Author Archives: Denise Simon

THAT Terror Watch List Includes TSA Employees

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People are nominated due to certain conditions and points to go on the terror watch list. The report is here.  .

Obama’s solution to terror was to expand the stipulations to be on the list, keeping the country safe?

72 DHS Employees on Terrorist Watch List

FreeBeacon: At least 72 employees at the Department of Homeland Security are listed on the U.S. terrorist watch list, according to a Democratic lawmaker.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D., Mass.) disclosed that a congressional investigation recently found that at least 72 people working at DHS also “were on the terrorist watch list.”

“Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector general did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security,” Lynch told Boston Public Radio.

“The [former DHS] director had to resign because of that,” he said.

DHS continues to fail inspections aimed at determining the efficiency of its internal safety mechanisms, as well as its efforts to protect the nation.

Lynch referred to a recent report that found the Transportation Security Administration, which is overseen by DHS, failed to stop 95 percent of those who attempted to bring restricted items past airport security.

“We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate,” Lynch said. “We had folks—this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.”

Lynch said he has “very low confidence” in DHS based on its many failures over the years. For this reason, he voted in favor of recent legislation that will tighten the vetting process for any Syrian refugees applying for asylum in the United States.

“I have very low confidence based on empirical data that we’ve got on the Department of Homeland Security. I think we desperately need another set of eyeballs looking at the vetting process,” he said. “That’s vetting that’s being done at major airports where we have a stationary person coming through a facility, and we’re failing 95 percent of the time.”

“I have even lower confidence that they can conduct the vetting process in places like Jordan, or Belize or on the Syrian border, or in Cairo, or Beirut in any better fashion, especially given the huge volume of applicants we’ve had seeking refugee status,” Lynch said.

*** There are more details:

TheIntercept: Nearly half of the people on the U.S. government’s widely shared database of terrorist suspects are not connected to any known terrorist group, according to classified government documents obtained by The Intercept.

Of the 680,000 people caught up in the government’s Terrorist Screening Database—a watchlist of “known or suspected terrorists” that is shared with local law enforcement agencies, private contractors, and foreign governments—more than 40 percent are described by the government as having “no recognized terrorist group affiliation.” That category—280,000 people—dwarfs the number of watchlisted people suspected of ties to al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah combined.

The documents, obtained from a source in the intelligence community, also reveal that the Obama Administration has presided over an unprecedented expansion of the terrorist screening system. Since taking office, Obama has boosted the number of people on the no fly list more than ten-fold, to an all-time high of 47,000—surpassing the number of people barred from flying under George W. Bush.

“If everything is terrorism, then nothing is terrorism,” says David Gomez, a former senior FBI special agent. The watchlisting system, he adds, is “revving out of control.”

POTUS asked for Unique ISIS Report, Dates Matter

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Barack Obama commissioned a special report on Islamic State that was complied by U,S, Southern Command and a few other top intelligence agencies. He received the report before he told the country Islamic State was ‘contained’ and certainly before the Paris climate change summit where countless side meetings were held with other world leaders on the matter of Iraq and Syria. He had the facts, but continued with ‘his’ self concocted strategy, while issuing a full rebuke to others challenging his posture on the war against Islamic State.

Most chilling is Barack Obama received this distinct report, holding all the facts regarding territory and resourcing the military on Islamic State but worse is the State Department is managing the whole conflict with U.S. Southern Command. Since when does a diplomatic agency drive a war?

U.S. Intel to Obama: ISIS Is Not Contained

Dozier/DailyBeast: A new report stands in stark contrast to earlier White House assurances that ISIS had been ‘contained.’ And it is already spurring changes in how the U.S. grapples with ISIS.
A new U.S. intelligence report on ISIS, commissioned by the White House, predicts that the self-proclaimed Islamic State will spread worldwide and grow in numbers, unless it suffers a significant loss of territory on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria, U.S. officials told The Daily Beast.

The report stands in stark contrast to earlier White House assurances that ISIS had been “contained” in Iraq and Syria. And it is already spurring changes in how the U.S. grapples with ISIS, these officials said.

It’s also a tacit admission that coalition efforts so far – dropping thousands of bombs and deploying 3,500 U.S. troops as well as other coalition trainers — have been outpaced by ISIS’ ability to expand and attract new followers, even as the yearlong coalition air campaign has helped local forces drive ISIS out of parts of Iraq and Syria.

The White House commissioned the intelligence report prior to last month’s deadly strikes in Paris, and long before last week’s terror attacks in San Bernardino, California, three senior U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to describe a confidential document and policy changes. It was also commissioned before Obama declared ISIS “contained” in Iraq and Syria — just a day before the Paris attacks — but it was delivered to the White House in the weeks afterward.

After reviewing its grim conclusions, President Barack Obama asked Secretary of Defense Ash Carter and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford to come up with new options to beat the group back.

The counterterrorism campaign is being stepped up—using the same arsenal of drones, special forces raids, and local proxies previously employed in the global war on al Qaeda. A special operations targeting cell, announced by Carter last week, is one of the recommendations. The roughly 200-strong team will conduct raiding operations in Iraq and Syria, coordinating strikes through a 50-man team that will work inside northern Syria with a band of U.S.-supported guerrillas known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

Defense chiefs have also tasked the military’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM) to host an interagency think tank of military, diplomatic, and intelligence representatives to come up with other options, The Daily Beast has learned.

President Obama addressed the nation about the threat of terrorism in a rare Oval Office address Sunday night and made brief mention of the stepped-up campaign but no new announcements to expand it.

“In Iraq and Syria, air strikes are taking out ISIL leaders…In both countries, we’re deploying special operations forces who can accelerate that offensive,” Obama said. “We’ve stepped up our effort since the attacks in Paris.”

The roughly eight-page intelligence report that drove the policy changes was compiled by a team of analysts from CIA, DIA, NSA, and other agencies, all reporting to the director for national intelligence.

“This intel report didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” said one official. “It was lots of great charts showing countries highlighted across the globe, with some groups having pledged allegiance to ISIS and others leaning towards it.”

It described how the terrorist group with aspirations of founding an extremist Islamic caliphate already has a network of groups that have pledged allegiance or are vying for membership in a dozen countries.

The DNI confirmed it had produced the intelligence report, but offered no comment.

The White House and Pentagon would not comment on the intelligence report nor confirm the request to U.S. Special Operations Command to host intergovernmental discussions on the problem. But they did point out that SOCOM already has the job of tracking and planning the military’s response to counterterrorism threats.

“SOCOM plays an important role in the critical analysis of trans-regional threats, providing assessments that look across the seams between geographic commands, and helping the department to synchronize military efforts with all elements of national power,” said Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis Saturday.

The State Department will continue to lead the overall ISIS campaign, with U.S. Central Command directing the campaign in Iraq and Syria, two U.S. officials said, saying that SOCOM was in no way being asked to take over the campaign.

But three U.S. officials insisted SOCOM has been asked to present further options that will employ other skills unique to the more than 60,000 operators led by Gen. Joseph Votel, who once commanded the counterterrorism-focused Joint Special Operations Command or JSOC, which is comprised of elite units like the U.S. Army’s Delta Force and the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known colloquially as SEAL Team Six.

Far beyond raids and hostage rescues, special operators like Green Berets specialize in training, advising and assisting local forces, and conducting psychological operations to combat ISIS’s social media siren song that has lured so many young recruits to its fight – still drawing 1,000 fighters a month to Iraq and Syria.

Secretary of Defense Carter is so eager to use some of the nascent plans they have already come up with, that he announced them publicly before military planners had worked out some of the logistical or legal kinks.

Carter surprised his own defense chiefs when he told Congress last week that he would be deploying the new Iraq-based special operations “expeditionary targeting force.” While many of the operators are already in Iraq, ready to participate in one-off raids like the one that killed ISIS financier Abu Sayyaf, the rules governing how they will operate haven’t quite been worked out, one of the senior U.S. officials said.

Those forces and the 50 operators who will work inside Syria are led by the Joint Special Operations Command, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operations publicly.

Carter said they’ll only raid inside Iraq with the Baghdad  government’s consent, and always together with Iraqi forces. But the Pentagon hasn’t figured out what it would do if it starts regularly capturing ISIS leaders in raids inside Syria – with options ranging from handing them over to the Iraqi government for questioning or flying them to a U.S. ship and prosecuting them as has been done with al-Qaeda suspects grabbed in Libya and Somalia.

“With respects to the expeditionary targeting force and capture, we will deal with that on a case by case basis. It’s gonna depend on the circumstances,” Carter said Thursday in a Pentagon press briefing.

The 50 special operations “advisers” inside Syria, who are expected to arrive this month, will be helping to synchronizing and coordinating air strikes and rebel ground offensives, two senior military officials say.

“It’s having conversations in person that have been hard to have by text message, the way they are doing it now,” one of the officials said.

“Things like, “hey, that target you helped us hit yesterday, next time let us know if there are civilians in the area,” he said.

All the officials interviewed said stepped-up raids and strikes won’t solve the problem, but may damage ISIS enough to make the group less popular and buy time for other necessary steps like the political deal-making underway to try to get Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

U.S. officials are also in discussions with close allies like Britain, France, and others to ask them to step up their counterterrorist missions in places like Libya, where ISIS is growing but the White House is unwilling to send troops after the attacks that killed the ambassador and three more Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

“It’s clear that we have to intensify global efforts,” said one western official who spoke anonymously in order to describe sensitive diplomatic discussions to weave a global network for counter-ISIS forces. “As long as they have territory, they can push their narrative of having a caliphate.”

 

 

 

 

What Should you Know About Wilson Fish….

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The Wilson-Fish (WF) program is an alternative to traditional state administered refugee resettlement programs for providing assistance (cash and medical) and social services to refugees.

  Minneapolis

  Vermont

  Twin Falls, Idaho

The full government program description is here, from the Health and Human Services website which manages the Refugee Resettlement Program.

The purposes of the WF program are to:

  • Increase refugee prospects for early employment and self-sufficiency
  • Promote coordination among voluntary resettlement agencies and service providers
  • Ensure that refugee assistance programs exist in every state where refugees are resettled

http://app.na.readspeaker.com/cgi-bin/rsent?customerid=7596&lang=en_us&readid=main&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.acf.hhs.gov%2Fprograms%2Forr%2Fprograms%2Fwilson-fish

I. INTRODUCTION

II. ELIGIBLITY

III. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

IV. PROGRAM SERVICES
A. Refugee Cash Assistance
B. Refugee Medical Assistance/Refugee Medical Screening
C. Intensive Case Management
D. Employment/Employability Services
E. English Language Training
F. Translation and Interpretation Services
G. Refugee Social Services – Key Requirements

V. PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION
A. Statewide Coordination
B. RCA/RMA Administration

VI. PROCEDURES AND DEFINITIONS
A. Procurement of Services
B. Sanctioning and Fair Hearing Process
C. Definition of Terms
D. Procedure for a WF Program to Revert to a State Administered RCA or PPP Model

VII. REPORTING

VIII. Application
A. Substantial Involvement Under the Cooperative Agreement
B. Contents of the WF Application

I. INTRODUCTION

These guidelines are provided to grantees under the Wilson/Fish (WF) alternative program to assist them in their delivery of services and assistance to eligible populations. The purpose of the WF program is to establish an alternative to the traditional state administered refugee assistance program through the provision of integrated assistance (cash and medical) and services (employment, case-management, English as a Second Language (ESL) and other social services) to refugees in order to increase early employment and self-sufficiency prospects. In addition, the WF program enables refugee assistance programs to exist in every State where refugees are resettled.

The statutory authority for the WF program was granted in October, 1984, when Congress amended the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to provide authority for the Secretary of Health and Human Services to implement alternative projects for refugees. This provision, known as the Wilson/Fish Amendment, Pub.L. 98-473, 8 U.S.C. 1522(e)(7), provided:

“(7)(A) The Secretary shall develop and implement alternative projects for refugees who have been in the United States less than thirty-six months, under which refugees are provided interim support, medical services,1 support services, and case management, as needed, in a manner that encourages self-sufficiency, reduces welfare dependency, and fosters greater coordination among the resettlement agencies and service providers…

(B) Refugees covered under such alternative projects shall be precluded from receiving cash or medical assistance under any other paragraph of this subsection or under title XIX or part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act.

(C) “…”

(D) To the extent that the use of such funds is consistent with the purposes of such provisions, funds appropriated under section 414(a) of this Act, part A of Title IV of the Social Security Act, or Title XIX of such Act, may be used for the purpose of implementing and evaluating alternative projects under this paragraph.”

The WF Program is also referenced in the Office of  Refugee Resettlement (ORR)  regulations under the heading Alternative RCA Programs at 45 C.F.R. § 400.69:

“A state that determines that a public/private RCA program or publicly-administered program modeled after its TANF program is not the best approach for the State, may choose instead to establish an alternative approach under the Wilson/Fish program, authorized by INA section 412(e)(7).”

The ORR regulations at 45 C.F.R. §400.301 also provide authority to the ORR Director to select a replacement to respond to the needs of the state’s refugee population if a state withdraws from the refugee program:”…when a State withdraws from all or part of the refugee program, the Director may authorize a replacement designee or designees to administer the provision of assistance and services, as appropriate, to refugees in that State” (see page 14 – “Statewide Coordination”).

Neither the statute nor regulations mandate a competitive review process for determining a WF grantee.  However, the statute does require as follows:

No grant or contract may be awarded under this section unless an appropriate proposal and application (including a description of the agency’s ability to perform the services specified in the proposal) are submitted to, and approved by, the appropriate administering official. Grants and contracts under this section shall be made to those agencies which the appropriate administering official determines can best perform the services 8 U.S.C. § 1522(a)(4)(A).

ORR with the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) concurrence has concluded a competitive review process is not cost effective, not in the best interest of the government, and not a practical fit for the WF program.   ORR also, in accordance with the law cited above, will require that appropriate proposals and applications are submitted and that a determination is made that the grantees are the ones that can “best perform” the services.  Therefore funding under this program is open only to those agencies that currently administer a WF program. The WF program has the regulatory authority as cited above to expand sites in the future as necessary if a state withdraws from the refugee program or if a state proposes to switch its current RCA model to the WF model.

WF grantees which include States, voluntary resettlement agencies (local and national), and a private non-profit agency that oversees a local voluntary resettlement agency administer 12 state-wide WF programs in the following States: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and Vermont, plus one county-wide program in San Diego County, California. The WF programs in these locations are currently administered by the following agencies:

Alabama: USCCB – Catholic Social Services
Alaska: USCCB – Catholic Social Services
Colorado: Colorado Department of Human Services
Idaho: Janus Inc. (formerly Mountain States Group), Idaho Office for Refugees
Kentucky: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Louisville, Kentucky Office for Refugees
Louisiana: USCCB – Catholic Charities Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana Office for Refugees
Massachusetts: Office for Refugees and Immigrants
Nevada: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada
North Dakota: LIRS – Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota
San Diego County, CA: USCCB – Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego
South Dakota: LIRS – Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota
Tennessee: USCCB – Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Tennessee Office for Refugees
Vermont: USCRI – Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program

II. ELIGIBILITY

ORR Eligible Client Population

To be eligible for WF funded programs and services, grantees must ensure refugees2 meet all requirements of 45 C.F.R. 400.43, “Requirements for documentation of refugee status”. Eligibility for refugee program services and assistance also includes: Asylees3, Cuban Haitian Entrants4; Certain Amerasians5 from Vietnam; Victims of Severe Forms of Trafficking6; Special Immigrant Visa Holders7.

All eligible individuals will be referred to as “refugees” or “clients” in these guidelines, unless the context indicates otherwise. For more details on documentary proof of the above statuses and all other ORR eligible populations, including statutory and regulatory authorities, visit the ORR website.

III. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Under the WF program guidelines, the grantee will provide interim financial assistance, medical assistance (if applicable), employment services, case management and other social services to refugees in a manner that encourages self-sufficiency, and fosters greater coordination among voluntary agencies and other community-based service providers. An integrated system of assistance and services is an essential characteristic of a WF program. Services and assistance under this program are intended to help refugees attain self-sufficiency within the period of support defined by 45 CFR 400.211.8 This period is currently eight months from date of arrival in the U.S. (for refugees and SIVs); the date of adjustment of status if applying for Special Immigrant Status within the U.S (SIVs); the date of final grant of asylum (for asylees); the date a Cuban/Haitian becomes an entrant9; the date of certification or eligibility letter for Victims of Severe Forms of Trafficking.

WF programs provide assistance and services to refugees for the purpose of enhancing refugee self-sufficiency. Some examples include: (1) where assistance and services for refugees receiving RCA and those receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families  (TANF) could be provided in a better coordinated, effective, and efficient manner;  (2) where the  payment rate for RCA and TANF is well below the ORR payment rates listed in the ORR regulations at 45 C.F.R. section 400.60;  (3) where TANF-eligible refugees may not have access to timely, culturally and linguistically compatible services in the provision of employment and training programs; (4) where existing options for delivery of services and assistance to refugees do not present the most effective resettlement in that location, and where resettlement could be made more effective through the implementation of an alternative project; (5) where the continuity of services from the time of arrival until the attainment of self-sufficiency needs to be strengthened; or (6) where it is in the best interest of refugees to receive assistance and services outside the traditional TANF system.

WF programs have the flexibility to design programs tailored to the refugees’ needs, assets, and environment of the resettlement community.

There are seven main elements of WF programs that allow them to be distinguished from the traditional10 state -administered refugee resettlement programs:

a. They may serve TANF eligible clients in addition to RCA clients.
b. The provision of cash assistance, case management and employment services are integrated and administered generally under a single agency employing a “one stop shop “ model  that is culturally and linguistically equipped to work with refugees.
c. The cash assistance element may be administered and/or delivered by the state or a private entity.
d. Monthly RCA payment levels may exceed state TANF payment levels (up to the PPP levels outlined under 45 C.F.R. §400.60).
e. WF programs utilize innovative strategies for the provision of cash assistance, through incentives, bonuses and income disregards which are tied directly to the achievement of employment goals outlined in the client self-sufficiency plan.
f. Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) may be administered by a private entity.
g. WF programs provide intensive case management to refugees who are determined to have special needs.

Funding for the WF program is made available under the Transitional Assistance and Medical Services (TAMS) and Social Services line items.  Under TAMS, WF grantees receive WF-Cash and Medical Assistance (WF-CMA) discretionary funds which are awarded through cooperative agreements to cover RCA, RMA (if privately administered), intensive case management, statewide coordination and RCA/RMA administration costs. WF-CMA discretionary grants are awarded based on a budget of estimated costs for providing up to eight months of RCA and RMA (if applicable) to eligible refugees and up to one year of intensive case management, as well as for the identifiable and reasonable administrative costs associated with providing RCA and RMA and statewide coordination. WF-CMA is a cost reimbursement grant. Any unobligated balances will be used as an offset to the following year’s award for this grant.

Back at the Border(s), Bigger Issues ~ Chilling Report

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Breitbart: MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas— The lack of security conditions in this border city fuel the terror that its citizens live under and led to the U.S. Consulate in Matamoros being the latest target for a bomb threat.

According to information released by the Tamaulipas Command Control and Computing Center (C-4 similar to a police communication center), authorities received a call about an explosive device at the consular office on Thursday afternoon. The alert raised the security levels in the Jardin neighborhood, which is just yards away from two international bridges that connect this border city with Brownsville, Texas.

Mexican soldiers and federal police officers rushed to the neighborhood and sealed off the area for several hours. One of the security blockades was placed near the intersection of First and Azaleas streets in Jardin neighborhood.

As part of the security protocol, the U.S. Consulate was fortified by Mexican troops who surrounded the building while special teams went into the building to search for the explosive devices. Mexican authorities used police dogs to search the area and after a careful search of the building were able to determine that the threat was false.

The threat to the U.S. Consulate Office in Matamoros is just one of many daily occurrences in this city. Earlier this week, the HEB shopping center had to be evacuated after a similar bomb threat was called in.

As Breitbart Texas previously reported, two congressmen wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry demanding answers for the lack of security in the consular offices in Mexico.

The U.S. Consulate Office in this border city has previously been the victim of other bomb threats and also the theft of thousands of U.S. crossing cards that were stolen by the Gulf Cartel out of a delivery truck, Breitbart Texas previously reported.

So, what does the Congress know and have to say? They got the report:

Massive Senate report: Mexican AND Canadian borders are ‘significant’ terrorist pathways

The U.S.-Canada border is the likely path for terrorists to invade the country, according to top national security experts and Congress’ most comprehensive review of America’s 19,000 miles of coasts and land borders.

“The nexus between known or suspected terrorists in eastern Canada and the northern parts of the U.S. represent [sic] a significant national security threat,” said a new report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, a conclusion reached as Canada decided to settle 25,000 Syrian refugees by March.

“The border is not secure,” Sen. Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the committee, told Secrets. He included the southern border, where he said that drug cartels are teaming with “potentially Islamic terror organizations.”

He raised concerns about the rushed refugee plans of new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. “It is a concern with the new prime minister, Trudeau, opening up his border to refugees. They can come into America, so I would say that increases our risk,” Johnson said.

His panel’s new 100-page report, show in pdf form at the end of this story, is based on dozens of hearings, interviews and trips, cites terror arrests in Canada and U.S. border states of Islamic State threats and quotes several experts raising concerns about how easy it is for illegal immigrants and terrorists to cross in from Canada.

“Security observers have argued that Canada represents a substantial vulnerability, because it provides immigrant visas to individuals who pose a significant threat,” said the report, “The State of America’s Border Security.”

“Witnesses testified before the committee that if someone gets into Canada, they will most likely be able to enter the U.S.”

And for thousands of miles of border, for most there is only a shallow ditch and forestlands to stop them. “There is currently no fencing on the northern border. Instead, the demarcation line between the two countries is often marked by a ditch, approximately six inches deep,” says the report.

It offers several details of terrorist attempts and also charts how the U.S. and Canada are working to fight it. Consider this entry about terrorism from page 42:

The nexus between known or suspected terrorists in eastern Canada and the northern parts of the U.S. represent a significant national security threat. Communities in Minnesota and New York, which are adjacent to Ontario and Quebec, have recently experienced apprehensions of individuals on terrorist charges. For example, on November 26, 2014, two men in Minneapolis, Minnesota were charged with recruiting and conspiring to provide support to ISIL. Similarly, on September 17, 2014, a man in Rochester, New York was arrested on similar charges after the FBI provided evidence showing that he attempted to recruit fighters and funds for ISIL.

And it’s not just a northern border problem. Johnson said the highly trafficked U.S. border with Mexico is also a pathway for Islamic terrorists, especially as they team up with drug cartels that have carte blanche on their side of the line.

Those cartels “are also combining with transnational criminal organizations, potentially Islamic terror organizations,” he said.

Johnson in his report steers clear of the heated presidential campaign rhetoric on how to handle the border and notes that “it’s not a war zone.”

Solutions for the southern border include development of a guest worker system, a new campaign against drugs, and more efforts to secure the border. He also talked favorably of a recent Bush-era campaign to send those caught at the border home immediately, an effort that led to a drop in illegal border crossings.

Up north, he wants a “threat analysis” to see what more can be done to stop terrorists from slipping in. “Start now,” he said.

THE STATE OF AMERICA’S BORDER SECURITY

Senator Ron Johnson, Chairman

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

United States Senate

DHS Secret Databases Not Secure, Violations

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In part from the report: Recognizing the importance of information security to the economic and national security interests of the United States, the Congress enacted Title III of the E-Government Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-347, Sections 301-305) to improve security within the Federal Government. Information security means protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction. Title III of the E-Government Act, as amended, entitled Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, provides a comprehensive framework to ensure the effectiveness of security controls over information resources that support Federal operations and assets.

Components are not consistently following DHS’ policies and procedures to update the system inventory and plan of action and milestones in the Department’s enterprise management systems. Further, Components continue to operate systems without the proper authority. We also identified a significant deficiency in the Department’s information security program as the United States Secret Service (USSS) did not provide the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) with the continuous monitoring data required by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) during Fiscal Year (FY) 2014. Without this information, CISO was significantly restricted from performing continuous monitoring on the Department’s information systems, managing DHS’ information security program, or ensuring compliance with the President’s cybersecurity priorities. Subsequent to the completion of our fieldwork, USSS established an agreement with the DHS Chief Information Officer (CIO) to provide the required data beginning in FY 2015.

Evaluation of DHS Information Security Program for Fiscal Year 2015 revealed the existence of dozens of top-secret unpatched databases.
SecurityAffairs: The story I’m about to tell you is staggering, the US Department of Homeland Security is running dozens of unpatched and vulnerable databases, a number of them contained information rated as “secret” and even “top secret.”
The discovery emerged from the “Evaluation of DHS’ Information Security Program for Fiscal Year 2015” conducted on the department’s IT infrastructure by the US Government.
The audit of the DHS Information Security found serious security issues in the Government systems, including 136 systems that had expired “authorities to operate,” a circumstance that implies the stop of maintenance activities. The principal problem discovered by the inspectors is that a number of systems, despite are still operative and under maintenance have no up-to-date security patches, leaving them open to cyber attacks.


Of the 136 systems, 17 were containing information classified as “secret” or “top secret.”
Giving a deep look at the report on the DHS Information Security Program, it is possible to note that the Coast Guard runs 26 vulnerable databases, followed by FEMA with 25, Customs and Border Protection with 14, and the DHS’ headquarters with 11.

Although Secret Services have only two vulnerable databases, they have failed other targets.
It implemented proper security checks just for 75 percent of its secret or top secret databases, and just 58 per cent of its non-secret databases. The DHS targets are 100 per cent and 75 per cent respectively. The experts discovered several security issues affecting the majority of assessed systems, including PCs, databases and also browsers.
The assessments conducted to evaluate the DHS Information Security Program, revealed several deficiencies in the systems analyzed, for example, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 workstations which were missing security patches for the principal software.
“We found additional vulnerabilities regarding Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, and Oracle Java software on the Windows 7 workstations,” the department’s inspector general noted in a 66-page report. “If exploited, these vulnerabilities could allow unauthorized access to DHS data.”
The inspectors have found many other security issues in the DHS Information Security Program, including weak passwords, websites susceptible to cross-site and/or cross-frame vulnerabilities and poor security settings.
The Government environments suffer bureaucratic obstacles in bug fixing and patch management, it could take more than a year to fix a leak from the moment it is reported.


The results of the evaluation confirm that improvements have been made but there are a lot of serious issues that have to be urgently addressed.
“While improvements have been made, the Department must ensure compliance with information security requirements in other areas. For example, DHS does not include its classified system information as part of its monthly information security scorecard or its FISMA submission to OMB. In addition, USCG is not reporting its PIV data to the Department, which is a contradiction to the Under Secretary for Management’s guidance that requires Components to submit this information to the Department.5 In addition, we identified deficiencies with DHS’ enterprise management systems, including inaccurate or incomplete data.”
The report also provides a set of recommendations to solve the security issued emerged after the assessment.
The DHS has 90 days to fix the issues, two of which have been already solved.
Pierluigi Paganini