Yes!, the FBI’s Successful Child Porn Sting

Posted on January 10, 2016January 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

FBI hacks world’s largest child porn site, 1,300 arrested

The ‘unprecedented’ sting op saw 1,300 people arrested.

The site, known as ‘Playpen’, launched in August 2014 and allowed users to sign up and upload images, primarily for “the advertisement and distribution of child pronagraphy”. This websites isn’t like an adult pornography website as it’s on the dark web, adult pornography websites such as fulltube you can find simply by searching in your normal browser but sites like Playpen you need to access the dark web first.

Within a month of Playpen’s launch, the website had garnered nearly 60,000 members. By 2015 that number had jumped to almost 215,000, with 11,000 unique users visiting the site each week, and a total of 117,000 posts.

Many of those posts contained some of the most extreme child abuse images one could imagine, according to FBI testimony seen byMotherboard.

Although the website also included advice on how users could avoid online detection, a sting operation began in February 2015 when the FBI hacked into the website’s server, but decided not to shut it down.

The bureau took the ‘unprecedented’ measure of running Playpen to spy on its users and hack their IP addresses, leading to the arrests.

According to Motherboard, a public defender for one of the accused called the operation an “extraordinary expansion of government surveillance and its use of illegal search methods on a massive scale.”

*** The Dark Web and the FBI

Motherboard: While it looks like several of those already charged will plead guilty to online child pornography crimes, one defense team has made the extraordinary step of arguing to have their client’s case thrown out completely. Their main argument is that the FBI, in briefly running the child pornography site from its own servers in Virginia, itself distributed an “untold” amount of illegal material.

“There is no law enforcement exemption, or statutory exemption for the distribution of child pornography,” Colin Fieman, one of the federal public defenders filing the motion to dismiss the indictment, claimed in a phone interview earlier this week. Jay Michaud, a Vancouver teacher arrested in July 2015, is also being represented by Linda Sullivan.

“THE GOVERNMENT’S OPERATION OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST ‘HIDDEN SERVER’ CHILD PORNOGRAPHY SITE AND ITS GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF UNTOLD NUMBERS OF PICTURES AND VIDEOS IS OUTRAGEOUS CONDUCT THAT SHOULD RESULT IN DISMISSAL OF THE INDICTMENT,” a court filing dated November 20, 2015 reads.

Fieman and Sullivan reason that if the methods of the investigation that supposedly identified his client “cannot be reconciled with fundamental expectations of decency and fairness,” then the indictment should be dismissed.

A section of the filing, which outlines the defense lawyers’ argument.

In February 2015, the FBI seized the server of “Playpen,” which court documents described as “the largest remaining known child pornography hidden service in the world.” Instead of shutting the site down straight away, however, the FBI moved Playpen to a government controlled server in Virginia, and deployed a network investigative technique (NIT)—the agency’s term for a hacking tool—in an attempt to identify people logging into the site. This NIT, according to other court documents, collected approximately “1300 true internet protocol (IP) addresses” between February 20 and March 4.

In their argument, Fieman and Sullivan point to the Department of Justice’s own view on the harm caused by the proliferation of child pornography. “Once an image is on the Internet, it is irretrievable and can continue to circulate forever,” the Department of Justice website reads. In an April 2015 press release, US Attorney Josh J. Minkler said that “Producing and distributing child pornography re-victimizes our children every time it is passed from one person to another.”

In essence, the lawyers’ point is that the FBI was, by running Playpen from its own servers, essentially distributing child pornography.

So, according to their argument, it is unclear how the “Government can possibly justify the massive distribution of child pornography that it accomplished in this case.”

They then posit that, rather than taking over the site to deploy a bulk hacking technique, and allowing the site to continue to distribute child pornography material in the process, the FBI could have posted individual links to malware-laden files on the site without running it from their own servers. Or, after seizing the site, the agency could have redirected users to a spoofed version of it, minus the child pornography material.

“We are in a protracted street fight with the Department of Justice and the FBI”

Instead, the FBI “continued to distribute thousands of illicit pictures and videos to thousands of visitors,” the filing states. It compares the case to “Operation Fast and Furious”: Between 2009 and 2011, law enforcement agents infamously proliferated illegal weapons in an attempt to trace them to Mexican drug cartels. Some of the weapons, however, ended up being used in the murder of a US Border Patrol agent.

The Department of Justice did not reply to repeated requests for comment. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication, but a spokesperson previously told Motherboard, “We are not able to comment on ongoing investigations, or describe the use of specific investigative techniques.”

This argument to dismiss the indictment is just one of the more recent phases of a heated legal back-and-forth between Michaud’s lawyers and the government. Since October, dozens of documents have been filed in the case, including motions to seal documents, affidavits, modifications to protective orders, and delays to responses.

“We are in a protracted street fight with the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Fieman told Motherboard.

Some of the issues circle around evidence: the defense argues that its client has not had access to important discovery information. It has had some success on that front though: on December 10, the Government wrote that the defense counsel will be provided with the computer code of the NIT under a protective order. The defense is also expected to receive a detailed list of the number of child pornography materials on Playpen while it was being run from an FBI server.

The government’s response to the motion to dismiss the indictment is currently sealed. It’s unclear how the government has replied to the lawyer’s arguments, but this move to have the indictment against a suspected online child pornographer totally scraped is a surprising and dramatic turn in a case that continues to grow in scope.

11 20 2015 Motion to Dismiss Indictment

Sid and Hillary’s Personal Spy Network, ServerGate

Posted on January 10, 2016January 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

There are only a handful of results of the FBI investigation into Hillary. 1. The DoJ’s Loretta Lynch will give Hillary as pass if there is a criminal referral. 2. Barack Obama will give Hillary full protection under ‘Executive Privilege’ under the excuse of national security. 3. There will be a full blown revolt by the whole intelligence community. 4. Leaks will come out forcing a criminal referral of Hillary Clinton and we could see a Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren ticket.

Hillary’s EmailGate Goes Nuclear

Does the latest release of Hillary’s State Department emails include highly classified U.S. intelligence?

Schlinder: Back in October I told you that Hillary Clinton’s email troubles were anything but over, and that the scandal over her misuse of communications while she was Secretary of State was sure to get worse. Sure enough, EmailGate continues to be a thorn in the side of Hillary’s presidential campaign and may have just entered a new, potentially explosive phase with grave ramifications, both political and legal.

The latest court-ordered dump of her email, just placed online by the State Department, brings more troubles for Team Hillary. This release of over 3,000 pages includes 66 “Unclassified” messages that the State Department subsequently determined actually were classified; however, all but one of those 66 were deemed Confidential, the lowest classification level, while one was found to be Secret, bringing the total of Secret messages discovered so far to seven. In all, 1,340 Hillary emails at State have been reassessed as classified.

There are gems here. It’s hard to miss the irony of Hillary expressing surprise about a State Department staffer using personal email for work, which the Secretary of State noted in her own personal email. More consequential was Hillary’s ordering a staffer to send classified talking points for a coming meeting via a non-secure fax machine, stripped of their classification markings. This appears to be a clear violation of Federal law and the sort of thing that is a career-ender, or worse, for normals. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee termed that July 2011 incident “disturbing,” and so it is to anyone acquainted with U.S. Government laws and regulations regarding the handling of classified material.

Part 1

But the biggest problem may be in a just-released email that has gotten little attention here, but plenty on the other side of the world. An email to Hillary from a close Clinton confidant late on June 8, 2011 about Sudan turns out to have explosive material in it. This message includes a detailed intelligence report from Sid Blumenthal, Hillary’s close friend, confidant, and factotum, who regularly supplied her with information from his private intelligence service. His usual source was Tyler Drumheller, a former CIA senior official and veteran spy-gadfly, who conveniently died just before EmailGate became a serious problem for Hillary’s campaign.

Part 2

However, the uncredited June 8 memo, which Mr. Blumenthal labeled as “Confidential” – his personal classification system, apparently – but which the State Department has labeled Unclassified, doesn’t appear to be from Drumheller, whose assessments were written just like CIA intelligence reports. This is not.

Part 3

Remarkably, the report emailed to Hillary by “sbwhoeop,” which was Mr. Blumenthal’s email handle, explains how Sudan’s government devised a clandestine plan, in coordination with two rebel generals, to secure control of oil reserves in the disputed region of Abyei. This is juicy, front-page stuff, straight out of an action movie, about a region of Africa that’s of high interest to the American and many other governments, and the report is astonishingly detailed.

Part 4

Its information comes from a high-ranking source with direct access to Sudan’s top military and intelligence officials, and Mr. Blumenthal’s write-up repeatedly states the sources – there turn out to be more than one – are well-placed and credible, with excellent access. It’s the usual spytalk boilerplate when you want the reader to understand this is golden information, not just gossip or rumors circulating on the street, what professionals dismiss as “RUMINT.” Needless to add, this is generating a lot of talk in Sudan, where the media is asking about this shady affair – and how Sid Blumenthal, who’s not exactly an old Africa hand, knew all about it.

Part 5

But the most interesting part is that the report describes a conversation “in confidence” that happened on the evening of June 7, just one day before Mr. Blumenthal sent the report to Secretary Clinton. It beggars the imagination to think that Sid’s private intelligence operation, which was just a handful of people, had operators who were well placed in Sudan, with top-level spy access, able to get this secret information, place it in a decently written assessment with proper espionage verbiage, and pass it all back to Washington, DC, inside 24 hours. That would be a feat even for the CIA, which has stations and officers all over Africa.

In fact, the June 8, 2011 Blumenthal report doesn’t read like CIA material at all, in other words human intelligence or HUMINT, but very much like signals intelligence or SIGINT. (For the differences see here). I know what SIGINT reports look like, because I used to write them for the National Security Agency, America’s biggest source of intelligence. SIGINT reports, which I’ve read thousands of, have a very distinct style and flavor to them and Blumenthal’s write-up matches it, right down to the “Source Comments,” which smack very much of NSA reporting and its “house rules.”

But is this an NSA assessment? If so, it would have to be classified at least Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information, a handling caveat that applies to most SIGINT, and quite possibly Top Secret/SCI, the highest normal classification we have. In that case, it was about as far from Unclassified as it’s possible for an email to be.

No surprise, NSA is aflutter this weekend over this strange matter. One Agency official expressed to me “at least 90 percent confidence” that Mr. Blumenthal’s June 8 report was derived from NSA reports, and the Agency ought to be investigating the matter right now.

There are many questions here. How did Sid Blumenthal, who had no position in the U.S. Government in 2011, and hasn’t since Bill Clinton left the White House fifteen years ago, possibly get his hands on such highly classified NSA reporting? Why did he place it an open, non-secure email to Hillary, who after all had plenty of legitimate access, as Secretary of State, to intelligence assessments from all our spy agencies? Moreover, how did the State Department think this was Unclassified and why did it release it to the public?

It’s possible this Blumenthal report did not come from NSA, but perhaps from another, non-American intelligence agency – but whose? If Sid was really able to get top-level intelligence like this for Hillary, using just his shoestring operation, and get it into her hands a day later, with precise information about the high-level conspiracy that was just discussed over in Sudan, the Intelligence Community needs to get him on our payroll stat. He’s a pro at the spy business.

*******

Hillary Clinton was battered with questions by CBS host John Dickerson on Sunday about new revelations from her private email server.

Appearing on Face The Nation, Clinton was asked about ordering an aide to send information through “nonsecure” channels and her hypocritical surprise that another State Department employee was not using a government account at the time.

The Free Beacon reported:

In the June 2011 email exchange, Jake Sullivan, then-Secretary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, discussed forthcoming “TPs,” appearing to refer to talking points, that Clinton was waiting to receive.

“They say they’ve had issues sending secure fax. They’re working on it,” Sullivan wrote of the forthcoming information in an email dated June 17, 2011.

“If they can’t, turn it into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” Clinton wrote Sullivan in response the same day.

“Aren’t you ordering him to violate the laws on handling classified material there?” Dickerson asked.

“No, not all, and as the State Department said just this week, that did not happen, and it never would have happened, because that’s just not the way I treated classified information,” Clinton said. “Headings are not classification notices, and so, oftentimes, we are trying to get the best information we can, and obviously what I’m asking for is whatever can be transmitted, if it doesn’t come through secure, to be transmitted on the unclassified systems. So, no, there is nothing to that, like so much else has been talked about in the last year.”

Dickerson said the email was “striking” because it suggested she knew how to get around restrictions for sending classified information.

“You’re saying there was never an instance, any other instance, in which you did that?” Dickerson asked.

“No, and it wasn’t sent,” Clinton said. “This is another instance where what is common practice, namely, I need information. I had some points I had to make, and I was waiting for a secure fax that could get me the whole picture, but oftentimes there’s a lot of information that isn’t at all classified, so whatever information can be appropriately transmitted, unclassified, often was. That’s true for every agency in the government and everybody who does business with the government.”

Clinton said the “important point” was she had “great confidence“ she wasn’t in breach of government regulations on classification.

“In fact, as the State Department has said, there was no transmission of any classified information, so it’s another effort by people looking for something to throw against the wall … to see what sticks, but there’s no ‘there’ there,” she said.

Dickerson wasn’t finished, though, pointing to a 2011 email showing Clinton expressing surprise that another State Department staffer wasn’t using a government account, even while she was flouting rules by using a private email to do business.

That was “what you were doing,” Dickerson said, so “why was that a surprise to you?”

“Well, I emailed two people on their government accounts, because I knew that all of that would be part of the government system, and indeed, the vast majority of all my emails are in the government systems, so that’s how I conducted the business,” she said. “I was very clear about emailing anything having to do with business to people on their government accounts.”

In other words, Clinton did not answer the question about her fairly blatant hypocrisy.

ISIS in the Caribbean and Michelle’s SOTU Guest, Sigh

Posted on January 10, 2016January 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

Top US General Offers Warning on IS Fighters in Caribbean

PENTAGON—

VoA: A top U.S. general is concerned that a small number of motivated Islamic State fighters could commit acts of terror in Caribbean nations.

General John Kelly, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, told reporters Friday at the Pentagon that about 150 Islamic extremists left the Caribbean region to join Islamic State fighters in the Middle East last year, about 50 more than in the previous year.

However, he said, the biggest threat might not be the extremists who leave to train and fight with the Islamic State, but the ones who stay behind.

Kelly said Islamic extremist groups seem to have a new message for would-be jihadists.

“And that [message] is, ‘Rather than coming here to Syria, why don’t you just stay at home and do San Bernardino or do Boston or do Fort Hood?’ ” the general said, referring to attacks in the U.S. perpetrated by Muslims sympathetic to extremist groups. As recently as Thursday, a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State ambushed a police officer as he sat in his car in Philadelphia.

“They [Caribbean nations] don’t have an FBI, they don’t have law enforcement like we do,” Kelly said, adding that the U.S. military provides as much information as it can to agencies in those countries.

Iraq, Afghanistan

When asked about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kelly praised recent comments made to USA Today by General John Campbell, commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission, that the president should delay the drawdown of U.S. troops and maintain the current force of 9,800 because of the volatile security situation in Afghanistan.

He also appeared to pointedly disagree with the U.S. decision to withdraw all troops in Iraq by the end of 2011, telling a reporter there were “other ways to have done it.”

“I believe this war stuff is hard, and it’s not for the untrained and the unadvised,” he said.

Kelly, who served in Iraq’s Anbar province, said the removal of U.S. troops took away vital mentors the Iraqi army needed as it continued to develop.

“The equipment is important, but it doesn’t come close to having people who are just with them,” he said.

Kelly, a Marine, said there would eventually be “pressure” to lower standards for women so more of them could advance in combat roles, such as the Marine infantry and the Army Rangers.

Last year, the Marine Corps asked that certain combat jobs remain closed to women, but Defense Secretary Ash Carter overruled the request.

Pentagon officials have vowed that standards for those jobs will not be lowered.

***

Meanwhile, who will be Michelle Obama’s guest at the State of the Union address? Whoa….

Syrian refugee among first lady’s guests for State of Union

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Syrian scientist stricken with cancer and seeking a new start for his family in Michigan will represent Syrian refugees as a guest of first lady Michelle Obama for the president’s final State of the Union address.

President Barack Obama has committed to accepting an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees, but some Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates are critical of the expansion. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, for example, noted the recent arrest of two Iraqi refugees. During an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Cruz emphasized that they came to the United States “using the same vetting that President Obama wants us to trust with Syrian refugees.”

Refaai Hamo, his son and three daughters landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in December, anxious to rebuild their lives. Hamo fled to Turkey from Syria after a missile attack killed his wife and one other daughter. Hamo was profiled on the popular photo blog Humans of New York and identified as “The Scientist.”

The White House said Sunday that Hamo will be among about 20 guests who will sit near the first lady on Tuesday. The guests include several veterans and service members, including one of the three Americans who thwarted a terrorist attack aboard a Paris-bound train.

Those on the guest list will highlight issues that Obama has attempted to prioritize during his tenure, such as expanded health insurance coverage, and issues that he hopes to work on during his final year, such as criminal justice reform. The guest list includes a California man whose partner was killed in the San Bernardino attack, the first female Army Reserve officer to graduate from the Army’s elite Ranger School and a plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case that found same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. One seat will be empty, to represent the victims of gun violence.

Obama read about Hamo’s story last month. His cancer had gone untreated because he lacked health insurance. The actor, Ed Norton, set up for the Hamo family an online fundraising campaign that raised more than $450,000. The White House described Hamo as living the kind of life in Syria that is associated with the American dream. He married his college sweetheart, and they built a life together before a missile tore through the complex he helped design and where his family lived.

Obama told Hamo through a Facebook posting that, “Yes, you can still make a difference in the world, and we’re proud that you’ll pursue your dreams here. Welcome to your new home. You’re part of what makes America great.”

Other guests include:

— Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone of Sacramento, California, who, along with Anthony Sadler and U.S. Army Specialist Alex Skarlatos, stopped a man from opening fire on passengers aboard a crowded Paris-bound train.

— Oscar Vazquez of Fort Worth, Texas, a veteran who came to the U.S. as a child from Mexico, and now works as a business analyst and advocate for Latino students.

— Sue Ellen Allen of Scottsdale Arizona, co-founder of a nonprofit that helps former prisoners re-enter society.

The Ted Cruz Birth Citizenship Facts

Posted on January 8, 2016January 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

Donald Trump and a few others including John McCain are formally challenging Ted Cruz on his birthright eligibility to be President. These arguments were not cast at Barack Obama’s eligibility even though Hillary Clinton was the first ‘birther’ laying into public judgment questions about his history. This question has never officially been answered as Obama signed an executive order terminating all access to his historical family records.

Below are the facts on Ted Cruz.

Eleanor Darragh, mother of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), was born in Delaware on Nov. 23, 1934, establishing her citizenship by birth–and, according to U.S. law, that of her son, even though he was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on Dec. 22, 1970.

Breitbart: The Cruz for President campaign provided Breitbart News exclusively with the birth certificate.

Later, Ted Cruz’s own birth certificate listed his mother as “Eleanor Elizabeth Wilson.” “Elizabeth” was her mother’s first name, and “Wilson” is a surname from a previous marriage.

Eleanor Darragh Birth Certificate

The Cruz campaign was responding to inquiries from Breitbart News about a document showing that both of Cruz’s parents had been named on a list of voters in Calgary for the 1974 Canadian federal election.

Only Canadian citizens were (and are) able to vote in federal elections. The lists were compiled through a door-to-door process of “enumeration” by registrars, and were publicized partly so that mistakes could be corrected.

According to Elections Canada–the independent, non-partisan agency that runs Canadian elections–“voters were sent a copy of the list showing the name, address and occupation of all voters in the relevant poll.”

Mistakes were frequent (i.e. “Raphael” instead of “Rafael”), and voters were given the opportunity to fix errors.

Ezra Levant, a Canadian conservative journalist who was born and raised in Calgary, recalled the process of enumeration.

“It was like a census… they were very quick and non-obtrusive visits, someone standing in your doorstep,” he told Breitbart News via e-mail. “They certainly didn’t ask for ID.

“It is not surprising to me that there may be a spelling error in someone’s name. A name appearing on the list would not necessarily indicate that they were a citizen, or that they themselves had even spoken to the enumerator—someone else in the household may have spoken for them,” Levant added.

The Cruz campaign told Breitbart News on Friday that Cruz’s mother had never become a Canadian citizen.

“She was in Canada on a work permit and never became a permanent resident, let alone a citizen,” said Jason Johnson, chief strategist for the Cruz campaign.

“She never registered to vote and never applied for Canadian citizenship.”

In a subsequent statement to Breitbart News, Johnson added:

“Eleanor was never a citizen of Canada, and she could not have been under the facts or the law. In short, she did not live in Canada long enough to be a Canadian citizen by the time Cruz was born in 1970: Canadian law required 5 years of permanent residence, and she moved to Canada in December 1967—only 3 years before Senator Cruz’s birth.”

The campaign could not provide her Canadian work permit.

Canadian immigration authorities could not provide Breitbart News with additional documents, citing Canadian privacy laws.

Cartel Leader Guzman Recaptured in Shootout

Posted on January 8, 2016January 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

The Mexican Navy said in a statement that marines acting on a tip raided a home in the town of Los Mochis before dawn. They were fired on from inside the structure. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested. The marine’s injuries were not life threatening.

At the home marines seized two armoured vehicles, eight long guns, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

BREAKING NEWS: Joaquin ‘Chapo’ Guzman recaptured in Mexico

FoxLatino: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto confirmed on Friday that authorities have captured fugitive drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman in his hometown of Sinaloa.

“Mission accomplished: we have it,” Peña Nieto tweeted Friday.” I want to inform Mexicans Joaquin Guzman Loera has been arrested.”

Misión cumplida: lo tenemos. Quiero informar a los mexicanos que Joaquín Guzmán Loera ha sido detenido.

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) January 8, 2016

The arrest of Guzmán was followed by a raid at a home in the town of Los Mochis, before dawn by Mexican marines, the AP is reporting. They were fired on from inside the structure. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested, the AP is reporting. The marine’s injuries were not life threatening.

It is unclear if the this was connected to the arrest.

At the home marines seized two armored vehicles, eight long guns, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The statement said they believed a regional commander for a criminal organization was present, but escaped.

The area has been the site of other military operations in recent months as the government continues to search for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa cartel.

Guzmán fled in July through a mile-long tunnel dug from what authorities say was a building especially set up for the prison break in plain sight of the prison. The tunnel was equipped with a ventilation system and even a customized motorcycle most likely used to remove the dirt while digging towards the shower area of the drug lord’s prison cell.