Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

OPM Top Person Donna Seymour Resigns

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Chaffetz Responds to Retirement of OPM CIO Donna Seymour

Oversight Committee: WASHINGTON, D.C.—This afternoon, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) issued the following statement upon learning of the retirement of U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Donna Seymour:

“Ms. Seymour’s retirement is good news and an important turning point for OPM. While I am disappointed Ms. Seymour will no longer appear before our Committee this week to answer to the American people, her retirement is necessary and long overdue. On her watch, whether through negligence or incompetence, millions of Americans lost their privacy and personal data. The national security implications of this entirely foreseeable breach are far-reaching and long-lasting. OPM now needs a qualified CIO at the helm to right the ship and restore confidence in the agency.” 

 Background: 

Chairman Chaffetz has publicly expressed the need for Ms. Seymour’s removal on the following occasions:

Chaffetz to OPM: Remove Donna Seymour (12/10/2015)

Chaffetz Responds to Nomination of Beth Cobert as OPM Director (11/10/2015)

Chaffetz Renews Call for Removal of OPM CIO Donna Seymour (08/06/2015)

Chaffetz Statement on Latest OPM Data Breach Revelation (07/09/2015)

GOP Lawmakers to President Obama: Remove OPM Director Archuleta and CIO Donna Seymour (06/26/2015)

Related:

The Breach We Could Have Avoided (09/30/2015)

Fingerprints of Additional 4.5 Million Individuals Stolen in OPM Breach, Chaffetz Responds (09/23/2015)

Chaffetz Statement on OPM Infrastructure Improvement Plan (09/14/2015)

OPM Data Breach: Part II Hearing (06/24/2015)

OPM: Data Breach Hearing (06/16/2015)

*** For reference and background on Office of Personnel Management

Second OPM Hack Revealed: Even Worse Than The First

from the the-federal-government,-ladies-and-gentlemen dept

TechDirt: Oh great. So after we learned late yesterday that the hack of all sorts of data from the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was likely much worse than originally believed — including leaking all Social Security numbers unencrypted — and that the so-called cybersecurity “experts” within the government weren’t even the ones who discovered the hack, things are looking even worse. That’s because, late today, it was revealed that there was likely a separate hack, also by Chinese state actors, accessing even more sensitive information:

The forms authorities believed may have been stolen en masse, known as Standard Form 86, require applicants to fill out deeply personal information about mental illnesses, drug and alcohol use, past arrests and bankruptcies. They also require the listing of contacts and relatives, potentially exposing any foreign relatives of U.S. intelligence employees to coercion. Both the applicant’s Social Security number and that of his or her cohabitant is required.

In a statement, the White House said that on June 8, investigators concluded there was “a high degree of confidence that … systems containing information related to the background investigations of current, former and prospective federal government employees, and those for whom a federal background investigation was conducted, may have been exfiltrated.”

“This tells the Chinese the identities of almost everybody who has got a United States security clearance,” said Joel Brenner, a former top U.S. counterintelligence official. “That makes it very hard for any of those people to function as an intelligence officer. The database also tells the Chinese an enormous amount of information about almost everyone with a security clearance. That’s a gold mine. It helps you approach and recruit spies.”

And yet… this is the same federal government telling us that it wants more access to everyone else’s data to “protect” us from “cybersecurity threats” — and that encryption is bad? Yikes.

Top Cop Says Obama is Spiteful, Schumer

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Politics over policy and politics over safety. Iran gets first billing at all costs when it comes to the Obama administration.

The NYPD Commissioner, Bratton is furious.

Bratton furious over Obama’s anti-terror funding cut

White House slashed NYC terror funding to punish Schumer, former top cop says

WashingtonExaminer: New York City’s former top cop said Sunday that the Obama administration cut funding to fight terrorism in the city to retaliate against Sen. Chuck Schumer for opposing a nuclear deal with Iran.

“There’s a certain amount vindictiveness on the part of Washington aimed at Sen. Chuck Schumer,” Ray Kelly, New York City’s police commissioner under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said in an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York.

“Apparently they remember very well that Sen. Schumer did not support their Iran deal,” Kelly said, arguing the proposed cut “was aimed at getting a reaction from Sen. Schumer.”

Schumer was the most senior Democrat in Congress last year to oppose an international agreement under which Iran agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.

Schumer, a Democrat set to become the party’s Senate leader, joined New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city’s police and fire commissioners to blast a White House budget plan that would cut annual funding for the city’s Urban Area Security Initiative from $600 million to $330 million.

As the country’s largest city and the only U.S. location repeatedly attacked by terrorists, including the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, New York officials have long sought extra consideration in allocation of federal anti-terror funds.

“New York is an enduring target,” Kelly said. “It always will be.”

Schumer statements drew a pointed White House response, an unusual reaction aimed at a key Democratic ally.

“At some point, Sen. Schumer’s credibility in talking about national security issues, particularly when the facts are as they are when it relates to homeland security, have to be affected by the position that he’s taken on other issues,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

“Sen. Schumer is somebody that came out and opposed the international agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He was wrong about that position,” Earnest said. “And when people look at the facts here when it comes to funding for homeland security, they’ll recognize that he’s wrong this time too.”

Earnest said financing for the program was cut because New York failed to spend the money it had already received.

Kelly, though a de Blasio critic, is a Schumer ally. The senator has unsuccessfully proposed Obama nominate Kelly a head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security.

*** New York Congressman King is not happy either.

Slashed funding for local counterterrorism and other security measures in the White House’s budget proposal is a “punch in the gut” that couldn’t come at a worse time, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

From across the aisle, Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) agreed the pot shouldn’t be “decimated” with the threat of the Islamic State looming.

President Barack Obama’s fiscal blueprint recommended funding the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Area Security Initiative grant program — which goes toward NYPD counterterrorism training, FDNY tiered-response training and other first-responder preparedness — with $330 million for the upcoming fiscal year, compared with $600 million in the current year.

“This year, bureaucrats got through a very serious mistake that must, must, must be reversed,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a Manhattan news conference. “Do your homework, bureaucrats, on New York City, on the NYPD, on all the groups on Long Island that have gotten this money. . . . The dollars can save lives.”

The senator said it’s “not an accident” that the region hasn’t seen a successful terror attack since 9/11.

King said security funding across the board was reduced in the budget proposal.

“Here’s time when ISIS has never been more of a threat, when al-Qaida has never been more of a threat,” said King, a former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

He said he would fight alongside Schumer for restoration of the funds.

“This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue,” King said. “In many ways, it’s an issue of life or death.”

NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton called the initiative the “lifeblood” for antiterrorism funding in major American cities.

Among those urban areas, New York City is statically the No. 1 terror target, and the “terrorism threat is more complex and layered than any time since 9/11,” Bratton said in a statement.

“We would hope, in the aftermath of a series of recent plots against New York, as well as the attacks from Paris to San Bernardino, that any such cuts be reconsidered,” he added.

An official with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget said Sunday night the Obama administration has no higher priority than keeping Americans safe.

The grant program was restructured recently for efficiency, and the new funding level is expected to meet demand, the official said, adding that the proposed budget includes $139 million in other regional and state grants to help prepare and respond to complex terror threats.

Obama released his $4.2 trillion spending plan Tuesday. It requests $40.6 billion in net discretionary funding for the Department of Homeland Security, including $2 billion in grants for state and local governments for terrorism and other catastrophes.

Aside from the Urban Area Security Initiative reductions, the budget cuts state homeland security grants to $200 million from $467 million, port security grants to $93 million from $100 million and transit security grants to $85 million from $100 million.

Schumer said he didn’t get a “good explanation” from the administration on why the money would be withheld.

King said the impression he gets is that “because these programs are working, there’s no need to be giving more money — which makes no sense at all.”

 

Is There a Future for Gitmo?

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For the Obama administration when it comes to terrorists or enemy combatants, the title of the playbook is ‘Let Some Other Country Handle It’.

Guantánamo parole board OKs release of Osama bin Laden bodyguard

Majid Ahmed at Guantánamo in a photo from his 2008 prison profile provided to McClatchy Newspapers by WikiLeaks.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

MiamiHerald: The national security parole board, in just a month, has approved a former Osama bin Laden bodyguard for release to another country as the Pentagon-run panel works on accelerating reviews.

The board has six more hearings scheduled into May — two of them so-called “forever prisoners” like the man whose approval to go was disclosed Friday and four of them who were at one time considered candidates for war-crimes trial.

In the latest decision, the board recommended release of Yemeni Majid Ahmed, 35, to an Arabic-speaking country with security precautions. An intelligence assessment concluded that he was recruited to join the Taliban at age 18 or 19 and became a bin Laden bodyguard at 21, a month before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The decision to approve the release of Ahmed means that, of Guantánamo’s 91 captives, 35 are approved for transfer, 10 are in war crimes proceeding and the rest are either forever prisoners or candidates for war crimes trial.

The board said Ahmed “has been relatively compliant during his time at Guantánamo, although he has been largely uncooperative with interrogators.” The intelligence profile said he “still harbors anti-U.S. sentiments and holds conservative Islamic views that may make transfer and reintegration to many countries difficult.”

The board’s three-paragraph statement disclosing Ahmed’s approval for transfer, dated Feb. 18, recommended release to resettlement in an Arabic-speaking country, “with appropriate security assurances.” It was available on the Pentagon’s parole board website Saturday, a month after his Jan. 19 hearing. Full story here.

*** What will a new U.S. president do on the war on terror and will there be an approval for capturing future terrorists?

What to do if U.S. begins capturing more suspected terrorists?

MilitaryTimes: WASHINGTON — President  Obama has refused to send any suspected terrorists captured overseas to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. But if the U.S. starts seizing more militants in expanded military operations, where will they go, who will hold them and where will they be tried?

Those are questions that worry legal experts, lawmakers and others as U.S. special operations forces deploy in larger numbers to Iraq, Syria and, maybe soon, Libya, with the Islamic State group and affiliated organizations in their sights.

Throughout Obama’s presidency, suspects have been killed in drone strikes or raids, or captured and interrogated, sometimes aboard Navy ships. After that, they are either prosecuted in U.S. courts and military commissions or handed over to other nations.

This policy has been enough, experts say — at least for now.

“If you’re going to be doing counterterrorism operations that bring in detainees, you have to think through what you are going to do with them,” said Phillip Carter, former deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee policy. “If the U.S. is going to conduct large-scale combat operations or large-scale special ops and bring in more detainees, it needs a different solution.”

Rebecca Ingber, an associate law professor at Boston University who follows the issue, warns that if the U.S. engaged in a full ground war in Syria, “chances are there would need to be detention facilities of some kind in the vicinity.”

Obama has not sent a single suspected terrorist to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many have been detained for years without being charged or tried — something the president says is a “recruitment tool” for militant extremists.

He is to report to Congress this month on how he wants to close Guantanamo and possibly transfer some of the remaining detainees to the United States. That report also is supposed to address the question of future detainees.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., believes that the absence of a long-term detention and interrogation facility for foreign terrorist suspects represents a “major shortcoming in U.S. national security policy.”

Republican candidates who want to succeed Obama are telling voters that they would keep Guantanamo open.

“Law enforcement is about gathering evidence to take someone to trial, and convict them,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. “Anti-terrorism is about finding out information to prevent a future attack so the same tactics do not apply. … But, here’s the bigger problem with all this: We’re not interrogating anybody right now.”

That’s not true, said Frazier Thompson, director of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. The tight-lipped team of interrogators from the FBI, Defense Department, the CIA and other intelligence agencies gleans intelligence from top suspected terrorists in the U.S. and overseas.

“We were created to interrogate high-value terrorists and we are interrogating high-value terrorists,” Thompson said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Since it was established in 2009, that team has been deployed 34 times, Thompson said, adding that other government agencies conduct independent interrogations as well. “We are designed to deploy on the highest-value terrorist. We are not going out to interrogate everybody,” he said.

Thompson would not disclose details of the cases his team has worked or speculate on whether he expects more interrogation requests as the battle against IS heats up.

“If there is a surge, I’m ready to go. If there’s not, I’m still ready to go,” Thompson said.

The U.S. has deployed about 200 new special operations forces to Iraq, and they are preparing to work with the Iraqis to begin going after IS fighters and commanders, “killing or capturing them wherever we find them, along with other key targets,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, told Congress this month that in the final six months of 2015, 90 senior to midlevel leaders were killed, including the IS leader’s key deputies: Haji Mutazz, the top leader in Iraq, and Abu Sayyaf, the IS oil minister and financier.

Sayyaf was killed in a raid to rescue American hostage Kayla Mueller; his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, was captured.

Her case illustrates how the Obama administration is prosecuting some terrorist suspects in federal courts or military commissions or leaving them in the custody of other nations.

Umm Sayyaf, a 25-year-old Iraqi, is being held in Iraq and facing prosecution by authorities there. She also was charged Feb. 9 in U.S. federal court with holding Mueller and contributing to her death in February 2015.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated and supervised international terrorism cases, including the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen the 1990s, said sending suspected terrorists through the American criminal justice system works. He said the courts are more effective than military commissions used at Guantanamo that have been slow in trying detainees who violate the laws of war.

“The current practice of investigating and prosecuting terror suspects has proved incredibly effective,” Soufan said, noting that since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, only seven people have been tried and convicted under military commissions. “During that same time period, hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in federal courts and almost all are still in jail.”

But it’s hard to evaluate the effectiveness of the system.

The Justice Department declined to provide the number of foreign terrorist suspects who have been prosecuted or the number handed over to other countries, or their status. Lawmakers, including Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., have asked the Defense Department for the numbers.

Reports on how other countries handle the suspects are classified.

Raha Wala, senior counsel at Human Rights First, also is concerned about detention operations abroad.

“The government needs to be more transparent to the American people — and to the world — about who it is transferring overseas, and what procedures are in place to make sure we are not transferring individuals into situations where human rights will be abused,” he said.

U.S. refugee agency put Central American kids at risk

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The problem was identified by the GAO in 2012.

Even more terrifying is this report:

PROPOSED REFUGEE ADMISSIONS

FOR

FISCAL YEAR 2015

REPORT TO THE CONGRESS

 

U.S. refugee agency put Central American kids at risk, GAO report says

WashingtonPost: The government agency tasked with placing thousands of Central American children into communities while they await immigration court decisions has no system for tracking the children, does not keep complete case files and has allowed contractors to operate with little oversight, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.

“Based on the findings in this report, it’s no wonder that we are hearing of children being mistreated or simply falling off the grid once they are turned over to sponsors,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa). “The Obama administration isn’t adequately monitoring the grantees or sponsors whom we are entrusting to provide basic care for unaccompanied children.”

Three senators — Grassley, Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) — asked the GAO in October to review policies of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. The agency provides shelter for unaccompanied minors fleeing violence in Central America and identifies sponsors to care for them while they await hearings in immigration courts. More than 125,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America have been caught at the U.S.-Mexico border since 2011. The 64-page report is being released one day before the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Obama administration officials about their handling of the children.

“Their records are incomplete, they are not appropriately checking in on the facilities that house the children, and they don’t even have a dedicated system to follow up on the children once they’ve been placed with sponsors,” Grassley said.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, has come under criticism in recent weeks for its handling of a number of cases involving unaccompanied minors.

Advocates for unaccompanied minors say that the refu­gee office was overwhelmed by the surge of children crossing the border in 2014 but that the system is a much better alternative than longer detention for vulnerable children.

On Jan. 28, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report focusing on cases in which Central American children were victims of abuse by their sponsors, including one case where the agency released several Guatemalan teenagers to labor traffickers who forced them to work long hours at an Ohio egg farm for as little as $2 a day.

“We agree with the GAO’s recommendations, which is why we’ve already implemented some of them and are in the process of implementing the rest,” said Andrea Helling, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. “This is part of the process of improving the program to care for the children who come into our custody.”

The GAO found that children’s case files were often incomplete, making it difficult for investigators to determine whether they had received proper care such as group counseling and clinical services. Investigators reviewed 27 randomly selected children’s case files. None of them contained all of the required documents.

The report also criticized the agency’s oversight of nonprofit groups that it pays to operate shelters for the children and locate sponsors. In 2014, the agency implemented a new monitoring process, requiring site visits every two years. However, investigators found that the agency didn’t complete the site visits in 2014 and 2015. In 2014, agency staff members visited 12 of 133 sites. By August 2015, they visited 22 of 140 sites.

These monitoring visits revealed several problems at the nonprofit-run shelters. At one site, agency workers discovered that the facility didn’t give children the proper amount of medication, leading them to accidentally overdose.

Helling said the Office of Refugee Resettlement is aware of the issues and has hired additional staff and implemented new policies to ensure that all site visits are completed in fiscal 2016.

 

Once children are released to sponsors, the agency has no system for tracking their whereabouts, according to the report. Some children, including those who have been identified as trafficking victims, are supposed to receive services such as mental- health care. In fiscal 2014, only 9.5 percent of children released by the agency received these services. The agency has established a call center for children who want to report problems with their sponsors and requires its caseworkers to call all children and sponsors after the children are placed.

Grassley sharply criticized the lack of follow-up for released children.

“Beyond the risks to the children created by these shortcomings, our communities are left to cope with the crime and violence from gang members and other delinquents who are not identified or tracked because of HHS’s haphazard and porous practices,” he said.

Helling said the agency is looking at ways to expand post-release services for children, adding that “the overwhelming majority of these children are fleeing violence and chaos, not looking to create it.”

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who co-chaired the Jan. 28 Senate hearing about problems within the agency, said he will testify at Tuesday’s hearing.

“I’m pleased the Judiciary Committee is following up on the subcommittee’s bipartisan investigation,” he said. “The administration must be held accountable for turning young children over to traffickers and criminals.”

Jennifer Podkul, a migrant rights expert at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said: “Overall, we’re incredibly happy that ORR is the agency that’s been designated to release the kids. What happened when there were incredible numbers was that it showed the strain and the weaknesses in the system. It was like a magnifying glass on the system.”

Putin Exploiting Open Skies Treaty

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In this fresh era of Putin’s aggression in Syria, Europe, Ukraine and the Baltics, it seems no one is willing to force a stop of Russia in any part of the globe. What is especially disturbing is the Open Skies Treaty and Putin has been exploiting this agreement, to what end, no one seems to explain his objectives.

The U.S. State Department has a twisted mission of diplomacy when it intersects with operational security and future threat risks having particular emphasis on Iran, North Korea and Russia.

The Treaty on Open Skies establishes a regime of unarmed aerial observation flights over the territories of its signatories. The Treaty is designed to enhance mutual understanding and confidence by giving all participants, regardless of size, a direct role in gathering information through aerial imaging on military forces and activities of concern to them. Open Skies is one of the most wide-ranging international arms control efforts to date to promote openness and transparency in military forces and activities.

Russia wants to fly over U.S. with advanced digital camera

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia will ask permission on Monday to start flying surveillance planes equipped with high-powered digital cameras amid warnings from U.S. intelligence and military officials that such overflights help Moscow collect intelligence on the United States.

Russia and the United States are signatories to the Open Skies Treaty, which allows unarmed observation flights over the entire territory of all 34 member nations to foster transparency about military activity and help monitor arms control and other agreements. Senior intelligence and military officials, however, worry that Russia is taking advantage of technological advances to violate the spirit of the treaty.

Russia will formally ask the Open Skies Consultative Commission, based in Vienna, to be allowed to fly an aircraft equipped with high-tech sensors over the United States, according to a senior congressional staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the staff member wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

The request will put the Obama administration in the position of having to decide whether to let Russia use the high-powered equipment on its surveillance planes at a time when Moscow, according to the latest State Department compliance report, is failing to meet all its obligations under the treaty. And it comes at one of the most tension-filled times in U.S.-Russia relations since the end of the Cold War, with the two countries at odds over Russian activity in Ukraine and Syria.

“The treaty has become a critical component of Russia’s intelligence collection capability directed at the United States,” Adm. Cecil D. Haney, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, wrote in a letter earlier this year to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of a House subcommittee on strategic forces.

“In addition to overflying military installations, Russian Open Skies flights can overfly and collect on Department of Defense and national security or national critical infrastructure,” Haney said. “The vulnerability exposed by exploitation of this data and costs of mitigation are increasingly difficult to characterize.”

A State Department official said Sunday that treaty nations had not yet received notice of the Russian request, but that certification of the Russian plane with a “digital electro-optical sensor” could not occur until this summer because the treaty requires a 120-day advance notification. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly.

The official also said that the treaty, which was entered into force in 2002, establishes procedures for certifying digital sensors to confirm that they are compliant with treaty requirements. The official said all signatories to the treaty agree that “transition from film cameras to digital sensors is required for the long-term viability of the treaty.”

In December, Rose Gottemoeller, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, sought to temper concerns about Russian overflights, saying that what Moscow gains from the observation flights is “incremental” to what they collect through other means.

“One of the advantages of the Open Skies Treaty is that information – imagery – that is taken is shared openly among all the treaty parties,” she said at a joint hearing of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees in December. “So one of the advantages with the Open Skies Treaty is that we know exactly what the Russians are imaging, because they must share the imagery with us.”

Still, military and intelligence officials have expressed serious concern.

“The open skies construct was designed for a different era,” Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told lawmakers when asked about the Russian overflights during a congressional hearing. “I’m very concerned about how it’s applied today.”

Robert Work, deputy secretary of defense, told Congress: “We think that they’re going beyond the original intent of the treaty and we continue to look at this very, very closely.”

Steve Rademaker, former assistant secretary of state for the bureau of arms control and the bureau of international security and nonproliferation, told Congress at a hearing on security cooperation in Europe in October that Russia complies with the Open Skies Treaty, but has “adopted a number of measures that are inconsistent with the spirt” of the accord.

The treaty, for instance, obligates each member to make all of its territory available for aerial observation, yet Russia has imposed restrictions on surveillance over Moscow and Chechnya and near Abkhazia and South Ossetia, he said. Russian restrictions also make it hard to conduct observation in the Kaliningrad enclave, said Rademaker, who believes Russia is “selectively implementing” the treaty “in a way that suits its interests.”