Category Archives: FBI

Foreign Service Personnel Dissent Letter to Pres. Trump

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We heard last week that several top policy people at the State Department left their positions. The State Department has a culture of very lenient diplomacy where few governments are ever disciplined or rebuked for decisions and actions that counter agreements, treaties, human rights and more. Iran is the topic example.

Now we have the next level of State Department personnel that are pushing back hard on President Trump’s Executive Order on suspension of travel visas and travel bans from listed countries. Secretary of State nominee, Rex Tillerson when confirmed will have a rank and file challenge on his hands.

Perhaps those behind the signatures on this dissent letter could answer some questions on the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission Report where the entire chapter was dedicated to immigration of which every member of Congress, both sides of the aisle signed in approval to accept the recommendations and work to implement. (Pre 9/11 status quo has infected diplomacy again)

Countless foreign service officers have drafted a memo to the White House.

LawFareBlog: Numerous Foreign Service officers and other diplomats have drafted a dissent memo expressing opposition to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning refugees and immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen from entering the United States. ABC reported this morning on the draft, which is likely to be submitted today.

Here’s a copy of the actual draft. We are hearing that literally hundreds of foreign service officers are planning to be party to the dissent memo; it’s still unclear exactly how many. We have redacted all names and personally identifiable information from this document.

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(First page on the left) The State Department’s Dissent Channel is a mechanism for employees to confidentially express policy disagreement, created in 1971 as a response to concerns within the Department over the government’s handling of the Vietnam War. Authors of a memo submitted through the Channel, which is open to all regular employees of the State Department and USAID, may not be subject to any penalty or disciplinary action in response. Once a memo is submitted, the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff must acknowledge its receipt within two working days and will usually distribute it to the Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of State, the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the Chairperson of the Open Forum, and, if the memo’s author is employed by USAID, by the head of that agency as well. Taking into account the wishes of the author, the memo may also be distributed more broadly within the State Department and may be done so anonymously.

The ultimate significance of the channel is that memos must receive a substantive response within 30-60 working days

For Trump: Inter arma enim silent leges

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Translation: For among times of arms, the laws fall mute. But is this true?

Much opposition was forced on President GW Bush for his actions by executive order and presidential findings directly after the 9/11 attack. Bush ordered countless legal authorities inside and outside government for legal decisions on every step he took including that of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.

We have a major debate that will not be solved any time soon on the legality of the President Trump executive order on the refugee question which has caused major protests and legal action already as we see detentions of foreign nationals at airports. All executive orders are subject to judicial review. Presidents have been given the option of using extraordinary power and in many cases that is a good condition, yet in the matter of law, there have been without question many abuses.

This post is not meant to form any conclusion on the legal veracity of this executive order, rather it is designed to add it more facts and additional questions moving forward. President Trump has a mess to clean up left by Barack Obama, of this, there is no dispute. The White House did take action at the stroke of the pen to begin to make America safer, however was this action taken too soon and without legal opinions including that of the Office of Legal Council? That has not been answered.

So, here are some items that must be included in this debate that extends the whole view and argument.

These are not in any specific order so the reader can individually prioritize.

  1. Should President Trump have set an effective date of this Executive Order?
  2. How was TSA, DHS and all other associated agencies briefed on those already in transit and with validated travel documents in hand?
  3. Did the White House consider exemptions or waivers for those that have been vetted previously that worked or work for the USG in some capacity?
  4. Why were some countries on this list while others were not? The San Bernardino shooters were from Pakistan, but do we need Pakistan for the war in Afghanistan?
  5. The majority of the terrorists on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia and yet Saudi was omitted from the list, why? Could it be that Trump had/has business interests there or because some that were formally in the Kingdom did aide often the United States when it came to terror like in the case of kidnapped CIA operative William Buckley in Beirut of which the Saudis helped finance his recovery? It is without question the Saudis dislike Iran as much as the United States.
  6. We have seen millions of refugees enter all parts of Europe in recent years and yet they can enter the United States under the ‘visa waiver’ program. Did the Trump White House take this under full consideration? The answer is a ‘kinda, yes’ they did but that review has been ordered and not yet deployed.
  7. We have countless refugees and asylees entering the United States from our southern border, but was Mexico on the list? No, yet we don’t know either if the phone discussion President Trump had with President Nieto, this topic was addressed.
  8. There are in fact limitations to who can be accepted into the United States under 8 U.S. Code S 1182 and applying those restrictions remain in the authority of the President while waivers can be issued and it is germane to ask if this law has been considered.
  9. Refugees too have rights and legal protections which was in fact determined after WW II and we have witnessed millions in the Middle East that are forced to live outside their homeland in camps that are simply inhumane. So when it comes to the ‘huddle masses’, the United States does have a responsibility however, the genesis of the current refugee/asylee issue remains with Susan Rice, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The solution in the long term is almost impossible for President Trump and his team to solve unless the hostilities and conflicts in the Middle East are solved.
  10. The protests of those standing against the Trump executive order was not spontaneous, nor were those immediate lawsuits against this temporary refugee ban. Following the money and the continued chaos will not soon go away. What is the proper counter-measure going forward? A question that remains without an answer.
  11. In 2011, Obama did ban Iraqis wanting to enter the United States and this was in fact the exact year the United States pulled out in total from Iraqi. Obama did however issue some selective waivers. The concern for Obama at the time was the matter of two people in Kentucky plotting a terror attack. This alone is a single great argument for Trump’s action and Senator Schumer should be reminded as should Nancy Pelosi. But it is not the full argument as noted by the items above.
  12. It should be noted the actions of President Carter who ordered all Iranians to leave the United States and cut all interactions with Iran with few exceptions.

There are historical events that do offer President Trump great legal standing that is unless courts will rule otherwise in upcoming cases.

ABC: Over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson, Congress passed the 1917 Immigration Act amid social outcry over national security during World War I. According to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. Department of State, the legislation extended to barring most Asian nation immigration overall, with the exception of Japan, which was protected by a prior bilateral diplomatic agreement, and the Philippines, then a U.S. colony.

The act was officially repealed by the Magnuson Act in 1943, in the context of the U.S. alliance with China against Japan during World War II. Still, actual Chinese immigration to the U.S. remained capped at 105 persons a year until 1965.

National Origins Formula

For the first time in the 1920s — through the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the Immigration Act of 1924, or the Johnson-Reed Act — the U.S. further restricted immigration by establishing a wide-scale quota system based on national origins. According to the Office of the Historian of the U.S. Department of State, in addition to putting a blanket ban on immigration from Asian countries, now including Japan in the case of the Johnson-Reed Act, the national origins immigration policies also had the effect of reducing immigration from southern and eastern Europe.

According to a 2015 report by the Pew Research Center about 20th century U.S. immigration, the impact of the system was intended to “try to restore earlier immigration patterns by capping total annual immigration and imposing numerical quotas based on immigrant nationality that favored northern and western European countries.”

The U.S. immigration system remained based on the national origin of would-be immigrants until the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965 during the presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.

“It was designed for racist reasons,” said Steve Legomsky, professor of law at the Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, referring to the national origins system as well as the prior exclusion of Asian immigrants. “Today, I don’t think that’s what’s driving the immigration ban [proposed by Trump]. I think it’s more a fear of terrorism and a concern for national security.”

Legomsky, who was also formerly the chief counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, added that “the impulses are different [now], but the effect is the same.”

In summary, this article is hardly complete with all the facts and laws, rather it is meant for the reader to consider a wider range of moving parts while inviting the reader to individually research more before an ‘all in’ as full support of Trump’s executive action be assumed.

Your comments are invited and encouraged.

In closing, it was in 2014 that now deceased Justice Scalia said, in times of war, laws fall silent.

DHS 2016 Report on Immigration Numbers, Staggering

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This report is the year end 2016 of immigration statistics. While anything the Department of Homeland Security under Napolitano or Johnson ever published is suspect, using the numbers they provided is bad enough. It certainly spells out how ugly the world is country by country and the report tell us how bad it is, while one must consider other Western nations have similar reports. This report is over 100 pages and the pages are number by category by year. The reality is staggering.

 

Yearbook_Immigration_Statistics_2015

Statistical data on immigration have been published annually by the U S government since the 1860s Over the years, the federal agencies responsible for reporting on immigration have changed, as have the content, format, and title of the annual publication Currently, immigration data are published in the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics by the Office of Immigration Statistics in the Policy Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security.

The globe has lost all equilibrium and the professionals estimate for this condition to remain for the next ten years. We have yet to have a top down discussion on actually stabilizing countries one by one. And then there is the question of affordability. Can nations continue to finance war, nation building, and chasing terror indefinitely?

Meanwhile, President Trump has called for a ‘safe zone’ in Syria for Syrians seeking protection. He has called for this area to be protected by U.S. Marines. Hummm

*** President Trump envisions using the U.S. military, in conjunction with the State Department, to establish and protect refugee camps in Syria and neighboring countries, according to a draft executive order outlining several steps the new administration intends to take with hopes of preventing future terrorist attacks on American soil.

First obtained and published Wednesday by The Huffington Post, the document alludes to Trump’s controversial calls to prevent people fleeing the war-torn country from entering the United States, and it indicates he wants to see a plan by late April. The objective is to establish “safe zones” — both inside Syria and in neighboring countries — that will be used to “protect vulnerable Syrian populations” while they “await firm settlement” either elsewhere in Syria or in other countries.

Trump wants Defense Secretary James Mattis to coordinate the effort with his counterpart at the State Department, expected to be Rex Tillerson, who is pending Senate confirmation.

executive order terrorA draft executive order circulating on social media Wednesday indicates the U.S. military could be used to establish and secure refugee camps in Syria. (Via Twitter)
A Defense Department official was unable to verify the document’s authenticity. “And even if I were, they appear to be drafts,” said Eric Pahon, a spokesman at the Pentagon. “DoD does not comment on pre-decisional draft documents.” A State Department spokesman referred questions to the White House.

On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer did not directly address the document but said Trump would discuss the issue at length in the near future.

“The president has talked extensively about extreme vetting,” he said. “And you’ll see more action this week on keeping America safe. This has been something he talked about in the inaugural address. He talked about it in the campaign.

“Allowing people who are from a country that has a propensity to do us harm, [we need] to make sure that we take the necessary steps, to ensure that the people who come to this country, especially areas that have a higher degree of concern, that we take the appropriate steps to make sure that they’re coming to this country for all the right reasons.” More here.
*** Where did this concept come from?

BEIRUT (AP) — The Latest on the Syrian conflict (all times local):

12:20 p.m.

A Turkish official says his country has always supported the idea of safe zones in Syria but would need to review any U.S. plans before commenting.

U.S. President Donald Trump is directing the Pentagon and State Department to produce a plan for safe zones in Syria within 90 days, according to a draft executive order he is expected to sign this week.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Muftuoglu told reporters that Turkey has “seen the reports on a request for a study on the safe zone,” adding that “what is important is to see the result of these studies.”

He pointed to the Syrian city of Jarablus, where thousands of Syrians have returned after Turkish-backed opposition forces drove out the Islamic State group, as a good example of what can be achieved.

___

11:15 a.m.

The Kremlin says a U.S. plan for safe zones in Syria should be thoroughly considered.

Asked to comment on a draft executive order that President Donald Trump is expected to sign this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, underlined the importance to “thoroughly calculate all possible consequences” of the measure. He noted Thursday that “it’s important not to exacerbate the situation with refugees.”

While suspending visas for Syrians and others, the order directs the Pentagon and the State Department to produce a plan for safe zones in Syria and the surrounding area within 90 days.

Safe zones, proposed by both Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton during the campaign, were considered by the Obama administration years ago and ruled out, in part because of Russia’s air campaign in Syria.

Russia Arrests Kaspersky ‘Treason Probe’

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Russian President-elect Dmitry Medvedev, right, speaks with Yevgeny Kaspersky, head of the Kaspersky Lab company, at the 2008 Internet Forum outside Moscow, Thursday, April 3, 2008. (AP Photo/RIA-Novosti, Mikhail Klimentyev, Pool)

Forbes: One of Russia’s most successful cybercrime investigators and hacker hunter at one of the world’s biggest security companies, Kaspersky Lab, has been arrested by Russian law enforcement as part of a probe into possible treason, according to reports. Kaspersky has confirmed that its incident response chief Ruslan Stoyanov was at the center of an investigation, but could not offer more details.

“This case is not related to Kaspersky Lab. Ruslan Stoyanov is under investigation for a period predating his employment at Kaspersky Lab,” a Kaspersky spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We do not possess details of the investigation. The work of Kaspersky Lab’s Computer Incidents Investigation Team is unaffected by these developments.”

Reports of the arrest landed today from national paper Kommersant, which said Stoyanov’s arrest may be tied to an investigation into Sergei Mikhailov, deputy head of the information security department of the FSB, Russia’s national security service. Both men were said to have been arrested in December. Kommersant cited sources who claimed the investigation was exploring the receipt of money from foreign companies by Stoyanov and his links to Mikhailov.

The FBI consistently investigates Russian cybercrime operations, the best-known case being the alleged 2016 hacks of the U.S. election, following a breach at the Democratic National Committee.

Major player in fighting Russian cybercrime

In his role at Kaspersky, Stoyanov was in charge of incident response, the group that helped organizations investigate and recover from breaches or other security events. According to his LinkedIn profile, prior to his 2012 move to Kaspersky, he spent six years as a major in the Ministry of Interior’s cybercrime unit between 2000 and 2006 before moving into the private sector.

A source familiar with Stoyanov’s past work told FORBES that during his time chasing cybercriminals for the Russian government, he was the lead investigator into a hacker crew that was launching denial of service attacks on U.K. betting shops, extorting them for a total of $4 million. Three individuals were arrested and each sentenced in 2006 to eight years in prison.

In recent years, Stoyanov has assisted Russian authorities in some major investigations into cybercrime, including one that led to arrests of 50 individuals involved in the Lurk gang, which stole as much as $45 million from local banks.

“Stoyanov was involved in every big arrest of cybercriminals in Russia in past years,” the source added.

Kaspersky has repeatedly aroused suspicion in the U.S. for its ties to the Kremlin, thanks to articles alleging CEO Eugene Kaspersky’s ties with the state. The firm has denied any collusion with the government, however. The charismatic chief wrote in FORBES in 2015 that he had never worked for the FSB and his companies had no ties to Russia or any other government. He wrote: “A few reporters who seem to be openly hostile to Kaspersky Lab will no doubt be planning their next fictional installment.”

**** Was this because Kaspersky blew the whistle on the hack of the NSA which maybe had Russian fingerprints? Let’s see…

In part from Motherboard: A mysterious hacker or hackers going by the name “The Shadow Brokers” claims to have hacked a group linked to the NSA and dumped a bunch of its hacking tools. In a bizarre twist, the hackers are also asking for 1 million bitcoin (around $568 million) in an auction to release more files.

“Attention government sponsors of cyber warfare and those who profit from it!!!!” the hackers wrote in a manifesto posted on Pastebin, on GitHub, and on a dedicated Tumblr. “How much you pay for enemies cyber weapons? […] We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame.”

The hackers referred to their victims as the Equation Group, a codename for a government hacking group widely believed to be the NSA.

”We find cyber weapons made by creators of stuxnet, duqu, flame.”

The security firm Kaspersky Lab unmasked Equation Group in 2015, billing it as the most advanced hacking group Kaspersky researchers had ever seen. While Kaspersky Lab stopped short of saying it’s the NSA, its researchers laid out extensive evidence pointing to the American spy agency, including a long series of codenames used by the Equation Group and found in top secret NSA documents released by Edward Snowden. The Equation Group, according to Kaspersky Lab, targeted the same victims as the group behind Stuxnet, which is widely believed to have been a joint US-Israeli operation targeting Iran’s nuclear program, and also used two of the same zero-day exploits.

The Shadow Brokers claimed to have hacked the Equation Group and stolen some of its hacking tools. They publicized the dump on Saturday, tweeting a link to the manifesto to a series of media companies.

The dumped files mostly contain installation scripts, configurations for command and control servers, and exploits targeted to specific routers and firewalls. The names of some of the tools correspond with names used in Snowden documents, such as “BANANAGLEE” or “EPICBANANA.” Read more here from Motherboard.

Trump Review to Re-launch CIA Black Sites?

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A Black Site is one thing, Interrogations another, but applications of enhanced interrogation methods, yet a third…

The Washington Post reports they are in possession of an early draft copy of an executive order to review the black site(s) program for captured terrorists. Under Barack Obama, terrorists were rarely if ever sought for detention and interrogated but rather, Obama ordered escalated use of drone strikes.

Trump Review CIA Black Sites (full document here)

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Reuters/WaPo: U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to order a review that could lead to bringing back a CIA program for holding terrorism suspects in secret overseas “black site” prisons where interrogation techniques often condemned as torture were used, two U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

The black sites were used to detain suspects captured in President George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism” after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and were formally closed by former President Barack Obama.

Any return to the Bush administration’s initial anti-terrorism tactics – including secret prisons and interrogation methods considered torture under international law – would likely alienate key U.S. allies in the fight against militant groups like al Qaeda and Islamic State.

Aides to Obama said during his tenure that his prohibition against torture and efforts to close the Guantanamo prison in Cuba helped increase counterterrorism cooperation from U.S. allies in the Arab world.

The now-defunct program’s practices dubbed enhanced interrogation techniques, which included simulated drowning known as waterboarding, were criticized around the world and denounced by Obama and other senior U.S. officials as torture.

 

The officials said Trump is expected to sign an executive order in the next few days. It would call for a high-level review into “whether to reinitiate a program of interrogation of high-value alien terrorists to be operated outside the United States” and whether the CIA should run the facilities,” according to a copy of the draft published by the Washington Post.

The document ignited a bipartisan outcry in Congress. Many people in U.S. intelligence agencies and within the military are opposed to reopening the harsh interrogation program, according to multiple serving officers.

“The President can sign whatever executive orders he likes. But the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America,” Senator John McCain, a Republican who underwent torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said in a statement.

Trump administration spokesman Sean Spicer said the draft was not a White House document. The draft published by the Washington Post appeared to have sections missing, suggesting that it may not have been a full version ready for Trump to sign.

The CIA black sites were located in Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Thailand and Afghanistan.

In 2006, Bush ended the use of harsh interrogation techniques and closed all the black sites except for one in Kabul.

Asked whether he wants waterboarding as president, Trump answered in an interview with ABC News:

“I will rely on (CIA director Mike) Pompeo and (Defense Secretary James) Mattis and my group. And if they don’t want to do it, that’s fine. If they do want to do it, then I will work toward that end,” Trump said.

“I want to do everything within the bounds of what we’re allowed to do if it’s legal. If they don’t want to do it, that’s fine. Do I feel it works? Absolutely I feel it works.”

Mattis and Pompeo had not been aware such plans were in the works, according to a congressional source.

KEEP GUANTANAMO OPEN

Trump’s draft order would authorize a review of interrogation techniques that U.S. officials could use on terrorism suspects, keep open the detention center at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and send new prisoners there.

Trump’s draft also revokes directives by Obama to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all detainees in U.S. custody and restrict interrogation methods to those in a U.S. Army field manual.

Trump vowed during the 2016 election campaign to resume waterboarding and a “hell of a lot worse” because even if torture does not work, “they deserve it anyway.”

He has also said that he wanted to keep Guantanamo open and “load it up with some bad dudes.”

Of the 41 prisoners left at Guantanamo, 10 face charges in war-crimes proceedings known as military commissions, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and his alleged co-conspirators. Bush established the military commissions, which Obama later changed.

The draft order said that, “No person in the custody of the United States shall at any time be subjected to torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, as proscribed by U.S. law.” It does not mention international laws to which the United States is a signatory that prohibit torture.

Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act in 2015, which reaffirmed a prohibition on torture and required U.S. interrogators to adhere to techniques in the Army field manual.

However, the Justice Department under Trump could issue an interpretation of U.S. law that allows for the use of harsh interrogation techniques as occurred in the so-called “torture memos” drafted under the Bush administration in 2002 and subsequently withdrawn.

Despite the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during Obama’s presidency, the dramatic spread of groups like Islamic State has exacerbated the threat from violent Islamist organizations.

In a statement accompanying the draft order, the administration criticizes Obama’s policies, saying, “The United States has refrained from exercising certain authorities critical to its defense.” But it acknowledges that the National Defense Authorization Act “provides a significant statutory barrier to the resumption of the CIA interrogation program”.

“WORRISOME”

Human rights groups decried any attempt to bring back the black sites.

“This is an extremely disturbing and outrageous attempt to open the door again to systematic torture and secret detention. This is the Trump administration making good on its most worrisome comments during the campaign,” said Naureen Shah, Amnesty International USA’s director of national security and human rights.

Critics say a return to harsh interrogations would enflame tensions in Muslim countries and be counterproductive.

In the draft document, references to the “global war on terrorism” were edited and replaced with the phrase “fight against radical Islamism,” reflecting language Trump often uses.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official, who requested anonymity, said many CIA officers would oppose reinstatement of “black site” interrogations, in part because they were forced to obtain lawyers after the withdrawal of the Justice Department memos that legalized the harsh techniques.

“People felt they were hung out to dry,” the former official said. “There is a lack of trust there.”

Moreover, he said, it would be extremely difficult to persuade other governments to allow the CIA to establish secret prisons on their soil.

“Where are you going to do this?” he asked. “How many countries are going to jump back into the U.S. lap?

Trump’s order, if enacted, could put new CIA Director Pompeo in a tight spot given that his workforce, according to multiple serving officers, largely opposes reinstating the “black sites” program. It could also complicate the confirmation of Trump’s nominee for the job of director of national intelligence, former U.S. senator Dan Coats.

As a conservative Republican congressman from Kansas, Pompeo defended the CIA’s use of harsh interrogation techniques, arguing that they produced useful intelligence.

During his confirmation hearing for CIA director, he pledged he would “absolutely not” reinstate those methods. Yet in written responses to questions from Senate Intelligence Committee members, he appeared to leave the door open to restoring them.

“If experts believed the current law was an impediment to gathering vital intelligence to protect the country, I would want to understand such impediments and whether any recommendations were appropriate for changing current law,” Pompeo wrote.

(Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Additional reporting by Warren Strobel, Matt Spetalnick and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell and Jonathan Oatis)