Author Archives: Denise Simon

Judge to Release 1000’s More Epstein Documents?

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Sealed court records contain the names of at least hundreds of third parties who were mentioned in a civil case involving sexual abuse allegations against the late financier Jeffrey Epstein, a federal judge said Wednesday. The records also include hundreds of pages of investigative reports, said Jeff Pagliuca, an attorney for former Epstein girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. About one-fifth of all documents filed in the case were done so under seal, a level of secrecy the 2nd Circuit ruled was unjustified. The appellate court, in unsealing the records, issued an unusual warning to the public and the media “to exercise restraint” regarding potentially defamatory allegations contained in the depositions and other court filings. More here from the Miami Herald.

Hundreds more will be implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, claims Ghislaine Maxwell, as his victims ask judge to open 10,000 pages of secret files detailing the pedophile’s sex crimes

DM: As many as 1,000 people including celebrities are implicated in thousands of pages of court documents from a Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit which remains under seal.

The documents, some 10,000 of them, were part of a 2015 lawsuit by Virginia Giuffre Roberts, Epstein’s ‘sex slave’, who sued him and Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite who many of Epstein’s victims say was his madam.

Ghislaine Maxwell   Virginia Giuffre Roberts,

They settled their lawsuit in 2017 and the case docket was made private, keeping all the allegations secret.

In August, in light of the pedophile’s arrest on human trafficking charges, an appeals court ordered that any pages of the case files which represented public interest should no longer be kept secret.

Around 2,000 have been released but thousands more are still under lock and key.

On Wednesday, Judge Loretta Preska listened to lawyers for Maxwell and Roberts at a hearing in New York court to determine if and how she should release any more of them.

Preska did not decide on whether or not to release the remaining pages on Wednesday, but has instructed the attorneys on both sides to file written briefings about them.

They have to categorize the documents into three types and then decide which will be released.

Roberts’ attorneys had argued that all but the social security numbers and names of underage victims should be released but the judge rejected her argument.

Maxwell, who has been named as Epstein’s madam by several of his accusers, was not in court.

Her attorneys are arguing against releasing the remaining pages, claiming that the names of the 1,000 ‘non parties’ should not become public.

‘There are literally hundreds of pages of investigative reports that mention hundreds of people,’ Jeffrey Pagliuca, Maxwell’s attorney, told the court on Wednesday.

The lawyers must now submit written briefings on how they think the remaining files should be split up and released.

The hearing follows a letter to the court from a John Doe – one of the many people named – who said it would be unfair for him and others to be dragged into the public scandal engulfing Epstein’s world.

‘As a non-party to these proceedings, Doe lacks specific knowledge about the contents of the Sealed Materials,’ his lawyers wrote.

‘But it is clear that these materials implicate the privacy and reputational interests of many persons other than the two primary parties to this action, Giuffre and Maxwell,’ they added.

The documents contain ‘a range of allegations of sexual acts involving Plaintiff and non-parties to this litigation, some famous, some not; the identities of non-parties who either allegedly engaged in sexual acts with Plaintiff or who allegedly facilitated such acts.’

The files that have already been released include Roberts’ unpublished memoirs about her years with Epstein and Maxwell.

She describes in the memoir how she was forced to have threesomes with the pair when she was a teenager and claims she spent her youth in sexual servitude to them before escaping in 2002.

She also describes nights on Epstein’s Caribbean island during which Al Gore and Bill Clinton were present as dinner guests.

There are mentions of the Simpsons creator Matt Groening, whose feet she says she massaged on a private jet, and of Prince Andrew who she claims she had sex with multiple times – a claim he vehemently denies.

Roberts lawsuit also includes the names of other women who say they are victims of Epstein and women who Roberts says worked for the disgraced pedophile as ‘recruiters’.

Epstein died in his cell in Manhattan at the beginning of August.

His attorneys say his death is suspicious and that the injuries on his neck indicate he was murdered.

California Strikes Down Police Assistance Law

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California has now driven a larger divide between the public and law enforcement. You can bet a few other states may follow the same tactic.

California’s new law drives a major wedge between police and the public (Photo – Screenshot – YouTube)

If you saw an officer in need of help… what would you do?

Most people would step in and offer assistance… no questions asked.

But in California’s latest move to further the divide between the police and the public, citizens would now be legally allowed to refuse to help a police officer who needs assistance.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed their newest anti-police bill into law on Tuesday, the Sacramento Bee reported. State leaders have said that it now allows citizens to avoid “an untenable moral dilemma.”

Moral dilemma? From assisting an officer with an arrest if he’s in need of help?  We get it. Maybe there shouldn’t be a fine or a jail sentence associated with choosing to not get involved. Perhaps the original law from the 1870’s is a bit outdated.

But what is this bill really saying?

Essentially, it’s driving a bigger wedge between officers and civilians.

People now are essentially told to let a cop fend for himself if he’s being overpowered by a dangerous victim. It affirms the decision to stand by and film or watch while a hero’s life is in danger.

The new bill would get rid of the old law – the California Posse Comitatus Act of 1872, which required a civilian to step in and assist an officer during an arrest if necessary. For those who ‘violated’ it, they could face up to a $1,000 fine.

9,999 times out of 10,000… an officer isn’t going to ask for an untrained bystander to step in and help. But sometimes it’s necessary… and it could mean the difference between life and death.

Let’s look at this objectively.

How many people were ever really charged with this misdemeanor? What Governor Newsom did was remind everyone that they have a choice — and basically push them to make the choice to carry on with their lives instead of getting involved.

Our question is… if this law had simply remained the way it was, how many people would have chosen to step in and help when they saw another human in need?

And how big of a drop-off rate would we see now that this bill is being pushed in the public eye? Will people see a police officer being attacked and because they don’t like cops, they choose to stand there and watch him die?

It brings back memories of the time when a bystander chose to broadcast an officer’s death to Facebook Live instead of putting down the phone and doing what they could to help.

Is this the country we want to live in?

Will protesters and anti-police ‘activists’ feel even more emboldened by their supposed morals?

The California State Sheriff’s Association said they were “unconvinced that this statute should be repealed.”

Of course. Though it may have stemmed from the days of slavery… this law is ultimately about doing what’s right and assisting a public servant in their time of need. Read more here.

 

Apply More Shame to Facebook

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Okay, so without much media attention, YouTube was just fined $170 million for children’s privacy violations. Hello Google? WTH? This was a settlement by the way between Google and the Federal Trade Commission.

But what about Facebook and protecting our data? We have heard and read items about how casual Facebook is with out data. But hold on, there is more.

Primer: Cambridge Analytica was a cyber spy network with political operations and twisted tactics.

In part:

The company at the centre of the Facebook data breach boasted of using honey traps, fake news campaigns and operations with ex-spies to swing election campaigns around the world, a new investigation reveals.

Executives from Cambridge Analytica spoke to undercover reporters from Channel 4 News about the dark arts used by the company to help clients, which included entrapping rival candidates in fake bribery stings and hiring prostitutes to seduce them.

In one exchange, the company chief executive, Alexander Nix, is recorded telling reporters: “It sounds a dreadful thing to say, but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true as long as they’re believed.” More here.

Meanwhile:

Techcrunch: Hundreds of millions of phone numbers linked to Facebook accounts have been found online.

The exposed server contained more than 419 million records over several databases on users across geographies, including 133 million records on U.S.-based Facebook users, 18 million records of users in the U.K., and another with more than 50 million records on users in Vietnam.

But because the server wasn’t protected with a password, anyone could find and access the database.

Each record contained a user’s unique Facebook ID and the phone number listed on the account. A user’s Facebook ID is typically a long, unique and public number associated with their account, which can be easily used to discern an account’s username.

But phone numbers have not been public in more than a year since Facebook restricted access to users’ phone numbers.

TechCrunch verified a number of records in the database by matching a known Facebook user’s phone number against their listed Facebook ID. We also checked other records by matching phone numbers against Facebook’s own password reset feature, which can be used to partially reveal a user’s phone number linked to their account.

Some of the records also had the user’s name, gender and location by country.

fb 3 2

This is the latest security lapse involving Facebook data after a string of incidents since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw more than 80 million profiles scraped to help identify swing voters in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Since then the company has seen several high-profile scraping incidents, including at Instagram, which recently admitted to having profile data scraped in bulk.

This latest incident exposed millions of users’ phone numbers just from their Facebook IDs, putting them at risk of spam calls and SIM-swapping attacks, which relies on tricking cell carriers into giving a person’s phone number to an attacker. With someone else’s phone number, an attacker can force-reset the password on any internet account associated with that number.

Sanyam Jain, a security researcher and member of the GDI Foundation, found the database and contacted TechCrunch after he was unable to find the owner. After a review of the data, neither could we. But after we contacted the web host, the database was pulled offline.

Jain said he found profiles with phone numbers associated with several celebrities.

Facebook spokesperson Jay Nancarrow said the data had been scraped before Facebook cut off access to user phone numbers.

“This data set is old and appears to have information obtained before we made changes last year to remove people’s ability to find others using their phone numbers,” the spokesperson said. “The data set has been taken down and we have seen no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised.”

But questions remain as to exactly who scraped the data, when it was scraped from Facebook and why.

Facebook has long restricted developers‘ access to user phone numbers. The company also made it more difficult to search for friends’ phone numbers. But the data appeared to be loaded into the exposed database at the end of last month — though that doesn’t necessarily mean the data is new.

This latest data exposure is the most recent example of data stored online and publicly without a password. Although often tied to human error rather than a malicious breach, data exposures nevertheless represent an emerging security problem.

In recent months, financial giant First American left data exposed, as did MoviePass and the Senate Democrats.

Feds Prepare States for Foreign Voting Interference

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The Democrats have really lost their argument against voter ID if they are being fully candid about foreign interference. It is without question that several cities and states are victims of ransomware and Florida is especially concerned. Remember that a foreign actor, where clues point to Russia were able to gain access to voter registration databases and it stands to reason China will attempt the same.

Continually, the Democrats say that the Trump administration is virtually doing nothing to protect the election system. Read on as the Democrats know the mission and actions of the Cyber division of the Department of Homeland Security.

Image result for foreign hackers us voting systems photo
As Reuters reports:

The U.S. government plans to launch a program in roughly one month that narrowly focuses on protecting voter registration databases and systems ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

These systems, which are widely used to validate the eligibility of voters before they cast ballots, were compromised in 2016 by Russian hackers seeking to collect information. Intelligence officials are concerned that foreign hackers in 2020 not only will target the databases but attempt to manipulate, disrupt or destroy the data, according to current and former U.S. officials.

“We assess these systems as high risk,” said a senior U.S. official, because they are one of the few pieces of election technology regularly connected to the Internet.

The Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, a division of the Homeland Security Department, fears the databases could be targeted by ransomware, a type of virus that has crippled city computer networks across the United States, including recently in Texas, Baltimore and Atlanta.

“Recent history has shown that state and county governments and those who support them are targets for ransomware attacks,” said Christopher Krebs, CISA’s director. “That is why we are working alongside election officials and their private sector partners to help protect their databases and respond to possible ransomware attacks.”

A ransomware attack typically locks an infected computer system until payment, usually in the form of cryptocurrency, is sent to the hacker.

The effort to counter ransomware-style cyberattacks aimed at the election runs parallel to a larger intelligence community directive to determine the most likely vectors of digital attack in the November 2020 election, according to current and former U.S. officials.

“It is imperative that states and municipalities limit the availability of information about electoral systems or administrative processes and secure their websites and databases that could be exploited,” the FBI said in a statement, supporting the Homeland Security initiative.

CISA’s program will reach out to state election officials to prepare for such a ransomware scenario. It will provide educational material, remote computer penetration testing, and vulnerability scans as well as a list of recommendations on how to prevent and recover from ransomware.

These guidelines, however, will not offer advice on whether a state should ultimately pay or refuse to pay ransom to a hacker if one of its systems is already infected.

“Our thought is we don’t want the states to have to be in that situation,” said a Homeland Security official. “We’re focused on preventing it from happening.”

Over the last two years, cyber criminals and nation state hacking groups have used ransomware to extort victims and create chaos. In one incident in 2017, which has since been attributed to Russian hackers, a ransomware virus was used to mask a data deletion technique, rendering victim computers totally unusable.

That attack, dubbed “NotPetya,” went on to damage global corporations, including FedEx and Maersk, which had offices in Ukraine where the malware first spread.

The threat is concerning because of its potential impact on voting results, experts say.

“A pre-election undetected attack could tamper with voter lists, creating huge confusion and delays, disenfranchisement, and at large enough scale could compromise the validity of the election,” said John Sebes, chief technology officer of the ESET Institute, an election technology policy think tank.

The databases are also “particularly susceptible to this kind of attack because local jurisdictions and states actively add, remove, and change the data year-round,” said Maurice Turner, a senior technologist with the Center for Democracy and Technology. “If the malicious actor doesn’t provide the key, the data is lost forever unless the victim has a recent backup.”

Nationwide, the local governments that store and update voter registration data are typically ill-equipped to defend themselves against elite hackers.

State election officials told Reuters they have improved their cyber defenses since 2016, including in some cases preparing backups for voter registration databases in case of an attack. But there is no common standard for how often local governments should create backups, said a senior Homeland Security official.

“We have to remember that this threat to our democracy will not go away, and concern about ransomware attacks on voter registration databases is one clear example,” said Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos. “We’re sure the threat is far from over.”

 

CBP Long Beach Chinese Weapons Seizure

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Three separate shipments, parts were intercepted in recent weeks, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the matter, and were packed in their own cargo containers on three separate ships that were also carrying household items, apparel, toys, industrial machinery and other imports.

With a Domestic Value of over $378,000 the seized items were found in violation of the Chinese Arms Embargo

LOS ANGELES — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at Los Angeles/Long Beach Seaport in coordination with the Machinery Center of Excellence and Expertise (CEE), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), intercepted and seized 52,601 firearms parts in violation of the Chinese Arms Embargo. The seized items described as sights, stocks, muzzles, brakes, buffer kits, and grips which arrived in three shipments from China, had a combined domestic value of $378,225.00.

CBP officers referred the items to ATF investigators, who confirmed that the firearm parts were in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), 27 CFR 447.52.

“This seizure is an exceptional example of CBP officers and import specialists vigilance, commitment and keen focus in enforcing complex arms embargo regulations,” said Carlos C. Martel, CBP Director of Field Operations in Los Angeles. “The Chinese Arms Embargo is just one of the hundreds of regulations CBP enforces, ensuring the safety and security of our country.”

Federal regulations impose importation restrictions to certain countries to which the United States maintains an arms embargo, and one of such countries is China.

“We work closely with our strategic partners to ensure import compliance while maintaining the highest standards of security at our nation’s largest seaport,” remarked LaFonda Sutton-Burke, CBP Port Director of the LA/Long Beach Seaport. “This interception underscores the successful collaboration between CBP officers, import specialists and ATF investigators.” In fiscal year (FY) 2018, Office of Field Operations (OFO) seized 266,279 firearms, firearm parts, ammunition, fireworks and explosives at 328 ports of entry throughout the United States. These interceptions represent an increase of 18.4 percent from the previous year.

***

Gotta wonder what led to this. Consider if this is related.  Just 2 months ago…

When federal agents raided the Southern California home of US Customs and Border Protection supervisor Wei “George” Xu in February, they seized an arsenal of more than 250 weapons, including nearly three dozen illegal machine guns, according to court records.

Image result for Wei "George" Xu arrested photo

“Weapons of war,” a prosecutor would later call them.
Xu, 56, was arrested and charged with dealing firearms without a license. He has pleaded not guilty.
But guns are not the reason the veteran officer has been held without bond since his arrest four months ago.
Instead, the Chinese-born naturalized US citizen has remained behind bars amid concerns about his secret-level security clearance and what prosecutors described as “highly suspicious” contacts with Chinese consular officials in Los Angeles.
Prosecutors are also examining the apparent gulf between Xu’s estimated $120,000-to-$130,000 salary as a federal law enforcement officer and his “luxurious lifestyle,” in which he drove a Maserati, went on big game hunting trips to Africa and had approximately $1.4 million in the bank, according to court records. The cache of weapons recovered from Xu’s house was estimated to be worth more than $200,000, according to prosecutors. Additionally, prosecutors allege that Xu and his wife failed to report several years of income from a rental property they’ve owned since 2015.
Xu’s defense attorney, Mark Werksman, said in court papers that his client has lived in the United States for three decades, has no previous criminal record, and, because his passport was seized as part of the investigation, has no ability to travel outside the country.
The lawyer was unsuccessful, however, in his attempt to convince a federal judge at a hearing last month that Xu could be trusted to show up for trial if he was released. The hearing marked the third time Xu’s request for bond was denied.
Annamartine Salick, deputy chief of the Terrorism and Export Crime Section of the US Attorney’s office in Los Angeles and the lead prosecutor on the case against Xu, declined comment.
In a court filing, she cited Xu’s “litany of lies and contempt for the rule of law” as among the reasons he should be denied bond.
Jack Weiss, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who now runs an investigative firm, said the allegations against Xu are especially troubling given his role in law enforcement.
“This is someone you would never want in a position of authority in the US government,” Weiss said. “I imagine there is going to be some kind of internal review as to how it is that he was wearing a badge.”
Born in China, Xu came to the United States on a student visa in the late 1980s. He became a naturalized citizen in 1999. In 2004, following stints in the private sector as an engineer and entrepreneur, he was hired by Customs and Border Protection — a job requiring a secret-level security clearance subject to periodic renewals.
Prior to his arrest in February, Xu worked as a watch commander for CBP at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Jaime Ruiz, a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection, said Xu is now on “indefinite suspension.”
According to prosecutors, Xu repeatedly made false statements and concealed information when he filled out questionnaires for his security clearance under penalty of perjury.
Among other things, prosecutors said, Xu failed to disclose his ownership of two companies that do business with China and his “extensive business contacts with Chinese nationals.”
Agents say they found evidence of a bank account in China in the trash outside Xu’s home and recovered two copies of Chinese passports, bearing the name Wei Xu but featuring photos of other people, from Xu’s desk.
Salick argued at one of Xu’s detention hearings that she’d been told by CBP officers that if Xu falsely claimed to have lost his own passport, he could pretend to be one of the Chinese citizens bearing his name, provide that man’s biographical information to the Chinese consulate, and would likely be issued travel documents to return to China.
Following Xu’s arrest, investigators learned of his “long-standing contact with members of the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Los Angeles,” according to court records.
Agents seized emails, texts and phone records showing that Xu had been communicating with consular officials since at least 2013, according to court records. He was invited to events hosted by the consulate in 2017 and 2018, the records state, and agents reviewed images on his cell phone “appearing to show” that Xu and his wife attended the events.
Attempts to reach Chinese consular officials in Los Angeles were not immediately successful.
Werksman downplayed his client’s purported wealth in a brief interview with CNN, saying, for example, that the Maserati was leased. He said Xu’s companies exported forklift parts and generated limited income. He said the Chinese bank account authorities discovered was opened 20 years ago and contained the relatively meager sum of $1,700.
He also dismissed any intrigue surrounding Xu’s ties to China.
He said in a court filing that the photocopies of passports seized from his office were placed there by co-workers playing a prank on Xu, whose duties include overseeing entry and exit of Chinese vessels in San Pedro, and who was at one point investigating two men who had the same — very common — first and last name that he did.
He said Xu’s contact with consular officials was related to his work at the port, in which he sometimes contacted the consulate about crewmembers on Chinese ships who were seeking asylum in the United States.
“There’s nothing nefarious about it,” he told CNN.
It was while investigating Xu regarding his security clearance that agents discovered his alleged involvement in the illegal gun trade.
In the summer of 2017, FBI agents say they retrieved a spreadsheet listing online accounts and login information from the trash outside Xu’s home. Two of the accounts pertained to a website that acts as a marketplace for private gun sales.
An undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives began corresponding with Xu and eventually purchased four guns.
In one transaction in July, Xu showed up in a 2016 Maserati with an assault rifle in the trunk, according to prosecutors.
The undercover agent commented on the black sedan before giving Xu $1,600 cash for the rifle.
“I’m like you, playboy,” Xu allegedly responded.
Following another deal, in which Xu allegedly sold the agent a rifle and five high-capacity magazines for $2,100, the CBP officer quipped, “We are like drug dealers,” according to a search warrant affidavit.
Werksman described his client as a “nerdy engineer” who collected firearms as a hobby and had no intention of becoming a gun dealer.
“He comes home from work, goes out to the garage and tinkers with guns,” the lawyer said. “He wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”
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