Law & Paneir

Boko Haram is an Islamic sect that believes politics in northern Nigeria has been seized by a group of corrupt, false Muslims. It wants to wage a war against them, and the Federal Republic of Nigeria generally, to create a “pure” Islamic state ruled by sharia law. Since August 2011 Boko Haram has planted bombs almost weekly in public or in churches in Nigeria’s northeast. The group has also broadened its targets to include setting fire to schools. In March 2012, some twelve public schools in Maiduguri were burned down during the night, and as many as 10,000 pupils were forced out of education. Boko Haram is not in the same global jihadist bracket as Algeria’s al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or Somalia’s al Shabab. Despite its successful attack on the UN compound in Abuja in August 2011, Boko Haram is not bent on attacking Western interests. There have been no further attacks on international interests since that time. Following the failed rescue of hostages Chris McManus ...

The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was enacted as a response to public outrage over the extent of domestic spying during the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. While recognizing that intelligence gathering is a legitimate function in the national security interest, Congress passed the law to limit the government's power to break into homes and spy on U.S. citizens. FISA created a distinction between criminal and intelligence/counterintelligence investigations in terms of the standards the government must meet to obtain warrants for electronic surveillance. In a criminal investigation, law enforcement must show probable cause to obtain a surveillance warrant. However, to obtain a FISA warrant, it needs to prove only that there is reasonable suspicion that the target of the surveillance is "a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power" -- a standard much easier to meet. The act also required that "the purpose of the sur...

by Robert Wright Last week, when President Obama announced his intention to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS, he gave a clear rationale: Leaders of the radical Islamist group had “threatened America and our allies.” Obama also explained how these leaders could make good on that threat: Americans and Europeans who go join ISIS, once “trained,” could return home and try to “carry out deadly attacks.” That’s certainly conceivable. But it’s worth noting that in the 13 years since 9/11, that kind of attack hasn’t been the big problem. The most lethal attacks by radical Muslims on American soil have been of a different species: “homegrown” terrorism like the Fort Hood shooting of 2009, which killed 13 people, and the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013, which killed three people and injured more than 250. The perpetrators of these attacks weren’t people who had been lured abroad by jihadists, given terrorism training, and dispatched to America with a mission. They were people w...

BY Mark Gordon In order to understand modern terrorism and how it might mutate in the near future, it is useful to begin with a document written in 1869 by a Russian anarchist named Sergey Nachayev. Titled “ The Revolutionary Catechism ,” this brief manifesto, which has been called “ the first modern terrorist text ,” illuminates the mental and moral universe inhabited by the terrorist, a universe characterized by a profound nihilism. “The revolutionary is a doomed man,” writes Nachayev. “He has no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name … The revolutionary knows that in the very depths of his being, not only in words but also in deeds, he has broken all the bonds which tie him to the social order and the civilized world…  Night and day he must have but one thought, one aim: merciless destruction. Striving cold-bloodedly and indefatigably toward this end, he must be prepared to destroy himself and to destroy with hi...

By Lamis Adoni  If we listen carefully to what the Islamic State (ISIS) and its supporters are saying, we see a vision of the world in a state of ongoing war between the West and Islam. The essence of this war is religion, not colonial policies, as if colonialism has never targeted any other non-Muslim nations and Christians as well. We find a distorted promotion of the saying "clash of the civilisations", although it ultimately serves military intervention in the region. The beheadings, especially of Western hostages, are proof of the false "civilisations war", as the images of ugly beheadings are free publicity for America's goals, which have mainly adopted Islamophobia to terrorise the Westerners and push them to support the wars covered by the slogan "humanitarian-civilisational intervention", an intervention that is neither civil nor humane. The West's shock at witnessing the crimes committed by ISIS and its counterparts is not devoid of...

THE suggestion made by Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to create new preventive laws to tackle terror threats is highly appreciated. The government can look at security legislation in Australia to draft new security laws. Australia has long played a pivotal role by creating legislation on counter-terrorism, national security and other cross-jurisdictional offences. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 sets out the functions of the Australia Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Australia's security service. This law empowers ASIO to obtain warrants for surveillance and to detain and question a person who may have information important to the gathering of intelligence in relation to a terrorist activity. The Crimes Act 1914 deals with crime, the powers of the authorities to investigate it and related issues including sabotage, treachery, disclosure of information and other issues. The Crimes (Foreign Incursions ...

THE spate of crime and terrorist attacks in Sabah and detention of Islamic State terrorists have some quarters calling for the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) to be re-introduced. Rather than bringing back the ISA, the government should enact new security laws with elements that are missing in the current legislation to prevent such problems. Perhaps the government can study the security legislation of the United Kingdom and draft new security legislation rather than bring back a repealed legislation. Among the security legislation are: TERRORISM Act 2000 (UK) — This widens the definition of terrorism to apply to domestic terrorism and includes any “political, religious or ideological” cause that uses or threatens violence against people or property, creates new offences of inciting terrorism, increases police powers, including stop and search and pre-charge detention for seven days, and outlaws terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda. This definition i...

By Sadık Ünay It is becoming increasingly clear with every international crisis that the world order is moving towards a more balanced and multipolar structure in which a multiplicity of actors are holding numerous instruments of influence against each other. Recent discussions on the transition from uni-multipolarity to multipolarity acquired a new twist in the light of two critical and seemingly unrelated international crises. The first one concerned the systemic crisis in Ukraine, which witnessed the collapse of concerted efforts by the U.S. administration and the EU to incorporate the country into the network of Western institutions through a wave of civil disobedience. The unexpectedly tough response of Putin's Russia revived the conventional Cold War tactics of military invasion, use of paramilitary forces and annexation in Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. Those who were expecting a geostrategic response from the U.S. were utterly disappointed with the...