Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

MI5 and the FBI: Terrorists on Twitter-Social Media

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Twitter is the least cooperative technology company calling terrorists on the internet ‘freedom fighters. This was revealed in testimony this week.

Twitter has come under criticism from some analysts who say the social media company has failed to swiftly remove accounts that recruit potential terrorists and incite violence, raising concerns that the United States has not done enough to combat the Islamic State’s rapid expansion of its propaganda operations online.

Mark Wallace, CEO of the Counter Extremism Project, said on Wednesday that the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) terrorist group has effectively used social media sites such as Twitter to propagandize and radicalize individuals, including Americans. His nonprofit project recently chronicled 66 U.S. citizens who are accused of joining or attempting to join the Islamic State, plotting attacks in the United States, providing financial support to extremist groups, or disseminating radical propaganda.

“These individuals have very different backgrounds and experiences, but the one characteristic they seem to share is active participation on social media,” he said in testimony to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The terror group known as Islamic State or Daesh has deployed and exploited unprescendented use of social media, where the effectiveness is beyond definition. Intelligence agencies in the West are grappling with solutions pushing the protections of free speech and use of the internet.

In part from Newsweek: The head of Britain’s internal counter-intelligence service MI5, has warned that ISIS and other extremist groups “continue to aspire to mass casualty attacks against the U.K.” and that an increasing proportion of their communication online and via encrypted channels is out of reach of Britain’s security services.

“All of this means the threat we are facing today is on a scale and at a tempo that I have not seen before in my career,” Andrew Parker said in his keynote speech made at a lord mayor’s event in London on Wednesday night.
Parker also warned of the “three-dimensional threat” that ISIS pose—at home, overseas and online. “We are seeing plots against the U.K. directed by terrorists in Syria; enabled through contacts with terrorists in Syria; and inspired online by Isil’s [ISIS] sophisticated exploitation of technology.”

Parker said MI5 must evolve its activities in order to combat modern threats, and emphasized that the agency’s ability to intercept communications has “been a key component in MI5’s toolbox throughout our history.”

The MI5 boss said he imagined the forthcoming defence review would garner more public interest than previous debates on similar matters. “But I hope that the public debate will be a mature one, ” he added. “Informed by the three independent reviews, and not characterized by ill-informed accusations of ‘mass surveillance’, or other such lazy two-worded tags.”

When it comes to the very similar requests by FBI Director, James Comey, his pleas are in earnest yet, tech companies and the U.S. Constitution actually prevent some actions due to the 1st Amendment. It is a slippery slope for both sides.

FBI Director James Comey called for a national conversation about how far tech companies should be allowed to go in applying encryption to their devices, saying law enforcement faces growing and overlapping challenges in accessing data needed to prosecute crimes.

During a speech at the Brookings Institution Thursday, Comey said the new forms of encryption being developed for mobile devices, as well as the rapid growth of the devices themselves, make it tough for the FBI to keep up with ways criminals can “go dark.”

“With going dark, those of us in law enforcement and public safety have a major fear of missing out,” Comey said. “Missing out on predators who exploit the most vulnerable among us; missing out on violent criminals who target our communities; missing out on a terrorist cell using social media to recruit, plan and execute an attack. We have seen case after case — from homicides and car crashes to drug trafficking, domestic abuse and child exploitation — where critical evidence came from smartphones, hard drives and online communication.”

To advance the discussion, Congress is holding hearings with counter-terrorism experts and they too make a compelling argument siding with Comey.

The Real Truths about UNRWA, Anyone Care?

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This is the best that the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power could do to respond to Hamas using children as human shields:

Samantha PowerVerified account ‏@AmbassadorPower 17 Jul 2014

Yest. UN found Hamas weapons hidden in its facility. provides aid/shelter to Palestinians—abhorrent that Hamas wld endanger its work.

UNRWA found Hamas rockets in UN facilities in Gaza but decided that fact was not really a war crime or a violation. Per the UNRWA official statement, just an additional condemnation is sufficient.

A handful of Senators compel John Kerry to sanction UNRWA over the weapons which Kerry has refused to do.

The UNRWA Vision Projectcame about because of an astonishingly brave kid in Gaza, Mohammad aged 8 whose life was changed forever when a single shell hit his house and blinded him. We need to make this project a reality for hundreds of children in Gaza.  Please donate today to end their suffering and help bringing them a brighter future.

Vision Project for Gaza children
 His father: H/T EoZ:Nidal was a legitimate target under the laws of war by any definition,. He used his family, including Mohammed, as human shields.

No one was killed in the Israeli airstrike targeting Nidal, although Mohammed’s siblings were injured.

A week later, Nidal met with two other senior Hamas terrorists in a mosque at 3:30 AM, way before dawn prayers. Israeli forces did not miss that time and all three were killed. Hamas detained an AP reporter looking at the rubble of the mosque because they didn’t want him to see evidence that the mosque was in fact a terrorist headquarters.

Mohammed Badran is blind because his father was a disgusting Hamas terrorist who valued his own life above that of his family.

Gunness knows that Mohammed’s father was a Hamas terrorist. He won’t ever admit it out loud.

Because  this is all about money, and Chris Gunness is more than happy to cynically use this victim of Hamas policy to raise money.

US Taxpayer-Funded Official Speaks Before Hamas-Tied Terror Group

UNRWA spokesman delivered speech in front of group designated as terrorist organization

FreeBeacon: A senior official with a U.S.-funded United Nations organization has come under scrutiny for delivering a speech this week before an anti-Israel organization that has been designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury Department for providing funds to the terror group Hamas.

Chris Gunness, spokesman for the U.S. taxpayer-funded UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which operates Palestinian refugee camps known for promoting terrorism against Israel, delivered a speech earlier this week before Interpal, a UK-based charity organization, which is listed as a specially designated global terrorist organization for funneling money to Hamas.

Gunness’ appearance fueled accusations by many in the pro-Israel community that UNRWA is a biased organization that abuses the more than $200 million it receives annually from the United States.

UNRWA employees, including teachers at its Palestinian schools and others, have been caught making anti-Semitic statements, promoting hatred of the Jewish state, and accused of participating in terrorist training.

Gunness’s appearance before the Hamas-tied organization comes amid an effort on Capitol Hill to suspend UNRWA’s funding and hold it accountable for its ties to terror groups and incitement against Israel.

While UNRWA did not promote the event, pictures of Gunness speaking before Interpal appeared on Twitter earlier this week.

Gunness talked “about little Mohammad, who was blinded when an Israeli shell hit his home in July 2014,” according to a tweet by Interpal.

Another user noted that the “UNRWA man tells the story of a child who froze to death [because] of slow pace of reconstruction in Gaza.”

When asked about the event, Gunness directed UNRWA’s Washington, D.C., spokesman to submit a statement to the Washington Free Beacon.

“UNRWA Spokesman Chris Gunness spoke at an event in the UK Parliament sponsored and attended by British Members of Parliament about a project supported by a legally registered UK charity to help approximately 300 blind and visually impaired Palestinian children in Gaza in need of special assistance,” UNRWA spokesman Chris McGrath told the Free Beacon.

While Interpal remains legal in the UK, it was designated by the United States as a terrorist organization in 2003.

“Interpal, headquartered in the UK, has been a principal charity utilized to hide the flow of money to HAMAS,” according to the Treasury Department’s findings. “Reporting indicates it is the conduit through which money flows to HAMAS from other charities, e.g., the Al Aqsa Foundation, and that it oversees the activities of other charities.”

“Reporting also indicates that Interpal is the fundraising coordinator of HAMAS, a coordination point for other HAMAS-affiliated charities,” according to Treasury. “This role is of the type that includes supervising activities of charities, developing new charities in targeted areas, instructing how funds should be transferred from one charity to another, and even determining public relations policy.”

“In the US, Interpal is listed as an organization involved in funding terror, and their ties with Hamas are well known and documented in detail,” said Gerald M. Steinberg, president of the watchdog group NGO Monitor. “So INTERPAL’s hosting of UNRWA’s spokesman, Chris Gunness, is another reason for a full investigation of the UN organization and its employees.”

“This agenda highlights the urgency of ending all funding for UNRWA, particularly the hundreds of millions provided every year by American, European, Canadian and Australian taxpayers,” Steinberg said.

Gunness’s appearance before the organization prompted questions during Tuesday’s State Department briefing. Spokesman John Kirby declined to address the questions and would not say whether the Obama administration was concerned with this behavior.

Asked Wednesday to further address Gunness’ actions, State Department spokesperson Julia Mason told the Free Beacon that administration officials have repeatedly emphasized to UNRWA that it must strive to remain “free from bias.”

“We have seen the reports on this event, though we did not attend,” Mason said. “We understand that the UNRWA spokesperson attended an event at the British Parliament to benefit wounded Palestinian children, hosted by several of its members.”

“We have long made known our commitment to UNRWA’s absolutely essential work in helping Palestinian refugees—including many refugee children,” she added. “And we have made clear our position that UNRWA must be able to work independently and free from bias.”

The State Department “regularly” discusses with UNRWA “the importance of maintaining the organization’s neutrality,” Mason said. “That includes raising concerns regarding any engagements with U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.”

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.) filed legislation this week that would cut off U.S. funding to UNRWA as a result of concerns that the organization is promoting terrorism.

The bill would withhold U.S. contributions to UNRWA until officials can certify that no employees of the organization have ties to terrorism or anti-Semitic incitement.

UNRWA also would be forced to submit to an independent audit meant to determine if it is diverting funds to terrorist entities.

“In response to the increased terror and violence in Israel, we must hold those who are responsible for inciting this violence accountable and that includes UNRWA,” Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.

“The U.S. can’t continue to send $400 million to UNRWA while ignoring the systemic and endemic anti-Israel, anti-Semitic bias and the blatant incitement to violence we see from its employees,” the lawmaker said. “UNRWA employees and facilities are consistently tied to foreign terrorist organizations and a full accounting of the agency’s affiliations should be required before another dime is spent on this divisive organization.”

UN officials were recently forced to suspend several UNRWA employees after it was revealed by the NGO Monitor organization that they had sought to promote anti-Semitic violence. Several teachers at UNRWA-run schools promoted terrorist attacks against Israelis, according to NGO Monitor’s findings.

$1.8 B JLENS Blimp Broke Free, Causing Power Failures

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Built by Raytheon:

JLENS provides 360-degrees of defensive radar coverage and can detect and track objects like missiles, and manned and unmanned aircraft from up to 340 miles away. JLENS can also remain aloft and operational for up to 30 days at a time. This potent combination of persistence and capability give defenders more time and more distance to:

Identify potential threats
Make critical decisions
Conduct crucial notifications
JLENS allows the military to safeguard hundreds of miles of territory at a fraction of the cost of fixed wing aircraft, and it can integrate with defensive systems including:

Patriot
Standard Missile 6
Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile
National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System
One JLENS system, known as an orbit, can provide the same 24/7 coverage for a 30-day period that 4-5 fixed wing surveillance aircraft (AWACS, JSTARS or E-2C) can provide.

Depending on the kind of aircraft used, a fixed-wing surveillance aircraft is 500-700% more expensive to operate than a JLENS during that same time period because of manpower, maintenance and fuel costs.
A JLENS orbit uses less than 50% of the manpower it requires to fly a fixed wing aircraft.

 

Highly technical defensive surveillance blimp, one of many owned by the Department of Defense has broken from its tether at Aberdeen Proving Ground and is floating in Pennsylvania.

This blimp has a value of $1.8 billion, is one of many across the country where each covers a range the size of Texas, and the blimp itself is the size of a football field filled with helium.

6800 feet of cable is being dragged causing power outages in at least 28 areas.

FNC: A JLENS blimp that has been tethered at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland has broken free Wednesday and is being tracked by two fighter jets traveling over Pennsylvania at 16,000 feet, a NORAD spokesman said.

There are unconfirmed reports that the aircraft landed in Bloomsburg, Pa., but Fox News could not immediately confirm.

 

JLENS is short for Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor. The craft looks like a blimp, but the tether technically means it is an aerostat. The craft is the size of a football field and cost about $180 million each.

The Baltimore Sun reported that the helium-filled blimp detached at about 11:54 a.m. and was pulling about 6,700 feet of cable. The paper reported that the military is working with the FAA to maintain air safety. The Air Force said two F-16 fighter jets from Atlantic City are monitoring the blimp.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s office issued a statement saying it is aware of the situation and has been in contact with various departments and the state’s emergency management agency.

“We are closely monitoring the situation, and we will work with the appropriate authorities to respond to any resource requests and assist in any way possible,” the statement read.

The system featured two, unmanned aerostats, tethered to concrete pads 4 miles apart. They were intended to float at an altitude of about 10,000 feet, about one-third as high as a commercial airliner’s cruising altitude.

One balloon was designed to continuously scan in a circle from upstate New York to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and as far west as central Ohio.

The other was meant to carry precision radar to help the military on the ground to pinpoint targets. The craft can stay in the air for up to a month at a time and has a high-definition 360-degree radar capable of monitoring 340 miles in any direction.

A storm near the JLENS program’s test facility Elizabeth City, N.C., in 2010 caused a civilian balloon to broke loose from its mooring and destroy a grounded JLENS blimp.

The aerostats did not carry weapons, military officials said in 2014.

Refugees in America Before those in Europe

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We watch in horror the refugee crisis in Europe and the stories are terrifying but for a deeper argument, it has been going on here in America for decades so the slow flow of migrants is not a robust as that currently in Europe.

What is more, global leaders are in full discussion on several tracks including how to find housing, medical care, schools, jobs, transportation and more. Additionally, big talks are underway to create a safe zone for Syrians in their home country. Well, the argument can be made there are at least two of them in Jordan and Turkey now….creating one in Syria? How about creating zones in respective countries in Central America?

Refugee crisis grows in Central America as women ‘run for their lives’

Women and children are increasingly fleeing gang violence in Mexico and Central America in hopes of reaching the US, says new UNHCR report

Thousands of women flee their homes in parts of Central America and Mexico each year to escape armed gangs and domestic violence and seek refuge in the United States, a flow that is becoming a refugee crisis, the UN refugee agency says.

The number of women, some with children, fleeing rampant gang violence in parts of Mexico, and the Northern Triangle region of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, is rising, the UNHCR said in a report published on Wednesday.

More than 66,000 children travelled with their families or alone from the Northern Triangle region – which has the world’s highest murder rates – to the United States in 2014.

More unaccompanied children from the Northern Triangle and Mexico reached the United States in August than in the same month last year, the US government said.

“With authorities often unable to curb the violence and provide redress, many vulnerable women are left with no choice but to run for their lives,” Antonio Guterres, head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), said in the report.

While attention is focused on the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing to Europe from countries such as Syria and Iraq, a new refugee crisis is taking shape in Central America, the UNHCR warned.

“The dramatic refugee crises we are witnessing in the world today are not confined to the Middle East or Africa,” Guterres said in a statement. “We are seeing another refugee situation unfolding in the Americas.“

The UNHCR said it had recorded a nearly five-fold increase in asylum seekers arriving in the United States from the Northern Triangle since 2008. In 2014, 40,000 people from these countries and Mexico applied for asylum in the United States.

The UNHCR report includes 160 interviews with women who had fled their homes in the Northern Triangle region and Mexico and travelled to the United States. After crossing the border illegally, they were detained and placed in detention centres.

All the women interviewed had either been recognised as refugees or been screened by US authorities, “and determined to have a credible or reasonable fear of persecution or torture”, the report said.

One 17-year-old Salvadorean girl called Norma says she was gang raped by three members of the notorious M18 gang in a cemetery in late 2014. She said she was targeted because she was married to a police officer.

“They took their turns … they tied me by the hands. They stuffed my mouth so I would not scream,” Norma is quoted as saying in the report. Then “they threw me in the trash”.

Nearly two-thirds of the women said threats and attacks by armed criminal gangs, including rape, killings, forced recruitment of their children and extortion payments, were among the main reasons why they left their home countries.

“The increasing reach of criminal armed groups, often amounting to de facto control over territory and people, has surpassed the capacity of governments in the region to respond,” the report said.

US government figures show that 82% of 16,077 women from the Northern Triangle region and Mexico interviewed by US authorities in the last year were found to have a credible fear of persecution or torture and were allowed to pursue their claims for asylum in the United States.

Violence at the hands of abusive husbands and partners, including rape and beatings with baseball bats, was another key reason why women were fleeing their homes.

“Unable to secure state protection, many women cited domestic violence as a reason for flight, fearing severe harm or death if they stayed,” the report said.

More than three-quarters of the women interviewed said they knew the journey overland to the United States was dangerous, but it was a risk worth taking.

Some said they took birth control pills before starting their journey to avoid getting pregnant as a result of rape by human traffickers or gangs, the report said.

“Coming here [to the United States] was like having hope that you will come out alive,” the report quoted Sara, who fled Honduras and sought asylum in the United States, as saying.

 

So, the Most Transparent Administration in History, Nah

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Not being timely or responsive to letters or to requests is a means to use avoidance as a weapon and the Obama White House is perfect at this, a lesson used by several agencies.

There are also lawyers that are assigned by the White House that in fact scrutinize all Freedom of Information Act requests before they are advanced through the system.

Obama administration sets new record for withholding FOIA requests

PBS, WASHINGTON — The Obama administration set a record again for censoring government files or outright denying access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.

The government took longer to turn over files when it provided any, said more regularly that it couldn’t find documents and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy.

It also acknowledged in nearly 1 in 3 cases that its initial decisions to withhold or censor records were improper under the law — but only when it was challenged.

Its backlog of unanswered requests at year’s end grew remarkably by 55 percent to more than 200,000. It also cut by 375, or about 9 percent, the number of full-time employees across government paid to look for records. That was the fewest number of employees working on the issue in five years.

The government’s new figures, published Tuesday, covered all requests to 100 federal agencies during fiscal 2014 under the Freedom of Information law, which is heralded globally as a model for transparent government. They showed that despite disappointments and failed promises by the White House to make meaningful improvements in the way it releases records, the law was more popular than ever. Citizens, journalists, businesses and others made a record 714,231 requests for information. The U.S. spent a record $434 million trying to keep up. It also spent about $28 million on lawyers’ fees to keep records secret.

“This disappointing track record is hardly the mark of an administration that was supposed to be the most transparent in history,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who has co-sponsored legislation with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to improve the Freedom of Information law. Their effort died in the House last year.

The new figures showed the government responded to 647,142 requests, a 4 percent decrease over the previous year. It more than ever censored materials it turned over or fully denied access to them, in 250,581 cases or 39 percent of all requests. Sometimes, the government censored only a few words or an employee’s phone number, but other times it completely marked out nearly every paragraph on pages.

On 215,584 other occasions, the government said it couldn’t find records, a person refused to pay for copies or the government determined the request to be unreasonable or improper.

The White House touted its success under its own analysis. It routinely excludes from its assessment instances when it couldn’t find records, a person refused to pay for copies or the request was determined to be improper under the law, and said under this calculation it released all or parts of records in 91 percent of requests — still a record low since President Barack Obama took office using the White House’s own math.

“We actually do have a lot to brag about,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Earnest on Wednesday praised agencies for releasing information before anyone requested it, such as the salaries and titles of White House employees. He cited more than 125,000 sets of data posted on a website, data.gov, which include historical temperature charts, records of agricultural fertilizer consumption, Census data, fire deaths and college crime reports.

“When it comes to our record on transparency, we have a lot to be proud of,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “And frankly, it sets a standard that future administrations will have to live up to.”

Separately, the Justice Department congratulated the Agriculture and State departments for finishing work on their oldest 10 requests, said the Pentagon responded to nearly all requests within three months and praised the Health and Human Services Department for disclosing information about the Ebola outbreak and immigrant children caught crossing U.S. borders illegally.

The government’s responsiveness under the open records law is an important measure of its transparency. Under the law, citizens and foreigners can compel the government to turn over copies of federal records for zero or little cost. Anyone who seeks information through the law is generally supposed to get it unless disclosure would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas. It cited such exceptions a record 554,969 times last year.

Under the president’s instructions, the U.S. should not withhold or censor government files merely because they might be embarrassing, but federal employees last year regularly misapplied the law. In emails that AP obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration about who pays for Michelle Obama’s expensive dresses, the agency blacked-out a sentence under part of the law intended to shield personal, private information, such as Social Security numbers, phone numbers or home addresses. But it failed to censor the same passage on a subsequent page.

The sentence: “We live in constant fear of upsetting the WH (White House).”

In nearly 1 in 3 cases, when someone challenged under appeal the administration’s initial decision to censor or withhold files, the government reconsidered and acknowledged it was at least partly wrong. That was the highest reversal rate in at least five years.

The AP’s chief executive, Gary Pruitt, said the news organization filed hundreds of requests for government files. Records the AP obtained revealed police efforts to restrict airspace to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests in Ferguson, Missouri. In another case, the records showed Veterans Affairs doctors concluding that a gunman who later killed 12 people had no mental health issues despite serious problems and encounters with police during the same period. They also showed the FBI pressuring local police agencies to keep details secret about a telephone surveillance device called Stingray.

“What we discovered reaffirmed what we have seen all too frequently in recent years,” Pruitt wrote in a column published this week. “The systems created to give citizens information about their government are badly broken and getting worse all the time.”

The U.S. released its new figures during Sunshine Week, when news organizations promote open government and freedom of information.

The AP earlier this month sued the State Department under the law to force the release of email correspondence and government documents from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. The government had failed to turn over the files under repeated requests, including one made five years ago and others pending since the summer of 2013.

The government said the average time it took to answer each records request ranged from one day to more than 2.5 years. More than half of federal agencies took longer to answer requests last year than the previous year.