Category Archives: Department of Homeland Security

Suspicious Facts Behind the Iowa App

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Remember when Hillary Clinton said nobody liked Bernie Sanders?

Remember when Hillary Clinton claimed Tulsi Gabbard was a Russian operative?

As the country waits for the first caucus results from Iowa, there are some very suspicious details behind this reporting app that you, the reader should know. Caucus chaos may have been human error with coding or possibly all purposeful….you be the judge as you read on.

Iowa Caucus Rules Change Could Produce Three Winners

The Iowa Democratic Party declined to allow officials at the Department of Homeland Security to vet the app intended to tally the votes during Monday’s botched first-of-the-nation caucuses. (remember when the Hillary presidential campaign refused FBI access to server log-ins due to foreign cyber penetrations)

Troy Price, the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party, said in a statement on Tuesday morning that officials have “every indication” the app was not hacked, noting the systems were tested by independent cybersecurity consultants prior to the caucuses on Monday. But, he said there were “inconsistencies” in the results, the underlying cause of which was “coding issues.”

*** Iowa Democratic Caucus Results Delayed by Technology ...

The app, according to several news reports, was developed by the secretive for-profit tech firm Shadow Inc., which has ties to and receives funding from ACRONYM, a Democratic digital non-profit organization. Shadow’s CEO is Gerard Niemira, who worked on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“State campaign finance records indicate the Iowa Democratic Party paid Shadow… more than $60,000 for ‘website development’ over two installments in November and December of last year,” HuffPost reported late Monday. “A Democratic source with knowledge of the process said those payments were for the app that caucus site leaders were supposed to use to upload the results at their locales.”

Shadow has also been paid for services by the Nevada Democratic Party and the presidential campaigns of former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Democratic Party officials kept the details of the app as well as Shadow’s involvement hidden from the public ahead of the Iowa caucus. But as Monday night wore on and frustration with the delayed reporting of the caucus results boiled over, journalists began scrutinizing the new technology and its developer more closely.

The New York Times, citing anonymous people who were briefed on the app by Iowa Democratic Party officials, reported that the app was hastily constructed in just two months and “not properly tested at a statewide scale.”

In a statement released in the early hours of Tuesday morning, ACRONYM spokesperson Kyle Tharpe attempted to distance his group from Shadow’s technology.

“ACRONYM is an investor in several for-profit companies across the progressive media and technology sectors,” said Tharpe. “One of those independent, for-profit companies is Shadow Inc., which also has other private investors. We are reading confirmed reports of Shadow’s work with the Iowa Democratic Party on Twitter, and we, like everyone else, are eagerly awaiting more information from the Iowa Democratic Party with respect to what happened.”

***

An app created by a tech firm run by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign is taking heat for the unprecedented delay in reporting Democratic caucus results from Iowa. The company wasfounded in 2017 “to educate, inspire, register, and mobilize voters,” according to its website. Shadow started out as Groundbase, a tech developer co-founded by Gerard Niemira and Krista Davis, who worked for the tech team on Clinton’s campaign for the 2016 Democratic nomination.

Niemira had previously worked at kiva.org, a nonprofit that makes loans to entrepreneurs and others in the developing world, and Davis had spent eight years as an engineer at Google. ACRONYM’s founder and CEO is Tara McGowan, a former journalist and digital producer with President Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.

There were signs of trouble with the app even before Monday night. Opportunities to train on the app in advance of caucus night did not bode well, Grennan said.

“They had all these issues,” he said. “We were supposed to be getting invitations to use it. The invites would never arrive.” The communications he did receive were confusing, he said.

When the big night came, Grennan, who was running the caucus site at Grinnell College, said the app appeared to be working as he input results, but he couldn’t tell with certainty.

“I kept getting kicked off,” Grennan said, adding that the app would reset if stopped part-way through. He decided to call the party’s hotline with a question, but after nearly half an hour on hold, he gave up. “I’m 90% sure it went through [on the app.] I’ll have to work under the assumption that if it’s not there, they’re going to call me.”

Among Shadow’s clients is Pete Buttegieg’s presidential campaign, which paid $42,500 to the firm in July 2019 for “software rights and subscriptions,” according to disclosures to the FEC. A spokesman for the campaign says the payment was for a service used to send text messages to voters. The campaigns of Joe Biden and Kirsten Gillibrand, who withdrew from the race last year, also made smaller payments to Shadow. More from the LATimes.

al Qaeda Leader to be Extradited From Arizona to Iraq

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He ran an Arizona driving school and was described by friends and acquaintances in Phoenix as an outgoing, friendly member of the city’s Iraqi community and had been in the U.S. for more than a decade and had recently married and had a child. He arrived in the U.S. in January 2008 as a refugee from Iraq.

Ahmed and other members of al Qaeda shot and killed a lieutenant and an officer with the Fallujah Police Directorate in 2006, according to the Department of Justice. A warrant was issued for his arrest on Wednesday.

Jabir Algarawi, a board member of the Phoenix refugee assistance organization Refugees and Immigrants Community for Empowerment, said he met Ahmed in 2010 and knew him well.

Al-Qaeda Leader Wanted by Iraq for Murder Arrested in Arizona - C-VINE Network Ali Ahmed's arrest as suspected al-Qaida terrorist stuns Phoenix friends

PHOENIX – On January 31, 2020, a Phoenix-area resident, who is alleged to have been the leader of a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists in Al-Fallujah, Iraq, appeared today before a federal magistrate judge in Phoenix, Arizona in connection with proceedings to extradite him to the Republic of Iraq. He is wanted to stand trial in Iraq for two charges of premeditated murder committed in 2006 in Al-Fallujah.

The arrest was announced by Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Michael Bailey for the District of Arizona.

An Iraqi judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, 42, on murder charges. The Government of Iraq subsequently requested Ahmed’s extradition from the United States. In accordance with its treaty obligations to Iraq, the United States filed a complaint in Phoenix seeking a warrant for Ahmed’s arrest based on the extradition request. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Z. Boyle issued the warrant on January 29, 2020, and Ahmed was arrested the following day.

According to the information provided by the Government of Iraq in support of its extradition request, Ahmed served as the leader of a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists in Al-Fallujah, Iraq, which planned operations targeting Iraqi police. Ahmed and other members of the Al-Qaeda group allegedly shot and killed a first lieutenant in the Fallujah Police Directorate and a police officer in the Fallujah Police Directorate, on or about June 1, 2006, and October 3, 2006, respectively.

The details contained in the complaint are allegations and have not yet been proven in court. If Ahmed’s extradition is certified by the court, the decision of whether to surrender him to Iraq will be made by the U.S. Secretary of State.

Ahmed’s arrest was executed by the FBI Phoenix Field Office, HSI Phoenix Field Office and the U.S. Marshals Service. The extradition case will be handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona and the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs.

Are Voters this Stupid when it Comes to Bernie Sanders?

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The legislators on the Left are always voting for laws that protect us from ourselves, taking away independent thought and decisions. It is a double edge sword for sure, some people need others to make decisions for them.

Laws where an individual’s behavior hurts others in all forms does have some merit…but c’mon Bernie and the same goes for Vermont and Iowa or any Bernie voters across the nation.

Bernie Sanders raises $3.3 million in first 10 hours after ...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) in his first-ever campaign for the Senate made the legalization of all drug use one of the cornerstones of his policy platform.

Recruited in a 1972 special election as the Senate candidate for Vermont’s Liberty Union Party, Sanders promised that if elected, “All laws relating to prohibition of abortion, birth control, homosexual relations, and the use of drugs would be done away with,” the Rutland Daily Herald reported in December 1971.

“In a free society, individuals and not government have the right to decide what is best for their own lives, as long as their actions do not harm others,” Sanders said during the campaign for the seat he would eventually win in 2006. (source)

***

As the DEA explained in its 2019 National Drug Threat Assessment, also released Thursday, most synthetic opioids are produced in China and Mexico; methamphetamine and heroin are primarily Mexican, and much cocaine is produced in Colombia. All of the drugs are routinely smuggled over the porous southwestern border or, in the case of Chinese goods, sent in using the U.S. mail.

“We’re pleased that in 2018, drug overdose deaths declined over 4 percent overall, with even greater decreases—over 13 percent—in overdoses from controlled prescription opioids,” DEA acting administrator Uttam Dhillon said Thursday. “Many challenges remain, however, including the spread of fentanyl and methamphetamine across the country. DEA and its partners will continue to work diligently to combat the drug trafficking organizations that bring these deadly substances into our country and endanger the American people.”

As the drug crisis changes shape, lawmakers continue to struggle over how best to combat it. On Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives finally passed an extension of the DEA’s temporary scheduling of fentanyl’s synthetic analogs, giving law enforcement another year to prosecute traffickers in substances like acetyl fentanyl and carfentanil under the strictest section of the Controlled Substances Act. Eighty-six House Democrats, however, objected, with several taking to the floor to argue that a “public health” approach is preferable to the incarceration of drug dealers. (source)

***

Since fentanyl and carfentinil can be absorbed through the skin, eyes, or respiratory system, there is a very real danger for secondary exposures for firefighters and EMS personnel from drug residue on a patient’s clothing, furniture, and even carpeting. There have been numerous documented cases in the United States of firefighters and EMS personnel experiencing respiratory distress and other overdose symptoms after coming into incidental contact with fentanyl and carfentinil residue in the course of providing patient care. The lethality and ease of coming into contact with the drug underscores the need for firefighters and EMS personnel to exercise extreme caution when responding to suspected opioid-related calls. All responders should be careful to appropriately don and doff any personal protective equipment selected for use when responding to these calls.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration recently published a handbook and roll call video to educate first responders on the dangers presented by fentanyl and carfentinil. Fire chiefs should work closely with their medical directors to review this information and design protocols to protect firefighters and EMS personnel from exposures to these dangerous narcotics. Fire chiefs also should maintain regular contact with their law enforcement partners to understand which narcotics may be most prevalent in their communities. (source)

*** Has Bernie explained any of that? Not so much. Consider the real destruction of the thousands and thousands of the narcotic generation and the labor output competition with other nations.

Bernie sees the “War on Drugs” as a costly, destructive, and ineffective policy. Current drug laws have not worked. After spending billions of dollars and destroying millions of lives, there has been no real decrease in drug accessibility or use, as evidenced by the opioid epidemic, the rising rates of heroin use, and the scourge of meth. Bernie believes treatment, not punishment, is the answer, and he’s repeatedly introduced legislation to extensively reform the criminal justice system along these lines.

War on Drugs: The fifty year war on drugs is a failed policy that has led to mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders and has unfairly targeted people of color.

Treatment for Drug Offenders: Nonviolent drug offenders should not be incarcerated. Instead, they should have access to affordable treatment to address their drug dependencies.

Legalize Marijuana: Marijuana ought to be legalized.

Addressing the Heroin and Opioid Epidemics : Heroin and opioid abuse is at epidemic levels, and the U.S. is not addressing the crisis with the urgency and seriousness that is required. We must address this crisis by providing resources, proper treatment and healthcare professionals to the communities struggling with this epidemic.

Here’s a link to Bernie’s plan to legalize marijuana and his comprehensive plan, Justice and Safety for All,  to reform the criminal justice system.

 

 

CBP 2019 Report on Travel and Trade

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If you don’t think that Customs and Border Protection is needed and is quite busy, take a look at this report. Then consider what CBP just can’t get to because of lack of resources. At least this changes the topic for a short while from impeachment…

https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/u419/IAD%20CBPO%20PrimaryL.jpg

WASHINGTON — U.S. Customs and Border Protection released its annual Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 trade and travel report today. According to the report, CBP personnel processed $2.7 trillion of imports and 410 million travelers in FY 2019.

The “Trade and Travel Fiscal Year 2019 Report” describes CBP’s essential role in promoting economic growth and ensuring that the United States maintains its place as the world’s top destination for tourism and business travel. CBP leveraged innovative technologies and programs to further streamline lawful trade and travel while enhancing security.

“CBP continues to make lawful trade and travel more efficient and convenient while protecting the American people and our domestic industries” said Acting CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan. “We could not accomplish this critical mission without the 31,000 dedicated CBP officers, specialists and mission support staff who work hard every day to make our nation safer and more prosperous.”

In FY 2019, CBP further reduced import processing times by modernizing the Automated Commercial Environment, an electronic import-export system, and by expanding the use of non-intrusive inspection technology (NII). The use of NII generates up to $17.5 billion in economic benefits for the trade community and up to $1 billion in government cost savings every year.

https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/photo/Container%20Inspection%2C%20Red%20Hook%2C%20Brooklyn%2C%20NY-JD.jpg

CBP simultaneously took decisive action to safeguard America’s domestic industries against unfair competition and to protect American consumers from counterfeit and unsafe imports. In FY 2019, CBP:

  • Collected $80.7 billion in duties, taxes, and other fees. That figure included $71.9 billion in duties, a 73 percent annual increase;
  • Began enforcing 33 new anti-dumping/countervailing duty orders while recovering more than $121 million in duties owed, a nearly 86% annual increase;
  • Initiated 36 Enforce and Protect Act investigations into allegations of large-scale, highly-coordinated duty evasion schemes; and
  • Launched an innovative e-commerce data pilot with industry partners to secure low-value shipments bound for the United States.

CBP is also responsible for identifying and containing emerging and rapidly-evolving biological threats to American agriculture and consumers. CBP agriculture specialists intercepted more than 56,000 harmful pests and more than 1.75 million prohibited plant materials, meats and animal byproducts during import and traveler inspections last year.

In addition to fulfilling its trade mission, CBP continued to facilitate lawful travel while maintaining the highest possible security standards. CBP processed 135.7 million international air travelers in FY 2019, representing a 32.8% increase over the past six years. Over the same period of time, CBP reduced average wait times at the nation’s top 25 international airports by 17.8%.

CBP and its partners also continued to implement biometric facial comparison technology at air, land and sea ports of entry. This technology enables CBP to fulfill Congressional mandates while enhancing security, facilitating lawful travel and protecting the privacy of all travelers.

CBP expanded existing initiatives to meet its goal of developing a travel system that is secure, straightforward, efficient and best-in-class. In FY 2019, CBP:

  • Enrolled more than 1.1 million new members in Trusted Traveler Programs, which expedite the entry of pre-approved, low-risk travelers;
  • Processed more than 21.5 million travelers through Preclearance, a program that enables CBP to deploy personnel overseas to inspect travelers before they board U.S.-bound flights; and
  • Selected 38 new public and private sector partners for the Reimbursable Services Program, a program that enabled CBP to process an additional 2.1 million travelers and 213,000 vehicles.

 

Harvard Arrests, Coronavirus and China, Related?

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One has to apply some critical thinking here. The money clue –> Unbeknownst to Harvard University beginning in 2011, Lieber became a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China and was a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan from in or about 2012 to 2017. Wuhan is ground-zero for the virus. The United States along with the Center for Disease Control has offered substantial assistance to China providing expertise including microbiology, immunology and virology relating directly to the coronavirus.  but China refused. Hummm. The U.S. patent office has approved several patent applications relating to the virus, the most recent in 2008 from what appears to be from a team from Vanderbilt University.

A close friend found another interesting event recently held event from October 2019 that was hosted in New York by Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation called Event 201. 130 people attended to discuss pandemics. A good takeaway document discussing pandemic communications is found here. Note we are not getting all the real details from China as Beijing controls all media. Further, there will be false posts and articles in various forms in world media, so do your work.

5e2ef8505bc79c4a4842bf93 Useful map details and updates found here.

You be the judge.

 

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Harvard University Professor and Two Chinese Nationals Charged in Three Separate China Related Cases

The Department of Justice announced today that the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China.

Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was arrested this morning and charged by criminal complaint with one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.  Lieber will appear this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.

Yanqing Ye, 29, a Chinese national, was charged in an indictment today with one count each of visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy. Ye is currently in China.

Zaosong Zheng, 30, a Chinese national, was arrested on Dec. 10, 2019, at Boston’s Logan International Airport and charged by criminal complaint with attempting to smuggle 21 vials of biological research to China.  On Jan. 21, 2020, Zheng was indicted on one count of smuggling goods from the United States and one count of making false, fictitious or fraudulent statements.  He has been detained since Dec. 30, 2019.

Dr. Charles Lieber

According to court documents, since 2008, Dr. Lieber who has served as the Principal Investigator of the Lieber Research Group at Harvard University, which specialized in the area of nanoscience, has received more than $15,000,000 in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Department of Defense (DOD).  These grants require the disclosure of significant foreign financial conflicts of interest, including financial support from foreign governments or foreign entities. Unbeknownst to Harvard University beginning in 2011, Lieber became a “Strategic Scientist” at Wuhan University of Technology (WUT) in China and was a contractual participant in China’s Thousand Talents Plan from in or about 2012 to 2017.  China’s Thousand Talents Plan is one of the most prominent Chinese Talent recruit plans that are designed to attract, recruit, and cultivate high-level scientific talent in furtherance of China’s scientific development, economic prosperity and national security.  These talent programs seek to lure Chinese overseas talent and foreign experts to bring their knowledge and experience to China and reward individuals for stealing proprietary information.  Under the terms of Lieber’s three-year Thousand Talents contract, WUT paid Lieber $50,000 USD per month, living expenses of up to 1,000,000 Chinese Yuan (approximately $158,000 USD at the time) and awarded him more than $1.5 million to establish a research lab at WUT.  In return, Lieber was obligated to work for WUT “not less than nine months a year” by “declaring international cooperation projects, cultivating young teachers and Ph.D. students, organizing international conference[s], applying for patents and publishing articles in the name of” WUT.

The complaint alleges that in 2018 and 2019, Lieber lied about his involvement in the Thousand Talents Plan and affiliation with WUT.  On or about, April 24, 2018, during an interview with investigators, Lieber stated that he was never asked to participate in the Thousand Talents Program, but he “wasn’t sure” how China categorized him.  In November 2018, NIH inquired of Harvard whether Lieber had failed to disclose his then-suspected relationship with WUT and China’s Thousand Talents Plan.  Lieber caused Harvard to falsely tell NIH that Lieber “had no formal association with WUT” after 2012, that “WUT continued to falsely exaggerate” his involvement with WUT in subsequent years, and that Lieber “is not and has never been a participant in” China’s Thousand Talents Plan.

Yanqing Ye

According to the indictment, Ye is a Lieutenant of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the armed forces of the People’s Republic of China and member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).  On her J-1 visa application, Ye falsely identified herself as a “student” and lied about her ongoing military service at the National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), a top military academy directed by the CCP.  It is further alleged that while studying at Boston University’s (BU) Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering from October 2017 to April 2019, Ye continued to work as a PLA Lieutenant completing numerous assignments from PLA officers such as conducting research, assessing U.S. military websites and sending U.S. documents and information to China.

According to court documents, on April 20, 2019, federal officers interviewed Ye at Boston’s Logan International Airport. During the interview, it is alleged that Ye falsely claimed that she had minimal contact with two NUDT professors who were high-ranking PLA officers.  However, a search of Ye’s electronic devices demonstrated that at the direction of one NUDT professor, who was a PLA Colonel, Ye had accessed U.S. military websites, researched U.S. military projects and compiled information for the PLA on two U.S. scientists with expertise in robotics and computer science.  Furthermore, a review of a WeChat conversation revealed that Ye and the other PLA official from NUDT were collaborating on a research paper about a risk assessment model designed to decipher data for military applications.  During the interview, Ye admitted that she held the rank of Lieutenant in the PLA and admitted she was a member of the CCP.

Zaosong Zheng

In August 2018, Zheng entered the United States on a J-1 visa and conducted cancer-cell research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston from Sept. 4, 2018, to Dec. 9, 2019. It is alleged that on Dec. 9, 2019, Zheng stole 21 vials of biological research and attempted to smuggle them out of the United States aboard a flight destined for China.  Federal officers at Logan Airport discovered the vials hidden in a sock inside one of Zheng’s bags, and not properly packaged.  It is alleged that initially, Zheng lied to officers about the contents of his luggage, but later admitted he had stolen the vials from a lab at Beth Israel.  Zheng stated that he intended to bring the vials to China to use them to conduct research in his own laboratory and publish the results under his own name.

The charge of making false, fictitious and fraudulent statements provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.  The charge of visa fraud provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.  The charge of acting as an agent of a foreign government provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000. The charge of conspiracy provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.  The charge of smuggling goods from the United States provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000.  Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, United States Attorney Andrew E. Lelling; Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Boston Field Division Joseph R. Bonavolonta; Michael Denning, Director of Field Operations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Boston Field Office; Leigh-Alistair Barzey, Special Agent in Charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, Northeast Field Office; Philip Coyne, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General; and William Higgins, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Office of Export Enforcement, Boston Field Office made the announcement. Assistant U.S. Attorneys B. Stephanie Siegmann, Jason Casey and Benjamin Tolkoff of Lelling’s National Security Unit are prosecuting these cases with the assistance of trial attorneys William Mackie and David Aaron at the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

The details contained in the charging documents are allegations. The defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

These case are part of the Department of Justice’s China Initiative, which reflects the strategic priority of countering Chinese national security threats and reinforces the President’s overall national security strategy. In addition to identifying and prosecuting those engaged in trade secret theft, hacking and economic espionage, the initiative will increase efforts to protect our critical infrastructure against external threats including foreign direct investment, supply chain threats and the foreign agents seeking to influence the American public and policymakers without proper registration.