(Reuters) - Illinois State Senator Jim Oberweis, who owns a dairy business, has won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Illinois, according to WGN-TV.
Oberweis, 67, will take on veteran U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, in November. Oberweis won the nomination against businessman Doug Truax, 43.
(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
[Image viaFox News]
WASHINGTON — US Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday told lawmakers that FBI counterterrorism training that painted practicing US Muslims as likely extremist sympathizers was "flat-out wrong" and dangerous.
"That can really undermine the really substantial outreach efforts that we have made and really have a negative impact on our ability to communicate effectively, as we have in the past, with this community," said Holder.
Muslim-Americans have been "essential partners in the fight against terrorism" notably as "reliable sources of information" that led to "a great many of the successes" in US counter-terrorism efforts, he said.
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin quoted FBI training that tarred Islam as "a highly violent religion," said "mainstream American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers" and called traditional Muslim attire, growing facial hair, and frequent mosque or prayer group attendance danger signs.
And "recently released documents show the FBI is engaged in widespread surveillance of mosques and innocent American Muslims with no suspicion of wrongdoing," Durbin said as the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Holder.
Wired Magazine in September reported the details of anti-Muslim FBI training, in which a counterterrorism analyst it named as William Gawthorp decreed that Al-Qaeda was "irrelevant" and that Islam itself posed the real danger.
Holder called such comments "flat-out wrong" as well as "inconsistent" with the US Department of Justice's efforts and said officials were "reviewing all of our training materials, to ensure that that kind of misinformation" is gone.
"It's regrettable that that information was, in fact, a part of a training program. That person is not being used anymore by the FBI," the attorney general said, without ever naming Gawthorp or citing Wired or other outlets.
"We have distanced ourselves from that person, those statements and have a process underway to review the materials to make sure that that mistake does not happen in the future," he added.
"The reality is, when you say Muslim Americans, we are talking about Americans, American citizens, who have the same desires that we all have and want their kids to be safe, who want the opportunities that this great country has to offer them.
At the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois' 2011 Bill of Rights Celebration in Chicago, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) applauded the end of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," but warned that other civil rights issues needed to be addressed.
"At the top of our list of priorities is protecting the right to vote," he said. "We have fought for that for decades in this country and we must continue. There is a concerted, coordinated effort in states as close as Indiana and Wisconsin to deny millions of Americans the right to vote. It is spearheaded by the Koch brothers, and their big money interest."
"Who do they want to keep out of the voting booth? Young people, old people, poor people, people with disabilities, people who live in rural areas -- millions of Americans. Judson Phillips, leader of the tea party, thinks voting should be limited to, quote, those who own property, close quote. Isn't that were we started? And to suggest that in a time of record foreclosures."
"If we don't fight to defend the ballot, all of our rights are in jeopardy."
Watch video, courtesy of the ACLU of Illinois, below:
Congressional leaders agreed on Thursday to extend three expiring provisions of the controversial PATRIOT Act for four years.
Sources told the Associated Press that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner agreed to call for a vote to extend the provisions before May 27, when they are set to expire, with as little debate as possible.
The legislation would extend the "roving wiretap" provision, "lone wolf" measure and "business records" provision until June 1, 2015.
The three provisions allow law enforcement authorities to conduct surveillance without identifying the person or location to be wiretapped, permits surveillance of "non-US" persons for whatever reason, and authorizes law enforcement to gain access to "any tangible thing" during investigations.
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has said and other senators have vowed to amend the legislation to ensure American's civil liberties are protected, making support for the extension unclear.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) proposed an amendment to the bill that would require the government to describe the target of a roving wiretap "with particularity."
"Roving wiretaps, which do not require the government to specify the place to be bugged, are designed to allow law enforcement to track targets who evade surveillance by frequently changing phones," he explained. "Before the PATRIOT Act, roving wiretaps were only permitted for criminal investigations."
"Unfortunately, the PATRIOT Act did not include sufficient checks to protect innocent Americans from unwarranted government surveillance," Sen. Durbin continued. "Under current law, the FBI is not required to ascertain the presence of the target of the wiretap at the place being wiretapped, as it is for criminal wiretaps."
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a senior member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also introduced legislation in February to narrow the PATRIOT Act's "business records" provision.
"Government agents should not be able to collect this sort of information on law abiding American citizens without showing that they have at least some connection to terrorism or other nefarious activities," he said.
Wyden's bill would force law enforcement to demonstrate that the records were in some way connected to terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities before gathering the information.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has also sought to amend the PATRIOT Act by increasing judicial oversight of government surveillance powers.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Facebook has become an important tool for democracy and human rights activists and it needs to do more to protect them, including allowing the use of pseudonyms, a US senator said Thursday.
"Recent events in Egypt and Tunisia have again highlighted the significant costs and benefits of social networking technology like Facebook to democracy and human rights activists," Senator Dick Durbin said in a letter to Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
"I commend you for providing an important tool to democracy and human-rights activists," the Democrat from Illinois said.
"However, as millions of people around the world use Facebook to exercise their freedom of expression, I am concerned that the company does not have adequate safeguards in place to protect human rights and avoid being exploited by repressive governments," Durbin said.
"Facebook has facilitated efforts by activists to organize demonstrations and publicize human-rights abuses," he said.
"At the same time, the Egyptian and Tunisian governments have reportedly used Facebook to monitor activists, which is surely aided by Facebook's refusal to allow activists to use pseudonyms," the senator said, citing Belarus, China, and Iran as other countries using social networking to track activists.
Durbin repeated a call for Facebook, which has nearly 600 million users, to join the Global Network Initiative (GNI), which has drafted a voluntary code of conduct to protect human rights and whose members include Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!
Responding to the senator's letter, Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, said "the trust people place in us is the most important part of what makes Facebook work.
"As demonstrated by our response to threats in Tunisia, we take this trust seriously and work aggressively every single day to protect people," he said.
As for pseudonyms, Noyes said: "Facebook has always been based on a real name culture, and we fundamentally believe this leads to greater accountability and a safer and more trusted environment for people who use the service."
Referring to the appeal to join GNI, Noyes said, "as Facebook grows, we'll absolutely be considering which groups we can actively participate in but it's important to remember that our global operations are still small, with offices in only a handful of countries."
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