IRGC a Terror Organization? Ah, Yeah

Posted on July 6, 2018July 6, 2018 by Denise Simon

Why would there need to be some consideration to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror organization? Anyone?

Begin with Hezbollah:

US State Department-designated terrorist group Hezbollah announced that Facebook and Twitter had terminated its main accounts. In a post on encrypted messenger, Telegram, Hezbollah opined that the shutdowns were “part of the propaganda campaign against the resistance due to the important role of the organization’s information apparatus in various arenas.” Hezbollah then began redirecting people to other Hezbollah accounts on social media. More here.

photo

*** The U.S. Navy stands ready to ensure freedom of navigation and free flow of commerce, a spokesman for the U.S. military’s Central Command said on Thursday, after Iran warned it will block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has threatened in recent days to close the strait, a vital route for world oil supplies, if Washington tries to cut Tehran’s exports.

An Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander said on Wednesday Iran would block any exports of crude for the Gulf in retaliation for hostile U.S. action.

“The U.S. and its partners provide, and promote security and stability in the region,” Central Command spokesman Navy Captain Bill Urban said in an email to Reuters.

Asked what would be the U.S. Naval Forces reaction if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, he said: “Together, we stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce wherever international law allows.”

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy (IRGCN) lacks a strong navy and instead focuses on an asymmetric warfare capability in the Gulf. It possesses many speed boats and portable anti-ship missile launchers and can lay naval mines. Full story.

*** Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Stock Photos and ...

The Trump administration is weighing whether to label a powerful arm of Iran’s military as a terrorist group, part of an effort to use every possible tool in the box to pressure Tehran.

Senior current and former officials familiar with the matter tell CNN the White House is considering designating Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization, a debate that has senior Cabinet officials squaring off on both sides.

The designation decision, formally under the State Department’s purview, is taking on heightened importance as part of the White House’s increasingly aggressive strategy towards Iran. Officials have been debating it for several months and have yet to reach a consensus.

While some warn a designation could pose risks to US personnel and installations overseas, it would allow the White House to freeze IRGC assets, impose travel bans and levy criminal penalties on top of pre-existing economic sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump.

“The United States is trying to change malign behavior of the Iranians and deter their aggression,” said Chris Costa, the executive director of the Spy Museum and a recently retired special adviser to Trump on counterterrorism. For that goal, “the special designation is a very important tool,” he said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in favor of the designation, sources familiar with his thinking say.

“There’s lots of things that are being discussed, things that will prove, we believe, very effective at the end goal-which is, at the end of the day, what matters, right?” Pompeo told CNN in a recent interview. “The end goal is to convince the Islamic Republic of Iran to be a normal country.” He declined to discuss specific plans for future sanctions and designations.

But labeling an official state military as a terror group, particularly a group with the reach and force of the IRGC, would be unprecedented and could expose US diplomatic and military officials to additional hazards, some warn.

The powerful military and security body is key to Iran’s influence in the Middle East, often linked to Iran’s support for terrorism. The organization controls wide swaths of the Iranian economy, including the energy sector.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has cautioned the administration that designating the IRGC could pose dangers to US forces, according to one source familiar with the matter. While the intelligence community doesn’t make policy decisions, its head, Coats, is the lowest common denominator who pools the analysis and assessments of all the agencies to advise policymakers.

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke publicly about the potential dangers of designating the IRGC.

“There are particular risks and complexities to designating an entire army, so to speak, of a country where that then puts in place certain requirements … that then triggers certain actions that we think are not appropriate and not necessarily in the best interests of our military,” Tillerson told reporters during a press briefing in October.

Turning Up the Heat

In March, Trump ousted Tillerson, who had advocated for staying within the Iran deal, replacing him with Pompeo, then his Central Intelligence Agency director.

In contrast to Tillerson, Pompeo has been a hardline voice on Tehran. According to sources familiar with the matter, the top US diplomat wants as many designations against Iran as possible to squeeze its economy. He has not been shy in speeches or social media posts about stopping Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei from wreaking havoc in the Gulf.

Alireza Miryousefi, a spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations, said talk of the possible terrorist designation was in keeping with an American tendency to use terrorism for political aims.

“The US a long history politicizing the term ‘terrorism’ for its own political ends, which undermines others fighting terrorism,” Miryousefi said. “To associate the term with the IRGC is categorically preposterous, especially considering their central role in fighting terrorism in the Middle East, including ISIS and al-Qaeda.”

The US will have to consider its allies in Europe if it takes the step of designating the IRGC.

Since Trump announced his intention to abandon the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal in May, his administration has imposed a swath of new sanctions, including one that will require all countries to eliminate Iranian oil imports by November. That move is particularly unpopular with European allies struggling to hold the deal together and keep a lid on Iranian nuclear development.

Trump administration officials leave next week for a second round of international trips to get partners on board with its broader strategy of increased sanctions and strictures on Iran. The National Security Council did not comment on that effort. Europeans say they remain unconvinced.

“The Americans haven’t explained how they want to reach their goals” with regards to Iran, said one European official. National security adviser John Bolton, meeting last month with European officials to talk about the US campaign against Iran, told them there would no exemptions from sanctions for European companies or entities that do business with Iran under UN sanctions, European officials said.

Brian Hook, the State Department’s director of policy planning, stressed that point in a Monday briefing, telling reporters that the US is “not looking” to issue waivers to European companies.

‘Unconditional surrender’

Bolton told Europeans that Washington was looking for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” harkening back to demands on Iran made by Pompeo during a speech in late May. The top US diplomat said at the time that the US wanted Iran to abandon its nuclear program, pull out of the Syrian war, and cut ties to terrorism.

Another senior State Department official said “we are looking at a range of avenues to increase pressure.”

Several other administration officials have suggested taking other steps to ramp up pressure on Iran before taking the dramatic step of designating the IRGC.

Successive administrations engaged in a similar debate on whether to designate the Taliban as a foreign terrorist organization, ultimately deciding such a move would hamper efforts to negotiate a political solution in Afghanistan.

According to one former senior intelligence official, the debate about Iran has resurfaced many times over the years, often based on a specific incident or piece of intelligence. The intelligence community will “tell [the administration] what might happen if you do this, what might happen if you don’t,” the official said. “If we declare them terrorists, and we put pressure on them, you do have a number of people who say, ‘what would that do to our forces in Iraq and Syria?’”

Iranian forces might retaliate and “ramp up anti American activities in Iraq,” the official said. Iran could also call American special forces terrorists or threaten embassies, potentially endangering the long-term US presence in Iraq and Syria.

The IRGC, in particular a special unit called the Quds Force, which is the equivalent of US Joint Special Operations Command, has also attempted to recruit “operatives around the world to undertake activity on behalf of Iran,” the official continued.

While the Quds Force has done humanitarian work and conducted military operations over the years, “its current focus remains proxy activities in the region” in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, for example, the official said.

The IRGC “provides weapons, training for regional proxies, regional forces … it focuses on terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis,” Costa, the former National Security Council counterterrorism adviser told CNN. “They’re a regional spoiler.”

Officials also suggested a designation of the IRGC as a foreign terrorist organization, while dramatic, would be largely symbolic because it is already considered a terrorist entity under a 9/11-era executive order signed by President George W. Bush to block terrorist financing.

In October, Trump authorized sanctions aimed at the IRGC under that order, calling the Revolutionary Guard “the Iranian Supreme Leader’s corrupt personal terror force and militia.” He urged US allies to follow suit and impose sanctions against Iran to target its support for terrorism. With a special foreign terrorist designation, the administration could levy a wider and more severe set of sanctions.

‘Another 120,000 terrorists’

Former top CIA lawyer John Rizzo told CNN that a special designation would likely not change how the CIA targets the IRGC.

“The longstanding legal criterion for how US [intelligence] agencies target foreign based threats is if a nation or group engages in international terrorist activities threatening the US or its allies,” he wrote to CNN. “‎For many years, the Iranian government and its entities has fit that bill.”

Many former military and intelligence officials told CNN that US troops are already in significant amounts of danger in the regions where our forces collide with Iran’s military or its proxy forces. Calling them out as terrorists wouldn’t make a big difference, they argue.

“It’s a specious argument to suggest the US military is more vulnerable” if the US makes this call, said Costa.

Anthony Shaffer, a retired US Army Reserve lieutenant colonel who directed several major intelligence operations in the Middle East, told CNN,” My recommendation has always been that they should be a terrorist group,” Shaffer’s book “Dark Heart” describes his experience directly encountering the IRGC funding terrorist efforts in Eastern Afghanistan. “I don’t see how there’s any downside,” he continued.

But if the US takes this unique step, labeling the military branch a terrorist group, it runs the risk of making the IRGC a “hero in the eyes of probably most Iranians for ‘resistance’,” said James Durso, a former US Navy officer and staff member on the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the move would likely be “symbolic” at this point, “if we designate the entire IRGC, that’s another 120,000 ‘terrorists’ we will have to track,” he said. “We will have normal relations with Iran someday, so let’s not make 120,000 more future enemies unless there’s a real benefit.”

The Bombing Plot in Paris Reveals Wider Iranian Threat

Posted on July 6, 2018July 6, 2018 by Denise Simon

Tower: Two Iranian nationals, recently arrested by France and Germany, will be extradited to Belgium in connection to a terror plot that targeted an Iranian opposition rally outside of Paris, Reuters reported Wednesday.

The rally, which took place Saturday, was held by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian opposition group. Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s lawyer, spoke at the rally calling for the removal of the regime’s rulers.

On Saturday, Belgian authorities arrested an Iranian couple who had 500 grams of a homemade explosive and a detonator in their car.

France has arrested a man of Iranian origin and Germany had arrested an Austria-based Iranian diplomat. According to Reuters, Belgium asked France and Germany to extradite their suspects. A European intelligence source told Reuters that Belgium was taking the lead in the investigation.

On Wednesday, Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the ambassadors of France, Germany, and Belgium to protest the arrest of the Iranian diplomat. Earlier in the day, Iran had also protested to France over allowing the NCRI meeting to take place on French soil. Iran considers the group to be a terrorist group.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi dismissed the European claims about a terror plot, saying that the arrest was part of a plot by the United States and Israel to damage European-Iranian relations. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif similarly referred to the charges as a “sinister false flag ploy.”

Iran has been accused in the paste of planning terror attacks, especially targeting opponents of the regime, on European soil. In November of last year, an advocate for Iranian-Arabs was fatally shot in the Hague. In 2012, an al Qaeda terrorist testified in court that Iran facilitated the travel of him and his accomplices to carry out terror attacks in Europe.

In one of the most notorious of these cases, Iranian agents entered a Berlins restaurant and killed three Kurdish activists and wounded several others in a hail of gunfire. The conviction of the assassins, who were tied to the regime, led to a rupture in relations between Germany and Iran.

*** Deeper dive:

An Iranian diplomat and members of what authorities described as an “Iranian sleeper cell” were arrested this week in Belgium, Germany and France, as they were allegedly planning to a bomb a high-level meeting in Paris. The arrests came after a complex investigation by several European intelligence agencies and were announced by Belgium’s Minister of the Interior, Jan Jambon.

The operation against the alleged sleeper cell began on Saturday, June 30, when members of Belgium’s Special Forces Group, stopped a Mercedes car in Brussels. The car was carrying a married Belgian couple of Iranian descent, named in media reports as Amir S., 38, and Nasimeh N., 33. According to the Belgian Ministry of the Interior, Nasimeh N. was found to be carrying 500 grams of triacetone triperoxide (TATP) explosive and a detonator inside a toiletries bag. On the following day, Sunday, July 1, German police arrested Assadollah A., an Iranian diplomat stationed in Iran’s embassy in Vienna, Austria. According to reports, the diplomat was driving a rental car in the southeastern German state of Bavaria, heading to Austria. On the same day, a fourth person, who has not been named, was arrested by authorities in France, reportedly in connection to the other three arrests.

The four detainees were in contact with each other and were allegedly working for the Iranian government. All four have been charged with an alleged foiled plot to bomb the annual conference of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) that took place last Saturday, June 30, in a Paris suburb. The National Council of Resistance of Iran is a France-based umbrella group of Iranian dissidents, led by Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a militant group that has roots in radical Islam and Marxism. Between 1970 and 1976, the group assassinated six American officials in Iran and in 1970 tried to kill the United States ambassador to the country. It initially supported the Islamic Revolution of 1979, but later withdrew its support, accusing the government of Ayatollah Khomeini of “fascism”. It continued its operations from exile, mainly from Iraq, where its armed members were trained by the Palestine Liberation Organization and other Arab leftist groups.

Until 2009, the European Union and the United States officially considered the MEK a terrorist organization. But the group’s sworn hatred of the government in Iran brought it close to Washington after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. By 2006, the US military was openly collaborating with MEK forces in Iraq, and in 2012 the group was dropped from the US Department of State’s foreign terrorist organizations. Today the group enjoys open protection from the EU and the US. According to Belgian authorities, the four members of the Iranian sleeper cell were planning to bomb the MEK-sponsored NCRI meeting in Paris under instructions by the Iranian government. Conference participants included over 30 senior US officials, including US President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who addressed the meeting. Stephen Harper, Canada’s former prime minister, also spoke at the conference.

Speaking in Brussels this week, Belgium’s Interior Minister Jambon praised the country’s intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies for foiling the alleged bomb plot in Paris. But Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, dismissed claims of an Iranian sleeper cell as “fake news” and described reports of a foiled bomb attack as “a sinister false flag plot”.

Awan Gets Wrist Slap, DWS Dances

Posted on July 3, 2018July 3, 2018 by Denise Simon

The Washington Post submits this Pakistani IT scandal in the Democrat caucus in the House of Representatives is fabricated, yet WaPo never investigated or reported a word of the case.

This case is one of the most obscure, fraudulent secret cases in DC with only one media source doing good work, The Daily Caller.

AWAN BROTHERS BREAKING NEWS: Imran Awan Arrested At Dulles ...

Seems Awan took a little plea deal with a slap on the wrist and Debbie Wasserman Schultz dances in celebration. That is unless the Feds got something out of Awan to go after lil miss Debbie or the others. There are plenty of others.

*** Awan pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal bank fraud in a plea deal where prosecutors said they “uncovered no evidence” that Awan “violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems.”

During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington, Awan pleaded guilty to making a false statement on a loan application. As part of the deal, the prosecution dropped fraud charges against Awan’s wife, Hina Alvi. (This judge by the way, from Jamaica was appointed by Obama, read more on her here.)

The other swampiness continues….

Breitbart News Network photo

The case has generated interest from Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have suggested Awan could have been involved in a cyber breach operation. But prosecutors said Tuesday they investigated allegations of misconduct by Awan while on the job in Congress and determined federal charges were not warranted.

“Particularly, the government has found no evidence that your client illegally removed House data from the House network or from House members’ offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information, including classified or sensitive information,” the prosecution said in the plea deal.

Prosecutors said the government conducted a “thorough investigation of those allegations.” More here.

***

But hold on…there is missing computer and electronic devices. Is this another Hillary type case?

Over 40 offices in the House of Representatives may have fallen victim to an “IT security violation,” according to a secret memo from top congressional law enforcement to the Committee on House Administration.

The memo, written in part by Paul Irving, the House’s sergeant at arms, detailed the disappearance of a server for the House Democratic Caucus following its marking as evidence in a cybersecurity probe. Imran Awan, email server administrator to former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and members of his family had logged into the server more than 7,000 times between 2015 and 2016 without proper authorization.

Since then, the memo alleges, the caucus server holding emails from lawmakers has been replaced by a lookalike, but the original is gone.

*** More detail:

A secret memo marked “URGENT” detailed how the House Democratic Caucus’s server went “missing” soon after it became evidence in a cybersecurity probe. The secret memo also said more than “40 House offices may have been victims of IT security violations.”

In the memo, Congress’s top law enforcement official, Sergeant-at-Arms Paul Irving, along with Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko, wrote, “We have concluded that the employees [Democratic systems administrator Imran Awan and his family] are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents.”

The memo, addressed to the Committee on House Administration (CHA) and dated Feb. 3, 2017, was recently reviewed and transcribed by The Daily Caller News Foundation. The letter bolsters TheDCNF’s previous reporting about the missing server and evidence of fraud on Capitol Hill.

It details how the caucus server, run by then-caucus Chairman Rep. Xavier Becerra, was secretly copied by authorities after the House Inspector General (IG) identified suspicious activity on it, but the Awans’ physical access was not blocked.

But after, the report reads, the server appears to have been secretly replaced with one that looked similar.

The memo called for firing the Pakistani-born aides, revoking all their computer accounts, and changing the locks on any door they had access to.

Rep. Louie Gohmert — a Texas Republican on the House Committee on the Judiciary who has done oversight work on the case — said the missing server contained copies of Congress members’ emails.

“They put 40 members of Congress’s data on one server … That server, with that serial number, has disappeared,” he said.

Multiple sources connected to the investigation told TheDCNF that shortly after an IG report came out identifying the House Democratic Caucus server as key evidence in a criminal probe, the evidence was stolen.

“They [the Awans] deliberately turned over a fake server” to falsify evidence, one official close to the CHA alleged. “It was a breach. The data was completely out of [members’] possession.”

The six-page letter says:

• In September of 2016 … the CHA and [IG] briefed the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus about suspicious activity related to their server that the [IG] identified. As a result, the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus directed the CAO to copy the data from their server and two computers.
• The CHA directed the IG to refer the matter to the US Capitol Police. The USCP initiated an investigation that continues to this day.
• In late 2016, the former Chairman of the Democratic Caucus announced his intention to resign from Congress to assume a new position. The CAO and [sergeant-at-arms] worked with the Chairman to account for his inventory, including the one server.
• While reviewing the inventory, the CAO discovered that the serial number of the server did not match that of the one imaged in September. [Investigators] also discovered that the server in question [the replacement server] was still operating under the employee’s control, contrary to the explicit instructions of the former chairman to turn over all equipment and fully cooperate with the inquiry and investigation. [A House source said the “employee” was Abid Awan.]
• The USCP interviewed relevant staff regarding the missing server.
• On January 24, 2017, the CAO acquired the [replacement] server from the control of the employees and transferred that server to the USCP.

President Donald Trump referenced the Democratic Caucus’ missing server in a tweet. But because the letter to the CHA was kept secret, many news outlets have not grasped that the House’s top cop documented a “missing server” connected to the Democratic Caucus.

The timeline laid out in the letter also shows that Becerra — now California’s Democratic attorney general — failed to ensure that the Awans didn’t have access to House computer systems during the 2016 election, which was wrought with cybersecurity scandals.

An IG presentation from September 2016 shows that Becerra knew of problems months before the server disappeared.

“The Caucus Chief of Staff requested one of the shared employees to not provide IT services or access their computers,” it read. “This shared employee continued.” It’s unclear why that request was not granted or why it was a request rather than an order.

A House official close to the probe said the employee was Abid, who was not on Becerra or the Caucus’s payroll. The official said Becerra Chief of Staff Sean McCluskie apparently knew Abid was accessing Caucus servers. According to payroll records, Abid’s sister-in-law, Hina Alvi, was the Caucus’ systems administrator.

The Awans’ continued physical access to Becerra’s equipment after red flags emerged enabled the server to disappear after it became evidence, House officials close to the investigation told TheDCNF.

Becerra has refused to comment, citing an ongoing criminal investigation.

The February 2017 memo itemizes “numerous and egregious violations of House IT security” by members of the Awan family, including using Congress members’ usernames and “the unauthorized storage of sensitive House information outside the House.”

“These employees accessed user accounts and computers for offices that did not employ them, without the knowledge and permission of the impacted Member’s office,” it said, adding, “4 of the employees accessed the Democratic Caucus computers 5,735 times.” More than 100 office computers were open to access from people not on the office’s staff, it said.

Chris Gowen — a former aide to Hillary Clinton who is now serving as Imran’s attorney — told TheDCNF, “There is no missing server and never was.”

He didn’t provide any support for his claim, which is contrary to evidence Kiko and Irving presented to Congress.

The memo said the CHA possesses voluminous evidence, including, “Interview notes with House Members’ Chiefs of Staff,” and “Logon activity and computer access logs.” Prosecutors have not brought charges.

The Awans were banned from Congress’s computer network the day the letter was sent, and Kiko held a briefing to convey the message to chiefs of staff for members who employed them.

But Democrats claim they were never told about any of the cybersecurity issues itemized in the urgent memo. Rep. Jackie Speier — a California Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who employed Imran and his wife, Hina Alvi — said she never heard of any missing server.

Joaquin Castro of Texas — another Democratic intelligence committee member who employed one of the Awans — told TheDCNF that Kiko never told him of any cybersecurity issues whatsoever and that the Awan probe was instead described as a theft issue.

Indeed, the CHA issued only one public statement on the case and titled it the “House Theft Investigation” — wording that avoids cybersecurity words while political news coverage raged about other cybersecurity issues in the 2016 election.

Yet even the alleged theft has not resulted in criminal charges — even though the letter also says House authorities have “purchase orders and vouchers” that allegedly show procurement fraud, as well as testimony from a Democratic chief of staff to Rep. Yvette Clarke, who warned of procurement fraud.

The FBI arrested Imran at the airport in July 2017 for alleged bank fraud that occurred six months prior, and Democrats have since claimed that the case is about nothing but bank fraud. Bank fraud does not explain why the Awans were kicked off the House network concurrent with the urgent memo, which did not cite bank fraud.

A Democratic IT aide who alleged that Imran solicited a bribe from him told TheDCNF he believes members of Congress are playing dumb and covering the matter up. Wendy Anderson, a former chief of staff to New York Rep. Yvette Clarke, told House investigators that she suspected that her predecessor, Shelley Davis, was working with Abid on a theft scheme, but Clarke refused to fire Abid until outside investigators got involved, TheDCNF reported.

Eighteen months after the evidence was recounted in the urgent memo, prosecution appears to have stalled for reasons not publicly explained. Imran is in court July 3 for a possible plea deal in the bank fraud case. Gohmert said the FBI has refused to accept evidence demonstrating alleged House misconduct, and some witnesses with first-hand knowledge say the bureau has not interviewed them.

Iranian Regime Using Water as a Weapon and APT 33

Posted on July 2, 2018July 2, 2018 by Denise Simon

The Iranian people have been protesting against the regime for quite some time and in some cases it has turned deadly, where military forces are firing on the protestors. What are the protests about? Their economy. Remember when the Obama White House gave Iran billions that apparently we owed from back debts and the regime was to use the money to infuse growth in the economy? Yeah, not so much. In fact the starving and unemployed citizens of Iran are demanding the regime get out of Syria and pay attention at home.

Yet, water availability in Iran has been at a crisis point for a few years and getting worse.

Dozens of riot police on motorcycles faced off against farmers in the same town, Varzaneh, another video showed. Smoke swirled around the protesters and the person filming said tear gas was being fired. A second person reported clashes. Police in the city of Isfahan were not immediately available to comment.

“What’s called drought is more often the mismanagement of water,” said a journalist in Varzaneh, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

“And this lack of water has disrupted people’s income.”

Farmers accuse local politicians of allowing water to be diverted from their areas in return for bribes.

While the nationwide protests in December and January stemmed from anger over high prices and alleged corruption, in rural areas, lack of access to water was also a major cause, analysts say.

At least 25 people were killed and, according to one parliamentarian, up to 3,700 people were arrested, the biggest challenge yet for the government of president Hassan Rouhani, who was reelected last year. More here from Reuters.

Meanwhile, in Paris there are several Americans attending the annual National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – an umbrella bloc of opposition groups in exile that seek an end to Shi’ite Muslim clerical rule in Iran. There apparently was a bomb plot on Monday that was foiled, where an Iranian diplomat was arrested along with several others.

Since President Trump formally exited the JCPOA, the nuclear deal, Iran has some nefarious activities again in play and that includes hacking beyond punishing the Iranian citizens and bomb plots.

Since the 2009 Green Revolution in Iran, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has taken to hacking including by proxy.

The emergence of the Iranian Cyber Army (ICA) as an extension of the IRGC was an initial attempt by the Islamic Republic at conducting internationally focused operations. These operations were a departure from Gerdab’s focus on maintaining domestic moral values and defending government rhetoric. In 2011, the IRGC’s ICA formed the foundation of the Khaybar Center for Information Technology. According to a former IRGC cyber commander, the Khaybar Center was established in 2011 and has been linked to a number of attacks against the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

Even today, the balance between ideology and cyber skills remains problematic. One example of the conflict between ideology and skill was Mohammad Hussein Tajik, a former cyber commander within the IRGC. According to Insikt Group’s source, Tajik’s father maintained a strong religious background and was a veteran of Iran’s ministry of intelligence. Yet Tajik was arrested and killed because the Iranian government feared that Tajik was not ideologically aligned and posed a betrayal and flight risk.

Today, based on ongoing contact between Insikt Group’s source and Iranian hackers, it is estimated that there are over 50 organizations vying for government-sponsored offensive cyber projects. Only the best teams succeed, are paid, and remain in business. The government does its best to compartmentalize — one job might be creating a remote code exploit (RCE) for a popular software application, while another job might be using the RCE and establishing persistent unauthorized access. Two different contractors (or more) are typically required to complete the government-defined objective.

Public knowledge has also established that Iranian academic institutions play a contractor-like role. Specific examples include Shahid Beheshti University (SBU) and the Imam Hossein University (IHU), which have comprehensive science and technology departments attracting some of the best academic talent in Iran. In fact, the SBU has a specific cyberspace research institute dedicated to such matters, and the IHU was founded by the IRGC.

For a full read on the report due to an interview with a previous Iranian hacker and significant research on state sponsored campaigns, go here.

Cyber security professionals in the United States have detected Iranian hackers breaking into defense contractors, aviation systems, energy companies, telecom operations and other tech companies in the United States. Iran is listed at APT 33, Advanced Persistent Threat and Saudi Arabia is just as vulnerable as the United States. In 2016, the Department of Justice indicted 7 Iranians on cyber attacks on dozens of U.S. banks, attempting to shut down the Bowman Avenue dam operation in New York and to disrupt other critical U.S. infrastructure sites. 45 major financial institutions were targeted including JP Morgan, Well Fargo and American Express. Read more detail here.

Ridiculous Deductibles Broke the Healthcare System

Posted on July 1, 2018July 1, 2018 by Denise Simon

Hello democrats….what again did Obamacare solve?

Sky-High Deductibles Broke the U.S. Health Insurance System

Employers are questioning a system they say costs patients too much.

Bloomberg: When Carla Jordan and her husband were hit with a cascade of serious medical issues, she knew that at least her family had health insurance through her job. What she didn’t realize was that even with that coverage, a constant stream of medical bills would soon push the family to the edge of financial collapse.

The Jordans, both 40, were once solidly in the middle class, but ever since the 2008 financial crisis, money has been tight at best. Then calamity hit. In 2016, Carla needed a gallbladder operation. Her husband John suffered a seizure the same year, followed by an unrelated infection that sent him to the emergency room. Toward the end of the year, Carla was diagnosed with diabetes. Even after paying $501 a month for medical insurance, they ended the year owing $8,000 to 18 different providers, with creditors threatening to garnish John’s wages.

Health plans similar to the Jordans’ that put patients on the hook for many thousands of dollars are widespread and growing, but some employers are beginning to have second thoughts. “Why did we design a health plan that has the ability to deliver a $1,000 surprise to employees?” Shawn Leavitt, a senior human resources executive at Comcast Corp., said at a conference in May. “That’s kind of stupid.” A handful of companies, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and CVS Health Corp., have recently announced plans to reduce deductibles or cover more care before workers are exposed to the cost.

Yet it’s still the reality for a growing share of Americans. Today, 39 percent of large employers offer only high-deductible plans, up from 7 percent in 2009, according to a survey by the National Business Group on Health. Half of all workers now have health insurance with a deductible of at least $1,000 for an individual, up from 22 percent in 2009, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. About 41 percent say they can’t pay a $400 emergency expense without borrowing or selling something, according to the Federal Reserve. The bottom line: People like the Jordans simply can’t afford to get sick.

Deductibles Keep Rising

About 40 percent of Americans can’t afford an unexpected $400 expense, according to the Federal Reserve.

***

The family had an Anthem Inc. insurance policy through Carla’s job as a public school teacher in Stafford County, Virginia. But the monthly premium barely covered any of their bills before paying a $2,000 deductible. And by the end of 2016, the Jordans were deep in the hole to doctors, hospitals, an anesthesiologist, urgent care, and various labs and testing centers. Their doctors sent collections notices. Some dropped them as patients until they paid up.

“I actually dreaded going to the mailbox,” Carla recalled. “I feel like I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do.” And yet, she said, sickness pushed the family “right over the brink.”

Since the early 2000s, employers have mostly embraced high-deductible health plans. The thinking has been that requiring workers to shoulder more of the cost of care will also encourage them to cut back on unnecessary spending. But it didn’t work out that way. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, many families were hard-pressed to meet their soaring health-insurance deductibles. At the same time, studies show that many put off routine care or skipped medication to save money. That can mean illnesses that might have been caught early can go undiagnosed, becoming potentially life-threatening and enormously costly for the medical system.

Patients Exposed

The share of Americans under 65 enrolled in high deductible plans is rising

The family had an Anthem Inc. insurance policy through Carla’s job as a public school teacher in Stafford County, Virginia. But the monthly premium barely covered any of their bills before paying a $2,000 deductible. And by the end of 2016, the Jordans were deep in the hole to doctors, hospitals, an anesthesiologist, urgent care, and various labs and testing centers. Their doctors sent collections notices. Some dropped them as patients until they paid up.

“I actually dreaded going to the mailbox,” Carla recalled. “I feel like I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do.” And yet, she said, sickness pushed the family “right over the brink.”

Since the early 2000s, employers have mostly embraced high-deductible health plans. The thinking has been that requiring workers to shoulder more of the cost of care will also encourage them to cut back on unnecessary spending. But it didn’t work out that way. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, many families were hard-pressed to meet their soaring health-insurance deductibles. At the same time, studies show that many put off routine care or skipped medication to save money. That can mean illnesses that might have been caught early can go undiagnosed, becoming potentially life-threatening and enormously costly for the medical system.

Patients Exposed

The share of Americans under 65 enrolled in high deductible plans is rising.

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How the U.S. insurance system came to stick its customers with increasingly onerous medical bills is a 15-year-long story of miscalculations and missed opportunities. It started in 2003 when President George W. Bush and congressional Republicans passed a change to the tax code that encouraged employers to experiment with high-deductible plans, which ask patients to pay out of pocket for care — sometimes thousands of dollars — before insurance coverage kicks in. The trend got a push when the financial crisis hit: As the economy stalled and employers shed nearly 9 million jobs over three years, companies desperate to slash costs turned to high-deductible plans to save money. The next wave came with the arrival of Obamacare in 2010. Millions who were previously uninsured could now get coverage, but many of them took on deductibles of $1,000 or higher.

The Jordan family never expected to become a casualty of the trend. Little more than a decade ago, they were making more than $100,000 a year. John Jordan had a carpentry business that did well during the housing boom. Carla’s job teaching computer science classes at a local high school gave them steady income and health benefits. When their children, now teenagers, were first born, she recalls paying $500 for her maternity stays in the hospital.

“That was the biggest bill we ever got,” she said.

Since then, Carla’s salary has barely increased and John’s business never recovered after the crash. With student loans, car notes and a house worth less than their mortgage, the Jordans filed for bankruptcy in 2013, allowing them to discharge some debts. But their income never fully bounced back.

They were ill-prepared to deal with sharply escalating health-care bills: Carla’s gallstone, her diabetes diagnoses, John’s seizures, followed by a serious campylobacter infection. The family couldn’t afford the $1,000 it would cost for Carla’s six-week diabetes class. Instead, she got a 40-minute crash course. They shelled out $125 for five pills to treat John’s infection. Still, the bills were piling up. Early in 2017, Carla took a day off from work to go through the stacks of paper, calling each office to negotiate. Few were willing to help.

“It did not really matter to them,” she said. “It was just, ‘When can you pay and how much can you pay?’”

By last year, the couple was making about $79,000, before taxes. They have no savings for retirement or for their children to go to college. “We both live paycheck-to-paycheck,” Carla said. They pay about $35 a month for medications for John’s blood pressure and acid reflux. Carla takes inexpensive metformin—just $3 a month—for diabetes, and doesn’t yet need insulin.

But her diabetes test strips and lancets cost $120 for a three-month supply. To stretch them as long as she can, she checks her blood sugar only when she feels dizzy or nauseous, rather than the standard three times a day. When she had the flu this past winter, she put off going to the doctor until her fever hit 105.

The Jordans’ response to spiraling family medical costs is repeated in families across the country, studies suggest. When one large employer switched all its employees to high-deductible plans, medical spending dropped by 12 percent to 14 percent, according to an analysis by economists at University of California, Berkeley and Harvard. But the workers weren’t learning to shop more effectively for health care. They simply reduced the amount of medical care they used, including preventative care. In high-deductible plans, women are more likely to delay follow-up tests after mammograms, including imaging, biopsies and early-stage diagnoses that could detect tumors when they’re easiest to treat, according to research in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“High-deductible plans do reduce health-care costs, but they don’t seem to be doing it in smart ways,” said Neeraj Sood, director of research at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California.

Some big companies are sitting up and taking notice. “We all thought high deductibles are going to drive people to get involved—‘skin in the game,’” Jamie Dimon, the chief executive officer of JPMorgan, said in early June. Instead, “they didn’t get the surgery they needed, when they needed it, because they can’t afford the high deductible in one shot.” JPMorgan is effectively eliminating deductibles for workers making less than $60,000 a year.

Dimon has teamed up with the top executives of Amazon.com Inc. and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to improve the health care they provide for their workers. The incoming CEO of that venture, surgeon and journalist Atul Gawande, has also noticed the plight of such families as the Jordans. “I had one friend who was bankrupted with a health plan,” Gawande said at the Spotlight Health event in Aspen, Colorado, on Saturday. “He had a $3,000 deductible and couldn’t meet it.”

About five years ago, CVS switched all of its 200,000 employees and their families to health-insurance plans with high deductibles. As the company pushed more costs onto employees, some stopped taking their medications.

“Nobody in their right mind would think that it’s a smart thing to basically be keeping people away from taking their medications,” said Troy Brennan, the chief medical officer at CVS. The company had initially offered a limited selection of generic drugs for free to its workers. But evidence that people were skipping medications prompted CVS to broaden the list, including some brand-name treatments and insulins on the free-drug list, an approach it now recommends to its corporate customers.

The company is also studying a plan to allow employers to offer free, branded drugs to workers in cases where CVS has already negotiated deep discounts. The plan could be in place as soon as 2019.

For the Jordans, such changes are late in coming. On New Year’s Day, 2017, Carla Jordan sat down with her laptop at her kitchen table to write a 20-page letter railing against insurance companies and high medical costs, replete with tables showing their expenses and eight pages of references. She pointed out that health insurance companies’ stock prices, not to mention industry executive salaries, were both soaring, while the thousands of dollars in premiums she paid protected neither her family’s health nor its finances.

“This is an urgent situation, with dire consequences,” she wrote. “Please take action immediately.” She sent the letter to then-President Barack Obama, President-Elect Donald Trump and 220 members of Congress. Only four responded. Seven months later—and for the second time in four years—the couple filed for bankruptcy.