New Gitmo West, Colorado Rockies

Posted on November 7, 2015November 7, 2015 by Denise Simon

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

Posted on November 7, 2015November 7, 2015 by Denise Simon

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

Posted on November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

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.

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

Posted on November 5, 2015November 5, 2015 by Denise Simon

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.