Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

What About Those Stingrays? You Cool With This?

Posted on by

Surveillance Nation is here today and are you good with this?

Is Microsoft reading YOUR emails? Windows 10 may threaten your privacy, watchdogs warn

Windows 10:  DailyMailUK

Within 45 pages of terms and conditions, the privacy information suggests Microsoft begins watching from when an account is created, saving customer’s basic information, passwords and credit card details, Newsweek reported.

The tech giant is also said to save Bing search queries and conversations with Cortana, as well as lists of which websites and apps users visit and the contents of private emails and files, as well as their handwriting.   The privacy statement says: ‘your typed and handwritten words are collected.’

The policy adds that Microsoft collects information about a user’s speech and handwriting to ‘help improve and personalise our ability to correctly recognise your input,’ while information from their contacts book is used, such as names and calendar events ‘to better recognise people and events when you dictate messages or documents’.

Cortana, for example, makes use of information about who a user calls on their phone, plus data from their emails and texts, calendar and contacts, as well as their web history and location.  Microsoft says that data is collected to provide users with a more personalised service and better character recognition, for example, but may also be used for targeted adverting, meaning it may share information with third parties.

The company assigns each of its users a unique advertising ID so it does not reveal what they ‘say in email, chat, video calls or voice mail, or your documents, photos or other personal files to target ads to you.’

But it has still come under fire from privacy campaigners.

Online privacy pressure group, European Digital Rights (EDRi) told The Times that Microsoft’s policy was ‘not only bad news for privacy. Your free speech rights can also be violated on an ad hoc basis.’

Microsoft ‘basically grants itself very broad rights to collect everything you do, say and write with on your devices in order to sell more targeted advertising or to sell your data to third parties.’

Kirsten Fiedler, EDRi’s Managing Director told MailOnline: ‘Unlike Microsoft’s promise, the company’s new 45 page-long terms of service are not straightforward at all.

‘Online companies should finally start explaining their terms in an understandable manner so that we can make informed choices about the services we want to use.

 

Stingray surveillance sparks privacy concerns in Congress

USAToday: WASHINGTON — Members of Congress are increasingly trying to rein in a secretive federal law enforcement program that uses devices known as Stingrays to capture cellphone data from unsuspecting Americans.

“They are spying on law-abiding citizens as we speak,” said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who recently won House approval of a measure to end the program.

The box-shaped Stingray devices are the size of small suitcases, cost about $400,000 to buy and operate, and are usually attached to the cars of federal, state or local law enforcement agents. They mimic cellphone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius to connect to and feed data to police about users’ locations, text messages, calls and emails.

At least a half-dozen federal agencies — including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — use the technology, which can penetrate the walls of a home, apartment complex or office.

Police say the technology — which can also be attached to planes — helps them catch criminals by tracking their movements and actions. But critics complain that it violates the constitutional rights of innocent citizens whose cellphone data is also seized, often without a warrant.

At least 53 law enforcement agencies in 21 states also use Stingrays or similar devices, according to research by the American Civil Liberties Union. Local police typically buy the devices with grants from the federal government and sign agreements with the FBI not to disclose their use, said ACLU attorney Nathan Wessler.

A June 2014 investigation by USA TODAY and Gannett newspapers found that an increasing number of local and state police agencies were deploying Stingrays and other technology to secretly collect cellphone data from suspected criminals and law-abiding Americans not suspected of any wrongdoing.

“It’s become clear how staggeringly widespread the use of this technology is,” Wessler said. “We’ve been heartened to see that some members of Congress are taking the privacy concerns quite seriously.”

The House this summer passed, by voice vote, a Justice Department spending bill that included Issa’s amendment to bar funding for the use of Stingrays without a warrant. Issa said he won’t stop there, in part because the Senate is unlikely to pass that measure .

“I will use additional opportunities to get it done,” Issa told USA TODAY. “Right now, law enforcement won’t even tell us how many Stingrays they have. The only way to protect the American people is to change the law.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, also are targeting the Stingray program in a broader bill called the GPS Act. The legislation would require law enforcement agents to obtain warrants before tracking Americans’ locations by using Stingray-type devices or tapping into cellphones, laptops, or GPS navigation systems.

“I don’t see how you can use a Stingray without it raising very substantial privacy issues,” Wyden told USA TODAY. “I want police to be able to track dangerous individuals and their locations, but it ought to be done with court oversight under the Fourth Amendment.”

The FBI has said it has a policy of obtaining warrants before using Stingray devices, although it has broad exceptions, including one that allows the technology to be used in public places where the agency believes people shouldn’t have an expectation of privacy.

“It’s how we find killers, it’s how we find kidnappers, it’s how we find drug dealers, it’s how we find missing children, it’s how we find pedophiles,” FBI Director James Comey told reporters in Charlotte. last fall. “It’s work you want us to be able to do.”

Chaffetz is also using his position as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to gather information as part of an investigation into the use of stingrays, said his spokesman, M.J. Henshaw.

At the same time, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the panel, have been pressing the Department of Justice for answers about Stingray practices and policies. Sen. Bill Nelson, R-Fla., has also called on the Federal Communications Commission to review how the devices are used.

A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the agency is reviewing its policies for the use of Stingray devices. He said he didn’t know when the review would be done.

“With regards to this technology, the Department of Justice is in the process of examining its policies to ensure they reflect our continued commitment to conducting our vital missions while according appropriate respect for privacy and civil liberties,” said spokesman Patrick Rodenbush.

While the Justice Department reviews its policies, states have begun passing their own laws to ban state and local police from using Stingrays without a warrant.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a ban in May after legislation was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in the state Legislature. In addition to requiring police to obtain a warrant before using Stingray devices, the law says police must quickly delete any data collected on people who were not targets of a criminal investigation.

Similar laws have been passed in Virginia and Utah and are being considered in California, New York and Texas.

“The American people are looking for a balance between security and liberty,” Issa said. “After 9/11, we moved too far towards security. We need to move back toward liberty.”

Details on Obama Closing Gitmo

Posted on by

In the matter of closing Guantanamo and normalizing relations, 18 months of covert meetings and confabs took place and the White House even included the Vatican.

FSM: There are currently 116 detainees at the facility, and under the new plan some of them would be moved to the U.S.

Monaco said the plan was to transport the 52 detainees deemed eligible for transfer to countries with appropriate security arrangements.

According to Monaco, those who are deemed “too dangerous to release” would be subject to periodic review boards for transfer eligibility. In 10 instances, 13 review boards have already resulted in individuals being moved to the so-called “transfer bucket.”

“So we are going to whittle down this group to what I refer to as the ‘irreducible minimum’ who would have to be brought here,” Monaco said.

“That group, who either can’t be prosecuted, or are too dangerous to release, we are going to continue to evaluate their status.”

Under the law of war, Monaco said, those remaining after review would be transferred to U.S. military prisons or supermax security prisons, and be subjected either to prosecution in military commissions or Article III courts.

Given that Obama and the Department of Justice can exploit law and influence judges, the White House has discretion on who gets released…..

In part from DefenseOne: Standing before a Cuban flag newly returned to official Washington, Rodriguez thanked the Obama administration but repeated the Cuban government’s list of unresolved grievances. “The lifting of the blockade, return of the illegally occupied territory of Guantanamo, full respect for Cuban sovereignty and compensation of our people … are crucial to being able to move forward,” he said.

But Kerry said later, “At this time there is no discussion and intention on our part at this moment to alter the existing lease treaty or other arrangements with respect to the naval station in Cuba.”

“We understand Cuba has strong feelings about it,” he said, continuing, “I can’t tell you what the future will bring.”

Cuban President Raul Castro has demanded the U.S. return Guantanamo Naval Station, a sparse strip of land that the U.S. has held since 1903. Since 2002, the base has also housed prisoners seized during American global counterterrorism operations. In January, a few weeks after Castro and President Obama announced that they’d work to restore ties, the Cuban leader argued that relations cannot be normalized until U.S. officials “give back the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo naval base…If these problems aren’t resolved, this diplomatic rapprochement wouldn’t make any sense.”

What Obama doesn’t want us to know on Gitmo closure

By J.D. Gordon
The Hill:

President Obama’s top counter-terrorism aide, Deputy National Security Advisor Lisa Monaca, said this past weekend at the Aspen Security Conference that the White House is preparing for another push to close Guantanamo, including a plan to move detainees into the U.S. mainland.

While she cited grossly exaggerated costs per detainee, here’s an actual fact that Team Obama isn’t telling us, far more important than just dollars and cents:

If and when the detainees are stateside, judges could release them onto Main Street, USA.

Our courts will have the final say on whether they remain locked up, not the administration.  And if other countries won’t take them, they could just walk out of jail.  Detainees don’t have to escape from Supermax if judges let them out.

And since nearly half of the current 116 detainees have been held under indefinite detention status, activist judges would line up for jurisdiction.

“Try them or release them,” has been the rallying cry for Al Qaeda’s defense lawyers for over a dozen years.  Makes sense, right?  Maybe so during peacetime, before mass casualty terrorist attacks like those on 9/11.

But America remains at war.  Since there weren’t battlefield detectives collecting evidence from global jihadists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, military or civilian trials might not obtain convictions.  Which doesn’t make those men any less dangerous, just less prosecutable.

Obama and his legal advisers know the courts routinely pummeled the Bush administration on detainee cases, including multiple losses at the Supreme Court.  They ought to know, since 9 lawyers who represented Al Qaeda were rewarded with senior political posts in the Obama administration.

When I served as a Pentagon spokesman from 2005-2009, our DoD General Counsel’s office, working in tandem with the Justice Department, reminded me of a piñata.  But instead of kids bashing away to free candy, it was judges hammering to free detainees.

One case that has direct applications to today’s prospect of Gitmo closure is Al Marri v. Bush.

Ali Al Marri was a Qatari national with a U.S. green card, believed to be an Al Qaeda sleeper cell agent, trained in advanced poisons for use against water reservoirs.  Captured in Peoria, Illinois, and then held indefinitely at the Naval Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, Al Marri assembled a team of lawyers who argued that President Bush didn’t have the authority to hold him without trial.

Well, Al Marri won.  While terrorism charges didn’t stand up in court, he was convicted of credit card fraud and served a short sentence in a civilian prison.  It was like busting Al Capone for tax evasion.  Al Marri is now a free man in Qatar.

If Al Marri could beat the federal government in court, dozens of Gitmo terrorists with less evidence against them will too.  But what if other countries won’t take them?  Then what?

The White House is also misleading about Gitmo’s cost, claiming $3 million per detainee, per year.  Yet they don’t mention the primary expense is 2,000 troops guarding them, providing legal services and medical care.  That’s the same number deployed to handle the total of 780 detainees, so it’s deliberate overkill.  Taken together with 4 catered halal meals a day, Ramadan feasts with roasted meats and imported dates, expensive exercise equipment, Wii-fits, satellite TV, etc. Obama deliberately keeps that cost high to score political talking points.

Shouldn’t Americans ask Obama why he would risk freeing them into our country, when nearly 1/3 are already confirmed or suspected of returning to terrorism?

In my view, he sees Guantanamo as a symbol of the America he’s determined to transform.  To him, Gitmo equals U.S. overreach, the “empire” acting through brute force.  Above the law, as they say. And that’s not just holding radical Islam-inspired terrorists.  That also extends to “occupying” 45-square miles of Cuba against the will of Havana’s leaders.

Obama is desperate to empty Gitmo, let the chips fall where they may, because he wants to return the Naval Base to Cuba.  Even though it’s been a strategically important military base for Americans, leased since 1903, complete with a deep water port and airfield, he views it as the left in Latin America does – a sign of Yankee imperialism.

Though the White House says they won’t cave to Raul Castro’s demands for the base, they have zero credibility on the issue.  That’s because Ben Rhodes of the National Security Council went behind the backs of Congress and the American people to conduct the normalization of relations agreement last year in secret, in Canada.  Rhodes and this same NSC also blamed the Benghazi terrorist attack on a video.  Can we trust anything they say?

Bottom line, closing Gitmo and giving it back to Cuba is all part of Obama’s legacy.  He extends olive branches to terrorists and appeases dictators for little to nothing in return, designed to usher in a new, post-U.S. superpower status era.  As America gets weaker with $1 trillion in defense cuts, our enemies get stronger.  Is that what he meant by hope and change?

Gordon is a retired Navy commander and former Pentagon spokesman who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-2009, during which time he visited Guantanamo Bay Naval Base over 30 times.

Microsoft and Their $100 BILLION Offshore

Posted on by

While some domestic corporations do maintain headquarter offices in the United States, their money is often elsewhere to avoid the destructive tax code. But does Microsoft get an official pass or waiver from the Obama administration?

In September of 2014, Obama and Jack Lew at Treasury took decisive action.

Washington Post: The Obama administration took action Monday to discourage corporations from moving their headquarters abroad to avoid U.S. taxes, announcing new rules designed to make such transactions significantly less profitable.

The rules, which take effect immediately, will not block the practice, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew again called on Congress to enact more far-reaching reforms. But in the meantime, he said, federal officials “cannot wait to address this problem,” which threatens to rob the U.S. Treasury of tens of billions of dollars.

“This action will significantly diminish the ability of inverted companies to escape U.S. taxation,” Lew told reporters. “For some companies considering deals, today’s action will mean that inversions no longer make economic sense.

“These transactions may be legal, but they’re wrong,” he added. “And the law should change.”

Tax analysts praised the new regulations, saying they will make it much harder for U.S. firms to bring cash earned abroad back to the United States tax-free — a major incentive in the relocations known as tax “inversions.” It was not immediately clear, however, whether the new rules would be sufficient to head off a wave of inversions expected to cascade over the American landscape in the weeks before the Nov. 4 midterm congressional elections.

Microsoft’s Offshore Profit Pile Surges Past $100 Billion Mark

Microsoft Corp.’s stockpile of offshore profits rose to $108 billion, with a 17 percent increase over the past year as the company continues reaping profits in low-tax foreign jurisdictions.

The company crossed the $100 billion mark, making it just the second U.S. corporation — after General Electric Co. — to do so, according to a securities filing July 31. Apple Inc. has more cash abroad than Microsoft, but it already has assumed for accounting purposes that it will pay tax on some of the stockpile and thus has less than $70 billion offshore that would affect earnings directly if repatriated.

What’s keeping Microsoft’s cash abroad is the U.S. tax code. The company would be required to pay the difference between its foreign taxes and the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate if it brought the money home.

To get its $108.3 billion back, Microsoft would have to pay the U.S. $34.5 billion in taxes. That equals a 31.9 percent rate, which suggests that the company has paid as little as 3.1 percent in taxes on its foreign income, because of operations in low-tax Ireland, Singapore and Puerto Rico.

The Internal Revenue Service and Microsoft are in the midst of an intense legal battle over the company’s transfer pricing, or intracompany transactions. The federal government is auditing the company’s returns as far back as 2004, and Microsoft has challenged the government’s hiring of outside lawyers.

Peter Wootton, a spokesman for Microsoft, declined to comment.

Repatriating Profits

Under current law, U.S. companies owe the full 35 percent rate on profits they earn around the world, but they don’t have to pay the U.S. until they repatriate the profits. That gives companies an incentive to book profits overseas and leave them there, and that’s just what they’ve done.

U.S. companies have more than $2 trillion amassed outside the U.S., according to a Bloomberg News review earlier this year of the securities filings of 304 companies.

Apple has more than $200 billion in cash stockpiled, with almost 90 percent of it overseas. As of its most recent annual report, Apple had $69.7 billion in profits on which it hasn’t assumed taxes.

U.S. lawmakers are looking for ways to get some of that cash back in the U.S. President Barack Obama supports a one-time 14 percent tax on stockpiled profits, with the proceeds going to highways and other infrastructure programs. Some Republicans favor a similar approach and are working on a detailed plan.

FBI Alert: Middle-Eastern Males Approaching Family Members of US #Military

Posted on by

The instruction ebook for the hijrah.

(U//FOUO) FBI Alert: Middle-Eastern Males Approaching Family Members of US Military Personnel

The following alert related to “Middle-Eastern males” approaching military family members was obtained from the website of a veterans advocacy organization.  A force protection advisory that was released by the Washington National Guard & Military Department days later describes a similar incident that occurred in Washington.

(U//FOUO) In May 2015, the wife of a US military member was approached in front of her home by two Middle-Eastern males. The men stated that she was the wife of a US interrogator. When she denied their claims, the men laughed. The two men left the area in a dark-colored, four-door sedan with two other Middle-Eastern males in the vehicle. The woman had observed the vehicle in the neighborhood on previous occasions.

(U//FOUO) Similar incidents in Wyoming have been reported to the FBI throughout June 2015. On numerous occasions, family members of military personnel were confronted by Middle-Eastern males in front of their homes. The males have attempted to obtain personal information about the military member and family members through intimidation. The family members have reported feeling scared.

(U//FOUO) To date, the men have not been identified and it is not known if all the incidents involve the same Middle-Eastern males. If you have any information that may assist the FBI in identifying these individuals, or reporting concerning additional incidents; in Colorado please contact the FBI Fort Collins Resident Agency at 970-663-1028970-663-1028, in Wyoming please contact the FBI Cheyenne Resident Agency at 307-632-6224307-632-6224.

(U) This report has been prepared by the DENVER Division of the FBI. Comments and queries may be addressed to the DENVER Division at 303-629-7171303-629-7171.

The .pdf of the official document is here.

The White House Charming Venezuela

Posted on by

Did you consider that normalizing relations with Cuba, which blind-sided everyone was part of the demands by Iran in the nuclear talks? Uh huh…

Did you consider and additional demand for Venezuela?..Hummm

A U.S. State Department lawyer, Tom Shannon has traveled to Caracas to meet with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and there have been other clandestine meet-ups in Haiti to set the table for restoring relations between the two countries.

Strangely enough, the University of Rhode Island was also chosen along with 4 other universities to enhance relationship opportunities through student exchanges.

Barack Obama feels empowered now due to the deal with Iran and the notion that Cuba and the United States have formally opened respective embassies.

Obama is now exploiting the moment where he used Cuba as a springboard when he attended the Summit of the Americas last April. His ‘new chapter’ has been read and accepted as noted in his speech at this summit. Actually he had many secret and formal messages in his speech which sounded much like that of his outreach speech to the Muslim world in his 2009 Cairo speech.

“President Obama indicated our strong support for a peaceful dialogue between the parties within Venezuela,” said Bernadette Meehan, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council. “He reiterated that our interest is not in threatening Venezuela, but in supporting democracy, stability and prosperity in Venezuela and the region.”
Maduro later described the meeting as frank and cordial, saying the 10-minute exchange could lead the way to a meaningful dialogue between the two nations in the coming days. “I told him we’re not an enemy of the United States,” Maduro said. “We told each other the truth.”

Several charming people and words and being delivered and dispatched, Venezuela is here.

 

Obama Charm Offensive Targets Venezuela After Iranians, Cubans

The Obama administration’s charm offensive with unfriendly states has rolled through Myanmar, Iran and Cuba. Next stop: Venezuela.

Just months after the administration declared Venezuela a threat to U.S. national security, it’s working to improve relations, driven by concern that upheaval there could destabilize the region.

State Department officers have been meeting quietly with officials in the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro since April to develop what Secretary of State John Kerry has called “a normal relationship.”

The outreach is another test of President Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural pledge to “extend a hand” to repressive and corrupt regimes if they are “willing to unclench” their fists.

Falling oil prices, plummeting foreign reserves, a 68.5 percent inflation rate and growing political tensions are battering Venezuela. There’s enough at stake that even a Justice Department probe into the alleged drug ties of the lead Venezuelan in the talks hasn’t derailed the diplomacy.

“The U.S. has a broader goal here, no matter what they think about the Venezuelan government,” said Christopher Sabatini, a Latin American studies professor at Columbia University in New York. “The goal is to prevent a black hole that will suck in other Latin American economies.”

One frequent critic of the administration’s foreign policy has cautious praise for the effort. “I’m very glad the administration is trying to deal with them” on political repression and staging fair elections in December, said Senator Bob Corker, the Tennessee Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Toilet Paper Queue

Corker visited Caracas last month and returned dismayed by the sight of Venezuelans queuing outside stores in the early morning hoping that toilet paper might be in stock.

“I don’t think I’ve been to a place that has more potential but is totally blowing it,” Corker said in an interview. “It’s just sad.”

Beyond the hyperinflation that burdens ordinary people and erodes the government’s spending ability, the country’s international reserves fell to a 12-year record low of $15.37 billion on July 27, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The country’s basket of crude oil and petroleum, a major source of national revenue, fell 4.2 percent last week to $45.87 per barrel, according to the Oil Ministry’s website. A year ago, a barrel of oil brought Venezuela about $96.

‘Fear of Contagion’

Venezuela and its state oil company have about $5 billion in bond payments due in the last three months of this year and about $10 billion in 2016, according to Bank of America Corp. estimates.

Harvard Professor Ricardo Hausmann is saying Venezuela will have no choice but to default on its debt next year amid shortages of staples such as medicine and milk.

“One of the fears is contagion,” said Carl Meacham, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. With the world’s largest proven oil reserves, Venezuela has wielded regional clout by offering neighbors cheap energy and subsidies.

Now, with the country becoming “more and more a hub for international drug cartels,” Meacham said the U.S. effort is about preventing it from becoming a failed narco state. “The spillover won’t just affect folks inside Venezuela, it also has the potential to affect countries all over the region,” he said.

Trading Partner

There also are strategic considerations. The U.S. is Venezuela’s biggest trading partner, the country currently has a vote on the United Nations Security Council as one of 10 nonpermanent members, and it has allied itself with Cuba and other nations hostile to the U.S., sending oil to Syria’s regime despite sanctions in 2012 and last year agreeing to let Russia establish naval and military bases in its borders.

The U.S. “wants Venezuela to relax its international positions on countries like Iran, Russia, Syria and Greece,” said Carlos Romero, an international relations professor at the Central University of Venezuela.

There’s concern, too, that tensions with Venezuela could damp efforts to improve relations with other Latin American nations. Kerry said on July 20 that he and Cuba’s foreign minister had discussed the U.S.-Venezuela relationship, and “our hopes that we can find a better way forward because all of the region will benefit.”

Diplomats Expelled

In the past two years, both nations have expelled diplomats from the other country, and the U.S. has sanctioned Venezuelan officials for human rights abuses.

Maduro, who embraces the socialist rhetoric of his late predecessor Hugo Chavez, called the sanctions the “most aggressive, unjust and disgraceful” action ever taken against Venezuela.

In May, the Justice Department launched its investigation into Diosdado Cabello, the president of the National Assembly, for possible cocaine trafficking and money laundering.

By then, though, there already were signs of change. In March, officials say, Maduro reached out to initiate talks.

“He was afraid of another round of sanctions, and he was afraid of losing support from the rest of Latin America,” said Romero of Venezuela’s Central University. “The majority of Latin American countries, including Ecuador and Bolivia, have been improving ties with the U.S., and Venezuela wants to be recognized as legitimate.

‘Modus Vivendi’

Maduro’s government is eager to reach some sort of ‘‘modus vivendi’’ with the U.S., Romero said. The precarious economy, coupled with the sight of other Latin American countries — particularly Cuba — warming to the U.S., was a spur for Maduro.

Maduro publicly voiced optimism for U.S.-Venezuela relations after speaking with Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Panama in April, an event where Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro shook hands as their countries’ moved toward normalization.

‘‘There’s a real sense the U.S.-Latin American relationship had been a bit distant and now has new possibilities,” said Harold Trinkunas, director of the Latin America Initiative at the Brookings Institution. “The one thing that could spoil that is the situation in Venezuela, so the administration is looking for ways to manage that.”

So far, the talks have focused on regional issues such as the peace process in neighboring Columbia and Haiti’s elections, and on domestic issues such as jailed opposition leaders and the need to hold credible elections in December with international observers, according to a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic business.

Immediate aims include finding “an exit to Venezuela’s political crisis” and preventing its “breakdown into lawlessness,” Sabatini said.

Meacham, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is among critics who question the effectiveness of the talks.

“Is it the right approach? Up to now I’d say no,” he said. “We haven’t seen progress with the political prisoners, we haven’t seen them commit to international observers.”

Still, Meacham said, “there is something to be gained from opening the channels of communication.” If things go badly, it will help the U.S. “predict and assess the scope of the damage for the region.”