Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

NY Judge Gives Victory Decision to U.S. Islamists

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Court Requires NYPD to Purge Docs on Terrorists Inside U.S.

Muslim community sued police over surveillance programs

FreeBeacon: The New York Police Department has been directed by a U.S. court to remove from its online records an investigation pertaining to the rise of Islamic extremists in the West and the threats these individuals pose to American safety, according to legal documents.

As part of a settlement agreement reached earlier this month with Muslim community advocates in U.S. District Court, the NYPD will purge from its website an extensive report that experts say has been critical to the department’s understanding of radical Islam and its efforts to police the threat.

The court settlement also stipulates that the NYPD make a concerted effort to mitigate the impact of future terror investigations on certain religious and political groups, according to a copy of the court documents published by the American Civil Liberties Union, which has spearheaded the case since June 2013.

Legal experts and critics of the settlement maintain that it could hamper future terrorism investigations and view it as part of a larger campaign by Muslim advocacy organizations in the United States to dismantle surveillance programs encompassing that community.

Critics expressed particular concern about the case in light of a recent surge in attacks on U.S. citizens committed by individuals pledging allegiance to terror groups such as ISIS.

A key portion of the settlement focuses on the NYPD’s purported use of a document produced by the department’s intelligence division to examine how radicalized individuals make their way to the United States and carry out terror attacks.

The document, “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat,” aimed to provide local law enforcement and policy makers with information about domestic terrorists and their operations.

As part of the settlement agreement, the NYPD will be forced to remove the publication from its database and vow not to rely on it in the future.

The NYPD and New York state government agencies included in the case “represent that they do not, have not, and will not rely upon the Radicalization in the West report to open or extend investigations,” according to the settlement. “Defendants will remove the Radicalization in the West report from the NYPD website.”

The settlement further affirms that the NYPD will be “committed to mitigating the potential impact” of future investigations on political and religious groups, such as those in the Muslim-American community.

While NYPD officials would not comment Thursday when contacted by the Washington Free Beacon, a spokesperson directed a reporter to a recent press release affirming the department’s commitment to upholding the court settlement.

The NYPD and relevant New York state agencies will “provide additional guidance to police officers as part of a settlement of lawsuits accusing the NYPD of improperly investigating Muslim groups,” according to the Jan. 7 press release. “While the City did not admit to engaging in any improper practices, the changes represent an effort to provide more detailed guidance to NYPD personnel within the existing Handschu Guidelines,” which govern how authorities investigate political activities.

The NYPD confirmed that it would remove from its website the 2007 radicalization report.

The department will additionally incorporate into the guidelines “police policies against religious profiling” and insert an additional “provision for considering the impact investigations have on people who are not targets of investigations,” according to the statement.

John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, maintained in a statement that the settlement would not “weaken the [department’s] ability to fulfill its steadfast commitment to investigate and prevent terrorist activity in New York City.”

However, some experts have cast doubt on this statement, claiming that the decision to delete the anti-terrorism handbook will impact officers’ ability to understand how terrorists organize and operate in the United States.

Benjamin Weingarten, a writer and national security analyst who has covered the court case, said that local police departments should be relying more heavily on the now-banned counterterror analysis.

Referring to the recent shooting of a Philadelphia police officer by a radicalized individual who allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS, Weingarten noted that the assailant followed the “‘four stages of radicalization’ detailed in the NYPD report.”

The information about radical terrorists provided in “the NYPD’s analysis may have at the least led Philadelphia authorities to dig deeper and flag him,” he said.

The settlement further reflects a larger cultural shift in America that shuns terms such as “war on terror” and “Muslim terrorism,” Weingarten said.

“To pursue a see-no-Islam counter-jihadist strategy is not only absurd and contradictory on its face, but its a severe dereliction of duty—ignorance is not an excuse, and it represents a failure to do everything necessary to defend against an ideology that seeks to undermine the Constitution and subvert and destroy Western civilization again, according to Islamic supremacists themselves,” he said.

Stephen Coughlin, an attorney and intelligence officer, expressed concern about what he described as a widening attempt by local and federal authorities to redefine the nature of domestic counter-terror efforts.

“I am greatly concerned with the imposition of [the case] which, I believe, exists to replace counter-terror efforts,” Coughlin said. “This is a continuation of a purging of evidentiary based counter-terror analysis first initiated in 2011.”

The ACLU and Muslim community advocates initially filed the lawsuit following reports after the 9/11 terror attacks that the NYPD was running a domestic spy operation centered on the American-Muslim community.

The ACLU, which would not comment on record for this report, directed the Free Beacon to a recent editorial published in the Guardian celebrating the court decision.

“Bias-based policing legitimizes religious discrimination, It can pave the way to copy-cat approaches by other agencies and set the stage for hate crimes nationwide,” wrote Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s national security project, and Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York.

“We hope the settlement announced this week pulls our city and its police department out of a downward spiral by reaffirming core values and principles, ones just as necessary to a local police force as they are to a rational debate on civil rights and liberties nationally,” they wrote.

*** It goes back a long way, directly post 9/11.

Germany: Migrant Rape Crisis Calls for Military

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German finance minister calls for option to deploy troops in wake of Cologne attacks

In light of the New Year attacks in Cologne, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has demanded the option of deploying Bundeswehr troops at home. He also reiterated his support for Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In an interview with Saturday’s edition of the “Süddeutsche Zeitung,” Schäuble said Berlin must ask itself why “under clear legal rules in support of the police, practically every other country in Europe can turn to its armed forces,” except for Germany.

“A legal basis for domestic military missions must be created,” Schäuble told the paper, adding that Germans expect the state to ensure security.

“For this you need more police and enhanced legal foundations for the police and intelligence services,” he said.

“The situation may arise, however, where both federal and state police forces are exhausted,” he added. “Every other country in the world would deploy soldiers in an emergency.”

Any deployment of the Bundeswehr within Germany is subject to extremely strict constitutional limitations, with its role described in the German Basic Law as absolutely defensive.

Refugee debate

The finance minister’s comments came amid ongoing uproar in Germany over reports of scores of sexual assaults in Cologne at the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Witnesses at the city’s main train station and iconic cathedral described women being groped, as well as subjected to lewd insults and robbery. In one instance, a rape was reported. Most of the culprits were said to have been of a North African or Middle Eastern appearance.

Support for Merkel

The reports have also renewed criticism of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy on refugees and migrants, with some 1.1 million new asylum seekers registered in the last year alone. Following criticism from within Merkel’s own Christian Democrats (CDU), Schäuble renewed his support for the chancellor.

“I support with conviction what the chancellor has said: We must solve the problem at the external borders,” Schäuble told the “Süddeutsche.”

Like Merkel, Schäuble called for a solution to the refugee crisis by means of better controls and cooperation with neighboring countries, adding that action in Europe was “still too slow.”

‘No one satisfied’

The finance minister also warned his fellow CDU party members against criticizing Merkel’s refugee policy.

“Of course, no one is satisfied with the situation,” Schäuble said, admitting that there had been “very intensive discussions” within the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union. The people want us “to solve the problems the best we can,” he said.

Schäuble’s comments published Saturday were far from comparable to those heard at the end of last year when he called for a strict limit on the number of family reunifications among refugees and compared Germany’s unprecedented influx of asylum seekers to an “avalanche.”

Soviet Loyalists, Patriotic Hackers

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IN 2014: Russian Hackers Amass Over a Billion Internet Passwords

NYT: A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, security researchers say.

The records, discovered by Hold Security, a firm in Milwaukee, include confidential material gathered from 420,000 websites, including household names, and small Internet sites. Hold Security has a history of uncovering significant hacks, including the theft last year of tens of millions of records from Adobe Systems.

“Hackers did not just target U.S. companies, they targeted any website they could get, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to very small websites,” said Alex Holden, the founder and chief information security officer of Hold Security. “And most of these sites are still vulnerable.” Full story here.

In 2015: Russian Hackers Read Obama’s Unclassified Emails, Officials Say

‘Patriotic hackers’ attacking on behalf of Mother Russia

FNC: A proxy war is underway in cyberspace, according to I.T. security analysts, and it is pitting numerous foreign institutions against Russian-speaking cyber militias beholden to President Vladimir Putin.

As has been evidenced by a steady wave of sophisticated cyberattacks targeting nation states and private sector organizations whose policies run counter to that of Moscow, Fox News is told groups of patriotic Eastern European hackers are using cyberattacks as a means to achieve Russia’s geopolitical goals.

Intelligence sources with knowledge of these cyberattacks tell Fox News the cyber militias are acting on behalf of the Putin regime. Furthermore, Fox is told security analysts have found evidence that Russian government-linked individuals have distributed cyberattack tools to these groups via underground web forums.

Over the last two years, analysts have researched web-based attacks leveraged against NATO, France’s TV5Monde, segments of the Polish financial sector, and the Dutch Safety Board – which concluded that doomed Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was actually brought down by a Russian-made missile. Researchers found evidence that each of those cyberattacks was carried out by different Russian-speaking cyber militias.

“We see this confluence of motive, where what looks like some recycled criminal malware has been upgraded in a sophisticated way,” said Keith Smith, vice president of threat intelligence for Colorado-based cybersecurity firm root9B. “A lot of people suspect that that’s Russia’s attempt to force us as analysts to ascribe to a criminal organization what is in fact the actions of a nation state – Russia.”

The United States is in these hackers’ crosshairs as well. As economic sanctions were leveled against Russia after its incursion into Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, the cyber militias began widespread attacks aimed at U.S. government officials and segments of the financial and defense sectors. The hack attacks were in furtherance of a campaign dubbed “Operation Pawn Storm” by cybersecurity firm Trend Micro.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on this activity, but in congressional testimony last year, DNI James Clapper publicly acknowledged the pervasiveness of Russian cyber activity aimed at the United States.

“The Silicon Valley of talent that exists in the world on a cyberattack and cybercrime perspective exists in Eastern Europe,” according to Trend Micro chief cybersecurity officer Tom Kellermann. “Most of those actors – who are the best hackers in the world, period – are beholden and pay homage to the legacy and the power of the former Russian and Soviet regime. They do so by acting out patriotically.”

Perhaps the most dramatic show of patriotic Russian cyber aggression came on December 23 when some 800,000 Ukrainians were left in the dark following a widespread power outage.

Soon after the incident, researchers at U.S. cyber intelligence firm iSight Partners found evidence that the blackout was the result of a cyber intrusion by one such patriotic hacking militia. The culprit, as determined by iSight’s analysis, was likely a Russian-speaking group dubbed “Sandworm Team,” whose name comes from its references to the science fiction series “Dune.”

ISight drew its conclusion after a piece of malicious computer code was found on the Ukrainian Power Authority’s system. That destructive malware, known as BlackEnergy3, is unique to that particular hacking group, according to iSight.

Sandworm has been implicated by the company for having carried out numerous cyberattacks with Russian interests in mind; most notably, attacks carried out against the Ukrainian government and NATO in 2014. And according to iSight officials, the group is one of many.

“We are actively monitoring seven different cyber espionage groups right now that we believe are of Russian origin,” said Steve Ward, iSight Partners senior director.

Researchers have found that the attackers utilized wiper malware to disable Ukrainian Power Authority computer systems, which is similar in nature to the destructive malware used in the 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures. But what makes the December hack on the Ukrainian grid a watershed moment, according to researchers, is the combination of the destructive component and the actual target of the attack.

According to Trend Micro’s Tom Kellermann, the December 23 incident is the first instance in which a specifically directed cyberattack was used to take down the energy sector in a given nation state.

And while experts argue that achieving a similar result against the U.S. power grid would be a far more complex task, nonetheless, this recent cyber-induced blackout has added fuel to already loud concerns over hackers’ mounting abilities to cause physical harm and destruction.

“You’re seeing this cyber manifestation of attacks that can change, alter and diminish your physical reality,” said Kellermann. “What you have in cyberspace right now is a free fire zone.”

Iran Implementation Day and Iran’s Connection to Islamic State

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The money to Iran is already moving.

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This is going to be a long read, but an important one such that history is included, details of diplomacy is included and described implications are described. Imagine what the next president of the United States will have to deal with, but more, imagine what Iran may do in the immediate coming months with $100 billion dollars, which by the way is bigger than Iran’s current economic value.

Iran Is More Deeply Tied to ISIS Than You Think

As the West continues to partner with Iran to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, it is worth remembering that one of Iran’s highest-ranking terrorists was instrumental in founding Al-Qaeda, and that the split between Shia and Sunni jihadis is murky at best.

Iranian operative Imad Mughniyeh was instrumental in the training, development, and support of Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda – and thus its offshoot, the Islamic State.

The power vacuum Mughniyeh created helped to further Iran’s geopolitical agenda. (This is a very long, detailed and important read, don’t miss the whole summary)

In part from the WSJ: The head of the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence is in Europe to discuss joint counterterrorism finance efforts and where things stand with the global agreement on Iran’s nuclear program. Talks on the former will be straightforward enough, but the latter could get bumpy.

Over the past few months, investors from Europe and Asia have gone to Tehran in droves, searching for post-sanction deals and bolstering Iranian hopes that the lifting of international sanctions will draw significant investment. Some in Europe have described Iran “as ‘an El Dorado’ and potential ‘bonanza.’ ” The chief of Iran’s central bank has cited the country’s “unique geographical advantage,” its “sense of timeliness and discipline,” and “very good history of being a trade partner.” In October, he predicted that “Iran will be a very favored destination for many international investors.”

But Treasury officials bear mixed news: The U.S. is preparing to meet its commitments on sanctions relief tied to implementation of the nuclear deal. Still, many U.S. sanctions tied to Iran’s support for terrorism, human rights abuses, and other negative behaviors remain in place.

And within days of the Iranian central banker’s comments in October, the Financial Action Task Force, which sets global standards on countering money laundering and terrorist financing, issued another searing rebuke of Iran’s “strategic deficiencies.” Only Iran and North Korea, the task force said, present such “on-going and substantial money laundering and terrorist financing” risks that the international community should apply active “counter-measures” to protect the global financial system.

The task force said that as sanctions are being lifted under the nuclear agreement, it “remains particularly and exceptionally concerned about Iran’s failure to address the risk of terrorist financing and the serious threat this poses to the integrity of the international financial system.” It repeated its long-standing call for financial institutions to “give special attention to business relationships and transactions with Iran, including Iranian companies and financial institutions.” The full story is here.

From the White House:

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From the Treasury Department in part:

1/16/2016

​Implementation Day Statement:

On July 14, 2015, the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the European Union, and Iran reached a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) to ensure that Iran’s nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful.  October 18, 2015 marked Adoption Day of the JCPOA, the date on which the JCPOA came into effect and participants began taking steps necessary to implement their JCPOA commitments.  Today, January 16, 2016, marks Implementation Day of the JCPOA.  On this historic day, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Iran has implemented its key nuclear-related measures described in the JCPOA, and the Secretary State has confirmed the IAEA’s verification.  As a result of Iran verifiably meeting its nuclear commitments, the United States is today lifting nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, as described in the JCPOA.
In connection with reaching Implementation Day, today the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued several documents.  Specifically, OFAC posted to its website: Guidance Relating to the Lifting of Certain Sanctions Pursuant to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Implementation Day; Frequently Asked Questions Relating to the Lifting of Certain U.S. Sanctions Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Implementation Day; General License H: Authorizing Certain Transactions relating to Foreign Entities Owned or Controlled by a United States Person; and a Statement of Licensing Policy for Activities Related to the Export or Re-Export to Iran of Commercial Passenger Aircraft and Related Parts and Services. The aforementioned documents are effective today, January 16, 2015.
***

Political Challenges to the Iran Deal in Tehran and Washington

By Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi and Timothy Stafford
The Iran deal remains at the mercy of a volatile and unpredictable political climate, both in Tehran and Washington. This could well overwhelm it in the coming year.

Ticking the Boxes: Tehran’s Road to ‘Implementation Day’

By Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi
To make the deal successful, intensive co-ordination between domestic actors in Iran will be required to implement these highly technical processes.

The Devil is in the Detail: The Financial Risks to the Economic Success of the Iran Deal

By Emil Dall, Andrea Berger and Tom Keatinge
Over the last decade, the US and EU have constructed a complex network of sanctions in response to Iran’s nuclear programme, ensuring the near-total isolation of Iran from global markets. On ‘implementation day’, this network starts to be disassembled and reintegration begin.

Iran Implementation Day Recommendations

The signatories to the Iran nuclear deal should move to entrench processes that will enable the agreement to outlast the individuals that put it in place. By this time next year, a new US president will have been sworn in, and presidential elections in Iran will only be just months away. Time must be used wisely.

Senator Session’s Book on Immigration and Green Cards

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Under Barack Obama, the United Nations is also the headquarters of who can claim a new identity, that of an American. The same does for Europe, the world is one big global citizen, loyal to nothing and fully borderless.

Hat tip to Chuck and Daily Caller:

Jeff Sessions Releases Book Of Charts Putting Immigration And Green Card Issuances Into Shocking Perspective

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions released a book of graphs and charts on Wednesday that helps put the U.S.’s relaxed immigration policies in shocking perspective.

“Record-breaking visa issuances propelling U.S. to immigration highs never before seen,” is the sub-title to the Republican immigration hawk’s “chart book.”

Sessions, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, asserts that the federal government will legally add 10 million or more “new permanent immigrants over the next 10 years.”

He also cites polls showing that a “stark” majority of Americans want lawmakers to reduce immigration rates, not increase them. Polls from Gallup and Fox show that Americans support an immigration reduction to an increase by a 2-to-1 margin.

Sessions’s chart book is aimed at providing readers an easy-to-understand frame of reference for immigration flows and green card issuances, past and present.

In one chart, Sessions compares the number of green cards that will be issued in the next decade to the population of the first three presidential primary states — Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions "Chart Book"

Another chart entitled “Immigration Adds 1 New Los Angeles Every 3 Years,” which is based on U.S. Census Bureau statistics and population projections, shows that the 11.4 million immigrants will enter the U.S. over the next nine years. “Unless immigration reductions are enacted,” the immigration population will increase in size equal to the population of Los Angeles — 3.9 million — every three years, Sessions notes.

sessions2 The number of green card issuances that can be expected over the next decade is also the equivalent of the combined population of seven of the largest cities in the U.S., including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas, St. Louis, Denver, Boston, and Atlanta, Sessions notes.

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Other charts include one which shows that the U.S.’s immigration population will grow to more than 700 percent of 1970 levels by 2060.

By then, the U.S. will have 78.2 million foreign-born residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 1970, that number was 9.6 million.

And another chart takes aim at immigration from majority-Muslim nations. The U.S. has issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from those nations in the last five years, reports Sessions, citing statistics from the Department of Homeland Security.

Sessions’s “chart book” also includes stats on welfare usage rates for Middle Eastern refugees. According to a 2013 report from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, 91.4 percent of refugees from the Middle East are on food stamps. Nearly 70 percent — 68.3 percent to be exact — receive cash welfare assistance.

Other charts compare the U.S.’s immigrant population to other nations’.

“America Has 10 Million More Foreign-Born Residents Than The Entire European Union” and “U.S. Has 6 Times More Migrants Than All Latin American Nations Combined” provide the numbers.

While the U.S. has 45.8 million residents who were born outside of the U.S., the entire European Union has 35 million, according to a United Nations database. That despite the fact that the combined population of EU countries is 60 percent larger than the population of the U.S.