German Holocaust Archive Publishes

German Holocaust archive publishes inventory online

BERLIN (AP)— The International Tracing Service says it has published its Holocaust-era inventory online, offering an overview of holdings that include some 30 million documents on Nazi persecution, forced labor and the fates of survivors.

The archive, located in Bad Arolsen, Germany, said Monday that parts of the holdings that had undergone only preliminary indexing were also included. More detailed descriptions will be added gradually.

The ITS was established by the Western Allies in the final days of World War II and initially run by the Red Cross to help uncover the fates of Holocaust victims and others.

In 2007, scholars and researchers were allowed access to the documents, beginning the archive’s transformation from a tracing service to a research institution. The overview aims to help researchers prepare for visiting the archive.

****

picture shows: map presentations of deathmarches

There is a great deal of interest worldwide in the documents of the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) about former victims of Nazi persecution and the liberated survivors. A small part of this collection, which since 2013 is inscribed onto the UNESCO “Memory of the World” register, can now be viewed in a new online archive. The ITS has uploaded three collections in an initial step including photos of personal objects that were taken from the prisoners in the concentration camps. Also available are a collection on the death marches as well as files from the Child Search Branch from the time immediately following the liberation of Nazi victims.

Wallets with photos, engraved wedding rings, fashion jewellery, letters or identification papers: While being deported to concentration camps prisoners were usually only carrying the few things they had on them at the time of their arrest. Such personal belongings that were taken from the prisoners when they arrived at concentration camps are the so called “personal effects”. The International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen is still in possession of  personal effects of some 3,200 former prisoners, 2,700 of whom are known by name. Of course, personal belongings of prisoners can also be found at other memorial sites and museums, yet knowing the name of the original owners is only possible in the rarest of cases.

The personal belongings generally have little material value but a high sentimental value for family members. More often than not they are a last personal memento. The goal of the ITS is to return the personal belongings to the former prisoners and their family members. Every year this is made possible in some cases, very often through cooperation with memorial sites and partner organizations or through journalistic research. Occasionally family members themselves contact the ITS, in this way also enabling the return of personal effects.

The personal effects are mainly from the concentration camps Neuengamme and Dachau. In addition there are some personal belongings from prisoners of the Hamburg Gestapo, concentration camps Natzweiler and Bergen-Belsen, as well as the transit camps Amersfoort and Compiègne.

Palestinian Truck Attack Kills 4 in Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, this afternoon (Sunday, 8 January 2017), visited the site of the terrorist attack in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon Hanatziv and were briefed by Jerusalem District Police Commander Yoram Halevy.  

Prime Minister Netanyahu:  

“We in Jerusalem have just experience an unprovoked terrorist attack, a murderous attack that claimed the lives of four young Israelis and wounded others. This is part of the same pattern inspired by Islamic State, by ISIS, that we saw first in France, then in Germany and now in Jerusalem. This is part of the same ongoing battle against this global scourge of the new terrorism. We can only fight it together, but we have to fight it, and we will.”

In part from Reuters: A Palestinian rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers on a popular promenade in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four of them in an attack which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said had likely been inspired by Islamic State.

It was the deadliest Palestinian attack in Jerusalem in months and targeted officer cadets as they disembarked from a bus that brought them to the Armon Hanatziv promenade which has a panoramic view of the walled Old City.

The military said an officer and three officer cadets were killed and that 17 others were injured. Police said three of the dead were women.

Police identified the truck driver as a Palestinian from Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem and said he was shot dead. His uncle, Abu Ali, named him as Fadi Ahmad Hamdan Qunbor, 28, a father of four from the Jabel Mukabar neighborhood.

The Israeli military regularly takes soldiers on educational tours of Jerusalem, including the Armon Hanatziv vantage point.

Netanyahu visited the scene and said he convened a forum of senior ministers to discuss Israel’s response.

“We know the identity of the attacker. According to all the signs he is a supporter of Islamic State,” the prime minister said.

Roni Alsheich, the national police chief, told reporters he could not rule out that the driver had been motivated by a truck ramming attack in a Berlin Christmas market that killed 12 people last month.

In another attack claimed by Islamic State in which a truck was used to ram into crowds, nearly 90 people were killed in the French city of Nice in July.

Actions inspired by Islamic State in Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem have been rare and only a few dozen Arab Israelis and Palestinians are known to have declared their sympathy with the group.

A wave of Palestinian street attacks, including vehicle rammings, has largely slowed but not stopped completely since it began in October 2015 and 37 Israelis and two visiting Americans have been killed in these assaults. More here from Reuters.

****

REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

AP: The attacker came from the east Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, near the attack site. Police barred publication of his name.

Neighbors said he espoused an ultra-conservative version of Islam, known as Salafism, but that he did not have a known affiliation with any Palestinian political faction. Salafism is split into peaceful and violent streams, with the latter promoting ideas that are close to those of IS.

Netanyahu said Israel had blockaded Jabel Mukaber and was planning other steps, but did not elaborate. He said the dead were all soldiers — three women and a man. The Israeli military said three were cadets and one was an officer.

Israel’s national rescue service said one of the wounded was in serious condition. More here from Associated Press.

 

Dear America, Please Honor my Presidency. Love, Barack

Cabinet Exit Memos: Our Record of Progress and the Work Ahead   <– Click for the charts/graphs included. Obama is expected to deliver a farewell address on Tuesday in Chicago.

 

Obama defends legacy in letter to American people

To my fellow Americans,

Eight years ago, America faced a moment of peril unlike any we’d seen in decades.

A spiraling financial crisis threatened to plunge an economy in recession into a deep depression. The very heartbeat of American manufacturing — the American auto industry — was on the brink of collapse. In some communities, nearly one in five Americans were out of work. Nearly 180,000 American troops were serving in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the mastermind of the worst terror attack on American soil remained at large. And on challenges from health care to climate change, we’d been kicking the can down the road for way too long.

But in the depths of that winter, on January 20, 2009, I stood before you and swore a sacred oath. I told you that day that the challenges we faced would not be met easily or in a short span of time — but they would be met. And after eight busy years, we’ve met them — because of you.

Eight years later, an economy that was shrinking at more than eight percent is now growing at more than three percent. Businesses that were bleeding jobs unleashed the longest streak of job creation on record. The auto industry has roared its way back, saving one million jobs across the country and fueling a manufacturing sector that, after a decade of decline, has added new jobs for the first time since the 1990s. And wages have grown faster over the past few years than at any time in the past forty.

Today, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, another 20 million American adults know the financial security and peace of mind that comes with health insurance. Another three million children have gained health insurance. For the first time ever, more than ninety percent of Americans are insured — the highest rate ever. We’ve seen the slowest growth in the price of health care in fifty years, along with improvements in patient safety that have prevented an estimated 87,000 deaths. Every American with insurance is covered by the strongest set of consumer protections in history — a true Patients’ Bill of Rights — and free from the fear that illness or accident will derail your dreams, because America is now a place where discrimination against preexisting conditions is a relic of the past. And the new health insurance marketplace means that if you lose your job, change your job, or start that new business, you’ll finally be able to purchase quality, affordable care and the security and peace of mind that comes with it — and that’s one  reason why entrepreneurship is growing for the second straight year.

Our dependence on foreign oil has been cut by more than half, and our production of renewable energy has more than doubled. In many places across the country, clean energy from the wind is now cheaper than dirtier sources of energy, and solar now employs more Americans than coal mining in jobs that pay better than average and can’t be outsourced. We also enacted the most sweeping reforms since the Great Depression to protect consumers and prevent a crisis on Wall Street from punishing Main Street ever again. These actions didn’t stifle growth, as critics predicted. Instead, the stock market has nearly tripled. Since I signed Obamacare into law, America’s businesses have added more than 15 million new jobs. And the economy is undoubtedly more durable than it was in the days when we relied on oil from unstable nations and banks took risky bets with your money.

The high school graduation rate is now 83 percent — the highest on record — and we’ve helped more young people graduate from college than ever before.

At the same time, we’ve worked to offer more options for Americans who decide not to pursue college, from expanding apprenticeships, to launching high-tech manufacturing institutes, to revamping the job training system and creating programs like TechHire to help people train for higher-paying jobs in months, not years. We’ve connected more schools across the country to broadband internet, and supported more teachers to bring coding, hands-on making, and computational thinking into our classrooms to prepare all our children for a 21st century economy.

Add it all up, and last year, the poverty rate fell at the fastest rate in almost fifty years while the median household income grew at the fastest rate on record. And we’ve done it all while cutting our deficits by nearly two-thirds even as we protected investments that grow the middle class.

Meanwhile, over the past eight years, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland. Plots have been disrupted. Terrorists like Osama bin Laden have been taken off the battlefield. We’ve drawn down from nearly 180,000 troops in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan to just 15,000. With a coalition of more than 70 nations and a relentless campaign of more than 16,000 airstrikes so far, we are breaking the back of ISIL and taking away its safe havens, and we’ve accomplished this at a cost of $10 billion over two years — the same amount that we spent in one month at the height of the Iraq War.

At the same time, America has led the world to meet a set of global challenges. Through diplomacy, we shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program, opened up a new chapter with the people of Cuba, and brought nearly 200 nations together around a climate agreement that could save this planet for our kids. With new models for development, American assistance is helping people around the world feed themselves, care for their sick, and power communities across Africa. And almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago. All of this progress is due to the service of millions of Americans in intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security, diplomacy, and the brave men and women of our Armed Forces — the most diverse institution in America.

We’ve also worked to make the changing face of America more fair and more just — including by making strides towards criminal justice reform, making progress towards equal pay, repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and advancing the cause of civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBT rights. I appointed two extraordinary women to the Supreme Court, marking the first time in history that three women sit on the bench, including the first Latina. And today in America, marriage equality is finally a reality across all fifty states.

This is where America stands after eight years of progress. By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was when we started — a situation I’m proud to leave for my successor. And it’s thanks to you — to the hard work you’ve put in; the sacrifices you’ve made for your families and communities; the way you’ve looked out for one another.

Still, through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy, and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime. And for all that we’ve achieved, there’s still so much I wish we’d been able to do, from enacting gun safety measures to protect more of our kids and our cops from mass shootings like Newtown, to passing commonsense immigration reform that encourages the best and brightest from around the world to study, stay, and create jobs in America.

And for all the incredible progress our economy has made in just eight years, we still have more work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a dignified retirement. We have to acknowledge the inequality that has come from an increasingly globalized economy while committing ourselves to making it work better for everyone, not just those at the top, and give everyone who works hard a fair shot at success.

 And here’s the thing — over the past eight years, we’ve shown that we can. Last year, income gains were actually larger for households at the bottom and the middle than for those at the top. We’ve also made the tax code fairer. The tax changes enacted over the past eight years have ensured that the top one percent of Americans pay more of their fair share, increasing the share of income received by all other families by more than the tax changes in any previous administration since at least 1960. Simply put, we’ve actually begun the long task of reversing inequality. But as the global economy changes, we’ll have to do more to accelerate these trends, from strengthening unions that speak for workers, to preventing colleges from pricing out hardworking students, to making sure that minimum wage workers get a raise and women finally get paid the same as men for doing the same job. What won’t help is taking health care away from 30 million Americans, most of them white and working class; denying overtime pay to workers, most of whom have more than earned it; or privatizing Medicare  and Social Security and letting Wall Street regulate itself again — none of which middle-class Americans voted for.

We will have to move forward as we always have — together. As a people who believe that out of many, we are one; that we are bound not by any one race or religion, but rather an adherence to a common creed; that all of us are created equal in the eyes of God. And I’m confident we will. Because the change we’ve brought about these past eight years was never about me. It was about you. It is you, the American people, who have made the progress of the last eight years possible. It is you who will make our future progress possible. That, after all, is the story of America — a story of progress. However halting, however incomplete, however harshly challenged at each point on our journey — the story of America is a story of progress.

Recently, I asked each member of my talented and dedicated Cabinet to prepare a detailed report on the progress we’ve made across the board these past eight years, and the work that remains to make this country we love even stronger. Today, I’m sharing them with you. And I hope you’ll share them with others, and do your part to build on the progress we’ve made across the board.

It has been the privilege of my life to serve as your President. And as I prepare to pass the baton and do my part as a private citizen, I’m proud to say that we have laid a new foundation for America. A new future is ours to write. And I’m as confident as ever that it will be led by the United States of America — and that our best days are still ahead.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Image result for obama white house chair

Gitmo Detainees Transfer Announced

The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of four detainees: Salem Ahmad Hadi Bin Kanad, Muhammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanim, Abdallah Yahya Yusif Al-Shibli, and Muhammad Ali Abdallah Muhammad Bwazir from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As directed by the president’s Jan. 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of these cases.

As a result of those reviews, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Al-Shibli and Bwazir were unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force. Periodic Review Boards consisting of representatives from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and State; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence determined continued law of war detention of Kanad and Ghanim does not remain necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.

As a result of those reviews, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Kanad and Ghanim were recommended for transfer by consensus of the six departments and agencies comprising the Periodic Review Board. The Periodic Review Board process was established by the president’s March 7, 2011 Executive Order 13567.

Date of Periodic Review Board final determination:

Salem Ahmad Hadi Bin Kanad              May 5, 2016

Muhammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanim July 6, 2016

The United States is grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures. Today, 55 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.

****

Ibrahim Qosi (above): Freed in 2012 to Sudan. Two years later, became a leader in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula  and has been featured in the terror group’s videos. The group has a at least three other senior members who were in Guantanamo and freed. It has taken credit for a string of international terror attacks, including the Charlie Hebdo shooting in 2015 and the attempted Christmas Day ‘underwear’ bombing in 2009.

Obama plans mass transfer of fanatics who have threatened to bomb and behead Americans

The group being released will be drawn from those held at Guantanamo – who include an accused senior al Qaeda bomb-maker, the terror group’s top financial manager, and two intended 9/11 hijackers, who have all been held in the Cuba-based U.S. detention facility for more than a decade.

According to a military source briefed on the process, 22 detainees are being prepared for transfer out of the camp, also known as Gitmo, before January 20.

Although the White House has not specified which inmates will be transferred out – or which foreign countries have agreed to accept them – it has indicated that this will be a priority for Obama in his final days in office.

‘I can’t speak to any individual notifications that have been made to Congress or give you a specific preview about upcoming transfers,’ said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

Obama will likely focus on moving the 23 detainees who have been ‘cleared for transfer’ – a group that includes the alleged head of al Qaeda’s bomb-manufacturing operation in eastern Afghanistan, the head of al Qaeda’s Tunisian faction in Afghanistan, and senior weapons trainers.

Those held in Guantanamo in recent years have been dubbed ‘the worst of the worst’ by military and intelligence officials. More here.

 

 

Cruz: Obama ‘rolled over’ on hacking and Trump gets Advice

He is right and the proof most recently was in February of 2016, with the posted Executive Orders.

WASHINGTON — Through two executive orders signed Tuesday, President Obama put in place a structure to fortify the government’s defenses against cyber attacks and protect the personal information the government keeps about its citizens.

The orders came the same day as Obama sent to Congress a proposed 2017 budget that includes $19 billion for information technology upgrades and other cyber initiatives.

In September of 2015, Obama held a meeting on cyber with China’s Xi. Perhaps there was no formal sanction or punishment of China due in part to the U.S. debt they hold. Obama also held meetings with key Congressional leaders in 2015 on the issue of cyber. Going back to 2013, Obama held sessions with corporate CEO’s to discuss efforts to improve cybersecurity amid growing concerns within the administration over attacks from China targeting American businesses.

The president will discuss efforts to address the cyber threat facing the country and get the executives’ feedback on how the government and private sector can forge a relationship to improve cybersecurity in the United States, according to The White House. The meeting will be held in the Situation Room and attendees include AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and Northrup Grumman CEO Wesley Bush.

Not until February of 2016, did Obama launch the Cybersecurity National Action Plan which was headed by Tom Donilon, his National Security Advisor and Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM. There was no traction and given the recent cyber intrusions, there is likely a LOT of ‘ooops’ coming from the White House and should. No corporation, bank, government agency or other private entity ever wants to publically announced they have been hacked or their vulnerability, as it only invites more cyber chaos but the United States including top government agencies and the White House along with the State Department have all been victim of both Russian and Chinese cyber attacks of various forms.

***

Sen. Ted Cruz says he hopes the incoming Trump administration is tougher on dealing with cyberattacks than the “weakness” he saw from President Obama on hacking by Russia and other foreign adversaries.

“One of the reasons these cyberattacks are so prevalent is that Barack Obama and his administration have rolled over for eight years,” Cruz said Thursday on “The Mike Gallagher Show.”

“They have shown nothing but weakness and appeasement in the face of those attacks. This is something I hope and believe will change with the new administration,” he said.

Cruz insisted neither Russian hacking nor WikiLeaks revelations last year about the Democratic Party significantly influenced Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

“I think that there’s no evidence whatsoever that Russia’s efforts against us, which have been longstanding, did anything to affect the campaign,” said Cruz, who competed against Trump in last year’s GOP primaries.

“It’s, frankly, patently absurd,” Cruz added of claims Russia or WikiLeaks helped Trump win. “You can’t credibly argue that [WikiLeaks’] disclosures impacted the election because most voters never heard it.” More here from TheHill.

****

Task Force Issues Cybersecurity Advice to Donald Trump

‘From Awareness to Action: A Cybersecurity Agenda for the 45th President’

A task force co-chaired by two U.S. lawmakers and a former federal CIO is issuing a 34-page report recommending a cybersecurity agenda for the incoming Trump administration. The report recommends the new administration jettison outdated ways the federal government tackles cybersecurity, noting: “Once-powerful ideas have been transformed into clichés.”

The report from the CSIS Cyber Policy Task Force – From Awareness to Action: A Cybersecurity Agenda for the 45th President – will be formally unveiled on Jan. 5. It comes from the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, which sponsored the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency that made recommendations to then-President-elect Barack Obama in 2008.

“In the eight years since that report was published, there has been much activity, but despite an exponential increase in attention to cybersecurity, we are still at risk and there is much for the next administration to do,” the new report’s introduction states.

Cybersecurity Goals for Trump Administration

The task force outlined five major issues President-elect Donald Trump and his administration should address, including:

  1. Deciding on a new international strategy to account for a very different and dangerous global security environment.
  2. Making a greater effort to reduce and control cybercrime.
  3. Accelerating efforts to secure critical infrastructures and services and improving cyber hygiene across economic sectors. As part of this, the Trump administration must develop a new approach to securing government agencies and services and improve authentication of identity.
  4. Identifying where federal involvement in resource issues, such as research or workforce development, is necessary, and where such efforts are best left to the private sector.
  5. Considering how to organize the U.S. effort to defend cyberspace. Clarifying the role of the Department of Homeland Security is crucial, and the new administration must either strengthen DHS or create a new cybersecurity agency.

Ditching Outmoded Security Practices

Task force members recommend the new administration should get rid of outdated ways the federal government tackles cybersecurity. The report notes: “Statements about strengthening public-private partnerships, information sharing or innovation lead to policy dead ends. … Once-powerful ideas have been transformed into clichés. Others have become excuses for inaction.”

As an example, the task force cites the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, a government initiative unveiled in 2011, which envisioned a cyber-ecosystem that promotes trust and security while performing sensitive transactions online. The task force contends NSTIC “achieved little,” asserting that such initiatives fail because they aren’t attuned to market forces. “There are few takers for a product or service for which there is no demand or for which there are commercial alternatives.”

The task force makes recommendations on dozens of policies and technologies.

On encryption, for instance, it suggests that the president develop a policy that supports the use of strong encryption for privacy and security while specifying the conditions and processes under which assistance from the private sector for lawful access to data can be required. It also states that the president should direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to work with encryption experts, technology providers and internet service providers to develop standards and ways to protect applications and data in the cloud and provide secure methods for data resiliency and recovery.

“Ultimately,” the report says, “encryption policy requires a political decision on risk. Untrammeled use of encryption increases the risk from crime and terrorism, but societies may find this risk acceptable given the difficulty of imposing restrictions. No one in our groups believed that risk currently justifies restrictions.”

Battling Cybercrime

In battling cybercrime, the task force sees “active defense,” a term it says has become associated with vigilantism, hack back and cyber privateers, as only a stopgap measure to address the private sector’s frustration over the apparent impunity of trans-border criminals. The Trump administration should seek ways to help companies move beyond their traditional perimeter defenses and focus on identifying federal actions that could disrupt cybercriminals’ business model or expand the work of federal agencies and service providers against botnets, according to the report.

To make cybercrime less profitable, the task force recommends the new administration identify actions that would impede the monetization of stolen data and credentials. Other recommendations include accelerating the move to multifactor authentication and identifying better ways to counter and disrupt botnets, a growing risk as more devices become connected to the internet. The task force says this could be done by expanding the ability to obtain civil injunctions for use against botnets and raising the penalties for using botnets against critical infrastructure.

The role of the military to protect civilian critical infrastructure turned out to be among the most contentious issues the group debated. A few task force members said that the Defense Department should play an expanded and perhaps leading role in critical infrastructure protection, according to the report. Most members, though, believed that this mission must be assigned to a civilian agency, not to DoD or a law enforcement agency such as the FBI.

“While recognizing that the National Security Agency, an element of DoD, has unrivaled skills, we believe that the best approach is to strengthen DHS, not to make it a ‘mini-NSA,’ and to focus its mission on mitigation of threats and attacks, not on retaliation, intelligence collection or law enforcement,” the report states.

Organizing Government Cybersecurity

DHS is the focal point in cybersecurity protection among civilian agencies as well as civilian-led critical infrastructure. The task force recommends that an independent agency be established within DHS focused exclusively on cybersecurity.

The task force says Trump should quickly name a new cybersecurity coordinator and elevate the White House position two notches to assistant to the president from special assistant to the president. Also, the group says Trump should back away from his pledge to conduct a cybersecurity review, as was done at the beginning of the Obama administration.

The task force co-chairs are:

  • Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus;
  • Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sponsor of legislation to require federal law enforcement and national security agencies to account for cyberattacks;
  • Karen Evans, a cybersecurity adviser to the Trump transition team who’s national director of the U.S. Cyber Challenge and formerly served as White House administrator for e-government and information technology, a position now known as U.S. CIO; and
  • Sameer Bhalotra, co-founder and CEO of the cybersecurity startup Stackrox and a senior associate at CSIS.

CSIS Senior Vice President James Lewis, the think tank’s cybersecurity expert, served as the task force project director.

How bad is it?

USAToday:

Exhibit A: The Social Security Administration system still runs on a platform written in the 1960s in the COBOL programming language, and takes 400 people just to maintain, Obama said.

“If we’re going to really secure those in a serious way, then we need to upgrade them,” Obama told reporters Tuesday after meeting with advisers on the issue. “And that is something that we should all be able to agree on. This is not an ideological issue. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a Democratic President or a Republican President. If you’ve got broken, old systems — computers, mainframes, software that doesn’t work anymore — then you can keep on putting a bunch of patches on it, but it’s not going to make it safe.”

To implement those upgrades, Obama created two new entities Tuesday: The first, a Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, will be made up of business, technology, national security and law enforcement leaders who will make recommendations to strengthen online security in the public and private sectors. It will deliver a report to the president by Dec. 1.

The second, a Federal Privacy Council, will bring together chief privacy officers from 25 federal agencies to coordinate efforts to protect the vast amounts of data the federal government collects and maintains about taxpayers and citizens.

Obama’s cybersecurity adviser, Michael Daniel, said the structure allows the administration to move forward even without additional authority from Congress by “driving our executive authority to the limit.”

The administration’s plan will look at cybersecurity both inside and outside the government. There will be more training and shared resources among government agencies, 48 dedicated teams to respond to attacks, and student loan forgiveness to help recruit top technical talent.

But the will plan also promote better security practices throughout the economy, by encouraging through multi-factor authentication that uses additional information in addition to a password. The government is also looking to reduce its use of Social Security numbers the unique identifier for all Americans.

Across the government, the Obama administration wants to spend $19 billion on cybersecurity in 2017, a 35% increase over 2016. But the plan does not rely on an increase in funding. “We can do quite a bit of it even without the additional resources,” Daniel said.

The White House said it also plans to create the new position of Chief Information Security Officer to coordinate modernization efforts across the government, including a a $3.1 billion Information Technology Modernization Fund. “That’s a key role that many private-sector companies have long implemented, and it’s a good practice for the federal government,” said Tony Scott, the U.S. Chief Information Officer.

The president is expected to meet with national security advisers Tuesday morning to launch the new effort.