FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                             CONTACT: Joshua Gillespie
November 18, 2010                                                                                    (317) 848-0201

Burton Condemns Miscarriage of Justice in Terrorist Trial

“This goes to show we should not conduct social experiments in a time of war.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN-05) issued the following statement in response to the surprise acquittal of terrorist Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani by a New York jury:

“Yesterday’s decision is an appalling miscarriage of justice and a stinging rebuke of the Obama Administration’s ill-conceived decision to treat terrorists as petty criminals and not enemy combatants.  The terrorists now have a blueprint to follow on how to game and twist the American legal system which will only increase the likelihood of further terrorist attacks against Americans here at home and abroad.”

“No one in the Justice Department should be congratulating themselves today.  This terrorist deserves more than twenty years in prison for plotting to destroy U.S. government property; he should be facing death for the cold-blooded calculated murders of 224 innocent people.  This goes to show we should not conduct social experiments in a time of war.”
 
Rep. Burton also spoke on this issue on the House Floor this morning.  Please see the linked video.
 

Background: Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who was on trial for his alleged role in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 where 224 people were killed, including 12 Americans.   Gailani was charged with 286 counts – including 224 counts of murder – and convicted of only one count – conspiracy to destroy U.S. Government property.
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Last Tuesday night a GOP tsunami washed over America sweeping away an historic number of Democrat lawmakers on the federal, state and local level. The American people, frustrated by government run amok sent a very powerful reminder to every elected official of Abraham Lincoln’s immortal words at Gettysburg; that our government is a government of the people, by the people, and most importantly, FOR the people. We must not forget that or we will overstep our mandate and find our tenure in the majority to be very short.

First and foremost, the People want us to cut government spending. We have done it before and we can do it again. In March of 1995, the first Republican majority in the House of Representatives in 40 years, brought forward a rescission bill cutting $17 billion in spending across twelve different cabinet agencies, the Congress, White House and a variety of independent agencies. This new Republican majority must move as quickly to bring a rescission package to the floor. President Obama said that “he would be happy” to sit down with Congressional Republicans and go line by line through the budget to address our country’s enormous fiscal challenges. It’s up to the president to make good on his offer. Going forward, we have to impose hard, binding limits on the government’s ability to spend taxpayer money; things like automatic sunsets on all federal programs, and requiring a two-thirds recorded vote in the House of Representatives and in the Senate to increase the statutory limit on the public debt to force us to stop borrowing money.

Next the People want us to cut their taxes. It is not enough to simply stop the tax hike from taking effect on January 1, 2011; we must go further and cut taxes to get our economy moving again. Ronald Reagan understood this simple concept and cut personal and business taxes in order to jumpstart economic growth – and it worked. It can work again. For example, reducing the lowest individual income tax rates from 15 percent to 10 percent and from 10 percent to 5 percent will result in every taxpaying-family in America getting an immediate increase in their take home pay – an average benefit of $500 in tax relief from the drop in the 10 percent bracket and $1,200 from the drop in the 15 percent bracket. Similarly, the United States currently has the second highest corporate tax rate of any industrialized nation, putting American workers and businesses at a huge competitive disadvantage. Economists estimate that simply lowering the top business tax rate from 35 percent to 22 percent could create 350,000 manufacturing jobs and 2.13 million jobs overall.

Last, but by no means least; the People want us to fundamentally reshape how Congress conducts its business so our time and energy is focused on their priorities. During the 111th Congress the House of Representatives spent hundreds of hours “debating” resolutions on things like the 2,560th anniversary of Confucius, but we only took two hours to consider the government takeover of the health care industry known as Obamacare; that’s simply ridiculous.  We must bring real reforms forward that make the People’s house run smarter, cheaper and more transparently.

If we do all of these things and remember to keep listening to the needs of the American people first and foremost, we can avoid the mistakes and ethical problems of the soon to be departed Democrat majority. If not, election night in 2012 could very well end up being a reverse of this year and end up being a long night for Republicans.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                             CONTACT: Joshua Gillespie
November 4, 2010                                                                                      (317) 848-0201

Rep. Burton Reasserts the Need for a Tough Stance on Border Security from President Obama

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN-05) sent a follow up letter to President Barack Obama expressing concern regarding the deteriorating security situation along the United States southern border.  The letter was sent following the deaths of five more Americans along the border region.

Rep. Burton wrote “Americans are dying; it is time to recognize that the drug violence along the border is a direct threat to the United States and to act accordingly.”

Rep. Burton urged President Obama to consider the proposals that were laid out in his initial letter from October 26th.  Those proposals included more serious dialogue with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, complete construction of a border fence to secure our border and immediate deployment of additional National Guard troops to the region.  Rep. Burton's letter to President Obama is as follows (PDF of actual letter linked):

November 4, 2010

Dear Mr. President:

    On October 26th I and four of my colleagues, sent you a letter expressing our extreme concerns regarding the deteriorating security situation along our Nation’s southern border.  Since that time five more Americans have been killed along the border region.   Protecting our borders and our citizens is a paramount responsibility of the Federal government; enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution.  I strongly urge you to consider the proposals laid out in my letter from October 26th.  Americans are dying; it is time to recognize that the drug violence along the border is a direct threat to the United States and act accordingly.

    Thank you for giving your personal time and attention to this critically important issue.


                                Sincerely,


                                Dan Burton
                                Member of Congress

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                             CONTACT: Joshua Gillespie
October 26, 2010                                                                        (317) 848-0201

Burton Demands Tough Stance on Border Security from President Obama

Washington, D.C. – Today, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN-05) along with Congressmen Ted Poe (TX-2), Ralph Hall (TX-4), Pete Olson (TX-22) and Congressman Ed Royce (CA-40) sent a letter to President Barack Obama expressing concern regarding the deteriorating security situation along the United States southern border.  The letter addresses the murder of a U.S. citizen that took place on Falcon Lake on the Texas border with Mexico.  Rep. Burton is strongly urging President Obama to pursue more serious dialogue with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, calling for complete construction of a border fence to secure our border and pushing for an immediate deployment of additional National Guard troops to the region.  Rep. Burton's letter to President Obama is as follows (PDF of actual linked):

October 26, 2010

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing to you today to express our extreme concern regarding the deteriorating security situation along our Nation’s southern border.  It seems that every day brings a new report of some atrocity; the most recent being the apparent murder of a U.S. citizen at Falcon Lake, Texas; yet little if anything appears to be being done by our government or the Mexican government to stop the bloodshed and bring the perpetrators to justice. 

Protecting our borders and our citizens is a paramount responsibility of the Federal government; enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution.  It would be an unforgiveable breach of our constitutional responsibilities if we do not take stronger measures not only to prevent the upward spiral of violence from further spilling over into the United States and threaten the safety of U.S. citizens on American soil but to reclaim those areas of our border already overrun by smugglers and criminals.  We can no longer pretend that this is simply Mexico’s problem.  The time has come to recognize that the drug violence along the border is a direct threat to the United States and act accordingly. 

First, it has become apparent that the Mexican government and law enforcement authorities are either unwilling or unable to address this problem unilaterally.  Therefore, we believe it is imperative that you immediately begin serious dialogue with President Calderon on building a comprehensive framework, in the spirit of Plan Colombia, that will better coordinate a more aggressive and proactive strategy to turn the tide of this conflict. 

Second, we must complete construction of the border fence.  Any responsibility we have to minimize the impact of the fence on the physical landscape or native species in the region pales in comparison when measured against the value of human lives that will be lost if we do not seal the border.

Finally, we believe it is critical that we deploy additional National Guard troops to the border. Media reports indicate that 17,000 National Guard troops were deployed to the Gulf region to respond to the recent oil spill.  Yet, you have only pledged 1,200 National Guard troops to protect the border – and according to media reports only a small fraction of those troops have arrived to date.  It is unrealistic, if not pure insanity, to believe that a mere 1,200 National Guard troops, even with the support of the Border Patrol, can effectively cover the nearly 2,000 mile long Southwestern border of the United States.   We must put additional bodies on the ground and we must give them the weapons and specify rules of engagement that give them the authority to do whatever is necessary to secure the border.  A National Guard trooper armed with only a pistol and given no authority to engage the enemy is useless against a criminal armed with military grade weapons and ammunition.

Mr. President, we implore you to view this situation for what it is, a war and to act accordingly.

Sincerely,

Via the Internal Revenue Service office in Indianapolis:

INDIANAPOLIS - The IRS is warning taxpayers about a new phishing scam. Phishing, a word play on “fishing” for information, is a scam in which Internet fraudsters send seemingly legitimate e-mail messages to trick unsuspecting victims into revealing personal and financial information.

Alternately, the purpose of an e-mail scam may be to download malware, or malicious code, onto the recipient’s computer when the recipient opens an attachment to the e-mail or clicks on a link within the e-mail. The malware could take over the victim’s computer hard drive, giving someone remote access to the computer, or it could look for passwords and other information and send them to the scamster. 

The IRS wants Hoosiers to be aware of a recent scam in which recipients receive an e-mail that claims to come from the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System.  EFTPS is a tax payment system that allows individuals and businesses to pay federal taxes electronically via the Internet or phone. 

“The e-mail states that tax payments made by the e-mail recipient through EFTPS have been rejected,” said Jodie Reynolds, IRS Spokesperson. “The e-mail then directs recipients to a bogus website containing malicious software that infects the intended victim’s computer. To avoid the bogus website and malware, do not click on any links, open any attachments or reply to the sender for any e-mail you may receive that claims to come from EFTPS.”

“The IRS and the Financial Management Service, the Treasury bureau that owns EFTPS, never communicates payment information through e-mail,” Jodie said.

If you receive an IRS related e-mail that you suspect is a phishing attempt or directs you to an imitation IRS website, please forward it to the IRS at phishing@irs.gov. You can also visit IRS.gov and enter the keyword phishing for additional information.