J.J. Green from WTOP Radio has started an intriguing series report called Terror Attacks in U.S.: 'Not If, But When'.

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It definitely didn't take long for the Katrina comparisons to take hold after the recent tragedy of the California wildfires. One of the more stimulating discussions comes from NPR's Talk of the Nation.

AMU professor Chris Reynolds, San Francisco bureau chief for Newsweek, Karen Breslau and journalist Jasmyne Cannick talk about what's different, what's the same and have any lessons really been learned.

Listen to the show for the full commentary and discussion.

What's your take: Is there any comparison, are the comparisons fair? Go to the comments section and let us know.

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Wow - putting on phony press conference in order to pat themselves on the back. FEMA doesn't need this bad press right now.

Click here for the fake-us-out details. (Souce - Think Progress)

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A woman with her hands painted blood-red confronted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the US Congress Wednesday, shouting "war criminal" before being hauled away by Capitol security. [Watch the video]

Desiree Farooz accosted Rice ahead of her appearance at a House of Representatives hearing on US foreign policy, waving her hands just centimeters (inches) from the diplomat's face inside the committee meeting room as television cameras captured the confrontation.

"The blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands," Farooz shouted, before police wrestled her away. (Source)

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By Shelley Smith

Historically in the United States, applying criminal tax laws to lethal organizations is not new and many had been brought down by United States Treasury agents. Today those same resources are being applied by American law enforcement against Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups. Understanding terrorist financing enforcement through counter terrorism enforcement is fighting political violence through legal proceedings and the rule of law. Yet there is a pending question of, why aren’t we taxing terrorism?

Since 1994, the United States has officially recognized the crime of terrorist financing through the enactment of, 18 U.S.C. § 2339A. Terrorist financing can involve dirty money and focuses in on the illegal source of funds that are connected to any illegal activity, such as charities as fronts for terrorist organizations, illegal drug trafficking and others. The current worldwide strategy against such activities is aimed at disrupting the ability of state sponsors of terrorism and sub-national terrorist organizations, yet the U.S. tax laws are structured in such a way to where illegal activities by terrorist organizations and groups can circumvent around the laws and continue their illegal activities.

In 2005, Jeffrey Breinholt, Senior Fellow and Director of National Security Law and the Deputy Chief of the Justice Department’s Counterterrorism Section, brought to our attention a largely overlooked aspect of U.S. federal criminal law enforcement, the criminal tax law. His original study was published August 1, 2005, “Taxing Terrorism, From Al Capone to Al Qaida: Fighting Violence through Financial Regulation”, has since been published into a book titled the same in 2007.

The efficacy of criminal tax prosecutions needs to go beyond cases of tax fraud and other tax crimes and also focus on the larger issue of how criminal tax tools fit into federal criminal law towards the illegal proceeds of crime that qualifies as income. There still remains the need for reformation in the structured wordings in several of the IRS forms such as the informational form 1099.

However, there has been a change in tax liability in the 2007 Form 1040 -ES, but no where in the U.S. Treasury Department’s“ Comprehensive Strategy for Reducing the Tax Gap”, September 26, 2006, or in the “A Summary of the Dynamic Analysis of the Tax Reform Options”, prepared by the President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, May 25, 2006, was it mentioned about tightening controls on illegal assets, including the protection of charitable sectors from the risk of terrorist exploitation.

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From TAM-C Analysts

Google Earth

At least one jihadist Web site, focused on terrorism in Iraq, has published a link to Google Earth, suggesting that "all the mujahideen (jihad fighters) who want to coordinate [actions] in Iraq" use the service, "with the exact city or camp," to obtain aerial photographs.

TAM-C analysts and other intelligence centers have repeatedly warned of the dangers associated with open sources of intelligence and this hyperlinking by Iraqi jihadists confirms these warnings.

Israeli security officials have also indicated this week their frustration over Google Earth having released detailed aerial photos of Israeli territory, including sensitive security facilities. This is the first time that such images have been available to the general public, although the maps used by Google Earth are several years old. An Israeli security source quoted by Ynet news service called the Google Earth development "a gold mine for terrorists."

TAM-C's domestic / eco-terror analysts have also observed the use of Google Earth by eco-terror and Anarchist groups as they plan "direct action" activities.

YouTube

In a related novel use of free resources on the Internet, jihadists uploaded an instructional video on bomb-making to the open-access video-sharing Web site YouTube over the summer. According to reports from Strategic Forecasting, Inc (Stratfor)-a private intelligence agency-U.S. authorities instructed YouTube operators to remove the video, which was in the Arabic language, but the fact that it was uploaded to an open Web site such as YouTube indicated an intention to spread the information widely. The clip demonstrated how to construct a detonator for IEDs using a remote-controlled toy.

Stratfor reports also states that U.S. authorities have identified the instructor, whose face is not seen in the video, as a 24-year-old Egyptian who was attending the University of Southern Florida. The man, Ahmed Mohamed, was arrested by police in South Carolina on August 4, 2007 on charges of possession of a destructive device.

According to the New York Times, in part as a result of the above-mentioned YouTube video, U.S. Transportation Security Administration officials will be increasing scrutiny of airline passengers carrying remote-controlled toys.

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