Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

Additional Details: Hillary Emails, V. FBI, V State and Sidney

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New Clinton email files detail FBI-State tussle over Benghazi message

Politico: Newly-released records about the Hillary Clinton email investigation shed new light on an early dispute between the FBI and the State Department over the classification of an email discussing the aftermath of the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

The 299 pages of internal FBI records, apparently released over the weekend on the FBI’s Freedom of Information Act page, describe the bureau’s reaction to State’s protest of an FBI decision to classify a November 2012 State email discussing arrests in the Benghazi attacks.

The email was the first from Clinton’s private account and server to be publicly identified as “SECRET,” fueling arguments that Clinton and State had been careless in handling sensitive information.

Notations applied to the message when it was reviewed in 2015 show it was classified because of the potential impact on U.S. relations overseas. However, the newly-disclosed FBI communications messages show one official there argued that the message should actually be classified based on its potential to disclose intelligence “sources and methods”—a designation that could have raised red flags with the press and on Capitol Hill.

“The redaction lists ‘interference with foreign relations as the rationale.’ The crux of States [sic] argument is they know better what will impact foreign relations and there is no longer a government in place” in Libya, the unidentified FBI official wrote to Michelle Jupina, the FBI Assistant Director for Records Management. “The more appropriate rationale is sources and methods. While the email does not name the particular official, this might be deduced and, given the threat of violence in the region, any surmise could be fatal for whoever cooperated with us. State will say no one will know if it is redacted, but that is not how classification works.”

The message shows Deputy Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy intervened with the FBI to dispute the classification at least three times: in a May 14, 2015, call to International Operations Division chief Brian McCauley, at an in-person meeting at the State Department five days later and in a phone conversation with the head of FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, Michael Steinbach.

The unnamed FBI author of the message to Jupina said Kennedy summoned various officials to State to discuss the review of 55,000 of Clinton emails requested under FOIA. At that meeting, Kennedy asked the FBI representative and a Justice Department FOIA official to “stay behind to discuss the FBI determination” on classification in the first batch of Clinton emails, the FBI email says.

An email from Steinbach said he turned down Kennedy’s request that the information be withheld solely under a FOIA provision for protection of law enforcement sources, rather than by classifying it.

“I explained to Mr. Kennedy that to only exempt for (b)(7)(D) was not appropriate as the information in the two portions in question was classified at the Secret/NOFORN level,” Steinbach wrote.

Even after that decision, the FBI got another high-level contact on the issue from State that same day, with Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff Jon Finer calling Jim Rybicki, then-deputy chief of staff to FBI Director James Comey.

“Finer…stated that he was not attempting to change [Steinbach’s] classification decision, and said that he just wanted to make sure that FBI leadership was aware of the decision and the procedural process and media attention it would likely trigger,” Rybicki wrote in an email to several colleagues. “I relayed back to the State Department that leadership is aware of the review process and decision.”

Rybicki said Finer asked if the FBI could classify the information rather than State doing so at FBI’s request. When the email was released, State officials said they were withholding it at FBI’s request.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that the new records demonstrate the department’s longstanding contention that it did not feel the specific document needed to be upgraded and that there were discussions among agencies about the issue.

“Classification is an art, not a science, and individuals with classification authority sometimes have different views. We have an obligation to ensure determinations as they relate to classification are made appropriately,” Kirby said in a statement.

He added, “With respect to Mr. Finer, the material recently released by the FBI makes clear that he did not contact them to change the classification of the email. On the contrary, this was routine contact to ensure appropriate leadership in both agencies were prepared to respond to questions. As is well known and was discussed publicly at the time, the State Department did upgrade the document at the request of the FBI when we released it back in May 2015.”

Some indications of the FBI-State dispute appeared in records released in October, leading then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to argue on the campaign trail that Kennedy had proposed a trade-off where State would increase FBI staffing levels overseas if State withdrew its claim that the Benghazi-related email was classified.

The notion of such a quid pro quo apparently originated with a records official at the FBI, but Kennedy flatly denied it. In addition, McCauley said he did not believe Kennedy was proposing such a trade-off, although the pair did discuss both issues in a single phone call.

While the classification dispute over the Benghazi-related message appears to have been heavily litigated, it would wind up being just the tip of the iceberg. In a statement in July, Comey said 110 emails in Clinton’s account were classified at the time they were sent, with eight email chains considered “Top Secret” at the time they were sent and 36 chains containing “Secret”-level information. None of those messages was properly marked as classified, he said.

The newly-released FBI emails and memos also contain some other details about the Clinton email probe that have not been previously reported or received little notice:

–The Secret Service rebuffed the FBI’s initial request for assistance in the investigation, according to a memo which suggests some tensions between the two law enforcement agencies.

At a July 28, 2015, meeting, a Secret Service official “advised that his management told him that any FBI request for information or assistance related to this matter would need to come via written request from the Department of Justice to the Department of Homeland Security, which would then forward the request to the USSS,” an FBI memo said. After consulting with Secret Service managers about the requested assistance, the official “refused to identify [to the FBI] the specific USSS manager(s) to whom he spoke.”

The FBI eventually obtained information on the Secret Service’s assistance to former President Bill Clinton with security issues related to his computer server, which eventually became the one hosting Hillary Clinton’s much-discussed private account.

–The FBI apparently took a week to notify the Justice Department after receiving a formal referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General about the Clinton email matter in July 2015. A memo from Deputy FBI Director Mark Giuliano says the FBI got the referral on July 6, formally opened its full investigation on July 10, and first advised Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on July 13.

–The investigation itself was treated as classified at its outset, but was declassified in August 2015. Internal FBI memos say it was determined that an initial batch of emails from Clinton’s account released by State under FOIA contained “Top Secret” information. The memo declassifying the investigation says that information was deemed not to be so sensitive that it could not be discussed more widely. “No previously unknown sources or informants were revealed in the identified material…. No sensitive sources or methods were disclosed.”

–The email investigation was also designated as “sensitive” and its records were closely-held at the FBI because of Clinton’s status as a political candidate.

–The FBI obtained a special “one-time” approval to show Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal a copy of one of his own emails to Clinton about the political situation in Kyrgyzstan. A January 5, 2016, FBI memo says the email has “since been deemed to contain classified FBI information.” The “SECRET” portion of the April 2010 message relates to what Blumenthal called an “ongoing criminal investigation.”

–An internal FBI profile of longtime Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper derived information from a publication of the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch. The group had tracked Cooper’s links to Teneo Holdings, a consulting firm founded by individuals with close ties to the Clintons.

Obama’s Parting Gift? Lots more Money to Iran

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 Business Insider

Meanwhile,

CBS: WASHINGTON — A U.S. Navy destroyer fired multiple warning shots at Iranian patrol boats as they sped toward the destroyer at the entrance to the Persian Gulf “with their weapons manned,” U.S. defense officials said.

The crew of the USS Mahan fired the warning shots after attempting to establish contact with the Iranians and after dropping smoke flares, the officials said. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly as so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. Navy occasionally has confrontations with Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf but they do not usually reach the point of prompting warning shots by the U.S.

A U.S. Navy official told CBS News the Mahan was transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday when the Iranian boats sped toward it and failed to halt despite U.S. cautionary moves.

S0….  

Iran: U.S. Surrendered More Than $10 Billion in Gold, Cash, Assets

Obama admin lowballs cost of dealing with Iran

FreeBeacon: The Obama administration has paid Iran more than $10 billion in gold, cash, and other assets since 2013, according to Iranian officials, who disclosed that the White House has been intentionally deflating the total amount paid to the Islamic Republic.

Senior Iranian officials late last week confirmed reports that the total amount of money paid to Iran over the past four years is in excess of $10 billion, a figure that runs counter to official estimates provided by the White House.

The latest disclosure by Iran, which comports with previous claims about the Obama administration obfuscating details about its cash transfers to Iran—including a $1.7 billion cash payment included in a ransom to free Americans—sheds further light on the White House’s back room dealings to bolster Iran’s economy and preserve the Iran nuclear agreement.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi confirmed last week a recent report in the Wall Street Journal detailing some $10 billion in cash and assets provided to Iran since 2013, when the administration was engaging in sensitive diplomacy with Tehran aimed at securing the nuclear deal.

Ghasemi disclosed that the $10 billion figure just scratches the surface of the total amount given to Iran by the United States over the past several years.

“I will not speak about the precise amount,” Ghasemi was quoted as saying in Persian language reports independently translated for the Washington Free Beacon.

The $10 billion figure is actually a “stingy” estimate, Ghasemi claimed, adding that a combination of cash, gold, and other assets was sent by Washington to Iran’s Central Bank and subsequently “spent.”

“This report is true but the value was higher,” Ghassemi was quoted as saying.

“After the Geneva conference and the resulting agreement, it was decided that $700 million dollars were to be dispensed per month” by the U.S., according to Ghassemi. “In addition to the cash funds which we received, we [also] received our deliveries in gold, bullion, and other things.”

Regional experts who spoke to the Free Beacon about these disclosures said that the $10 billion figure offered by the Obama administration should be viewed “as a conservative estimate for what Iran was paid to stay at the table and negotiate.”

“Iran does have incentives to overstate this figure,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Free Beacon. “But given the recent state-sponsored narrative in Iran about a Western and particularly American failing to offer sanctions relief, this reads much more as fact rather than another instance of disinformation from Tehran.”

It is likely Iran spent a portion of this money to fund its regional terror operations and military enterprise to bolster embattled Syrian President Bashar al Assad, Ben Taleblu said.

“Given the nature of some of this sanctions relief (through the provision of gold and unfrozen assets), this money likely underwrote some of the Islamic Republic’s more destabilizing regional activities,” he explained. “At the macro level, all of this continues to prove one larger point: The way the Iran deal was handled and the provision of sanctions relief during and after the talks that led to the nuclear accord continues to create problems for those interested in defending the integrity of the international financial system.”

One veteran foreign policy insider familiar with the administration’s outreach to Iran told the Free Beacon that the White House has a history of deflating these figures in order to obfuscate details about its contested diplomacy with the Islamic Republic.

“This is how it always happens when the Obama administration secretly sends money to Iran,” said the source, who would only speak on background when discussing the outgoing administration’s strategy. “They deny it until they’re caught, then they lowball it until they’re caught again, then they say it’s old news. In every single case where Iranian officials confirms these transfers while Obama officials denied them, it later turned out the Iranian officials were the ones telling the truth.”

U.N. chief concerned Iran may have violated arms embargo: report

The United Nations chief expressed concern to the Security Council that Iran may have violated an arms embargo by supplying weapons and missiles to Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, according to a confidential report, seen by Reuters on Sunday.

The second bi-annual report, due to be discussed by the 15-member council on Jan. 18, also cites an accusation by France that an arms shipment seized in the northern Indian Ocean in March was from Iran and likely bound for Somalia or Yemen.

Most U.N. sanctions were lifted a year ago under a deal Iran made with Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, the United States and the European Union to curb its nuclear program. But Iran is still subject to an arms embargo and other restrictions, which are not technically part of the nuclear agreement.

The report was submitted to the Security Council on Dec. 30 by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon before he was succeeded by Antonio Guterres on Jan. 1. It comes just weeks before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened to either scrap the nuclear agreement or seek a better deal, takes office.

“In a televised speech broadcast by Al Manar TV on 24 June 2016, Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, stated that the budget of Hezbollah, its salaries, expenses, weapons and missiles all came from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Ban wrote in the report.

“I am very concerned by this statement, which suggests that transfers of arms and related materiel from the Islamic Republic of Iran to Hezbollah may have been undertaken contrary (to a Security Council resolution),” Ban said.

When asked by the United Nations to clarify the issue, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said “measures undertaken by the Islamic Republic of Iran in combating terrorism and violent extremism in the region have been consistent with its national security interests and international commitments.”

Under a Security Council resolution enshrining the deal, which came into effect a year ago, the U.N. secretary-general is required to report every six months to the council on any violations of sanctions still in place. More here from Reuters.

Are Un-Vetted Illegals Sitting Next to you on the Plane?

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Feds Admit to Putting Migrants on Planes for U.S. Destinations

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have admitted that they are not only releasing illegal immigrants at bus stations, they are also “identify[ing]” and transporting them to airports for travel to various destinations within the country. Officials say these undocumented migrants are from Central America.

The migrants are given notices to appear and are promising to later reappear before an immigration judge. Missing from the recent announcement is an explanation of the types of identification are being used to board commercial flights.

The announcement from immigration and enforcement officials that they are taking illegal immigrants to airports, came in response to a local news report and inquiry by KGNS.

Breitbart Texas and KGNS reported during the first days of January that bus station employees in Laredo, Texas were reporting that a holding center for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was releasing between 20 and 40 undocumented women during at least five bus trips.

8KGNS-TV first heard that 400 migrants were headed to the border city but it has been difficult to ascertain the definite number released by the agency. Officials said that the undocumented females met federal release eligibility requirements. Local officials say that the City of Laredo was not notified by anyone in the federal government.

ICE officials sent KGNS a statement that acknowledged what they reported on January 2 about just one of the groups of women. The statement said:

On December 29th, officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Laredo, Texas, released 39 females from Central America on their own recognizance after they were briefly detained and issued notices to appear before a federal immigration judge.

During the recent increase of individuals illegally entering the United States in south Texas, individuals who have final destinations within the U.S. are identified and transported to bus terminals and airports.

The question remains just how these “individuals who have final destinations within the U.S.” are “identified” before they are transported to not only bus terminals but to U.S. airports. Breitbart Texas sent an inquiry requesting information on how many illegal aliens were transported at taxpayer expense via commercial airlines. The inquiry also included a request for the type of identification being used by these passengers allowing them to board the airline flights.

In July 2014, Breitbart Texas reported that according to information exclusively provided to us from the National Border Patrol Council (NBPC), illegal aliens were being allowed to fly on commercial airliners without valid identification. “The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms,” NBPC’s Local 2455 Spokesman, Hector Garza, told Breitbart Texas at the time.

The Local 2455 Border Patrol spokesman said that the planes being used by the migrants were “the same planes that the American public uses for domestic travel.” More important details here from Breitbart.

2015 Judicial Watch:

To facilitate the often treacherous process of entering the United States illegally through the southern border, the Obama administration is offering free transportation from three Central American countries and a special refugee/parole program with “resettlement assistance” and permanent residency.

Under the new initiative the administration has rebranded the official name it originally assigned to the droves of illegal immigrant minors who continue sneaking into the U.S. They’re no longer known as Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC), a term that evidently was offensive and not politically correct enough for the powerful open borders movement. The new arrivals will be officially known as Central American Minors (CAM) and they will be eligible for a special refugee/parole that offers a free one-way flight to the U.S. from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras. The project is a joint venture between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the State Department.

Specifically, the “program provides certain children in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras with a safe, legal, and orderly alternative to the dangerous journey that some children are undertaking to the United States,” according to a DHS memo obtained by JW this week. The document goes on to say that the CAM program has started accepting applications from “qualifying parents” to bring their offspring under the age of 21 from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras. The candidates will then be granted a special refugee parole, which includes many taxpayer-funded perks and benefits. Among them is a free education, food stamps, medical care and living expenses.

During a special teleconference this week officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department explained how CAM will work. Only “friendly” groups and individuals invited by the government were allowed to participate and the event was not open to the media. Judicial Watch attended as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with interest in the matter. Obama administration officials offered an overview of the new CAM initiative and confirmed that the U.S. has deployed staff to the region to handle the influx of applicants. A State Department official promoted CAM as a “family reunification” program that will be completely funded by American taxpayers, though the official claimed to have no idea what the cost will be.

Then there is this:

Providing Immigration Benefits & Information

The Department of Homeland Security, through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), provides immigration benefits to people who are entitled to stay in the U.S. on a temporary or permanent basis. These benefits include

  • granting of U.S. citizenship to those who are eligible to naturalize,
  • authorizing individuals to reside in the U.S. on a permanent basis, and
  • providing aliens with the eligibility to work in the United States

Humanitarian Immigration Programs

Dear America, Please Honor my Presidency. Love, Barack

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Cabinet Exit Memos: Our Record of Progress and the Work Ahead   <– Click for the charts/graphs included. Obama is expected to deliver a farewell address on Tuesday in Chicago.

 

Obama defends legacy in letter to American people

To my fellow Americans,

Eight years ago, America faced a moment of peril unlike any we’d seen in decades.

A spiraling financial crisis threatened to plunge an economy in recession into a deep depression. The very heartbeat of American manufacturing — the American auto industry — was on the brink of collapse. In some communities, nearly one in five Americans were out of work. Nearly 180,000 American troops were serving in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the mastermind of the worst terror attack on American soil remained at large. And on challenges from health care to climate change, we’d been kicking the can down the road for way too long.

But in the depths of that winter, on January 20, 2009, I stood before you and swore a sacred oath. I told you that day that the challenges we faced would not be met easily or in a short span of time — but they would be met. And after eight busy years, we’ve met them — because of you.

Eight years later, an economy that was shrinking at more than eight percent is now growing at more than three percent. Businesses that were bleeding jobs unleashed the longest streak of job creation on record. The auto industry has roared its way back, saving one million jobs across the country and fueling a manufacturing sector that, after a decade of decline, has added new jobs for the first time since the 1990s. And wages have grown faster over the past few years than at any time in the past forty.

Today, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, another 20 million American adults know the financial security and peace of mind that comes with health insurance. Another three million children have gained health insurance. For the first time ever, more than ninety percent of Americans are insured — the highest rate ever. We’ve seen the slowest growth in the price of health care in fifty years, along with improvements in patient safety that have prevented an estimated 87,000 deaths. Every American with insurance is covered by the strongest set of consumer protections in history — a true Patients’ Bill of Rights — and free from the fear that illness or accident will derail your dreams, because America is now a place where discrimination against preexisting conditions is a relic of the past. And the new health insurance marketplace means that if you lose your job, change your job, or start that new business, you’ll finally be able to purchase quality, affordable care and the security and peace of mind that comes with it — and that’s one  reason why entrepreneurship is growing for the second straight year.

Our dependence on foreign oil has been cut by more than half, and our production of renewable energy has more than doubled. In many places across the country, clean energy from the wind is now cheaper than dirtier sources of energy, and solar now employs more Americans than coal mining in jobs that pay better than average and can’t be outsourced. We also enacted the most sweeping reforms since the Great Depression to protect consumers and prevent a crisis on Wall Street from punishing Main Street ever again. These actions didn’t stifle growth, as critics predicted. Instead, the stock market has nearly tripled. Since I signed Obamacare into law, America’s businesses have added more than 15 million new jobs. And the economy is undoubtedly more durable than it was in the days when we relied on oil from unstable nations and banks took risky bets with your money.

The high school graduation rate is now 83 percent — the highest on record — and we’ve helped more young people graduate from college than ever before.

At the same time, we’ve worked to offer more options for Americans who decide not to pursue college, from expanding apprenticeships, to launching high-tech manufacturing institutes, to revamping the job training system and creating programs like TechHire to help people train for higher-paying jobs in months, not years. We’ve connected more schools across the country to broadband internet, and supported more teachers to bring coding, hands-on making, and computational thinking into our classrooms to prepare all our children for a 21st century economy.

Add it all up, and last year, the poverty rate fell at the fastest rate in almost fifty years while the median household income grew at the fastest rate on record. And we’ve done it all while cutting our deficits by nearly two-thirds even as we protected investments that grow the middle class.

Meanwhile, over the past eight years, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland. Plots have been disrupted. Terrorists like Osama bin Laden have been taken off the battlefield. We’ve drawn down from nearly 180,000 troops in harm’s way in Iraq and Afghanistan to just 15,000. With a coalition of more than 70 nations and a relentless campaign of more than 16,000 airstrikes so far, we are breaking the back of ISIL and taking away its safe havens, and we’ve accomplished this at a cost of $10 billion over two years — the same amount that we spent in one month at the height of the Iraq War.

At the same time, America has led the world to meet a set of global challenges. Through diplomacy, we shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program, opened up a new chapter with the people of Cuba, and brought nearly 200 nations together around a climate agreement that could save this planet for our kids. With new models for development, American assistance is helping people around the world feed themselves, care for their sick, and power communities across Africa. And almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago. All of this progress is due to the service of millions of Americans in intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security, diplomacy, and the brave men and women of our Armed Forces — the most diverse institution in America.

We’ve also worked to make the changing face of America more fair and more just — including by making strides towards criminal justice reform, making progress towards equal pay, repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and advancing the cause of civil rights, women’s rights, and LGBT rights. I appointed two extraordinary women to the Supreme Court, marking the first time in history that three women sit on the bench, including the first Latina. And today in America, marriage equality is finally a reality across all fifty states.

This is where America stands after eight years of progress. By so many measures, our country is stronger and more prosperous than it was when we started — a situation I’m proud to leave for my successor. And it’s thanks to you — to the hard work you’ve put in; the sacrifices you’ve made for your families and communities; the way you’ve looked out for one another.

Still, through every victory and every setback, I’ve insisted that change is never easy, and never quick; that we wouldn’t meet all of our challenges in one term, or one presidency, or even in one lifetime. And for all that we’ve achieved, there’s still so much I wish we’d been able to do, from enacting gun safety measures to protect more of our kids and our cops from mass shootings like Newtown, to passing commonsense immigration reform that encourages the best and brightest from around the world to study, stay, and create jobs in America.

And for all the incredible progress our economy has made in just eight years, we still have more work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a dignified retirement. We have to acknowledge the inequality that has come from an increasingly globalized economy while committing ourselves to making it work better for everyone, not just those at the top, and give everyone who works hard a fair shot at success.

 And here’s the thing — over the past eight years, we’ve shown that we can. Last year, income gains were actually larger for households at the bottom and the middle than for those at the top. We’ve also made the tax code fairer. The tax changes enacted over the past eight years have ensured that the top one percent of Americans pay more of their fair share, increasing the share of income received by all other families by more than the tax changes in any previous administration since at least 1960. Simply put, we’ve actually begun the long task of reversing inequality. But as the global economy changes, we’ll have to do more to accelerate these trends, from strengthening unions that speak for workers, to preventing colleges from pricing out hardworking students, to making sure that minimum wage workers get a raise and women finally get paid the same as men for doing the same job. What won’t help is taking health care away from 30 million Americans, most of them white and working class; denying overtime pay to workers, most of whom have more than earned it; or privatizing Medicare  and Social Security and letting Wall Street regulate itself again — none of which middle-class Americans voted for.

We will have to move forward as we always have — together. As a people who believe that out of many, we are one; that we are bound not by any one race or religion, but rather an adherence to a common creed; that all of us are created equal in the eyes of God. And I’m confident we will. Because the change we’ve brought about these past eight years was never about me. It was about you. It is you, the American people, who have made the progress of the last eight years possible. It is you who will make our future progress possible. That, after all, is the story of America — a story of progress. However halting, however incomplete, however harshly challenged at each point on our journey — the story of America is a story of progress.

Recently, I asked each member of my talented and dedicated Cabinet to prepare a detailed report on the progress we’ve made across the board these past eight years, and the work that remains to make this country we love even stronger. Today, I’m sharing them with you. And I hope you’ll share them with others, and do your part to build on the progress we’ve made across the board.

It has been the privilege of my life to serve as your President. And as I prepare to pass the baton and do my part as a private citizen, I’m proud to say that we have laid a new foundation for America. A new future is ours to write. And I’m as confident as ever that it will be led by the United States of America — and that our best days are still ahead.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

Image result for obama white house chair

Cruz: Obama ‘rolled over’ on hacking and Trump gets Advice

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He is right and the proof most recently was in February of 2016, with the posted Executive Orders.

WASHINGTON — Through two executive orders signed Tuesday, President Obama put in place a structure to fortify the government’s defenses against cyber attacks and protect the personal information the government keeps about its citizens.

The orders came the same day as Obama sent to Congress a proposed 2017 budget that includes $19 billion for information technology upgrades and other cyber initiatives.

In September of 2015, Obama held a meeting on cyber with China’s Xi. Perhaps there was no formal sanction or punishment of China due in part to the U.S. debt they hold. Obama also held meetings with key Congressional leaders in 2015 on the issue of cyber. Going back to 2013, Obama held sessions with corporate CEO’s to discuss efforts to improve cybersecurity amid growing concerns within the administration over attacks from China targeting American businesses.

The president will discuss efforts to address the cyber threat facing the country and get the executives’ feedback on how the government and private sector can forge a relationship to improve cybersecurity in the United States, according to The White House. The meeting will be held in the Situation Room and attendees include AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and Northrup Grumman CEO Wesley Bush.

Not until February of 2016, did Obama launch the Cybersecurity National Action Plan which was headed by Tom Donilon, his National Security Advisor and Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM. There was no traction and given the recent cyber intrusions, there is likely a LOT of ‘ooops’ coming from the White House and should. No corporation, bank, government agency or other private entity ever wants to publically announced they have been hacked or their vulnerability, as it only invites more cyber chaos but the United States including top government agencies and the White House along with the State Department have all been victim of both Russian and Chinese cyber attacks of various forms.

***

Sen. Ted Cruz says he hopes the incoming Trump administration is tougher on dealing with cyberattacks than the “weakness” he saw from President Obama on hacking by Russia and other foreign adversaries.

“One of the reasons these cyberattacks are so prevalent is that Barack Obama and his administration have rolled over for eight years,” Cruz said Thursday on “The Mike Gallagher Show.”

“They have shown nothing but weakness and appeasement in the face of those attacks. This is something I hope and believe will change with the new administration,” he said.

Cruz insisted neither Russian hacking nor WikiLeaks revelations last year about the Democratic Party significantly influenced Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election.

“I think that there’s no evidence whatsoever that Russia’s efforts against us, which have been longstanding, did anything to affect the campaign,” said Cruz, who competed against Trump in last year’s GOP primaries.

“It’s, frankly, patently absurd,” Cruz added of claims Russia or WikiLeaks helped Trump win. “You can’t credibly argue that [WikiLeaks’] disclosures impacted the election because most voters never heard it.” More here from TheHill.

****

Task Force Issues Cybersecurity Advice to Donald Trump

‘From Awareness to Action: A Cybersecurity Agenda for the 45th President’

A task force co-chaired by two U.S. lawmakers and a former federal CIO is issuing a 34-page report recommending a cybersecurity agenda for the incoming Trump administration. The report recommends the new administration jettison outdated ways the federal government tackles cybersecurity, noting: “Once-powerful ideas have been transformed into clichés.”

The report from the CSIS Cyber Policy Task Force – From Awareness to Action: A Cybersecurity Agenda for the 45th President – will be formally unveiled on Jan. 5. It comes from the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, which sponsored the Commission on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency that made recommendations to then-President-elect Barack Obama in 2008.

“In the eight years since that report was published, there has been much activity, but despite an exponential increase in attention to cybersecurity, we are still at risk and there is much for the next administration to do,” the new report’s introduction states.

Cybersecurity Goals for Trump Administration

The task force outlined five major issues President-elect Donald Trump and his administration should address, including:

  1. Deciding on a new international strategy to account for a very different and dangerous global security environment.
  2. Making a greater effort to reduce and control cybercrime.
  3. Accelerating efforts to secure critical infrastructures and services and improving cyber hygiene across economic sectors. As part of this, the Trump administration must develop a new approach to securing government agencies and services and improve authentication of identity.
  4. Identifying where federal involvement in resource issues, such as research or workforce development, is necessary, and where such efforts are best left to the private sector.
  5. Considering how to organize the U.S. effort to defend cyberspace. Clarifying the role of the Department of Homeland Security is crucial, and the new administration must either strengthen DHS or create a new cybersecurity agency.

Ditching Outmoded Security Practices

Task force members recommend the new administration should get rid of outdated ways the federal government tackles cybersecurity. The report notes: “Statements about strengthening public-private partnerships, information sharing or innovation lead to policy dead ends. … Once-powerful ideas have been transformed into clichés. Others have become excuses for inaction.”

As an example, the task force cites the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, a government initiative unveiled in 2011, which envisioned a cyber-ecosystem that promotes trust and security while performing sensitive transactions online. The task force contends NSTIC “achieved little,” asserting that such initiatives fail because they aren’t attuned to market forces. “There are few takers for a product or service for which there is no demand or for which there are commercial alternatives.”

The task force makes recommendations on dozens of policies and technologies.

On encryption, for instance, it suggests that the president develop a policy that supports the use of strong encryption for privacy and security while specifying the conditions and processes under which assistance from the private sector for lawful access to data can be required. It also states that the president should direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology to work with encryption experts, technology providers and internet service providers to develop standards and ways to protect applications and data in the cloud and provide secure methods for data resiliency and recovery.

“Ultimately,” the report says, “encryption policy requires a political decision on risk. Untrammeled use of encryption increases the risk from crime and terrorism, but societies may find this risk acceptable given the difficulty of imposing restrictions. No one in our groups believed that risk currently justifies restrictions.”

Battling Cybercrime

In battling cybercrime, the task force sees “active defense,” a term it says has become associated with vigilantism, hack back and cyber privateers, as only a stopgap measure to address the private sector’s frustration over the apparent impunity of trans-border criminals. The Trump administration should seek ways to help companies move beyond their traditional perimeter defenses and focus on identifying federal actions that could disrupt cybercriminals’ business model or expand the work of federal agencies and service providers against botnets, according to the report.

To make cybercrime less profitable, the task force recommends the new administration identify actions that would impede the monetization of stolen data and credentials. Other recommendations include accelerating the move to multifactor authentication and identifying better ways to counter and disrupt botnets, a growing risk as more devices become connected to the internet. The task force says this could be done by expanding the ability to obtain civil injunctions for use against botnets and raising the penalties for using botnets against critical infrastructure.

The role of the military to protect civilian critical infrastructure turned out to be among the most contentious issues the group debated. A few task force members said that the Defense Department should play an expanded and perhaps leading role in critical infrastructure protection, according to the report. Most members, though, believed that this mission must be assigned to a civilian agency, not to DoD or a law enforcement agency such as the FBI.

“While recognizing that the National Security Agency, an element of DoD, has unrivaled skills, we believe that the best approach is to strengthen DHS, not to make it a ‘mini-NSA,’ and to focus its mission on mitigation of threats and attacks, not on retaliation, intelligence collection or law enforcement,” the report states.

Organizing Government Cybersecurity

DHS is the focal point in cybersecurity protection among civilian agencies as well as civilian-led critical infrastructure. The task force recommends that an independent agency be established within DHS focused exclusively on cybersecurity.

The task force says Trump should quickly name a new cybersecurity coordinator and elevate the White House position two notches to assistant to the president from special assistant to the president. Also, the group says Trump should back away from his pledge to conduct a cybersecurity review, as was done at the beginning of the Obama administration.

The task force co-chairs are:

  • Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee and co-founder of the Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus;
  • Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., sponsor of legislation to require federal law enforcement and national security agencies to account for cyberattacks;
  • Karen Evans, a cybersecurity adviser to the Trump transition team who’s national director of the U.S. Cyber Challenge and formerly served as White House administrator for e-government and information technology, a position now known as U.S. CIO; and
  • Sameer Bhalotra, co-founder and CEO of the cybersecurity startup Stackrox and a senior associate at CSIS.

CSIS Senior Vice President James Lewis, the think tank’s cybersecurity expert, served as the task force project director.

How bad is it?

USAToday:

Exhibit A: The Social Security Administration system still runs on a platform written in the 1960s in the COBOL programming language, and takes 400 people just to maintain, Obama said.

“If we’re going to really secure those in a serious way, then we need to upgrade them,” Obama told reporters Tuesday after meeting with advisers on the issue. “And that is something that we should all be able to agree on. This is not an ideological issue. It doesn’t matter whether there’s a Democratic President or a Republican President. If you’ve got broken, old systems — computers, mainframes, software that doesn’t work anymore — then you can keep on putting a bunch of patches on it, but it’s not going to make it safe.”

To implement those upgrades, Obama created two new entities Tuesday: The first, a Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, will be made up of business, technology, national security and law enforcement leaders who will make recommendations to strengthen online security in the public and private sectors. It will deliver a report to the president by Dec. 1.

The second, a Federal Privacy Council, will bring together chief privacy officers from 25 federal agencies to coordinate efforts to protect the vast amounts of data the federal government collects and maintains about taxpayers and citizens.

Obama’s cybersecurity adviser, Michael Daniel, said the structure allows the administration to move forward even without additional authority from Congress by “driving our executive authority to the limit.”

The administration’s plan will look at cybersecurity both inside and outside the government. There will be more training and shared resources among government agencies, 48 dedicated teams to respond to attacks, and student loan forgiveness to help recruit top technical talent.

But the will plan also promote better security practices throughout the economy, by encouraging through multi-factor authentication that uses additional information in addition to a password. The government is also looking to reduce its use of Social Security numbers the unique identifier for all Americans.

Across the government, the Obama administration wants to spend $19 billion on cybersecurity in 2017, a 35% increase over 2016. But the plan does not rely on an increase in funding. “We can do quite a bit of it even without the additional resources,” Daniel said.

The White House said it also plans to create the new position of Chief Information Security Officer to coordinate modernization efforts across the government, including a a $3.1 billion Information Technology Modernization Fund. “That’s a key role that many private-sector companies have long implemented, and it’s a good practice for the federal government,” said Tony Scott, the U.S. Chief Information Officer.

The president is expected to meet with national security advisers Tuesday morning to launch the new effort.