APRPEH

Palestinian Myth on Video

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:20:00 +0000

Appearing earlier this past summer, the video below of Azmi Bishara is being re-cycled by Israel National News in an attempt to publicize the fallacy and deception of the palestinian myth. The myth remains in the concealed cranial crevices of arabian leadership except during those moments of candor when the truth slips out exposed by ego trips in front of cameras and microphones.

Azmi Bishara: There is No "Palestinian" Nation. Never Was! - INN

Translation: “Well, I dont think there is a Palestinian nation at all. I think there is an Arab nation. I always thought so and I did not change my mind. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation, I think its a colonialist invention - Palestinian nation. When were there any Palestinians? Where did it come from? I think there is an Arab nation. I never turned to be a Palestinian nationalist, despite of my decisive struggle against the occupation. I think that until the end of the 19th century, Palestine was the south of Greater Syria.”

WeJew link

some backgrounders:
The No-State Solution

Palestinian problem: anti-Jewish racism

Rep. Ellison's "CAIR"ing for Congress

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:33:00 +0000

David Horowitz's excellent news blog, NewsReal blog posted an article today, Congressional Group Comes to CAIR’s Defense which sheds light into the dishonesty and purpose of Congressional leftists to sell out America through subterfuge.

The short version is that some Republican Congressmen are concerned that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), with its history of supporting an agenda to Islamify America along with its agenda to support terrorists in their war against the west and Israel, (see more here) is advancing its cause in Congress through the auspices of Congressional interns and want an investigation into their activities. Well as the old saying goes, if you ain't done it you have nothing to worry about. In fact, if the parties under investigation are innocent, inviting a review of their activities would bring them additional credibility would it not?

Now for the subterfuge; Congressman Keith Ellison, (D,MN) America's Congressional voice for Islam is all in a huff over the idea along with allies from the Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, and Asian Caucus. In a fashion typical of Islam, which takes the truths of Torah and flips them on their head adding a uniquely Arabian twist to them (such as replacing Avraham and Yitzchak in the akeida narrative going to Har haMoriah, it is Ishmael going with Ibrahim to be bound and for which the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Adha commemorates. The Torah of course, appeared well over one thousand years before the Koran, so go figure) Ellison uses an argument form which utilizes what is to be interpreted as value statements and positions them in support of his deceptive effort to defend what is indefensible. In contrast to Ellison's position, the logic pointed out above is a balanced approach to determine if the interests of CAIR's alleged and verified illegal activities are being represented in Congress.

Here is an example of Ellison's end run from the story:

If anything, we should be encouraging all Americans to engage in the U.S. political process; to take part in, and to contribute to, the great democratic experiment that is America.

Of course. Who would argue with this? Who would discourage participation in the political process in America? Now, this quote was the end of the statement. It was proceeded by:

The idea that we should investigate Muslim interns as spies is a blow to the very principle of religious freedom that our founding fathers cherished so dearly.”

Hm - I don't get it. Has someone suggested that Muslim interns are not allowed to practice their Islam? Has someone suggested that Muslims cannot be interns? Is anyone insinuating that all Muslims are spies? Would the Founding Fathers have ignored a threat of spying because the accusation of such would anger the accused or the coreligionists of the accused? Is CAIR so firmly and fully ingrained into Muslim America that suspecting CAIR of illegal activity is off-limits?

The other quotes can be found in the original article. Ellison is clearly mis-leading the listener/reader to defend against even a fair investigative review of certain individuals actions. There is no Constitutional right to be a Congressional intern nor is there a right to represent the interests of organizations which are supporting terrorism and advocating policies which are detrimental to the interests of the United States.

Real Jewish Activism

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:43:00 +0000

The term "Jewish activism" can pass as many things. The nature of English as a language permits a deceptively common string of otherwise disparate entities or events to define the core nature of both entities. Jewish activism is a good case study of this trick. One might assume that Jewish activism must be both Jewish and be activist to warrant this description. As most readers already know, most Jewish activism has little to do with Judaism and is usually only called such merely by virtue of the fact that it is activism of Jews or by Jews but without a Jewish soul.

Two recent articles however define in my opinion what real Jewish activism is. The first found at Shmais.com comes from the United Kingdom where chairman of the Rabbinical Council of United Synagogue(RCUS), Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet is going the distance in the UK court system to defend the halachic definition of "Who is a Jew". The court case involves a child of a non-Jewish mother and Jewish father who sought to enroll their son into a school in London which requires it's students to be Jewish. Where the common "Jewish activist" sentimentalism and raw emotionalism would call for a decision to be made in a non-traditional way, over-ruling halacha for the family's sake (in the mode of the US Federations who adopt non-traditional Jewish break-away definitions to keep the money pie as big as possible), the RCUS and Rabbi Schochet are standing firm. Bravo, kol hakavod. This is real Jewish activism.

The second story comes from Jpost in the form of an editorial by David Weinberg calling out JStreet for what I would refer to it as (although I doubt this is original), the Yevsektsiya of American leftist politics, serving its masters at the DNC and the White House.

JStreet is holding its first ever "hug-in" as Weinberg calls it this week to discuss how to better re-define support for Israel by opposing Israel and to justify this opposition by calling it a Jewish thing to do. Weinberg says:

J Street is a new form of Jewish apostasy. Its adherents hasten to embrace their Jewishness (even if they don't really know much about authentic Jewish tradition and morality) in order to besmirch Israel and the mainstream Jewish community. They earnestly declare how "profoundly" Jewish they are, in order to engender a distancing in US-Israel relations.

Indeed, David Weinberg scores a full body blow in this editorial. And again, this is real Jewish activism, no apologies, no ill-will, just telling the truth, doing the right thing for the right reason, not looking back.

Both Rabbi Schochet and David Weinberg should be an example for American Jewry. We will never overcome the problems that endanger the survival of our community until we are willing to tell the truth about what ails us and speak up to defend our Torah, tradition and our Holy Land. Our common destiny awaits.

PSA - Lulav Ring Tying

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:21:00 +0000

ALSO:
A nice story and photo exhibit to bring you into the Sukkos mood, see A Growing Enterprise on Kingston, Lulav Rings!

PREVIEW:

Chag Sameach

Privacy Vs. Privacy

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:51:00 +0000

Below is an article printed in a recent "InformationWeek.com" reporting on a federal civil case involving a Wyoming bank and Google Inc. The core issue running underneath the case is the definition of a data breach and when it should be disclosed. The plaintiff, (Rocky Mountain Bank) wished to seal the court documents to prevent the publicizing of the breach.

A Rocky Mountain Bank employee inadvertently emailed a list of bank customers along with account information to a Gmail account belonging to an unknown party. The error was discovered the next day and the bank employee attempted to re-mediate the problem by recalling the email and then sending a follow up email informing the unknown recipient to delete the email and file immediately.

Question: Do the account holders of the 1,325 individual and business accounts that were breached in error, have an established right to notification before the bank can determine whether or not any illegality on the part of the recipient has occurred? The bank argued that there is no reason to panic. The court ordered otherwise. (a footnote to the denied order establishes that a breach occurred whether or not the data will be used for fraudulent purposes or with or without a determination on the active or inactive status of the account).

Question: Does Google have a mandate to inform the bank about the status of the email account and possibly additional contact information on file for the email account holder? What if that action could prevent the illegal use of the mistakenly sent data or does the privacy of the email account user force Google to maintain a policy of requiring a court order to take such action which would result in a significant delay by the custodian of the information in possibly seeking the assistance of law enforcement?

The court's denial of the request by the bank to seal the docket was made in deference to established precedent that court documents are public record and should be sealed only when absolutely necessary. Breaches, the court found - do not qualify as absolutely necessary. Google, for its part merely requested its procedures for release of information be followed. Wouldn't Google's pre-mature release upon request of an email holders name, while not qualifying as a "breach" of personally identifying information constitute a breach of trust? Email accounts are provided, as most software, with a fine print user's agreement.

However Google's privacy policy reads as follows:

Information sharing

Google only shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Google in the following limited circumstances:

· We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.

· We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

· We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Google, its users or the public as required or permitted by law. Google Privacy Policy

It seems from their stated privacy policies that the request for a court order goes above and beyond what they state in their published privacy policy. Nowhere does it say "must" have a court order to release information. Therefore, if fraudulent activity does occur as a result of this breach, it is possible to hold Google, Inc. somewhat liable for delaying action which could have (possibly) prevented or limited the resultant fraud.

The trade-offs in this case are not pleasant. The email account that received that transmission may not have been logged into in many months and could have been a "throw away" email. Which group of people has the greater claim to privacy - the bank account holders or the Google email user?

Lawsuit Tied To Bank Gmail Error Can't Be Secret, Judge Says

A lawsuit seeking to identify a Gmail user who accidentally received confidential bank information must proceed in public.

By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
Sept. 21, 2009
URL: article link

A bank's effort to prevent the disclosure of information about a data breach arising from an errant Gmail message has been rejected by a federal judge in San Jose, California.

On Friday, Judge Ronald M. Whyte of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, acting on behalf of another judge, denied a motion by the Wyoming-based Rocky Mountain Bank to seal its lawsuit against Google.

An attempt by a bank to shield information about an unauthorized disclosure of confidential customer information until it can determine whether or not that information has been further disclosed and/or misused does not constitute a compelling reason that overrides the public's common law right of access to court filings, the judge said in his ruling.

The lawsuit seeks to force Google to reveal information about a Gmail account holder who received a misdirected e-mail sent by a bank employee.

The message, intended for a bank customer, included an attachment that should not have been sent containing confidential customer information for 1,325 individual and business accounts, according to the court's summary of the case. The data is question is said to include names, addresses, tax identification numbers, and loan information.

According to the facts summarized in the judge's order -- the actual complaint has not yet been made available in response to the judge's ruling -- the bank employee attempted to e-mail loan statements to one of the bank's customers who had requested them. But the message went to the wrong person, with a confidential file.

After learning of its inadvertent disclosure of confidential customer information, Plaintiff tried to recall the e-mail without success, the court's summary states. It then sent another e-mail to the Gmail address, instructing the recipient to immediately delete the prior e-mail and the attached file in its entirety without opening or reviewing it. Plaintiff also requested that the recipient contact Plaintiff to discuss his or her actions. The recipient has not responded to Plaintiff's e-mail.

Representatives of Rocky Mountain Bank, based in Wilson, Wyoming, did not return repeated calls seeking either confirmation or denial of the bank's involvement in the lawsuit.

Neil Arney, an attorney for the plaintiff with the Denver, Colorado branch of law firm Kutak Rock, declined to provide any information about the case. Separately, a spokesperson for the firm said he had been instructed by attorneys working on the Rocky Mountain Bank case not to respond to media inquiries.

A clerk for the court said that the case was still sealed until the parties responded to the judge's order and declined to provide further information. The judge has allowed the Gmail address of the accidental recipient of the bank's data to be redacted in court documents.

Rocky Mountain Bank filed its lawsuit because it asked Google to provide information about the account holder who received the errant message and Google declined to provide any information without a court order.

Google said that it is waiting for the bank to comply with the judge's order that it resubmit its filing before deciding on a response.

When Google receives legal process, such as court orders and subpoenas, where possible we promptly provide notice to users to allow them to object to those requests for information, a company spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. In this case, RMB must comply with proper court process, and the court has required it to resubmit its papers. Once we have a chance to review these papers, we will determine our response.

The judge's ruling sets Monday, September 21, as the deadline for the plaintiff to resubmit the filing.

CARD Act of 2009 and Credit Fraud Risk

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:29:00 +0000

The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 became law in May. The provisions of the law address consumer protections, improved disclosures of credit contracts, gift cards, and of particular interest - regulations concerning the younger consumers and credit issuance.

The new law prevents consumers under the age of 21 from opening a new credit account

unless the consumer has submitted a written application to the card issuer that the meets the requirements of....the signature of a co-signer, including the parent, legal guardian, spouse, or any other individual who has attained the age of 21 having means to repay debts incurred by the consumer in connection with the account, indicating joint liability for debts incurred by the consumer in connection with the account before the consumer has attained the age of 21; or submission by the consumer of financial information, including through an application, indicating an independent means of repaying any obligation arising from the proposed extension of credit in connection with the account.

Also in the act is a provision which requires someone from the same list of parties above to increase an open credit line for an under 21 consumer. Other provisions include protecting young consumers from pre-screened offers of credit and for regulating, tracking, and reporting the activities of credit issuers involvement on campuses which includes prohibiting the offering of tangible gifts as an inducement to open a new credit account. The law also requires "credit card and debt education and counseling sessions" be provided to all new students of any institution.

While in particular the inducement restriction is a welcome regulation, there is reason to be concerned that a piece of this new law may increase identity frauds and scams. It will not take too long for 18 or 19 year olds who will not have co-signers to find co-signers when this law goes into affect, supposedly this upcoming winter.

The possibility for fraud is wide open. Some scam possibilities include offering to co-sign for a credit card in exchange for cash either as a residual or one-time fee without taking actual responsibility for the account. The "co-signer" may also be using stolen personal identifying information. What about the under 21 year old obtaining without authorization or buying an identity in order to create a co-signer? In the same way that 21 year olds and older buy alcohol for other students, it is a fair guess to say that irresponsible "adults" will co-sign for under 21 year olds. Just wait until we see fraternities and sororities offering credit backing as a fringe benefit of pledging or using it as an inducement for some other activity. This is merely the beginning. While this law is well-intended, I do not believe it was well thought out.

Israel's Greatest Adversary

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:50:00 +0000

"Right now, the Obama Administration is the strongest, if you will, and the greatest adversary that Israel has." Jay Shapiro Show - 12 July 09 'The Real US-Israel Relationship' - Israel National Radio

Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that the US President, Barack Hussein Obama no longer has any apprehension in hiding the fact that he is not a friend of Israel.

Monday's meeting with "Top Jewish Organizational Leaders" hand-picked for passivity, (as pointed out in the Leibler article below) further supports the notion that Obama is unashamedly and openly anti-Israel. Obama wants no opposition to his opinion that Yosh is the biggest obstacle to peace and wants support for that position by the lefties who voted for him. The idea that "settlements" are the biggest obstacle to peace also is a surrender to the false notion that Israel was required to withdraw from all of Yosh in any of the previous "negotiations" or treaties.

I am drawn to the words of Moshe Rabbenu in the first of this week's two parashios (Matos) after the leaders of the tribes of Reuven and Gad approach him to request that their inheritance be granted to them on the other side of the Jordan, in the lands of Sichon and Og. Moshe asks these leaders

32:6. [Thereupon,] Moses said to the descendants of Gad and the descendants of Reuben, "Shall your brethren go to war while you stay here? 7. Why do you discourage the children of Israel from crossing over to the land which the Lord has given them?

Moshe then goes on to remind these leaders why they were sentenced to die in and wonder in the wilderness - because the people angered G-d doing evil in His eyes. Then Moshe adds

14. And behold, you have now risen in place of your fathers as a society of sinful people, to add to the wrathful anger of the Lord against Israel. 15. If you turn away from following Him, He will leave you in the desert again, and you will destroy this entire people."

These lefties who nod in self-righteous approval of this administration are letting their brethren go to war for them and discourage the weak and dis-heartened of our people from "crossing over to the land" publically standing up to support their brethern in the land of Israel. Their actions are evil and contrary to the safety of the Jews in the land of Israel and places into jeopardy, all Jews collective inheritance of the land. These leftie Jews have "risen in place of their fathers" - (those who compensate them and pay their salaries and wish for these wayward Jews to nod on their behalf).

Today's story in Ha'aretz suggests that the Obama team may make a superficial concession to allow construction projects underway in the "territories" to be completed, but nothing else. In return for this "favor", Obama will be calling for a "binding time-table" for completion of negotiations between the democratically elected government of Israel and the terrorists who stole the PA from other terrorists who actually were elected.

Below, Isi Leibler lays out a compeling case as to why Obama is causing significant damage not only to the US-Israel relationship but to Israel's security. By accepting arabian propaganda as truth, Obama has turned the tables on America's role in the world as the bearer of truth. Shameful.

Candidly Speaking: The case against Obama

Jul. 15, 2009
Isi Leibler , THE JERUSALEM POST
Prior to the election, many traditional Jewish supporters of the Democratic Party were apprehensive of Barack Obama's initially negative attitude to Israel and his troubling association with people like PLO ideologue Rashid Khalidi and the anti-Semitic Rev. Jeremiah Wright. However after aggressively repudiating his earlier policies, Obama convinced most Jews that he would never abandon the Jewish state. Alas, recent developments suggest otherwise.

President Obama is adept at warming the cockles of the hearts of his Jewish constituents, many of whom seem as mesmerized by him as their forebears were by Franklin D Roosevelt. He repeatedly articulates his commitment to the welfare of Israel and admiration for American Jewry.

Yet if one probes beneath the veneer of bonhomie and analyzes the substance of his policies, they reflect an unprecedented downturn in relations towards Israel with hints of worse to come. This was reaffirmed by Obama in the course of his recent meeting with Jewish leaders (which included representatives of extremist fringe groups like Peace Now and J Street but excluded those likely to be critical of his approach). In an extraordinary patronizing manner with his Jewish aides beaming at him he told Israelis to "engage in self reflection" and made it clear that he believed he had a better understanding of what is best for them than their democratically elected government. Alas, with the exception of Malcolm Hoenlein and Abe Foxman, it appears that the majority of the others endorsed his position or remained silent. Yet only a few days earlier even a passionate Democrat like Alan Dershowitz had expressed concern "that the coming changes in the Obama administration's policies could weaken the security of the Jewish state".

THIS COLUMN is a response to American Jews devoted to Israel who remain under the charismatic spell of their president and challenged me to demonstrate how his policies are harming Israel.

President Obama's keynote Cairo address included effusive praise for Islam, highlighted Western shortcomings but omitted mention of global jihad and Islamic fundamentalism. It also legitimized the Arab narrative including its malicious and false historical analogies. By alleging that the State of Israel was a by-product of the Holocaust, the president of the United States denied 3,500 years of Jewish history and the central role of Jerusalem in Judaism. He endorsed the Arafat mantra that Israel had been inflicted upon the Arabs by the Europeans to compensate for the Holocaust, even hinting at equivalence between Jewish and Arab suffering. Obama ignored the rejectionism, ongoing wars and waves of Arab terror directed against the Jewish state since the day of its creation. He also compared the Palestinians to the US civil rights movement. When the president of the world's greatest superpower provides an imprimatur for such a false narrative it represents a major breakthrough for those seeking to delegitimize Israel.

Obama's Cairo address should be viewed as an extension of a calculated policy designed to appease the Arab world by playing hardball with Israel. Obama's response to the brutal Iranian regime's thuggish clampdown on its own people was inordinately restrained. He bowed and scraped to the Saudis, unconditionally renewed diplomatic relations with the Syrians and failed to respond to the latest brazen North Korean missile launches. His "engagement" and benign relationship with corrupt and despotic Arab regimes contrast starkly with the tough diktats conveyed to Israel.

The confrontation with Israel goes far beyond the vexed settlement issue which was wrongly linked with curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions and has been exaggerated totally out of proportion.

Israel endorsed the road map and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unequivocally undertook to freeze settlement expansion in areas other than within the settlement blocs which the Bush Administration had implicitly agreed should remain under Israeli sovereignty. Even in these areas Netanyahu undertook to limit growth to "enabling normal life." But either disregarding or cynically abrogating understandings by the former administration, Obama's demands exceeded even those of Arafat's when the 1993 Oslo Accords were negotiated.

Today, no city outside the Islamic world denies Jews the right of residence. Yet Obama is demanding that for the first time since 1967 Jews will no longer be entitled to build a single home beyond the old armistice lines, including Jewish sections of Jerusalem and adjacent areas like Ma'aleh Adumim. No Israeli government of any political composition could conceivably accept such a demand which even opposition Kadima spokesmen condemned as outright "extortion."

NOT SURPRISINGLY, the Palestinians and Arabs are delighted with Obama's humiliation of Israel. Saeb Erakat, the chief PA negotiator, proclaimed that the Palestinians need make no concessions because the longer the process extended, the more they would benefit from further unilateral Israeli concessions. Washington Post journalist Jackson Diehl, not renowned as a pro-Israel supporter, observed, "[Obama] revived a long-dormant Palestinian fantasy: that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions whether or not its democratic government agrees, while Arabs passively watch and applaud."

The reality is that Arab concerns are not related to settlements or boundaries. Both Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas rejected offers to return virtually all territories Israel gained in the 1967 war - a war initiated by the Arabs to destroy the Jewish state. "The gaps were too wide" said Abbas, after Olmert offered him the equivalent of all territories beyond the Green Line, including joint control of the Temple Mount. They adamantly demand the right of return for Arab refugees, which would effectively bring an end to the Jewish state. Clearly, the overriding objective for the PA, no less than Hamas, remains, not two states but two stages leading to the demise of the Jewish state. In recent weeks there was a spate of Fatah statements on official PA-controlled media brazenly describing the negotiations as a vehicle to destroy Israel. "Peace is a means not a goal. Our goal is all Palestine," said Fatah activist Kifah Radaydeh on PA TV and also affirmed that "armed struggle" is still on the cards.

If Obama was genuinely even-handed, he would urge the "moderate" Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. He would make it clear that the US would never support the repatriation of the descendents of the Arab refugees to Israel. Obama would call on Abbas to stop sanctifying martyrs and naming streets, sports teams and other projects (some of which are sponsored by the US) after Palestinian suicide killers and murderers and would monitor anti-Semitic incitement in PA media, mosques, schools and kindergartens. And most importantly, before demanding that Israel remove barriers and downgrade security in Judea and Samaria, the US would insist that the PA curb its military wings and cease all acts of terror.

But as of now, Obama's policy can be summarized as "Israelis should give and Palestinians should take." It amounts to appeasing the Arabs, humiliating Israel and in the process, undermining the security of the Jewish state.

ISRAEL IS not a superpower and needs to retain the support of the United States, in the absence of which the United Nations, Europeans and the entire international community would gang up against the Jewish state. It is no coincidence that Javier Solana, the retiring EU foreign policy chief, has urged the UN to determine the final borders, the status of Jerusalem and resolution of the refugee problem and impose their solution. That the British government has just announced what amounts to a partial arms boycott against Israel is another example.

Netanyahu is doing his utmost to achieve a compromise and has already offered to totally freeze all settlement activity beyond Jerusalem and the major settlement blocs, which the vast majority of Israelis agree must be retained. But if the Americans remain bloody-minded and refuse to compromise, Netanyahu will stand firm on this issue and will be overwhelmingly supported by the people who are outraged by the double standards applied against them.

In the meanwhile, the public reprimands and humiliations already underway are eroding the US-Israel relationship and impacting on American public support for Israel, which polls indicate is plummeting.
American Jews who voted overwhelmingly to elect Obama should not remain silent. They are entitled to press him to adhere to his commitment and treat the Jewish state in an even-handed manner. Together with other friends of Israel they should discourage their president from offering Israel as a sacrificial lamb on the altar of Arab appeasement. In urging Obama not to abandon Israel, they would also be promoting the US national interest. History cannot point to a single instance in which appeasement of jihadists or tyrants has ever borne fruit.

Comments to Isi Leibler

Dangers of Social Networking - Real Dangers

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:37:00 +0000

If there ever was an object lesson in the dangers posed by wreckless social networking, just ask incoming MI6 head Sir John Sawers. Sawers wife Shelley, a Facebook user missed the tutorial about securing the access to her account and keeping her private information, private. In the process, she has put the lives of her husband, family and friends into jeopardy.

previous Social Networking safety posts by APRPEH:
Dangers of Social Networking Sites

More Dangers of Social Networking

Social Networking III - Lives of the Happy Holiday Hackers

At this time, her actions could be forcing many people to change domiciles, mailing addresses, schools, and plenty of other everyday routine schedules. For instance imagine how useful it would be to know where the head of MI6 has tea and where he meets his friends, where his children live or go to school, when they are dropped off and picked up, at which home he may be attending a party, etc? One can only imagine the potential damage which could have been done to British national security had this story not broken.

Everyone needs to use the security settings on whatever site they are using. They should not reveal information that could be personally or professionally damaging. And that includes pictures of middle aged men in bathing suits in the way Ms. Sawers has done.

It is very hard to think of someone as SIR John Sawers after seeing him playing on the beach.

coverage from TimesOnline

Phillips vs. Dershowitz

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Melanie Phillips highlights troubling contradictions contained within Alan Dershowitz's Wall Street Journal editorial. To use the proverbial "canary in the mine shaft" description of Dershowitz would be generous. Coming from a professor of law (wasn't Obama supposedly a professor too or so he told us?) of his stature one would hope for more than a wishful thinking op/ed on his part.

Dershowitz has for the record though, pinned himself into red-lines which he says should be watched for intrusion by Obama. Should one of those red-lines be breached however, we can be certain that Dershowitz will explain in the most elegant terms why what we see isn't really what we see. Ah, the benefits of a good legal education.

Melanie Phillips below explains the contradictory nature of Dershowitz's positions although she seems uncertain whether wishful thinking on his part or a pre-meditated attempt to create history the way he thinks it should be written is his goal.

Briefly, one of her points is that Dershowitz sails into the waters of moral equivalency (between Israel and the arabians), something that lefties cannot avoid without betraying their most core belief. Another point is how Dershowitz explains away the evidence of Obama's dislike of Israel by setting up the above mentioned red-lines as distant excuses permitting observers to ignore the strain in the relations between the US administration and Israel.

The honest approach here (based on Dersh logic) followed to its logical conclusion is "wait until things really get bad". Dersh starts with how some Jews saw clearly (those who could see beyond the DNC's talking points) that Obama during his life has run with the anti-Jew crowd - but still dismisses those observations as less relevant than campaign rhetoric - (rhetoric for which he should claim conflict of interest). Like a trial attorney is apt to do, Dersh brushes these justified fears under the carpet. History shall play no part in his equation of Obama and his Israel policy, only the future. We could have avoided this problem of course if Jews like Dersh would have used their superior intellects to make reasoned analyses of why NOT to vote for Obama - (my attempt - APRPEH: Barack Obama - Myths, Facts, and Obfuscating (Bloggers Beware)) but that is after all water under the bridge. Dershowitz is the friend who supports you provided you agree to his terms. And those terms are written by the White House.

July 6, 2009 / 14 Tamuz 5769

Dershowitz doesn't get it/By Melanie Phillips

A sobering view by one of Britain's most respected columnists

Jewish World Review | Alan Dershowitz is one of the most prolific, high-profile and indefatiguable defenders of Israel and the Jewish people against the tidal wave of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feeling currently coursing through the west. So a piece by him in the Wall Street Journal giving expression to the rising anxiety being felt about Obama by American Jews naturally arouses great interest.

But just like the majority of American Jews, getting on for 80 per cent of whom voted for Obama, he is a Democrat supporter who is incapable of acknowledging the truth about this President. For most American Jews, the horror of even entertaining the hypothetical possibility that they might ever in a million years have to vote for a Republican is so great they simply cannot see what is staring them in the face — that this Democratic President is lethal for both Israel and the free world. And in this article Dershowitz shows that he too is just as blind.

Acknowledging the anxiety among some American Jews about Obama's attitude to Israel, Dershowitz concludes uneasily that there isn't really a problem here because all Obama is doing is putting pressure on Israel over the settlements, which most American Jews don't support anyway. But this is totally to miss the point. The pressure over the settlements per se is not the reason for the intense concern.

It is instead, first and foremost, the fact that Obama is treating Israel as if it is the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Obama thus inverts aggressor and victim, denying Israel's six-decade long victimisation and airbrushing out Arab aggression. The question remains: why has Obama chosen to pick a fight with Israel while soft-soaping Iran which is threatening it with genocide? The answer is obvious: Israel is to be used to buy off Iran just as Czechoslovakia was used at Munich. Indeed, I would say this is worse even than that, since I suspect that Obama — coming as he does from a radical leftist milieu, with vicious Israel-haters amongst his closest friends — would be doing this to Israel even if Iran was not the problem that it is.

In any event, the double standard is egregious. Obama has torn up his previous understandings with Israel over the settlements while putting no pressure at all on the Palestinians, even though since they are the regional aggressor there can be no peace unless they end their aggression and certainly not until they accept Israel as a Jewish state, which they have said explicitly they will never do. On this, Obama is totally silent. So too is Dershowitz. That's some omission.

Next, Obama is pressuring Israel to set up a Palestine state — within two years this will exist, swaggers Rahm Emanuel. But everyone knows that as soon as Israel leaves the West Bank, Hamas — or even worse — will take over. The only reason the (also appalling) Abbas is still in Ramallah, enabling Obama to pretend there is a Palestinian interlocutor for peace, is because the Israelis are keeping Hamas at bay. Yet Dershowitz writes:

There is no evidence of any weakening of American support for Israel's right to defend its children from the kind of rocket attacks candidate Obama commented on during his visit to Sderot.

So what exactly does he think would happen if Israel came out of the West Bank and the Hamas rockets were down the road from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv (literally: many in the west have absolutely no idea how tiny Israel is). It's not a question of Israel's 'right to defend its children'. If Obama has his way, Israel would not be able to defend its children or anyone else, because Obama would have removed its defences by putting its enemies in charge of them. It is astounding that Dershowitz can't see this.

Then there was Obama's appalling Cairo speech in which he conspicuously refrained from committing himself to defending Zionism and the Jewish people from the attacks and incitement to genocide against them, but committed himself instead to defending their attackers against 'negative stereotyping'. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say.

Worse still, by falsely asserting that the Jewish aspiration for Israel derived from the Holocaust, Obama effectively denied that the Jewish people were in Israel as of right and thus endorsed the core element of the Arab and Muslim propaganda of war and extermination. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say.

Obama drew a vile — and telling — equivalence between the Nazi extermination camps and the Palestinian 'refugee' camps. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Obama's statement that the Palestinians 'have suffered in pursuit of a homeland' was grossly and historically untrue, and again denied Arab aggression. On this, Dershowitz has nothing to say. Equally vilely, Obama equated genocidal terrorism by the Palestinians with the civil rights movement in America and the resistance against apartheid in South Africa. On all of this, Dershowitz has nothing to say.

Dershowitz also grossly underplays the terrible harm Obama is doing to the security not just of Israel but the world through his reckless appeasement of Iran. In the last few weeks, this has actively undercut the Iranian democrats trying to oust their tyrannical regime, and has actually strengthened that regime. All the evidence suggests ever more strongly that Obama has decided America will 'live with' a nuclear Iran, whatever it does to its own people. Which leaves Israel hung out to dry.

But even here, where he is clearly most concerned, Dershowitz scuttles under his comfort blanket — Dennis Ross, who was originally supposed to have been the US special envoy to Iran but was recently announced senior director of the National Security Council and special assistant to the President for the region. It is not at all clear whether this ambiguous development represents a promotion or demotion for Ross. Either way, for Dershowitz to rest his optimism that Obama's Iran policy will be all right on the night entirely upon the figure of Dennis Ross is pathetic. Ross, a Jew who played Mr Nice to Robert Malley's Mr Nasty towards Israel in the Camp David debacle under President Clinton, is clearly being used by Obama as a human shield behind which he can bully Israel with impunity. American Jews assume that his proximity to Obama means the President's intentions towards Israel are benign. Dazzled by this vision of Ross as the guarantor of Obama's good faith, they thus ignore altogether the terrible import of the actual words coming out of the President's mouth.

The fact is that many American Jews are so ignorant of the history of the Jewish people, the centrality of Israel in its history and the legality and justice of its position that they probably saw nothing wrong in Obama saying that the Jewish aspiration for Israel came out of the Holocaust because they think this too. Nor do they see the appalling double standard in the bullying of Israel over the settlements and what that tells us about Obama's attitude towards Israel, because — as Dershowitz himself makes all too plain — they too think in much the same way, that the settlements are the principal obstacle to peace.

Many if not most American Jews have a highly sentimentalized view of Israel. They never go there, are deeply ignorant of its history and current realities, and are infinitely more concerned with their own view of themselves as social liberals, a view reflected back at themselves through voting for a Democrat President.

Whatever else he is, however, Dershowitz is certainly not ignorant. Which makes this lamentable article all the more revealing, and depressing.

another related commentary at American Thinker

Fred Thompson Explains the Truth About the Palis

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:02:00 +0000

Hear Fred Thompson in his "Winners and Losers" segment cheerleading for Bibi Netanyahu. Fred understands Israel's situation better than most Israelis and explains it in a way in which only, well Fred could. FRED THOMPSON SHOW

Show date 22 June 2009

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Will The Jews Choose Obama Over Israel?

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:58:00 +0000

Many readers will not like this post. I am not sure I like this post. Yet, it has to be written. Riding the coattails of APRPEH's last post American Jews: Obama or Torah, today Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic has made his prediction as to which choice will be prevail. It is not a satisfying answer. American Jews and Settlements: A Divorce in Progress - Jeffrey Goldberg - The Atlantic - 18 Jun 2009 01:28 pm

Goldberg's article based mostly on an earlier article by Samuel Freedman claims that American Jews will pick Obama. Both writers believe that American Jews see Yehuda and Shomron, (aka "The West Bank" or more accurately the "West Bank of the Jordan River") as not only an obstacle to peace but an obstacle to a belief in the "rightness" of Israel on moral and democratic grounds.

Goldberg goes further and warns the mainstream Jewish organizations (specifically pointing at Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations) that they are out of touch with the Jewish voters of America who in overwhelming numbers voted for B. Hussein Obama.

The rationale is that American liberals view the territories in the biblical heartland of Israel the same way as the Arabians who have been calling them 'obstacles to peace' for years. By implication, he asserts that Al-Baraq Hussein Obama has given the Jewish left the confidence to boldly step forward and oppose Jewish land rights in Yehuda and Shomron (a Jstreet fantasy), a position which they should know in their heart is truthfully a great aveira/sin. What is even more ridiculous is that to even hold the "obstacle to peace" position, one must not give much weight to the more historically factual argument that the conflict has never been about land at all but the failure of the Jews to simply go away. The arabians simply do not want us around. To arabs and muslims, we Jews are the obstacle to their religious credibility. Islam cannot be a replacement of that which came before it when the holy Torah of Israel stands in its way, countering its would-be desert modification replete with stolen and maligned stories from the Torah, known as the Koran.

The very idea of supporting a policy which feeds upon Jews as pawns to justify denial of Jewish property rights in the biblical heartland of Eretz HaKodesh must be strongly opposed with all available resources by all Jews who still hold that the Torah is true and HaShem is the G-d of Israel. Now, if that means finally coming out to further distance Torah Judaism from the apostasy and antiJew non-Torah yet still Jewish (for now) cults which are lead more by political allegiances than Torah allegiances, than it is time to begin this process.

I say this with the deepest regret and fear. We must NEVER have any negative and hateful feelings towards fellow Jews. We must, however consider them as desperately in need of teshuva. Sometimes, distance can be a positive force for change.

Political arguments amongst Jews over common preferences of one philosophy or another as it relates to the economy, health care and many other domestic and foreign policy issues as within the context of America's role and direction in the world, although at times heated, are normal and represent no intrinsic threat. They should never, chas v'sholom, serve as a foot in the door for manipulation by the goyim to divide the people of Israel into camps supporting the belief's of one group of goyim vis a vis another group of goyim. All the more so, in terms of the land of Israel there should never be two camps, one of which supports Jewish inheritance rights in the land of Israel and one which follows a non-Jewish, non-Torah outlook seeking to strip the holy land from its rightful owners.

I pointed out in my previous post (see above) that based upon the Torah and Rashi's explanation, supporting non-Jewish rights to the land of Israel is an aveira (IMO).

One could easily conclude from these comments that any Jew who supports the idea of any other nation having any property rights in Eretz Hakodesh is in simple and plain violation of the Torah and thus the will of the Holy One, Blessed be He.

Jews who wish to strengthen their commitment to the wishes of this one-term president and his antiJew friends over the objections of their eternal divine Torah, do so not only at their own peril, but the peril of all Jews. Not only does this policy cause greater conflict amongst the not yet fully Torah observant Jews and Torah observant Jews on the one hand, but it will underpin actual conflict amongst Jews in a physical sense as the Israeli security forces will eventually be called upon to uproot more of their brethren from land they are rightly living upon. In a greater sense, since all Jews share One unique source which binds each soul together, collectively the Jewish people will suffer from such misguided beliefs. A foot cannot be removed without the rest of the body suffering.

As for Goldberg and Freedman, Jews who wish to bring Moshiach will ignore them in deference to that small voice inside, reminding them who they are and why were put on this planet.

For clarification as to the religious aspects of the land of Israel and the Jew's obligation to it see here.

American Jews: Obama or Torah?

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:01:00 +0000

I am not one to quote Shmuley Boteach. I am less than enamored with his interest in becoming the Jewish icon to the goyim. But he is dead on the money in his Jpost column The coming storm: Obama and American Jewry.

APRPEH's last post concerning Jeremiah Wright and his message to B. Hussein Obama and subsequently to anyone else who was paying attention, drew a conclusion that Wright (who knows Obama as well, if not better than most people) seemed to be surprised and disappointed that Barry was concealing his true self. This conclusion should be in mind to read the remainder in context.

Boteach seems to expect that the organized Jewish community will have to make a choice between its insatiable appetite for supporting democrats and liberals and its Torah based commitment to defend the very soil of Eretz HaKodesh and the blood of Israel as this administration and its policies of foisting an a non-peace agreement on Israel are played out.

Many Jewish liberals are liberal on everything but Israel's security. This group is further broken down into full fledged Israel hawks to those who mistakenly believe that a 2 state solution will bring peace in our time but have little to no understanding that the 2 state solution has become the coat-rack to hang hopes of an eventual 1 state solution where arabians come to the land in mass numbers and overwhelm the rightful Jewish settlers, (yes all Jews are "evil" settlers in the land of Israel since it was none other than G-d, 'May His Name be Blessed' who settled Jews in this land) and set the world back further from the time of Moshiach. In a more physical sense, the emergence of a unified state arising from what was Israel sets back the path to a just world birthing yet another backwards arabian country.

The knowledge that B. Hussein and his antiJew friends cannot be successful in dragging Israel into the sewer of perpetual strife brought own by indefensible borders and hordes of barbarians flooding through the gates of civilized and modern Israel is brought down in the first Rashi of Chumash, go and learn it. This same theme is relevant to this week's parasha (chutz l'aretz) Shlach.

This is the first commentary in my weekly study of the parashah in Vedibarta Bam - Rabbi Moshe Bogomilsky

"Send forth men, if you please, and let them spy out the Land of Canaan that I am giving to the Children of Israel." (13:2)

QUESTION: Why is it necessary to mention the name of the land and the fact that Hashem is giving it to the Jewish people?

ANSWER: The Gemara (Sanhedrin 91a) relates that the people of Canaan once took the Jewish people to court before Alexander the Great. They demanded that Eretz Yisrael be returned to them because it was originally owned by their ancestor Canaan. Gevihah ben Pesisa argued that Canaan was the son of Cham and was cursed by Noach to be a servant to his brothers, Shem and Yafet. According to halachah (Pesachim 88b), whatever a slave acquires belongs to his master. Thus, the Canaanites had absolutely no claim to the land, and through their ancestor Shem, the Jews were the rightful owners. The plaintiffs were dumbfounded and ran away leaving their fields and vineyards to the Jewish people.

In the beginning of Bereishit, Rashi explains that Torah starts with the narrative of creation because if the world accuses the Jews of illegally taking away Eretz Yisrael, they can respond, "Hashem created the entire world and it belongs to Him. With His will He took it away from them and gave it to us."

In preparation for the Jewish people's first encounter with Eretz Yisrael, Hashem emphasized: "This is the land of Canaan, which according to halachah belongs to the Jewish people since its original owner Cham became a slave to your ancestor Shem. Moreover, it is the land that 'I am giving to the Children of Israel' and as Master of the world I have the right to take it from whomever I want and give it to whomever I wish."

One could easily conclude from these comments that any Jew who supports the idea of any other nation having any property rights in Eretz Hakodesh is in simple and plain violation of the Torah and thus the will of the Holy One, Blessed be He. Would it be too much to ask Rahm Emanuel to learn this Torah with Barry on Shabbos?

This brings us to Bibi Netanyahu and his Bar-Ilan speech. I have much sympathy for Bibi and do not envy the difficulty of the task before him. Many of the most faithful to the land of Israel have been critical of Bibi (seemingly justifiable) for words which "superficially" call for a Pali state. One must always point a wary eye at Bibi. He can be unpredictable at times and all too predictable other times. After all, this is the same Bibi who would not meet with Arafat either. Don't judge him by what he says.

But this time Bibi is the best equipped to walk the tightrope of Israel's security interests on one side and meeting US benchmarks without actually following through on any of them on the other.

I see it like this. Bibi basically needs to successfully manage this non-process-process for 2 years until the mid-term elections. By that time, either enough pro-Israel, Republican Congressmen will be elected that Obama will have too much on his plate to worry any further about peace-legacy building or his own pre-election campaign will advise him to lay off this issue for a variety of policy and political purposes.

Bibi has laid the ground work quite nicely for arabian non-compliance with his pre-requisites. On this point, I refer the reader to the second half of the second hour of the Fred Thompson show of 15 June (download). Fred lays out the Bibi case better than I. While I continue to hope that the land of Israel loyalists keep up the pressure on the PM to keep him sort of honest, I also am somewhat confident knowing that Bibi is doing what PM's of Israel always do intentionally or unintentionally which is to give the arabians enough rope to hang themselves.

The hollering from the arabian world is a collective cry of foul. Bibi told the truth about Jewish heritage and cast dispersion on the arabian myth of victim hood at the hands of the evil Zionists. Bibi challenged the phony conventional wisdom which the arabians have been spreading for decades, calling Jews land grabbers and thieves (when in reality it is Ishmael who is the thief) and burst the Obama balloon (see Two Campaigns, Two Candidates, One Israel)of Israel existing merely as a refuge foist into the heart of arabia after World War II because the arabians were powerless victims of colonialism and could not prevent her establishment. For these achievements, Bibi deserves praise. American liberal-loving Jewry would do well to read Bibi's remarks. American Jews should use this opportunity to tell the truth about Israel even if it means not hiding behind DNC membership cards, and even if it means no longer nodding their heads approvingly to the rhythm of the false messiah at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The coming storm: Obama and American Jewry - Shmuley Boteach, THE JERUSALEM POST, Jun. 15, 2009

There's a storm coming. It will pit a well-organized community of substantial resources but also substantial insecurity - particularly when it comes to charges of dual loyalty - against a popular president of considerable eloquence but misguided policies that identify Israeli settlements as the main obstacle to Middle East peace. The inevitable clash will separate sunshine Jewish patriots who back Israel when convenient against those who stand with Israel even when it means losing their invitation to the White House Hanukka party.

The bogus issue of settlements is already being swallowed whole by many well-meaning Jews. Last week Dan Fleshler, a leader of Americans for Peace Now, wrote in the New Jersey Jewish Standard that Obama has no choice but to pressure Israel because "it is fruitless for a well-armed, occupying power to negotiate the terms of a viable settlement with an almost defenseless occupied people unless a third party mediates and presses both sides."

In reading Fleshler one wonders whether he has been himself occupied with building a settlement on the moon with no knowledge of events on Earth. Is he seriously suggesting that the thousands of Katyusha rockets and nonstop suicide bombers that have killed more than a thousand Israelis (the equivalent of 30,000 dead Americans) have come from a "defenseless" foe? Would Fleshler likewise argue that the US ought to have pressure from, say, Russia or China to make peace with the terrorists in Afghanistan, seeing that America now represents a "well-armed, occupying power" against the comparatively defenseless Taliban? Or is it only Israel that is forbidden from defending itself.

Sorry Mr. Fleshler, but Jewish values do not dictate that the only moral Jew is a dead one who refuses to fight in the face of a 60-year terror onslaught.

Any return to the 1967 borders, which is what Obama's attack on the settlements represents, is simply suicide for Israel. The borders are utterly indefensible. The Arabs know it, which is why they press for it. Had Israel not dismantled its settlements in Gush Katif, Gaza would not have become a terrorist state ruled by Hamas, an organization that kills even more Palestinians than it does Israelis.

BUT MISGUIDED Jewish apologists aside, are the rest of us prepared to speak up against the policies of the administration? By this I do not mean the drunken racist rants of the American Jewish hooligans who got attention disgracing themselves on YouTube last week; their bigoted drivel against our democratically elected president represents an abomination to Judaism. I have already written several columns lamenting how a small minority of the large and praiseworthy contingent of Jewish youth who go to Israel from the US after high school ostensibly to study in yeshivot end up instead hanging out on Rehov Ben Yehuda making asses of themselves. That they have no proper supervision and that they are allowed to go through their year in a drunken stupor is an outrage that must be finally addressed by the institutions which host them.

Rather, I mean courageous and intelligent criticism that accepts the president's praiseworthy efforts in making peace but decries his soft posture on tyranny when he bows to an Arab potentate who oppresses women and warmly embraces the dictator of Venezuela.

Asher Lopatin was one of the first students I met at Oxford and the university's first Orthodox Rhodes scholar. Today he is the successful rabbi of one of Chicago's most youthful congregations. He is also Rahm Emanuel's rabbi. But that did not stop him from criticizing the White House chief of staff in Newsweek for his unfair pressure on Israel. Lopatin could easily have basked in the aura of being rabbi to one of the most influential men in the world. Instead, he spoke truth to power.

In promoting the new translation of his Hebrew prayer book, British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks constantly reminds us that he studies Bible with the prime minister of the United Kingdom. That's nice. But a few years ago Sacks spoke out publicly against Israel, telling London's Guardian newspaper, "There are things that happen on a daily basis which make me feel very uncomfortable as a Jew."

Sacks is a brilliant man but with a long history of pandering to whatever audience he happens to be addressing. He would do well to remember the admonishment of Mordechai to Esther on the responsibility of being close to political power: "If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place."

But while Europe and the UK are significant, the main battle lines will be here in the US and now is the time for American Jewry to organize. From schools to universities to synagogues and JCCs, we must make it clear that when 78 percent of Jews voted for Obama and filled his campaign coffers with cash it was not in the expectation of biased policies against Israel. We're upset, disappointed and we won't take it. We'll march in the streets, write op-eds and blogs, and publish ads making it clear that America should be standing with the Middle East's only democracy and America's most reliable ally.

As Charles Krauthammer pointed out, our president undermines his moral authority when he pledges that henceforth America will "forge partnerships as opposed to simply dictating solutions," but then only applies that pledge to Iran, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela, but not to Israel.

Last year, right after Obama captured the democratic nomination, I received a phone call from his campaign asking if I would serve as one of the national chairs of "Rabbis for Obama." It was a tempting offer. I was moved by the candidate's remarkable personal story, his iron discipline, his soaring oratory and, most of all, the fact that his victory would be the culmination of my hero Martin Luther King's dream of a man being judged by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin. In the end I declined because I feared that Obama would draw a moral equivalence between Israel and the Palestinians and pressure the former to appease the latter. But even I never suspected that it would happen so quickly and so lopsidedly.

The writer is the founder of This World: The Values Network. His upcoming book is The Blessing of Enough: Rejecting Material Greed, Embracing Spiritual Hunger

Wright Warns Obama to be Himself

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:20:00 +0000

By now everyone has heard the comments from Obama's (former) Reverend, Jeremiah Wright blaming the Jews for his own isolation from his student (Obama) whom he married and who's children he baptised. So far, most of the reporting on this story is merely focused upon Wright and his blatant anti-Semitic ranting and antiJewism. The comments were played out in the context of his ridiculous accusations against the "Zionist's" and make believe ethnic cleansing of Gaza, an area ruled by Hamas and from where Israel withdrew in 2005.

What has not received as much attention is what is running between the lines of the Wright rant.

The reporter, David Squires of the Daily Press speaking to Wright after the 95th annual Hampton University Ministers' Conference asked Wright what he would tell Obama, if his access were not cut off. Wright said he would tell him what he has told him all along (paraphrasing) that Obama should not let politics change who he is as a person. He counseled Obama to not let "policies and the people around him" change what he believes with the core and "fiber of your being". Wright concluded that if Obama compromised his beliefs he would turn into a puppet of a political machine and would no longer be himself. Incidentally, when Wright made his 'Jews around him' comment, Squires, the reporter, snickered. Whether that was an approving snicker or an embarrassed one is a question for Squires. Interestingly, the audio found at the Daily Press (Squire's newspaper) website cuts out the snicker. But the audio at Real Clear Politics does not cut out the snicker. David any comment?

When all of this is taken in context, Wright, arguably someone who knows B. Hussein Obama better than most, is describing him as a comrade who is in danger of losing touch. The question which should be asked is, what is Wright worried that Obama will forget? Dare we pose the question?

Today, no one doubts that Wright believes in layer upon layer of Jewish conspiracy theories of Jews running the government, controlling the Presidency, Zionists ethnically cleansing arabians from Gaza and all and all making life difficult for honest folk like himself. But what does he expect Obama to say? More importantly, what does Wright mean when he talks about Obama forgetting what he believes?

The hardest pill to swallow is when a close, personal, confident and protege, someone you placed great faith and, well, hope in, turns his back on you - shuns you. Wright is clearly bitter in a personal way. But he also expresses anxiety that his cause has been denied one of it's budding stars; at least for the time being. After all, Wright believes Obama will come back to the fold when he is a lame duck.

What beliefs, theories and conspiracies does/did Obama buy into during the height of his activity at Trinity? The vast overwhelming body of evidence would be convincing to anyone when not obscured by a political campaign and the mark of Democrat next to his name on the ballot intervening between common sense and hysteria. As APRPEH pointed out in the past, one must work very hard indeed to assemble as many antiJews as friends, advisers and colleagues as Obama assembled over the previous decades. That so many Jews not just fail, but refuse to look objectively at this fact is a sure sign of the weariness of exile, a luxury not afforded to Bibi Netanyahu and Israel who are beginning to understand with whom they now must deal.

Lifelock's Lost Combination

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Wed, 27 May 2009 14:47:00 +0000

Court: Lifelock Using 'Unfair Business Practice' -The Red Tape Chronicles

Back in April 2008, APRPEH posted: Lifelock Getting Picked. At that time, Lifelock and its over-exposed CEO Todd Davis was at the beginning of a slew of legal issues. Well finally, the Experian case may have hammered the first nail into the coffin of Lifelock. According to the above story, Lifelock's procedure of proactively placing fraud alerts is an "unfair business practice". U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford of the Central District of California ruled that

"Experian clearly incurs costs each time it must process a fraud alert made by LifeLock. These costs include the costs of allocating Experian’s electronic resources and employee time, plus the maintenance costs of Experian’s toll-free telephone number and Web page used to accept fraud alert requests," he said. "Experian also incurs postage and printing costs in mailing disclosure letters to each consumer on whose behalf a fraud alert is requested."

As was pointed out in the article, Lifelock will continue to place 90 day security alerts either with Trans Union or Equifax which pursuant to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, will also be automatically activated with Experian too. The big question is whether or not Trans Union and/or Equifax will press the issue and request Lifelock to stop automatically placing and renewing security alerts as well. Or, will either Trans Union or Equifax cut a deal with Lifelock? If I were forced to guess on this, I would expect both Equifax and Trans Union (which has worked with Lifelock in the past) to cut a deal provided there is adequate financial reason for the bureaus to do so. Lifelock claims that if they are prevented from performing their primary offering of automatically renewing security alerts they will continue to provide other services.

Lifelock's other services, besides the security alert include an internet privacy scan service and "Wallet Lock" which amounts to someone asking you, with apologies to Capital One, "Whats in your Wallet?" in the event you lose it and "help you contact each credit card, bank or document issuing company, cancel your affected accounts and complete the paperwork and steps necessary to replace your lost documents, including your credit/debit cards, driver's license, social security card, insurance cards, checkbook - even travelers checks...". Plenty of other companies offer internet scans and I suppose if you are not near a computer it is helpful to have someone look up telephone numbers and possibly conference call you in to the customer service of your credit card issuer.

Despite Lifelock's tremendous advertising effort, the product has always been lacking substance. As a result of this, Lifelock entered the business world with a guarantee and promise which they could never keep. While the product expectations, after much criticism were finally revised to more realistic levels, the question of why purchasing the coverage remained. The question now is still pressing. While the bureaus may force Lifelock from performing automatic security alert renewals, the bureaus would most certainly fail in an attempt to prevent consumers from doing the same proactively. Why continue to pay $10 a month for internet scanning and "Wallet lock"?

What is true is that other companies in the business of providing security services to consumers, those who provide honest and useful services to consumers, will read this story with a smirk. Lifelock's history of high-flying promises and service guarantee, both of which have been, in my opinion a stain on the industry coupled with the high profile advertising, - are not enviable but embarrassing. The most important question is what will all of our favorite radio talk shows do if Lifelock stops its radio advertising campaign?

Obama Pal Ayers Defends Ward Churchill

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 14:46:00 +0000

Terrorists and terrorist sympathizers always stick together. Unfortunately for America, at least one William Ayers and by extension, his friends are stuck to the President. The views of Bill Ayers have been well vetted and shown to be as radical today as when he was building bombs as a Weather Underground terrorist. Ayers, as all now know, shared an office with the President and as the USA Today article reminds us served alongside the President on the board of the Woods foundation funnelling money into community enterprises intent on building up future socialist activists disguised as supporting public education. None of this means Obama is tied to Churchill directly, but by extension are removed by barely a separation. Obama tied to both to Ayers and Rashid Khalidi, pali activist, complete a triangle of friendship and radicalism.

Certainly, Ayers must know that Churchill's views peg him as a Holocaust questioner if not denier, and most certainly antiJew. (this is of course sarcasm. Ayers views on Israel are harder to deduce but the fact he sympathizes with Israel's enemies is pretty straightforward).

Ayers: Colo. professor was fired in 'witch hunt' - USA Today

(excerpt)In an essay and a follow-up book, Churchill argued that the attacks {9-11}were a response to a history of U.S. abuses. He said the victims of the World Trade Center collapse were "little Eichmanns," referring to Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann.

Why does Churchill single out Eichmann from a long list of potential Nazi "bureaucrats"? Because Eichmann was caught and executed by Israel, by those Jews. That, of course is merely my opinion. Churchill, of course in the view of academics is the lowest of scum, stealing the work of others to claim it for himself. The "witchhunt", however convenient doesn't cover up for the fact that plagiarism likely runs rampant, intended or accidental in "academia" but that is a story for another day. The fact of the matter is that the entire process of tenure in academia is arcane. Churchill was a detriment to the university and was fired as a result. Employees who disgrace a company lose their jobs.

The leftist-socialist agenda needs the protected status of holier than thou university tenure. The same protected, can't be assailed self-righteousness is not however extended to those opposing the leftists academicians. Conservative opinion and pro-Israel opinion is constantly under attack in American universities as not being 3rd world enough, not underdog enough, too main stream to be acceptable. Israel after all, is now the aggressor and conservative Americans, lap puppies of the Israel lobby. The leftists have convinced themselves and seek to convince others that justice requires always taking the side of those who do not fit into the main stream, the oppressed, the threatened.

Who the threatened party is, remains in the eye of the beholder. Whoever is not "mainstream" becomes the threatened party. Despite the fact that the well-being of Israel and worldwide Jewry teeter-toter's on the ever present but mostly below the surface yet nonetheless explosive anti-Jewism, any party on the opposite side of the now "mainstream" Israel wins the leftists affection and support being the non-conventional party. It's Israel's fault that all those arabians wish her dead.
Blaming the Jew for the hate of the Jew becomes a simple matter of political theory.

Avigdor Lieberman - From Kingmaker to Deal Breaker

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:19:00 +0000

No I am not surprised. Avigdor Lieberman saying I also advocate the creation of a viable Palestinian state is proof he was infected some time ago with the disease of conventionalism. When politicians are on the cusp of power but not sensing victory they grasp for support. Lieberman needed to reach a wider audience to win. The path was to secure the land of Israel loyalists yet also win over those sort of pragmatic folks who don't yet see or understand the nature of the divine in the land of Israel. Lieberman went wobbly - his biography title: From Bar Bouncing to Policy Bouncing.

Lieberman's move was predictable. As a leader of a non-religious party, (also calling for civil marriages) Lieberman is not held to the standard of consistency (to be fair much of the Israeli political world can not be measured by this indicator either- contradiction is the life force that makes Israeli governments). The YNET article below characterizes Lieberman's opinion of the peace process, negotiations and Pali Independence as based upon false assumptions. Then, he was not a kingmaker. Now, he can own the peace process, the prestiege, the White House visits, the constant attention - so it makes sense to him. Today, Lieberman has revised his assumptions. No doubt many of his voters from a mere few weeks ago are revising their own assumptions, wishing they had voted for National Union. And as measured by the world media's own conventional wisdom, I bet many are scratching their heads this morning. (see below)

I could be cynical and conspiracy minded enough to say that Lieberman stands accused with Sharon, Olmert, and Livni of sacrificing the policies of the country and the trust of the voters as leverage for political gains and/or posturing in light of pending criminal investigations. But that maybe going to far. Maybe.

While many in Israel and around the world are questioning Lieberman's inconsistency, Aryeh Eldad, speaking for the frustrated around the world summed it up “Only ostriches and illiterates should be surprised. Throughout the campaign we said that Lieberman is not the true Right.

Nationalists Blast Lieberman’s ‘Palestinian State’
Adar 3, 5769, 27 February 09 12:08by Gil Ronen(IsraelNN.com) Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman’s article supporting the creation of a ‘Palestinian state’ was ill-received in the nationalist camp, with some accusing Lieberman of deserting his former positions on the subject and carrying out an about-face.

The ‘Mattot Arim’ action committee reacted by saying that had Lieberman made the statements in support of a ‘Palestinian’ state before the elections, “the Yisrael Beiteinu party would have gone down from 15 mandates to 9.” [Yisrael Beiteinu went up to 15 mandates from 12 in the last Knesset. -ed.]

Mattot Arim clainmed that before elections were held, Yisrael Beiteinu gave them a written, clear-cut statement that opposes the establishment of a ‘Palestinian’ state.

The group noted that Lieberman made that commitment public in several ways, including a full-page advertisement in the Jerusalem Post. “In addition, at least three party candidates confirmed before the election that the party opposes a Palestinian state: Danny Ayalon, Uzi Landau and David Rotem,” according to Mattot Arim, which also cited similar statements on the Yisrael Beiteinu website and in the media.

Terror Victims’ group Almagor said that “nothing has improved since Lieberman cooperated with the terror victims on explaining the dangers” of such a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

MK Aryeh Eldad (NU) said, however, that “Only ostriches and illiterates should be surprised. Throughout the campaign we said that Lieberman is not the true Right. His diplomatic plan includes transferring sovereign parts of the State of Israel to the Palestinian.

Hardline populist Lieberman could be surprise kingmaker in Israeli election - hit piece from Guardian

Israel election: profile of 'kingmaker' Avigdor Lieberman - Telegraph

Mr Lieberman thinks that what we call the "peace process" has been a mistake from the start. Put simply, Mr Lieberman rejects every facet of President Barack Obama's thinking on the Middle East. When the nationalist leader has real power in Israel, the country could find itself on a collision course with America's new administration.

The Palestinians and their Arab brethren are determined to destroy Israel, he believes. Giving them a state along the 1967 borders that used to contain Israel would only whet their appetite for more.

Instead of leading to a settlement, the peace agreement that America and Europe would foist on Israel would only weaken the Jewish state and embolden its Arab neighbours to fulfil their destiny and eradicate the "Zionist Entity".

"The peace process is based on three false basic assumptions," Mr Lieberman has explained. "That the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main fact of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict."

Lieberman: Territorial concession concept failed - YNET

"Israel needs to explain that the demand for an independent Palestinian state and the refugees' right of return is a cover for radical Islam's attempt to destroy the State of Israel," he stated in the document.

Lieberman OpEd - IMRA

JCPA Against Liberty for DC

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:11:00 +0000

Maybe we need a regular column to examine the leftie Jewish organizations fulfilling the will of their leftie masters at the DNC. On the heels of the APRPEH post, Cashing in on Obama which discussed the immigration reform advocacy of the JCPA, today we look at the JCPA's intervention in the District of Columbia's firearms policy.

Below, the JTA reported that the JCPA opposed a Senate amendment offered by Sen. John Ensign to comply with the new legal realities in the US post District of Columbia v. Heller.

The JCPA opposed Any attempt to "undermine" Washington's ability to regulate firearms reasoning that the District's right to regulate firearms would be impacted. Well, it occurs to me that the Supreme Court took care of the impeding of the District's firearms laws in Heller.

The Supremes in a 5-4 vote upheld a Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit finding that the 2nd Amendment actually means what it says and that the District needs to pay attention.

My question to the JCPA would be, "To what regulations are you referring? Those that were struck down by the courts?". The lefties in control in the District do have the right to regulate firearms, but within reason. They cannot prevent firearm ownership or make it close to impossible for legal firearm ownership and commerce. The JCPA seems to be opposed to legal firearm ownership and trade of firearms. Once again, we see the left campaigning against laws and court findings which uphold Liberty and law against the tyranny of the left. Be on guard, freedom loving Americans, more of this is coming during the Obama years.

Interfaith letter opposes effort to ‘undermine’ D.C. gun laws - JTA

February 26, 2009

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Any attempt to "undermine" Washington's ability to regulate firearms should not be included in the District of Columbia's voting rights legislation, an interfaith coalition said.

In a letter to the U.S. Senate, the 31-member group, organized by the Jewish Coalition for Public Affairs and including more than a dozen Jewish organizations, said that "though proponents of such legislation claim it would restore Second Amendment rights in the District of Columbia, in actuality it prevents the 600,000 District of Columbia residents from enacting comprehensive, constitutional, common-sense regulations to reduce gun violence and ensure their community's safety."

On Wednesday, Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) introduced an amendment that would repeal all of the district's gun laws enacted since the Supreme Court overturned Washington's law banning handguns last year.

The Senate could vote on a final version of the voting rights bill this week after a cloture vote limiting debate on the bill succeeded Tuesday. The legislation would permanently add two seats to the U.S. House of Representatives, one to the heavily Democratic District of Columbia and the other to Republican-leaning Utah until reapportionment in 2012. Utah had narrowly missed acquiring an additional seat after the last reapportionment in 2002.

In addition to JCPA, Jewish signatories include the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, Hadassah, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, Jewish Women's International, Jews United for Justice, the National Council of Jewish Women, Na'amat USA, the Union of Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Women of Reform Judaism, Women's League of Conservative Judaism and Workmen's Circle/Arbeter Ring.

WTOP coverage (less bias)

Cashing in on Obama

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:44:00 +0000

What bigger issue is there than immigration reform? It is on the minds of everyone, in constant debate in Congress and the subject of radio talk shows and newspaper editorials daily. Huh?

America is walking down a path to economic disaster, flushing billions of dollars down the drain in bailouts, and planning to spend dollars in amounts that most people only relate to in theory yet, in the minds of the leftie, Jewish mainstream organizations, immigration reform is THE key issue. During the past presidential election, the conservatives wanted to make immigration reform, a different immigration reform than that advocated below, an issue in the campaign however the presidential candidate was not on-board.

The leftist initiative seeks to re-design immigration enforcement policy to meet the standards of the false morality of leftism. At the heart of the effort is "to get Obama to issue an executive order or other directive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement curtailing the use of raids as a primary tool of immigration enforcement". ICE raids, far from being immoral have been highly effective in upholding the law of the land and represent an effort to at the very least establish a deterant factor against hiring illegal workers.

The first step to understanding this problem is to employ proper terminology. In the eyes of the lefties, illegal workers are "undocumented immigrants". (see Enforcement Gone Bad - NYT where the unnamed editorial decries the effort to catch "undocumented immigrants". The editorial claims that illegally entering the US and over-staying visas is not a criminal offense). Immigrants, by definition are legally in the US. Those who are not legally in the US are not "immigrants". People who have not legally entered the US or are working illegally in the US are not "immigrants" but fugitives. Given that many or most of those working illegally in the US are using phony or stolen identities of American citizens are (or should be) felons (see article at bottom).

Not only leftist non-orthodox believe that fugitives have rights. I have even heard from leftie orthodox such as Saul Berman, that fugitives should actually be considered "gerim toshvim" and should be treated with the same rights as a resident alien. As stated above, if you are working in the US illegally, (like those employees of Agriprocessors whom Berman was discussing) you are violating multiple US laws in the process. So much for Dina D'Malchusa Dina. If so, what is the value of coming to the US legally especially when you can always find a leftie orthodox Rabbi to grant you the status of ger toshav despite the fact that you may be an identity thief.

APRPEH has discussed employment/SSN identity theft before. The bottom line is that American citizens who become a victim of this sort of fraud have to deal with not only the IRS, but the SSA, as well. The consumer must pay the SSA for what is known as a detailed wage earning statement which reports which companies and businesses reported income associated with their SSN. Standard operating procedure of these federal agencies is to have the consumer contact these employers. All this means possibly weeks of contacting companies and businesses, sending documentation back and forth and months more working with the federal agencies to correct records. Often a cost of this process is a delay in income tax refunds and extended time needed for proper tax filing.

Contrast the views of the Jewish main stream leftie groups with the case headed to the US Supreme Court in the second article below. The fugitive named in this case had been using phony identification to work and then purchased the identity of an American citizen. He was turned in to authorities under suspicion by his employer when he changed his personal identifying information that was on file with his HR department. The case hinges on whether the fugitive should have been charged with a higher crime of identity theft which carries a two year incarceration sentence or lesser charges. The fugitive claims he didn't know that the ID belonged to someone.

The other side of the argument is claiming it does not matter what the fugitive knew. The truth of course is that the fugitive knew he was illegally residing in and illegally working in the US. Indeed he was charged correctly as were the Agriprocessor employees referred to in the article. America must uphold the right to work for American citizen laws that are on the books. No intervening false sense of morality that blames ICE raids, labels as immoral the ID theft laws used as leverage for convictions should be granted legitimacy. American citizens, taxpayers, have rights too, to not be victimized - which might come as a shock to those advocating making it easier for more fugitive entry and illegals to work in the US. A little sympathy to the victims of crime would be nice from the lefties. What did we used to call it? Soft on crime? What the lefties call immoral is called by right thinking people - effective law enforcement.

Jews stepping up efforts for immigration reform - JTA, Friday February 20, 2009
by Eric Fingerhut - JTA

Washington | It was the forgotten issue of the general election campaign, with the two U.S. presidential candidates barely mentioning it last fall. And with so much focus on the economy, it seems to have receded even more into the background.

But Jewish groups aren’t letting that stop them from making a big push for comprehensive immigration reform.

Several major Jewish organizations recently signed on to two new initiatives: a Jewish campaign aiming for “Progress by Pesach” on the immigration issue and the larger Interfaith Immigration Coalition working for the enactment of “humane and equitable” reform by the end of this year.

While Jewish groups are urging President Barack Obama and Congress to take action, they are focusing much of their attention on education and advocacy efforts in local communities, hoping to see pressure bubble up to Washington.

Melanie Nezer, senior director for U.S. programs and advocacy at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, said the key to success in immigration reform is for local activists to let their representatives know how important it is — and that’s already starting.

“In the last year we’ve really started hearing from local communities that this is something that needed to be done,” Nezer said. “We really have the grass roots pushing a lot of this.”

In particular, she said, the impact of immigration raids on local communities — such as the one last year on the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa, which resulted in hundreds of arrests — have demonstrated the “fallout” from problematic immigration policies “in a very direct way.”

Postville-like raids are a prime motivator of the Progress by Pesach initiative, in which groups including HIAS, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Reform and Reconstructionist movements and the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly have joined with a multitude of local organizations. Among their goals is to get Obama to issue an executive order or other directive to Immigration and Customs Enforcement curtailing the use of raids as a primary tool of immigration enforcement.

The organizations are aiming to collect 10,000 signatures by April 8, the first night of Passover, for a petition encouraging “humanitarian immigration reform” and decrying the “policy of relying on raids and enforcement tactics as the sole means of controlling immigration.” Visitors to the group’s Web site (www.hias.org/progress) also can send a letter to the president and members of Congress that contains similar language.

Coalition members argue that in addition to denying equal protection to those detained and splitting up families through jailing and deportations, the immigration raids also are expensive for the government and seriously impede businesses in a poor economy.

Many of the same national organizations, along with others, including United Jewish Communities and B’nai B’rith International, are part of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition.

The coalition’s platform in favor of “humane and equitable” immigration reform by the end of 2009 includes upholding family unity as a priority, creating a process for undocumented immigrants to earn legal status and eventual citizenship, restoring due process protections, reforming detention policies, and aligning the enforcement of immigration laws with humanitarian values.

“Throughout history, the Jewish community has been the quintessential immigrant community, often forced to flee from land to land to land,” said the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Rabbi David Saperstein. “Having struggled to adjust to societies that did not welcome our arrival, we understand many of the challenges faced by today’s immigrants.”

Supreme Court hears immigrant's ID theft case 2/22/2009, 8:19 a.m. EST By MARK SHERMAN
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa, an undocumented worker from Mexico, made a curious and undeniably bad decision. After working under an assumed name for six years, he decided to use his real name and exchanged one set of phony identification numbers for another.

The change made his employer suspicious and the authorities were called in. The old numbers were made up, but the new ones he bought happened to belong to real people. Federal prosecutors said that was enough to label Flores-Figueroa an identity thief.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on prosecutors' aggressive use of a new law that was intended to strengthen efforts to combat identity theft. In at least hundreds of cases last year, workers accused of immigration violations found themselves facing the more serious identity theft charge as well, without any indication they knew their counterfeit Social Security and other identification numbers belonged to actual people and were not made up.

The government has used the charge, which carries a mandatory two-year minimum prison term, to persuade people to plead guilty to the lesser immigration charges and accept prompt deportation. Many of those undocumented workers had been arrested in immigration raids.

The case hinges on how the justices resolve this question: Does it matter whether someone using a phony ID knows that it belongs to someone else?

The government, backed by victims' rights groups, says no. The "havoc wrecked on the victim's life is the same either way," said Stephen Masterson, a Los Angeles-based lawyer, in his brief for the victims' rights groups.

On the other side, Flores-Figueroa and more than 20 immigrants' rights groups, defense lawyers and privacy experts say that the law Congress passed in 2004 was aimed at the identity thief who gains access to people's private information to drain their accounts and run up bills in their name. Surveys estimate that more than 8 million people in the United States are victims of identity theft each year.

Flores-Figueroa acknowledges he used fraudulent documents to get and keep his job at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill. But he "had no intention of stealing anyone's identity," his lawyers said in their brief to the court. He traveled to Chicago and bought numbers from someone who trades in counterfeit IDs.

Had he been caught while using the fictitious name and numbers that went with it, he could not have been charged with the more serious offense.

Federal appeals courts in St. Louis, which ruled against Flores-Figueroa, Atlanta and Richmond, Va., have come down on the government's side. Appeals courts based in Boston, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., have ruled for defendants.

The government's use of identity theft charges in immigration cases was on full display in last year's raid on a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. Authorities charged 270 undocumented workers with identity theft, including its threat of two years in prison.

Chuck Roth, litigation director for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, called the charge "a bludgeon" that was intended to elicit guilty pleas to lesser charges. Roth's group joined one of the briefs supporting Flores-Figueroa.

All 270 workers accepted plea deals in which they also agreed not to contest deportation.

An additional 100 workers arrested in the same raid were using unassigned numbers and faced charges with little prospect of prison time.

The case is Flores-Figueroa v. U.S., 08-108.

Moonbats Say: Our Children Will Make Peace

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:00:00 +0000

Kumbaya. Let peace begin with me. Give peace a chance.

Child sacrifice is strictly forbidden by Torah. Isaac, after all was brought upon the altar and taken down. Do not harm the boy. Do not do anything to him. For now I know that you fear G-d. You have not withheld your only son from Him - Bereshis 22:12. The Jewish child is a precious, holy gift from HaShem. A parent is given a child with a holy neshama to nurture into a spiritually holy life. However, far too often, Torah truths and the political "beliefs" of the parents come into conflict, especially amongst the moonbat-left crowd. In such occasions, logic dictates that the Jew set aside "beliefs" and seek Torah guidance.

The story below is a testimony to the sickness of liberalism in the Jewish world which demands moral equivalency even to the point of denying the truth and the strengthening of the undoing of Israel's most basic right to exist. My comments to the article follow the story. For those who want to stop now before reading the account of moonbat madness, the bottom line is that Jews need to stand up and say Israel is for the Jews and that there is no such thing as palis.

Young Muslims, Jews work toward peace
February 17, 2009

Groups try to bridge gap between religions

By Bob Smietana
THE TENNESSEAN

Shoshana Jaffa sums up the conflict in the Middle East like this: "Everybody wants to meet halfway, but no one knows where halfway is."

Jaffa was one of about 45 Jewish and Muslim teens and young adults who met Sunday at Congregation Micah in Brentwood (TN) to discuss the recent fighting in Gaza.

It's part of a dialogue between local Jews and Muslims aimed at building understanding between young people of different faiths. Organizers hope that if young people can learn to discuss the Middle East civilly, perhaps their parents can, as well.

In fact, there was just one rule in place at Sunday morning's meeting — no parents allowed.

"Adults can't have this conversation," Michael Pote, a Sunday School teacher at Congregation Micah, said to the interfaith group meeting in a classroom at the Brentwood synagogue. "Things like this don't happen, and it's a shame."

Pote says that Jewish and Muslim adults rarely discuss the Middle East conflict without ending in a shouting match. He and other organizers hope that young people can show their parents and faith communities a better way.

Sunday's meeting was part of an ongoing dialogue between youth groups at the Islamic Center of Nashville and two local synagogues, Congregation Micah and West End Synagogue in Nashville.

In December, a group of Jewish high school juniors visited the Islamic center for a lesson on the basics of Islam taught by the Muslim youth group. On Sunday, the Jewish teens returned the favor, leading a class on the basics of Judaism.

After the class, Pote, along with Rabbi Flip Rice of Congregation Micah, and Rashed Fakhruddin of the Islamic Center, led an hour-long discussion of the Middle East conflict. The students quizzed one another on everything from the history of Zionism to whether a two-state solution would solve the current conflict.

Several of the Muslim students wanted to know how much Israel's claim to Palestine was religious, and how much was political.

"Most of the people in this room do not believe that Israel is mine because it says so in our sacred texts," Rice said. "That doesn't mean that we don't want Israel to be there, but it's not a deed to the land."

When Rice asked the Jewish youth if any believe that Israel belonged to the Jewish people because the Bible says so, only one student raised her hand. On the other hand, several students said that while Jews had a right to their own homeland, the country should not exclude people of other faiths.

That idea is actually found in the Israeli Declaration of Independence, says S. Ilan Troen, director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.

Still, Troen says that the religious connection of Jews to Palestine remains strong.

Students discuss history

During Sunday's conversation, the students also discussed the history of Zionism, which dates back to the 1890s. Inspired by the writings of Theodor Herzl, Jews began to move back to Palestine and buy land.

At the time, Pote said, Palestine wasn't viewed as a paradise on Earth.

"At that time, it was either desert or swampland," Pote said. "This was not ground where you'd say, 'Oh I have to live there.' "

Complicating matters, both the Jewish and Muslim students admitted, is the fact that Palestine has been ruled by outside powers for more than 2,000 years. Jews were forced from the land by the Romans beginning in 70 A.D., after a failed uprising. When large groups began to return around 1900, Palestine was ruled by the Turks, and then the British after World War II, until Israel's independence in 1948.

Sabina Mohyuddin, who helps lead the Muslim youth group, said it was important for the students to get a bigger picture on the conflict on Middle East.

"In the nightly news, it's two minutes. It won't do any justice to the whole issue," she said. Mohyuddin said that she encourages her students to read news accounts and history from different perspectives.

After the meeting ended, the Muslim students took a tour of the synagogue.

Amar Razali, a 22-year-old Muslim student who spent the discussion seated in front of a stained-glass window of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew,
said that he was surprised by how much Jews and Muslims have in common.

"We should focus on our similarities, and less on our differences."

Back in December during Israel's Operation Cast Lead attack on the terrorist gang Hamas the Tennessean reported on simultaneous rallies in downtown Nashville Local Rallies Mirror Israel-Palestine Splitwhere Jews and Christians came together to support Israel's right of self-defense against random rocket fire into cities in Israel from Gaza. Local Arabs came together to complain that Israel was fighting back. Today, the Tennessean reports that children "can show their parents and faith communities a better way." Children can be taught to ignore the facts when their parents aren't around. For the Muslim side that might not be so bad. But for the Jewish side.....

This story is interesting in that we find local Jews, tied to the land of Israel by religion, by history and by law not knowing that fact. It is curious that a "dialogue between local Jews and Muslims aimed at building understanding between young people of different faiths " has any mention of international politics at all. Muslim youth, unless specifically connected to the land of Israel by all rights should merely be as connected to Israel as any youth anywhere, which should be scant to little.

Like all people, they, their families, their friends can travel to Israel as tourists and visit wherever they please. The Jewish youth on the other hand, contrary to the article's quotes are indeed, by religious obligation connected to the land of Israel and should not be afraid of saying so. Unlike the quote in the article,

"Most of the people in this room do not believe that Israel is mine because it says so in our sacred texts," Rice said. "That doesn't mean that we don't want Israel to be there, but it's not a deed to the land."

even the atheist David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel testifying before the Peel Commission in 1937 said: "I say on behalf of the Jews that the Bible is our Mandate, the Bible which was written by us, in our own language, in Hebrew, in this very country. That is our Mandate. It was only recognition of this right which was expressed in the Balfour Declaration."

Ben-Gurion was only wrong in his citation of authorship but was quite correct in his logic. It is confusion over Jewish rights to the land and the pervasive liberal attitude to not say without hesitation that there is no such thing in history as an Arab Palestine which perpetuates the Arab Israel conflict. Let the youth meet, let them discuss common themes but let us not forget the truth, that Israel is the Jewish home land. Bring the kids together to feed the hungry and clean up the trash in the parks. Leave the political discussions out.

for review:
Daniel Pipes - Reader comment on article: The Forcible Removal of Israelis from Gaza

JCPA - AN ANSWER TO THE NEW ANTI-ZIONISTS:
THE RIGHTS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE TO A
SOVEREIGN STATE IN THEIR HISTORIC HOMELAND

Front Page Magazine - How 'Nakba' Proves There's No Palestinian Nation

What Is Identity? Who Am I?

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:12:00 +0000

In honor of Data Privacy Day 2009, APRPEH presents the article from 2006 "It’s Me, and Here’s My Proof: Why Identity and Authentication Must Remain Distinct - Technet Microsoft - Steve Riley" mentioned last week by Bruce Schneier on Schneier on Security. Schneier's blog is a great place online to go for security information.

When discussing identity we must first determine the audience to whom we are speaking. To some people identity is who they are. "My name is Ploni". To others identity might be a reflection of some important fact to which they identify answering the questions what they are, what they do. "I am a doctor", "I am a Republican", "I am a Jew". But is this really identity or something else?

Identity is defined in the information management and protection world as a way that an individual can be universally distinguished from another person and the access rights set for that person are enabled. Failure to authenticate identity results in denial of access.

For databases which the consumer visits, identity also means proof of identity and access level (authorization). In the article linked above, the reader will learn that identity is provided initially by the individual. Authentication is defined as proving who you are. Access is defined as setting user limitations. But of these three, identity and authentication can be faked by a perpetrator of identity theft. When the perpetrator acquires enough knowledge about the consumer to enter a less secure database - user name and password, we end up with hacked Paypal accounts and hijacked Facebook sites.

Truly secure databases will utilize two or multi factor authentication. This is how your ATM card operates. One factor is something you have (the card). One factor is something you know (PIN). Other factors could include some biometric or challenge question in addition to the PIN. Combining these authentications along with requiring them to change on a regular basis will provide the greatest level of security. None of this however will prevent a data breach. Only proper encryption of data can reduce the likelihood of stolen data being utilized by a perpetrator. Think of it this way. You cannot always prevent a traffic accident. But when you wear your seat belt and have an air bag, you can reduce the chances of serious injury to the driver and passenger when you do have an auto accident. Same with encryption. Not all encryption is equal and not all encryption is unbreakable. However, in the world of data theft when data is stolen, bought and sold daily - why bother wasting the time finding someone who can break the encryption (or steal the key).

However, in at least one high profile breach, the consumer information - encrypted and encryption key were stored on the same network.

{Avivah}Litan's sources in the financial industry have told her that thieves hacked into a as-yet-unknown system, and made off with data stored on debit cards' magnetic stripes, the associated "PIN blocks," or encrypted PIN data, and the key for that encrypted data.

The recommended multi-factor authentication will also not protect a consumer who's computer is vulnerable to key logger programs and malware. When your computer is transmitting all your user names, passwords, PINs, etc. to a fraud perpetrator along with what websites you visit, falling victim to at the very least account takeover is a sure bet. Real identity theft could be the result of your Social Security Number and Date of Birth being accessed from your computer. Computer security must be kept up to date. Again, this is the best protection possible but not fool proof.

In any event, data system designers need to think through these questions and try to solve the equation of security vs. user experience. While most people will say they want businesses they do electronic commerce with to be good stewards of their personal identifying information, the reality is that if the experience on that website is disappointing, the consumer will not come back again. Efficient access to identity and authentication on demand, along with storage or custodianship of information, information about us which we trust the custodian to protect, and policies which limit access to that information to an "as needed" basis is not the future of IT. It is the present. The future may look very different. The answer to the future of identity and authentication may be "you". I do not endorse stand alone biometrics mind you. But along with other authentications, maybe randomly applied authenticators along with private, trusted 3rd party identification warehousers, bio is coming.

It’s Me, and Here’s My Proof: Why Identity and Authentication Must Remain Distinct - Technet Microsoft - Steve Riley Published: February 14, 2006

The Gaza Cease Fire - Merely a "Lull"

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:42:00 +0000

Hamas: Member wounded in Israeli air strike - USA Today

The MSM, reporting from Gaza City is once again showing its bias against Israel. By reporting an Israeli reaction to an act of violence at the beginning of an article, the intent is to cast the IDF and Israel in the worst possible light. The roadside bomb which killed an Israeli soldier and wounded three others, mentioned initially in the second paragraph without explanation and then in the third paragraph where you finally see for the first time that the air strike, the lead idea in the report, was in response to an attack on an Israeli patrol.

The writer of the article then attempts to place a few doubts in the reader's mind as to the true nature of the exchange. First, the reader is told that Israel threatened responses to violations of the cease fire. This is written specifically to label one party "Israel" and not label the other party so that the accountability falls on Israel. Since withdrawing its troops, Israel has threatened to retaliate hard for any violations of the truce. Notice the way that a fact {Israel withdrew her military and will try to enforce the cease fire} is mangled into a statement breeding mistrust - a play on the sneaky Jew mythology. It seems to say, "those Israelis are just looking for an excuse to attack".

The reader then moves on to ...Gazans struggle to resume normal.... The reader is supposed to think, if only the Israelis would leave alone the peace loving arabians in Gaza, they would be able to re-build their homes and cities that were shattered by Israeli bombardment. No mention is made of Israeli cities trying to recover from bombings and shellings. Renewed warfare would return a wave of rockets into Israel.

After an attempt to rehabilitate Hamas as a reputable organization that would never think of confiscating money sent by donors to relieve the non-combatant population {never mind this was going on during the conflict} a minuscule attempt to remind the reader that Hamas is a terrorist organization with a wanted leader (Ismail Haniyeh) is easily overlooked given the drama of the article itself.

The writer's bias is on display as an attempt to sub-consciously remind the reader of the slant that Israel used "dis-proportionate" force is found in the next part of the report

After Tuesday's bomb blast, heavy gunfire was heard along the border in central Gaza and Israeli helicopters hovered in the air firing machine gun bursts, Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli jet set off a loud sonic boom over Gaza City not long afterward, possibly as a warning.

For one measly little road side bomb, an IED after all, the IDF responds with overwhelming force and executes collective punishment. Oh, those evil Jews.

Its one thing to write the normally biased report and to write badly. Its another to report half facts and to ignore facts.

In the days immediately following the cease-fire there was shelling by Israeli gunboats and some gunfire along the border — including the killing of two men Palestinian officials identified as farmers — but there were no serious clashes until Tuesday.

Somehow forgotten was Hamas rocket attacks against Israel after the cease fire. See also Israel Matzav report and video.

Moving right along the reporter makes no effort to tell the reader that he is about to quote a major arabian death cultist. We are just supposed to assume he is another member of the respected and beloved religion of peace:

Although there was no claim of responsibility, Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas leader, said Israel was to blame for continuing to fire into Gaza. Al-Masri said his group had not agreed to a full cease-fire but only to a "lull" in fighting.
"The Zionists are responsible for any aggression," he said.

Masri believes the cease-fire is a hudna. Hamas just needs some time to catch its breath, reload, rearm and rest a little while the international world gleefully rests on it laurels of once again interfering with the Israeli right of self-defense.

Masri is merely labeled "a Hamas leader" in the McPaper article. In a December 2007 article he is quoted as reported by JihadWatch as speaking to a Hamas rally,

In another speech to the rally, senior Hamas official Mushir al-Masri warned Israel to expect many casualties if troops invade the coastal territory in an attempt to stop almost daily rocket firing by militants into Israel.

"Jews, go back, because we have already dug graves for you," Masri said. Israel carries out regular raids on Gaza and has killed dozens of militants in the past month.

Finally, we have the summary paragraph:

Israel wants an end to Hamas rocket attacks and guarantees that Hamas will be prevented from smuggling weapons into Gaza from Egypt. Hamas has demanded that Israel and Egypt reopen Gaza's border crossings, which have been largely closed since Hamas took power. The crossings are Gaza's economic lifeline.

See the problem? Hamas, the terrorist organization with stated goals to kill Jews and destroy Israel has had it's border crossings legitimately shut off by Israel(not necessarily so successfully). The crossings are Gaza's economic lifeline. Since when has Hamas attempted to build any economic system? The first thing that happened when Israel withdrew from Gaza was the destruction of the business infrastructure that existed. Yet, this "factoid" in the article remains unquestioned. Worse, this false statement is meant to be the fulcrum's center point against Israel's demand that cities inside Israel should be free of random rocket and mortar fire. The writer is attempting to equate denial of weapons to terrorists with the use of those same weapons against civilian populations. In the mind of the antiJew, the Jews are just as guilty as their harassers - moral equivalency must reign. Both sides must come to terms.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Islamic Hamas movement says one of its members has been wounded in an Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza Strip.
Tuesday's violence is the worst since the sides declared a cease-fire last week.

Hamas says the militant was struck as he was riding a motorcycle in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis. Residents say Israeli tanks and bulldozers have also entered the area where the roadside bombing took place and are leveling some farmland.

The airstrike comes hours after a roadside bomb along Israel's border with Gaza killed an Israeli soldier and wounded three others.

Palestinian militants detonated a bomb next to an Israeli army patrol along the border with Gaza on Tuesday, killing one soldier and wounding three in the first serious clash since a cease-fire went into effect more than a week ago.

Israeli soldiers briefly crossed the border in search of the attackers, and Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, called an urgent meeting of Israel's top defense officers, saying Israel "cannot accept" the attack.

"We will respond, but there is no point in elaborating," Barak said in comments released by his office.

The explosion jolted the calm that has largely prevailed since Israel ended a devastating three-week offensive on Jan. 17. Since withdrawing its troops, Israel has threatened to retaliate hard for any violations of the truce.

The flare-up came as Gazans struggle to resume normal life after the fighting, and as international donors discuss how best to help the territory rebuild. Gaza's Hamas leader said Tuesday the group — which is boycotted as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union — would not try to claim any of the reconstruction funds, an announcement that appeared aimed at clearing the way for money to start flowing.

The announcement from Ismail Haniyeh, who remains in hiding because of fears he could be assassinated by Israel, appeared directed at donors who concerned their funds could end up in Hamas' hands.

"Our aim now is to ease the suffering of our people and to remove the aftermath of the aggression in Gaza," the statement said. "Therefore we emphasize that we are not concerned to receive the money for rebuilding Gaza and we are not seeking that."

After Tuesday's bomb blast, heavy gunfire was heard along the border in central Gaza and Israeli helicopters hovered in the air firing machine gun bursts, Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli jet set off a loud sonic boom over Gaza City not long afterward, possibly as a warning.

The Israeli military said the bomb targeted an Israeli patrol near the border community of Kissufim. It was not clear if it was planted after the cease-fire, or whether it was an older device. There was no claim of responsibility.

Not long after the bombing, a 27-year-old Gaza farmer was killed by Israeli gunfire along the border several miles away, according to Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of Gaza's Health Ministry. Two other Palestinians were wounded. The military had no immediate comment, and it was unclear if the two incidents were related.

Israel closed its crossings into Gaza to humanitarian aid traffic after briefly opening them Tuesday morning. Gaza border official Raed Fattouh said Israeli officials informed him the closure was due to the attack.

Israel and Gaza militants have been holding their fire since Israel ended its offensive, which was aimed at halting rocket fire from the territory. Israel announced a unilateral cease-fire on Jan. 17, and that was followed by a similar announcement from Gaza militants.

In the days immediately following the cease-fire there was shelling by Israeli gunboats and some gunfire along the border — including the killing of two men Palestinian officials identified as farmers — but there were no serious clashes until Tuesday.

Although there was no claim of responsibility, Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas leader, said Israel was to blame for continuing to fire into Gaza. Al-Masri said his group had not agreed to a full cease-fire but only to a "lull" in fighting.

"The Zionists are responsible for any aggression," he said.

Egypt is currently trying to negotiate a longer-term arrangement to allow quiet in the coastal territory of 1.4 million people, which has been ruled by the Islamic militants of Hamas since June 2007. Local experts believe the fighting caused some $2billion in damage.

Israel wants an end to Hamas rocket attacks and guarantees that Hamas will be prevented from smuggling weapons into Gaza from Egypt. Hamas has demanded that Israel and Egypt reopen Gaza's border crossings, which have been largely closed since Hamas took power. The crossings are Gaza's economic lifeline.

The Israeli offensive killed 1,285 Palestinians, more than half of them civilians, according to records kept by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. Thirteen Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed during the fighting.

The Vatican and Holocaust Denial

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 16:11:00 +0000

On the heels of Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino using Holocaust references to criticize Operation Cast Lead, a de facto admission that the Shoah did indeed occur, the Vatican strikes again with dishonoring and disgracing the memory of Jewish Martyrdom in Europe. Relations between the Vatican and world Jewry seem to be heading into a period of uncertainty after what seemed to be a time period of relatively decent relations fostered by the previous pontiff. It is noted in the story below the irony of a German born Pope seemingly insensitive to Holocaust revisionism and false application of imagery. The claim by the Bishop is

"people who are against uh -what is widely believed today as "quote unquote the Holocaust", I think those people conclude, the revisionists as they're called, uh I think the most serious conclude that between 200,000 and 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but not one of them by gassing in gas chambers"

One could easily believe from the video, especially in terms of the Bishop being unable to define anti-semitism, that he might also conclude that those numbers 200,000 - 300,000 were far too few.

The Jewish world needs to get over dealing with the Vatican for now and just recognize that the children of the Nazis both in body and spirit are now in charge.

German Jews condemn pope move over Holocaust denier - Reuters
BERLIN (Reuters) - Pope Benedict's rehabilitation of a bishop who has denied the full extent of the Holocaust is a slap in the face for the Jewish community, especially coming from a German pope, Germany's Central Council of Jews said on Monday.

"It's a deep shock," Dieter Graumann, the Council's vice-president, told Reuters. "I'm not imputing bad intentions to the Vatican or the pope, but in fact this is a slap in the face for the Jewish community."

"It's a provocation and I'm worried that dialogue between Jews and Catholics will now be frozen to some extent, that the process of reconciliation that has advanced so much over the past 50 years will be interrupted, if not aborted."

Pope Benedict on Saturday rehabilitated four traditionalist bishops who lead the far-right Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), which has about 600,000 members and rejects modernizations of Roman Catholic worship and doctrine.

One of the four, British-born Richard Williamson, has made statements denying the full extent of the Nazi Holocaust of European Jews, as accepted by mainstream historians.

"Especially from a German pope, I would have expected more understanding and sensitivity," Graumann said. "The fact that this comes from a German pope leaves a certain taste and provokes certain feelings."

In comments to Swedish television broadcast and widely available on the Internet, Williamson has said: "I believe there were no gas chambers." He said up to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi camps, rather than the 6 million widely accepted.

Graumann said it had taken a long time and much effort to strengthen dialogue between Jewish and Catholic communities over the past decades, adding Pope Benedict's predecessor John Paul II had moved the process forward significantly.

"This dialogue is being overshadowed by what has happened," he said. "Those who rehabilitate anti-Semites are ... bringing anti-Semitism back into the church to some extent."

"It's without bad intentions but that's the actual effect," he said.

The four traditionalist bishops were thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church in 1988 for being ordained without Vatican permission. The Vatican said the excommunications were lifted after the bishops affirmed their willingness to accept Church teachings and papal authority.

(Reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Reform Guilt - All Halacha Must be Stowed in Luggage

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:01:00 +0000

The Reformists are fighting El Al's decision to have seperate seating flights for religious Jews. Liberal Judaism can justify and tolerate every yetzer hara but has no tolerance for traditional Jewish observance. No - You may not ask for services which accommodate the most observant of Jews, even or maybe especially in Israel. The guilt of the non-religious Jew is brought to the surface upon seeing an observant yid talking Torah, doing mitzvas, dressing in "funny" clothes and embarrassingly un-modern. In a time when Jewish unity is so necessary, divisiveness such as this anti-charedim action is disheartening.

The Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ)decision to question the legality of special flights is an antiJew position taken by Reformists and a cynical attempt to play socially divisive politics so close to the Knesset elections. With the polls showing electoral power shifting away from the left, Reformists pull out the social warfare card to help stir things up. Bashing the observant is typical leftist politics and their friends in the IMPJ will carry the water. After all, in their minds, we have to stop these favors for the charedim who take and don't give back.

El Al needs to stick to its plans and ignore those who meddle in the airlines business.

Reform movement challenges legality of kosher flights.
Movement's legal branch asks transportation minister, El Al CEO to clarify plans to launch special flights for haredi public that would include separation between men and women - YNet
Kobi Nahshoni

The Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), which represents the Reform stream of Judaism in the country, has asked the Transportation Ministry and El Al Airlines to look into the legality of the airline's intention to launch exclusive flights for the haredi public.

According to the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), IMPJ's legal branch, the move represents "an illegitimate policy that violates Israeli law."

In a letter to Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz and El Al CEO Haim Romano, IRAC Attorney Orly Erez-Likhovski wrote that "flights that institute separation between men and women should not be approved offhandedly."

According to Erez-Likhovski, the law in Israel prohibits any form of segregation based on gender, and therefore any agreement that infringes on this principle should be grounded on a solid rationale and adhere to the law.

A copy of the letter was sent to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz.

The Reform movement believes that these special flights are wholly unnecessary. "It's clear that if a haredi passenger asks not to be seated next to a woman, he can ask to switch seats," the letter stated.

"The fact that these arrangements often happen on flights illustrates that there is no need for such a compulsory gender-based segregation."

IRAC also noted that the kosher bus lines that are operated by the public bus companies are currently being reviewed by an inter-ministerial committee appointed by Mofaz, and that the a petition on the issue has also been filed with the High Court, with a ruling still pending.

The movement asked Mofaz and Romano to clarify how the separation on flights would be enforced, how many special flights would be introduced, are the fares expected to be lower and whether flight attendants would have to adhere to specific restricting dress codes.

Forecasting Obama's Budget and Economic Mistakes

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:12:00 +0000

Here is a good read making the free market case in opposition to the Obama economic plan. The article written by John Tamny of H.C. Wainwright Economics provides an important lesson in economics and the damage caused by ineffective and damaging government intervention. Government moving wealth around, the essence of the Obama tax plan disguised as tax credits will stifle demand and not serve as a vehicle of economic growth. Tamny points out that since no change in wealth will result from the Obama tax policy (unlike what would be the result of an across the board real tax rate reduction) it merely is a punitive measure aimed at the producers and achievers in favor of the non-producers and non-achievers in the economy. John Tamny's supporting argument as to why he believes that the Obama plan will result in slowing economic recovery is based in part upon the crowding out theory. Since government debt is now at historic levels both in real dollars and in percentage of the GDP less money can be made available for the sort of entrepreneurial activity which drives economic growth.

The Obama plan at every turn takes decision making away from the private sector and replaces it with government redistribution and allocation of hard earned dollars. The American people still have the ingenuity, creativity, and innovative spirit needed to lead the world economy if only the government will not stand in the way and not interfere with the free market's invisible hand.

However, this time unlike in other recession and recovery cycles, the US government is now part owner of some of the biggest names in the financial sector and the auto sector due to billions of dollars in debt buyouts meaning, Uncle Sam sits on the boards of these companies that were bailed out. That debt belongs to all of us yet we have little to no say in demanding that those companies now partly owned by the taxpayers shape up. Tamny points out the truth proven time after time that left alone, companies or industries are reorganized and that the bailouts are "... delaying the process whereby people and capital are managed productively. "

hat tip to Ralph Bristol's Nashville's Morning News, WTN 99.7
Ralph interviews John Tamny on Friday mornings.

John Tamny is editor of RealClearMarkets, a senior economist with H.C. Wainwright Economics, and a senior economic advisor to Toreador Research and Trading (www.trtadvisors.com). He can be reached at jtamny@realclearmarkets.com.

Obama's Economic Solutions Are Contractionary
By John Tamny
"The man, that lives upon the production of other people, originates no demand for those productions; he merely puts himself in the place of the producer, to the great injury of production.” - Jean-Baptiste Say, A Treatise On Political Economy

With President Barack Obama now in control in Washington, it’s time to ask how his economic plan might affect the real economy.

Obama has stated that “We are in one of those periods in American history where we don’t have Republican or Democratic problems, we have American problems.” Obama and his economic team have released a broad outline of the way they intend to fix an economy that some say is on the verge of falling into a second Great Depression. But Obama’s solutions meant to aid the economy—at least on paper—won’t fix anything. Indeed, if implemented it’s easy to see how they might actually cause the economy harm.

Eager to attract support from the Republican side of the aisle, Obama has expressed a high degree of willingness to include tax cuts in his post-inauguration legislation. At first blush, tax cuts sound appealing and speak positively about a politician who’s been up front with his belief that a “monopoly on good ideas does not belong to a single party.”

Good political theater for sure, but we might add that neither party has a monopoly on bad ideas either. Reading the fine print, we see that the definition of a tax cut in Washington is far more nuanced than what we might be used to. The tax cuts Obama has in mind might attract votes, but they have very little to do with economic growth.

First up are income credits described as tax cuts. The latter are meant for low-income families, and as the Wall Street Journal described them, they will allow “more families that earn too little to pay income taxes to claim at least some of the $1,000-per-child tax credit.” At present, a household must have income of $12,500 per year to be eligible for tax credits, but under the Obama plan, the cutoff will be reduced to $3,000.

So what Obama and his advisors call a tax cut is really only a transfer payment from one set of hands to another. Such redistribution fosters no new production, and with that, no subsequent demand.

For at least two reasons, the credit will be an economic retardant. Productive workers will see more of their earnings taxed or borrowed in order to stimulate immediate consumption. When we consider that all profits in society result from past parsimony, we can see that the productive economy will be weakened if this form of alleged stimulus is put in place.

Most important, Obama should not run from the basic truth that economic growth is always and everywhere the result of productive work effort. To the extent that low-income families are plied with yet another form of welfare, this will reduce the individual incentives within impoverished households to engage in more work.

Put simply, the tax credits masked as cuts will reduce the work incentives for those redistributed from, all the while making real work less necessary for the alleged beneficiaries of the credit.

On the taxation front for top earners, the story gets worse. The late Warren Brookes once wrote that “We are all blessed by the genius of the relatively few.” What Brookes meant was that thanks to the frequently innovative and entrepreneurial efforts of a vital few in this country, all Americans are able to enjoy better jobs and better products.

That is far from Obama’s mind. He has made plain that he intends to return the tax rate on top earners to the Clinton-era level of 39.6 percent, and the capital gains rate on investment success will move from 15 to 20 percent. Higher tax rates in the Obama model are meant to pay for the aforementioned credits, along with yet another stimulus package.

Assuming Obama’s plan to soak the rich works, it has to be said that increased revenues for the federal government will reduce the amount of capital available for the business sector to fund the wages of the poor. Whether the government is borrowing or taxing in order to redistribute, capital is being removed from the private pool of available funds meant to create new industries, new companies, and new jobs.

And when it comes to Brookes’s vital few, the poor and the middle class alike will be made worse off if the successful among us choose to remove their skills from the productive economy due to higher penalties on work.

Jean-Baptiste Say once noted that the heavily taxed “are seldom regular in their payments,” but it seems he actually downplayed the negatives that come with penalizing the successful. If they were merely irregular in their payments to the tax man the economy would be fine, but the real threat is perhaps the unseen. Indeed, it’s tax distortions which cause the rich to be irregular in their work and investment habits that lead to economic degradation.

With regard to corporate taxation, according to another Wall Street Journal account, a key provision of Obama’s plan is to “allow companies to write off huge losses incurred last year, as well as any losses from 2009, to retroactively reduce tax bills dating back five years.” Translated, failing companies will write their losses off on the backs of successful individuals and companies alike.

When we consider what actually causes economies to grow, the corporate tax provision is creating incentives for something quite the opposite. In his Theory of Economic Development, Joseph Schumpeter wrote that “development consists primarily in employing existing resources in a different way.” But if failing companies are kept alive not by a simple reduction in the tax rate on their profits, but rather thanks to a bailout of the non-financial variety, entrepreneurs waiting in the wings to redeploy mismanaged physical and human capital will be hampered in their efforts to bring the economy out of its slump.

In the end, entrepreneurs can only innovate to the extent that they’re able to purchase the assets of failed business combinations with visions of more profitable future combinations. So when governments prop up failed or dying businesses, far from saving the economy, they only hurt it by delaying the process whereby people and capital are managed productively.

All of which brings us to the jobs portion of the Obama corporate tax plan. For the companies that make new hires or forgo layoffs, the Obama administration is set to offer a one-year tax credit in return. Once again, the incentives here are backwards, and if heeded, will surely stimulate the opposite of growth. Indeed, if there’s one certain rule when it comes to business success, it has to do with producing as much as possible with as little labor as possible. Far from a job killer, when companies do more with less they free up the very capital that allows them to expand into other potentially profitable areas previously out of reach due to a lack of funds.

To the extent that businesses keep workers employed for non-productive reasons, the economy will surely be rendered poorer in time. Workers are like capital. When either labor or capital is wasted, the end result is less growth.

The tax portion of the Obama package includes write-offs for business expenditures, and it’s safe to assume here that companies producing business equipment will be the beneficiaries of this new rule. Equipment write-offs recall a frequent Wainwright theme over the years that when the Federal Reserve moves around its target interest rate, it merely reschedules economic growth, as opposed to fostering new economic activity. Write-offs should be viewed in much the same way. Businesses will simply move up equipment purchases in the near-term; those purchases will detract from capital spending over the long-term.

It’s also important to remember that as a mature economy, U.S. economic growth has very little to do with spending on capital equipment, but quite a lot to do with spending on human capital. Using Google as an example, its growth over the years has been the result of heavy investment in the best minds, as opposed to the best equipment. Equipment write-offs at best address a past version of the U.S. economy that most Americans would no longer recognize.

Sadly, the tax portion of Obama’s recovery plan was only put in place to give Republicans the political cover necessary to vote for the various spending initiatives that the new administration envisions. This is the alleged “stimulus” part of Obama’s economic package, and as Wainwright publications have emphasized over the years, government spending can in no way stimulate economic growth.

Beyond the negative work incentives created by wealth redistribution, the basic reality is that no one—least of all government—can profit from the same transaction twice. That’s the assumption the government is making when it claims it can grow the economy through the transfer of wealth already created. In a sense, the very notion of stimulus turns routine economics on its head.

But to address arguably the worst aspect of Obama’s proposed $775 billion spending package, we must once again bring in the notion of the entrepreneur waiting in the wings. It’s tautological to say that entrepreneurs cannot innovate without capital. When the federal government is borrowing at relatively low rates from the private sector, there’s necessarily less capital at higher rates for entrepreneurs to access in order to utilize human and physical capital more effectively.

At its core, Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan is anti-entrepreneur, and as such, anti-growth. So while we should expect to read quite a lot about how “change” in Washington will enhance our economic wellbeing, we shouldn’t be fooled. The new administration plans to engage in feverish activity. It may be meant to make us better off, but it would be charitably naïve to mistake it for any real prescription for economic recovery.

2009 Data Breach Season Begins Strong

noreply@blogger.com (APRPEH) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:04:00 +0000

2009 is not even a full month old and already we have learned of two significant data breaches. Both breaches 5 Million Checkfree Consumers Warned involve account information, not personal identifying information (PII). Both, however could leave actual bank accounts of millions of consumers vulnerable to unauthorized access. The latter breach, if it proves to be as big as the initial indicators reveal, may result in the selling or closing of the business. Too extreme? The Heartland breach is being compared in scope to TJX (TJ Max) who was unable to handle the attorney general investigation, publicity and fines changed hands or even a better example,CardSystems Solutions which ended up sold and doing business as a different entity after the FTC had its way.

At some level, there is always a negligence story buried in these breaches. While even the most secure company could fall victim to a breach due to intentional attack, the least secure companies will almost certainly become breach victims and some many times. Breaches can be the result of company data retention policies, keeping more PII or account information than needed for far too long, providing more access than needed to that data to too many employees, or basically not doing enough to block electronic access to their data or not encrypting data transmissions. Having said all that, a data breach does not need to put at risk thousands of consumers at one time to be a data breach. One employee with access to consumer information as part of normal job duties carefully targeting a few of those consumer records and selling them to some one on the outside infrequently also amounts to a breach of data.

Given the fact that Heartland was unaware their responsibility as a trusted data custodian had been compromised until notified by Visa and MasterCard leads an unbiased observer to believe that Heartland's security was indeed lacking. The company is now claiming that malware infected their database, a conclusion that Heartland's own IS department should have discovered without having to be told by a third party. All this points to rogue/insider cooperation or even an insider planning the entire attack. That a global crime organization had access to Heartland's data does not mean that the same organization stole the data. PII or in this case credit and debit card numbers are easy to transmit back and forth (there would not be a credit industry otherwise) and can change hands many times before ending up in the hands of an end user perpetrator.

The scenario of greatest concern is whether or not debit card numbers along with PINs were compromised. The PIN system was once thought of as the solution to electronic credit and ATM fraud. That idea has gone by the wayside. From intentional malware type hacks like at Heartland or intercepted, non-encrypted transmissions (or weak encryption) debit and PIN while still a little safer for the credit issuers than standard credit card transactions is not the saviour it was once thought to be. From the consumer's perspective, the dispute of un-authorized credit transactions is pretty simple. Disputes where money comes directly from your checking account, money which may well have been set aside for rent, car payment, or mortgage payments, is another matter. And while disputes involving Heartland will probably be fairly easy, a consumer may still find themselves out the funds for a short period of time, (up to 10 days in some cases). Don't be surprised if Heartland is forced to sell due to fines and credit issuers billing them for each account that had to be closed and re-opened, a cost which the unsteady banking industry will do everything possible to pass along to someone.

Heartland: How This Disaster Exploded - Bank Info Security
January 22 - Tom Field
Let's talk about how a big disaster becomes an even bigger one.
On Tues., Jan. 20 - Inauguration Day - Heartland Payment Systems (HPY) President/CFO Robert Baldwin announced the company had been breached sometime in 2008. Heartland, which processes roughly 100 million transactions per month for 250,000 different businesses, says it discovered malware attached to its processing platform, and an undetermined number of consumers had their names and card numbers exposed to hackers. The breach has subsequently been contained, Baldwin says, and he believes the incident to be part of a broader cyber fraud operation.

Heartland did what we wish all such companies would do. They stood up and said "We've been breached."

Mind you, no enterprising journalist uncovered and exposed this breach, nor was it revealed by any external investigators or law enforcement agencies. It became news when Baldwin made it news, announcing the breach and a website, www.2008breach.com, set up for consumers who fear they may have been victimized. Rather than try to sweep the incident under the rug or hope not to be exposed, Heartland did what we wish all such companies would do. They stood up and said "We've been breached."
But, boy, talk about "No good deed will go unpunished..."

Within hours of the Heartland news going public, our office was besieged by queries from eager PR reps whose clients wanted to jump on this story as a platform to discuss security strategies and solutions.

And you could see right away that many of these correspondents hadn't quite read the story's fine print. Because suddenly a breach of undetermined magnitude had become:

"... a data breach that could be potentially larger than TJX."

"...tens of millions of credit and debit transactions may have been compromised..."

"...a data breach of 100 million credit cards."

"...the biggest breach ever reported."

By late Weds afternoon, I was contacted by KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, whose talk show host Patt Morrison wanted to include me in a panel discussion of the Heartland breach. The storyline here:

"Credit card processor Heartland Payment Systems suffered a huge security breach in 2008, allowing hackers to steal credit card information on more than 100 million accounts. What damage has been done and how worried should consumers be?"

By Weds night, CNBC's On the Money hosted a short exchange on Heartland, punctuated by a bunch of airbags talking over one another and attributing this breach "to a bunch of kids in an Internet café in Amsterdam."

It's like an Internet-age game of telephone. Person A says one thing to person B, and by the time it gets down the line to person Z, the story is unrecognizable.

So, the question for Heartland today is: "What damage has been done and how worried should Heartland be?"

I don't even know how to begin to answer that. Until Tuesday, it's safe to say that the average citizen didn't even know who or what Heartland was. Now, having been publicized everywhere from The New York Times and USA Today to NPR and CNBC, the company is suddenly the poster child for what the public is going to perceive as "the biggest breach ever reported."

But while Heartland struggles with its breach and the popular media struggle with getting the story straight, there are serious issues here for all of us to deal with:

Yes, Virginia, there are global fraud schemes - It's foolish for anyone who calls himself an expert to attribute a sophisticated data breach to "a bunch of kids in an Internet café in Amsterdam." We're so past that stereotype now, and it's time to acknowledge that the biggest external threats are organized, professional, expert criminals who are focused 110% on finding new ways to crack secure systems. That said...

Locking the outside door is only half the job - Think about it: Two of the biggest breaches of 2008 - Bank of New York Mellon and Countrywide Financial - were the result of data loss and a rogue insider. These are two of the biggest threats any of us face today. How much critical data walks out of your institution daily in a laptop, PDA or portable media (thumb drives, etc), and what happens if those devices get left on a train? How many critical employees have walked out of your company's employ recently - their choice or yours - and what sensitive information might have walked out with them? How will your trusted employees behave if they fear losing their jobs or their homes? Remember, bad times don't build character; they reveal it. We're going to see a lot of scary revelations in 2009.

Heartland is just the beginning - Right now, Heartland's greater issue isn't that it's "the biggest breach ever reported," but rather that it's the first one of 2009, and it fell on a day when the only other news was the Inauguration. It became the big story by default. Safe to say, though, we'll see many similar headlines as the year unfolds. Times are tough, the threats are real, and before this year gets much older we'll all be hearing about new hacks, lost data, malicious or inattentive insiders and The Next Big Story.
It's funny. On Tuesday morning, I'm sure Heartland President Robert Baldwin felt he'd done the right thing by standing up and saying "We've been breached." I wonder how he feels about that decision today?

different opinion:
Report Credit:Heartland Payment Systems - Breach Blog

Response:
From the online sources cited above:

NOTE: This breach is very significant and potentially affects millions of credit and debot card holders from multiple credit and debit card companys, regardless of bank or card issuer. In this section, we will first explore the press release before moving on to additional facts found discovered by others.

HEARTLAND PAYMENT SYSTEMS PRESS RELEASE:
[Evan] I have to say that this is one of the worst press releases I have ever read announcing a breach. I'll comment below.

Princeton, NJ — January 20, 2009 — Payments processor Heartland Payment Systems has learned it was the victim of a security breach within its processing system in 2008. Heartland believes the intrusion is contained.
[Evan] The very first sentence in the press release states that Heartland is the victim. In my opinion, it is rarely a good idea to announce yourself as a victim when you are the custodian of confidential information. The owners are truly the victims.

"We found evidence of an intrusion last week and immediately notified federal law enforcement officials as well as the card brands," said Robert H.B. Baldwin, Jr., Heartland's president and chief financial officer.
[Evan] Heartland was actually alerted by Visa and MasterCard.

"We understand that this incident may be the result of a widespread global cyber fraud operation, and we are cooperating closely with the United States Secret Service and Department of Justice."

No merchant data or cardholder Social Security numbers, unencrypted personal identification numbers (PIN), addresses or telephone numbers were involved in the breach.
[Evan] So what? I want to know what information WAS involved.

Nor were any of Heartland's check management systems; Canadian, payroll, campus solutions or micropayments operations; Give Something Back Network; or the recently acquired Network Services and Chockstone processing platforms.
[Evan] Again, I don't care about what Heartland systems were safe. I want to know what information wasn't safe. There is no mention of the specific data that was actually compromised anywhere in the press release.

After being alerted by Visa® and MasterCard® of suspicious activity surrounding processed card transactions, Heartland enlisted the help of several forensic auditors to conduct a thorough investigation into the matter.

Last week, the investigation uncovered malicious software that compromised data that crossed Heartland's network.

Heartland immediately took a number of steps to further secure its systems.

In addition, Heartland will implement a next-generation program designed to flag network anomalies in real-time and enable law enforcement to expeditiously apprehend cyber criminals.
[Evan] This sounds like network intrusion detection/prevention, which has been around for quite some time. Network intrusion detection/prevention employing anomaly detection is used by many organizations processing much less sensitive information.

Heartland has created a website — www.2008breach.com — to provide information about this incident and advises cardholders to examine their monthly statements closely and report any suspicious activity to their card issuers.
[Evan] This web site is nothing more than the press release and Q&A with regurgitated press release information.

Cardholders are not responsible for unauthorized fraudulent charges made by third parties.
[Evan] Not directly anyway. The money comes from somewhere (banks) and the costs will be passed on.

"Heartland apologizes for any inconvenience this situation has caused," continued Baldwin.

"Heartland is deeply committed to maintaining the security of cardholder data, and we will continue doing everything reasonably possible to achieve this objective."

FROM OTHER SOURCES:

A data breach last year at Princeton, N.J., payment processor Heartland Payment Systems may have compromised tens of millions credit and debit card transactions

If accurate, such figures may make the Heartland incident one of the largest data breaches ever reported.

The data breach could turn out to rival the massive breach reported by TJX in 2007, which affected as many as 94 million credit card accounts.

Robert Baldwin, Heartland's president and chief financial officer, said the company, which processes payments for more than 250,000 businesses, began receiving fraudulent activity reports late last year from MasterCard and Visa on cards that had all been used at merchants which rely on Heartland to process payments.
[Evan] According to this statement, it appears as though fraud has already occurred. This is important information to keep in mind as you read more below.

Baldwin said 40 percent of transactions the company processes are from small to mid-sized restaurants across the country.

He declined to name any well-known establishments or retail clients that may have been affected by the breach.

Baldwin said it would be unfair to mention any one of his company's customers.

"No merchant of ours represents even [one-tenth of one percent] of our volume, and to put out any name associated with what is obviously an unfortunate incident is not fair," he said.
[Evan] This is an indication of how widespread this could get.

"Their customers might end up having their cards used fraudulently, but that fraud might turn out to have come from their store, or it might be from another Heartland store and no one will ever really know."
[Evan] Exactly, and this makes this a very scary breach.

Baldwin said it wasn't until last week that investigators uncovered the source of the breach: A piece of malicious software planted on the company's payment processing network that recorded payment card data as it was being sent for processing to Heartland by thousands of the company's retail clients.

Baldwin said that the breach was the result of keylogging malware, which covertly captures anything typed on an infected computer, such as user names and passwords.
[Evan] How could a computer connected to a network that carries extremely sensitive information become infected with malware? There are many ways in which malware can find it's way into an organization, but on a network like this?

"There were two elements to it, one of which was a keylogger that got through our firewall," he said. "Then subsequently it was able to propagate a sniffer onto some of the machines in our network. And those are what was actually grabbing the transactions as they floated over our network."

Baldwin said Heartland does not know how long the malicious software was in place, how it got there or how many accounts may have been compromised.

The stolen data includes names, credit and debit card numbers and expiration dates.
[Evan] Finally, we get an indication of what data was compromised.

"The transactional data crossing our platform, in terms of magnitude... is about 100 million transactions a month," Baldwin said. "At this point, though, we don't know the magnitude of what was grabbed."

The company stressed that no merchant data or cardholder Social Security numbers, unencrypted personal identification numbers (PIN), addresses or telephone numbers were jeopardized as a result of the breach.

The data stolen includes the digital information encoded onto the magnetic stripe built into the backs of credit and debit cards.

Armed with this data, thieves can fashion counterfeit credit cards by imprinting the same stolen information onto fabricated cards.

"The nature of the [breach] is such that card-not-present transactions are actually quite difficult for the bad guys to do because one piece of information we know they did not get was an address," Baldwin said.
[Evan] This maybe true in some card-not-present transactions, but means nothing for data written to physical cards. People can make credit cards out of any card with a magnetic strip; gift cards that you can pick up at the Target checkout, blank cards bought online, etc. For people who want to go the card-not-present route, it may not be difficult to find an address if given a name. Mr. Baldwin's statement here means little.

As a result, he said, the prospect of thieves using the stolen data to rack up massive amounts of fraud at online merchants "is not impossible, but much less likely."
[Evan] Again maybe this holds true for ONLINE merchants, but means nothing for PHYSICAL merchants.

In many cases where a processor experiences a breach, the affected banks may simply re-issue new cards to some customers.
[Evan] Which costs the bank $10-12 per card by some estimates. The bank pays for the fraudulent charges by not holding legitimate cardholders responsible AND/OR reissues cards at 10-12 bucks per card. The costs add up quick and will likely be passed on to all customers. We all end up paying eventually.

It is unclear whether consumers who receive new account numbers from their bank will ever be able to definitively tie the re-issuance to the Heartland breach.

Baldwin said it was not appropriate for Heartland to offer affected consumers credit protection or other identity theft protection services.

"Identity theft protection is appropriate when there is enough personal information lost that identity theft is possible," he said.
[Evan] Not identity theft, just credit/debit card fraud.

"At the same time, we recognize and feel badly about the inconvenience this is going to cause consumers."

Avivah Litan, a fraud analyst with Gartner Inc., questioned the timing of Heartland's disclosure -- a day in which many Americans and news outlets are glued to coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration as the nation's 44th president.

"This looks like the biggest breach ever disclosed, and they're doing it on inauguration day?" Litan said. "I can't believe they waited until today to disclose. That seems very deceptive."
[Evan] After reading the horrible press release and supporting information, I tend to agree with Avivah Litan.

Baldwin said Heartland worked to disclose the breach last week.

"Due to legal reviews, discussions with some of the players involved, we couldn't get it together and signed off on until today," Baldwin said.

"We considered holding back another day, but felt in the interests of transparency we wanted to get this information out to cardholders as soon as possible, recognizing of course that this is not an ideal day from the perspective of visibility."
[Evan] Transparency? Please.

"There are a host of things we didn't go into that we're implementing, some larger, some smaller, all of which are designed to say, 'Okay, we had a commitment to high security. We were PCI compliant -- that was certified in April of last year. Yet we had this problem. Clearly we need to do more.' So our IT team is implementing as many additional precautions as it can as quickly as possible."
[Evan] Wait?! PCI compliance doesn't equal "high security"? The answer is NO. It's a start.

If this data breach represents heartache for Heartland, security vendors see it as an opportunity to play doctor.

"As the Heartland breach illustrates, you can be PCI compliant and still be breached," said Phil Neray, VP of security strategy at database security company Guardium, in an e-mailed statement. "Good compliance does not mean good security."
[Evan] Exactly.

Commentary:
There is still too much information missing. Personally, I am very displeased with Heartland's response and spin. It's disappointing. Effective communication is a critical piece of a good incident response plan. Poor communication can be more destructive to a company than the breach itself.

There are many missing facts. If fraud has already taken place AND it can be tied to this breach, then I think we have a very big problem on our hands. If not, we still know that the potential is there. Who would think that a little piece of code (the malware) could cause so much trouble? What can you learn from this and put into practice in your organization?

I am always interested in your thoughts…

more:
Heartland Payment Systems' Big Breach & Lame PR Tactic - The Information Week - George Hulme