Immigration, Migrant, Refugee, Asylum Law Clean-up Required

Posted on April 4, 2018April 4, 2018 by Denise Simon

Okay, let us start with ‘catch and release’. Actually under GW Bush and Michael Certoff, it was a policy of ‘catch and return’. That is until many home countries refused to take back their citizens. During that time, the United States had to have detention facilities to house these people until their case(s) could be worked through the varied systems. Then the left decided there needed to be a lawsuit on the whole detention thing. Yup, it went to the Supreme Court and the decision was a time limit of 6 months of detention and then the case had to be resolved. Well, there were not enough judges, so ‘catch and release’ was tried, hoping they would show up to court….well 80% did not show up. Catch and release now remains.

Now we continue to hear new labels applied to people entering the United States by various methods including across the borders, by air and by ship. In fact more enter by air than any other means and overstay the visa. So, advertisement float around the world and especially in Central and South America on who to contact to get to the United States, how much it costs, what to do, what to say, what to have. Yup, advertisements and sadly that does include our diplomatic posts and embassies in regions of conflict(s). The buzzword today is ‘asylum’. Here is the rub on that…

People applying for asylum must first apply after they are provided an alien status and must prove why they cannot be returned to their home country. Over the years, that process has become twisted an no real proof or approval of the application is necessary especially in states where it is well known there are humanitarian issues. It should also be understood that asylum status is NOT a forever status as conditions can change, thus making it favorable for return to the home country. If that still proves impossible, coordination can be made with other countries that are not of origin to accept these people. President Clinton in 1994 when it came to Haitian and Cuban refugees, he worked a deal to have many go to Suriname, Grenada, Barbados and St. Lucia. Further, he did a remarkable and clever thing, for those wanting to get out of their failed home state, he held hearings for their cases in their home country or aboard ships, such that they would not enter the U.S. in the first place.

The United States has about a 16 year waiting list for cases to get through the immigration court process, that is if and when people do show up.

Now for the international pressures of refugees like from Honduras, Guatemala, Syria, Libya or Iran. The United States is a signatory to the United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. That DOES not force the United States to accept any refugee. It is time for the United States to make an annex condition stating a new and updated policy with regard to foreign nationals and refugees.

Check this: The Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA, P.L. 104-208) made substantial changes to the asylum process: establishing expedited removal proceedings; codifying many regulatory changes; adding time limits on filing claims; and limiting judicial review in certain circumstances, but it did not alter the numerical limits on asylee adjustments. Okay, so we need a quota system perhaps, well we have quota systems, so we need one that is law and enforced.

While we are at it, we need updated and concise cogent definitions of asylum. It cannot just be the word fear….that does not work or apply anymore. Heck people are borrowing children to fabricate a family and claim fear if forced to return…who is lying to who? Ever wonder why these people dont apply to Mexico, Peru, or Sri Lanka for refugee or asylum status? Just being snarky….Read more details here.

Now let us take a sample country like Honduras.

According to the State Department website, Honduras has some of the highest favorabilty ratings to the United States in the Western hemisphere. Sheesh they should…why?

Several of our federal agencies give big money to Honduras like the Department of Commerce and the Department of Agriculture. Then we have this agency that I watch constantly, The Millennium Challenge. Just in 2013 alone, that MCC gave Honduras $15.6 million to improve public financial management and to create more effective and transparent public-private partnerships. What the heck does that mean? Trade between the United States and Honduras in 2015 was $10 billion.

Now, USAID gives money to Honduras, along with climate change money and military subsidies….oh yeah, did you know we have full control of our own air base in Honduras that we kinda share with the Honduran military? We have an estimated 700-1000 military personnel assigned to Soto Cano Air Base, of which our troops were living in air conditioned huts until about two years ago until we built condos for them….this time with running water.

DVIDS - Images - 231st Citizen-Airmen travel to Honduras ...

So, what does our military even do in Honduras? Counter-narcotics….oh wait …isn’t that the reason all these Hondurans are leaving due to violent drug operations? We also do medical stuff like pediatric nutrition and dentisty via our military at Soto Cano, as well as weather prediction, fire protection and aircraft maintenance. From time to time we do patrol(s).

10 Countries With The Highest Murder Rates In The World photo

So, ask yourself, if the United States was not located in Honduras, or if USSCOM via Joint Task Bravo was not in Honduras for the last 35 years…what state would that state be in today? Well, in 2011, we should remember Operation Castaway. That was the Honduras version of Operation Fast and Furious. Ah yes, we do have FBI and ATF in Honduras even as recently as 2017 where trafficking weapons from places like North Carolina flows in and out of Honduras.

Perhaps is it time we fix the real problems in these home countries with the money we do send there under our management and begin to stop failed nations like Honduras and the exodus problem causing our homeland problems.

Definitions, policies, laws and agreements need to be cleaned up for sure, country by country, document by document, agency by agency.

Operation Disarray – FBI

Posted on April 3, 2018April 3, 2018 by Denise Simon

The opioid crisis kills 155 people in the United States each day. In 2016, there were 64,000 drug overdoses and related deaths to fentanyl and fentanyl analogs.

President Trump has authorized a very aggressive program to stop this catastrophe.

A nationwide law enforcement action aimed at shining a light on those who use the dark web to buy and sell illegal opiates has resulted in hundreds of interactions and arrests of individuals who may have considered their seemingly anonymous online transactions beyond the reach of authorities.

The FBI-led enforcement action last week, named Operation Disarray, is part of a recently launched Department of Justice initiative to disrupt the sale of opioids online and was the first operation of its kind to occur simultaneously in all 50 states.

“The point of Operation Disarray,” said Special Agent Chris Brest, who helped organize the effort from FBI Headquarters, “is to put drug traffickers on notice: Law enforcement is watching when people buy and sell drugs online. For those who think the Darknet provides anonymity,” he explained, “you are mistaken.”

Darknet marketplaces resemble legitimate e-commerce sites, complete with shopping carts, thousands of products, sales promotions, and customer reviews. But the Darknet sites’ drop-down menus direct customers to cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and other illegal drugs.

The marketplaces are accessed through a type of software that claims to make the buyer and seller anonymous. Drug users anywhere in the world can sit in front of a computer screen and, with a click of the mouse, buy narcotics without having to risk a face-to-face interaction. “Drug trafficking is changing,” Brest said. “The environment is moving from real-world to the virtual realm, and it’s on the rise.”

Such unfettered access to illegal drugs, said Special Agent Eric Yingling, who specializes in Darknet investigations from the FBI’s Pittsburgh Division, “can accelerate someone’s addiction because the drugs are so easy to obtain. It also facilitates a low barrier of entry to becoming a trafficker,” he explained. “We see a number of individuals go from consuming to becoming distributors because they’ve become comfortable using the marketplaces. Anyone who owns a computer could potentially be involved in this type of activity.”

But there are risks with the Darknet, Yingling pointed out. Buyers might get more than they bargained for. Opiates laced with fentanyl, for example, have resulted in deadly overdoses throughout the country. And there is the very real risk of arrest and prosecution because specially trained investigators can use a variety of techniques to infiltrate the marketplaces.

Operation Disarray was designed, in part, to highlight those risks for buyers and sellers. Hundreds of FBI agents and federal partners—including personnel from the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Internal Revenue Service, Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service—conducted searches, made arrests, and carried out “knock and talks” with more than 160 individuals known to have bought or sold drugs through the marketplaces. Leads from the investigation identified 19 overdose deaths of persons of interest.

“We wanted to get the word out about the potential dangers of the drugs people are purchasing,” Yingling said, “and to remind them that law enforcement is very cognizant of this activity.”

“Education of what these drugs can do is one of the first steps to curbing the opioid epidemic,” Brest said. “People may be under the assumption that they won’t be the one that gets addicted, or that these drugs can’t ruin your life.”

Law enforcement personnel participating in Operation Disarray handed out brochures that included information on medical steps to take in the event of an overdose and where individuals or family members can get help for issues related to drug addiction.

In January 2018, the Department of Justice announced the Joint Criminal Opioid Darknet Enforcement (J-CODE) team, an FBI-led initiative that brings together a variety of federal agencies to disrupt illicit opioid sales online.

As part of the effort, the FBI is training hundreds of agents, as well as local and state law enforcement partners, about the increasing use of Darknet marketplaces to facilitate the sale of opiates.

“The FBI has made the J-CODE a priority, and we are bringing together significant resources to strategically attack this crime problem.” Brest said. Operation Disarray was the first major J-CODE action, and, he continued, “we will consider the operation a success if our actions prevented one more person from overdosing on illegal narcotics.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions Announces Results of J-CODE’s First Law Enforcement Operation Targeting Opioid Trafficking on the Darknet

Foreign Espionage Spying on Cell Phones in Washington DC

Posted on April 3, 2018April 3, 2018 by Denise Simon

There was an investigation and the report is complete…but who has it, where is it? Between the FBI, Secret Service, DHS, Capitol Police as well as other agencies…why the suspense? Why is it still going on?

Mysterious unidentified spying cell towers found across ...

In related reading, this site published in November of 2017: Surveillance: China’s Big Brother, America’s Also?

U.S. Suspects Cellphone Spying Devices in Washington

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (FRANK BAJAK)

(AP) — For the first time, the U.S. government has publicly acknowledged the existence in Washington of what appear to be rogue devices that foreign spies and criminals could be using to track individual cellphones and intercept calls and messages.

The use of what are known as cellphone-site simulators by foreign powers has long been a concern, but American intelligence and law enforcement agencies — which use such eavesdropping equipment themselves — have been silent on the issue until now.

In a March 26 letter to Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that last year it identified suspected unauthorized cell-site simulators in the nation’s capital. The agency said it had not determined the type of devices in use or who might have been operating them. Nor did it say how many it detected or where.

The agency’s response, obtained by The Associated Press from Wyden’s office, suggests little has been done about such equipment, known popularly as Stingrays after a brand common among U.S. police departments. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the nation’s airwaves, formed a task force on the subject four years ago, but it never produced a report and no longer meets regularly.

The devices work by tricking mobile devices into locking onto them instead of legitimate cell towers, revealing the exact location of a particular cellphone. More sophisticated versions can eavesdrop on calls by forcing phones to step down to older, unencrypted 2G wireless technology. Some attempt to plant malware.

They can cost anywhere from $1,000 to about $200,000. They are commonly the size of a briefcase; some are as small as a cellphone. They can be placed in a car next to a government building. The most powerful can be deployed in low-flying aircraft.

Thousands of members of the military, the NSA, the CIA, the FBI and the rest of the national-security apparatus live and work in the Washington area. The surveillance-savvy among them encrypt their phone and data communications and employ electronic countermeasures. But unsuspecting citizens could fall prey.

Wyden, a Democrat, wrote DHS in November requesting information about unauthorized use of the cell-site simulators.

The reply from DHS official Christopher Krebs noted that DHS had observed “anomalous activity” consistent with Stingrays in the Washington area. A DHS official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the letter has not been publicly released added that the devices were detected in a 90-day trial that began in January 2017 with equipment from a Las Vegas-based DHS contractor, ESD America .

Krebs, the top official in the department’s National Protection and Programs Directorate, noted in the letter that DHS lacks the equipment and funding to detect Stingrays even though their use by foreign governments “may threaten U.S. national and economic security.” The department did report its findings to “federal partners” Krebs did not name. That presumably includes the FBI.

The CEO of ESD America, Les Goldsmith, said his company has a relationship with DHS but would not comment further.

Legislators have been raising alarms about the use of Stingrays in the capital since at least 2014, when Goldsmith and other security-company researchers conducted public sweeps that located suspected unauthorized devices near the White House, the Supreme Court, the Commerce Department and the Pentagon, among other locations.

The executive branch, however, has shied away from even discussing the subject.

Aaron Turner, president of the mobile security consultancy Integricell, was among the experts who conducted the 2014 sweeps, in part to try to drum up business. Little has changed since, he said.

Like other major world capitals, he said, Washington is awash in unauthorized interception devices. Foreign embassies have free rein because they are on sovereign soil.

Every embassy “worth their salt” has a cell tower simulator installed, Turner said. They use them “to track interesting people that come toward their embassies.” The Russians’ equipment is so powerful it can track targets a mile away, he said.

Shutting down rogue Stingrays is an expensive proposition that would require wireless network upgrades the industry has been loath to pay for, security experts say. It could also lead to conflict with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement.

In addition to federal agencies, police departments use them in at least 25 states and the District of Columbia, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Wyden said in a statement Tuesday that “leaving security to the phone companies has proven to be disastrous.” He added that the FCC has refused to hold the industry accountable “despite repeated warnings and clear evidence that our phone networks are being exploited by foreign governments and hackers.”

After the 2014 news reports about Stingrays in Washington, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla, wrote the FCC in alarm. In a reply, then-FCC chairman Tom Wheeler said the agency had created a task force to combat illicit and unauthorized use of the devices. In that letter, the FCC did not say it had identified such use itself, but cited media reports of the security sweeps.

That task force appears to have accomplished little. A former adviser to Wheeler, Gigi Sohn, said there was no political will to tackle the issue against opposition from the intelligence community and local police forces that were using the devices “willy-nilly.”

“To the extent that there is a major problem here, it’s largely due to the FCC not doing its job,” said Laura Moy of the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University. The agency, she said, should be requiring wireless carriers to protect their networks from such security threats and “ensuring that anyone transmitting over licensed spectrum actually has a license to do it.”

FCC spokesman Neil Grace, however, said the agency’s only role is “certifying” such devices to ensure they don’t interfere with other wireless communications, much the way it does with phones and Wi-Fi routers.

___

Links:

DHS letter to Sen. Ron Wyden: http://apne.ws/eJ7JipM

DHS enclosure in letter to Sen. Ron Wyden: http://apne.ws/dBMPqWw

Cyberwar: The new Forever Battle, Indicators of Compromise

Posted on April 2, 2018April 2, 2018 by Denise Simon

The United States is in the midst of the most resounding policy shift on cyber conflict, one with profound implications for national security and the future of the internet. The just-released U.S. Cyber Command “vision” accurately diagnoses the current state of cyber conflict and outlines an appropriate new operational model for the command: since cyber forces are in “persistent engagement” with one another, U.S. Cyber Command must dive into the fight, actively contesting adversaries farther forward and with more agility and operational partnerships.

The vision, however, ignores many of the risks and how to best address them. Most importantly, the vision does not even recognize the risk that more active defense – in systems and networks in other, potentially friendly nations – persistently, year after year, might not work and significantly increases the chances and consequences of miscalculations and mistakes. Even if they are stabilizing, such actions may be incompatible with the larger U.S. goals of an open and free Internet. More here including the critique of the report.

*** Meanwhile we know all too well about Russia and China’s cyber espionage, yet when proof surfaces by hacking into their documents for evidence….both countries begin another denial session. And Trump invited Putin to a bi-lateral meeting at the White House? Any bi-lateral meeting should take place outside the United States in a neutral location like Vanuatu or the Canary Islands….

TheTimes: Russian attempts to fuel dissent and spread disinformation have been exposed by a cache of leaked documents that show what the Kremlin is prepared to pay for hacking, propaganda and rent-a-mob rallies.

Hacked emails sent by Moscow-linked figures outline a dirty-tricks campaign in Ukraine, which was invaded on the orders of President Putin in 2014. Experts said that they exposed the dangers faced by Britain and its allies because Russia used the same weapons of disinformation, bribery and distortion to attack the West.

Bob Seely, a Tory MP and expert on Russian warfare, said his analysis of the leaks, which comprise thousands of emails and a password-protected document related to the conflict in Ukraine, revealed a “shopping list of subversion”.

“There is overwhelming evidence that the tools and techniques of Russian covert conflict are being used in and against the UK, the US and the EU,” he added. “In the wake of the Skripal poisoning it’s more important than ever that we understand these methods.”

The cost and extent of tactics were disclosed in a third tranche of the so-called Surkov leaks, named after Vladislav Surkov, a Kremlin spin-master said by some to be Mr Putin’s Rasputin.

Two previous tranches, published online by Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, a hacker activist collective, were said to include emails from an account linked to Mr Surkov. He has been closely involved with the management of Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, two Russian-controlled “statelets” in Ukraine established by pro-Moscow separatists.

The latest publication appears to contain emails found in accounts linked to Inal Ardzinba, Mr Surkov’s first deputy, and to a Ukrainian Communist party leader. They suggest that the Kremlin paid local groups and individuals in Ukraine that were willing to advance its aim to fracture the country.

One set of correspondence from October 2014, which appears to have been sent by a Russian politician to Mr Ardzinba, contained proposals to fund cyberoperations, including hacking email accounts for between $100 and $300. A wider plan to “troll opponents”, “demotivate enemies” on social media, and amass the personal data of targeted individuals in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, was priced at $130,500.

The Russian foreign ministry has denied in the past that Mr Ardzinba has had anything to do with propaganda in Ukraine. According to Mr Seely, the leaks appear to reveal plans to plant new historical and philosophical ideas. The emails also include an event and two books that would claim that an area of Ukraine had Russian heritage.

Other proposals included the orchestration of anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia rallies. These involved the transport of “sportsmen” trained in martial arts to agitate at the rallies, bribes to local media to feature the protests and bribes to police to turn a blind eye. A month of rallies in Kharkiv was priced at $19,200. It included 100 participants, three organisers and two lawyers. It is unclear if the rallies took place, though others orchestrated by the Kremlin did happen, the research said. Moves to get 30 ex-communist figures elected to local government were floated in June 2015, at $120,460, the leaks said.

The Kremlin has claimed in the past that the Surkov leaks are fabricated and in the information war between Ukraine and Russia falsehoods may have been planted. However, the authors of correspondence in the first two tranches confirmed their authenticity. They were supported by the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank, after an analysis of metadata.

In their analysis of the third tranche, Mr Seely and his co-researcher Alya Shandra, managing editor of an English-language Ukrainian news website, say the leaks are “very likely to be authentic”. Ms Shandra and Mr Seely plan to publish their report with the Royal United Services Institute.

Peter Quentin, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said: “There is no reason to believe these leaks are any less credible than the previous tranches. This third tranche certainly seems to fit with the trend of well-documented subversion by Russian activists in the region.”

China and Russia Military Collaboration Against the West

Posted on April 2, 2018April 2, 2018 by Denise Simon

Imagine the conversations in meetings between respective military officers of these two countries. As the United States has very little in the way of remote espionage in China and due to the expulsion of U.S. diplomatic personnel from Russia, the U.S. has even less intelligence officers in and around Russia….so, what could be coming that we may soon miss?

CHINA’S EVOLVING OVERSEAS ACCESS

China is expanding its access to foreign ports to pre-position the necessary logistics support to regularize and sustain deployments in the “far seas,” waters as distant as the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Atlantic Ocean. In late November, China publicly confirmed its intention to build military supporting facilities in Djibouti “to help the navy and army further participate in United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKO), carry out escort missions in the waters near Somalia and the Gulf of Aden, and provide humanitarian assistance.” This Chinese initiative both reflects and amplifies China’s growing geopolitical clout, extending the reach of its influence and armed forces.

China’s expanding international economic interests are increasing demands for the PLAN to operate

in more distant seas to protect Chinese citizens, investments, and critical sea lines of communication

(SLOC).

China most likely will seek to establish additional naval logistics hubs in countries with which it has a

longstanding friendly relationship and similar strategic interests, such as Pakistan, and a precedent for hosting foreign militaries. China’s overseas naval logistics aspiration may be constrained

by the willingness of countries to support a PLAN presence in one of their ports.

So far, China has not constructed U.S. – style overseas military bases in the Indian Ocean. China’s leaders may judge instead that a mixture of preferred access to overseas commercial ports and a limited number of exclusive PLAN logistic facilities—probably collocated with commercial ports—

most closely aligns with China’s future overseas logistics needs to support its evolving naval requirements.

Preferred access would give the PLAN favored status in using a commercial port for resupply,

replenishment, and maintenance purposes. A logistics facility would represent an arrangement in

which China leases out portions of a commercial port solely for PLAN logistics operations.

Such a logistics presence may support both civilian and military operations. China’s current naval logistics footprint in the Indian Ocean is unable to support major combat operations in South Asia. A greater overseas naval logistics footprint would better position the PLAN to expand its participation in non-war military missions, such as non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO), search-and-rescue (SAR), humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR), and sea lines of communication (SLOC) security. To some extent, a more robust overseas logistics presence may also enable China to expand its support to PKO, force protection missions, and counterterrorism initiatives.

For example, in 2015, the PLAN’s naval escort task forces performing counterpiracy escort duties in the Gulf of Aden were able to utilize Djibouti and Oman for basic resupply and replenishment. The 156 page report is here.

***

http://www.combataircraft.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/03/CA-Mar-12-Pic-12-1.jpg

Electronic attack J-16
A dedicated electronic warfare (EW) version of the Shenyang J-16 fighter completed its maiden flight on December 18 last year. The first images of the aircraft — sometimes described as the J-16D or even J-16G — reveal several changes compared to the standard J-16 fighter-bomber: most obviously, two large EW pods on the wingtips that are very similar in appearance to the AN/ALQ-218 tactical jamming receivers used by the Boeing EA-18G Growler. The aircraft also features a new, shorter radome and the standard 30mm cannon and the optical sensor in front of the starboard side of the windshield have been removed. In addition, several conformal dielectric EW arrays can be seen around the fuselage, front section (behind the radome), and intakes. Photo

In the wake of Russia’s demonstrations of advanced electromagnetic spectrum and communications jamming capabilities, most recently displayed in their incursion into Ukraine, China also is upping its game in this space, demonstrating similar capabilities in the Pacific.

The U.S. Department of Defense, in an annual report to Congress on China’s military and security developments, assessed that the country is placing greater importance upon EW, on par with traditional domains of warfare such as air, ground and maritime.

“The [People’s Liberation Army] sees EW as an important force multiplier, and would likely employ it in support of all combat arms and services during a conflict,” the 2016 report asserts. “The PLA’s EW units have conducted jamming and anti-jamming operations, testing the military’s understanding of EW weapons, equipment, and performance. This helped improve the military’s confidence in conducting force-on-force, real-equipment confrontation operations in simulated EW environments.”

According to the report, China’s EW weapons include “jamming equipment against multiple communication and radar systems and GPS satellite systems. EW systems are also being deployed with other sea- and air-based platforms intended for both offensive and defensive operations.”More here.

***

Collaboration on Satellites

….uh huh…. Joint military operation locations:

Before Russia and China began their recent series of bilateral exercises, the key tie between Moscow and Beijing was arms sales and military technology cooperation — totaling about $26 billion from 1992 to 2006 — according to estimates cited in the report.

Moscow sold Beijing, “export versions of the Su-27 and Su-30 fighter, the S-300 SAM defense system, Sovermennyy-class guided missile destroyer, and Kilo-class diesel-electric submarine,” the report said, citing data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Fears of China copying Russian systems led to a drop off in arms sales between the two countries – especially higher end weapon systems. Chinese arms manufactures are notorious for taking, modifying and reproducing weapon designs. More here.

Russia and China are planning to merge their satellite tracking systems, RT.com is reporting.

The giant system will be able to cover most of an area including China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India and Pakistan. according to RT, the Russian-funded news outlet.

The two nations will reportedly negotiate terms of the merger in May during a conference in China.

Russia and China will be able to share data on positions of navigation satellite groups and to improve efficiency in a real-time environment, RT reported.

The merger was initiated by Chinese officials.

“If the project is implemented, it will allow for an improvement in accuracy for both systems,” a spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos was quoted.

Japan and India are getting set for their own regional navigation satellite systems, RT reported. The system is expected to be operational by the end of the year.