Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Islamic Terminology Banned From Times Square Bomber Investigation?

/PRNewswire/ -- PJTV's CEO Roger L. Simon today called for federal agents investigating the Times Square bomber to be unshackled from the ties of censorship in an exclusive PJTV video. During recent months, PJTV has conducted in-depth investigations into document sanitization, finding evidence of censorship in the Fort Hood report and the FBI's Counter Terrorism Analytical Lexicon, among others.

"The public needs to know if our national security professionals are constrained in their use of Islamic terminology in their written and verbal communications," commented Simon. "This is a matter of national security for all Americans, but given the history of 9/11 and this recent incident, New Yorkers, in particular, deserve uncensored documents and unrestricted analysis in this investigation."

Although the bipartisan 9/11 Commission report contained 600 occurrences of Islam, Muslim, Sharia, Jihad, Hamas, and Hezbollah, subsequent documents (such as the FBI's Counter Terrorism Analytical Lexicon) eliminated the terms from the documents completely, as further explained in an April 2010 PJTV investigative report.

In response to these recent events, Simon formally requested a congressional hearing on the censorship of Islamic terminology in the U.S. government. More specifically, he requested the investigative hearing focus on four key topics:

1. To what degree are government documents and reports (perhaps both
public and classified documents) being sanitized regarding Islamic
terminology?
2. To what degree is there a program or practice of verbal censorship?
What are government employees allowed to say in their internal
meetings? And are there internal policies or what the media might call
"style guides" that prevent department secretaries, their staff and
even the White House press spokesperson from using specific Islamic
terminology?
3. Who are the people or organizations inside the government that are
pushing for this censorship?
4. What people or groups outside the U.S. government may have been
advocating this censorship?


"America has never been the land of censorship," added Simon. "Certainly, Vice President Biden and Rahm Emanuel have refused to censor their language in the public sphere. Yet, it is quite possible that public liaisons such as Robert Gibbs, Eric Holder, Robert Mueller, and Janet Napolitano have established policies that constrain the use of certain descriptive terms in national security documents and speeches. If this is so, we need to know. As such, I sincerely request a congressional hearing investigating this important subject."

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Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Statement of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the New York City Police Department on an Arrest in the Times Square Investigation

“At approximately 11:45 p.m. EDT, Faisal Shahzad was taken into custody. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and detectives of the New York City Police Department arrested Shahzad for allegedly driving a car bomb into Times Square on the evening of May 1, 2010. Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport after he was identified by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection while attempting to take a flight to Dubai.

The defendant will appear in Manhattan federal court (500 Pearl Street, 5th Floor, New York, N.Y.) on May 4, 2010, at a currently undetermined time to be presented on formal charges. No further details are available at this time.

We applaud the collective work of the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force and the prosecutors and investigators in the Southern District of New York, who have worked around­the­clock for the last two days in this investigation. We would also like to recognize the diligent work of the Customs and Border Protection agents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut.

The investigation remains very much ongoing, and the dedicated agents, detectives, and prosecutors on this case will continue to follow every lead and use every tool to keep the people of New York City safe. We will not rest until every terrorist, whether homegrown or foreign-based, is neutralized and held to account,” said United States Attorney Preet Bharara, FBI Special Agent­in­Charge George Venizelos, and New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

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