Commerce, which puts on the festival. The case is still pending, and neither the city, police department or law center responded to our queries.
Dawud Walid, executive director of the Detroit-based Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called Berman’s claim "complete rubbish." Shariah is a "spiritual compass" that Muslims live by, not a "thick codex of laws," he said. "Obviously the U.S. and Michigan Constitution are the law of the land in Dearborn, Mich."
He offered this example: Islamic law prohibits a Muslim from marrying a Hindu. "But obviously if a Muslim male wants to go to the justice of the peace with a Hindu woman, he can marry a Hindu woman," he said. "Actions guided by a person’s belief in what God wills for him is not anything that can be endorsed by the state."
However, as PolitiFact Florida reported this month, courts may use religious laws when interpreting a contract that specifies, for example, Shariah as the legal foundation, and both parties agreed to those laws from the beginning.
Markus Wagner, a professor of international law at the University of Miami’s School of Law, said: "It happens all the time... We could use Jewish law, Canaanite law, so long as it doesn’t contravene public policy."
Detroit attorney Noel Saleh, who specializes in civil liberties and immigration law, told us in an email that "judges in Michigan (like all judges in the United States) are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the laws of the state." The Supremacy Clause in the U.S. Constitution makes the Constitution and the laws of the United States "the supreme law of the land."
As for the way Berman is suggesting judges use Shariah law, Saleh said: "There are no courts in Dearborn, Michigan that utilize Shariah law in any way, shape or form. This is an urban legend."
Lastly, we searched online and in the Lexis-Nexis database, which archives news articles, for evidence of Berman’s claim. We found nothing but unsubstantiated claims and speculation.
As we were finishing up this item, Mark Somers, chief judge for the 19th District Court in Dearborn, emailed us this statement: "As with every justice, judge and magistrate of this state, the judges and magistrates of Michigan’s 19th District Court are sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Michigan and to faithfully discharge the duties of the office to which they have been elected or appointed. There are no other laws that govern the adjudication of the matters within the jurisdiction of this court."
All told, Dearborn Muslims, like all U.S. Muslims, may follow Shariah law in their personal lives and may enter into contracts — such as pre-nuptial agreements — bound by their principles. So may adherents of other religious faiths. And judges may use religious laws to interpret such contracts, providing all parties agree from the beginning.
Far as we can tell, though, judges don’t use Shariah law in lieu of the U.S. Constitution or state laws — nor are they doing so in Dearborn. We rate the statement False.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/may/14/leo-berman/state-rep-leo-berman-says-judges-dearborn-michigan/
Sarah Brady – Another Useful Idiot…
“Our main agenda is to have ALL guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn’t matter if you have to distort facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.”
~Sarah Brady
MUSLIM atrocities against Hindus (WARNING: Graphic Photo Images)
Posted: May 23, 2011 | Author: barenakedislam | Filed under: Religion of Hate | 5 Comments »
It doesn’t matter whether you are Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, or any other religion. If you are not a Muslim, you are the target of Muslim persecution and slaughter.
Muslims sprayed bullets on Prof. Muhari, a renowned Bangladeshi Hindu educationalist. (Source: Mukto-Mona)
Documenting Reality - 58 Hindus, most of them returning from Ayodhya, were killed and 43 injured when Muslims attacked the Sabarmati Express and set afire four of its coaches at Godhra railway station in Gujarat on February 27th, 2002. The other images are from an attack at a Hindu temple using machetes plus two other random attacks.
Muslims must realize the Hindus of India will not tolerate terrorist attacks on our people. Muslims will not understand peace unless steps of this nature are taken” – Nilkant (last name unknown), Godhra“Muslims are 90% of today’s world trouble. If we sit back and let them kill, they will only do it more” – Shivshankar Trivedi, Ahmedabad
“The world nations must take care of their Muslim problem today before it’s too late and realize that the problem should be treated as a top priority. Islamic history has shown how brutal it can be once it has gained control of your nation” – Ravi Chudasama, Ahmedabad
If you don’t want to see the rest of these graphic photographs, scroll down fast now.
A Hindu man who was brutally tortured and then murdered by Muslims in Bangladesh
The bodies of 44 dead Hindu children lay on the floor of the civil hospital in Gandhinagar after Muslim militants stormed the Akshardham temple in Gandhinagar
H/T Delhi WatchAMAZING 13 year old Hindu girl takes on the Muslims.
Sharia's Angels
SHARIA'S ANGELS
ABOVE: Anjem Choudary talking to our man Dominik
It will be like a Neighbourhood Watch scheme but on a larger scale. We want to police ourselves.
Anjem Choudary
CRAZED extremist Anjem Choudary is planning to set up teams of Islamic “Guardian Angels” to bring Sharia law to the UK.
East London-based bigot Anjem Choudary reckons hardline “Sharia cops” will do a better job of policing Muslim areas than traditional officers.
The 44-year-old firebrand hopes to roll out the scheme to high-density Muslim areas across Britain such as Luton in Bedfordshire, Bradford and Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, and Whitechapel in London’s East End, as well as Southall in west London and parts of the West Midlands.
Last night he said: “In these ‘Emirates’, these Islamic enclaves, we are going to start implementing our own neighbourhood watch, our own police.
“We will not stop and search you but we will be able to perform citizens’ arrests. We want to protect Muslims and their property. It will be like a Neighbourhood Watch scheme but on a larger scale. We want to police ourselves.
“Of course we do not want people to break the law but we want them to be able to go out and protect themselves and their property.
“I think this is the right direction. It is about time the Muslims took these things into their own hands. We cannot trust the Government, we cannot trust the police to look after the welfare of Muslims.”
The original Guardian Angels were a volunteer group who patrolled the streets of New York.
Last night a Home Office spokeswoman warned the preacher: “Any breach of UK law is dealt with by the police.”
In another astonishing rant, the former lawyer revealed he also has plans to kick into touch government attempts to better integrate the Muslim community into the British way of life following the 7/7 bombings inquiry.
The radical warned he is planning to print up to 10,000 copies of an Islamic version of the “Prevent Violent Extremism” strategy in which he outlines how Muslims can lead a purely Islamic way of life, separate from the “corrupt nature” of British values.
He vowed: “The difference is when we talk about ‘violent extremism’ we are talking about the occupation of Muslim lands.
“I believe the whole Prevent Strategy is designed to strip Muslims of their Islamic personality. They want to give us a different Islam, a British Islam, not the Islam of the Messenger Mohammed.
“We are Muslim first and last and we have to integrate with Islam only.”
NATO launches largest airstrike against Gaddafi
TRIPOLI, Libya — NATO launched its largest airstrike against Moammar Gaddafi’s regime on Tuesday morning, with at least 15 massive explosions rocking the Libyan capital.
The bombings appeared concentrated on Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, although a government spokesman said the airstrike had targeted the headquarters of a militia force...
The bombings appeared concentrated on Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli, although a government spokesman said the airstrike had targeted the headquarters of a militia force...
Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said at least three people had been killed and 150 injured.
NATO planes and ships have been striking cities and military installations in Libya since mid-March. Allied military officials have spoken in recent weeks of the need for escalation to help protect Libyan civilians and have called for Gaddafi to step down.
Libyan officials have said that NATO is picking sides in a civil war and complained that strikes on Gaddafi’s Tripoli compound are attempts to assassinate the leader of a sovereign country.
French officials said Monday that France and Britain planned to deploy attack helicopters. Such a move would allow greater accuracy in military action in the months-long conflict but would probably put their troops at higher risk.
The French defense minister, Gerard Longuet, told reporters in Brussels that the helicopters would be used against Libyan military equipment while trying to avoid civilian casualties, the Associated Press reported. Longuet said that British military officials were on “exactly the same wavelength” as the French.
Allied officials have expressed worry that the situation in Libya would become a stalemate, with Gaddafi remaining in power in the west, rebels controlling the east, and a contested area in between.
Moussa did not respond Monday to calls for comment about the helicopters.
Libyan rebels got another boost Monday when Jeffrey Feltman, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, their de facto capital of Benghazi, in the eastern part of the country.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Feltman would address questions Tuesday about legally recognizing the rebels as the legitimate leaders of Libya but played down the possibility of a major policy change.
“We believe the [rebel Transitional National Council] is a very credible voice for the Libyan people, and we’re strengthening our contacts and deepening them,” Toner said. “But while recognition remains on the table, an option, we’re not there yet.”
In the meantime, he said, the administration would work with Congress to pass legislation to free up Libyan money for the rebels.
Longuet told reporters that France would use Gazelle helicopters, the Associated Press reported. During fighting in Misurata, a rebel-held city in western Libya that is under siege by government forces, the Libyan military moved into crowded areas, making it difficult for NATO to strike targets without risking significant civilian casualties. Helicopters would make it easier to attack military forces in those situations.
Improved accuracy is the goal of the helicopter deployment, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told reporters in Brussels.
No NATO military personnel have died in Libya during the operation, and there have been relatively few civilian deaths, something that even Libyan officials privately acknowledge.
In response to a question about helicopters, a spokesman for the French Defense Ministry, speaking under European ground rules that do not allow the use of names, said that a ship had been deployed to the Mediterranean on May 17, but provided no specifics.
A NATO spokesman at mission headquarters in Naples said that the alliance is not involved in coordinating any helicopter attacks, and that any helicopter use would be under national control. He spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing alliance regulations.
Western officials have called in recent weeks for putting greater pressure on the Libyan government, and Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, said at a news conference in London on Monday that “Britain is committed to intensifying military, economic and diplomatic action against the Gaddafi regime in the coming weeks.” He declined to comment about helicopters.
Staff writer Joby Warrick in Washington and special correspondent Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/french-officials-france-and-britain-to-use-attack-helicopters-in-libya/2011/05/23/AFTF909G_story.html
NATO planes and ships have been striking cities and military installations in Libya since mid-March. Allied military officials have spoken in recent weeks of the need for escalation to help protect Libyan civilians and have called for Gaddafi to step down.
Libyan officials have said that NATO is picking sides in a civil war and complained that strikes on Gaddafi’s Tripoli compound are attempts to assassinate the leader of a sovereign country.
French officials said Monday that France and Britain planned to deploy attack helicopters. Such a move would allow greater accuracy in military action in the months-long conflict but would probably put their troops at higher risk.
The French defense minister, Gerard Longuet, told reporters in Brussels that the helicopters would be used against Libyan military equipment while trying to avoid civilian casualties, the Associated Press reported. Longuet said that British military officials were on “exactly the same wavelength” as the French.
Allied officials have expressed worry that the situation in Libya would become a stalemate, with Gaddafi remaining in power in the west, rebels controlling the east, and a contested area in between.
Moussa did not respond Monday to calls for comment about the helicopters.
Libyan rebels got another boost Monday when Jeffrey Feltman, U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, their de facto capital of Benghazi, in the eastern part of the country.
State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Feltman would address questions Tuesday about legally recognizing the rebels as the legitimate leaders of Libya but played down the possibility of a major policy change.
“We believe the [rebel Transitional National Council] is a very credible voice for the Libyan people, and we’re strengthening our contacts and deepening them,” Toner said. “But while recognition remains on the table, an option, we’re not there yet.”
In the meantime, he said, the administration would work with Congress to pass legislation to free up Libyan money for the rebels.
Longuet told reporters that France would use Gazelle helicopters, the Associated Press reported. During fighting in Misurata, a rebel-held city in western Libya that is under siege by government forces, the Libyan military moved into crowded areas, making it difficult for NATO to strike targets without risking significant civilian casualties. Helicopters would make it easier to attack military forces in those situations.
Improved accuracy is the goal of the helicopter deployment, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe told reporters in Brussels.
No NATO military personnel have died in Libya during the operation, and there have been relatively few civilian deaths, something that even Libyan officials privately acknowledge.
In response to a question about helicopters, a spokesman for the French Defense Ministry, speaking under European ground rules that do not allow the use of names, said that a ship had been deployed to the Mediterranean on May 17, but provided no specifics.
A NATO spokesman at mission headquarters in Naples said that the alliance is not involved in coordinating any helicopter attacks, and that any helicopter use would be under national control. He spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing alliance regulations.
Western officials have called in recent weeks for putting greater pressure on the Libyan government, and Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, said at a news conference in London on Monday that “Britain is committed to intensifying military, economic and diplomatic action against the Gaddafi regime in the coming weeks.” He declined to comment about helicopters.
Staff writer Joby Warrick in Washington and special correspondent Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/french-officials-france-and-britain-to-use-attack-helicopters-in-libya/2011/05/23/AFTF909G_story.html
Lone Star State Taking A Stand
Written by: Michael Maharrey
The Texas legislature continues to assert its constitutionally guaranteed sovereign powers.
Just a few days after unanimously passing a bill targeting TSA groping that would make it illegal for government agents to touch citizens in a way a reasonable person would consider offensive, the Texas House overwhelmingly passed a strong Tenth Amendment resolution last Wednesday.
HCR 50 passed 102-44. The resolution rests on the Tenth Amendment and reaffirms that the federal government was created as an agent of the states.
WHEREAS, Many federal laws are directly in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union of States, now have, and have always had, rights that the federal government may not usurp
The resolution goes on to demand that the federal government, “as our agent, to cease and desist from mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers, effective immediately; and that all compulsory federal legislation not necessary to ensure rights guaranteed the people under the Constitution of the United States that directs states to comply under threat of civil or criminal penalties or sanctions or that requires states to pass legislation or lose federal funding be prohibited or repealed.”
“This resolution makes a strong, clear statement to the federal government – get out of our space,” TAC communications director Mike Maharrey said. “The federal government certainly has its role, but it cannot legally act outside of its enumerated powers. This resolution rests on flawless constitutional reasoning and I hope the Senate quickly passes it.”
Rep. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe) authored the resolution, along with Larry Taylor (R-Galveston), Larry Gonzalez (R-Round Rock), Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton) and Harvey Hilderbran (R-Kerryville). Eighty-two representatives signed on as co-authors.
HCR 50 moved on to the Texas Senate and passed favorably out of the Senate State Affairs Committee without amendment on Friday.
Gov. Rick Perry has indicated he supports the resolution.
In other Texas legislative action, the TSA bill (HB 1937) passed unanimously out of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security last Friday in Austin.
For more information on Tenth Amendment resolutions from across the nation, click here.
Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center. He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of '98 - Kentucky. See his blog archive here and his article archive here. He also maintains the blog, Tenther Gleanings
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/05/lone-star-state-taking-a-stand/
State lawmakers weigh anti-piracy bill to allow warrantless searches of CD and DVD makers
The Recording Industry Assn. of America is pushing the legislation, which wants to give law enforcement officials the power to enter manufacturing plants without notice or court orders. But U.S. constitutional law scholars say the proposal may violate the 4th Amendment.
 An anti-piracy billl by state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) is raising questions among U.S. constitutional law scholars as it quietly moves through the California Legislature. (April 18, 2008) |
Reporting from Sacramento—
Frustrated for years by rampant piracy, the recording industry is pushing California's lawmakers to approve legislation that would allow warrantless searches of companies that press copies of compact discs and DVDs.The Recording Industry Assn. of America, in effect, wants to give law enforcement officials the power to enter manufacturing plants without notice or court orders to check that discs are legitimate and carry legally required identification marks.
The proposal by state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) is raising questions among U.S. constitutional law scholars as it quietly moves through the Legislature.
"I can understand why this makes people nervous," said Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School of Los Angeles. "We have the 4th Amendment that generally requires probable cause [for a search]. This is a huge exception."
But the RIAA, which went on a well-publicized campaign eight years ago to sue individuals who shared music illegally online, argued that piracy has devastated the industry and nothing else has worked to stem the illegal activity.
Net sales of CDs fell 82% in the last decade, while the number of copies shipped dropped 76%, according to the RIAA. Sales and rentals of movie discs last year declined 19% from a peak of $20.2 billion in 2006, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry-funded advocacy group.
To be sure, other factors have caused sales to fall. In recent years, for instance, music downloads and video streaming have taken the biggest bite out of disc sales. But piracy continues to cause financial losses.
"Last year in California, we seized about 820,000 pirated music discs," said Marcus Cohen, the RIAA's director of anti-piracy investigations for the West Coast. "Nine out of 10 of them come from replicator plants … and the replication capital of the country is California."
He estimated that about 70 sophisticated replicator plants in the state — more than a third of them in the Los Angeles area — use state-of-the-art optical reading equipment to produce up to 85% of the counterfeit CDs nationwide.
The plants typically have contracts to copy discs with educational, religious and promotional content, as well as CDs and DVDs for the industry, but many also make counterfeit music discs on the side, Cohen said.
Illegal, high-quality copies account for as much as three-quarters of Latino music CDs sold, according to a recent analysis by the state Senate Public Safety Committee, citing RIAA data. And in 2005 alone, the industry lost nearly $3.6 billion to music and movie disc piracy, according to a study by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.
"Fraudulent CDs and DVDs undermine our economy and California's role as a global leader in music and film," Padilla said. "They steal revenue from artists, retailers and our entertainment sector.
The legislation, SB 550, would give police the power to make sure that replicators comply with existing laws and would hit scofflaws with steep fines of up to $250,000 for a repeat offense.
To date, the measure has sailed through two state Senate committees, one unanimously and one by a 5-2 vote. Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello) said he voted no because of "constitutional concerns." The bill goes to a final committee hearing Monday, then to the Senate floor. If it passes, it goes to the Assembly.
Key support comes from the industry, business groups and the city of Los Angeles.
The American Civil Liberties Union questioned the constitutionality of the bill but so far has not opposed the measure because it said the bill appeared to be narrowly drawn.
The RIAA argued that courts had carved out 4th Amendment exceptions already. So far, it said, warrantless searches have been allowed at such businesses as automobile junkyards and repair shops, mines, gun and liquor stores, nursing homes, massage parlors, pawn shops and wholesale fish dealers.
The common trait, the trade group contended, was that the businesses were in "closely regulated" industries in which "the pervasiveness and regularity of the government's regulation reduces the owner's expectation of privacy in his business records."
CD and DVD manufacturing plants by their nature qualify as closely regulated and should be subject to limited, warrantless searches, Cohen said.
"We're literally talking about walking into a plant, walking up to the line and ensuring that, indeed, the discs are in compliance," he said. "I don't think the scope of the search is something a regulator needs to be worried about."
But the focus in allowing warrantless searches of businesses generally is to protect the health and safety of workers, consumers or the public, Stanford Law School professor Robert Weisberg said.
"It strikes me as very unusual, and it may be unconstitutional … when the harm is an economic problem and faced by a single industry," he said.
Courts are wary of giving such unbridled power to law enforcement, Loyola's Levenson said.
"The recording industry really wants this and may be able to persuade legislators to have some sort of inspection scheme," she said. "But the Legislature has to be careful that it puts together one that won't be subject to constitutional challenge."
A key legal element missing in the Padilla legislation is a standard for suspecting that counterfeiting is occurring, said Robert Fellmeth, a former prosecutor who now is executive director of the Center for Public Interest Law at the University of San Diego.
"If I were in the Legislature, I would say I want some kind of reasonable suspicion," Fellmeth said. "I would not want simply to leave an open door for the police."
Some executives at companies that legally replicate CDs and DVDs also don't like the idea of police suddenly swooping into their businesses even though they comply with state law by stamping each disc with a special identification marker that allows the tracking of copyright violations.
California already has enough laws to crack down on CD and DVD pirates without resorting to "unlawful search and seizure," said Dave Michelsen, general manager of CD Video Manufacturing Inc. in Santa Ana.
In recent years, the Legislature and three governors have approved half a dozen laws increasing criminal and civil penalties for counterfeiting and making it easier to prosecute piracy cases.
"They are welcome to come to our facility any time, 24 hours a day, if they ever thought we were doing anything illegal," Michelsen said. "We're pretty open with [the RIAA]. But I don't want to have a law that says our premises could be invaded any time without a warrant."
marc.lifsher@latimes.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)