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Security and Business News
Some CAIR Officials Convicted of Crimes, More Tied to Extremist Groups
by Steven Emerson
IPT News
March 26, 2008
(note: The third installment of our CAIR dossier can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/111.pdf)
The questionable associations and actions by many of its leaders cast serious doubt on CAIR's claims of moderation and restraint. Some have committed criminal acts themselves; others have ties to organizations with connections to Islamic extremism.
Those convicted of direct criminal activity include Ghassan Elashi, a founding board member of CAIR-Texas; Randall (Ismail) Royer, once a communications specialist for the national group, and Bassam Khafagi, the organization's one-time director of community relations.
In the more egregious cases, the organization has tried to distance itself from the individuals, contorting both logic and the English language. As the IPT's series on CAIR's history and activities continues, we look at the suspect nature of these examples and others close to the organization.
• Ghassan Elashi, who attended a 1993 Philadelphia meeting called by Hamas to discuss derailing U.S. peace initiatives, was convicted in 2004 on six criminal counts, including making false statements, conspiracy to violate the Export Administration Regulations and the Libyan Sanctions Regulations, and conspiracy to file false shipper's export declaration forms. He was a defendant again in the 2007 Hamas-support trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), where jurors were unable to reach unanimous verdicts on the charges against him.
Elashi served as HLF chairman and treasurer and vice president of Infocom, a computer export company. He was sentenced to 80 months in prison for making illegal computer shipments to Libya and Syria and conspiring to send money to Mousa Abu Marzook, an admitted Hamas leader.
Seeking to minimize Elashi's ties to CAIR, Executive Director Nihad Awad assured U.S. senators in 2003 testimony, "Mr. Elashi was never an employee or officer of our corporation. The fact that he was once associated with one of our almost twenty regional chapters has no legal significance…"
• Randall Royer, the former CAIR communications specialist, has a more colorful criminal history. Police who stopped his car for a traffic violation in 2001 found an AK-47-style rifle and 219 rounds of ammunition inside. Then, in 2003, he was indicted on charges stemming from participation in the ongoing jihad in Kashmir -- specifically, doing propaganda work for Lashkar-e Taiba, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group, and personally firing at Indian positions in Kashmir.
Pleading guilty to weapons and explosives charges in 2004, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Again, CAIR reacted defensively, seeking to downplay both his ties to the organization and, indeed, the nature of his crimes. "Notwithstanding the fact that any criminal action to which he pleaded guilty was done when Royer was no longer employed with CAIR and not at CAIR's direction," the group said, "it is important to note that the only crimes that he pleaded guilty to were weapons charges, not charges of terrorism."
CAIR's timing point contradicts media reports indicating that Royer still worked for the group in October 2001; while the charges to which Royer pleaded guilty do not directly contain the word "terrorism," they involved his activities in support of the designated terrorist Lashkar-e Taiba.
• Bassam Khafagi pleaded guilty to bank and visa fraud charges in September 2003, after his arrest and indictment earlier that year. "At the time of his arrest," the Associated Press reported, "he was community affairs director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations."
Khafagi also served as a founding member and president of the Islamic Assembly of North America. That group was investigated on charges of money laundering and recruiting terrorists over the Internet and the FBI raided its offices in February 2003.
Trying to put the best face on the situation once again, Awad claimed in Senate testimony, "Khafagi was never an 'employee' of CAIR," but rather an "independent contractor for CAIR."
Among other CAIR officials:
• Nabil Sadoun, currently on CAIR's board and chair of CAIR-Texas, helped found the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). While there has been no criminal prosecution of the UASR, Sadoun founded it along with Hamas leader Marzook. Internal records show the UASR was a founding member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee in America. Federal prosecutors say that committee's "designed purpose was to support Hamas."
Sadoun also co-founded the Muslim American Youth Association. MAYA's conferences, many of which it co-sponsored with IAP, have long supported Hamas.
• Mohammad El-Mezain, the former chairman and director of endowments for HLF, conducted fundraising at a 2004 CAIR-New York event, soliciting over $100,000 for CAIR. He was indicted soon afterward for providing material support to Hamas. Acquitted of most counts against him in the HLF trial, he faces retrial on a charge of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist group.
• Rabih Haddad served as a fundraiser for CAIR's Ann Arbor chapter. He co-founded the Global Relief Foundation (GRF), one of the largest Islamic charities in the United States -- but one that the U.S. government has investigated of funding violent jihadism.
In December 2001 the FBI raided GRF's headquarters and arrested Haddad, then its chairman, on a visa violation. He was deported to Lebanon after an immigration judge found that he presented "a substantial risk to the national security of the United States." The Treasury Department said Haddad had been a member of Makhtab Al-Khidamat, the precursor organization to Al Qaeda.
Again, to view the full installment, click here:
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/111.pdf
The Muslim Brotherhood "Project"
By Patrick Poole
FrontPageMagazine
One might be led to think that if international law enforcement authorities and Western intelligence agencies had discovered a twenty-year old document revealing a top-secret plan developed by the oldest Islamist organization with one of the most extensive terror networks in the world to launch a program of "cultural invasion" and eventual conquest of the West that virtually mirrors the tactics used by Islamists for more than two decades, that such news would scream from headlines published on the front pages and above the fold of the New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Le Monde, Bild, and La Repubblica. If that's what you might think, you would be wrong.
In fact, such a document was recovered in a raid by Swiss authorities in November 2001, two months after the horror of 9/11. Since that time information about this document, known in counterterrorism circles as "The Project," and discussion regarding its content has been limited to the top-secret world of Western intelligence communities. Only through the work of an intrepid Swiss journalist, Sylvain Besson of Le Temps, and his book published in October 2005 in France, La conquête de l'Occident: Le projet secret des Islamistes (The Conquest of the West: The Islamists' Secret Project), has information regarding The Project finally been made public. One Western official cited by Besson has described The Project as "a totalitarian ideology of infiltration which represents, in the end, the greatest danger for European societies."
Now FrontPage readers will be the first to be able to read the complete English translation of The Project.
What Western intelligence authorities know about The Project begins with the raid of a luxurious villa in Campione, Switzerland on November 7, 2001. The target of the raid was Youssef Nada, director of the Al-Taqwa Bank of Lugano, who has had active association with the Muslim Brotherhood for more than 50 years and who admitted to being one of the organization's international leaders. The Muslim Brotherhood, regarded as the oldest and one of the most important Islamist movements in the world, was founded by Hasan al-Banna in 1928 and dedicated to the credo, "Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
The raid was conducted by Swiss law enforcement at the request of the White House in the initial crackdown on terrorist finances in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. US and Swiss investigators had been looking at Al-Taqwa's involvement in money laundering and funding a wide range of Islamic terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda, HAMAS (the Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood), the Algerian GIA, and the Tunisian Ennahdah.
Included in the documents seized during the raid of Nada's Swiss villa was a 14-page plan written in Arabic and dated December 1, 1982, which outlines a 12-point strategy to "establish an Islamic government on earth" — identified as The Project. According to testimony given to Swiss authorities by Nada, the unsigned document was prepared by "Islamic researchers" associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
What makes The Project so different from the standard "Death of America! Death to Israel!" and "Establish the global caliphate!" Islamist rhetoric is that it represents a flexible, multi-phased, long-term approach to the "cultural invasion" of the West. Calling for the utilization of various tactics, ranging from immigration, infiltration, surveillance, propaganda, protest, deception, political legitimacy and terrorism, The Project has served for more than two decades as the Muslim Brotherhood "master plan." As can be seen in a number of examples throughout Europe — including the political recognition of parallel Islamist government organizations in Sweden, the recent "cartoon" jihad in Denmark, the Parisian car-burning intifada last November, and the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London — the plan outlined in The Project has been overwhelmingly successful.
Rather than focusing on terrorism as the sole method of group action, as is the case with Al-Qaeda, in perfect postmodern fashion the use of terror falls into a multiplicity of options available to progressively infiltrate, confront, and eventually establish Islamic domination over the West. The following tactics and techniques are among the many recommendations made in The Project:
Networking and coordinating actions between likeminded Islamist organizations;
Avoiding open alliances with known terrorist organizations and individuals to maintain the appearance of "moderation";
Infiltrating and taking over existing Muslim organizations to realign them towards the Muslim Brotherhood's collective goals;
Using deception to mask the intended goals of Islamist actions, as long as it doesn't conflict with shari'a law;
Avoiding social conflicts with Westerners locally, nationally or globally, that might damage the long-term ability to expand the Islamist powerbase in the West or provoke a lash back against Muslims;
Establishing financial networks to fund the work of conversion of the West, including the support of full-time administrators and workers;
Conducting surveillance, obtaining data, and establishing collection and data storage capabilities;
Putting into place a watchdog system for monitoring Western media to warn Muslims of "international plots fomented against them";
Cultivating an Islamist intellectual community, including the establishment of think-tanks and advocacy groups, and publishing "academic" studies, to legitimize Islamist positions and to chronicle the history of Islamist movements;
Developing a comprehensive 100-year plan to advance Islamist ideology throughout the world;
Balancing international objectives with local flexibility;
Building extensive social networks of schools, hospitals and charitable organizations dedicated to Islamist ideals so that contact with the movement for Muslims in the West is constant;
Involving ideologically committed Muslims in democratically-elected institutions on all levels in the West, including government, NGOs, private organizations and labor unions;
Instrumentally using existing Western institutions until they can be converted and put into service of Islam;
Drafting Islamic constitutions, laws and policies for eventual implementation;
Avoiding conflict within the Islamist movements on all levels, including the development of processes for conflict resolution;
Instituting alliances with Western "progressive" organizations that share similar goals;
Creating autonomous "security forces" to protect Muslims in the West;
Inflaming violence and keeping Muslims living in the West "in a jihad frame of mind";
Supporting jihad movements across the Muslim world through preaching, propaganda, personnel, funding, and technical and operational support;
Making the Palestinian cause a global wedge issue for Muslims;
Adopting the total liberation of Palestine from Israel and the creation of an Islamic state as a keystone in the plan for global Islamic domination;
Instigating a constant campaign to incite hatred by Muslims against Jews and rejecting any discussions of conciliation or coexistence with them;
Actively creating jihad terror cells within Palestine;
Linking the terrorist activities in Palestine with the global terror movement;
Collecting sufficient funds to indefinitely perpetuate and support jihad around the world;
In reading The Project, it should be kept in mind that it was drafted in 1982 when current tensions and terrorist activities in the Middle East were still very nascent. In many respects, The Project is extremely prescient for outlining the bulk of Islamist action, whether by "moderate" Islamist organizations or outright terror groups, over the past two decades.
"Thieves Turn Simple Strip Into Cutting-Edge Tool"
USA Today (08/01/07) P. 8B ; Acohido, Byron; Swartz, Jon
Thieves have discovered a way to alter the magnetic stripe on the back of bank cards using a "magstripe reader-writer." A 26 year-old man was arrested in Canada in possession of thumb drives and computer printouts of credit card account data stolen from hundreds of U.S. and Canadian consumers. He also had prepaid gift cards from Visa and MasterCard. By altering the magstripes of authentic bank gift cards, the suspect was able to bypass a riskier task of fabricating fake credit cards. The ploy mimics a Miami ring that used counterfeited credit cards to buy stacks of Wal-Mart gift cards. Ring members then used the gift cards to amass $1 million worth of big-ticket items from Sam's club, a Wal-Mart subsidiary. Like merchant gift cards, bank cards do not have embossed numerals or an individual's name on the card so no proof of identity is required to use them. Altering the magstripe on bank gift cards "is a way to convert small-value cards into big-value plastic," says information risk strategist John Pironti of Getronics. Visa, MasterCard, and American Express have been rolling out contactless payment cards that use technology significantly more difficult to compromise, yet magstripe payment cards are virtually ubiquitous and will probably reign in use for decades. Mimi Hart of MagTek says consumers use magstripe cards about 15 times per week.
"1 in 12 Workers Admits Recent Illicit Drug Use"
Seattle Times (07/16/07)
The Health and Human Services Department's Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration's recent survey of illegal drug use by workers estimates an average use rate of 8.2 percent, up from 7.6 percent in 1994. Of the workers admitting to the use of illegal drugs, most were employed full time, and the highest incidents of drug use occurred in the restaurant and construction industries. The lowest instances of drug use occurred in the teaching and social services sectors at 4 percent on average per sector. Drug use is highest among younger workers between the ages of 18 and 34, according to the survey. While testing among employers increased to 48.8 percent, the number of treatment programs available for employees with drug dependence are declining.
"Three Steps Can Limit Hacker Damage"
Tech Journal South (07/12/07) ; Hatcher, Kate
Protecting an online business' data, including customers' personal information, is a top concern for any business with an online presence. Three simple pieces of advice can help protect a company's information and legal status online. First and foremost, encrypt all data. All state laws cover only unauthorized access to unencrypted personal data and FTC actions frequently cite businesses for not installing proper encryption. A company that encrypts data before an incident occurs will be far less liable, and look more responsible to the public. Second, investigate any security breach. At least six states require an investigation into the unauthorized access of computer networks containing customer information, but at least seven states do not require a company to notify customers if a reasonable investigation shows that any exposed or misused information will not harm consumers. Finally, inform the police. Notifying the police will help define the amount of data exposed, and can also help determine if notifying customers is necessary. Even if customer notification is necessary, the police can permit postponing the notification if they believe it will hinder the investigation, giving the company more time to create a damage control strategy. If the data breach proves to be extensive and potentially damaging, notifying consumers is necessary to avoid further complications with the state attorney general or the FTC.
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