Facebook Scrubbed Data, Possible Obstruction of Investigation

Posted on October 12, 2017October 12, 2017 by Denise Simon

Blame ‘crowdtangle’ among others. As noted on their site: ‘the easiest way to keep track of what’s happening of social media. Other sites such as meltwater broadcasts that they are ‘influencers’ and then leaderboards are created such that real or hoax operations become a trending topic.

Lots of fake news gets blamed on bloggers posing as official media outlets while quoting unnamed sources and rightly so. Some of those blogs are concoctions of Moscow while others websites repeated fake stories stoking issues and divisions within the United States from Russia media outlets such as Sputnik News and RT.

Facebook is the location of choice for millions to park links and fake items resulting in Facebook often being referred to as Fakebook.

Moscow, along with out social media tech software in the United States created algorithms that counted ‘likes and ‘shares’ which then manifested unreliable stories and questionable sources. These analytic tools have become the norm across the world and consequentially having credibility and reliance on issues or stories has fallen.

It all boils down to communication, collaboration, branding, feedback and scoring results. You are the sheep, money is made from your activity on social media with every keystroke and you don’t get paid a dime….secret financial extortion, meaning without your knowledge unless you read ALL the mice type. Facebook is a master and frankly a player where you are being punked.

This is yet another form of cyber-warfare….

Facebook scrubbed potentially damning Russia data before researchers could analyze it further

Facebook scrubbed thousands of posts shared during the 2016 campaign by accounts linked to Russia.

The removals came as a Columbia University researcher was examining their reach.

Facebook says the posts were removed to fix a glitch.

BI: Facebook removed thousands of posts shared during the 2016 election by accounts linked to Russia after a Columbia University social media researcher, Jonathan Albright, used the company’s data analytics tool to examine the reach of the Russian accounts.

Albright, who discovered the content had reached a far broader audience than Facebook initially acknowledged, told The Washington Post on Wednesday that the data had allowed him “to at least reconstruct some of the pieces of the puzzle” of Russia’s election interference.

“Not everything, but it allowed us to make sense of some of this thing,” he said.

Facebook confirmed that the posts had been removed, but said it was because the company had fixed a glitch in the analytics tool — called CrowdTangle — that Albright had used.

“We identified and fixed a bug in CrowdTangle that allowed users to see cached information from inactive Facebook Pages,” said Andy Stone, a Facebook spokesman.

Facebook’s decision to remove the posts from public view raised questions about whether the company could be held liable for suppressing potential evidence, given its role in the wide-ranging investigation of Russia’s election interference.

Albright told Business Insider that “because this is clearly a legal and imminent justice-related matter, I can’t provide much critical insight at this stage.

“I feel like my 10 rounds with the $500 billion dollar tech juggernaut are over,” he said.

Legal experts and scholars on the subject say scrubbing the data Albright used for his research is Facebook’s prerogative as long as it isn’t knowingly removing content sought under a court order or by government request.

“If Facebook has no reason to think that it should retain the data (subpoena, court order), then it can make choices about what appears on its platform,” said Danielle Citron, a professor of law at the University of Maryland, where she teaches and writes about information privacy.

Citron said Facebook and other private tech companies have in the past argued, successfully, that they have free speech interests and enjoy immunity from liability for the content posted by their users — immunity that extends to their ability to remove it if it violates their terms of service.

Albert Gidari, the director of privacy at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, said it’s likely that Facebook has kept copies of “anything at issue as part of its preservation obligation” in light of special counsel Robert Mueller’s search warrant and the House and Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenas.

Gidari said that because there hasn’t been any allegation against Facebook itself, the company has no obligation, absent a court order, to maintain information “that later may be evidence.”

But the question becomes more complicated when considering the ethical obligations of a company whose tools were exploited by a foreign adversary to try to influence a US election.

Gidari, for his part, said he doesn’t think “any platform has an independent or ethical obligation to run a research playground for third-party data analysts.”

But Tom Rubin, a lecturer at Stanford Law School, said that Facebook’s “credibility as a global social platform and its responsibility as an internet giant require it to fully embrace an independent, urgent and public review of the facts.”

“Facebook’s Russia predicament is of its own doing — it controls the platform, runs the ads, and profits mightily,” said Rubin, who previously served as the assistant US Attorney in New York heading investigations and prosecutions of computer crimes.

“The investigation here is as serious as it gets: illegal and hostile foreign influence on the US presidential election,” Rubin said. “The issue confronting Facebook is the extent to which it should commit to complete transparency, and the answer to that is straightforward.”

Citron agreed.

“For transparency’s sake and for our broader interest in our democracy, people should know the extent to which they have been played by the Russians and how a hostile state actor has interfered with, manipulated, and generally hacked our political process,” she said.

That is what Albright said was his mission when he downloaded the last 500 posts shared by six accounts that Facebook has confirmed were operating out of Russia. Those accounts — Blacktivists, Being Patriotic, Secured Borders, Heart of Texas, LGBT United, and Muslims of America — were among the 470 pages Facebook shut down in September as part of its purge of “inauthentic accounts” linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency.

The data Albright obtained using CrowdTangle showed that the Russians’ reach far exceeded the number of Facebook users they were able to access with advertisements alone — content including memes, links, and other miscellaneous postings was shared over 340 million times between the six accounts.

The other 464 accounts closed by Facebook have not yet been made public. If they are, an analysis of their combined posts would likely reveal that their content was shared an estimated billions of times during the election.

FBI Deployed Again to Puerto Rico over Corrupt Officials

Posted on October 12, 2017October 12, 2017 by Denise Simon

FBI in Puerto Rico investigating if corrupt local officials are ‘withholding’ or ‘mishandling’ crucial supplies

FNC: FBI agents in Puerto Rico have been receiving calls from “across the island” with residents complaining local officials are “withholding” or “mishandling” critical FEMA supplies — with one island official even accused of stuffing his own car full of goods meant for the suffering populace.

The accusations come in the aftermath of deadly Hurricane Maria, which devastated the U.S. territory last month.

“The complaints we’re hearing is that mayors of local municipalities, or people associated with their offices, are giving their political supporters special treatment, goods they’re not giving to other people who need them,” FBI Special Agent Carlos Osorio told Fox News.

Osorio, an agent with the FBI in San Juan, said the bureau was investigating the allegations.

“The U.S. attorney has made it clear if anyone is caught mishandling FEMA supplies, they will be prosecuted and could end up facing anywhere from five to 20 years in prison,” Osorio said.

Some of the claims have come by phone and others have poured in over social media, but the allegations stretch across the island.

Osorio told of one allegation where a party official is accused of pulling his own car around the back of a government building and driving off after loading it full of FEMA supplies.

“We’re going out and investigating these claims,” Osorio said. “We don’t know yet if they’re accurate or not…but yes we have received many similar allegations from people in many different parts of the island.”

The allegations of misconduct come amid a pitched back-and-forth between island officials and President Trump over the federal response to Maria.

San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, a frequent Trump foil, reportedly accused Trump on Thursday of “genocide” for not doing more to aid in the relief efforts.

Cruz sent the accusation in a text message to Rep. Luis V. Gutirrez, D-Ill., who is of Puerto Rican heritage, The Washington Times reported.

Trump on Twitter has accused Cruz of poor management.

“…Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help…” Trump wrote.

The president raised eyebrows Thursday morning by tweeting that federal agencies, military officials and first responders couldn’t stay “in P.R. forever!”

Earlier Thursday, the Daily Caller reported the FBI was aware of misappropriation allegations in six of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities.

Rosa Emilia Rodriguez, a U.S. federal prosecutor on the island, told a local Puerto Rican radio station Monday she was investigating officials in the government — including mayors — regarding the misappropriation of supplies. Rodriguez, however, declined to name the government officials being looked at.

“Anybody that engaged in that kind of action whether civilian or representative should be looked at seriously because that’s unforgivable,” Rep. Adriano Espillat, D-N.Y., a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, told The Daily Caller.

***

It is not the first time the FBI has been dispatched to the island. Just last year:

SAN JUAN – The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has allegedly requested documents from investment firms as part of a probe into the $3.5 billion general-obligation bond issue of 2014 and a $600 million bond issue by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa) in 2013, according to sources with links to Wall Street.

The sources alleged investigators subpoenaed documents from Barclays PLC, Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets regarding the two bond issues.

Barclays, Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets served as joint lead managers for the $3.5 billion bond offering in March 2014, with Barclays acting as lead book-running manager, according to the Government Development Bank (GDB). The bonds will mature in 2035 and were issued at an 8% coupon and an 8.727% yield.

The power company of Puerto Rico is state owned and has been bankrupt for years and due to money issues, the stability of power is questionable at best. Brown-outs were common and lasted days. Then also in 2016:

The NYT’s reported in part:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has identified possible suspects in its long-running investigation into the murder of a banker in Puerto Rico, but it is now asking the public for help in solving the 2011 killing.

Five years ago this week, Maurice Spagnoletti, a top executive at Doral Financial, the holding company that owned a Puerto Rico bank, was gunned down on his way home from work in San Juan.

In 2010: In the biggest crackdown on police corruption in the FBI’s 102-year history, authorities charged a total of 133 individuals in Puerto Rico Wednesday as the result of a probe into whether police provided protection for drug dealers.

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Wonder what the 17,000 U.S. military personnel on the island providing humanitarian aid including medical, power and food will have to report when their job is complete….

Linking Iran Including Marine Barracks Bombing

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

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This is hardly a complete snapshot, however with President Trump considering the decertification of the JCPOA with Iran, adding the IRGC to the terror list and now seeking the arrest of two Hezbollah leaders from the 1983 Marine barracks bombing…the case against Iran is building. Iran is watching closely as it too has threatened a response which includes U.S. military bases as targets.

Iran, as rightly noted by Trump has exported terror for decades and the previous administration dismissed all that terror history for the sake of a deal with Iran. It also cannot be overlooked that Hezbollah took attacks into our hemisphere with two in Argentina. Noted here and here.

Talal Hamiyah is a top military leader of Hezbollah in charge of orchestrating its operations abroad. Hamiyah heads Hezbollah’s External Security Organization (ESO).* The ESO is responsible for planning and executing Hezbollah’s terrorist activities outside of Lebanon.*

Hamiyah is suspected of involvement in the 1994 Hezbollah attacks in Argentina.* Security officials recorded Hamiyah praising “our project in Argentina” in a conversation with his predecessor, Imad Mugniyah.* Hamiyah replaced Mughniyeh after the latter was killed in 2008.*

There have not been any attacks specifically attributed to the ESO since 1994.* Israeli intelligence officials believe Hamiyah is recruiting Hezbollah cells around the world, primarily in South America, Western Europe, and Africa.* Sympathetic Shiite communities offer Hamiyah opportunities for recruitment and fundraising.* Israeli intelligence has accused Hamiyah of coordinating with Moqtada Sadir’s Mahdi Army and other Shiite militias in Iraq following the U.S. invasion.* Hamiyah’s cells reportedly rely on Iranian embassies to help transfer weapons.

State Department offers rewards for 2 Hezbollah leaders

By Thomas Joscelyn |

The State Department announced today that it is offering millions of dollars as rewards for information concerning the whereabouts of two senior Hezbollah leaders. The two Lebanese men are Hezbollah veterans with well-established terrorist credentials. One of the two allegedly “played a central role” in the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon. That suicide bombing helped inspire a generation of Shiite and Sunni jihadists.

State is offering a $7 million bounty for Talal Hamiyah, the head of Hezbollah’s External Security Organization (ESO). The ESO “maintains organized cells worldwide” and is “responsible for the planning, coordination, and execution of terrorist attacks outside of Lebanon.” The ESO “primarily” targets “Israelis and Americans.”

The US designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in 1997, but State modified the designation in June, adding some of the group’s aliases. Foggy Bottom noted that both the Foreign Relations Department (FRD) and the ESO are “key components” of Hezbollah.

The ESO is “also known as the Islamic Jihad Organization” (IJO) and “was established by” Imad Mughniyah, a notorious Hezbollah leader who was killed in 2008. Mughniyah is widely credited with orchestrating some of Hezbollah’s most notorious acts of terror against the US.

After Mughniyah’s death, Hamiyah assumed leadership of the ESO/IJO. Hamiyah was added to the US government’s list of specially designated global terrorists in Sept. 2012.

Hamiyah’s wing of Hezbollah has been operational since the early 1980s, when it carried out a series of attacks against American and Western interests inside Lebanon and elsewhere. The ESO/IJO has continued to plot around the globe in the decades since.

In June, the Department of Justice announced the arrests of two alleged Hezbollah operatives who worked for the ESO/IJO. The men are accused of performing surveillance on prospective American and Israeli targets in Panama and New York City, as well as other acts. [For more on the arrests and the history of the ESO/IJO, see FDD’s Long War Journal report, Analysis: 2 US cases provide unique window into Iran’s global terror network.]

State also announced a reward of $5 million for information on Fuad Shukr, “a longtime senior advisor on military affairs.” Both Hamiyah and Shukr answer to Hezbollah’s Secretary General, Hasan Nasrallah.

Shukr is “a senior Hezbollah operative” and a “military commander” in charge of the group’s forces in southern Lebanon. He “serves on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council,” according to Foggy Bottom.

Shukr’s dossier of “activities” stretches back “over 30 years,” according to State. He “was a close associate of” Mugniyah.

The US government says Shukr “played a central role in the planning and execution of the Oct. 23, 1983 US Marine Corps Barracks Bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 241 US service personnel.”

The 1983 attack was a seminal event in the history of modern jihadism. Hezbollah conducted near simultaneous suicide bombings on the barracks for Marines and French service members. Both America and France had contributed military personnel to a multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon. While France retaliated by bombing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is intertwined with Hezbollah, America failed to respond with force. The bombing at the Marine Barracks contributed to the Reagan administration’s decision to withdraw from Lebanon.

Iranian-backed terrorists weren’t the only jihadists emboldened by the American withdrawal from Lebanon. So were Sunni jihadists, including a young Osama bin Laden.

Al Qaeda modeled 1998 US Embassy bombings on Hezbollah’s 1983 attacks

The 1983 bombings on the Marine and French barracks served as a model for al Qaeda’s most devastating attack prior to the 9/11 hijackings: the Aug. 7, 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The twin attacks left 224 people dead.

The 9/11 Commission documented this key link in its final report. Discussions between al Qaeda and Iran in the early 1990s were brokered by Hassan al-Turabi, who was then a prominent Islamist in Sudan’s government. Al Qaeda was based in Sudan at the time and Turabi’s country housed various bad actors looking to cut deals with one another. Turabi advocated big tent jihadism when it came to confronting the US and the West. Turabi was even nicknamed the “Pope of Terrorism” for his ecumenical approach. Consistent with his vision of a grand anti-Western alliance, Turabi “sought to persuade Shiites and Sunnis to put aside their divisions and join against the common enemy,” according to the 9/11 Commission.

The discussions between “al Qaeda and Iranian operatives led to an informal agreement to cooperate in providing support – even if only training – for actions carried out primarily against Israel and the United States,” the 9/11 Commission found. “Not long afterward, senior al Qaeda operatives and trainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives.” During the “fall of 1993, another such delegation went to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon for further training in explosives as well as in intelligence and security.” The Bekaa Valley has long been a Hezbollah stronghold.

The training taught al Qaeda operatives how to carry out suicide bombings such as those orchestrated by Shukr and Mughniyah in Lebanon. The 9/11 Commission wrote that Bin Laden “reportedly showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs such as the one that had killed 241 US Marines in Lebanon in 1983.”

Federal prosecutors in the Clinton administration discovered Iran’s and Hezbollah’s training of al Qaeda operatives. They included the relationship in their indictment of al Qaeda in 1998, noting that bin Laden and his men had “forged alliances” with the Sudanese regime, as well as “the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies in the West, particularly the United States.”

More details concerning Iran’s and Hezbollah’s assistance came to light during the trial of some of the al Qaeda operatives responsible for the 1998 US Embassy bombings.

In his plea hearing before a New York court in 2000, Ali Mohamed – an al Qaeda operative who was responsible for performing surveillance used in the bombings – testified that he had set up the security for a meeting between bin Laden and Mugniyah. “I arranged security for a meeting in the Sudan between Mugniyah, Hezbollah’s chief, and bin Laden,” Mohamed told the court.

Mohamed also confirmed that Hezbollah and Iran had provided explosives training to al Qaeda. “Hezbollah provided explosives training for al Qaeda and [Egyptian Islamic] Jihad,” Mohamed explained. “Iran supplied Egyptian Jihad with weapons.” Mohamed was originally a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, an organization that merged with bin Laden’s enterprise and closely cooperated with the al Qaeda founder’s men well before the formal merger.

Mohamed explained al Qaeda’s rationale for seeking assistance from Iran and Hezbollah:

And the objective of all this, just to attack any Western target in the Middle East, to force the government of the Western countries just to pull out from the Middle East…Based on the Marine explosion in Beirut in 1984 [sic: 1983] and the American pull-out from Beirut, they will be the same method, to force the United States to pull out from Saudi Arabia.

Jamal al Fadl, an operative who was privy to some of al Qaeda’s most sensitive secrets, conversed with his fellow al Qaeda members about Iran’s and Hezbollah’s explosives training, which included take-home videotapes so that al Qaeda’s terrorists would not forget what they learned. “I saw one of the tapes, and he [another al Qaeda operative] tell me they train about how to explosives big buildings,” Al Fadl told federal prosecutors.

One of the al Qaeda leaders who attended the training was Saif al Adel, who has long been wanted for his role in the embassy bombings. Al Adel fled to Iran after the 9/11 hijackings and was tied to operations elsewhere, including inside Saudi Arabia. His status was murky for years, but the Iranians reportedly freed him from some form of detention in 2015. Some reports have placed him in Syria, but al Adel’s current location has not been confirmed.

Although many assume that Iran and al Qaeda couldn’t cooperate because of their ideological differences, the 9/11 Commission concluded “that Sunni-Shia divisions did not necessarily pose an insurmountable barrier to cooperation in terrorist operations.” The 9/11 Commission (pp. 240-241) also found intelligence connecting Mugniyah’s men to some of the flights taken by al Qaeda’s hijackers and called for the US government to investigate further.

In more recent years, the Iranian government has allowed al Qaeda to operate a “core facilitation pipeline” on Iranian soil. According to the US government, this facilitation network exists despite the fact that the two sides are on opposite sides of the wars in Syria and Yemen.

AG Sessions Announces Renewed Project SAFE Neighborhoods

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

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Sounds great but it costs money and well….the money goes to states in the form of grants….is your area included?

For Chicago, the stipulations are rather thin on substance:

2017-H0946-IL-GP City of Chicago

The Chicago PSN team will implement the following promising strategies to achieve five violent crime reduction objectives: 1) improved murder and non-fatal shooting clearance rates; 2) increased number of illegal firearms recovered from the district;

3) reduced retaliatory violence; 4) improved community partnerships to reduce violent crime; and 5) improved use of technology and data to develop efficient

and effective local violence reduction strategies.

Attorney General Announces Reinvigoration of Project Safe Neighborhoods

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Today, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced several Department of Justice actions to reduce the rising tide of violent crime in America.

Foremost of those actions is the reinvigoration of “Project Safe Neighborhoods,” a program that has been historically successful in bringing together all levels of law enforcement to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. In announcing this recommitment to Project Safe Neighborhoods, the Attorney General issued a memo directing United States Attorneys to implement an enhanced violent crime reduction program that incorporates the lessons learned since Project Safe Neighborhoods launched in 2001.

In a statement on the program, the Attorney General said, “According to the FBI, the violent crime rate has risen by nearly seven percent over the past two years, and the homicide rate has risen by more than 20 percent. We cannot be complacent or hope that this is just an anomaly: we have a duty to take action. Fortunately, we have a President who understands that and has directed his administration to reduce crime. The Department of Justice today announces the foundation of our plan to reduce crime: prioritizing Project Safe Neighborhoods, a program that has been proven to work. Let me be clear – Project Safe Neighborhoods is not just one policy idea among many. This is the centerpiece of our crime reduction strategy. Taking what we have learned since the program began in 2001, we have updated it and enhanced it, emphasizing the role of our U.S. Attorneys, the promise of new technologies, and above all, partnership with local communities. With these changes, I believe that this program will be more effective than ever and help us fulfill our mission to make America safer.”

The Attorney General also announced the following Department of Justice initiatives to help reduce violent crime:

–Additional Assistant United States Attorney Positions to Focus on Violent Crime – The Department is allocating 40 prosecutors to approximately 20 U.S. Attorney’s Offices to focus on violent crime reduction.

-More Cops on the Streets (COPS Hiring Grants) – As part of our continuing commitment to crime prevention efforts, increased community policing, and the preservation of vital law enforcement jobs, the Department will be awarding approximately $98 million in FY 2017 COPS Hiring Grants to state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies.

-Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force’s (OCDETF) National Gang Strategic Initiative –The National Gang Strategic Initiative promotes creative enforcement strategies and best practices that will assist in developing investigations of violent criminal groups and gangs into enterprise-level OCDETF prosecutions. Under this initiative, OCDETF provides “seed money” to locally-focused gang investigations, giving state, local, and tribal investigators and prosecutors the resources and tools needed to identify connections between lower-level gangs and national-level drug trafficking organizations.

-Critical Training and Technical Assistance to State and Local Partners –The Department has a vast array of training and technical assistance resources available to state, local and tribal law enforcement, victims groups, and others. To ensure that agencies in need of assistance are able to find the training and materials they need, OJP will make available a Violence Reduction Response Center to serve as a “hot line” to connect people to these resources.

-Crime Gun Intelligence Centers (CGIC) – The Department has provided grant funding to support a comprehensive approach to identifying the most violent offenders in a jurisdiction, using new technologies such as gunshot detection systems combined with gun crime intelligence from NIBIN, eTrace, and investigative efforts. These FY 2017 grants were awarded to Phoenix, AZ, and Kansas City, MO.

-Expand ATF’s NIBIN Urgent Trace Program – The Department will expand ATF’s NIBIN Urgent Trace Program nationwide by the end of the year. Through this program, any firearm submitted for tracing that is associated with a NIBIN “hit” (which means it can be linked to a shooting incident) will be designated an “urgent” trace and the requestor will get information back about the firearm’s first retail purchaser within 24 hours, instead of 5 to 6 business days.

WC-135 Dispatched to Investigate Europe for Radiation

Posted on October 11, 2017October 11, 2017 by Denise Simon

Gotta look deep for information and there are two theories, one is Russia as the other is the medical industry. Humm….it goes something like this…. By the way, the dates could easily lineup.

Primer:

The Washington Free Beacon quotes Pentagon officials saying the unmanned underwater vehicle, code named Kanyon by the Pentagon, was test-launched from the Sarov-class submarine on November 27th.

What Pentagon names Kanyon is what in Russia is known as the «Ocean Multipurpose System Status-6» – a top secret weapon system the world has never seen anything like before. A year ago, Russian state-TV Channel One showed a glimpse of a graphic slide of the Status-6, later on said to be an unauthorized leak of a secret weapon development plan.

The drawings on the slide could very well be a purpose leak aimed at telling the world what weapon-systems are under development. The TV news covered the meeting in Sochi where President Putin was told by high-ranking officers in the Strategic forces how Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy is developing. Moscow are looking for ways to overcome the United States’ Anti-Ballistic Missile Defence system, and one answer is to go deep with the nukes. Highly suggested reading more here.

Mysterious Radiation Spike Across Europe

Nuclear scientists are struggling to determine the source of small amounts of nuclear radiation that bloomed over Europe throughout January.

France’s IRSN institute, the public body for radiological and nuclear risks, announced in a statement on February 13 that Iodine-131, a radionuclide of human origin, was detected in trace amounts at ground-level atmosphere in continental Europe. First detected in the second week of January over northern Norway, Iodine-131 presence was then detected over Finland, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, France, and Spain. However, the levels have since returned to normal and scientists have yet to determine the source of the radiation.

Norway’s Radiation protection Authority (NRPA), which first detected the Iodine-131 over its northern Russian border, told Motherboard over the phone today that the levels present essentially no risk to human health. “I can assure you that the levels are low,” said a press a spokesperson.

But with a half-life of just eight days, the detection of Iodine-131 is proof of a recent release, said IRSN in its statement to the media.

Rumors are circulating, of course, that Russia has secretly tested a low-yield nuclear weapon in the Arctic, possibly in the Novaya Zemlya region—historically used for Russia’s nuclear tests. Iodine-131, discovered by two University of California researchers in 1938, is a radioisotope synonymous with the atomic bomb tests carried out by the US and Russia throughout the 1950s, and has recently presented threats from leaking during the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident.

But Iodine-131 is also found in the medical industry, commonly used for treating thyroid-related illnesses and cancers. Astrid Liland, head of the section for emergency preparedness at the NRPA, told Motherboard in an email today, “Since only Iodine-131 was measured, and no other radioactive substances, we think it originates from a pharmaceutical company producing radioactive drugs.
Iodine-131 is used for treatment of cancer.”

Particulate Iodine-131 (value +/- uncertainty) in the atmosphere(µBq/m3). Image: IRSN

Britain’s Society for Radiological Protection (SRP) also told Motherboard that the exclusive presence of Iodine-131 suggests the source is not a nuclear incident, but rather a medical facility such as a hospital or a supplier of radio-pharmaceuticals. “The release was probably of recent origin. Further than this it is impossible to speculate,” the SRP’s Brian Gornall told Motherboard in an email.

Still, where exactly that pharma company could be located is unknown. “Due to rapidly changing winds, it is not possible to track exactly where it came from. It points to a release source somewhere in Eastern Europe,” Liland told Motherboard.

The Iodine cloud prompted the United States Air Force to send over a specialized particle-sniffing aircraft to investigate. As per reports on The Aviationist, a US Air Force WC-135 deployed to Royal Air Force base Mildenhall in the UK on February 17, equipped to test the atmosphere over Europe for radiation. The aircraft’s last intercontinental expedition was to analyse the atmosphere over the Korean Peninsula following an alleged North Korean nuclear test.

The deployment spurred on rumors of a nuclear test from Russia, but a spokesperson for the the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), an international body that monitors nuclear weapon tests, told Motherboard in an email today, “Although some readings of I-131 above minimal detection level have been observed since beginning of year in Europe nothing extraordinary has been measured.”

The IRSN said in its statement that the data has now been shared between the members of the informal European network called Ring of Five, a group of organizations that research radiation levels in the atmosphere.