Illegal Criminal Numbers Obama Goes to Court

Posted on July 10, 2015July 10, 2015 by Denise Simon

Unpacking The Numbers

From Center for Immigration Studies: In 2013, a sample statistic is ICE is carrying a case load of 1.8 million aliens who are either in removal proceedings or have already been ordered removed. Less than two percent are in detention, which is the only proven way to ensure departure.

Most Wanted

Taking a walk over to the FBI’s 10 most wanted list has 7 foreign national criminals whose rap sheets are so extensive that rewards are offered for their captures.

Illegal Sentencing Statistics

Washington Examiner: Of the more than 2,200 people who received federal sentences for drug possession in fiscal year 2014, almost three-quarters of them were illegal immigrants, according to new data from the United States Sentencing Commission.

Illegal immigrants also made up more than one-third of all federal sentences, that data said.

The commission’s data showed a slight decline in the total number of illegal alien sentences from 2013 to 2014, but still showed that the illegal population is a major contributor to federal crimes in America.

In 2013, illegal immigrants were responsible for 38.6 percent of all federal sentencing, and that dropped to 36.7 percent in 2014.

But the sentencing of illegal immigrants for drug possession jumped significantly. In 2013, 1,123 illegal immigrants were sentenced on convictions of simple possession, and made up 55.8 percent of those cases.

In 2014, 1,681 illegal aliens were sentenced, and they made up 74.1 percent of the total. Illegal immigrants were also 16.9 percent of all federal drug trafficking sentences.

The data became public just as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has pushed for tougher immigration laws, and has cited last week’s shooting death of a California woman at the hands of an illegal immigrant as the latest example of the need for more enforcement.

Illegal immigrants were 20 percent of the kidnapping/hostage taking sentences in 2014, 12 percent of the murder sentences, and 19.4 percent of national-defense related sentences.

As expected, illegal immigrants made up vast majority of sentences for immigration-related crimes — 91.6 percent.

Overall, 27,505 illegal immigrants were sentenced in federal court in 2014, down from 30,144 the prior year.

All the non-citizens are combined — including legal and illegal aliens, extradited aliens and those with unknown status — contributed to 42 percent of all federal sentencing in 2014.

The commission’s statistics only include primary federal offenses, and don’t include local convictions or sentences, which is where most rape and murder cases would appear.

Obama Administration Goes to Court

From The Hill:

The Obama administration faces an uphill battle on Friday when it seeks to convince a panel of federal judges to let the president’s executive actions on immigration take effect.

The same two Republican-appointed judges who denied an earlier administration attempt to lift a hold on Obama’s immigration actions will hear arguments at the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

Court watchers expect an unfavorable ruling for Obama from the three-judge panel, which sits on the most conservative circuit in the country.

“It’s likely to be a similar result,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law. “It’s unlikely that [the two judges] will change their views.”

The White House is encountering legal roadblocks on immigration after two recent Supreme Court victories on same-sex marriage and healthcare, which gave the president a jolt of momentum late in his second term.

With just 18 months left in Obama’s presidency, the court battle has put his programs in peril. Experts believe the case will eventually end up before the Supreme Court, which could rule on the case as late as June 2016.

If the White House eventually wins, it could leave just a few months to implement the program. But if it loses, it would strip away a major promise Obama made to Latino groups in the run up to the 2014 midterm elections.

The atmosphere surrounding the hearing is certain to be charged. Reps. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) and Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), as well as immigrant-rights advocates, plan to demonstrate outside the courthouse to call on the judges to allow Obama’s programs to go into place.

It will also take place against the backdrop of a recent fatal shooting of a California woman, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant, and amid fallout from incendiary remarks on immigration from Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump — both of which have further roiled the debate nationwide.

After Congress failed to pass a sweeping immigration overhaul last year, Obama issued executive orders in November allowing certain immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizen or legal resident children to apply for deportation reprieves and work permits.

They also expanded a 2012 program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), providing similar relief to immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. The orders, if fully enacted, could affect as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants.

Led by Texas, 26 mostly Republican-led states sued the administration, arguing the moves overstepped Obama’s executive authority.

They also claimed the programs would harm the states by imposing added costs related to drivers licenses for people who receive deportation referrals.

The White House has steadfastly maintained that the president acted within the law by using “prosecutorial discretion” to exempt non-criminal immigrants from deportation. They also say the states ignored economic benefits, such as added tax revenue.

U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, sided with the states in February, handing down an injunction blocking the programs from taking effect while the court considers the lawsuit.

In May, circuit Judges Jennifer Elrod and Jerry Smith rejected an emergency request from the Department of Justice to allow the actions to proceed.

They argued the states made a compelling case they would suffer harm if the program was let to move forward, and that the administration’s appeal was unlikely to succeed on the broader legal issues.

The administration also contended the 26 states that brought the suit don’t have standing, though the two judges appeared skeptical of that argument as well.

On Friday, Smith and Elrod will again hear arguments from Obama administration lawyers and attorneys representing the states — this time focusing on whether the Texas judge’s order was legal.

“The two judges were convinced that Texas was likely to prevail on the merits,” said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law, who helped file a legal brief backing the lawsuit against Obama’s programs.

Joining them on the panel will be Judge Carolyn King, who was appointed by Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

King in April ruled in favor of the Obama administration on a separate lawsuit challenging his 2012 immigration action, and advocates hope she will side with the president again.

Obama was set to huddle with Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the White House Thursday afternoon, one day before the arguments.

“The administration continues to have a lot of confidence in the power of [our] legal arguments,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday.

Immigrant rights advocates, meanwhile, have expressed frustration at the delay. While they continue to press for the programs to go into effect, some advocates are turning their attention to other efforts as the lawsuit works its way through the courts.

“I think there is a realization the delay is longer than we have hoped for,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center.

Four different advocacy groups are convening a strategy session in New Orleans to raise awareness of other immigration actions not affected by the lawsuit, Hincapié said, including new guidelines that seek to reduce deportations of immigrants who are not deemed to pose a threat to public safety.

Advocates remain confident the orders will eventually go into place. But until then, they intend to punish Republicans for supporting the lawsuit.

The executive actions are popular with Hispanic voters, who will play an influential role in the 2016 elections. Candidates such as Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) want to end Obama’s programs.

House Republicans introduced a bill this week that would cut off funding for the initiatives if they take effect.

“This might be short term victory for the GOP. But a year from now, they are going to be looking at a much bigger lawsuit before the Supreme Court, which will be magnified by the fact it will take place in an election year,” said David Leopold, former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and a backer of Obama’s programs. “In the long term, they are going to be the big losers.”

A victory in court, however, could embolden Republicans who have accused Obama of abusing his executive powers.

“It is inconsistent with the law,” Cruz said during a recent interview with Jorge Ramos. “What Barack Obama is doing is what dictators in other nations have done.”

General Dunford Said Russia is #1 Threat, Here is Why

Posted on July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

Anyone read the book ‘Disinformation’ by Ronald Rychlak and LtG. Ion Pacepa?

General Joseph Dunford is next in line to replace General Dempsey as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His assessment today about who represented the topic threat to America’s National Security shocked the lawmakers when his response was Russia.

Peeling back some layers, we will come to understand why the General’s alarming conclusions are exactly right. Russia is operating a stealth KGB operation and it has been effective.

Wikileaks Release Indicates Hacking Team Sold To FSB, Russia’s Secret Police

Hacking Team Galileo console

From Forbes:

Now that Wikileaks has released the emails included in the 415GB leaked by the hackers who breached Italian “lawful intercept” provider Hacking Team TISI NaN%, the world has easy access to a trove of information blowing open the inner workings of the private surveillance industry. Amongst the files seen by FORBES so far, emails detailing Hacking Team’s sales to Russia’s secret police, the FSB.

Previous analysis of the leaks had sold its Galileo Remote Control System (RCS) to KVANT, a Russian state-owned military technology company. This inspired questions from Dutch politician and European Member of Parliament Marietje Shaake about the potential breach of European Union sanctions about the sale of such goods to Russia, which has been put on blacklists for its operations in war-torn Ukraine. Selling to the FSB would likely concern onlookers more, given the agency’s widespread access to communications in Russia. Many more details here.

Going beyond the next layer

Cyber Caliphate Hackers Not Linked to Islamic State

State Department warns IS online threat ‘unmatched’

by: Bill Gertz, FreeBeacon

The hacker group Cyber Caliphate that was thought to be an online arm of the Islamic State has no ties to the terror group despite its cyber attacks in support of the ultra-violent al-Qaeda offshoot, according to a State Department security report.

“Although Cyber Caliphate declares to support ISIL, there are no indications—technical or otherwise—that the groups are tied,” the two-page report from the Overseas Security Advisory Council states. The Islamic State (IS) is also known by the acronyms ISIL or ISIS.

Instead, Russian hackers now appear to be linked to the Cyber Caliphate, a fact discovered by French government authorities after a cyber attack on TV5Monde television in France last April.

In addition to the announcing the lack of a connection between IS and the Cyber Caliphate, the State Department warned that the terrorist group nevertheless continues to have unprecedented online recruitment and propaganda capabilities.

“ISIL’s online presence for propaganda and recruitment purposes continues to be unmatched by other terrorist organizations,” the report said.

The Islamic State uses Internet sites and social media strategies to disseminate and control its Islamist message.

“ISIL’s use of Twitter has been deemed particularly effective; a Brookings study reported at least 46,000 Twitter accounts in use by ISIL supporters during the timeframe of September through December 2014,” the report said.

IS also deftly exploits modern technology and has mastered online propaganda in appealing to young and computer-savvy foreigners, including known hackers who support its ends.

“Although ISIL continues to demonstrate success in using online tools for propaganda, recruitment, and fundraising purposes, the suspected link of Russian hackers to the TV5Monde attack reinforces the assessment that ISIL still lacks the ability to carry out a technically sophisticated cyberattack,” the report concludes.

President Obama on Monday defended the administration strategy against ISIL—despite the group’s expansion from Iraq and Syria to other parts of the world.

Obama said ISIL is “particularly effective” in recruiting foreigners, including Americans, and is using online methods to spread its ideology.

The president said that to defeat ISIL and al Qaeda, “it is going to also require us to discredit their ideology.”

However, the president and his administration continue to play down the Islamist nature of the threat, preferring the non-religious term “violent extremism.”

“Ideologies are not defeated with guns. They’re defeated by better ideas, [a] more attractive and more compelling vision,” Obama said.

“So the United States will continue to do our part by working with partners to counter ISIL’s hateful propaganda, especially online.”

The State Department report, “Who Is Cyber Caliphate? Re-examining the Online ISIL Threat,” was produced by a unit of the Department’s Office of Diplomatic Security, which supports American businesses overseas. It describes Cyber Caliphate as a relatively unsophisticated group that has conducted cyber attacks against perceived enemies of the Islamic State.

“This included targeting various media outlets, issuing threats against U.S. military spouses, and the highly publicized hacking of U.S. Central Command’s Twitter account and YouTube channel,” the report said.

Most of the group’s technical activities involved website defacements and hacking of Twitter accounts. The cyber vandalism seems to have beeen intended to spread IS propaganda and to build notoriety for the group.

However, the TV5Monde cyber attack that disrupted live broadcasts, staff email accounts, and the station’s web page for some 20 hours demonstrated new capabilities, the report said.

“The methodology employed in the attack was atypical of previous Cyber Caliphate activity, and further investigation by French authorities and U.S. private cyber security companies instead pointed to nation-state actors,” the report said.

Among the information said to have been compromised during the TV5Monde attack were personal information about relatives of French soldiers fighting IS. France is among the coalition of nations engaged in military operations against IS.

According to the report, IP addresses traced to the TV5Monde attack were traced to the Russian hacker group known as APT28.

“The [APT28] hacking group was formerly observed targeting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, entities in Eastern Europe, security companies, and journalists,” the report said.

“APT28 is assessed to conduct operations to benefit the Russian government, and was not previously seen using hacktivists or terrorist organizations as cover.”

The origin of Cyber Caliphate and its members remains unclear. Initially, it was believed by security authorities that the group started by a British hacker, 20-year-old Junaid Hussain, who was linked to a hack against former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Hussain then was said to have moved from Britain to Syria where he sought to recruit hackers.

The Cyber Caliphate has not been officially endorsed by IS but it has gained from the free publicity its hacker attacks have generated.

The group’s attack on TV5Monde was described in the report as an anomaly for the hackers. Several theories are under consideration by experts regarding the nature of the group’s actions.

Some analysts believe the group was testing its cyber capabilities in preparation for expanded strikes on new targets.

Other analysts said the television station cyber attack was retaliation based on strained ties between Moscow and Paris.

Russia was angered by France’s recent decision to cancel a $1.3 billion deal for two Mistral-class helicopter carriers for the Russian Navy after Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

According to the report, the cyber security firm iSight Partners has assessed the Cyber Caliphate as a “false front for anti-western Russian actors.”

Another theory is that Cyber Caliphate is part of a Russian disinformation operation used by Moscow’s hackers as cover for their cyber attacks. The report noted “Russia’s long history of disinformation campaigns.”

AQAP new Threat and the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota

Posted on July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

It was just June of 2015 that the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed in a drone strike in Yemen. The next top military leader of AQAP has now assumed control and called for attacks on the United States.

AQAP is one of the most dangerous branches of the jihadist network.

Prior to his current position, al-Rimi was the group’s military chief.

“Qasm al-Rimi was considered the brains of the operation,” CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said when news of al-Wuhayshi’s death broke. “For more than a decade, he’s really been at the helm of the military side of things for AQAP but also planning their large international operations.”

The FBI investigated Abdullahi Yusuf and Abdi Nur in Minneapolis in 2011. In 2014, the criminal complaint was filed.

In April, Newsweek reported:

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – U.S. authorities have charged six Somali-American young men from Minnesota with planning to join Islamic State and fight for the militant group in Syria, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota said on Monday.

The six, all U.S. citizens, were part of a larger group of friends and relatives that had been conspiring for the past 10 months, many trying multiple times to leave the country, U.S. prosecutors alleged.

They were arrested Sunday as part of a yearlong FBI investigation into young men from the area trying to travel to join Islamic State and there is no evidence they had plans to conduct an attack inside the United States, prosecutors said.

“They are not confused young men; they were not easily influenced,” Luger said. “These were focused men who were intent on joining a terrorist organization by any means possible.”

They received advice and encouragement from another group member, Abdi Nur, who has stayed in contact with them since he left the United States last year and joined the Islamic State in Syria, prosecutors said. Nur was charged in November. The full story is here.

This brings us to the work performed leading up to the Independence Day, 2015, the FBI has been aggressive and assertive in their efforts, led by Director James Comey. 200 known people from the United States have been proven to have traveled to jihad in the Middle East.

Comey’s testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is here.

From Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. authorities foiled attacks planned around the Fourth of July, arresting more than 10 people in the month before the holiday who were inspired by Islamic State online recruitment, FBI Director James Comey said on Thursday.

“I do believe our work disrupted efforts to kill people likely in connection with July 4th,” Comey told reporters at the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He did not detail the number of plots uncovered or their targets.

Separately, a national security source said multiple overseas plots by Islamic State sympathizers had also been halted in recent days.

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had warned local law enforcement to be on alert for attacks around the July 4 holiday celebrating the 1776 U.S. Declaration of Independence. No such attacks occurred.

Authorities’ concern heightened around the holiday as Islamic State leaders called for followers to do what they could wherever they could to carry out violence on behalf of the militant group.

Comey described the tactic as “crowd sourcing terrorism” and said the FBI had accepted the heightened state as the “new normal.”

Some of those arrested were communicating with Islamic State via encrypted data, a second U.S. security source said.

The FBI has pressured tech companies to remove encryption that gives users privacy protections that cannot be broken by law enforcement.

Comey estimated that dozens of people influenced by Islamic State have “gone dark” and disappeared from the FBI’s watch because of encrypted data.

The United States is engaged in a military campaign with allies in the Middle East to fight Islamic State militants who have taken over parts of Iraq and Syria and created cells in other countries racked by conflict in the region.

As Kerry Colludes with Iran, Iran Still Attacks

Posted on July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

There was a House hearing today hosted by the Foreign Affairs Committee on Iran and the implications of the nuclear agreement. (July 9, 2015)

In 2014, the NYT’s reported:

WASHINGTON — Iran is building a nonworking mock-up of an American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that United States officials say may be intended to be blown up for propaganda value.

Intelligence analysts studying satellite photos of Iranian military installations first noticed the vessel rising from the Gachin shipyard, near Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf, last summer. The ship has the same distinctive shape and style of the Navy’s Nimitz-class carriers, as well as the Nimitz’s number 68 neatly painted in white near the bow. Mock aircraft can be seen on the flight deck.

The Iranian mock-up, which American officials described as more like a barge than a warship, has no nuclear propulsion system and is only about two-thirds the length of a typical 1,100-foot-long Navy carrier. Intelligence officials do not believe that Iran is capable of building an actual aircraft carrier. More here.

Then in February of 2015, The Military Times reported:

The video here. This operation was called Great Prophet 9

Iranian officials had more than a dozen speedboats attack a replica of a US aircraft carrier today and featured the large-scale naval drill on a state TV broadcast. The nationally-televised show of force by the country’s elite Revolutionary Guard occurred near the strategically vital entrance of the Persian Gulf. The ‘Great Prophet 9’ drill was held near the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil passes.

July 2015:

CNN reports:

WASHINGTON (CNN) —A U.S. Navy ship and helicopter were repeatedly targeted by a laser device on board an Iranian-flagged merchant ship beginning on Sunday in the Gulf of Aden, according to a U.S. defense official.

No U.S. personnel were hurt or equipment damaged in the incidents which ended on Wednesday, the official said.

The bridge area of the USS Forrest Sherman and one of its helicopters were targeted, the official said.

The Navy is not certain exactly what the device was, or how powerful it was, but believes it was not of industrial or military grade quality since there was no damage. The incidents are viewed at this point as harassment from the Iranians.

The incidents took place in international waters off the coast of Yemen. The Navy ship was “conducting routine maritime operations,” the official said. But it is well understood that U.S Navy warships patrol the region looking for any indication of Iranian weapons smuggling into Yemen.

Exactly why are these talks allowed or sanctioned by the White House and any of the P5+1?

The Size and Scope of Anonymous, Hacktivists

Posted on July 9, 2015July 9, 2015 by Denise Simon

Now that we are beginning to understand how big the hacker network is, what is the real agenda and mission of those inside the group? One cannot estimate yet it appears to have many variances. Anonymous does get involved in policy issues and members and or sympathizers participate.

Masked Anonymous supporters march away from the U.S. Capitol during a 2013 demonstration. Reuters/Jim Bourg

A woman wearing an Anonymous mask holds up a baby during a Brazil demonstration in 2013. Reuters/Nacho Doce

There is a documentary on ‘We Are Legion’,

How big is Anonymous? Maybe bigger than you thought

By: CS Monitor An analysis from a University of Copenhagen graduate student suggests the online-phenomenon-turned-protest movement is more globally connected on the Web than previously thought.

By Fruzsina Eördögh, Correspondent

July 8, 2015

Protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks held signs that read “Anonymous is here for our countrymen” during an April rally against a political corruption in Guatemala City.

The actual size and reach of the shadowy hacktivist collective Anonymous has long been the fodder of online squabbles. It’s diminished by detractors and puffed up by ardent devotees.

So, a University of Copenhagen graduate student set out to determine the actual extent of Anonymous’ influence around the world. And, it turns out that Anonymous appears to have a wider scope and is more international than previously imagined.

Even academics who study Anonymous were surprised. “The Anonymous network is larger than many of us thought,” said Gabriella Coleman, an anthropology professor at McGill University and author of “Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous.”

The analysis looks at Facebook pages connected with Anonymous to gain insight into its international prowess. Yevgeniy Golovchenko, a graduate student in the school’s sociology department, examined 2,770 Anonymous Facebook pages that generated a collective 22.2 million “likes.” This is just the “absolute minimal size” of the entire global Anonymous network, Mr. Golovchenko explained in an interview.

The point of the study was to “show the enormity and connectivity of the Anonymous movement at a global level,” he said. The end result revealed a network greater than he expected. It was even “a lot bigger than my Anon informants thought it would be,” said Golovchenko.

Professor Coleman, considered the leading expert on Anonymous, says the data reveals “a parallel world, or really worlds, that live on Facebook” instead of other social media sites such as Twitter and Internet Relay Chat services.

It is far more likely there are more Anonymous Facebook pages than the ones in Golovchenko’s study. Facebook pages belonging to Anonymous included in his analysis had to meet at least one of the following criteria: Pages directly identified as Anonymous (“we are Anonymous”), shared or organized “operations,” or used Anonymous symbols beyond the Guy Fawkes mask.

“The [Anonymous’ network is also dynamic,” he noted, since when “some pages die out, others are born.” The average Anonymous page was connected to 18 other Anonymous pages. Golovchenko used Facebook “likes” as a way to establish connections, because a “like” acts as an “acknowledgement,” and shows the admin of one page is aware of another Anonymous contingent, in most cases in a different country. The “Offiziell Anonymous Page” had the most connections with 517 likes. It should be noted that “Offiziell Anonymous Page” hasn’t updated since December 2014.

Golovchenko was drawn to Anonymous’ Facebook pages given these pages are a public and easily accessible aspect of the relatively secretive hacktivist collective. These Facebook pages exist to either share information, or promote and help organize projects, and if they were harder to access, they’d alienate the average person.

Looking at all this Facebook data reveals several patterns. The position of the “node groupings was done by an algorithm, but it magically describes the realities of where people live in the world, to some extent,” said Golovchenko. An example of this are the German Anonymous Facebook pages, like the Anonymous Deutschland node, which are shown as blue dots:

German Anonymous Facebook pages. Yevgeniy Golovchenko

Another example of this regional breakdown is the Anonymous Unified Korea node, which is primarily focused in West Asia, except for that one supportive Belgian Facebook page:

Anonymous Unified Korea node, which is primarily focused in West Asia, except for one supportive Belgian Facebook page. Yevgeniy Golovchenko

Looking at the Anonymous Angola node reveals an even smaller network comprised of only a few African countries with the exception being Brazil (see below). Anonymous Hacker Brazil has a much larger international network.

Through this visualization, it is easy to identify allies of certain sects, or regional Anonymous crews. For example, quite a few Brazilian Anonymous pages are connected to Anonymous in Iceland, of all countries. The Occupy Brazil node is connected to various Anonymous Facebook pages in Canada, which could explain why so much traffic during a recent operation against Canadian government websites came from Brazil.

All these networks within networks reveal an incredibly complicated communication stratus. “Even if only one-third of the likes represent actual Facebook users,” noted Golovchenko, “the network is surprisingly immense … . Only few mainstream media can match the movement’s enormous internet infrastructure.”