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Note: The following text is a quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070728.html

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 28, 2007

President’s Radio Address

President’s Radio Address
Audio
En Español
In Focus: National Security

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This week I visited with troops at Charleston Air Force Base. These fine men and women are serving courageously to protect our country against dangerous enemies. The terrorist network that struck America on September the 11th wants to strike our country again. To stop them, our military, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals need the best possible information about who the terrorists are, where they are, and what they are planning.

One of the most important ways we can gather that information is by monitoring terrorist communications. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act — also known as FISA — provides a critical legal foundation that allows our intelligence community to collect this information while protecting the civil liberties of Americans. But this important law was written in 1978, and it addressed the technologies of that era. This law is badly out of date — and Congress must act to modernize it.

Today we face sophisticated terrorists who use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate with each other, recruit operatives, and plan attacks on our country. Technologies like these were not available when FISA was passed nearly 30 years ago, and FISA has not kept up with new technological developments. As a result, our Nation is hampered in its ability to gain the vital intelligence we need to keep the American people safe. In his testimony to Congress in May, Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, put it this way: We are “significantly burdened in capturing overseas communications of foreign terrorists planning to conduct attacks inside the United States.”

To fix this problem, my Administration has proposed a bill that would modernize the FISA statute. This legislation is the product of months of discussion with members of both parties in the House and the Senate — and it includes four key reforms: First, it brings FISA up to date with the changes in communications technology that have taken place over the past three decades. Second, it seeks to restore FISA to its original focus on protecting the privacy interests of people inside the United States, so we don’t have to obtain court orders to effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets located in foreign locations. Third, it allows the government to work more efficiently with private-sector entities like communications providers, whose help is essential. And fourth, it will streamline administrative processes so our intelligence community can gather foreign intelligence more quickly and more effectively, while protecting civil liberties.

Our intelligence community warns that under the current statute, we are missing a significant amount of foreign intelligence that we should be collecting to protect our country. Congress needs to act immediately to pass this bill, so that our national security professionals can close intelligence gaps and provide critical warning time for our country.

As the recent National Intelligence Estimate reported, America is in a heightened threat environment. Reforming FISA will help our intelligence professionals address those threats — and they should not have to wait any longer. Congress will soon be leaving for its August recess. I ask Republicans and Democrats to work together to pass FISA modernization now, before they leave town. Our national security depends on it.

Thank you for listening.

END

Thanks to Tailgunner Joe for the ping to this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1872937/posts

“Sex for the motherland: Russian youths encouraged to procreate at camp”
dailymail.co.uk ^ | 27th July 2007 | Edward Lucas

Posted on 07/28/2007 9:09:58 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Remember the mammoths, say the clean-cut organisers at the youth camp’s mass wedding. “They became extinct because they did not have enough sex. That must not happen to Russia”.

Obediently, couples move to a special section of dormitory tents arranged in a heart-shape and called the Love Oasis, where they can start procreating for the motherland.

With its relentlessly upbeat tone, bizarre ideas and tight control, it sounds like a weird indoctrination session for a phoney religious cult.

But this organisation - known as “Nashi”, meaning “Ours” - is youth movement run by Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin that has become a central part of Russian political life.

Nashi’s annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.

Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.

Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear - supposedly a cause of sterility - and given more wholesome and substantial undergarments.

Twenty-five couples marry at the start of the camp’s first week and ten more at the start of the second. These mass weddings, the ultimate expression of devotion to the motherland, are legal and conducted by a civil official.”

###

Previously...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=russia
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=nashi

Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1867449/posts

The Horror of Russia’s “Nashi” Youth Cult, Revealed in English for the First Time
Publius Pundit ^ | June 3, 2007 11:10 AM | Kim Zigfeld ·

Posted on 07/17/2007 4:04:12 PM PDT by BenLurkin

Through the good offices of La Russophobe’s translator we are able to open a window into neo-Soviet Russia that would otherwise be closed to the non-Russian speaking world. In our “Articles” blog, you will find extensive translated extracts from the unabridged Nashi manifesto direct from Nashi’s website. You can see the unabridged version in Russian, the juicy bits from which are translated below, here, and the shortened, brochure-like screed in Russian is here (a comic book version of the manifesto has been published and distributed by Nashi as a propaganda leaflet; it was translated into English here, but then the translation was mysteriously withdrawn; the Nashi website itself, as we previously reported, was blocked for a time from Western browser access, but at least for now is available; our prior commentary about the leaflet version is here). Click here to read Nashi’s propaganda in its full, horrifying glory in our Articles blog. Just for instance, Nashi claims that the USSR simply “decided” to give up the arms race because of its own enlightenment, and likewise “decided” to allow German reunification on the same basis (and note too its obsessive focus on the idea of counterrevolution, now styled as “colored revolution,” and the demonization of the U.S., linking Russia’s “liberals” to foreign spies looking to subvert Russian independence). It attempts to take sole credit for the defeat of Hitler for Russia, implying that Russia saved Europe, yet does not mention Stalin’s secret deal with Hitler selling Europe down the river.

As you see Vladimir Putin channel the ideology of Vladimir “Lenin” Ulyanov, creating a brand-new “Komsomol” organization for youth indoctrination in ideology, you see the final nail struck into the Neo-Soviet coffin of Russia. Some have misled us, claiming that the new Russian dicatatorship lacks the ideological underpinnings of the old USSR. Nobody can read this translation and still think so. How long before this ideology makes its way into text books, how long before a “party” requires indoctrination in this ideology before assuming the mantle of power? How long before it becomes a crime, punishable by gulag, to publicly criticize this ideology or those who espouse it? NOTE: If you are interested in reading translations straight from the pages of the Russian press, check out LR Translations, La Russophobe’s translations library, which contains nearly two dozen articles from the Russian press that you will find nowhere else. If any Russian-speaking reader is aware of Russian material that is a good candidate for translation, please let us know.

Note: The following post is a quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1865700/posts

Putin’s children
iht.com ^ | July 5, 2007 | Michael Hammerschlag

Posted on 07/13/2007 5:26:40 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

It’s official. To be patriotic in Russia is to be a fan of Putin, specifically a Putin Youth. During the celebration on June 12th of Independence Day (Russia from the Soviet Union in 1990), “the only groups allowed onto Red Square were the youth group Nashi” - which means “ours” - “the Young Guard and Young Russia,” according to Sergei, a Nashi supporter. Tickets were carefully dispensed only to the faithful near the Krasny Ploshad Metro from a truck, I finally discovered after questioning a dozen reluctant people holding the tickets.

The 120,000-odd Putin Youth members are perhaps the most creepy demonstration of Putin’s “Back to the Future” cult of personality - youth groups created, supported, and used by the Kremlin to harass, bully and intimidate opponents and critics. “The idea was to create an ideology based on a total devotion to the president and his course,” says a Kremlin adviser, Sergei Markov. Obsessed by the color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, the Kremlin decided to create their own loyal youth brigades. ...

There is something deeply contemptible about propagandizing and poisoning the minds of the young, even more so when they are carelessly used as government shock troops to intimidate and bully critics. The government is now eating the seed corn of young minds for some cheap political advantage, a tactic of all dictatorships, which try to ensure their permanence by instilling robotic loyalty in the young, and Russia will pay for it for many years. The Putin Youth get to be punks, terrorizing foreigners and “traitors” with near complete impunity (a few $20 fines for attacking an ambassador), and receive training, free college and professional connections that can give them high-powered careers - a win-win situation, from their point of view.

(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...