While traveling on a U.S. State Department-funded tour of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf , the man who backs the Cordoba Initiative, which would fund the construction of a mosque near the site of the World Trade Center 9/11 terrorist attacks, met with potential financial backers of the project, including current and former investors in a firm that formerly had close ties to New York gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo . While in Dubai, according to State Department sources, Rauf met with financiers behind Emirates National Securitization Corporation (ENSeC). ENSeC is Dubai’s version of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which has developed a secondary mortgage system that is assisting in capitalizing residential and commercial properties that are collateralized by UAE based mortgages.xq ENSeC was the brainchild of Andrew Cuomo more than a decade ago, when, as a senior executive of Island Capital Group LLC in Manhattan, he was credited with working with the UAE to create the secondary mortgage entity. Andrew Farkas is the chairman of Island Capital, and currently a co-finance chair for the Cuomo for Governor campaign; for many years he served as vice chairman of ENSeC before selling his interest to the Dubai government sometime between 2008 and 2009. Farkas also has had extensive dealings with Dubai World, and his relationship with Cuomo is a complicated and controversial one.
DATELINE JLB’S BLACKBERRY STORM — Threats by the Saudi and United Arab Emirates governments to cut off access to the BlackBerry network were ignored by U.S. media this week. RIM — the Canadian company which sells the “smart phones” and operates the computer servers through which billions of emails and other communications flow every day — faced the loss of huge markets. The Saudis suddenly imposed a ban on BlackBerry, causing about 700,000 users to lose emailing ability. The UAE threatened an October 11 ban because, as the Financial Times reports, the BlackBerry network was ” causing serious social, judicial and national security repercussions.” Pi — the mathematical constant that enables us to compute the dimensions of a circle — is an irrational number. It is not a ratio of a to b , but a constant that flows beyond the decimal point to infinity without repeating itself. BlackBerrys are an inconstant force that the Muslim nations want to reduce to a finite one they can control. The Saudis may have settled the dispute with RIM in a deal to have a new server in-country, apparently to enable the government easier interception of communications. Indonesia, Lebanon, India and other nations are considering bans. China worked out a deal last year, similar to the reported Saudi deal. But that’s not the story. It’s not about an Arab abhorrence of modern technology, or some effort to grab a piece of the financial pie. It’s about despots straining to stay in power over increasingly free people. It is the social repercussions of free speech they fear. About five years ago, talking with one of the Pentagon’s China experts, I mused that Communist China couldn’t become a free nation because the people lacked the power to overthrow their oppressors. “No,” he told me. “And this is what will bring freedom to the Chinese.” He held up his cell phone. Any government that can’t control the communication of ideas and events, he said, cannot maintain the power that is necessary to oppress its people. Which is why the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are so desperate to limit or disable entirely their peoples’ access to the BlackBerry network. Love them or hate them, today’s “smart phones” are political devices. We jaded political types complain (actually, brag) to each other about the number of emails and cell calls we get every day, but we can’t function without them. The facts that these personal communication devices are so common, carrying so many billions of conversations each day — and that the BlackBerry is designed to secure its communications against all but the most expert hackers, enables privacy that protects the users. And in privacy there is freedom for those who fear their governments. With the addition of social networking websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and the like, each BlackBerry (or iPhone or Palm or Droid or whatever) becomes a portable publisher. You can report (as I have) on events in real time via Twitter, albeit one sentence at a time, and reach tens of thousands instantly. More, if your readers resend to their readers, which they often do. If Jefferson, Madison, and Paine had BlackBerrys, the American Revolution would have begun years earlier. And, yes, the Declaration of Independence would have probably been reduced to, “Yo, Brit dudes: you’re outa here.” But what they rob us of in scholarly style and historic character, they offset with immediacy and broad reach. (The Declaration and “Common Sense” could have been written in full and published as e-mail attachments. It’s not parchment, but they would have been read sooner by more people.) Its security, coupled with that reach and immediacy, makes the BlackBerry a political force, much more so than its unsecure competitors. Security against terrorism is the alleged concern driving the governments, even India’s, to try to force RIM to give them the computer codes necessary to monitor all communications. RIM denies it has them. Last year, the UAE demanded that RIM distribute to its users a program that would embed in the BlackBerrys to allow easier monitoring. But, according to the expert I consult with on these matters, the UAE add was “spyware.” It would have allowed the UAE government to get into the system (perhaps globally, not just for its own nation’s users) and capture everything from your stored telephone contacts to your e-mails. RIM, as it should have, refused. And it must continue to do so. Any government that wants to monitor BlackBerry communications can do so if they invest enough in technology and personnel to do it. But in refusing to give them the keys to the BlackBerry kingdom, RIM is forcing them to make choices and establish priorities. If a government really wants to focus its intelligence gathering on terrorist communications — as ours has through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — it can. Under FISA, any innocent conversations that are intercepted have to be ignored and any recording or documentation of them must be destroyed. By adopting that model, the despots would not have total — make that totalitarian — ability to limit free speech and punish or prevent the “social repercussions” the UAE wants to block. India, especially vulnerable to Pakistan-based terror networks, has no reason to not adopt our model. For all those who want political freedom, there are tools to protect it on your BlackBerry. If you’re visiting a country that isn’t free (such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, or China) you should take precautions to maintain your privacy.
Just 3 percent of Arabs say they empathize with Jewish Holocaust victims, according to a new poll (PDF) released by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, in conjuction with Zogby. The survey polled 3,976 people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and UAE. It asked respondents, “When you watch a movie or a program about the Jewish Holocaust, which of the following is closest to your feelings…” The most popular response, from 59 percent, was “Resent it as I feel it brings sympathy toward Israel and the Jews at the expense of Palestinians and Arabs.” Another 29 percent said they had “mixed feelings. Rounding out the bottom, a mere three percent of Arabs say they “Empathize with the Jews who suffered under the Nazis.” Jamie Kirchick has more on the rest of the poll, here .
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Poll: Just 3% of Arabs Empathize With Jewish Holocaust Victims
Tonight, we start with a longer note that requires some setup, so bear with me as I break from the usual format for a moment. ––– The FCC’s attempt to reclassify broadband as if it were a telephone service had already encountered opposition from a strong, bipartisan majority of Congress – not to mention usually Democratic allies like the AFL-CIO, CWA, IBEW, LULAC, MMTC, NAACP, Urban League and Sierra Club. It is increasingly becoming a question of whether the FCC really wants to pick a Title II fight in the Courts, another with Democratic coalition members and yet another with Congress. That kind of path has the potential to be lose-lose-lose for the FCC and for Democrats. But another story that emerged last week may be the most interesting fight of all. Last week, Ben Chandler (D-KY) and Alan Grayson (D-FL) announced their opposition to the FCC’s Title II reclassification. Grayson’s opposition is interesting. Consider… Grayson is a “ darling of the online left “, which has fetishized net neutrality In fact, he is so aggressively left wing that he hired progressive blogger-bombthrower Matt Stoller as his Senior Policy Advisor Matt Stoller was formerly a consultant for the main net neutrality advocacy group, Free Press, and a leader in organizing the online left to support net neutrality In fact, as Seton Motley pointed out at Big Government , Matt Stoller was such a vocal, aggressive net neutrality activist that he was once “ physically removed from a meeting at the AFL-CIO for making a scene over the refusal of the Communication Workers of America to support net neutrality.” Now, the man who hired Matt Stoller to advise him on policy has decided that Title II reclassification is bad policy. One of two things is happening here. Either this is a signal that the progressives have finally realized they went too far and alienated a lot of their coalition that realizes how radical their net neutrality regulation is. Or the progressives don’t realize this and, as Seton pondered at Big Government, Matt Stoller is now trying to decide whether he wants to be physically removed from Grayson’s office, too. Either way is good for America. ––– Oh, and just another reminder: despite what Free Press does say in its neo-Marxists missives, we truly don’t need Net Neutrality regulation. LTE is coming nearer to Verizon customers and combined with WiMAX from Sprint and others, the two technologies from a number of wireless providers will provide tremendous competition in the world of high-speed Internet access, and give unprecedented freedom for Internet users from the world of highly regulated wired Internet access. Adding the same stifling regulation to the new technologies can only hinder that. Especially regulation from an FCC that has a loose grasp on the concept of ethics. Daily Caller reports on Kevin Werbach who works by day for a group called Supernova, funded by industry groups, and moonlights as an advisor to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Werbach’s efforts are funded in part by the firms the FCC regulates or plans to regulate. He claims that because he gets money from both sides of certain issues, such as Net Neutrality, that there’s no problem. Yeah, he would think that. Of course, there are regulators other than the FCC that are problematic as well. In California , the the Fair Political Practices Commission may be gunning for the Internet and attempt to regulate sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Free speech just threatens those with power. So does privacy, which is why per a Forbes Magazine report I was emailed and thus have no link for, Indonesia is joining the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in attempting to shut down the use of RIM ’s encrypted Blackberry services, because RIM will not play favorites and give select governments special treatment. Privacy aids free speech, and the two are a threat to anyone who seeks to gather and maintain power over people. The State Department has expressed “disappointment” about the Blackberry announcements (which the UAE in turn called disappointing), which surprises me as RIM is a Canadian firm, plus it’s not as though the US hasn’t passed laws requiring firms to aid in government wiretaps of telecommunications. That law is called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Is the administration disappointed with the US, too? If so, what action is being taken to rectify that? Nothing, of course. It’s all talk. The Justice Department is pretty worthless, too, claiming that the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits colleges from shifting to digital textbooks from their paper equivalents. They claim that the requirement to use Amazon ’s Kindle hurts the blind… except that the blind can’t read a non-braille textbook anyway. Your taxes at work, folks. I couldn’t make this up. And to cap off the night, here’s something to think about on a dark, quiet night: data gathering and database searching firm Google is developing a relationship with the CIA . Chew on that.
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Tech at Night: Free Press, FCC, Google, LTE, RIM, Amazon, California
First , it was a severe vibration from an undisclosed source that caused the explosion aboard the M Star in the Straits of Hormuz. Then it was a rogue wave from an undersea earthquake. Pirates were mentioned, but were quickly pooh-poohed as a possible source. Some even speculated that it was a grenade . Funny, it was like everybody was falling all over themselves to avoid spooking the oil market or something. The latest : Japanese shipper Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd said on Thursday it has hired a military attack specialist to help it investigate the cause of damage to a tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. The supertanker was diverted to a UAE port on Wednesday where officials said the damage, which stirred fears of an attack in the straight [sic], was caused by a freak wave. But a Mitsui O.S.K. company official said at a news briefing in Tokyo that the damage was unlikely to have been caused by an earthquake-related wave. It will begin a full-fledged investigation on Thursday. Japan’s Transport Ministry said on Wednesday there was an “explosion” at around 00:30 a.m. local time and cited the possibility of an attack on the ship, but port officials said there was no evidence. No oil leaked from the very large crude carrier, named M. Star, although some members of the 31-strong crew were injured. Forty percent of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, gateway to the oil-producing Gulf, where Al Qaeda has threatened to attack shipping. The tanker, bound for Chiba, near Tokyo, is carrying around 2.3 million barrels of Qatar Land and Abu Dhabi Lower Zakum crudes, industry sources have said. You’ll be happy to hear that Iran has ruled out a terrorist attack on the ship. The shipper will be holding a press conference later this morning to discuss their findings.
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Military expert hired to inspect tanker after “mysterious explosion”
