Obama Commuting Sentences, Take Away his Pen

Posted on April 1, 2016April 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

I am not too sure we should be surprised, this is a global mission of Barack Obama for terrorists and state sponsors of terror like Cuba and Iran. There are no consequences and following law much less treaties is something Obama is loathe to do. He simply uses his pen to sign clemency notifications or waivers.

BaltimoreSun: President Barack Obama commuted the prison sentences of 61 drug offenders on Wednesday including more than a third serving life sentences, working to give new energy to calls for overhauling the U.S. criminal justice system.

All of the inmates are serving time for drug possession, intent to sell or related crimes. Most are nonviolent offenders, although a few were also charged with firearms violations. Obama’s commutation shortens their sentences, with most of the inmates set to be released on July 28.

Obama, in a letter to the inmates receiving commutations, said the presidential power to grand commutations and pardons “embodies the basic belief in our democracy that people deserve a second chance after having made a mistake in their lives that led to a conviction under our laws.”

In a bid to call further attention to the issue, Obama planned to meet Wednesday with people whose sentences were previously commuted under Obama or Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The White House said the former inmates would share their experiences about the challenges of re-entering society after incarceration.

One of the inmates, Jesse Webster of Chicago, is serving a life term for intent to sell cocaine and filing false tax returns. Another, Byron McDade of Bowie, Md., got 27 years for cocaine-related charges as well. In both cases, judges in the cases later said publicly it was too harsh, though sentencing guidelines often prevent judges from being more lenient. Webster and McDade will both be released later this year.

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He is not stopping either.

Politico: White House promises to speed up clemency program

White House Counsel Neil Eggleston rebutted critics who’ve questioned whether the administration is truly committed to its clemency initiative.

Obama has commuted the sentences of 248 federal prisoners, mostly low-level drug offenders affected by mandatory minimum drug sentences, including 61 on Wednesday. While that’s more than the past six presidents combined, the pace of commutations since the Justice Department announced its clemency initiative two years ago has disappointed advocates. The White House has promised to pick up the pace, but so far, acceleration has been halting. That’s about to change, Eggleston said on Friday at a POLITICO Playbook Breakfast.

“No more eating, sleeping or drinking until we get all these commutations done,” Eggleston recalled telling his staff after Obama met on Wednesday with people who’d had their sentences commuted in the past.

So far, Obama’s commutations have come in batches released every few months. December’s was the biggest set to date, at 95. At that time, too, administration officials promised more speed. On Friday, Eggleston said he believes the “infrastructure is now very much in place” to file and process clemency petitions.

“You’re going to start seeing a lot more very quickly,” Eggleston said. “I think you’re going to start seeing them on a more regular basis. I did want to get a little out of the notion that each one had to be more than the one before because that’s sort of an artificial floor.”

Despite interest from tens of thousands of prisoners, it has turned out there aren’t so many federal prisoners who meet the initiative’s strict criteria for clemency, which include serving for at least 10 years and strong standards for nonviolence.

The Clemency Project 2014, a coalition of volunteer lawyers, said it has reviewed 30,000 requests for clemency and filed nearly 600 petitions, with another 100 nearing completion. (So far, most of Obama’s commutations did not originate with the Clemency Project, but their petitions are making up an increasingly substantial percentage of the total, and Eggleston praised their efforts on Friday.)

Eggleston also directly responded to complaints lodged by former Pardon Attorney, Deborah Leff, whose January resignation letter was obtained by USA Today.

Leff complained that her office did not have enough resources to fulfill the goals of the clemency initiative and that she did not have access to the White House counsel’s office.

“The pardon attorney’s office has a little more resources, which is good, and I have regular dealings with the pardon attorney directly, so to the extent that Ms. Leff was complaining about that, that was solved. Actually, it was solved before she left,” Eggleston said. “And so I think that we’re moving forward in a pretty good way here.”

Eggleston also rejected “out of hand” an argument — floated most recently in a New York Times editorial — that there can’t be meaningful pardon reform until that agency is moved out of the Department of Justice, because federal prosecutors are trained to put people in jail, not get them out.

“They’re quite committed to this,” Eggleston said of Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and the acting pardon attorney, Robert Zauzmer.

“I was a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York in the 1980s, prosecuted a lot of drug crimes,” Eggleston said, “and I’m quite committed to this also.”

Cyber Intrusions, National Security Threat to Visa System

Posted on April 1, 2016April 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer: Listing a few demonstrating how vulnerable all segments of government, personal databases and corporations have forced lower standards of national security protections. Now with the threat to the State Department U.S. Visa system, terrorists and spies may exploit software security gaps. Anyone fixing this anywhere?

Cyber attack on Office of Personnel Management

Cyber attack of Obamacare

Cyber attack on hospital systems

Cyber attack on law firms

EXCLUSIVE: Security Gaps Found in Massive Visa Database

ABCNews: Cyber-defense experts found security gaps in a State Department system that could have allowed hackers to doctor visa applications or pilfer sensitive data from the half-billion records on file, according to several sources familiar with the matter –- though defenders of the agency downplayed the threat and said the vulnerabilities would be difficult to exploit.

Briefed to high-level officials across government, the discovery that visa-related records were potentially vulnerable to illicit changes sparked concern because foreign nations are relentlessly looking for ways to plant spies inside the United States, and terrorist groups like ISIS have expressed their desire to exploit the U.S. visa system, sources added.

“We are, and have been, working continuously … to detect and close any possible vulnerability,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement to ABC News.

After commissioning an internal review of its cyber-defenses several months ago, the State Department learned its Consular Consolidated Database –- the government’s so-called “backbone” for vetting travelers to and from the United States –- was at risk of being compromised, though no breach had been detected, according to sources in the State Department, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

As one of the world’s largest biometric databases –- covering almost anyone who has applied for a U.S. passport or visa in the past two decades -– the “CCD” holds such personal information as applicants’ photographs, fingerprints, Social Security or other identification numbers and even children’s schools.

Those records could be a treasure trove for criminals looking to steal victims’ identities or access private accounts. But “more dire” and “grave,” according to several sources, was the prospect of adversaries potentially altering records that help determine whether a visa or passport application is approved.

“Every visa decision we make is a national security decision,” a top State Department official, Michele Thoren Bond, told a recent House panel.

About the San Bernardino Shooter’s ‘Fiance’ Visa That Allowed Her in US

President Obama Takes on Cyber Security Threats

Last year alone, the State Department received -– and denied –- visa applications from more than 2,200 people with a “suspected connection to terrorism,” a senior Homeland Security Investigations official, Lev Kubiak, told lawmakers last month.

One official associated with State Department efforts to address the vulnerabilities said a “coordinated mitigation plan” has already “remediated” the visa-related gaps, and further steps continue with “appropriate [speed] and precision.”

“[We] view this issue in the lowest threat category,” the official said, noting that any online system suffers from vulnerabilities.

But speaking on the condition of anonymity, some government sources with insight into the matter were skeptical that CCD’s security gaps have actually been resolved.

“Vulnerabilities have not all been fixed,” and “there is no defined timeline for closing [them] out,” according to a congressional source informed of the matter.

“I know the vulnerabilities discovered deserve a pretty darn quick [remedy],” but it took senior State Department officials months to start addressing the key issues, warned another concerned government source.

Despite repeated requests for official responses by ABC News, Kirby and others were unwilling to say whether the vulnerabilities have been resolved or offer any further information about where efforts to patch them now stand.

Richard Eaton/Demotix/Corbis
U.S. Customs and Border Protection test new biometric technologies with face and iris cameras at the Otay Mesa border pedestrian crossing in San Diego, Calif. on Dec. 10, 2015.more +

Nevertheless, many State Department officials questioned whether terrorists or other adversaries would have the capabilities to access and successfully exploit CCD data — even if the security gaps were still open.

CCD allows authorized users to submit notes and recommendations directly into applicants’ files. But to alter visa applications or other visa-related information, hackers would have to obtain “the right level of permissions” within the system -– no easy task, according to State Department officials.

There is also continuous oversight of the database and a series of other “fail-safes” built into the process, including rigorous in-person interviews and additional background checks, the officials said.

Kirby, the spokesman, described any recent security-related findings as a product of his department’s “routine monitoring and testing of systems” to “identify and remediate vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.”

ceac.state.gov
The U.S. Department of State non-immigrant visa application website is seen in a screen grab made on March 30, 2016.

State Department documents describe CCD as an “unclassified but sensitive system.” Connected to other federal agencies like the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Defense Department, the database contains more than 290 million passport-related records, 184 million visa records and 25 million records on U.S. citizens overseas.

Without getting into specifics, sources said the vulnerabilities identified several months ago stem from aging “legacy” computer systems that comprise CCD.

“Because of the CCD’s importance to national security, ensuring its data integrity, availability, and confidentiality is vital,” the State Department’s inspector general warned in 2011.

The database’s software and infrastructure will be overhauled in the years ahead, according to the State Department.

Internet Provider Fees Going up to Subsidize the Poor?

Posted on March 31, 2016March 31, 2016 by Denise Simon

More government freebies and paid for without your consent via hidden communications charges in those bills in your mailbox. No legislative measures for this? Sigh….

Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve Democrats’ plan:

WSJ: The expansion of the Lifeline subsidy, which has been in the works for several years, is intended to help lower-income people who have trouble affording broadband service on their own. Many experts worry that a digital divide is emerging between lower-income and higher-income households, at a time when Internet service has become important for everything from school work to job searches to veterans benefits.

Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel cited examples of students who lurk on sidewalks outside coffee shops or schools to take advantage of Wi-Fi hot spots to complete schoolwork assignments.

FCC approves Internet subsidies for the poor

TheHill: Millions of poor Americans will be eligible for federal subsidies to help pay the cost of Internet service after new regulations were approved in a whirlwind Federal Communications Commission (FCC) meeting on Thursday.

The FCC voted to expand its 30-year-old Lifeline program, which has offered the monthly $9.25 subsidy for voice-only phone service.

The three Democratic commissioners approved the proposal over opposition from the two Republicans, who have concerns about the program’s budget.

The vote was delayed for more than three hours as Republicans accused FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler of scuttling a late-night compromise to bring them on board.

They said they had a deal with Democratic commissioner Mignon Clyburn before it fell apart under pressure from the chairman, members of Congress and outside groups.

“I must address the elephant in the room: the delay in the meeting and rumors about a proposed cap on the Lifeline program,” Clyburn said at the meeting. She said she engaged in negotiations with Republicans but ended up backing out because the deal did not “fully achieve my vision.”

Clyburn told reporters said she is five feet two inches tall but “not easily bullied.” Wheeler gave a one word response to charges that he bullied his fellow Democrat: “Balderdash.”

The expansion is a major win for advocates who increasingly see Internet access as a necessity for education, finding a job or simply communicating. They point to the 15 percent of Americans, concentrated in poor and rural communities, who do not use the Internet.

Families will only be able to receive one subsidy per household, which they can put toward paying for home Internet, phone or smartphone service — or a combination of the three under the program. Many current participants receive free basic cell service because the $9.25 subsidy covers the entire cost, but they would have to cover the remaining cost of a broadband connection.

The mobile industry waged a late lobbying campaign to get the FCC to lower some of its minimum standards of service, which cover the Internet speed, data allowance and minutes that companies must offer to participate. They also warned against completely phasing out voice-only cellphone service. They won some concessions, including reducing the number of minutes voice-only services will have to offer starting in December.

The rules approved Thursday would set up a single national database to allow phone and Internet providers to verify whether individuals are eligible by sharing information from other lower-income programs like Social Security, Medicaid and food subsidies.

One of the priorities was removing the burden on companies to determine whether a person is eligible for a subsidy. Some said that structure encouraged abuse and put companies in the uncomfortable position of holding sensitive customer information, opening them up to extra security and liability.

“The fox is no longer guarding the henhouse,” Wheeler said.

Lifeline currently has about 13 million subscribers, only a fraction of the 40 million who are eligible. The vote Thursday imposed a budget of $2.25 billion per year. The funds come from fees imposed by the phone companies.

The FCC expects the overhaul to increase participation, and it has projected that about 7 million more people could enroll before hitting the budget ceiling.

Unlicensed Foreign National Drivers Kill, Major Study

Posted on March 30, 2016March 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

There is something called the ‘victims fund’ which Barack Obama and the Department of Justice have distributed funds that will shock you. Bet none of the victims below received a dime much less any recognition.

The Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), one of the seven components within the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), administers the Crime Victims Fund established under the 1984 Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) to help victims and victim service providers with program funding in accordance with OVC’s Program Plan for the fiscal year.

Thoughts?

After His Son Was Killed by Unlicensed Immigrant Driver, Dad Spent Years Compiling Data. He ‘Was Stunned at What’ He Found. (Hallowell)

Blaze/FNC: Since Drew Rosenberg was run over and killed while riding his motorcycle in San Francisco, California, on Nov. 16, 2010, by an unlicensed immigrant who reportedly came to the U.S. illegally, Drew’s father, Don, has been looking for answers.

Considering the manner in which his 25-year-old son tragically died, Rosenberg, 63, has set out on a mission to try and find out how many people die each year as a result of unlicensed drivers, launching a nonprofit to explore the issue called Unlicensed to Kill.

“I was stunned at what I found,” Rosenberg wrote on his website. “Not only were unlicensed drivers killing people in numbers only exceeded by drunk drivers, but many times they were barely being punished and many times faced no charges at all.”

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Car Crash Deaths By State Per 100k Population | Credio

He continued: “There are two different kinds of unlicensed drivers. There are those who have never been issued a license and those whose licensed has been suspended, revoked or expired. Over 90% of those who have never been issued a license are in this country illegally.”

Rosenberg estimates that 7,500 Americans die each year due to unlicensed drivers and that more than half of those deaths are caused by illegal immigrants. Rosenberg published his findings on his organization’s website.

But tabulating those numbers is quite difficult and ends up yielding mere estimates due to the fact that immigration statuses aren’t reported when it comes to highway deaths. Rosenberg has spent a great deal of time going through the data in an effort to parse out the stats.

Drew Rosenberg was killed by an unlicensed immigrant in 2010 (Unlicensed to Kill/Don Rosenberg)

“I’ve learned over time that many jurisdictions do not cite license status or immigration status when reporting these statistics, so if anything, the numbers are understated,” he told Fox News. “For example, San Francisco doesn’t report either criteria, so Drew’s death defaults to having been killed by a licensed driver who was a citizen.”

On the Unlicensed to Kill website, Rosenberg described the circumstances surrounding his son’s tragic death, noting the immediate information that he said authorities gave his family the day after the accident back in 2010.

“The next morning we met with the police inspector on the case. He told us that the driver of the car, Roberto Galo was unlicensed, in the country illegally and after killing Drew tried to flee the scene,” Rosenberg wrote. “A few days later the inspector called to tell us there was a mistake and Galo was in the country legally.”

The Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank, identified Galo as being from Honduras in a 2013 article on the matter, noting that the man was eventually arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement.

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Motor Vehicle Traffic Deaths in the United States | FindTheData

“Galo is an illegal immigrant who has been living here legally since the late 1990s under a grant of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Beneficiaries of TPS may apply for driver’s licenses; but Galo could not get one because he failed the driving test three times,” wrote Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.

TPS allows for some immigrants to remain in the U.S. “due to conditions in the country that temporarily prevent the country’s nationals from returning safely, or in certain circumstances, where the country is unable to handle the return of its nationals adequately.” The status is granted to some nationals of those countries “who are already in the United States.”

The situation surrounding Galo’s purported immigration status was complex, though Fox News reported that he was eventually deported in 2013 following years of legal wrangling.

Senator Leahy’s Written Challenge to Israel on Human Rights

Posted on March 30, 2016March 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

Is this senator nuts or has he in fact been void of news or foreign policy updates provided to Congress? Both perhaps? And some fellow senators appear to have the same problem.

What is worse, the letter is addressed to SecState, John Kerry who is quite anti-Israel and for sure anti-Egypt but perhaps the White House has a few in the senate taking on this written challenge…..

Check this out…..

First comes Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response:

PM Netanyahu’s Response to US Senator Patrick Leahy’s Letter (Communicated by the Prime Minister’s Media Adviser)

Following is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to US Senator Patrick Leahy’s letter:

“The IDF and the Israel Police do not engage in executions. Israel’s soldiers and police officers defend themselves and innocent civilians with the highest moral standards against bloodthirsty terrorists who come to murder them.

Where is the concern for the human rights of the many Israelis who’ve been murdered and maimed by these savage terrorists?

This letter should have been addressed instead to those who incite youngsters to commit cruel acts of terrorism.”

Then we need to ask some deeper questions regarding the influence some communist lobby groups have in Congress like American Friends of Service Committee. Perhaps this organization is also tied or maybe funded by Iran?

Leahy asked State Dept. to investigate Israeli human rights ‘violations’

Politico: Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and 10 House members have asked the Obama administration to investigate claims that the Israeli and Egyptian security forces have committed “gross violations of human rights” — allegations that if proven truei could affect U.S. military aid to the countries.

In a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry dated Feb. 17, the lawmakers list several examples of suspected human rights abuses, including reports of extrajudicial killings by Israeli and Egyptian military forces, as well as forced disappearances in Egypt. The letter also points to the 2013 massacre in Egypt’s Rab’aa Square, which left nearly 1,000 people dead as the military cracked down on protesters, as worthy of examination.

Leahy’s signature is particularly noteworthy because his name is on a law that conditions U.S. military aid to countries on whether their security forces are committing abuses.

“In light of these reports we request that you act promptly to determine their credibility and whether they trigger the Leahy Law and, if so, take appropriate action called for under the law,” the signatories state in the letter, which was obtained by POLITICO on Tuesday evening from an organization that provided input for it.

The Leahy Law’s application and impact have been difficult to measure, and while U.S. funding to a particular foreign military unit may be cut off as a result of the law, overall U.S. military aid to the country need not be stopped.

The letter’s real impact may be political: Israel’s unusual, if not unprecedented inclusion with Egypt on such an inquiry is likely to rile Israel’s allies in Washington, who bristle at the notion that the Middle East’s only established democracy could be lumped in with a notorious human rights abuser like Egypt.

Though it was sent to Kerry well beforehand, the timing of the letter’s release comes just days after an Israeli soldier was filmed executing a Palestinian prisoner at close range – setting off fury in the Arab world and launching a military disciplinary process that has many on the Israeli right fuming.

Leahy spokesman David Carle downplayed Israel’s inclusion in the request, noting that the Vermont Democrat “has always said” that the law that bears his name “should be uniformly applied.”

Egypt’s inclusion may be no easier to navigate, as the military-backed Egyptian regime has proved a vexing problem for President Barack Obama as he has sought to balance the U.S.’s traditional concern for human rights with its need to maintain Cairo as an ally in an increasingly chaotic Middle East.

The U.S. is so wary of losing Egypt’s friendship it declined to call the military’s 2013 takeover over of the elected Muslim Brotherhood government a coup — a label that would have triggered a legal obligation to suspend military aid. Israel, meanwhile, remains America’s closest ally in the region despite tense relations between Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and it has received billions in U.S. military assistance over the years.

The letter questions the current mechanisms that the U.S. has to monitor its military assistance to both countries and asks for clarity on how the various divisions of the State Department “document and determine the credibility of information related to allegations of gross violations of human rights by foreign security forces.”

“According to information we have received, the manner in which U.S. military assistance has been provided to Israel and Egypt, since the Camp David Accords, including the delivery of assistance at the military service level, has created a unique situation that has hindered implementation of normal mechanisms for monitoring the use of such assistance,” the letter states.

A State Department spokesman said it would provide a comment later Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the letter was hailed by left-leaning organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the National Lawyers Guild International Committee and others. These groups also provided input for the letter.

“Both Israel and Egypt receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid, and both countries’ security forces have opened fire on protesters with impunity. This letter from key members of Congress is an important first step in the right direction,” said Sunjeev Bery of Amnesty International USA.

Added Raed Jarrar of the American Friends Service Committee: “We call on the Department of State to investigate all the cases mentioned in the letter, and to provide Congress with a comprehensive answer.”

**** About American Friends of Service Committee as noted in part from Wikipedia:

For its anti-war, pro-immigration, and anti-capital punishment stances, the AFSC receives criticism from many socially conservative groups. Often the criticisms allege that the AFSC has supported Communist activities.^{[citation needed]}

Throughout much of the group’s history the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government agencies have monitored the work of this and many other similar organizations.^[17]^[18]^[19]

Since the 1970s, criticism has also come from liberals within the Society of Friends, who charge that AFSC has drifted from its Quaker roots and has become indistinguishable from other political pressure groups. Quakers expressed concern with AFSC’s abolition of their youth work camps during the 1960s and what some saw as a decline of Quaker participation in the organization. The criticisms became prominent after a gathering of Friends General Conference in Richmond, Indiana, in the summer of 1979 when many Friends joined with prominent leaders, such as Kenneth Boulding, to call for a firmer Quaker orientation toward public issues.^[20] Some Jews have accused AFSC of having an anti-Jewish bias.^[21] Jacob Neusner calls the Committee “the most militant and aggressive of Christian anti-Israel groups.”^[