We Remember: 22 Photos of September 11 And the Days After
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Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway
Hacking the Department of Energy, the Threat to You
The USDOEnergy is a cabinet level department and while responsibility includes power, laboratories, it includes nuclear. The agency secretary is Earnest Moniz, most notable for being at the side of John Kerry during the Iran nuclear talks.
Hacking this agency is terrifying and added into this equation, in 1999 the FBI investigated how China obtained specific specifications for a particular nuclear device from Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Records: Energy Department struck by Cyber Attacks
USAToday: Attackers successfully compromised U.S. Department of Energy computer systems more than 150 times between 2010 and 2014, a review of federal records obtained by USA TODAY finds.
Cyber attackers successfully compromised the security of U.S. Department of Energy computer systems more than 150 times between 2010 and 2014, according to a review of federal records obtained by USA TODAY.
Incident reports submitted by federal officials and contractors since late 2010 to the Energy Department’s Joint Cybersecurity Coordination Center shows a near-consistent barrage of attempts to breach the security of critical information systems that contain sensitive data about the nation’s power grid, nuclear weapons stockpile and energy labs.
The records, obtained by USA TODAY through the Freedom of Information Act, show DOE components reported a total of 1,131 cyberattacks over a 48-month period ending in October 2014. Of those attempted cyber intrusions, 159 were successful.
“The potential for an adversary to disrupt, shut down (power systems), or worse … is real here,” said Scott White, Professor of Homeland Security and Security Management and Director of the Computing Security and Technology program at Drexel University. “It’s absolutely real.”
Energy Department officials would not say whether any sensitive data related to the operation and security of the nation’s power grid or nuclear weapons stockpile was accessed or stolen in any of the attacks, or whether foreign governments are believed to have been involved.
“DOE does not comment on ongoing investigations or possible attributions of malicious activity,” Energy Department spokesman Andrew Gumbiner said in a statement.
In all cases of malicious cybersecurity activity, Gumbiner said the Energy Department “seeks to identify indicators of compromise and other cybersecurity relevant information, which it then shares broadly amongst all DOE labs, plants, and sites as well as within the entire federal government.”
The National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department responsible for managing and securing the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile, experienced 19 successful attacks during the four-year period, records show.
While information on the specific nature of the attacks was redacted from the records prior to being released, numerous Energy Department cybersecurity vulnerabilities have been identified in recent years by the department’s Office of Inspector General, an independent watchdog agency.
After a cyber attack in 2013 resulted in unauthorized access to personally identifying information for more than 104,000 Energy Department employees and contractors, auditors noted “unclear lines of responsibility” and “lack of awareness by responsible officials.” In an audit report released in October of last year, the Inspector General found 41 Energy Department servers and 14 workstations “were configured with default or easily guessed passwords.”
Felicia Jones, spokeswoman for the Energy Department Office of Inspector General, said while there have been some improvements, “threats continue and the Department cannot let down its guard.”
Records show 53 of the 159 successful intrusions from October 2010 to October 2014 were “root compromises,” meaning perpetrators gained administrative privileges to Energy Department computer systems.
Manimaran Govindarasu, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University who studies cybersecurity issues involving the power grid, said the root compromises represent instances where intruders gained “super-user” privileges.
“That means you can do anything on the computer,” he said. “So that is definitely serious. Whether that computer was critical or just a simple office computer, we don’t know.”
Govindarasu said while there could be information in Energy Department computer systems concerning security plans or investments related to the nation’s power grid, the grid’s real-time control systems are operated by utilities and are not directly connected to the Energy Department’s computer systems.
The Energy Department federal laboratories, however, sometimes pull data on the operation of the grid from utilities for research and analysis.
Records show 90 of the 153 successful cyber intrusions over the four-year period were connected to the DOE’s Office of Science, which directs scientific research and is responsible for 10 of the nation’s federal energy laboratories.
A USA TODAY Media Network report in March found a physical or cyber attack nearly once every four days on the nation’s power infrastructure, based on an analysis of reports to the U.S. Department of Energy through a separate reporting system which requires utility companies to notify the federal agency of incidents that affect power reliability.
Amid mounting concerns, the oversight and energy subcommittees of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology will hold a joint hearing at 10 a.m. Thursday to examine vulnerabilities of the national electric grid and the severity of various threats.
The congressional committee’s charter for Thursday’s meeting, citing USA TODAY’s report in March, notes the growing vulnerability of the nation’s increasingly sophisticated bulk electric system.
“As the electric grid continues to be modernized and become more interconnected,” the charter states, “the threat of a potential cybersecurity breach significantly increases.”
Don’t Look Now, Cuban Refugees on top of Syrian/Mexican
Every action has a reaction, actually a consequence. While America is generous and benevolent, it comes at a cost. That cost most often is impossible to measure.
Politicians and even presidential candidates have spoken positively in recent days about taking in refugees from the Middle East, but America already has an existing crisis and is there a quota or limitation? Hungary says no.
No country in the Gulf States is taking or has taken any refugees, and Kuwait for sure says no due to different backgrounds and culture.
The matter of Mexican, Central and Latin American refugees is well known, but more Cubans?
Cubans Flood Texas Ports After Thaw in Relations
Call it another immigration surge of the United States’ own making. But unlike last summer’s crisis of children and families arriving from Central America, lawmakers aren’t quick to call on this current group of refugees to go home.
From October 2014 to June 2015, about 18,520 Cubans have sought entry to the United States through Texas’ Laredo field office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes ports from Del Rio to Brownsville. That’s compared to the 18,240 unaccompanied minors that were caught or surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley from October 2014 through July of this year, according to CBP statistics.
If current trend holds, the number of Cubans seeking entry through Laredo will be about 24,700 this fiscal year. That’s about 60 percent more than 2014’s 15,600 and nearly twice as many as 2013’s 12,445.
The influx of Cubans to Texas is a result of the Obama administration’s efforts to normalize relations with the communist Castro regime, said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
“That is a jaw dropping statistic that I haven’t seen before,” Rosenblum said of the spike. “In general there is a suspicion among many Cubans that the special status that Cubans receive is in jeopardy.”
The special status is a policy allowing Cubans who make it to a U. S. port of entry to enter and seek legal permanent residency status, known as a green card, after one year. Unlike the Central Americans smuggled illegally through Mexico, the Cubans can travel freely through the country as they migrate northward.
“We’re seeing a surge that started with the announcement of normalized relations last year and there is a longer-term trend of people coming to Mexico rather than risking the sea voyage because [Mexico] is a more reliable way to go,” Rosenblum added.
Though the number of Central American minors is down from last summer’s massive wave when more than 46,000 came to Texas through the Rio Grande Valley, the political firestorm that surge created still rages.
Before taking office as Texas governor, Greg Abbott filed a lawsuit while attorney general to halt President Obama’s immigration policy that would have shielded millions of undocumented Texans from deportation. That policy is still on hold and Abbott cited last summer’s crisis as one reason he filed the lawsuit, claiming Texas witnessed firsthand the ill effects of Obama’s policies that included 2012’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
Texas Republican U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz have also cited Obama’s immigration policies as a magnet that lures more undocumented immigrants toward Texas and blasted the president during last summer’s surge. Cornyn filed legislation last summer that, if passed, would have allowed for the immediate deportations of Central Americans and Cruz has promised to scale back Obama’s immigration policies if elected president.
Neither Abbott nor Cornyn responded to a request for comment. Cruz, whose own father fled Cuba and settled in Texas, also declined to comment.
The current policy toward Cubans is an amended version of the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, which applied to most immigrants from the island nation who sought entry to the United States. Under a revision agreed upon during the Clinton Administration, called the Wet Foot/Dry Foot policy, Cubans who reach the United States can apply for entry while Cubans found at sea are sent back home or to a third country. Rick Pauza, a spokesman for CBP in Laredo, said the current negotiations between the United States and Cuba have not affected long-standing policy regarding Cubans seeking entry to the country.
“Normally, if a Cuban national arriving at a Customs & Border Protection (CBP) port of entry or between ports expresses fear of return to Cuba or their country of last residence, he or she is inspected and may qualify for parole into the U.S.,” he said in an email. “CBP Officers and Agents will first verify the individuals’ citizenship, identity, and whether they have prior criminal or U.S. immigration history. After one year in the U.S., the Cuban national may be eligible under the Cuban Refugee Adjustment Act of 1966 to apply for lawful permanent residence.”
Immigrant rights’ groups have been critical of what they say is a double standard in U.S. immigration policy. They argue that instead of being detained or deported, a Central American or Mexican escaping persecution should be paroled in to the country like a Cuban is.
Rosenblum said that’s a valid argument.
“It’s hard to make the case that Cuba has uniquely difficult conditions that would justify the total unique status that Cubans arriving in the United States receive,” he said. “There are Cubans who are persecuted and who don’t have political freedoms but the situation there is certainly comparable to Central America or Mexico or a dozen other countries you can name around the world.”
In 2013, the estimated 18,000 Cubans who arrived at U.S. land ports were paroled into the country and subsequently awarded green cards, Rosenblum said.
Though Cuba and the United States have started a dialogue, Rosenblum said he didn’t see immediate change on the forefront.
“I think for sweeping change you would want to see legislation and that’s unlikely because this is a hard issue for Congress to take up, particularly as we enter an election season,” he said. But the administration could roll back current provisions that allow DHS to issue Cubans green cards. That notion could even garner some GOP support he added as some Republicans have already expressed concerns that some of the Cubans arriving in the United States could be considered criminals in their country. Rosenblum said that according MPI data, about 90 Cubans have been deported every year since 2009. Most of them had criminal records, he said.
Exactly How Many Chemical Weapons Red-lines?
It must be said and remembered that Barack Obama and John Kerry demanded action on Syria due to the red-line being crossed. No one had the will, so chemical weapons have been used often and in Iraq as well.
When it was said by the American people, that Syria was not our war and we had no international obligation or interest, think again. Barack Obama today approved 10,000 Syrian refugees into our homeland, with the option of up to 30,000. Now, it is our problem.
US official: ‘IS making and using chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria’
BBC: There is a growing belief within the US government that the Islamic State militant group is making and using crude chemical weapons in Iraq and Syria, a US official has told the BBC.
The US has identified at least four occasions on both sides of the Iraq-Syria border where IS has used mustard agents, the official said.
The official said the chemical was being used in powder form.
The US believes the group has a cell dedicated to building these weapons.
“They’re using mustard,” the individual said of IS. “We know they are.”
The mustard agent was probably being used in powder form and packed into traditional explosives like mortar rounds, the official said.
When these weapons explode the mustard-laced dust blisters those who are exposed to it.
Alternative theories
The official said the intelligence community believes there are three possible explanations for how IS acquired the deadly chemical agent.
The most plausible in the eyes of intelligence community, according to the official, is that they are manufacturing it.
“We assess that they have an active chemical weapons little research cell that they’re working on to try and get better at it,” the official said.
The alternative theories are that IS militants found chemical weapons caches in Iraq or in Syria.
It is unlikely that militants found the chemical agent in Iraq, the official said, because the US military would have likely discovered it during the military campaign it waged in the country for about a decade.
The official said that militants were unlikely to have seized the chemical agent from the Syrian regime before the regime was forced to hand over its stockpile under the threat of US air strikes in 2013.
The most likely theory, the official said, was that it was being made using knowledge that is widely available, and pointed out that the mustard agent is not a complex chemical to produce.
The US government’s position continues to be that it is investigating claims of chemical weapons use in Iraq and Syria, but the official speaking to the BBC said that many intelligence agencies now believe there is now enough evidence to back up these claims.
The official requested anonymity because that person was not authorised to speak about it publicly.
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Exclusive photos appear to show grisly effect of ISIS’ mustard gas attacks on Kurds
FNC: Kurdish forces battling ISIS in Iraq are suffering severe health effects and pleading with the international community for help after being attacked with chemical weapons including mustard gas, according to a western military expert embedded with them who provided gruesome photos backing the charges.
Exclusive images obtained by FoxNews.com show Kurdish fighters afflicted with the telltale burns and blisters sustained after fierce fighting as recently as last week in the mountainous Barzani Province. Fighters described being targeted by mortars that exploded to unleash clouds of toxic chemicals. Several are now being treated as recently as last week for severe burns and blisters, debilitating breathing problems and even blindness.
“The Kurdish forces have been attacked multiple times with chemical weapons – the last time was a week ago,” said Tony Schiena, of MOSAIC, a private military and intelligence outfit based in the U.S. and London that trains foreign militaries in tactical operations and intelligence gathering. “They are horrified, not only by the Islamic State’s use of mustard gas, but also chlorine, as well as another unidentified chemical agent they were told by foreign advisors could be sarin.”
“ … the way these symptoms changed over time, and the patients’ testimony about the circumstances of the poisoning all point to exposure to a chemical agent.”
– Pablo Marco, Doctors Without Borders
Sarin, a designated weapon of mass destruction, is a colorless and odorless nerve agent, while mustard gas is a chemical warfare agent widely used by the Germans in World War I.
Schiena, a former South African special operator hired to train Kurdish Peshmerga Special Forces in Iraq in counter terrorism and defensive tactics, told FoxNews.com he traveled with the head of Peshmerga military intelligence over the last several days through the mountains of the Barzani Province to the front lines. There, he met with base commanding generals, medics and victims of chemical weapons attacks who, in some cases, are still struggling a month after exposure.
Schiena said the fighters described a yellow gas that smelled like rotten onions and garlic, descriptions consistent with mustard gas. He said the Kurds desperately need masks and protective suits to continue their fight against the black-clad jihadist army. ISIS is armed with sophisticated weapons seized from Iraqi forces, plundered stockpiles from the arsenals of Saddam Hussein and an increasing number of improvised weapons, including chemicals, Schiena said.
For example, the Islamic State uses propane canisters filled with bolts and nails, valves added to either side, with a tail and wings welded on, to create a rocket that explodes on impact. The rocket disperses flaming hot bolts and nails as well as chemical weapons and can set off vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices such as a Hummer laden with explosives, or ordnances attached to suicide bombers.
Medical experts say these yellow blisters are a sure symptom of chemical weapons poisoning.
One Kurdish soldier said that of 52 mortars ISIS launched at his team during one attack, three released yellow smoke that caused their skin to immediately water, discharge liquids, blister and create large wounds. Soldiers exposed to the gas vomited and experienced extreme abdominal pain and severe burning and itching eyes. Other mortars discharged a silver glittery substance that stuck to their skin like glue. The Kurdish soldiers said the Iraqi military also said ISIS used these chemical weapons on their forces.
“Imagine being the only organized force fighting this great evil on the front lines, getting hit by chemical weapons and you have nothing, not even a mask to protect yourself,” Schiena said.
Schiena appealed to Prince Ali of Jordan, who he said arranged for delivery of 1,000 gas masks, but said many more are needed. He questioned why the U.S. and other countries aren’t providing more support to the Kurdish fighters.
Ryan Mauro, national security analyst for the Clarion Project, said one key question is where the chemical weapons originated from.
Fighters on the front lines had no protective gear, according to Tony Schiena, shown above inspecting the wounds of a Kurdish fighter.
“Are they from the old stockpiles that Saddam Hussein supposedly didn’t have, or did they come from the Syrian regime’s stockpile that they claim to have disarmed?” Mauro asked.
Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service BND has documented the Islamic State’s use of mustard gas, according to a Sept. 7 article in the German daily newspaper Bild, which said agents took blood samples from Kurds injured in clashes with ISIS in Northern Iraq.
While the U.S. Defense Department won’t confirm the Islamic State is using mustard gas, Pentagon spokeswoman Cmdr. Elissa Smith said officials have reviewed the most recent reports detailing the alleged use of chemical weapons by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
“While we will not comment on intelligence or operational matters, let us be clear: Any use by any party, be it state or non-state actor, of a chemical as a weapon of any kind is an abhorrent act,” Smith said. “Given the alleged behavior of ISIL and other such groups in the region, any such flagrant disregard for international standards and norms is reprehensible.”
She said the U.S. military continues to work with coalition partners to ultimately “destroy” ISIS.
“More than 60 partners are contributing to this coalition along the key lines of effort including military support, countering ISIL’s finances, countering foreign fighters flows, exposing ISIL’s true nature, and providing humanitarian support,” Smith said.
The coalition also has been working with the government of Iraq to provide support through training and equipping. In addition, the U.S. is spending an average of $9.9 million a day, or $3.7 billion since Aug. 8, 2014, for 373 days of operations.
“We have seen that with effective training, equipping, and command and control, and backed by Coalition airpower, that the Iraqi forces absolutely have the will to fight,” Smith said. “We have seen this repeatedly from the Iraqi Security Forces, including the Kurdish Peshmerga — in Tikrit, in Baghdadi, in Haditha, at Sinjar Mountain, at Rabiya, and at Mosul Dam.”
Civilians also have been targets of the chemical weapons, according to the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders.
A family in the Azaz District in Northern Syria was attacked in their own home on Aug. 21 with a mortar that discharged a yellow gas.
The three-year-old girl and a five-day-old baby girl along with their parents arrived at a Doctors Without Borders hospital one hour after the attack, suffering from respiratory difficulties, inflamed skin, red eyes, and conjunctivitis. Within three hours they developed blisters and their respiratory difficulties worsened, the group reported.
“[Doctors Without Borders] has no laboratory evidence to confirm the cause of these symptoms,” said Pablo Marco, Doctors Without Borders’ program manager for Syria, in a statement. “However, the patients’ clinical symptoms, the way these symptoms changed over time, and the patients’ testimony about the circumstances of the poisoning all point to exposure to a chemical agent.”
Now Hiring, Clinton Email Handlers
This appears as though a payroll cost to hire these people could be in the range of $500,000. Send the bill to the Clinton Foundation.
(By the way, as you read below, Janice Jacobs was the woman who did the Lois Lerner, IRS emails)
Is it only me that wonders how come no one is talking about a search warrant or gathering the meta-data from Hillary’s Blackberry phone, her iPhone and her iPad? It is notable, all photos of Hillary communicating have been through portable devices and not on a laptop or desktop computer. Hello???
As the world turns in Washington DC, the State Department is spun out of control.
Exclusive: U.S. to shift 50 staff to boost office handling Clinton emails
The U.S. State Department plans to move about 50 workers into temporary jobs to bolster the office sifting through Hillary Clinton’s emails and grappling with a vast backlog of other requests for information to be declassified, officials said on Tuesday.
The move illustrates the huge administrative burden caused by Clinton’s decision to use a private email address for official communications as secretary of state and a judge’s ruling in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that they be released.
Clinton on Tuesday for the first time apologized for her use of private email, telling ABC News: “That was a mistake. I’m sorry about that.” The news channel reported the comment before broadcast of the full interview at 6:30 p.m. ET.
The extra staff will not work on the monthly, court-ordered release of Clinton emails, which are being handled by about 20 permanent, and 30 part-time, workers, officials said. The new staff will fill in for those workers and may also handle other Clinton FOIA requests.
The front-runner to be the Democratic presidential candidate in the 2016 election has been heavily criticized since it emerged in March that she used the private set-up rather than a government-issued email address.
In a notice to employees on Sept. 2, the State Department advertised for people with skills in coordinating and assessing FOIA requests and deciding if information may be declassified and released to the public.
The notice, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, is entitled “Enhancing Transparency: Immediate Detail Opportunities At State” and calls for workers to apply for reassignment for 9 to 12 months. Applications are due on Thursday and the agency plans to make selections by Sept. 18.
In addition to filling in for workers pulled from their normal duties to handle the crush of work from the Clinton emails, officials said the extra staff would help the department grapple with a surge in FOIA requests more generally, related litigation and a huge backlog of information requests.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that he was naming Ambassador Janice Jacobs to serve as the State Department’s “transparency coordinator” to help the agency respond to FOIA and congressional requests more efficiently.
The agency had an overall backlog of 10,045 FOIA requests at the end of fiscal year 2014 on Sept. 30, up about 15.8 percent from the previous year, according to its FOIA reports.
There is more of course…..
Lawsuit asks how Clinton lawyer got OK to store classified emails
A new lawsuit is demanding that the State Department explain how Hillary Clinton’s private attorney, David Kendall, got permission from the State Department to retain copies of Clinton’s emails after the agency determined some of them were classified.
The suit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Washington by freelance journalist David Brown, who sent State a Freedom of Information Act request last month asking for all records about the decision to allow Kendall to retain a thumb drive containing copies of about 30,000 emails Clinton turned over to State in December.
Kendall said in a letter to Congress recently that on July 8, the State Department provided him and his law partner Katherine Turner with a safe to hold the drive. He said both he and Turner have “TOP SECRET” clearances.
After a request from the FBI to return all copies of the emails, Clinton instructed Kendall to give up the thumb drive, which he did in early August.
Lawyers who represent clients in national security cases say it’s highly unusual for a private attorney to be given permission to hold classified records.
“If one of us tried to do this, we’d have our clearance yanked that very day and have a search warrant served on us and something different happened here,” said Brown’s attorney Kel McClanahan. “Not only agree did [State] allow him to maintain these records, but it’s unclear if they even pushed back. … We decided somebody needs to get to the bottom of what exactly happened here. What is it: favoritism or did David Kendall somehow satisify some requirement that others of us never even knew to aim for?”
Kendall and the Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the case.
State agreed to “expedite” Brown’s FOIA request, but has not released any records about the agency’s decisionmaking on the issue, according to Brown’s complaint (posted here).
A State spokesman declined to comment, citing a policy of not commenting on ongoing litigation.
Brown’s work has appeared previously in the Atlantic and just Tuesday on the New York Times op-ed page. The former Army paratrooper is–under the pseudonym D.B. Grady–also the co-author with Marc Ambinder of a 2013 book on government secrecy, “Deep State.”