Sunday, July 31, 2011

Homeland Security surveillance detected on Christian website


Homeland Security surveillance detected on Christian website

Blogger noted for opposing homosexual lifestyle choice

By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WND
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has begun watching a blog posted by a Christian who was forced to flee Brazil because of the conflict between that nation's pro-homosexual "hate crimes" agenda and his advocacy for traditional marriage.
Exactly why the U.S. government, which several times has linked Christians and conservatives with terrorism, is watching Julio Severo's unabashedly Christian Last Days Watchman blog isn't clear.
A WND request to the DHS for comment did not generate a response.
The website's records reveal the DHS visited the site yesterday. A different computer, also at the DHS, was on the site again today.
WND reported in 2009, shortly after Obama took office, that a Department of Homeland Security report warned of the possibility of violence by unnamed "right-wing extremists" – people concerned about illegal immigration, increasing federal power, restrictions on firearms, abortion and the loss of U.S. sovereignty. The report pointed to returning war veterans as particular threats.
The visit yesterday was revealed in a website tracking report:
The visit today was documented in another report:
Severo was profiled earlier on WND when as a prominent pro-family activist in Brazil, he was forced into exile because of the "hate crimes" laws in his land.
Several prominent Christian leaders in America at the time warned that similar crackdowns could be coming in the U.S. because of the federal "hate crimes" bill signed by Obama shortly after he took office.
That law enhances penalties based on the thoughts of the person suspected of committing a crime.
Pastor Rick Scarborough of Vision America Action and Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel voiced their opposition to the law at the time. While there has not yet been a large-scale crackdown on pastors who preach against homosexuality, there are indicators that such developments could be in the offing.
Obama's lifting of the ban on homosexuals in the military, for example, has raised questions about the status of  military chaplains who teach a biblical perspective of homosexuality.
At the time of his exile, Severo told WND that while Brazil does not criminalize Christianity, it regulates what biblical principles can and cannot be preached, and it bans biblical citations that disapprove of the homosexual lifestyle.
"Brazil grants freedom to preach Christianity, provided that the sermons avoid negative mentions of state-protected behaviors and cultural trends," Severo said at the time. "The Brazilian government is establishing more and more categories of protected behaviors, banning negative mentions. So Brazilian preachers need to get updated on the latest political changes and preach a Gospel according to the state interests."
He cited an example of Brazil's restrictions.
"In Rio, a Pentecostal minister led a criminal to Jesus and convinced him to deliver himself to police. Rev. Isaías da Silva Andrade accompanied the former criminal to police and when they asked how his life had been changed, the minister answered that the former criminal lived under the influence of demons from Afro-Brazilian religions which inspired him to criminal conduct, but now he found salvation in Jesus. Because of this innocent account, Rev. Andrade is now being prosecuted for discrimination against the Afro-Brazilian 'culture'! If condemned, he will serve between two and five years in jail," Severo said.
Severo said his friends warned him that authorities were trying to find him, and so he took matters into his own hands.
"I was forced to leave the country with my family: a wife in the advanced stages of pregnancy and two little children," he reported on his blog. "We are now in a place that is completely foreign to us. What choice did we have?"
Julio Severo
Severo today told WND through a relatively secure communications method that he remains in an undisclosed location because "even though I am away from Brazil, the largest gay group is Brazil, ABGLT, is after me, even asking their other gay groups to help them to find me where I am."
He explained ABGLT, which had filed complaints of "homophobia" against him with the Brazilian government, recently was helped by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be accredited in the United Nations, extending its global influence.
He said he previously has found visits on his website from the federal police in Brazil.
"It is like the FBI in the U.S..," he told WND.
He said he monitors his websites periodically and then occasionally does a visitor-by-visitor review of who is reading his writings.
"A few times that I have examined [them] one by one, I was able to find federal law enforcement agencies as my visitors," he said.
He said it appears DHS was searching for some combination of "Christian," "U.S." and "Brazil" terms.
"I think all Christian leaders should be worried at a U.S. agency created in response to Islamic terror is after a Christian leader," he told WND. "Why not Islamic leaders?"
He said on his blog after he found the DHS visits, "Obviously, LDW has no terrorist or Islamic connection. It is conservative Christian – which is reason enough to be labeled 'terrorist' by leftist and anti-Christian activists. And such is the Obama administration."
"I do not know how much time they spent in my blog, because this specific data was missing in the official record. Nevertheless, perhaps because of some security failure, relevant information was exposed, especially on where and who was 'visiting' my blog," he wrote. "It seems that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is searching for a Christian leader (from the United States? from Brazil?), who fled. But, searching for him in my blog?"
He said the purpose of his site is to make English-speaking readers aware of what is happening in Brazil, "particularly on the persecution on Christians."
"If they are keeping surveillance on Christian leaders, it’s time for us to watch and pray!" he said.
Barack Obama
The U.S. administration has made clear in a number of cases that it is concerned about conservatives as a potential danger and even has argued in court that it wants the authority to track American citizens in order to develop "probable cause" needed for search warrants.
That argument is being made before the U.S. Supreme Court in a dispute over whether police investigators and other authorities should be allowed to track American citizens who have not done anything that would ordinarily prompted a judge to issue a search warrant.
"The court of appeals' decision, which will require law enforcement officers to obtain a warrant before placing a GPS device on a vehicle if the device will be used for a 'prolonged' time period, has created uncertainty surrounding the use of an important law enforcement tool," said the government's brief in the case, U.S.A. v. Antoine Jones.
"Although in some investigations the government could establish probable cause and obtain a warrant before using a GPS device, federal law enforcement agencies frequently use tracking devices early in investigations, before suspicions have ripened into probable cause. The court of appeals' decision prevents law enforcement officers from using GPS devices in an effort to gather information to establish probable cause."
In the case, agents put a tracking device on Jones' vehicle, and he later was charged and convicted of drug offenses based on information obtained from the tracking device. His conviction was overturned, however, when an appeals court panel argued the information was obtained without a warrant.
The government asked the high court to review whether the warrantless use of a tracking device to monitor the vehicle's movements on public streets violated the Fourth Amendment.
But civil rights experts at the law firm of William J. Olson of Vienna, Va., and Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation of Ramona, Calif., are arguing in a friend-of-the-court brief that while the Supreme Court needs to review the case, the goal should be to protect Americans' Bill of Rights-assured protections against unreasonable search and seizure, not expand government's ability to monitor its citizens.
While the Obama administration is asking for a determination about the warrantless use of tracking units, the Supreme Court wants briefs that also address the issue of whether the government violates the Fourth Amendment even by installing such a unit.
A poll released earlier showed the WND Freedom Index, an assessment of Americans' perspectives about their freedoms, took a plunge in the latest quarter, to 45.9 – its lowest mark in the two years the survey has been conducted.
Among the questions used to assemble the ranking – where 50 is a reflection of a neutral perspective about freedoms – was, "Do you believe that government today is using technology, such as cameras, scanners, electronic health records, to become too intrusive into the private matters of Americans."
Some 75 percent of the respondents said there is a problem. Nearly 38 percent of Americans said they perceive "great intrusion" and another 14.5 percent said there is "substantial intrusion." Another 22.8 percent said there is "some intrusion."
The federal government's determination that people innocent of crimes are worthy of being watched already is documented.
The 2009 DHS report, "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," said "threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts."
But it said worsening economic woes, potential new legislative restrictions on firearms and "the return of military veterans facing significant challenges reintegrating into their communities could lead to the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."
The report from the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis defined right-wing extremism in the U.S. as "divided into those groups, movements and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups) and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."
It followed by only weeks a report from the Missouri Information Analysis Center that linked conservative groups to domestic terrorism.
The Missouri report warned law enforcement agencies to watch for suspicious individuals who may have bumper stickers for third-party political candidates such as Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. It further warned law enforcement to watch out for individuals with "radical" ideologies based on Christian views, such as opposing illegal immigration, abortion and federal taxes.
Source: WND, through Last Days Watchman, the English blog of Julio Severo
Other interesting articles:

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Department of Homeland Security: newest Last Days Watchman visitor

Department of Homeland Security: newest Last Days Watchman visitor

By Julio Severo
The US Department of Homeland Security, created by the US government in response to the September 11 Islamic attacks, was caught visiting Last Days Watchman (LDW), my English blog.
US Department of Homeland Security visiting the English blog of Julio Severo
Obviously, LDW has no terrorist or Islamic connection. It is conservative Christian — which is a reason enough to be labeled “terrorist” by leftist and anti-Christian activists. And such is the Obama administration.
What does the US Department of Homeland Security want? To protect America from LDW?
I do not know how much time they spent in my blog, because this specific data was missing in the official record. Nevertheless, perhaps because of some security failure, relevant information was exposed, especially on where and who was “visiting” my blog.
It seems that the US Department of Homeland Security is searching for a Christian leader (from the United States? from Brazil?), who fled. But, searching for him in my blog?
I like visitors, because Last Days Watchman is intended to make English-speaking readers aware about what is happening in Brazil. It is my effort to let the world know information that often is unavailable in English, particularly on persecution of Christians.
So if the US Department of Homeland Security wants to search for terrorists, they should visit Islamic websites.
If they want to help persecuted Christians, my blog is a good starting point.
But if they are keeping surveillance on Christian leaders, it’s time for us to watch and pray!
Source: Julio Severo in English
Other interesting articles:

Media terrorism

Media terrorism

Media treats Islam as a “religion of peace”, but it treats a Darwinist terrorist as if he were a Christian conservative. Meanwhile, the ruling Workers’ Party in Brazil wants to make compulsory Islamic teaching in the schools.

By Julio Severo
Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik proclaimed openly the supremacy of Charles Darwin’s “science” over the Bible. Darwin didn’t recognize God as the origin of the human life, but instead he attributed it to amoebas and monkeys. That “science” was the base of Nazi Germany and Soviet Union, political and ideological systems hostile to Christianity.
Yet, in response to the terrorist act of a fundamentalist Darwinist, the leftist press took advantage of the opportunity to commit a big terrorist attack: to say that the Norwegian was a conservative Christian. And why not to accept this lie?
That is the same press that idolizes Darwin’s theories as “science”, putting Breivik much closer to the secularism in the media than to conservative Christians, who have always despised Darwin, Nazi Germany and Soviet Union.
But what if the Norwegian were really a conservative Christian? What would the media make?
Since the systematic and frequent Islamic terrorist attacks against the West, the answer of the Western media is to repeat tediously: “Islam is a religion of peace”. No Islamic attack or monstrosity, regardless how deadly it is, diverts the media from its preaching about the religion of Mohammed as real peace dove on the earth.
Week after week Islamists commit terror acts. And week after week, the media repeats its mantra of “religion of peace”.
Recently, Brazil suffered a massacre of boys and girls by a clearly Islamic terrorist, but the press hastily protected and covered the “religion of peace”.
And to guarantee that Brazil may be in tune with the liberal media interests, the Workers’ Party introduced in the Brazilian Congress bill PL 1780/2011 to make compulsory in the schools the teaching of the “Arab culture and the Islamic tradition”. Workers’ Party intends to “fight intolerance and prejudice” against the “religion of peace”. The Brazilian bill may be downloaded in a Portuguese PDF file here.
There is no inconsistency in the Brazilian Workers’ Party, which follows the conveniences of the National Socialist Workers’ Party, also known as Nazism, which had an alliance with Muslim Arabs.
If the followers of Islam were not responsible for thousands of attacks and if the terrorists were in fact followers of Darwin, it would be correct to teach at the schools that Muslims are not the authors of the thousands of terrorist acts happening today. Even so, it would not be possible to call it a “religion of peace”, because thousands of Christians are persecuted and murdered in Islamic countries.
Similarly, it would be incorrect to say that Darwinism doesn’t have any connection with atrocities in the mankind. As well as Islam, Darwinism doesn’t have peaceful fruits. Soviet and Nazi leadership and Breivik loved the “science” of Darwin in the same way that a Christian loves Jesus Christ. Are their fruits equal to the fruits of Christians?
At school, when a teacher explained the man’s origin using Darwin’s “science”, I asked for permission to object, and I read for the classroom the first chapter of the book of Genesis. Then, the teacher answered that the man’s creation by God was theory. I am sure that Nazis, Soviet commies and Breivik would also have opposed my stand. But that is the eternal incompatibility between to follow Darwin and to follow God.
If Breivik were really a conservative Christian and the media didn’t really have any grudges against conservative Christians, journalists would follow the same logic that they apply to Islam: They would present conservative Christianity systematically as a “religion of peace”. And the Workers’ Party would introduce a bill to make compulsory in the schools the teaching of Christian conservatism, to “fight intolerance and prejudice” against conservative Christians.
As a conservative Christian, I would have to move fast if I were in that island of Norway seeing a terrorist slaughtering teens. And, of course, I would need a defense weapon, which would be the only resource against an armed criminal. The Norwegian police delayed exactly an hour and a half to respond to the first phone call for help. With such an absurd delay, any terrorist would have had enough time to commit whatever massacre he wanted.
That episode also destroys the disarmament fallacy, because if there were in the island armed men ready to make a defense (as it is common in Switzerland), the Darwinist terrorist would not have had freedom and time of killing so many teens.
As conservative Christian, I oppose totally the Darwinist that murdered those teens. And I oppose Islamic terrorists. I have also to oppose the biased press, which protects Islamic terrorism and hold conservative Christians responsible for the crimes of a fundamentalist Darwinist.
The Bible, which is above Darwin’s “science”, doesn’t lie when it says that the world is under the authority of the evil one. That authority is visible in the press, which never holds Islam responsible for Islamic terrorist attacks, but it takes advantage of any lie to blame conservative Christians for crimes that they have never committed, from murders of gay male prostitutes at dawns in dangerous downtown areas to the massacre committed by Anders Behring Breivik.
It is not "intolerance and prejudice" to hold Islam responsible for what many of its followers do. But it is real intolerance and prejudice to hold conservative Christians responsible for a massacre by a follower of Darwin’s theories. It is also real defamation and incitement to hate.
It is impossible to destroy a cultural or religious group without firstly defaming it systematically. The mass murder of Jews in Nazi Germany was only possible after years of defamations by the press, which attributed any crime to Jews.
With the help from a press that lies shamelessly, the Workers’ Party now is ready to teach Islam in the Brazilian schools and how to fight intolerance and prejudice against the “religion of peace”, as if Brazil were not suffering enough allurement from Islam. Islam will now join Darwinism as a compulsory school discipline.
And there is no doubt that, as far as it depends on its malice, the press will make all attempt to fight not Darwinism — which so much murderous radicalism has provoked in the mankind —, but conservative Christianity, which is its main target and victim.
Portuguese version of this article: Terrorismo de imprensa
Source: Julio Severo in English

Friday, July 01, 2011

Brazilian judge approves first same-sex ‘marriage’

Brazilian judge approves first same-sex ‘marriage’

SÃO PAULO, June 28, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) — A Brazilian judge approved the conversion of a same-sex couple’s civil union into a legally recognized “marriage” on June 27th, making it the country’s first homosexual “marriage.”
Sao Paulo state Judge Fernando Henrique Pinto said he based his ruling on a Supreme Court decision in May that approved civil unions, as well as on Brazil’s Constitution - which outlines how a civil union can be upgraded to a marriage - and a UN resolution against discrimination based on sexual orientation.
The homosexual couple, identified on Globo television network as Sergio Kauffman Sousa and Luiz Andre Moresi, registered their civil union on May 17, and requested the conversion at a state court in the city of Jacarei, 85 km. northeast of Sao Paulo.
It is not clear what wider implications Judge Pinto’s decision will have. Although Judge Pinto’s ruling can be overturned by a higher court, the homosexual couple told Globo TV that they would go to the Supreme Court if necessary.
via, Julio Severo in English: