Thai protesters claim 'victory' as they occupy government headquarters

Police remove barricades and step aside to let hundreds of protesters into Government House in effort to stop violence that has consumed the Thai capital in recent days

By David Eimer, Bangkok

9:56AM GMT 03 Dec 2013

The Telegraph

An anti-government protester hugs a Thai policeman as others watch them outside city police headquarters in Bangkok (AP)

Thai riot police stand down outside the city police headquarters in Bangkok (AP)

Thailand's anti-government protesters claimed ‘victory’ in their efforts to topple the country's prime minister and ruling party on Tuesday after police removed barricades and allowed them to enter the government's headquarters.

A festival-like atmosphere reigned as protestors swarmed, unopposed, through the gates of Government House, the seat of prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra and the Pheu Thai Party in Bangkok, and gathered on the lawn in front, waving Thai flags.

The protesters had spent all weekend trying to break apart the concrete barricades and storm the prime minister's office, with police using a water cannon and tear gas to repel them.

After finally being allowed inside and celebrating on the lawn, they shouted "Victory belongs to the people!" before leaving the compound an hour later. The gates were then locked again.

The protesters were also allowed inside the Bangkok police headquarters after police took down barricades and razor wire. 

The surprise move was designed to defuse the tensions that have seen five people killed and more than 200 injured in the worst violence to engulf the Thai capital since the deadly protests of 2010. 

It also suggested the government no longer wants to confront the protesters and is willing to compromise to ease tensions ahead of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's 86th birthday on Thursday. 

“I don’t think it is complete victory, but this is very good,” said Kraisit Kitwanitkhachorn, a 31-year-old PhD student at Bangkok's Mahidol University. “Yingluck will have to go soon for sure.” 

"We wanted to come into Government House because it's a symbolic victory. But this is a victory that is not complete," added Direk Worachaisawad, a 45-year-old high school computer science teacher who was on the compound's front lawn. 

"It's not over yet. We have to keep fighting," he said. "We won't stop until all the dirt has been swept out of Thailand." 

The Thai government had earlier Tuesday ordered police confronting the anti-government protesters to stand down to avoid violence.

"The protesters said they want to seize government buildings, but the government doesn't want to see any fighting or confrontation so we've ordered the police to back off," government spokesman Teerat Ratanasevi told reporters.

"We want to avoid violence and confrontation."

Thai police also said they would not stand in the way of protesters battling to seize their headquarters, a focal point of demonstrations aiming to topple the government.

"Today, we won't use teargas, no confrontation, we will let them in if they want," the chief of Bangkok's metropolitan police, Kamronvit Thoopkrachang, said. 

 

Although protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban has vowed to continue his efforts to oust Ms Yingluck and replace the Pheu Thai government with an unelected ‘people’s council’, there is rising speculation that a deal has now been reached between the two sides.

One possible scenario may see Ms Yingluck step down and dissolve parliament. The removal of Ms Yingluck, who is widely-regarded as a proxy for her brother and former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, will mollify the protestors in the short-term. 

Pheu Thai, though, would almost certainly win any subsequent election, given its huge support among the rural and urban poor. 

Thailand remains bitterly-divided between the supporters of Mr Thaksin, who was overthrown in a military coup in 2006 and fled into exile in 2008, and his opponents among the metropolitan middle classes and traditional Thai elite. 

They regard Mr Thaksin as deeply corrupt and a threat to the authority of the revered monarch, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. 

With King Bhumibol celebrating his birthday on Thursday and rising concerns over the economic impact of the protests on Thailand’s all-important tourist trade, there is increasing pressure to resolve the political crisis that has paralysed the country for the last nine days. 

Earlier, the prime minister had said she was willing to do anything it takes to end the violent protests but made it clear she cannot accept the opposition's demand to hand power to an unelected council. Yingluck was elected with an overwhelming majority in 2011, and many observers see the protesters' demand as unreasonable if not outlandish. 

"Right now we don't see any way to resolve the problem under the constitution," she said in the brief 12-minute news conference televised live. 

Her comments highlighted the unusual political deadlock Thailand finds itself in with no clear solution in sight. The standoff intensified as protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban gave a defiant speech late Monday to thousands of cheering supporters at a government complex they seized last week when the anti-government demonstrations started. 

 

The protests have renewed fears of prolonged instability in Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy and come just ahead of the peak holiday tourist season. 

Even if Yingluck dissolves parliament and calls fresh elections, Suthep said, he will "continue the fight ... because they can always come back to suck the blood of people, steal from people, disrespect the constitution and make us their slaves." 

"If people are happy with elections and go home, I will remain here alone," he said. 

Earlier Monday, protesters commandeered garbage trucks and bulldozers, and tried to ram concrete barriers at the Government House and other key offices. Police repelled them by firing tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets, as protesters shot back explosives from homemade rocket launchers. 

At least three people were killed and more than 200 injured in the past three days of violence, which capped a week of massive street rallies that drew crowds of more than 100,000 at their peak. A Bangkok hospital confirmed that two of the people they treated Monday had suffered gunshot wounds, but it is not clear who shot them. The police say they have not used live rounds. 

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is "concerned" about the situation in Thailand and urges all sides to exercise "utmost restraint," his spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said. 

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the US was also encouraging restraint and political dialogue. She told reporters that violence and seizure of public or private property "are not acceptable means of resolving political differences." 

The European Union said it was saddened by the violent escalation of previously peaceful demonstrations, and very concerned over occupation of public offices and intimidation of media. "We believe that the response of the Thai authorities has so far been restrained and proportionate," EU heads of mission in Thailand said in a statement. 

The protesters, who are mostly middle-class Bangkok supporters of the opposition Democrat Party, accuse Yingluck of being a proxy for her brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. He was deposed in a 2006 military coup but remains central to Thailand's political crisis, and is a focal point for the protester's hatred. 

The protesters say their goal is to uproot the political machine of Thaksin, who is accused of widespread corruption and abuse of power.

"Come and join the people to get rid of the Thaksin regime and we can work together to change Thailand into a pure and democratic country," said Suthep who has projected his fight as a non-violent campaign for democracy. 

Still, he called on his supporters to attack and take over the Bangkok Metropolitan Police headquarters on Tuesday, saying the police were a lackey of Thaksin and Yingluck. 

"We're going to gather all our forces and we're going to take over the Metropolitan Police Bureau and make it the people's," he said.

Monday's violence took place around key institutions -- the Government House, the Parliament and Metropolitan Police Bureau in the historic quarter of the capital. The area has some of Bangkok's main tourist attractions such as the Grand Palace, Wat Pho temple, the Bangkok zoo, and the backpacker area of Khao San Road. Most of Bangkok, a city of 10 million, has been unaffected. 

Analyst Thitinan Pongsudhirak told The Associated Press that while Suthep's demands may appear "bold and blatant," they go down well with the people ... who think that the electoral system can never be trusted and therefore they have to set up their own government and rewrite the rules." 

The protesters' numbers have dwindled from a peak of 100,000-plus a week ago but hardcore groups have remained at the frontline, fighting running battles with the police. 

In her news conference, Yingluck stuck a conciliatory tone, repeatedly pleading for negotiations, and implied she was willing to hold fresh elections if that helped. 

"I am not against either resignation or dissolution of parliament if this solution will stop the protests," she said. "The government is not trying to cling to power." 

"If there's anything I can do to bring peace back to the Thai people I am happy to do it," Yingluck said. "The government is more than willing to have talks, but I myself cannot see a way out of this problem that is within the law and in the constitution." 

She and Suthep met briefly on Sunday in the presence of top military leaders, even though he had an arrest warrant against him. A second arrest warrant was issued Monday on charges of insurrection. His sustained campaign has raised suggestions that he may have the backing of the military, which has long had a powerful influence over Thai politics. The army has often stepped in during times of crisis, carrying out 18 successful or attempted coups since the 1930s. 

But this time, if the army does anything, "it will be with great hesitation" because it would have no support internationally and would find it tough to install a new civilian government acceptable to all, said Thitinan, director of Chulalongkorn's Institute of Security and International Studies. 

"So this is something the army wants to avoid. It has stayed on the sidelines for now. And if it does (act), I think we can look at more turmoil down the road, I am afraid," he said. 

Political instability has plagued Thailand since the military ousted Thaksin, who remains hugely popular among rural voters, in 2006. Two years later, anti-Thaksin protesters occupied Bangkok's two airports for a week after taking over the prime minister's office for three months, and in 2010 pro-Thaksin protesters occupied downtown Bangkok for weeks in a standoff that ended with parts of the city in flames and more than 90 dead. 

"I believe that no one wants to see a repeat of history, where we saw the people suffer and lose their lives," Yingluck said.

Kepulauan Melayu

Kepulauan Melayu adalah kepulauan terbesar dan mempunyai paling banyak gunung berapi di dunia. Ia meliputi seluruh Indonesia, Filipina, Brunei, Timor Leste dan Malaysia Timur, tetapi kadang-kala ia turut meliputi Pulau Papua atau dikenali sebagai Pulau Irian.

Kepulauan ini meliputi 2 juta km persegi dengan populasi seramai 300 juta. Pulau terbesar ialah Borneo dan Sumatra manakala pulau terpadat ialah Jawa. Puncak tertinggi ialah Gunung Kinabalu di Sabah, Malaysia.

Secara amnya, kepulauan ini terbahagi kepada empat bahagian iaitu:

Kepulauan Melayu Barat

Nusa Tenggara
Kepulauan Maluku
Filipina

Iklim di sepanjang kepulauan ini ialah Tropika kerana kedudukannya di Khatulistiwa.

Kepulauan ini juga mempunyai beberapa gunung berapi paling aktif di dunia.
 

Antara pulau-pulau terletak di kepulauan ini ialah:

Sumatra, Jawa, Borneo, Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Timor, Sulawesi, Luzon, Mindanao

 

Cerita Hang Tuah

 

Hang Tuah ialah seorang pahlawan legenda berbangsa Melayu pada masa pemerintahan Kesultanan Melaka di abad ke-15 (Kesultanan Melayu Melaka) bermula pada 1400-1511 A.D. Menurut rekod sejarah, beliau lahir di Kampung Sungai Duyong, Melaka kira-kira dalam tahun 1444 A.D. Bapanya bernama Hang Mahmud manakala ibunya pula ialah Dang Merdu Wati. Bapanya juga pernah menjadi hulubalang istana yang handal suatu ketika dulu, begitulah juga ibunya yang merupakan keturunan dayang di istana. Hang Tuah ialah Laksamana yang terkenal dengan kesetiaannya kepada Raja dan merupakan petarung silat yang amat handal dan tiada tolok bandingnya.

 

Hang Tuah dan empat orang kawannya: Hang Jebat, Hang Kasturi, Hang Lekir dan Hang Lekiu menuntut ilmu bersama Adiputra di Gunung Ledang. Selesai menuntut ilmu, mereka berlima kembali ke kota Melaka.

Pada suatu hari, mereka berjaya menyelamatkan Dato' Bendahara (iaitu Perdana Menteri) daripada seorang lelaki yang sedang mengamuk. Dato' Bendahara kagum dengan ketangkasan mereka dan menjemput mereka semua ke rumahnya dan seterusnya mengambil mereka untuk bertugas di istana.

Sejak itu Hang Tuah dan sahabat-sahabatnya amat disayangi oleh Sultan hinggalah Hang Tuah mendapat gelar Laksamana. Semasa mengiringi Sultan Melaka ke Majapahit di tanah Jawa, Hang Tuah telah berjaya membunuh seorang pendekar Jawa bernama Taming Sari. Dalam pertarungan itu Taming Sari, seorang pendekar yang kebal yang tidak dapat dilukakan. Tetapi Hang Tuah mengetahui bahawa kekebalan Taming Sari terletak pada kerisnya. Oleh itu Hang Tuah berjaya merampas keris berkenaan dan membunuh Taming Sari. Keris itu kemudiannya dianugerahkan oleh Betara Majapahit kepada Hang Tuah. Pemilik keris ini akan turut menjadi kebal seperti pendekar Jawa Taming Sari.

Hang Tuah telah diutuskan ke Pahang bagi mendapatkan Tun Teja untuk dijadikan permaisuri Sultan Melaka. Ketika Hang Tuah ke Pahang, Melor turun dari Gunung Ledang mencari Hang Tuah. Melor telah ditawan oleh Tun Ali atas hasutan Patih Karma Vijaya bagi dijadikan gundik Sultan. Atas muslihat Tun Ali juga, Hang Tuah yang kembali dari Pahang akhirnya dapat berjumpa Melor, tetapi Sultan juga turut menyaksikan perbuatan Hang Tuah itu. Melor dan Hang Tuah dihukum bunuh kerana difitnah berzina dengan Melor yang telah menjadi gundik Sultan. Namun, hukuman mati tidak dilaksanakan oleh Bendahara sebaliknya Hang Tuah disembunyikannya di sebuah hutan di Hulu Melaka.

Hang Jebat telah dilantik oleh Sultan menjadi Laksamana menggantikan Hang Tuah dan keris Taming Sari telah dianugerahkan kepada Hang Jebat. Hang Jebat sebagai sahabat karib Hang Tuah, menyangka bahawa Hang Tuah telah teraniaya dan telah menjalani hukuman mati. Hang Jebat (menurut Hikayat Hang Tuah) atau Hang Kasturi (menurut Sejarah Melayu), bertindak derhaka kepada Sultan dan mengambil alih istana. Tidak ada pendekar atau panglima di Melaka yang dapat menentang Hang Jebat (atau Hang Kasturi) yang telah menjadi kebal kerana adanya keris Taming Sari di tangannya.

Sultan Mahmud terpaksa melarikan diri dan berlindung di rumah Bendahara. Pada masa itu baginda baru menyesal kerana membunuh Hang Tuah yang tidak bersalah. Inilah masanya Bendahara memberitahu yang Hang Tuah masih hidup. Hang Tuah kemudiannya telah dipanggil pulang dan dititahkan membunuh Hang Jebat. Setelah tujuh hari bertarung, Hang Tuah akhirnya berjaya merampas semula Taming Sarinya daripada Hang Jebat dan membunuhnya.

Dalam pertarungan yang sedih ini, Hang Jebat telah cuba membela sahabatnya yang telah difitnah. Namun begitu, Hang Tuah telah membantu sultan yang sebelum itu menghukumnya tanpa sebarang alasan. Sedangkan Abu Bakar Siddiq R.A juga berkata kepada orang Muslim bahawa jika dia bersalah, rakyat boleh menjatuhkannya. Ternyata, kesilapan Hang Tuah yang tidak berfikir bahawa Allah S.W.T lebih berkuasa dari sultan dan memang tidak salah Hang Jebat cuba menegakkan kebenaran. Tragedi ini masih menjadi perbalahan orang melayu sampai sekarang.

 

Namun begitu, ada juga yang menyokong Hang Tuah. Ini kerana Hang Jebat bukan saja derhaka kepada sultan bahkan telah membunuh ramai orang/rakyat Melaka yang tidak berdosa dengan mengamuk di dalam istana dan seluruh Melaka. Tindakan Hang Tuah yang membunuh Hang Jebat mungkin satu tindakan yang berupa hukuman mati terhadap pembunuh.

Sumpah yang terkenal daripada Hang Tuah ialah "Tak Melayu hilang di dunia" yang bererti bangsa Melayu tidak akan punah di bumi ini.

 

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT AIRLINES, AIRPORTS AND AIR TRAVELING

• All International Airline Pilots speaks English.

• Flights longer than 8 hours require 3 pilots (1 captain and 2 first officers) to rotate flying duties.

 Flights longer than 12 hours require 4 pilots (1 captain and 3 first     officers). They usually fly 3-4hour shifts.

•Each airline pilot flying the aircraft, eats a different meal to minimize the risk of all pilots on board being ill.

•On average, pilots fly between 9 and 14 days a month (Indian company pilots fly 24 to 26 days)

•All airlines have an agreement to let each others' travelling pilots occupy empty seats. If no seats are available, the traveling pilot can also occupy an extra seat in the cockpit that is usually empty.

•The main function of flight attendants are for the safety and security of their passengers, and passenger comfort is only secondary.

•The first female flight attendants in 1930 were required to weigh less than 115 pounds. In addition, they had to be nurses and unmarried.

•Flight attendants must not have any tattoos visible when a uniform is worn. These requirements are designed to give the airlines a positive representation.

•The normal ratio of Flight Attendants to passenger seats is one Flight Attendant for every 50 passenger seats.

•The height requirement for Flight Attendant is for safety reasons, making sure that all flight attendants can reach overhead safety equipment.

•The normal ratio of Lavatories to passengers is approximately one lavatory for every 50 passengers.

•An air traveler can lose approximately 1.5 liters of water in the body during a three-hour flight.

•The reason why the lights are turned out during takeoff and landing–Is for your eyes to adjust to lower levels of light. If there's an accident and they have to activate the emergency slides, studies

have shown that you will be able to see better and therefore be able to evacuate more quickly and safely.

•The World’s largest Airline in terms of Fleet Size is Delta Airlines United States) with 744 aircraft and 121 aircraft on order as of March 2011.

•The largest passenger plane is the Airbus 380 - nearly 240 feet long, almost 80 feet high, and has a wingspan of more than 260 feet. The double-decker plane has a standard seating capacity of 55 passengers.

•The world’s busiest airport in terms of passenger volume or the number of takeoffs and landings, is Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Atlanta, Georgia, United States – with more than 88 million passengers shuffled through the Atlanta airport in 2009, with another 20 million in the first three months of 2010, and with aircraft take-off and landings approximately every 37 seconds.

•The Internet/On-Line check-in was first used by Alaskan Airlines in 1999.

•The world’s Largest Airport is Kansai International Airport, Osaka, Japan (as of 2011). By 2013 Al Maktoum International Airport in Jebel Ali, Dubai, United Arab Emirates is planned to be the largest

airport in the world.

•The airport with the longest runway in the world is Qamdo Bangda Airport in the Peoples Republic of China with 5.50 kilometers in length (as of 2011).

•American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by removing 1 olive from each salad served in first class.

•In 2009, Southwest served 63.2 million cans of soda, juices, and water; 14.3 million alcoholic beverages; 14 million bags of pretzels; 90 million bags of peanuts; 17.7 million Select-A-Snacks; and

33.5 million other snacks.

•Singapore Airlines spends about $700 million on food every year and $16 million on wine alone. First class passengers consume 20,000 bottles of alcohol every month and Singapore Airlines is the second largest buyer of Dom Perignon champagne in the world.

•Cathay Pacific carries rice cookers, toasters, cappuccino makers and skillets on board their airplanes.

•KLM of Netherlands stands for Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (meaning Royal Dutch Airlines).

•KLM is the worlds' oldest airline established in 1919.

•QANTAS - Australia’s national airline, originally stood for Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service.

•QANTAS is the second world’s oldest airline established in 1920.

•QANTAS still has the world's best safety record with no crashes as of 2011.

•Virgin Atlantic lists catering as their third biggest expense, after fuel and maintenance.

•American Airlines spent about $425 million on food for domestic passengers in 2001.

•In one year, British Airways passengers consume:

* 40.5 tons of chicken
* 6 tons of caviar
* 22 tons of smoked salmon
* 557,507 boxes of chocolate
* 90 thousand cases (9 liter cases) of sparkling wine.

•Abu Dhabi Airport Services once did a complete turn-around for a Boeing 777 in under 40 minutes, as opposed to a normal minimum of one hour. They unloaded passengers, cargo, mail, cleaned the aircraft, and loaded outbound passengers, cargo and mail in that short time.

•In 2001, Dubai Duty Free sold 1,570,214 cartons of cigarettes, 2,003,151 bottles of liquor, 2,909 kilograms of gold, 101,824 watches, 690,502 bottles of perfume, 52,119 mobile phones.

•In-flight catering is an $18 billion worldwide industry employing up to 200,000 people.

*Delta Airline was the first to introduce air bridge, which saved travelers lengthy walk from the plane to the terminal.

NOW YOU KNOW

Intelligence chief defends Internet spying program

Date 13-06-2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Eager to quell a domestic furor over U.S. spying, the nation’s top intelligence official stressed Saturday that a previously undisclosed program for tapping into Internet usage is authorized by Congress, falls under strict supervision of a secret court and cannot intentionally target a U.S. citizen. He decried the revelation of that and another intelligence-gathering program as reckless.

For the second time in three days, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper took the rare step of declassifying some details of an intelligence program to respond to media reports about counterterrorism techniques employed by the government.

“Disclosing information about the specific methods the government uses to collect communications can obviously give our enemies a ‘playbook’ of how to avoid detection,” he said in a statement.

Clapper said the data collection under the program, first unveiled by the newspapers The Washington Post and The Guardian, was with the approval of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court and with the knowledge of Internet service providers. He emphasized that the government does not act unilaterally to obtain that data from the servers of those providers.

Clapper’s reaction came a day after President Barack Obama defended the counterterrorism methods and said Americans need to “make some choices” in balancing privacy and security. But the president’s response and Clapper’s unusual public stance underscore the nerve touched by the disclosures and the sensitivity of the Obama administration to any suggestion that it is trampling on the civil liberties of Americans.

Late Thursday, Clapper declassified some details of a phone records collection program employed by the National Security Agency that aims to obtain from phone companies on an “ongoing, daily basis” the records of its customers’ calls. Clapper said that under that court-supervised program, only a small fraction of the records collected ever get examined because most are unrelated to any inquiries into terrorism activities.

His statement and declassification Saturday addressed the Internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, that allowed the NSA and FBI to tap directly into the servers of major U.S. Internet companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and AOL. Like the phone-records program, PRISM was approved by a judge in a secret court order. Unlike that program, however, PRISM allowed the government to seize actual conversations: emails, video chats, instant messages and more.

Clapper said the program, authorized in the USA Patriot Act, has been in place since 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush administration, and “has proven vital to keeping the nation and our allies safe.

“It continues to be one of our most important tools for the protection of the nation’s security,” he said.

Among the previously classified information about the Internet data collection that Clapper revealed:

—It is an internal government computer system that allows the government to collect foreign intelligence information from electronic communication service providers under court supervision.

—The government does not unilaterally obtain information from the servers of U.S. electronic communication service providers. It requires approval from a FISA Court judge and is conducted with the knowledge of the provider and service providers supply information when they are legally required to do so.

—The program seeks foreign intelligence information concerning foreign targets located outside the United States.

—The government cannot target anyone under the program unless there is an “appropriate, and documented, foreign intelligence purpose” for the acquisition. Those purposes include prevention of terrorism, hostile cyber activities or nuclear proliferation. The foreign target must be reasonably believed to be outside the United States. It cannot intentionally target any U.S. citizen or any person known to be in the U.S.

—The dissemination of information “incidentally intercepted” about a U.S. person is prohibited unless it is “necessary to understand foreign intelligence or assess its importance, is evidence of a crime, or indicates a threat of death or serious bodily harm.

The Post and the Guardian cited confidential slides and other documents about PRISM for their reports. They named Google, Facebook, Microsoft Corp., Apple Inc., Yahoo Inc., AOL Inc. and Paltalk as companies whose data has been obtained.

All the companies have issued statements asserting that they aren’t voluntarily handing over user data. They also are emphatically rejecting newspaper reports indicating that PRISM has opened a door for the NSA to tap directly on the companies’ data centers whenever the government pleases.

In his statement, Clapper appeared to support that claim by stressing that the government did not act unilaterally, but with court authority.

The Guardian reported Saturday that it had obtained top-secret documents detailing an NSA tool, called Boundless Informant, that maps the information it collects from computer and telephone networks by country. The paper said the documents show NSA collected almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from U.S. computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March, which the paper says calls into question NSA statements that it cannot determine how many Americans may be accidentally included in its computer surveillance.

NSA spokesperson Judith Emmel said Saturday that “current technology simply does not permit us to positively identify all of the persons or locations associated with a given communication.” She said it may be possible to determine that a communication “traversed a particular path within the Internet,” but added that “it is harder to know the ultimate source or destination, or more particularly the identity of the person represented by the TO:, FROM: or CC: field of an e-mail address or the abstraction of an IP address.”

Emmel said communications are filtered both by automated processes and NSA staff to make sure Americans’ privacy is respected.

“This is not just our judgment, but that of the relevant inspectors general, who have also reported this,” she said.

Amid unsettling reports of government spying, Obama assured the nation Friday that “nobody is listening to your telephone calls. What the government is doing, he said, is digesting phone numbers and the durations of calls, seeking links that might “identify potential leads with respect to folks who might engage in terrorism.”

While Obama on Friday said the aim of the programs is to make America safe, he offered no specifics about how the surveillance programs have done that. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., on Thursday said the phone records sweeps had thwarted a domestic terror attack, but he also didn’t offer specifics.

The revelations have divided Congress and led civil liberties advocates and some constitutional scholars to accuse Obama of crossing a line in the name of rooting out terror threats.

Obama, himself a constitutional lawyer, strove to calm Americans’ fears but also to remind them that Congress and the courts had signed off on the surveillance.

“I think the American people understand that there are some trade-offs involved,” he said when questioned by reporters at a health care event in San Jose, Calif.

Obama echoed intelligence experts — both inside and outside the government — who predicted that potential attackers will find other, secretive ways to communicate now that they know that their phone and Internet records may be targeted.

An al-Qaida affiliated website on Saturday warned against using the Internet to discuss issues related to militant activities in three long articles on what it called “America’s greatest and unprecedented scandal of spying on its own citizens and people in other countries.”

“Caution: Oh brothers, it is a great danger revealing PRISM, the greatest American spying project,” wrote one member, describing the NSA program that gathers information from major U.S. Internet companies.

“A highly important caution for the Internet jihadis … American intelligence gets information from Facebook and Google,” wrote another.

Former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., who served on the House Intelligence Committee for a decade, said “the bad folks’ antennas go back up and they become more cautious for a period of time.”

“But we’ll just keep coming up with more sophisticated ways to dig into these data. It becomes a techies game, and we will try to come up with new tools to cut through the clutter,” he said.

Hoekstra said he approved the phone surveillance program but did not know about the online spying.