Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

Europe Calls on NATO to Clean up the Mess

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So, the damage is done, destruction to Europe is throughout the region. European leaders refuse to fully live up to their respective NATO membership and fight the good cause, rather they need NATO to clean up a mess they caused……immigration, migration, crime and broken borders.

It begins in Turkey, a NATO country quite tired of hosting millions of refugees and demanding Assad be removed from power. The next step in Greece, just a few hours boat ride from Turkey where people pay smuggling boat people to take them to the shores of Greece.

Greece itself is broken financially and is happy to stick it to the European Central Bank for not fully bailing out Greece’s socialism.

Please NATO help us out. Stop the migrant insurgency.

Schengen is suspended and likely dead….

NATO Secretary General welcomes expansion of NATO deployment in the Aegean Sea

NATO took swift decisions to deploy ships to the Aegean Sea to support our Allies Greece and Turkey, as well as the EU’s border agency FRONTEX, in their efforts to tackle the migrant and refugee crisis. NATO ships are already collecting information and conducting monitoring in the Aegean Sea. Their activity will now be expanded to take place also in territorial waters.

Our commanders have defined our area of activity in close consultation and coordination with both Greece and Turkey. Our activities in territorial waters will be carried out in consultation and coordination with both Allies. The purpose of NATO’s deployment is not to stop or push back migrant boats, but to help our Allies Greece and Turkey, as well as the European Union, in their efforts to tackle human trafficking and the criminal networks that are fueling this crisis.

NATO’s Maritime Command has also agreed with FRONTEX on arrangements at the operational and tactical level. NATO and FRONTEX will be able to exchange liaison officers and share information in real time, to enable FRONTEX, as well as Greece and Turkey, to take action in real time.

This is an excellent example of how NATO and the EU can work together to address common challenges. I welcome the fact that we were able to finalise these arrangements in such a short time. In this crisis, time is of the essence, and cooperation is key.

**** You are by now asking what is FRONTEX….heh…well it is a European commission that has clearing failed in it’s charter.

Mission and Tasks

Frontex promotes, coordinates and develops European border management in line with the EU fundamental rights charter applying the concept of Integrated Border Management.

Frontex helps border authorities from different EU countries work together. Frontex’s full title is the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union. The agency was set up in 2004 to reinforce and streamline cooperation between national border authorities. In pursuit of this goal, Frontex has several operational areas which are defined in the founding Frontex Regulation and a subsequent amendment. These areas of activity are:

Joint Operations— Frontex plans, coordinates, implements and evaluates joint operations conducted using Member States’ staff and equipment at the external borders (sea, land and air).

Training— Frontex is responsible for developing common training standards and specialist tools. These include the Common Core Curriculum, which provides a common entry-level training rationale for border guards across the Union, and mid- and high-level training for more senior officers.

Risk Analysis— Frontex collates and analyses intelligence on the ongoing situation at the external borders. These data are compiled from border crossing points and other operational information as well as from the Member States and open sources including mass media and academic research.

Research— Frontex serves as a platform to bring together Europe’s border-control personnel and the world of research and industry to bridge the gap between technological advancement and the needs of border control authorities.

Providing a rapid response capability— Frontex has created a pooled resource in the form of European Border Guard Teams (EBGT) and an extensive database of available equipment which brings together specialist human and technical resources from across the EU. These teams are kept in full readiness in case of a crisis situation at the external border.

Assisting Member States in joint return operations— When Member States make the decision to return foreign nationals staying illegally, who have failed to leave voluntarily, Frontex assists those Member States in coordinating their efforts to maximise efficiency and cost-effectiveness while also ensuring that respect for fundamental rights and the human dignity of returnees is maintained at every stage.

Information systems and information sharing environment— Information regarding emerging risks and the current state of affairs at the external borders form the basis of risk analysis and so-called “situational awareness” for border control authorities in the EU. Frontex develops and operates information systems enabling the exchange of such information, including the Information and Coordination Network established by Decision 2005/267/EC and European border surveillance system.

While fulfilling its mandate, Frontex liaises closely with other EU partners involved in the development of the area of Freedom, Security and Justice such as Europol, EASO, Eurojust, FRA or CEPOL, as well as with customs authorities in order to promote overall cohesion.

Frontex also works closely with the border-control authorities of non-EU/Schengen countries — mainly those countries identified as a source or transit route of irregular migration — in line with general EU external relations policy.

**** So Turkey, get your act together and take these people back. They are not Turks, few are even Syrians…..but a NATO country must accept them?

Commission Visa Progress Report: Turkey makes progress towards visa liberalisation

The Commission has today adopted the second report on progress by Turkey in fulfilling the requirements of its Visa Liberalisation Roadmap, highlighting the steps made by Turkey since the last report in October 2014. At the EU-Turkey Summit of 29 November, Turkey committed to accelerating the fulfilment of the Roadmap, including by anticipating the application of all the provisions of the EU-Turkey Readmission agreement, with the objective of completing the visa liberalisation process by October 2016, provided all the benchmarks have been met by then. Today’s report welcomes the new level of engagement and determination demonstrated by the Turkish authorities.

 

Whoa, Could This Be on San Bernardino Shooter’s Phone?

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San Bernardino County DA: Dec. 2 terrorist may have been planning cyber attack

SBSun: A legal brief filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Riverside by San Bernardino County’s top prosecutors said Syed Rizwan Farook may have planted a virus on his work-issued iPhone that could launch a cyber attack capable of infecting and crashing the county’s computer network.

iPhone Amicus Brief that explains the infecting malware.

The brief, filed by District Attorney Michael Ramos and Chief Deputy District Attorney Gary Fagan, is one of several that were filed this week supporting a federal magistrate’s Feb. 16 order compelling Apple Inc. to help the FBI access an encrypted work-issued iPhone used by Farook.

“The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network,” Ramos and Fagan wrote in their friend of the court brief, one of several filed this week in support of the government. “The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino County’s infrastructure.”

A plethora of briefs were also filed by some the world’s biggest technology companies, digital privacy advocates and civil liberty organizations including Facebook, Amazon.com, Pinterest, Microsoft, Snapchat, Yahoo, and the American Civil Liberties Union in support of Apple.

Armed with assault rifles and clad in tactical gear, Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, walked into the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino shortly before 11 a.m. Dec. 2 and opened fire on a crowd of about 70 people, killing 14 people and wounding 22 others. The Redlands couple were killed in a shootout with police hours after the attack.

Most of those killed or wounded in the mass shooting, including Farook, were employees of the county’s environmental health services division, who were attending a training seminar that morning.

FBI agents found two smashed mobile phones in a dumpster behind Farook’s Redlands townhouse, and his work-issued iPhone 5C was found, intact but passcode encrypted, in a black Lexus parked in front of the residence. Investigators believe that phone contains communications between Farook and some of the victims and possible other information that could be germane to the criminal investigation.

Ramos and Fagen are the first to broach the subject of a possible cyber attack Farook may have been planning.

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Farook’s employment with the county provided him access to information that could have made the county vulnerable to a security breach and exposed employees to danger, Ramos said Friday in a telephone interview.

He said survivors of the shooting and family members of those killed in the attack are trying to move on with their lives but still have questions about the attack, such as why they were targeted and if they face future threat.

“All of this information could be on that one phone. (Farook and Malik) were using phones and hard drives, we believe, to prepare for these terrorist attacks,” Ramos said.

He said U.S. Magistrate Sheri Pym’s Feb. 16 order followed the letter of the law, and the U.S. Constitution.

“A federal magistrate determined there was probable cause to issue a search warrant to have Apple allow the FBI access to that information on the phone,” Ramos said. “Nobody’s rights are being violated. No one’s.”

Survivors of the shooting and family members of those who died still have questions about whether there was a third shooter, according to the prosecutors’ brief.

“Although the reports of three individuals were not corroborated, and may ultimately be incorrect, the fact remains that the information contained solely on the seized iPhone could provide evidence to identify, as of yet, unknown coconspirators who would be prosecuted by the district attorney for multiple murders and attempted murders in San Bernardino County,” the brief states.

Those sentiments were raised in another friend of the court brief filed Thursday on behalf of some of the victims of the shooting and surviving family members, one of whom wrote a personal letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook saying many victims claim to have seen “three assailants, not two, walking around in heavy boots as they carried out their murders.”

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said that forensic evidence indicates two weapons were fired at IRC, and that victim/witness accounts often vary during traumatic events.

While the majority of victims said they saw two shooters, some said there was only one and others said there were three, Eimiller said in an e-mail.

“Our investigation is continuing and we will continue to evaluate any new information that is developed or that comes our way,” Eimiller said.

Do You Know Gilbert Chagoury or Rajiv Fernando? Hillary Does

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Rajiv Fernando and  Gilbert Chagoury are very good friends of Hillary and known to Barack Obama as well. Yikes, more emails? This is a story, scandal that seems to have no end. Perhaps it is time to start prosecuting people at the State Department for non compliance, obstruction of a federal investigation and falsification of government documents.

Primer:

ABC: For one of President Obama’s top fundraisers, the appointment last year to an elite group of State Department security advisors appeared to be an odd fit.

Rajiv Fernando, a Chicago securities trader, has never touted any international security credentials, yet he was appointed alongside an august collection of nuclear scientists, former cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to advise Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on crucial security matters.

PBS: Chagoury is a diplomat representing the tiny island nation of St. Lucia. He is also a friend of former President Bill Clinton and a generous philanthropist, who, since the Abacha years, has used his money to establish respectability. He appeared near the top of the Clinton Foundation donor list in 2008 as a $1 million to $5 million contributor, according to foundation documents. (His name made the list again in 2009.)

Release of Clinton Documents Delayed After State Department Discovers ‘Thousands’ of Unsearched Records

Citizens United, Judicial Watch lawsuits affected by development

FreeBeacon: The State Department’s recent discovery of thousands of unsearched records from Hillary Clinton’s tenure has delayed several public records lawsuits and could keep many of the documents out of the public sphere until next fall.

The watchdog groups Citizens United and Judicial Watch, which are suing the State Department for Clinton-related records, are two plaintiffs that have been affected by the discovery. The State Department said the new documents could take months to process, a time period that extends well beyond its court-ordered deadlines.

Citizens United said the State Department has yet to explain how the electronic files were overlooked for the past two years, raising questions about whether this was a stonewalling effort. The group is seeking records related to Clinton donors Gilbert Chagoury and Rajiv Fernando.

“With this 11th hour revelation, the State Department has missed its court-ordered deadline to finish the production of documents in this case,” said David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United. “These newly discovered records could impact document production in other Citizens United FOIA lawsuits as well as cases involving other plaintiffs.”

On Jan. 14, the State Department disclosed in a Judicial Watch case that officials had recently found shared and individual electronic files in the executive secretary’s office that were not previously searched in response to the lawsuit. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit last May.

Although the court had ordered the State Department to turn over all relevant records by last October, attorneys said they would need until this spring to process the new documents.

State filed a nearly identical status report in the Citizens United lawsuit on Feb. 29, the same day as its court-ordered deadline to turn over all requested documents.

Attorneys for the department told Citizens United the discovery of unsearched records could set back the processing schedule until next fall. The State Department said it had not informed Citizens United earlier because its attorneys did not know about the new sources of records until Feb. 11—even though they had been disclosed to Judicial Watch in early January.

“Neither State’s agency counsel nor undersigned counsel for State was aware of this issue until February 11, 2016,” said the State Department in a Feb. 29 court filing.

According to court statements, the new sources of information come from the executive secretary’s office, which acted as the liaison between Secretary Clinton’s office and the rest of the State Department, the White House, and national security agencies.

One of the new sources is a series of “shared office folders,” computer folders that were used by multiple staff members. State Department public records officials said they first discovered this source in November. They said the files had previously been overlooked because they had been “retired” and removed from the executive secretary’s office last year.

The second new source is “individual folders,” which contain word documents, PDF documents, and the emails of Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Jake Sullivan. These emails had already been processed, but officials said they did not realize until last December that there were other types of documents in these folders.

The late findings have impacted at least two additional Judicial Watch lawsuits, according to court documents. The House Benghazi Committee last week received over 1,600 pages of documents related to Libya from the new files, which the committee said it had requested nearly a year ago.

The State Department said it could not comment on whether other public records lawsuits could be impacted, or why Citizens United wasn’t informed about the new files at the same time as Judicial Watch.

“The State Department does not comment on matters in litigation,” a State Department official said. “We can confirm that State recently located documents from electronic sources not previously searched that are potentially responsive to certain FOIA cases involving records originating from the Office of the Secretary during Secretary Clinton’s tenure. As a result, the Department is undertaking additional searches of those files.”

“These unsearched materials include a variety of file types, but do not include the email accounts of former Secretary Clinton’s senior staff, which we have been searching for some time,” the official said.

The State Department noted that it has been taking steps to improve records management and hired a transparency coordinator last fall.

Sources also pointed to another recent personnel change at the State Department—the departure of attorney Catherine Duval, who had been involved in processing Clinton’s emails for release last year. Duval was previously in charge of document production at the IRS when many of the agency’s emails were destroyed. Congressional Republicans have accused Duval of obstructing their efforts to obtain Clinton documents.

Duval left the State Department last September. A few weeks later, the Republicans on the House Benghazi Committee released a statement praising increased transparency at the State Department.

“It’s curious the Department is suddenly able to be more productive after recent staff changes involving those responsible for document production,” committee spokesman Jamal Ware said in a Sept. 25, 2015 press release.

But the latest disclosure of unsearched records will still have an impact on groups like Citizens United, which first filed its public records request in 2014 and could be waiting until after the presidential election before it receives all its documents.

In light of the new discovery, the court pushed back the State Department’s production deadline until next August. Citizens United said it would not be surprised by additional delays.

“The public has a right to inspect records that are in the possession of their government,” Bossie said. “These delay tactics by the Obama Administration look like nothing more than an assist to former Secretary Clinton.”

“This latest declaration is more of the constant ‘drip, drip, drip’ that [D.C. District Court] Judge Sullivan spoke of last week,” he added. “Unfortunately, when dealing with the State Department, it’s not a matter if this will happen again, it’s a matter of when.”

Even el Chapo Got into the United States?

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Was Border Patrol ordered to deny?

Customs and Border Patrol: Agency has ‘no info’ on report ‘Chapo’ Guzman snuck into U.S.

FoxLatino: Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán allegedly snuck into the United States twice last year while on the run from authorities following his dramatic prison escape.

The cartel boss’s daughter, Rosa Isela Guzmán Ortiz, said that shortly after “El Chapo” sat down for his Rolling Stone Magazine interview with Sean Penn, he escaped capture with the help of corrupt Mexican officials and evaded U.S. Border Patrol to sneak into California.

Guzmán Ortiz would not disclose the location in southern California where the drug lord was holed up, but said he came to visit her at her five-bedroom house which the drug kingpin bought for her and her four children.

“My dad deposited the money in a bank account with a lawyer and a while after he came to see the house, his house. He came twice,” Guzmán Ortiz told the Guardian.

The claims made by Chapo’s daughter cannot be independently verified and are likely to raise concerns among intelligence authorities in both the U.S. and Mexico.

Jacqueline Wasiluk, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman, told the Washington Post on Friday that the agency has “no information that substantiates the claims in news reports” about Guzmán.

Guzmán Ortiz said that she doesn’t know specifically how the drug lord arrived in the U.S. but that “El Chapo” allegedly paid off high-level Mexican officials.

“All I know is that my dad told his lawyer to deliver some checks to [a politician’s] campaign, and asked that he respect him,” she said.

The bombshell story from Guzmán Ortiz comes after “El Chapo’s” lawyer said the drug lord asked him to negotiate with U.S. authorities for a lighter sentence and confinement at a medium-security prison.

The cartel boss was recaptured in early January during a raid by Mexican Marines, which took place in the city of Los Mochis. During the raid, five suspects were killed and six – including Guzmán – were arrested. Marines seized two armored vehicles, eight rifles, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

He escaped from incarceration last July through a mile-long tunnel dug to what authorities say was a building in plain sight of the Altiplano prison that was set up specifically for the prison break. The tunnel leading from the drug lord’s cell to the building was equipped with a ventilation system and a customized motorcycle.

Guzmán has been indicted on a number of federal jurisdictions throughout the U.S., among them Brooklyn, Manhattan, Chicago and Miami, as well as other cities where the Sinaloa Cartel operates.

Mexican drug lord Guzman seeks to speed up extradition to U.S.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Captive Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is attempting to accelerate his extradition to the United States in the hope that he will be treated better in prison there, his lawyers said on Wednesday.

Guzman, who has twice escaped from Mexican maximum security prisons, was captured in Mexico in January, six months after his last jailbreak. The Mexican government quickly said it would initiate extradition proceedings for him to the United States.

The world’s most notorious drug kingpin undertook legal steps to block his extradition, but his lawyers said he was so fed up with his treatment in Mexico that he was looking to move.

“He asked me to do whatever we could to put a stop to the situation he’s in, ‘I just want them to let me sleep,’ he kept saying and told me ‘try to get the quickest extradition possible for me, try and see about speaking to the U.S. government,'” one of the lawyers, Jose Refugio Rodriguez, told local radio.

Guzman has also complained about the amount of communication he is allowed with his family, being excessively cooped up in his cell, and that his cell is too cold, the lawyers said.

A second lawyer, Juan Pablo Badillo, told Reuters by telephone that the process would still take time.

“Since I was able to speak to (Guzman) from Feb. 15, he said he would analyze how we could start this process. It would definitely need to be subject to an agreement with the United States,” Badillo said.

Emerging Putin’s Geo Aggressions

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Putin has an inside circle and it is bid-rigging and creating wealth though fraud and collusion. Cunning, calculated, measured and well planned, Putin has a global objective. Is he stoppable beyond Syria?

Few have spoken about the national blackout, the cyber-attack on Ukraine’s power grid. If it can happen in Ukraine, it can happen in America. It must be noted who owns and controls companies with ties to infrastructure….Putin’s friends. For a chilling read, go here.

In part: In a statement announcing the sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department alleged that Putin “has investments” with Gunvor, the oil-trading firm that Timchenko founded but exited a day before he was hit with U.S. sanctions, and “may have access to Gunvor funds.”

Washington has not released any evidence to substantiate these claims, which the Kremlin and Gunvor deny. (The firm also says CEO Torbjorn Tornqvist was in charge of daily operations.)*

Meanwhile, Navalny filed a lawsuit earlier this month accusing Putin of a conflict of interest in awarding $1.75 billion in state financing to a company part-owned by Shamalov, his alleged son-in-law. A Moscow court rejected the lawsuit, saying it did not qualify for consideration under “administrative proceedings.” Full article here.

When it comes to Crimea and most recently Ukraine, does anyone care? For a data cache on Russian aggressions on Ukraine, go here.

According to Ukrainian officials on March 1 Russia sent three trains with ammunition to the occupied city of Ilovaisk and two tanks and four armoured personnel vehicles to Novoazovsk.

NATO’s top commander says Russian military activity in eastern Ukraine is increasing. Earlier, General Philip Breedlove also warned of ‘disturbing trends’ – including more sniper fire and shelling on the frontline. The NATO leader claims Russia has placed “well above” 1,000 pieces of military hardware in Ukraine over the past 12 months. More here.

Then comes Kazakhstan, where it appears covert pro-Russian adjustments are next up for Putin and Kazakhstan is taking notice.

Reuters in part: Demographically, the region therefore has much in common with Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and the eastern Donbass region, whose majority Russian-speaking populations pulled out of Kiev’s orbit with help from Moscow.

There is no separatist rebellion in northern Kazakhstan, but the ethnic Russians, who make up more than a fifth of the country’s 18 million population, are feeling increasingly insecure and some sympathize with the separatists in Ukraine.

The Ukraine experience has made the Kazakh authorities highly sensitive to any signs of disloyalty by ethnic Russians. Ethnically based political parties are banned.

Last year, a court in eastern Kazakhstan sentenced a user of Vkontakte, a Russian-based social network, to five years in prison for posting a poll which asked people whether they would support the idea of that region, which also has a big ethnic Russian population, becoming part of Russia.

“Their bodies are in Kazakhstan but their minds are in Russia,” said political analyst Dosym Satpayev, talking about what he described as the significant portion of the Kazakh population influenced by Russian media.

“There are signs that (the authorities) in Kazakhstan are beginning to realize it also faces a separatist threat,” said Satpayev, who runs the Risk Assessment Group, a think tank.

There are no signs of Moscow promoting separatism in Kazakhstan, although it wants to keep the country in its orbit. More here.

So beyond the matter of Putin taking over Syria, then gaining power and control in Afghanistan again, there is the matter of the Arctic. Enter ICEX.

Military: The U.S. Navy’s submarine force is setting up a temporary command center on a sheet of Arctic ice, where U.S. underwater capabilities will be put to the test in the increasingly strategic High North.


The five-week submarine drill coincides with separate war games in Norway called Cold Response involving 16,000 U.S. and NATO forces. Marines have been launching stinger missiles and maneuvering tanks, and the Air Force has dispatched three B-52 Stratofortress bombers.
Together, the exercises underscore the emergence of the Arctic as an area of concern as melting ice caps raise the prospects for competition over vital undersea natural resources. The area could become a flash point between the U.S. and Russia.


“The Arctic environment plays a key role in national defense,” said U.S. Submarine Forces commander Vice Adm. Joseph E. Tofalo in a statement announcing the launch of Ice Exercise 2016. “With over a thousand miles of Arctic coastline, the U.S. has strong national security and homeland defense interests in the region.”


Then ICEX drill, which is being conducted in the Arctic Ocean, aims to evaluate the terrain and assess the readiness of U.S. submarines operating under ice. It does not explicitly address concerns of a growing Russian military presence.
Still, Russian activity in the High North has grabbed the attention of top U.S. military commanders.
“We are facing a very challenging situation in the Arctic,” European Command’s Gen. Philip Breedlove told lawmakers last week. “Many of our NATO allies, Canada and the U.S. are concerned about what we see as the militarization of the Arctic now by Russia.”
Since 2008, Russia has been steadily upgrading its forces in the Arctic: reopening air bases, restoring air-defense radar stations and building new submarines. The moves are all in response to new security challenges brought on by melting ice and the prospect of new shipping lanes.
Moscow’s actions reflect a focus on “goals beyond the Arctic region,” the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said in a recent report examining Russian military capabilities and intentions in the region. More here.

Is there some negotiating or new deal that can stop Putin? Anyone?