Counter Terror Reading
In my viewing of the blogs I have discovered yet another great place to read on things. Here is a sample of the reading there, enjoy. http://counterterror.typepad.com
April 26, 2005
Financial Regulators Release Bank Secrecy Act Guidance to Money Service Businesses
FinCEN and the federal banking agencies (FBAs) at the Federal Reserve System, the FDIC, the National Credit Union Administration, the OCC, and the Office of Thrift Supervision today issued interpretive guidance setting forth the minimum steps that banking organizations should take when providing banking services to money services businesses. FinCEN has issued a concurrent advisory to money services businesses to emphasize their Bank Secrecy Act regulatory obligations and to notify them of the types of information that they will be expected to produce to a banking organization in the course of opening or maintaining account relationships. FinCEN and the FBAs issued a joint press release on the guidance and the advisory. CT Blog regulars will recall last week's letter from the FBAs, which was in turn a reply to the January 10 letter from the American Bankers Association and state regulators on the consistency of BSA examinations. The new guidance was issued well ahead of the announced deadline and during the hearing today at the Senate Banking Committee on the regulators' oversight of MSB compliance with the BSA.
Posted by Andrew Cochran at 05:33 PM Permalink TrackBack (0)
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Security Council Reviews Progress Against Terrorism
It may be a sign of the times that the UN Security Council could hold an open session on the progress in the war on terrorism, as it did yesterday, and attract so little press and other attention. During yesterday's session, the Security Council received briefings from its three specialized anti-terrorism committees -- the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions (1267) Committee, the Counter-Terrorism (1373) Committee and the new (1540) Committee on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The briefings were devoid of anything controversial, and really didn’t provide any new insights into how the war on terrorism was progressing. At first brush the session did not appear newsworthy. But, reading through the lines there are several items that do merit attention.
Continue reading "Security Council Reviews Progress Against Terrorism"
Posted by Victor Comras at 03:25 PM Permalink TrackBack (0)
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dc:creator="Evan Kohlmann"
dc:date="2005-04-26T14:24:32-04:00" />
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The Conviction of Ali al-Timimi
After days of deliberations, jurors have finally returned with a guilty verdict in the case of would-be "Islamic scholar" Ali al-Timimi in Alexandria, Virginia. Timimi is a prominent advocate of a puritanical and often extremist form of fundamentalist Islam known as Salafism. As the federal prosecutors in Alexandria demonstrated over the past month, Timimi's "religious" teachings included directly encouraging his followers to take up arms against America in order to fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan and their "Arab mujahideen" allies--read Al-Qaida. Timimi's attorneys had attempted to shield their client in the protection of the First Amendment, arguing that Timimi's language never rose to the stringent incitement standard delineated in the landmark Brandenburg v. Ohio case. The jurors were apparently unpersuaded.
The conviction of Ali al-Timimi is a significant victory for the Department of Justice in its ongoing counterterrorism efforts. At a time when the DOJ is still coming to grips with regrettable evidentiary and legal defeats in a number of recent cases (such as those of London-based Al-Qaida recruiter Abu Doha and former University of Idaho student Sami Omar al-Hussayen), Timimi's conviction seems to confirm that the U.S. government is still able to successfully prosecute controversial terrorism cases without resorting to extrajudicial means, such as designating an individual as an enemy combatant. One final note: this latest conviction is due--in no small part--to the tireless work of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Once again, the EDVA has proven itself to be a model of efficiency and success in tackling complex and critically important terrorism cases. Americans should come to expect the same level of professionalism and expertise in all facets of our national counterterrorism strategy.
Continue reading "The Conviction of Ali al-Timimi"
Posted by Evan Kohlmann at 02:24 PM Permalink TrackBack (0)
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April 26, 2005
Financial Regulators Release Bank Secrecy Act Guidance to Money Service Businesses
FinCEN and the federal banking agencies (FBAs) at the Federal Reserve System, the FDIC, the National Credit Union Administration, the OCC, and the Office of Thrift Supervision today issued interpretive guidance setting forth the minimum steps that banking organizations should take when providing banking services to money services businesses. FinCEN has issued a concurrent advisory to money services businesses to emphasize their Bank Secrecy Act regulatory obligations and to notify them of the types of information that they will be expected to produce to a banking organization in the course of opening or maintaining account relationships. FinCEN and the FBAs issued a joint press release on the guidance and the advisory. CT Blog regulars will recall last week's letter from the FBAs, which was in turn a reply to the January 10 letter from the American Bankers Association and state regulators on the consistency of BSA examinations. The new guidance was issued well ahead of the announced deadline and during the hearing today at the Senate Banking Committee on the regulators' oversight of MSB compliance with the BSA.
Posted by Andrew Cochran at 05:33 PM Permalink TrackBack (0)
-->
Security Council Reviews Progress Against Terrorism
It may be a sign of the times that the UN Security Council could hold an open session on the progress in the war on terrorism, as it did yesterday, and attract so little press and other attention. During yesterday's session, the Security Council received briefings from its three specialized anti-terrorism committees -- the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions (1267) Committee, the Counter-Terrorism (1373) Committee and the new (1540) Committee on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The briefings were devoid of anything controversial, and really didn’t provide any new insights into how the war on terrorism was progressing. At first brush the session did not appear newsworthy. But, reading through the lines there are several items that do merit attention.
Continue reading "Security Council Reviews Progress Against Terrorism"
Posted by Victor Comras at 03:25 PM Permalink TrackBack (0)
"
dc:creator="Evan Kohlmann"
dc:date="2005-04-26T14:24:32-04:00" />
-->
The Conviction of Ali al-Timimi
After days of deliberations, jurors have finally returned with a guilty verdict in the case of would-be "Islamic scholar" Ali al-Timimi in Alexandria, Virginia. Timimi is a prominent advocate of a puritanical and often extremist form of fundamentalist Islam known as Salafism. As the federal prosecutors in Alexandria demonstrated over the past month, Timimi's "religious" teachings included directly encouraging his followers to take up arms against America in order to fight alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan and their "Arab mujahideen" allies--read Al-Qaida. Timimi's attorneys had attempted to shield their client in the protection of the First Amendment, arguing that Timimi's language never rose to the stringent incitement standard delineated in the landmark Brandenburg v. Ohio case. The jurors were apparently unpersuaded.
The conviction of Ali al-Timimi is a significant victory for the Department of Justice in its ongoing counterterrorism efforts. At a time when the DOJ is still coming to grips with regrettable evidentiary and legal defeats in a number of recent cases (such as those of London-based Al-Qaida recruiter Abu Doha and former University of Idaho student Sami Omar al-Hussayen), Timimi's conviction seems to confirm that the U.S. government is still able to successfully prosecute controversial terrorism cases without resorting to extrajudicial means, such as designating an individual as an enemy combatant. One final note: this latest conviction is due--in no small part--to the tireless work of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. Once again, the EDVA has proven itself to be a model of efficiency and success in tackling complex and critically important terrorism cases. Americans should come to expect the same level of professionalism and expertise in all facets of our national counterterrorism strategy.
Continue reading "The Conviction of Ali al-Timimi"
Posted by Evan Kohlmann at 02:24 PM Permalink TrackBack (0)
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