Govt Report on Prevention of Nationwide Cyber Catastrophe

Posted on March 11, 2020March 11, 2020 by Denise Simon

A good first step for sure, however there needs to be a government-wide decision on cyber attacks being an act of war and how to respond.

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The Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s proposes a strategy of layered cyber deterrence. Our report consists of over 80 recommendations to implement the strategy. These recommendations are organized into 6 pillars:

Reform the U.S. Government’s Structure and Organization for Cyberspace.
Strengthen Norms and Non-Military Tools.
Promote National Resilience.
Reshape the Cyber Ecosystem.
Operationalize Cybersecurity Collaboration with the Private Sector.
Preserve and Employ the Military Instrument of National Power.

Click here to download the full report.

A much-anticipated government report aimed at defending the nation against cyber threats in the years to come opens with a bleak preview of what could happen if critical systems were brought down.

“The water in the Potomac still has that red tint from where the treatment plants upstream were hacked, their automated systems tricked into flushing out the wrong mix of chemicals,” the Cyberspace Solarium Commission wrote in the opening lines of its report.

“By comparison, the water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has a purple glint to it. They’ve pumped out the floodwaters that covered Washington’s low-lying areas after the region’s reservoirs were hit in a cascade of sensor hacks,” it continues.

So begins the report two years in the making from a congressionally mandated commission made up of lawmakers and top Trump administration officials, pointing to the vulnerabilities involved with critical systems being hooked up to the internet.

The report, which includes more than 75 recommendations for how to prevent the cyber doomsday it spells out, and the commission that made it were both mandated by the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The commissioners, who include co-chairmen Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), highlight a range of issues to address, but zero in on election security as “priority.”

“The American people still do not have the assurance that our election systems are secure from foreign manipulation,” King and Gallagher wrote in the report. “If we don’t get election security right, deterrence will fail and future generations will look back with longing and regret on the once powerful American Republic and wonder how we screwed the whole thing up.”

The focus on shoring up election security, and the agreed-upon recommendations for how to do this, sets the report apart from the approach to the subject on Capitol Hill, where it has been a major issue of contention between Republicans and Democrats since Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Beyond election security, the commissioners call for overarching government reform to address cyber vulnerabilities. Chief among these is calling on the White House to issue an updated national strategy to address cyber threats and to establish a national cybersecurity director position to coordinate efforts.

In terms of congressional action, commissioners recommend that Congress create cybersecurity committees in both the House and Senate, establish a Bureau of Cybersecurity Statistics, and establish an assistant secretary position at the State Department to lead international efforts around cybersecurity.

“While cyberspace has transformed the American economy and society, the government has not kept up,” commissioners wrote in calling for reforms.

The commission also zeroed in on “imposing costs” to adversaries who attempt to attack the U.S. online. In order to do so, it recommended that the Department of Defense conduct vulnerability assessments of its weapons systems, including nuclear control systems, and that it make cybersecurity preparedness a necessity.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber agency, would be empowered as the “lead agency” at the federal level.

The report’s recommendations were debated on and pinpointed by a group of high-ranking commissioners who also included FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.).

Langevin said in a statement on Wednesday that the report is intended to shore up the nation’s cyber “resiliency for years to come.”

“Our charge in drafting this report was to prevent a cyber event of significant national consequence, and we know that the short- and long-term recommendations we crafted will better position us to realize the promise of the Internet, while avoiding its perils,” Langevin said. “The sooner our recommendations are implemented, the better positioned the country will be to prevent and respond to incidents that can disrupt the American way of life.”

The report’s recommendations may soon have real-world consequences on Capitol Hill.

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee’s cyber panel, told The Hill this week that there “definitely will be some legislation” stemming from the report’s recommendations, and that hearings would likely be held.

Katko noted that he had talked with Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) about the Senate also taking action around the report.

“This report screams of the need for bipartisan action on this, and I hope that we can leave the politics out of it, and I hope we can attack these problems quickly and effectively,” Katko said.

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), the cyber subcommittee’s chairman, opened a hearing on Wednesday by praising the report’s recommendations and saying he looked forward to working to “codifying” the ideas alongside House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

Industry groups also reacted positively to the report’s recommendations. Tom Gann, the chief public policy officer of cybersecurity firm McAfee, told The Hill in a statement that he agreed with most of the report’s findings and hoped that they are “acted upon with speed.”

Protect Our Power, a nonprofit with the goal of protecting the electric grid, also praised the report.

“These are compelling recommendations, echoing issues we have highlighted for several years now, and action is long overdue,” Jim Cunningham, executive director of the group, said in a statement. “Without a reliable supply of electricity before, during and following a disabling cyberattack, none of our critical infrastructure can function.”

While there may be legislative action soon – and praise from industry groups – both Gallagher and King emphasized in the report that their main aim was for it to open the eyes of Americans to the dangers posed by cyberattacks on critical systems.

“The status quo is inviting attacks on America every second of every day,” the co-chairmen wrote. “We all want that to stop. So please do us, and your fellow Americans, a favor. Read this report and then demand that your government and the private sector act with speed and agility to secure our cyber future.”

Horse Racing Doping Schemers Charged

Posted on March 10, 2020March 10, 2020 by Denise Simon

Disgusting but it is common in the industry.

Federal prosecutors announced charges on Monday against more than two dozen racehorse trainers, veterinarians and drug distributors in a wide-ranging series of indictments that laid out a corrupt scheme to secretly dope horses and cheat the betting public in what has become a $100 billion global industry.

source

Among the 27 people charged was Jason Servis, the trainer of Maximum Security, one of the best racehorses in the world. He covertly administered performance-enhancing drugs “to virtually all the racehorses under his control,” the indictment charged, adding that from February 2018 to February 2020 he entered horses in more than 1,000 races.

Maximum Security

In May, Maximum Security crossed the finish line first at the Kentucky Derby, only to be disqualified for almost knocking over a rival horse and slowing the momentum of others. Country House, a 65-1 shot, was named the winner. Last month, Maximum Security won $10 million at the Saudi Cup at the King Abdulaziz racecourse in Riyadh, the world’s richest race

The scheme, as laid out in four separate indictments against a total of 27 people, was to manufacture and distribute adulterated and misbranded drugs and to secretly administer them to racehorses under their control.

The participants sought to improve race performance and obtain prize money from tracks throughout the United States, including in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio and Kentucky, as well as the United Arab Emirates, one indictment said, “all to the detriment and risk of the health and well-being of the racehorses.”

To avoid detection of their scheme, the indictment said, the defendants routinely defrauded and misled federal and state regulators “and the betting public.”

The charges were to be announced at a news conference on Monday by Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney in Manhattan, and William F. Sweeney Jr., head of the F.B.I.’s New York office.

Horse racing has a long history of trainers’ repurposing drugs in pursuit of a performance edge. Frog and cobra venom, Viagra, cocaine, heart medicines and steroids have all been detected in drug tests. This reliance on performance-enhancing drugs combined with lax state regulations has made American racetracks among the deadliest in the world.

Nearly 10 horses a week on average died at U.S. racetracks in 2018, according to the Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database. That figure is anywhere from two and a half to five times greater than the fatality rate in Europe and Asia, where rules against performance-enhancing drugs are enforced more stringently.

Last year, at Santa Anita Park, a few miles east of Pasadena, more than 30 horses were euthanized after fatal breakdowns, including 23 of them in a three-month span that nearly shut down racing in Southern California and led to an investigation by the Los Angeles district attorney.

The post More Than Two Dozen Charged in Horse Racing Doping Scheme appeared first on New York Times.

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Gary West, the owner of Maximum Security, released a statement on Tuesday saying he had terminated Servis’s employment. “Yesterday, Jason Servis, a trainer we have used for 5 years, was indicted on multiple charges regarding using an illegal substance in horses. This news is extremely disturbing and disappointing. Therefore we will be moving all our horses from Jason Servis as soon as arrangements can be made with other trainers. Maximum Security will be sent to Bob Baffert.”

According to the charges, Servis administered a drug called SGF-1000 to Maximum Security and other horses and then conspired with a vet to cover up the doping. Authorities say such acts of doping can cause horses to over-exert themselves, potentially leading to their deaths.

The welfare of racehorses has been under the microscope in the US over the last year after a spike in deaths. More than 30 horses died last year at Santa Anita, one of the most famous tracks in America. According to the Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database, death rates at American tracks are up to five times

Biden’s Americore Under FBI Investigation

Posted on March 10, 2020March 10, 2020 by Denise Simon

Biden, Inc., or James Biden in deep legal trouble.

Joe Biden’s Brother Accused of Defrauding Rural Healthcare ...

FBI got a search warrant and raided the office….

The Federal Bureau of Investigation raided a health care business linked to Joe Biden’s brother in late January, seizing boxes of documents.

The raid of an Americore Health hospital represented a deepening of the legal morass surrounding James Biden’s recent venture into health care investing at a time when questions about the business dealings of Joe Biden’s relatives, and their alleged connection to the former vice president’s public service, continue to dog his presidential campaign.

In the weeks since the raid, two small medical firms that did business with James Biden have claimed in civil court proceedings to have obtained evidence that he may have fraudulently transferred funds from Americore “outside of the ordinary course of business,” and a former Americore executive has told POLITICO that James Biden had more than half a million dollars transferred to him from the firm as a personal loan that has not yet been repaid.

The purpose of the Jan. 30 raid of an Ellwood City, Pa., hospitalremains unclear, and there is no indication it was related to the actions of Biden’s younger brother, who has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing. Its owner, Americore, has faced legal problems and allegations of mismanagement that are unrelated to James Biden.

But recent filings in ongoing legal proceedings, along with new accounts provided to POLITICO by former executives of Americore and others, point to potential pitfalls for the former vice president, painting the fullest picture to date of James Biden’s health care dealings and the ways in which they allegedly related to his older brother. In 2017 and 2018, James Biden was embarking on a foray into health care investing, telling potential partners, including at Americore, that his last name could open doors and that Joe Biden was excited about the public policy implications of their business models, according to court filings and interviews with James’ former business contacts.

Tom Pritchard, a former Americore executive familiar with the business’ finances, told POLITICO that James Biden’s arrival exacerbated Americore’s financial problems. Holding out the promise of a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections, James Biden introduced Americore’s founder to his older brother and helped land a bridge loan to Americore from a hedge fund, Pritchard said. But then, Pritchard said, James Biden received a six-figure personal loan out of Americore’s coffers while encouraging the firm to take on greater financial liabilities. The cash infusion from the Middle East never arrived, and, Pritchard says, James Biden has not paid back the loan, the terms of which are unknown.

“It was all smoke and mirrors,” Pritchard said.

Meanwhile, Americore found itself increasingly hamstrung by high-interest loans and unable to pay employees and vendors, a situation that disrupted the operations of the rural hospitals it owns.

Now, the business is in bankruptcy court, and federal authorities are circling.

David Randolph Smith, an attorney for James Biden, declined to comment.

A Biden campaign official said that Joe Biden never discussed Americore with his brother or expressed support for the business. The official said that Americore’s founder, Grant White, purchased a ticket to a September 2017 fundraiser for the Beau Biden Foundation, an event attended by Joe Biden. “If the two interacted in any way, it would have been a handshake and nothing more,” the official said.

The messy politics surrounding the business dealings of Biden’s relatives, and President Donald Trump’s efforts to exploit them, have loomed over the presidential contest for several months, damaging both camps. Trump’s failed attempts to pressure Ukraine’s government to announce an investigation of Biden and his son, Hunter, led to Trump’s impeachment. Though Trump was acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate, polls showed that a plurality of Americans consistently supported the impeachment, which highlighted evidence that Trump abused his power for partisan political ends. At the same time, a recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found that 57 percent of voters believe Hunter Biden’s well-compensated position on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm amounted to a scandal, compared to 19 percent who do not.

Over the course of Biden’s run, reports have trickled out about James, a sometimes business partner of Hunter’s, who has received financial support from people with an interest in influencing Joe and been repeatedly accused of trading on Joe’s clout to advance his business ventures.

Biden has defended his son Hunter and said that his relatives’ business dealings have had no connection to his official duties. But the recent developments related to James Biden’s health care ventures demonstrate that as long as Biden remains in the campaign, the issue of his relatives’ financial dealings is likely to remain as well.

Even before the development surrounding Americore, James Biden’s venture into health care investing has been surrounded by legal allegations and claims that he invoked his brother’s clout.

Last year, two medical services firms jointly sued James Biden and his business partners in federal court in Tennessee, alleging James and his partners promised to provide a large investment from the Middle East, then pushed the firms to make expensive acquisitions, as part of a scheme to drive them out of business and steal their business models. As previously reported, those firms alleged that James Biden cited his family’s political connections and promised his older brother would promote their health care model as part of his 2020 presidential campaign.

Another health care firm sued Platinum Global Partners — a Florida corporation that lists James and his wife Sara as managers — in Palm Beach County in June. The firm, which makes an oral rinse with applications for cancer patients, alleged that Platinum reneged on an agreement to invest in it and requested that Platinum turn over documents related to the Biden Cancer Initiative, a nonprofit founded by Joe Biden to fund medical research. An executive involved in litigation against James Biden previously told POLITICO that, on a call, James said he could get the Biden Cancer Initiative to promote the oral rinse.

The Tennessee case is ongoing. The Palm Beach County case was dismissed without prejudice in November.

James Biden and his partners have denied the central allegations in both cases.

But, in interviews, former executives of Americore offered additional, similar accounts of James Biden invoking his brother’s influence and the promise of investment funds from the Middle East that never materialized in order to push their firm to grow quickly, taking on new financial liabilities.

Unlike those other firms, Americore is now in the sights of the Justice Department.

The precise nature of James Biden’s relationship to the firm — founded by White, a Canadian investment banker, in 2017— is contested.

The plaintiffs in the Tennessee case described him as a principal of Americore and entered a business card identifying him as such into evidence. James Biden has disputed that he is a principal of the firm in court proceedings, though he has not detailed the precise nature of his ties to Americore,which owns hospitals in Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Missouri.

Pritchard and the other former Americore executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, each said James Biden was actively involved in the company during their tenures there. “Jim was operating as a principal or Jim was portraying that,” Pritchard said. “Whether on paper he had any ownership, I’m not 100 percent sure.”

Pritchard said James Biden first became involved with Americore in 2017, offering to use his political contacts to help the firm land business and investments. “He could get us in front of the unions. He could get us in front of certain people in government. He could get us in front of the right people,” recalled Pritchard, who said he was skeptical of plans to involve James Biden in the firm.

A former employee at Pineville Community Hospital in southeastern Kentucky, which was acquired by Americore in 2017, said she got the impression that James Biden was in a top leadership role at Americore when he visited the facility and introduced himself in early 2018.

The other former Americore executive — who left the firm after less than a year over concerns about its business practices that were unrelated to James Biden — recalled that James spoke regularly of the ways in which Joe Biden’s presidential aspirations could benefit the firm, and vice versa. “His brother was very interested in rural health care and very interested in veterans’ health care, and it was something he really wanted to get behind,” the former executive recalled James Biden saying. “This would help his brother get elected if it were to take off and go.”

Both former executives recalled James Biden said he would help facilitate a multimillion-dollar investment from the Middle East.

Pritchard said the exact source of the funds was never made clear to him. “That linkage was supposed to come via Jim Biden via whatever influence he had through his brother in the Middle East,” said the other former executive, who worked for Americore in 2018.

The plaintiffs in the Tennessee case allege James Biden and his partners aimed to solicit investments from the state-owned Qatar Investment Authority and met in West Palm Beach with representatives of the Turkish conglomerate Dogan Holding. James Biden and his co-defendants denied the allegation about the Qatar Investment Authority and acknowledged meeting with Dogan.

The former executives also said that James Biden began to set up an office on the second floor of Americore’s headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “It was like a little shrine to him and his brother and [former President Barack] Obama,” recalled Pritchard, who said he clashed with James Biden over James’ requests to be reimbursed for pricey furniture for the office.

The other former executive said that when he saw the office, several framed photos of the Biden brothers and foreign dignitaries sat on the floor, ready to be hung on the walls.

The former executives also described James Biden’s role in soliciting financing for Americore.

Pritchard said James Biden arranged a bridge loan to Americore via his business partner Michael Lewitt’s hedge fund, the Third Friday Total Return Fund.

But Pritchard said he learned that after Americore received the bridge loan, it made a six-figure loan to James Biden for his personal use.

Lewitt declined to comment, but referred to a letter he sent the Ellwood City Ledger blaming White’s alleged use of high-interest loans for Americore’s problems and vowing to restore the firm’s finances and operations.

Several Americore entities are currently in the midst of federal bankruptcy proceedings, providing a glimpse into their finances.In February, one of those entities, Americore Health LLC, filed a schedule of assets that included $650,000 due to accounts receivable. Pritchard said that figure referred to the loan repayment owed by James Biden.

Pritchard said that after James Biden received his loan payment from Americore, James reduced his involvement with the firm as its financial difficulties mounted.

“Jim needed to lay low because his brother was possibly running for president, and he didn’t need any bad press,” Pritchard recalled, saying that after James stepped back, Lewitt asked to review Americore corporate documents to ensure they did not bear James’ name.

The other former executive said that not long after he first saw the office being set up for James Biden in mid-2018, the office was emptied out.

Meanwhile, Americore’s problems have increasingly spilled into public view.

Details of Bernie Sanders and Yaroslavl, the Sister City

Posted on March 6, 2020March 6, 2020 by Denise Simon

One has to travel to Russia and visit the archives in Yaroslavl to see the full details of the trip then Mayor of Burlington, Vermont Bernie Sanders took for his honeymoon.

WaPo

IN part from the NYT’s: Many of the details of Mr. Sanders’s Cold War diplomacy before and after that visit — and the Soviet effort to exploit Mr. Sanders’s antiwar agenda for their own propaganda purposes — have largely remained out of sight.

The New York Times examined 89 pages of letters, telegrams and internal Soviet government documents revealing in far greater detail the extent of Mr. Sanders’s personal effort to establish ties between his city and a country many Americans then still considered an enemy despite the reforms being initiated at the time under Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet general secretary.

They also show how the Kremlin viewed these sister city relationships as vehicles to sway American public opinion about the Soviet Union.The Sanders campaign didn’t dispute the documents’ authenticity; the English-language documents were shared with the campaign and the relevant Russian documents were described. At the time of Mr. Sanders’s announcement in 1987 that Burlington would seek a Soviet sister city, several dozen other American cities already had such a relationship or had applied for one.

The documents, available at the Yaroslavskaya Region State Archive in Yaroslavl, are included in a file titled “documents about the development of friendly relations of the city of Yaroslavl with the city of Burlington in 1988.”

Mr. Sanders’s involvement in the Cold War debate grew in the 1980s as he forcefully opposed the Reagan administration’s plans to have Burlington and other American cities make evacuation plans for a potential nuclear war.

Instead, Mr. Sanders reached out to the Soviet Union via an organization based in Virginia, requesting a sister-city partnership with the Cold War adversary in an effort to end the threat of nuclear annihilation. In December 1987, the records show, Mr. Sanders spoke by phone with Yuri Menshikov, the secretary of the Soviet sister-city organization in Moscow. In a follow-up letter later that month, Mr. Sanders said he had received word that Yaroslavl would be an ideal partner. He proposed leading a Burlington delegation to Yaroslavl to lay the foundation for a sister-city relationship.

He suggested arriving on May 9 — the day that the Soviet Union celebrated its victory over Nazi Germany — and said he was especially interested in discussing economic development, the police, winter street cleaning, libraries, and plumbing and sewer systems. “People there seemed reasonably happy and content,” Mr. Sanders told reporters in Burlington about Yaroslavl, a city of about 600,000. “I didn’t notice much deprivation.”

Two days after returning to Vermont, Mr. Sanders wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, asking for help in setting up the sister-city program.

“It is my strong belief that if our planet is going to survive, and if we are going to be able to convert the hundreds of billions of dollars that both the United States and the Soviet Union are now wasting on weapons of destruction into areas of productive human development, there is going to have to be a significant increase in citizen-to-citizen contact,” Mr. Sanders wrote. The sister city program was something of a capstone to nearly a decade’s worth of foreign policy activism in Burlington City Hall. As mayor, Mr. Sanders championed a range of international causes that often aligned him with left-wing movements and leaders in other countries, and against the Reagan administration, which he described as pursuing a strategy of military escalation that risked setting off a nuclear war.

Mr. Sanders pressed the city government to take positions against American intervention in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and against the invasion of Grenada. In 1985, he visited Managua for the sixth anniversary of the Sandinista revolution and met with its leader, Daniel Ortega. To read the full article from the NYT’s, click here.

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Just a lil more from Politico:

Bruce Seifer, a top economic development aide to Sanders when he was mayor, said that 100 residents from Yaroslavl immigrated to Burlington after the trip and others visited.

“Over time, it had a positive impact on to the economy,” he said. “Businesses started doing exchanges between Burlington and Yaroslavl.”

Davitian, who lived in Burlington at the time, said progressives were thrilled by Sanders’ trip to the Soviet Union, while everyday residents didn’t mind. “As long as the streets were getting paved, there wasn’t opposition to him as an activist mayor,” she said.

When Sanders’ delegation returned to Burlington, CCTV captured the group on film in a hopeful mood, applauding the Soviet Union’s after-school programs, low rent costs and hospitality.

At the same time, they admit the poor choices of available food. Sanders says he was impressed by the beauty of the city and Soviet officials’ willingness “to acknowledge many of the problems that they had.”

“They’re proud of the fact that their health care system is free,” he says, but concede that the medical technology is far behind that of the United States.

Later that year, the relationship was officially established. Since then, “exchanges between the two cities have involved mayors, business people, firefighters, jazz musicians, youth orchestras, mural painters, high school students, medical students, nurses, librarians, and the Yaroslavl Torpedoes ice hockey team,” according to Burlington’s city government. A delegation traveled there as recently as 2016.

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One last thing from National Review to consider:

Sanders made further globe-trotting expeditions to socialist countries. He visited Cuba, scoring a meeting with Havana’s mayor. In 1985 he attended the celebrations marking the sixth anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. “In a letter addressed to the people of Nicaragua, penned in conjunction with that trip, Sanders denounced the activities of the Reagan administration, which he said was under the influence of large corporations,” the Guardian notes. “In the long run, I am certain that you will win,” Sanders wrote, “and that your heroic revolution against the Somoza dictatorship will be maintained and strengthened.” (The Sandinistas were ousted by Nicaragua’s voters in 1990).

Sanders isn’t the only radical U.S. politician to have a weakness for Communist dictatorships. In 2013, Bill de Blasio was caught off guard during his campaign for New York mayor when a Cuban-American radio host challenged him about Castro’s regime.

Ino Gómez, who fled Cuba in 1970, asked de Blasio in an interview about what he was thinking when he chose to violate U.S. law and spend his honeymoon in Cuba in 1991.

“What did you see in Cuba? What is your impression going on a honeymoon in a country that hasn’t had free elections in the last 50 years? What did you get from that trip?” Gómez asked.

A defensive de Blasio sputtered: “I didn’t go on a trip to study the country. I don’t pretend to have full perspective of the country.” He then acknowledged Cuba is undemocratic but praised “some good things that happened — for example, in health care.”

Gomez was having none of it. “I just had to send my aunt in Cuba some, you know, the thread to have stitches, because they don’t have in Cuba the thread,” he told the future mayor of Gotham.

De Blasio chose not to reply and the host moved on to other topics, giving him a pass on his 1988 trip to Nicaragua in support of the Sandinistas.

In closing, remember that New York Mayor de Blasio is campaigning for Sanders…gotta wonder if all this is well known to the gigantic grass-roots operation Sanders has built for his presidential campaign.

Armed Guard of Concentration Camp from Tennessee Ordered Deported

Posted on March 5, 2020March 5, 2020 by Denise Simon

WASHINGTON – A U.S. Immigration Judge in Memphis, Tennessee has issued a removal order against a German citizen and Tennessee resident, based on his service in Nazi Germany in 1945 as an armed guard of concentration camp prisoners in the Neuengamme Concentration Camp system (Neuengamme).

After a two-day trial, U.S. Immigration Judge Rebecca L. Holt issued her opinion finding Friedrich Karl Berger removable under the Immigration and Nationality Act because his “willing service as an armed guard of prisoners at a concentration camp where persecution took place” constituted assistance in Nazi-sponsored persecution. The court found that Berger served at a Neuengamme sub-camp near Meppen, Germany, and that the prisoners there included “Jews, Poles, Russians, Danes, Dutch, Latvians, French, Italians, and political opponents” of the Nazis.

Judge Holt found that Meppen prisoners were held during the winter of 1945 in “atrocious” conditions and were exploited for outdoor forced labor, working “to the point of exhaustion and death.” The court further found, and Berger admitted, that he guarded prisoners to prevent them from escaping during their dawn-to-dusk workday, and on their way to and from the worksites. At the end of March 1945, with the advance of British and Canadian forces, the Nazis abandoned Meppen. The court found that Berger helped guard the prisoners during their forcible evacuation to the Neuengamme main camp – a nearly two-week trip under inhumane conditions which claimed the lives of some 70 prisoners.

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Built in December 1938 by one hundred inmates transferred from Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Neuengamme concentration camp was established around an empty brickworks in Hamburg-Neuengamme. The bricks produced there were to be used for the “Fuehrer buildings”, part of the National Socialists’ redevelopment plans for the river Elbe in Hamburg.

1943

Until June 4th, 1940, Neuengamme was a sub-camp of Sachsenhausen. At this date Neuengamme became an independent concentration camp, under the direct control of the overseer of concentration camps. The prisoners worked on the construction of the camp and the brickworks, regulating the flow of the Dove-Elbe river and the building of a branch canal, as well as on the mining of clay. The number of inmates increased dramatically in only a few months: in 1940, the population of the camp was 2,000 prisoners (with a proportion of 80% German inmates among them), Between 1940 and 1945, more than 95,000 prisoners were incarcerated in Neuengamme. On April 10th, 1945, the number of prisoners in the camp itself was 13,500. More than 2,000 men and 10,300 women were working in the different sub-camps depending on Neuengamme SS administration.

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“Berger was part of the SS machinery of oppression that kept concentration camp prisoners in atrocious conditions of confinement,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. “This ruling shows the Department’s continued commitment to obtaining a measure of justice, however late, for the victims of wartime Nazi persecution.”

The investigation was initiated by DOJ’s Human Rights and Special Prosecution Section (HRSP) and was conducted in partnership with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center and HSI’s Nashville Special Agent in Charge office.

“The investigation of human rights violations and those who engage in these heinous acts, continues to be a focus for Homeland Security Investigations and this successful outcome is an example of those efforts” stated Jerry C. Templet Jr, Special Agent in Charge, HSI Nashville.

The removal case was jointly tried by attorneys in ICE New Orleans Office of the Principal Legal Advisor (Memphis), and attorneys from DOJ’s HRSP, with the assistance of the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center.

Established in 2009, ICE’s Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center furthers ICE’s efforts to identify, locate and prosecute human rights abusers in the United States, including those who are known or suspected to have participated in persecution, war crimes, genocide, torture, extrajudicial killings, female genital mutilation and the use or recruitment of child soldiers. The HRVWCC leverages the expertise of a select group of agents, lawyers, intelligence and research specialists, historians and analysts who direct the agency’s broader enforcement efforts against these offenders.

Since 2003, ICE has arrested more than 450 individuals for human rights-related violations of the law under various criminal and/or immigration statutes. During that same period, ICE obtained deportation orders against and physically removed 1034 known or suspected human rights violators from the United States. Additionally, ICE has facilitated the departure of an additional 160 such individuals from the United States.

Currently, HSI has more than 180 active investigations into suspected human rights violators and is pursuing more than 1,640 leads and removal cases involving suspected human rights violators from 95 different countries. Since 2003, The HRVWCC has issued more than 76,000 lookouts for individuals from more than 110 countries and stopped over 315 human rights violators and war crimes suspects from entering the U.S.