Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

United States Ranks #3 in Refugee Destinations

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From the UN: The current refugee crisis arising from civil upheaval in the Middle East and Africa has caused over 4.1 million people to flee Syria alone since 2011. While the majority of asylum seekers in the region initially flee to neighboring countries (more than a quarter of the population resident in Lebanon is Syrian) most aspire to establish refugee status in Europe.

Despite the European Union’s Dublin Treaty, which states that an asylum seeker must apply for asylum in their country of first entry into the union, many are moving north to places that promise higher economic chances. At the top of their list: Germany, which expects to receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015. This recent influx has resulted in diverse reactions in the European political and social spheres. Photographs of fences erected around Hungary and Austria’s border to Slovenia, and Hungarian camerawoman tripping a man fleeing with his son evidence the exclusionary sentiment present on the continent, supported by growing right wing movements.

And yet some countries and politicians have insisted that they can and will accommodate large numbers of refugees.

What makes a country a ‘good’ country for refugee resettlement, fairly assuming their burden in the global community? Here are four countries on three continents that both quantitatively and qualitatively stand out.

With as many refugees arriving in Europe last month than all of last year, this question of where they can and should resettle is all the more urgent.

1)   Germany. The huge migration of refugees seeking asylum in Germany in autumn of 2015 has dominated the news for months. Many believe that this sudden influx arose from rumors spread through co-nationals living in Germany that refugees would encounter both physical and economic security, if they made it to this EU leader. Angela Merkel made headlines with her strong position in favor of processing the huge numbers of refugees. “If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then it won’t be the Europe we wished for.” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizere characterized the influx as “challenging but not overwhelming.” Germany now expects 1.5 million asylum applications this year alone, the highest in Europe. Last year, Germany accepted 40,000 applications, granting asylum to more individuals than any other European country.

2)   Sweden. It is important to discern between countries that process and temporarily provide residence to, and those that actually recognize large numbers of asylum seekers (the above case of Germany does both). When considering the total accepted asylum applications in relation to the overall country population, Sweden tops the charts. Sweden has historically accepted refugees from across the globe, beginning with those fleeing authoritarian rule in Chile during the 1970s. In 2013, the Swedish Migration Board granted Syrian refugees permanent residence in Sweden. In Sweden, the rights granted to refugees on account of this permanent status—immediate capacity to work, choosing place of residence and family reunification—are notable and vital for quality of life.

3)   The United States. Influenced by its political and military position regarding conflict in Syria, the U.S. has not favorably made the news on the current refugee crisis, offering to resettle only approximately 10,000 Syrian refugees. Yet looking holistically at its system reveals a sunnier picture of U.S. refugee policy. The United States permanently resettles more refugees than any other country in the world, historically taking half of all applications received via the UN Refugee Agency. Last year, this amounted to about 70,000 refugees worldwide who, for the most part, were living in limbo in the country to which they fled.  The USA may not be a viable option for Syrian refugees, but large numbers of refugees from elsewhere are routinely resettled in the USA.

4)   Brazil. Comprehensively evaluating policies though a survey rating refugees’ actual access to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, as well as national human rights legislation, the World Refugee Survey 2013 grades countries based on refoulement/physical protection; detention/access to courts; freedom of movement and residence; and right to earn a livelihood. The only country reciving an “A” grade in all categories is Brazil. Additionally, the reciprocal entry policy between Brazil and numerous African countries allows asylum seekers to circumvent dangerous routes and smuggling often used by those attempting to reach the United States or Europe. Brazil, whose little known refugee system may not excel quantitatively (although asylum requests have exploded from a mere 560 in 2010 to 12,000 in 2014), excels qualitatively in its refugee resettlement policies.

Meanwhile, who is among those refugees?

Al Qaeda Terror Boss Discovered On Migrant Boat, Authorities ‘Tried To Hide News’

A convicted terrorist has been caught trying to smuggle himself into Europe by posing as an asylum seeker, in a stark event proving correct those who warned of terrorists taking advantage of the European Union’s lax border controls.

BreitbartLondon: Ben Nasr Mehdi, a Tunisian who was first arrested in Italy in 2007 and sentenced to seven years imprisonment for plotting terror attacks with an Islamic State-linked group, was caught trying to re-enter the country last month.

Authorities discovered him among 200 migrants who were rescued at sea and taken to the island of Lampedusa. Although he gave a false name, migration officers identified him through finger print records, the Independent reports.

German channel n-tv claims the Italian government initially tried to hide the story to avoid “panic” and “scare tactics”. The news did not emerge until several days after Mehdi had been detained last week.

Mehdi was then interrogated for several days before being deported back to Tunisia, where he was handed over to local police.

The revelation will likely add to fears that Islamist terrorists are using the migrant crisis as a means to enter Europe.

In April, UKIP leader Nigel Farage told the European Parliament that terrorists would try to exploit the crisis. He told MEPs: “When ISIS say they want to flood our continent with half a million Islamic extremists they mean it, and there is nothing in [the Common European Asylum Policy] that will stop them.

“I fear we face a direct threat to our civilisation if we allow large numbers of people from that war torn region into Europe.”

The following month, Italian authorities arrested Abdel Majid Touil, a Moroccan accused of being involved in a terror attack on the Bardo museum in Tunisia. He had smuggled himself into Italy on a migrant boat in February.

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano has until now insisted there is no evidence that Islamist terrorists are smuggling themselves into the country among the thousands of migrants, but his ministry has admitted that Ben Nasr Mehdi is exceptionally dangerous.

When police arrested him in 2007, they found explosive detonators, poisons and guerrilla warfare manuals. Prosecutors said he had been part of a group that was setting up militant cells that had recruited potential suicide bombers.

Authorities intercepted phone calls in which he indicated he had supplied instructions and contacts to terrorists in Damascus, thus marking him out as a senior operative.

European leaders are becoming increasingly worried about the potential terror threat from the migrant crisis. Last month, German Interior Minister Thomas de Mazière said his country had become a “focus of international terrorism” thanks to migration. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has also expressed similar fears.

New Gitmo West, Colorado Rockies

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Where is your voice on this? Where is the outrage?

There is law in place where Guantanamo detainees cannot be moved to the Continental United States, but as usual Barack Obama has a pen and will release his plan this week to close the detention center and move detainees to Colorado.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter just returned from a long trip to Asia and he made a stop today at the Reagan Library to deliver a speech in an all day forum on national defense. He never said a single word on the topic of closing Guantanamo Bay.

In part from WSJ: Mr. Obama’s inability to negotiate honestly with the legislature is a hallmark of his Presidency. More damaging is the precedent he is setting by making major policy changes with no more than a wave of his executive hand. Press reports note that Administration lawyers are working on legal justifications for the Gitmo order. Decision first, the law later.
Another day at the office for a progressive President intent on reducing the legislative branch to a nullity. For the record, the National Defense Authorization Act this year contains an explicit congressional ban on transferring detainees to the U.S. through 2016.

Pentagon to release Guantanamo detainee relocation plan, as Obama pressed ahead with closure

FNC:     The Pentagon is expected to release a plan next week on President Obama’s years-long effort to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center that suggests a Colorado prison dubbed “the Alcatraz of the Rockies” as one suitable site to relocate expected life-long detainees, Obama administration officials say.

Obama made a campaign promise in his 2008 White House bid to close the facility, arguing the move would be in the United States’ best financial, national security and foreign policy interests and in the name of justice — considering some of the detainees have been held for nearly nine years without trial or sentencing.

However, critics of the promise, including many Republicans, fear transferring detainees to the U.S. mainland as part of an overall closure plan poses too much of a homeland security risk. They also say the president has yet to submit a closure plan and have been critical of the administration recently allowing some known terrorists to return to the Middle East.

The Florence, Colo., prison is among seven U.S. facilities in Colorado, Kansas and South Carolina being considered.

The Pentagon plan represents a last-gasp effort by the administration to convince staunch opponents in Congress that dangerous detainees who can’t be transferred safely to other countries should be housed in a U.S.-based prison.

The United States opened the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to get suspected terrorists off the battlefield.

Congressional Republicans have been able to stop Obama from closing the facility by imposing financial and other restrictions.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said this week that the administration is trying “very hard” to transfer 53 more detainees, among the 112 remaining, before the end of the year.

The rest are either facing trial by military commission or the government has determined that they are too dangerous to release but are not facing charges.

Any decision to select a U.S. facility would require congressional approval — something U.S. lawmakers say is unlikely. However, Earnest also suggested that Obama has not ruled out the possibility of using an executive order to close the facility.

The Pentagon plan makes no recommendations on which of the seven sites is preferred and provides no rankings, according to administration officials.

A Pentagon assessment team reviewed the sites in recent months and detailed their advantages and disadvantages. They include locations, costs for renovations and construction, the ability to house troops and hold military commission hearings, and health care facilities.

Colorado’s Centennial Correctional Facility has advantages that could outweigh its disadvantages, according to officials. But no details were available and no conclusions have been reached. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Florence, Colo., facility already holds convicted terrorists, including Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Zacarias Moussaoui, one of the conspirators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

To approve a transfer, Defense Secretary Ash Carter must conclude that the detainees will not return to terrorism or the battlefield upon release and that there is a host country willing to take them and guarantee they will secure them.

Arizona Sen. John McCain is among the congressional Republicans who have asked for an administration plan for the shutdown of Guantanamo. And the Pentagon’s assessment team visits over the last few months were part of the effort to provide options for the relocation of Guantanamo detainees.

“I’ve asked for six and a half years for this administration to come forward with a plan — a plan that we could implement in order to close Guantanamo. They have never come forward with one and it would have to be approved by Congress,” McCain said this week.

The facilities reviewed by the assessment team were the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks and Midwest Joint Regional Corrections Facility at Leavenworth, Kansas; the Consolidated Naval Brig, Charleston, South Carolina; the Federal Correctional Complex, which includes the medium, maximum and supermax facilities in Florence, Colorado; and the Colorado State Penitentiary II in Canon City, Colorado, also known as the Centennial Correctional Facility.

Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner made clear this week that he opposes any move to relocate detainees to his state.

“I will not sit idly by while the president uses political promises to imperil the people of Colorado by moving enemy combatants from Cuba, Guantanamo Bay, to my state of Colorado,” he said at a Capitol Hill news conference.

He also expressed concerns about the potential impact of such a move on the state’s judicial system and concerns about detainees potentially have to transported from the rural facility to downtown Denver to the federal courthouse for a hearing.

McCain and others have said that an executive order to shutter Guantanamo would face fierce opposition, including efforts to reverse the decision through funding mechanisms.

The prison at Guantanamo presents a particularly confrontational replay of that strategy. Obama would likely have to argue that the restrictions imposed by Congress are unconstitutional, though he has abided by them for years. The dispute could set off a late-term legal battle with Republicans in Congress over executive power, potentially in the height of a presidential campaign.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

No Govt Agency Exempt from Fleecing Taxpayer Dollars

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We don’t even know what we don’t know and further what we think we know, we don’t really know either.

There is not a government agency throughout the entire Federal system that is not teeming with waste, fraud or abuse of our taxpayer dollars. One would easily be in the constant state of shuttering when it comes to contemplating the billions that go unaccounted for.

The mission of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed previously by Darryl Issa and presently with Jason Chaffetz attempts in earnest to uncover and investigate and perhaps refer for prosecution those in government guilty of malfeasance, yet the co-chair of the committee, Elijah Cummings leads his side to obstruct the duty of the committee at every turn. In fact Cummings and his crowd never find any dereliction of duty, corruption or fraud.

Just consider, Fast and Furious, Secret Service prostitution scandal, Benghazi, Planned Parenthood, EPA, IRS and Operation Choke Point for some examples.

The job of accountability goes to a particular division at the Department of Justice where all the Inspector Generals are deployed to investigate and determine money success of programs. Inspector Generals also work outside the scope of the DoJ, with not much more comprehensive success.

The IG’s are the watchdogs and while most do stellar work, others not so much and still others are completely stonewalled when it comes to gaining access to receipts, contracts, agreements and so on.

DailyCaller:Federal watchdogs are urging Congress to make sure all inspectors general, not just those at Department of Justice, have unfettered access to all official documents their respective agencies produce.

The Council of Inspectors General for Integrity and Efficiency fired off a letter to top members of Congress Thursday encouraging Congress to reiterate through new legislation that the 1978 Inspector General Act already entitles IGs to all agency records.

The letter comes two days after the Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs asked Congress to pass legislation specifying that only the DOJ IG is entitled to all department records. Previously, the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel denied the department’s IG access to wiretapped communications or grand jury testimony.

But the proposed fix is too little, too late, for an IG community where other federal watchdogs are facing similar access problems.

As yet another example where dollars add up, most recently is a report on FEMA.

FEMA can’t account for up to $4.56M Sandy fuel funds

FNC: The Federal Emergency Management Agency can’t adequately account for more than 70 percent of the money spent on fuel for New York in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, a federal audit released on Friday found.

FEMA spent $6.37 million for 1.7 million gallons of fuel as a gasoline shortage crippled the New York City area after the October 2012 storm, according to the audit from the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security.

But the audit found “incomplete and questionable” documentation for $4.56 million of that spending. Additionally, $1.81 million worth of fuel went to recipients outside the scope of work that FEMA established for the crisis, the audit found. As a result, FEMA can’t be sure any of that fuel went to approved power restoration or emergency public transportation work in New York, the audit said.

Officials at FEMA agreed with all of the report’s recommendations, which include recovering lost funds and devising new procedures, according to the audit.

A spokeswoman for FEMA said: “FEMA concurred with all of the OIG recommendations for rectifying the issues identified in their recent report and improving mission assignment effectiveness going forward. FEMA takes seriously its duty to ensure fiscal responsibility during disaster relief operations, and has been reimbursed by New York for more than $2.1 million.”

New York state collected the $1.8 million, plus interest, from the retail gas stations that were the wrongful recipients of the fuel and reimbursed FEMA, the Dept. of Homeland Security said. Sandy, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, knocked out power to gas stations, caused widespread flooding and cut gasoline-supply lines from ports.

Gasoline shortages emerged as one of the biggest problems for the region after the storm passed. At the time, the federal government estimated that only one-third of gas stations in the metropolitan area had fuel for sale, based on a survey that found more than half were shut down.

FEMA stepped up to provide fuel for urgent power restoration and transportation needs.

The unaccounted fuel deliveries occurred because FEMA didn’t comply with federal regulations requiring the agency provide proper documentation accounting for its work, the audit found.

Click for more from The Wall Street Journal

 

Illegals Just Released Their Bill of Rights/Demands

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Illegal immigrants release ‘Bill of Rights’
Demand citizenship, birth certificates, medical care

The team of people behind this is found here.
WashingtonTimes: An immigrant-rights group proposed a “Bill of Rights” for illegal immigrants Thursday, demanding that Americans recognize there are millions already in the country who deserve health care, in-state tuition rates for college and a guarantee of citizenship in the long term.

Undocumented Americans’ Bill of Rights 2015.jpg

The purpose of this document is to awaken and instill courage and cooperation among our leaders, to grow public awareness and to create a crisis of conscience where Americans have to do more than talk about us; they have to talk with us. They must approach this discussion with respect for our determination to add our story to the nation’s proud immigrant anthology.

We’re already here and have been for years. We work hard, take care of our families and have deep roots in our communities. More time is something we don’t have. Our children are getting older without access to equal educational opportunities. Our working adults are unable to reach any kind of wage parity and advance in their professions. We live with no sense of security that our lives won’t be disrupted, our families torn apart.  And we’re constantly berated and stereotyped as a monolithic group to be condemned and ostracized. Being discouraged is one thing; losing all hope of working our way toward legal acceptance is something we can’t abide and the nation can’t afford – morally or economically. Read more from their own website here.

The list of demands runs 10 items long — the same as the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights — and also calls for an end to arrests and deportations for “all law-abiding undocumented Americans.”  The document was circulated by United We Stay, which is a group of illegal immigrants, first generation Americans and human rights activists pushing for changes to immigration law.
“We know we have human rights, even though our very presence is deemed illegal and our existence alien. Now we have our own Bill of Rights and we want it to be the framework for every immigration decision going forward from the local to the national level,” the group said in a statement announcing their demands.

The 10 points include a demand that they be accorded respect; calls for citizenship rights and an immediate deferment of deportations; in-state tuition at public colleges; “wage equality”; medical care; and protection against deportation if illegal immigrants report a crime as a witness.

The list also includes a specific demand for “compelled authorization of birth certificates for our U.S.-born children.” That appears to be pushback against the state of Texas, where officials have ruled that parents must present valid ID to get children’s birth certificates — and have deemed the Mexican government’s Matricula Consular ID card not to be acceptable as primary identification.

A federal court has allowed that Texas policy to go into effect, ruling that there are questions about the reliability of the Mexican cards and that state officials have an interest in making sure only authorized relatives are able to get birth certificates.

The list of rights begins with a protest against the terms “illegal” and “alien.” Immigrant-rights advocates say both terms are dehumanizing, and have offered “undocumented workers” or, in the case of United We Stand, “Undocumented Americans,” as their preferred term.

The document is meant to serve as a goalpost for the ongoing immigration debate. Immigrant-rights groups had been gaining ground in recent years, with polls suggesting Americans were increasingly open to legalization.

A legalization bill even passed the Senate in 2013 — but Democrats, who controlled the chamber, never sent it to the GOP-run House for action.

The issue then stalled last year after President Obama took unilateral action to grant a deportation amnesty to as many as 5 million of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Federal courts have put that amnesty on hold, but Mr. Obama’s other policies stopping deportations for most illegal immigrants remain in place, which has effectively checked off one of the list of rights’ demands.

Shake Your Head at This DoJ Case, Netcracker

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Ever wonder where the NSA was on this? Ever wonder where the background check was for Netcracker as a bona fide government contractor? More fleecing that several people in the decision chain approved this.

USDOJ: Netcracker Technology Corp. and Computer Sciences Corp. Agree to Settle Civil False Claims Act Allegations  (The spin in this statement is in full testimony of how things operate in the Federal government, meanwhile the risk, well frankly the treasonous decision is epic.

 

Pentagon Farmed Out Its Coding to Russia

 
By Patrick Malone, Center for Public Integrity

The Pentagon was tipped off in 2011 by a longtime Army contractor that Russian computer programmers were helping to write computer software for sensitive U.S. military communications systems, setting in motion a four-year federal investigation that ended this week with a multimillion-dollar fine against two firms involved in the work.

The contractor, John C. Kingsley, said in court documents filed in the case that he discovered the Russians’ role after he was appointed to run one of the firms in 2010. He said the software they wrote had made it possible for the Pentagon’s communications systems to be infected with viruses.

Greed drove the contractor to employ the Russian programmers, he said in his March 2011 complaint, which was sealed until late last week. He said they worked for one-third the rate that American programmers with the requisite security clearances could command. His accusations were denied by the firms that did the programming work.

“On at least one occasion, numerous viruses were loaded onto the DISA [Defense Information Systems Agency] network as a result of code written by the Russian programmers and installed on servers in the DISA secure system,” Kingsley said in his complaint, filed under the federal False Claims Act in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2011.

Asked to confirm that the Russians’ involvement in the software work led to the presence of viruses in the U.S. military’s communications systems, Alana Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Defense Information Systems Agency, declined to answer on the grounds that doing so could compromise the agency’s “national security posture.”

“It’s something that we take very seriously,” Johnson said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “The Department of Defense’s posture on cybersecurity ultimately affects national security.”

Kingsley first told a Defense Information Systems Agency official on Jan. 10, 2011, that Russians had been doing computer programming for Massachusetts-based NetCracker Technology Corporation under a federal contract, through an arrangement that corporate officials referred to as its “Back Office,” he said in his complaint. He said the work had been done in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.

The DISA official confirmed that the practice of outsourcing the work to employees in Russia violated both the company’s contract and federal regulations that mandate only U.S. citizens with approved security clearances work on classified systems, Kingsley’s complaint said.

On Monday, NetCracker and the much larger Virginia-based Computer Sciences Corporation—which had subcontracted the work—agreed to pay a combined $12.75 million in civil penalties to close a four-year-long Justice Department investigation into the security breach. They each denied Kingsley’s accusations in settlement documents filed with the court.

The agency’s inspector general, Col. Bill Eger, who had investigated Kingsley’s allegations, said the case was a good example of how his office combats fraud. In a separate statement released Monday, Channing D. Phillips, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said that “in addition to holding these two companies accountable for their contracting obligations, this settlement shows that the U.S. Attorney’s Office will take appropriate measures necessary to ensure the integrity of government communications systems.”

The $22 million contract the companies were working on dates from 2008, when the Pentagon first asked Computer Sciences Corporation to fortify and administer the computer networks of the Defense Information Systems Agency. The agency supports battlefield operations by running communication systems that enable soldiers, officers, and coalition partners to communicate in secret.

Computer Sciences Corporation collected a total of $1.5 billion from the Pentagon in fiscal year 2014, according to the Federal Procurement Data System. The work at the heart of this case was part of a $613 million contract between the Defense Information Systems Agency and the corporation. Netcracker, which has done direct work for the Air Force and the General Services Administration, worked as a subcontractor on the deal.

In his complaint, Kingsley asserted that Computer Sciences Corporation executives knew about Netcracker’s work in Russia. But a corporation spokeswoman, in a written statement, denied it. “[Computer Sciences Corporation] believes it is as much a victim of NetCracker’s conduct as is our [Defense Information Systems Agency] customer and agreed to settle this case because the litigation costs outweigh those of the settlement,” Heather Williams wrote. “Security is of the utmost importance” to the corporation, she wrote.

Kingsley also said in his whistleblower complaint that when he questioned NetCracker’s general counsel about the propriety of the arrangement, the counsel assured him nothing was wrong. When he asked the company’s board of directors for permission to discuss the Russians’ participation with the Defense Information Systems Agency, his “requests were rebuffed,” he said in the complaint.

The next day, in an email to the board of directors at NetCracker Government Services, the company’s general counsel characterized Kingsley’s conversation with the government official as an “unscheduled, one-on-one meeting” that ended with a “vitriolic rampage” and left the Defense Information Systems Agency officer with the impression that Kingsley was a “lunatic,” according to Kingsley’s complaint. Kingsley said in his complaint that this description of the meeting was incorrect and intended to hurt Kingsley’s reputation with the company’s other board members.

Joanna Larivee, a spokeswoman for Netcracker, responded with a written statement that it “has cooperated fully with the Department of Justice throughout its review of this matter and explicitly denies liability for any wrongdoing. We have always taken responsible steps to ensure that best practices are deployed when managing client information and that NetCracker is compliant with the terms of our contracts. We have decided that it is in the best interest of all stakeholders to settle the matter.”

Of the total fines, NetCracker agreed to pay $11.4 million while the Computer Sciences Corporation agreed to pay $1.35 million. Under the False Claims Act, Kingsley’s share of the settlement is $2.3 million, according to the Justice Department.

Kingsley did not respond to a phone message left at his home in Fairfax, Virginia, on Tuesday. His lawyer, Paul Schleifman, said Kingsley spoke up about the Back Office in Russia because he was worried that it could harm national security. “[Kingsley] believes that his obligation is to the United States first,” Schleifman said, “not to his pocket.”

The settlement agreement leaves the door open for the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges based on Kingsley’s allegations. A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond before deadline when asked whether any such charges are expected.