To Trump, Human Rights Concerns Are Often a Barrier to Trade

THE NEW YORK TIMES: RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson had some advice on Saturday for Iran’s newly re-elected president. The Trump administration, he said, hopes Tehran “restores the rights of Iranians to freedom of speech, to freedom of organization, so that Iranians can live the life that they deserve.”

As he said that at a news conference, Mr. Tillerson was standing next to the Saudi foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, who represents a government that does not guarantee free speech or many other rights. When Mr. Tillerson turned to leave, a reporter asked if he had anything to say about human rights in Saudi Arabia. The secretary departed without answering.

President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia underscored the calculation he and his foreign policy advisers have made when it comes to questions of human rights around the world.

Mr. Trump and his team made clear they are willing to publicly overlook repression in places like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states whose leaders are meeting here this weekend — as long as they are allies in areas the president considers more important, namely security and economics. » | Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear | Saturday, May 20, 2017

'Digital Strip-search' UK Muslim Activist Faces Charges for Not Giving Up Passwords at Airport

Imagine arriving in the UK, going through airport security and then being ordered to hand over your phone and laptop with all passwords - for examination. A British Muslim activist was arrested after he refused to do it.

British Prime Minister Seeks GCC Trade Deals

Britain's prime minister, Theresa May, is in Saudi Arabia for a two-day visit.

As Britain leaves the European Union, her trip is aiming to strengthen trade and security ties in the Gulf,

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra reports.

Cost of Trump Family Security Vexes New York and Florida Officials

THE GUARDIAN: Senator Chuck Schumer says costs of guarding Trump Tower may add up to $183m a year, while Palm Beach officials complain about cost of Mar-a-Lago visits

New York Senator Chuck Schumer has ramped up pressure on Donald Trump and the federal government to accept the mounting costs of protecting the president, the first family and their extended entourage.

Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, inserted himself into the debate on Sunday, saying it costs $500,000 per day for nearly 200 police officers to protect Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, which houses the Trump family business headquarters and serves as the home of the first lady, Melania Trump, and the couple’s son, Barron. The senator estimated the cost could rise to as much as $183m annually.

At current estimates, even a four-year Trump administration could be heading for a billion dollars in taxpayer-borne costs – an eight-fold increase of the $97m Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group, estimates it cost to protect Barack Obama over the two terms of his administration. Read on and comment » | Edward Helmore in New York | Monday, February 20, 2017

Berlin: We Need Better Police And Not More Police

'The EU Needs to Do More to Make Itself Secure'

Inside Story - What's the Reason for Malaysia's New Security Law?

Malaysia's controversial new security law comes into effect, giving Prime Minister Najib Razak sweeping powers.

High Alert: Belgium to Cancel Festivities, EU Tightens Security

Belgium is increasing its terror alert level for New Year's Eve. And the Belgian Crisis Center warns festivities could be cancelled altogether.

US and UK Spy Agencies Defeat Privacy and Security on the Internet

THE GUARDIAN: • NSA and GCHQ unlock encryption used to protect emails, banking and medical records
• $250m-a-year US program works covertly with tech companies to insert weaknesses into products
• Security experts say programs 'undermine the fabric of the internet'

US and British intelligence agencies have successfully cracked much of the online encryption relied upon by hundreds of millions of people to protect the privacy of their personal data, online transactions and emails, according to top-secret documents revealed by former contractor Edward Snowden.

The files show that the National Security Agency and its UK counterpart GCHQ have broadly compromised the guarantees that internet companies have given consumers to reassure them that their communications, online banking and medical records would be indecipherable to criminals or governments.

The agencies, the documents reveal, have adopted a battery of methods in their systematic and ongoing assault on what they see as one of the biggest threats to their ability to access huge swathes of internet traffic – "the use of ubiquitous encryption across the internet".

Those methods include covert measures to ensure NSA control over setting of international encryption standards, the use of supercomputers to break encryption with "brute force", and – the most closely guarded secret of all – collaboration with technology companies and internet service providers themselves. » | James Ball, Julian Borger and Glenn Greenwald | Thursday, September 05, 2013

How to Protect an Unpredictable Pope

Colombian Prostitute Thought Obama Bodyguards Were 'Fools'

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A US Congressman is demanding that government investigators interview the prostitute at the centre of the Secret Service's Colombia sex scandal after she described the bodyguards as 'fools'.

New York Republican Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, acted after Dania Londono Suarez [Dania Londoño Suárez] appeared on television to reveal her side of the story.

She said that it would have been easy for her to steal any of the documents or plans that President Barack Obama's bodyguards had with them in a hotel room on a presidential trip to Cartagena, Columbia, last month.

Miss Suarez said: "They were a bunch of fools. They are responsible for Obama's security and they still let this happen.

"I could have done a thousand other things. If I had wanted to, I could have gone through all his documents, his wallet, his suitcase."

Miss Suarez told Caracol News in Cartegena that she called the police after the Secret Service agent with whom she spent the night refused to pay her the $800 (£500) he had promised.

"Let's go, bitch – I'm not going to pay you," she said that he told her before throwing her out of the room in the early morning. » | William Lowther in Washington | Saturday, May 05, 2012

Home Office Security Breach at Terror Court
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Secret documents containing intelligence reports and details of highly sensitive diplomatic negotiations have been mistakenly released by the Home Office to a suspected terrorist’s solicitor, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

In a grave error which could undermine one of the government’s key counter-terrorism policies, more than 100 pages of secret documents were handed to Gareth Peirce, the human rights lawyer, who is representing an Ethiopian terror suspect who can only be identified by the letters ‘XX’.

The pages were accidentally left in a censored version of the Home Office’s case against XX, and should only have been disclosed to a special category of barrister who has been security vetted by MI5.

It can also be revealed that a similar mistake was made by Home Office lawyers last month in the deportation cases of two Pakistani students who were arrested during a terror raid in north-west England last year, but who were released without charge.

The latest error came during the Home Office’s preparations for a case at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) where the Ethiopian was opposing a bid by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, to deport him from Britain.

Robin Tam QC, for the Home Secretary, told last week’s court hearing that “inadvertent disclosures have been made by the Secretary of State” and that the mistake had been “disappointing”.

Mr Justice Mitting, the SIAC chairman, told Mr Tam: “This is becoming a habit.” >>> David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent | Sunday, April 18, 2010

Our Religion Is Our Security in Pakistan: Swat Sikhs
THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS: GURDWARA SRI PANJA SAHIB (Hasanabdal): Jaswant Kaur is a middle aged mother of four, full of life and smiles as she makes tea for us and reminisces about life in village Pir Baba in Buner. But while she is glad that she took her children away from the hell like situation back home, she can’t stop fretting about her husband who stayed behind. The three days that she has been at Gurdwara Sri Panja Sahib, Hasanabdal, already seem like an agonising lifetime. It’s never easy being a refugee within one’s own land.

But like many others around her, Jaswant is a brave woman. She is already a commanding presence in the sprawling kitchen of the massive Gurdwara which otherwise has the capacity to house up to ten thousand people. It’s amazing how the majority of the women here can still smile, even those like Jaswant who have had to leave their spouses behind, for one reason or another. Maybe they are smiling because unlike the Muslim displaced people of Swat, who are forced to languish on the roads of Rawalpindi and elsewhere and eking out a living in miserable circumstances, the Sikh community has suffered a much better fate, at least till now. None of us can even imagine the trauma of someone waking up happy and all settled in their home one morning, and becoming a helpless refugee the next. >>> Mariana Baabar | Monday, May 4, 2009

Muslim-owned Shop Bans Customers Wearing Veils
THE TELEGRAPH: A Muslim-owned jewellery shop has decided to ban customers wearing veils after being targeted by robbers disguised as Islamic women.

Muslim women in a niqab will be encouraged to telephone in advance to ensure that a female member of staff is present during their visit, to confirm their identities. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
Everyone entering ATAA Jewellers in Glasgow must reveal their faces under planned new rules to protect staff from further attacks.

The store owners decided to act after two Asian men wearing traditional Muslim women's clothes – including niqab veils – made away with thousands of pounds worth of jewellery earlier this month.

The pair, who were also carrying handbags, pretended to be interested in buying some items but attacked staff with pepper spray when cabinets were unlocked.

Now the Sadiq family who run the shop are planning to put up a sign informing customers that they cannot wear any headgear that covers the face. >>> By Matthew Moore | Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Israel Snubs Carter and Declines Security Help
REUTERS: JERUSALEM - Israel's secret service declined to assist U.S. agents guarding former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a visit in which Israeli leaders shunned him over his plans to meet Hamas, U.S. sources said on Monday.

"They're not getting support from local security," one of the sources said, on condition of anonymity. Israel Snubs Carter and Declines Security Help >>> | April 14, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Security Teaching Moment
WASHINGTON TIMES: Lost amid the national distractions of a Super Bowl and Super Tuesday, the clock is running down on an immense sale of precision-guided munitions and other advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia and several of the smaller oil-rich Gulf States the Saudis dominate.

Unless two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress adopt resolutions of disapproval by Feb. 14, these transactions will proceed. All other things being equal, it is a safe bet the Saudis will augment their already vast arsenal with these new American arms.

After all, many in official Washington recognize the growing aggressiveness of Iran is a threat to U.S. interests in the region — from Iraq to Israel to the flow of oil through the Persian Gulf. Even before Bush administration efforts to prevent Tehran's Islamofascist mullahs from obtaining nuclear weapons were undone by a politicized National Intelligence Estimate, the step of up-arming rival nations was an obvious move. In the aftermath of that NIE, it became the only game in town.

Thanks moreover to the Saudis' considerable influence in U.S. corridors of power — cultivated over many years and at a cost of untold millions of dollars spent on lavish retainers, trips and other inducements for politicians, former officials and lawyer-lobbyists — the latest weapon sale has been greased like one of the Gulfies' petrodollar-powered "sovereign wealth" acquisitions. Apart from 100 or so mostly Democratic congressmen who have declared their opposition to such further arming of the Saudis, scarcely a discouraging word has been heard about the whole matter.

President Bush's latest sop to the Saudis nonetheless provides something valuable — what educators call a "teaching moment."

The notion that the United States' vital interests will be served by providing the Saudis and their minions with billions of dollars in additional arms fundamentally rests on the proposition that Saudi Arabia is indeed a "reliable ally." Would anybody in their right mind propose such sales if we had reason to believe they might be used against us — either by the original owners or by a successor government? Presumably not. Security teaching moment >>> By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

War Declared on Blair: He Should Contribute to the Cost of His Own Security
Photo of the ‘sickly sweet’ Tony Blair courtesy of The Sunday Express
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS: TONY Blair was last night facing calls to contribute to the cost of his security.

The demands came as anger mounted over his lucrative career worth millions in the private sector.

As a former Prime Minister, Mr Blair is entitled to round-the-clock security at taxpayers’ expense for the rest of his life.

The controversy over the Iraq war means he is judged to be a particularly high-profile target. Experts estimate his security bill costs the taxpayer “at least” £500,000 a year, and possibly more than £1million.

The size of the bill is boosted by Mr Blair’s frequent foreign travel.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said Mr Blair’s earnings put him in a different league from previous Prime Ministers, who have mostly led low-key lives after leaving office.

Mr Elliott said the scale of Mr Blair’s likely wealth meant it was right to ask whether he should make a contribution to the cost of his security, particularly if the bill was boosted by globe-trotting on commercial activities.

He said: “It’s right that former Prime Ministers who enter retirement on a modest pension should continue to receive free security but Tony Blair is in a different league.

“With a multi-million pound annual income and employment by two international institutions, he should consider covering his personal security bill himself or splitting the bill between his two new employers. Government spending and tax is high enough without covering all and sundry.” War Declared on Blair >>> By Jason Groves

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Incompetence! Home Office Security Failure
BBC: The Home Office has admitted illegal immigrants have been mistakenly cleared for jobs as security staff.

Ministers have ordered new checks to be carried out on hundreds of thousands of people vetted by the Security Industry Authority over the past three years.

The Home Office says the SIA did not check applicants were entitled to work in the UK before granting licences.

The Tories said the system was "not fit for purpose" but the government said the new checks had "strengthened" it.

According to the Sunday Mirror, illegal immigrants are working at airports, ports and the Metropolitan Police.

The newspaper claimed 5,000 illegal immigrants were estimated to have been employed in posts such as security guards and bouncers. Security staff employed illegally (more)

Mark Alexander

Saudis Get Jittery over Security of Oil Installations
FINANCIAL TIMES: Saudi Arabia has begun setting up a 35,000-strong security force to protect its oil infrastructure from potential attacks.

The move underlines the kingdom’s growing concern about its oil installations after threats from al-Qaeda to attack facilities in the Gulf, as well as rising tensions between Iran and the US.

The force already numbers about 5,000 personnel, a Saudi adviser said on Sunday. They are being trained in the use of new surveillance equipment, countermeasures and crisis management under a programme managed by US defence group Lockheed Martin, according to the Middle East Economic Survey in Nicosia.

The recruits are learning about laser security and satellite imaging from Lockheed on behalf of the Sandia National Laboratories’ Defense Systems and Assessments Unit – a US government run unit in New Mexico, said MEES.

Lockheed said it did not have information on the initiative.

The kingdom, which is the world’s biggest oil exporter and has 25 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves, is investing an estimated $4bn-$5bn in the new equipment and the force.

The force is expected to reach 35,000 within two or three years.

Saudi Arabia has a 75,000-strong army, an air force of 18,000, a navy of 15,500 and an air defence force of 16,000. Its oil installations are protected from within by 5,000 agents employed by Aramco, the state oil company. It has more than 80 oil and gas fields and an estimated 11,000 miles of pipeline. Saudis set up force to guard oil plants (more) By Andrew England in Cairo

Mark Alexander