Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

Russia is WAY too close to Compromising Communications Cables

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Russian aggression and look who is in the White House…..chilling….

Submarine Cable Map

PopularScience: For the past five years, John Rennie has braved the towering waves of the North Atlantic Ocean to keep your e-mail coming to you. As chief submersible engineer aboard the Wave Sentinel, part of the fleet operated by U.K.-based undersea installation and maintenance firm Global Marine Systems, Rennie–a congenial, 6’4″, 57-year-old Scotsman–patrols the seas, dispatching a remotely operated submarine deep below the surface to repair undersea cables. The cables, thick as fire hoses and packed with fiber optics, run everywhere along the seafloor, ferrying phone and Web traffic from continent to continent at the speed of light.

The cables regularly fail. On any given day, somewhere in the world there is the nautical equivalent of a hit and run when a cable is torn by fishing nets or sliced by dragging anchors. If the mishap occurs in the Irish Sea, the North Sea or the North Atlantic, Rennie comes in to splice the break together.

On one recent expedition, Rennie and his crew spent 12 days bobbing in about 250 feet of water 15 miles off the coast of Cornwall in southern England looking for a broken cable linking the U.K. and Ireland. Munching fresh doughnuts (a specialty of the ship’s cook), Rennie and his team worked 12-hour shifts exploring the rocky seafloor with a six-ton, $10-million remotely operated vehicle (ROV) affectionately known as “the Beast.”

As  Russia scopes undersea cables, a shadow of the United States’ Cold War past

WaPo: On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Russian submarines and spy ships are operating near vital undersea fiber-optic cables that transmit the majority of the planet’s communication and economic data.

The fear, the report stipulates, is that Russia might be looking for weak spots that could be attacked and severed during a conflict.

Though the tactics and threat are reminiscent of the Cold War, the Russians appear to be taking a page out of the book that the U.S. Navy and the NSA wrote in the 1970s in a series of undersea wire-tapping missions that became known as Operation Ivy Bells.

Briefly mentioned in the Times report, Operation Ivy Bells is written about extensively in the book “Blind Man’s Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage” by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew. The missions used submarines to listen in on previously untapped Soviet “hard-lines” to glean information about Soviet ballistic missile submarine deployments and strategy.

In 1970, at the height of the Cold War, James Bradley, the director of undersea warfare at the Office of Naval intelligence dreamed up one of the most daring submarine spy missions in modern history. He wanted to send the specially outfitted 350ft nuclear-powered submarine, the Halibut, to land over the ocean floor under the Sea of Okhotsk and tap a phone line that connected the Soviet submarine base at Petropavlovsk to its Pacific Fleet headquarters near Vladivostok.

Besides the risk of international incident if Halibut was caught or detected, there was no evidence that the phone line even existed. The only evidence that Bradley had was the notion that the sub base in Petropavlovsk was probably required to give constant updates back to its higher headquarters. So Bradley, sitting in his Pentagon office at 3 a.m., thought back to his childhood, racking his brain to figure out where the Soviets might have laid their cables.

According to “Blind Man’s Bluff,” Bradley, in his predawn stupor, recalled from his youth written signs that had been posted along the Mississippi River to mark undersea cables. The signs, posted along the shore, were meant to prevent passing from hooking the cables with their anchors.

With this in mind, Bradley reasoned that there had to be similar signs near the shallower points on the Sea of Okhotsk.

So, with Bradley’s childhood in mind, “the most daring acts of tele-piracy of the Cold War” was born.

After an extensive multi-year refit that began in the late 60s, Halibut was ready to depart from Mare Island Naval Shipyard outside of San Francisco for Okhotsk in 1972. One of the sub’s most noticeable additions was a giant hump mounted behind its conning tower, a hump that was publicly declared as a hangar for a deep sea rescue vehicle but was actually a “decompression and lockout chamber” for the team of divers that would exit the sub to tap the Soviet cables.

So in October 1972, the crew of Halibut made its way across the Pacific, its older nuclear reactor pushing her across the sea at just over 10 knots. First the spy sub moved north to the Aleutian Islands, then past the Bering Straight and into the Sea of Okhotsk. The captain of the Halibut, Navy Cmdr. Jack McNish, had not told the crew where it was going—only that they were leaving home for three months and that they were searching for the remnants of a new Soviet infared anti-ship missile that the United States was desperately seeking a counter-measure for.

Once inside the Sea of Okhotsk, the Halibut slowly patrolled with its periscope up, scanning the coastline for Bradley’s signage that would mark the cables. And then, after a week of patrolling with no luck, the Halibut found a sign on the northern shore of the Sea of Okhotsk that said something to the extent of “Do Not Anchor. Cable Here” in Russian.

The Halibut, after locating the sign, launched a specially designed submersible or “fish,” that then proceeded to search for the cables. The fish had a very basic video camera, and a higher definition camera. While the video was relayed in real-time back to the submarine, the film from the camera had to be retrieved from the fish and subsequently developed while the Halibut was near the surface so that the sub’s dark room could properly vent or “snorkel” the chemicals used to develop the film.

Hours after the fish’s launch, footage began to come back of foot-long bumps in the sand, a sort of Morse code etched in the sea bottom. The Halibut had found the cables.

According to “Blind Man’s Bluff,” the fish was then retrieved and the film developed, revealing the Soviet cables strewn along the seafloor.

After identifying the cables, McNish maneuvered the Halibut well outside the 3-mile territorial limit of the Soviet Union and located a spot just above the cable where he could lower the submarine’s two massive anchors in a sort-of hover.

Using specially designed rubber wet suits that fit loosely and were pumped full of hot water to counter the freezing temperatures of the Sea of Okhotsk, the divers departed the Halibut armed with pneumatic air-guns to blow debris off the cables and emergency oxygen bottles in case their “umbilical cords” that connected them back to the Halibut were severed.

The wire-tap, according to “Blind Man’s Bluff,” was three-feet long and composed of a tape recorder and a lithium ion battery. A connector would wrap around the cable and draw out the words and data through induction. There was no cutting into the cable.

For the next few hours the recording device attached to the cable relayed Soviet communications back to a select group of spies aboard the Halibut who would then, after the completion of the mission and a successful return to port, send the tapes to Fort Meade, Md, where they would be subsequently analyzed.

With the tap successful, the Halibut then moved to its secondary mission of locating the Soviet missile fragments before returning to port. With the mission a success, Bradley saw a future filled with taps around the globe that could record for months and years continuously, without the presence of an American sub to collect the data.

In August 1972, the Halibut departed once more for the Sea Okhotsk to repeat the tap. This time, however, the sub was rigged with explosives in case the sub and her crew were ever compromised. This time too, according to Blind Man’s Bluff, McNish told his crew about their actual mission and the risks it entailed.

In the years following more submarines would be outfitted like Halibut, and they too would conduct similar wire-taps. Operation Ivy Bells had begun.

 

Obama Orders Public Schools to Teach Immigration Acceptance

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How about calling your Congressperson and the State Education Board and express some outrage?

Introduction

As a nation of immigrants, the United States has benefited tremendously from the talents, values, and contributions of newcomers to our shores. In the face of immense barriers, many undocumented youth have exhibited exemplary perseverance, work ethic, and leadership. Yet hurdles and challenges remain. Many educators, counselors, and school leaders have expressed interest in learning how to better support all children so that they can achieve educational and economic success – regardless of actual or perceived immigration status. Informed by research and promising practices, the U.S. Department of Education (Department) has compiled this Resource Guide to assist and enhance State and local efforts to support undocumented youth at the secondary and postsecondary school levels. However, high-quality early learning and elementary education is critical to college and career success for all children. Therefore, the Department will in coming months release a separate resource guide on early learning and elementary education that includes promising practices for serving undocumented children and children of undocumented parents. The Department hopes that educators, schools, and campuses will, as they see fit, draw upon the tips and examples in this Guide to better support undocumented youth and, ultimately, move us closer to the promise of college and career readiness for all.  Read the full document here.

Schools Ordered to Help Illegal Aliens, Hold “Undocumented Immigrant Awareness Day”

The Obama administration is ordering the nation’s public schools to support illegal immigrant students, promote the president’s amnesty and “embrace and value” the diversity and cultural backgrounds of the foreigners receiving a free, American taxpayer-funded education.

In a 63-page “Guide for Success” issued this month, the U.S. Department of Education directs teachers in the nation’s publicly funded schools to “understand the cultural and educational backgrounds” of their students and to “model multicultural sensitivity.” Teachers should also “engage in self-reflection to address personal biases and increase multicultural competence,” according to the new mandate that also orders the incorporation of diversity and immigration into instruction. “Plan and host trainings on multicultural issues that educate teachers and staff about the unique needs and challenges of undocumented students,” the document says.

Educators are also instructed to “withhold judgment and biases about immigration status.” This means that school personnel “should not make assumptions about students’ immigration status – including assuming that ethnicity or speaking languages other than English imply non-citizen status.” If a student discloses that he or she is an illegal immigrant school personnel must “convey openness and assurance of confidentiality.” Schools must also establish “safe spaces” where undocumented youth can share freely, engage with their peers and build a support system. “Individually addressing fears of deportation in a sensitive manner may be needed,” according to the new public education guide.

The goal, according to an agency statement, is to help educators and school staff support the academic success of undocumented youth and to debunk misconceptions by clarifying the legal rights of undocumented students. The guide also includes information about financial aid options available to illegal immigrant students and support for youth that want to apply for an Obama amnesty program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). “We know undocumented youth face unique challenges and we also know that educators and other caring adults in schools and colleges can play a major role in helping all students, including undocumented students, to achieve at the highest levels,” said John King, deputy secretary of education.

Nearly 700,000 illegal aliens have been granted benefits under DACA, but 1.5 million are eligible and the administration wants to maximize the numbers. In the coming years an additional 400,000 illegal alien children will become eligible, the administration reveals in its new education mandate. “To ensure that undocumented youth receive an equitable education that prepares them for college and career, it is imperative that educators and other personnel understand the unique needs of these students and receive high-quality training and support on how to best serve them,” the new guide states.

It goes on to list symptoms—including depression and anxiety—that undocumented youth suffer as a result of the migration process, which can include family separation, detention and deportation. The stress of living in the U.S. illegally may be “exacerbated when, throughout critical moments of adolescent development, barriers prevent undocumented youth from sharing core experiences with their documented peers, such as driving and starting their first job,” the document reads. The Obama administration also aims to eliminate barriers encountered by illegal aliens who want to attend college by directing schools to highlight opportunities to help undocumented youth access postsecondary education. This includes encouraging scholarship sponsors to change their policies to be inclusive of undocumented students.

While the new illegal alien guide for academic success mainly targets elementary and high schools, there is a message for colleges and universities: “Build a supportive and welcoming institutional environment for undocumented students.” This includes hiring “culturally competent faculty,” publicly demonstrating support for undocumented students and hosting an “undocumented immigrant awareness day.” Colleges and universities should also alleviate fears that students may have about their immigration status.

 

Lois Lerner Goes Free ~ Impeach Loretta Lynch

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Per the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Press Release:

Chairman Chaffetz Responds to DOJ’s Investigation of the IRS

Published: Oct 23, 2015
  

WASHINGTON—Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) issued the following statement after the Department of Justice announced there will be no charges against former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official Lois Lerner, and the investigation will be closing:

“This announcement is a reminder that the Obama administration continues to refuse to hold anyone accountable at the IRS. Over two years ago, TIGTA conducted an audit confirming the IRS was targeting conservative organizations because of their political beliefs. While DOJ may have closed its investigation, as a coequal branch of government, Congress will continue to seek accountability for the American people. A clear message must be sent that using government agencies to stifle citizens’ freedom of speech will not be tolerated. If the administration won’t send that message, Congress will.”

Background:

Earlier this year, Chairman Chaffetz, along with 51 members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama calling for the removal of IRS Commissioner John Koskinen. Additionally, the Oversight Committee released a video outlining a timeline of key events in the targeting scandal.

*** in 2014 from Judicial Watch, in part:

IRS Had “Secret Research Project” For Conservative Donor Lists

Judicial Watch continues to blow the lid off of the Obama administration’s increasingly feeble attempts to cover up its deliberate targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the months leading up to the 2012 presidential election. And the latest batch of emails JW has obtained in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit portrays an agency potentially willing to go to any lengths to bring down the president’s political opponents – including misusing the private, confidential information of those who dared contribute to the groups the IRS had targeted.

But, we really shouldn’t be surprised, should we? This is an administration whose chief executive has repeatedly acted as if he is above the law. All he needs to govern, he claims, is “a pen and a phone.” His IRS agency, it turns out, has put both to extensive use in harassing and hamstringing conservative organizations – and, perhaps, even individuals it thought might have had a negative impact the president’s efforts to retain office in 2012.

On September 4, we released a new batch of IRS email documents revealing that under former IRS official Lois Lerner, the agency seems to acknowledge having needlessly solicited donor lists from non-profit political groups. According to a May 21, 2012, memo from the IRS Deputy Associate Chief Counsel: “such information was not needed across-the-board and not used in making the agency’s determination on exempt status.” Outrageously, it wasn’t until one year later, on May 10, 2013, that Lerner finally conceded that the requests for donor names were “not appropriate, not usual.” (These remarks by Lerner were staged and were the first IRS admission of its improper targeting of Obama’s perceived enemies.)

Not surprisingly, the new documents JW obtained also reveal that 75% of the groups from which the lists were solicited were apparently conservative, with only 5% being liberal. So, Lerner and her IRS collaborators knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the donor lists they had wrongly solicited would be filled with the names of those who had opposed the Obama policies.

These new smoking gun documents came in response to a court order from our October 2013 FOIA lawsuit (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)) filed against the IRS after the agency unlawfully refused to respond to four FOIA requests dating back to May 2013. The emails are contained in the sixth batch of documents the IRS has been forced to produce in response to the Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit. Much more here.

WikiLeaks Publishes Second Round of CIA Directors Emails

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Most interesting is CIA Director John Brennan’s early email address rolodex list. Mr. Brennan apparently was a big user of Craig’s list, had deep contacts with academia and even sent flowers.

CIA Director John Brennan emails

Today, 21 October 2015 and over the coming days WikiLeaks is releasing documents from one of CIA chief John Brennan’s non-government email accounts. Brennan used the account occasionally for several intelligence related projects.

John Brennan became the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in March 2013, replacing General David Petraeus who was forced to step down after becoming embroiled in a classified information mishandling scandal. Brennan was made Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism on the commencement of the Obama presidency in 2009–a position he held until taking up his role as CIA chief.

According to the CIA Brennan previously worked for the agency for a 25 year stretch, from 1980 to 2005.

Brennan went private in 2005-2008, founding an intelligence and analysis firm The Analysis Corp (TAC). In 2008 Brennan became a donor to Obama. The same year TAC, led by Brennan, became a security advisor to the Obama campaign and later that year to the Obama-Biden Transition Project. It is during this period many of the Obama administration’s key strategic policies to China, Iran and “Af-Pak” were formulated. When Obama and Biden entered into power, Brennan was lifted up on high, resulting in his subsequent high-level national security appointments.

If you have similar official documents that have not been published yet, submit them to WikiLeaks.

Published on 22nd October 2015

Afghanistan-Pakistan Executive Summary

Recommendations for a USG strategy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan (AF-PK) region. (7. November 2008, Author: SAA)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Preface Memo to ExSum

A draft report from Louis Tucker, Minority Staff Director to Vice Chairman Christopher Bond, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, outlining the recommendations of the previous document. (7 November 2008, Author: Louis Tucker)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Contacts

A list of contacts as stored in the AOL email account of John Brennan. It mostly contains email addresses (people in active email exchange with the account holder) as well as some Instant-Messenger IDs (AIM).

Download original TXT.

Published on 21st October 2015

John Brennan Draft SF86

“National Security Position” form for John Brennan. This form, filled out by Brennan himself before he assumed his current position, reveals a quite comprehensive social graph of the current Director of the CIA with a lot of additional non-govermental and professional/military career details. (17 November 2008, Author: John Brennan)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

The Analysis Corporation

FAX from the General Counsel of the CIA to the Goverment Accountability Office about a legal quarrel between the CIA and “The Analysis Corporation”. TAC seems to have lost a tender for a US watchlist-related software project to a competitor. Issues seem to revolve around “growth of historical data” and “real-time responsiveness” of the system. (15 February 2008, Sender: CIA, Office of General Counsel, Larry Passar)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Draft: Intel Position Paper

Challenges for the US Intelligence Community in a post cold-war and post-9/11 world; a calling for inter-agency cooperation, a ten-year term for the Director of the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence. It also demands the autonomy of the Intelligence Community, that it “… must never be subject to political manipulation and interference.” An unfinished paragraph is titled “Damaging Leaks of Classified Information”. (15 July 2007, Author: John Brennan)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

The Conundrum of Iran

Recommendations to the next President (assuming office in Jan. 2009) on how to play the figures on the U.S.-Iranian Chessboard (18 November 2007, Author: John Brennan)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Torture

Letter from Vice Chairman Bond, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to his fellow board members with a proposal on how to make future interrogation methods “compliant” and “legal”. Instead of listing all allowed methods, every kind of interrogation should be considered compliant, as long as it is not explicitly forbidden by the “Army Field Manual” (AFM). (May 2008)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Torture Ways

A bill from July 2008 called “Limitations on Interrogation Techniques Act of 2008” explicitly list the forbidden interrogation techniques mentioned in the previous document and can be considered a direct implementation of the recommendations of Christopher Bond. (31 July 2008)

Download PDF or view HTML version.

Stingray and Warrantless Cell Phone Tracking Policy

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DHS issues stingray policy and answers to Oversight Committee

SCMagazine: The Department of Homeland (DHS) followed the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lead on Wednesday with the release of its cell-site simulator, or “stingray,” policy.

The policy, as the agency wrote, “provides guidance and establishes common principles for the use of cell-site simulators across DHS.” The policy applies to the “use of cell-site simulator technology inside the United States in furtherance of criminal investigations,” the memorandum states.

Primarily, the policy hits on a required search warrant before operating a stingray device. In the past, the government has been derided for picking up innocent citizens’ data while they’re sharing public spaces with criminal investigation targets.

The majority of cases will require prosecutors to obtain a search warrant supported by probable cause; however, in exigent circumstances under the Fourth Amendment, such as situations where law enforcement’s needs are “so compelling that they render a warrantless search objectively reasonable” the warrant requirement can be waved. Exceptional circumstances are also exempt from a mandatory warrant. These instances often occur when obtaining a search warrant is “impracticable,” such as when Secret Service agents are protecting the president.

As far as data collection, data must be deleted as soon as the target is identified and no less than once every 30 days.

The policy release was accompanied by a hearing at the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The representatives asked for clarification from both DHS and the DOJ on their stingray use and rules.

When Rod Blum (R-Iowa) probed about how agents would be reprimanded if they didn’t follow these policies, both the DOJ and DHS said individuals would be left to the agencies’ idea of appropriate punishment, but employees would definitely be held accountable.

“As with any technology procedure within an agency if individuals violate their agency’s orders they’re accountable to their agencies and subject to discipline,” said Elana Tyrangiel, principal deputy assistant attorney general, Office of Legal Policy at DOJ.

To ensure their policies are followed, both agencies instated an auditing procedure with designated executive-level contacts serving as direct lines of contact.

Secret Service allowed to use warrantless cellphone tracking

WASHINGTON (AP) – A new policy allows the Secret Service to use intrusive cellphone-tracking technology without a warrant if there’s believed to be a nonspecific threat to the president or another protected person.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Seth M. Stodder described to a House subcommittee Wednesday the department’s policy on the use of cell-site simulators.

Civil libertarians and privacy advocates have long expressed concern about the suitcase-size devices, known as Stingrays, which mimic cell-towers to scoop up electronic data that can be used to locate nearby phones and identify their owners. The devices don’t listen in to phone calls or capture text messages, Stodder said.

The policy the department unveiled this week is similar to the one announced in September by the Justice Department, which includes the FBI.

Federal law enforcement officers are required to get a warrant signed by a judge before using Stingrays, except under emergency “exigent circumstances” meeting the constitutional standard for probable cause under the Fourth Amendment, but when there is no time to get a warrant.

Stodder cited the example of kidnappings, such as a recent case where Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers used a Stingray to help locate and rescue a 6-year-old girl being held hostage by human smugglers in Arizona.

But Stodder said another allowed exception under the policy would let the Secret Service use Stingrays in “exceptional circumstances” without meeting the legal threshold for probable cause. In such cases, using the devices would require direct approval from “executive-level personnel” at Secret Service headquarters and the U.S. attorney for the relevant jurisdiction.

Asked whether that essentially granted a blanket exception for the Secret Service, Stodder said that the exemption would not be used in routine criminal probes, such as a counterfeiting investigation.

“The key exception that we envision is the Secret Service’s protective mission,” Stodder said. “In certain circumstances where you could have an immediate threat to the president and you have cryptic information, our conclusion in drawing the line between security and privacy here is to err on the side of protection.”

Stodder added that such information could be “a cryptic email or something like that” indicating a security threat to the president where agents would lack the time or the information to determine probable cause, “but you need to locate that person.”

Cell-site stimulators have been used for years by both state and federal law enforcement agencies, who tout them as a vital tool to catch fugitives and locate suspects. But privacy groups and some lawmakers have raised alarms about the secrecy surrounding its use and the collection of cellphone information of innocent bystanders who happen to be in a particular neighborhood or location.

Stodder could not immediately say how many times department law-enforcement officers had used Stingrays without warrants in recent years.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said Wednesday the newly announced guidelines are a good first step, but added that the policy still lacks transparency and provides overly broad permission for Stingrays to be used without warrants. The new federal policies also don’t apply to state and local law enforcement agencies that have purchased Stingrays, sometimes through the use of federal grants. More here.