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Is a Chinese Hack on our Naval Weapons an Act of War?

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It is long been a question of the point that a foreign hack for espionage and theft is an act of war with emphasis on our naval weapons programs or those of the Army or Air Force.

Cyber warfare is an issue few care about or have control over because data resides outside of our individual control but that is NOT the case when it comes to government. They are accountable for safeguarding networks and data.

Washington – After a hiatus of several years, Chinese state hackers are once again penetrating networks at a range of U.S. corporations in a campaign to steal secrets and leapfrog ahead in a race for global technology supremacy, cyber researchers say.

Companies in fields such as biomedicine, robotics, cloud computing and artificial intelligence have all been hit by cyber intrusions originating in China, the researchers say.

“It’s definitely accelerating. The trend is up,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, cofounder and chief technology officer at CrowdStrike, a threat intelligence firm based in Sunnyvale, Calif.,

Chinese state hacking teams linked to the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of State Security are becoming visible on U.S. networks again, although they are using new methods to remain undetected, researchers said.

“In the last few months, we’ve definitely seen … a reemergence of groups that had appeared to have gone dormant for a while,” said Cristiana Brafman Kittner, principal analyst at FireEye, a cybersecurity firm that has tracked China hacking extensively.

The activity comes after a sharp drop in Chinese hacking that began in September 2015, when former President Barack Obama and Chinese leader Xi Jinping reached an agreement to end the hacking theft of commercial secrets. The agreement quelled U.S. anger over its charge that China is the “world’s most active and persistent perpetrator of economic espionage.”

U.S. prosecutors in 2014 indicted five PLA officers for economic espionage for hacking into firms like Westinghouse, U.S. Steel and Alcoa. The 56-page indictment said the five men worked for Unit 61398 of the PLA’s Third Department in Shanghai. The highly detailed complaint entered into details that U.S. officials later said were meant to “name and shame” China for commercial hacking.

Why China’s hackers may be getting back into the game is not readily clear. Renewed trade tensions may be a reason. President Donald Trump has threatened to impose $50 billion of tariffs on China-made products to cut the U.S. trade deficit of $375 billion with China.

Another factor may be the conclusion of a massive reorganization of China’s military, which began in late 2015 and under which various signals intelligence and cyber hacking units “were dissolved and absorbed into this one mega organization, called the Strategic Support Force,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, an expert on East Asia at Recorded Future, a cyber-threat intelligence firm based in Somerville, Mass.

China’s Xi has laid out ambitious goal of catching up with the United States and Europe in 10 key sectors, including aerospace, semiconductors and robotics, under its “Made in China 2025” program.

Moriuchi, who spent 12 years in the U.S. intelligence community, eventually leading the National Security Agency’s East Asia and Pacific cyber threats office, said China’s hackers are broadening tactics, burrowing into telecommunications networks even as they steal secrets to help party leaders achieve “Made in China 2025” goals.

“The sectors that they are going after are things like cloud computing, (Internet of Things), artificial intelligence, biomedicines, civilian space, alternative energy, robotics, rail, agricultural machinery, high-end medical devices,” Moriuchi said.

“There are companies in all of these sectors that have experienced intrusions over the past year from actors who are believed to be China state-sponsored,” she said.

Since early in the past decade, U.S. officials have alleged that Chinese state hackers were tasked with obtaining commercial secrets from Western corporations to help Chinese firms, many of them state-owned, overtake competitors to the global forefront in technology.

In a renewed warning alert for China, a March 22 report from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on China’s trade actions said, “Beijing’s cyber espionage against U.S. companies persists and continues to evolve.

So as you read about the stolen data from the Navy by China consider this: Should the NSA get inside the Chinese networks now and infect and or re-steal our intelligence?

Unmanned underwater vehicles take advantage of advanced ... photo

(Note: according to the Washington Post item below, the contractor is not named, however ‘Inside Defense’ in September of 2016 published an item that GD Electric Boat was awarded the $105.5 million contract modification moving it into the second phase.)

electric boat « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news ... photo

WaPo: Chinese government hackers have compromised the computers of a Navy contractor, stealing massive amounts of highly sensitive data related to undersea warfare — including secret plans to develop a supersonic anti-ship missile for use on U.S. submarines by 2020, according to American officials.

The breaches occurred in January and February, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. The hackers targeted a contractor who works for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, a military organization headquartered in Newport, R.I., that conducts research and development for submarines and underwater weaponry.

The officials did not identify the contractor.

Taken were 614 gigabytes of material relating to a closely held project known as Sea Dragon, as well as signals and sensor data, submarine radio room information relating to cryptographic systems, and the Navy submarine development unit’s electronic warfare library.

The Washington Post agreed to withhold certain details about the compromised missile project at the request of the Navy, which argued that their release could harm national security.

The data stolen was of a highly sensitive nature despite being housed on the contractor’s unclassified network. The officials said the material, when aggregated, could be considered classified, a fact that raises concerns about the Navy’s ability to oversee contractors tasked with developing cutting-edge weapons.

The breach is part of China’s long-running effort to blunt the U.S. advantage in military technology and become the preeminent power in east Asia. The news comes as the Trump administration is seeking to secure Beijing’s support in persuading North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, even as tensions persist between the United States and China over trade and defense matters.

The Navy is leading the investigation into the breach with the assistance of the FBI, officials said. The FBI declined to comment.

On Friday, the Pentagon inspector general’s office said that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had asked it to review contractor cybersecurity issues arising from The Post’s story.
Navy spokesman Cmdr. Bill Speaks said, “There are measures in place that require companies to notify the government when a ‘cyber incident’ has occurred that has actual or potential adverse effects on their networks that contain controlled unclassified information.”

Speaks said “it would be inappropriate to discuss further details at this time.”

Altogether, details on hundreds of mechanical and software systems were compromised — a significant breach in a critical area of warfare that China has identified as a priority, both for building its own capabilities and challenging those of the United States.

“It’s very disturbing,” said former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.,) who is a member of the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission. “But it’s a of a piece with what the Chinese have been doing. They are completely focused on getting advanced weapons technology through all kinds of means. That includes stealing secrets from our defense contractors.” Talent had no independent knowledge of the breach.
Undersea priority

The Sea Dragon project is an initiative of a special Pentagon office stood up in 2012 to adapt existing U.S. military technologies to new applications. The Defense Department, citing classification levels, has released little information about Sea Dragon other than to say that it will introduce a “disruptive offensive capability” by “integrating an existing weapon system with an existing Navy platform.” The Pentagon has requested or used more than $300 million for the project since late 2015 and has said it plans to start underwater testing by September.

Military experts fear that China has developed capabilities that could complicate the Navy’s ability to defend U.S. allies in Asia in the event of a conflict with China.

The Chinese are investing in a range of platforms, including quieter submarines armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons and new sensors, Adm. Philip S. Davidson said during his April nomination hearing to lead U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. And what they cannot develop on their own, they steal — often through cyberspace, he said.

“One of the main concerns that we have,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee, “is cyber and penetration of the dot-com networks, exploiting technology from our defense contractors, in some instances.”

In February, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats testified that most of the detected Chinese cyber-operations against U.S. industry focus on defense contractors or tech firms supporting government networks.

In recent years, the United States has been scrambling to develop new weapons or systems that can counter a Chinese naval buildup that has targeted perceived weaknesses in the U.S. fleet. Key to the American advantage in any faceoff with China on the high seas in Asia will be its submarine fleet.

“U.S. naval forces are going to have a really hard time operating in that area, except for submarines, because the Chinese don’t have a lot of anti-submarine warfare capability,” said Bryan Clark, a naval analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “The idea is that we are going to rely heavily on submarines in the early effort of any conflict with the Chinese.”

China has made closing the gap in undersea warfare one of its three top military priorities, and although the United States still leads the field, China is making a concerted effort to diminish U.S. superiority.

“So anything that degrades our comparative advantage in undersea warfare is of extreme significance if we ever had to execute our war plans for dealing with China,” said James Stavridis, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a retired admiral who served as supreme allied commander at NATO.

The U.S. military let its anti-ship weaponry languish after the Cold War ended because with the Soviet Union’s collapse, the Navy no longer faced a peer competitor on the seas. But the rapid modernization and buildup of the Chinese navy in recent years, as well as Russia’s resurgent forces at sea, have prompted the Pentagon to renew heavy investment in technologies to sink enemy warships.

The introduction of a supersonic anti-ship missile on U.S. Navy submarines would make it more difficult for Chinese warships to maneuver. It would also augment a suite of other anti-ship weapons that the U.S. military has been developing in recent years.
Ongoing breaches

For years, Chinese government hackers have siphoned information on the U.S. military, underscoring the challenge the Pentagon faces in safeguarding details of its technological advances. Over the years, the Chinese have snatched designs for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter; the advanced Patriot PAC-3 missile system; the Army system for shooting down ballistic missiles known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense; and the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ship, a small surface vessel designed for near-shore operations, according to previous reports prepared for the Pentagon.

In some cases, suspected Chinese breaches appear to have resulted in copycat technologies, such as the drones China has produced that mimic U.S. unmanned aircraft.

[Chinese cyberspies stole a long list of U.S. weapons designs]

Speaks, the Navy spokesman, said: “We treat the broader issue of cyber intrusion against our contractors very seriously. If such an intrusion were to occur, the appropriate parties would be looking at the specific incident, taking measures to protect current information, and mitigating the impacts that might result from any information that might have been compromised.”

The Pentagon’s Damage Assessment Management Office has conducted an assessment of the damage, according to the U.S. officials. The Office of the Secretary of Defense declined to comment.

Theft of an electronic warfare library, Stavridis said, could give the Chinese “a reasonable idea of what level of knowledge we have about their specific [radar] platforms, electronically and potentially acoustically, and that deeply reduces our level of comfort if we were in a close undersea combat situation with China.”

Signals and sensor data is also valuable in that it presents China with the opportunity to “know when we would know at what distance we would be able to detect their submarines” — again a key factor in undersea battles.

Investigators say the hack was carried out by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, a civilian spy agency responsible for counterintelligence, foreign intelligence and domestic political security. The hackers operated out of an MSS division in the province of Guangdong, which houses a major foreign hacking department.

Although the Chinese People’s Liberation Army is far better-known than the MSS when it comes to hacking, the latter’s personnel are more skilled and much better at hiding their tracks, said Peter Mattis, a former analyst in the CIA counterintelligence center. The MSS, he said, hack for all forms of intelligence: foreign, military and commercial.

In September 2015, in a bid to avert economic sanctions, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to President Barack Obama that China would refrain from conducting commercial cyberespionage against the United States. Following the pact, China appeared to have curtailed much, although not all, of its hacking activity against U.S. firms, including by the People’s Liberation Army.

Both China and the United States consider spying on military technology to fall outside the pact. “The distinction we’ve always made is there’s a difference between conducting espionage in order to protect national security and conduct military operations, and the theft of intellectual property for the benefit of companies inside your country,” said Michael Daniel, the White House cybersecurity coordinator under Obama.

 

Hey Secret Service, Check it out While in Singapore

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10 Best Things to Do in Sentosa Island - Best Attractions ... photo

So, while the United States is finding a discreet way to pay for Kim Jung Un’s travel and hotel stay in Singapore on Sentosa Island as North Korea is cash strapped…ah yeah sure, there are some other things going on in Singapore and Malaysia.

Let’s begin a few years ago. Sit back with this article, it is long but perspective and context is required.

Malaysian authorities shutter two North Korean companies ... photo

(Note, it is allegedly closed, or Singapore denies it, but Secret Service check it all out)

(Reuters) – It is in Kuala Lumpur’s “Little India” neighborhood, behind an unmarked door on the second floor of a rundown building, where a military equipment company called Glocom says it has its office.

Glocom is a front company run by North Korean intelligence agents that sells battlefield radio equipment in violation of United Nations sanctions, according to a United Nations report submitted to the Security Council seen by Reuters.

Reuters found that Glocom advertises over 30 radio systems for “military and paramilitary” organizations on its Malaysian website, glocom.com.my.

Glocom’s Malaysian website, which was taken down late last year, listed the Little India address in its contacts section. No one answers the door there and the mailbox outside is stuffed with unopened letters.

In fact, no company by that name exists in Malaysia. But two Malaysian companies controlled by North Korean shareholders and directors(also known as a Nominee Director) registered Glocom’s website in 2009, according to website and company registration documents.

And it does have a business, the unreleased U.N. report says. Last July, an air shipment of North Korean military communications equipment, sent from China and bound for Eritrea, was intercepted in an unnamed country. The seized equipment included 45 boxes of battlefield radios and accessories labeled “Glocom”, short for Global Communications Co.

Glocom is controlled by the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North Korean intelligence agency tasked with overseas operations and weapons procurement, the report says, citing undisclosed information it obtained.

A spokesman for North Korea’s mission at the U.N. told Reuters he had no information about Glocom.

U.N. resolution 1874, adopted in 2009, expanded the arms embargo against North Korea to include military equipment and all “related materiel”.

But implementation of the sanctions “remains insufficient and highly inconsistent” among member countries, the U.N. report says, and North Korea is using “evasion techniques that are increasing in scale, scope and sophistication.”

Malaysia is one of the few countries in the world which had strong ties with North Korea. Their citizens can travel to each other’s countries without visas. But those ties have begun to sour after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother was murdered at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport on Feb 13.

PAN SYSTEMS

According to the “WHOIS” database, which discloses website ownership, Glocom.com.my was registered in 2009 by an entity called International Global System using the “Little India” address. A similarly named company, International Golden Services is listed as the contact point on Glocom’s website.

Glocom registered a new website, glocom-corp.com, in mid-December, this one showing no Malaysian contacts. Its most recent post is dated January, 2017 and advertises new products, including a remote control system for a precision-guided missile.

Glocom is operated by the Pyongyang branch of a Singapore-based company called Pan Systems, the U.N. report says, citing an invoice and other information it obtained.

Louis Low, managing director of Pan Systems in Singapore said his company used to have an office in Pyongyang from 1996 but officially ended relations with North Korea in 2010 and was no longer in control of any business there.

“They use (the) Pan Systems (name) and say it’s a foreign company, but they operate everything by themselves,” Low told Reuters referring to the North Koreans at the Pyongyang office.

Pan Systems Pyongyang utilized bank accounts, front companies and agents mostly based in China and Malaysia to buy components and sell completed radio systems, the U.N. report says. Pan Systems Pyongyang could not be reached for comment.

One of the directors of Pan Systems Pyongyang is Ryang Su Nyo. According to a source with direct knowledge of her background, Ryang reports to “Liaison Office 519”, a department in the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Ryang is also listed as a shareholder of International Global System, the company that registered Glocom’s website.

Reuters has not been able to contact Ryang.

SMUGGLING CASH

Ryang frequently traveled to Singapore and Malaysia to meet with Pan Systems representatives, the U.N. report says.

On one such trip in February 2014, she and two other North Koreans were detained in Malaysia for attempting to smuggle $450,000 through customs at Kuala Lumpur’s budget airport terminal, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters.

The North Korean trio told Malaysian authorities they all worked for Pan Systems and the cash belonged to the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, according to the two sources.

The Malaysian Attorney General decided not to press charges because of insufficient evidence. A week later, the trio was allowed to travel, and the North Korean embassy claimed the cash, the sources said. All three had passports assigned to government officials, the sources said.

Malaysia’s Customs Department and the Attorney General’s office did not respond to requests for comment over the weekend.

The Pan Systems representative in Kuala Lumpur is a North Korean by the name of Kim Chang Hyok, the U.N. report says.

Kim, who also goes by James Kim, was a founding director of International Golden Services, the company listed in the contacts section of the Glocom website. Kim is director and shareholder of four other companies in Malaysia operating in the fields of IT and trade, according to the Malaysian company registry.

He did not respond to requests for comment by mail or email.

The United Nations panel, which prepared the draft report, asked the Malaysian government if it would expel Kim and freeze the assets of International Golden Services and International Global System to comply with U.N. sanctions. The U.N. did not say when it made the request.

“The panel has yet to receive an answer,” the report said.

Reuters has not received a response from the Malaysian government to repeated requests for comment about Glocom.

POLITICAL CONNECTION

One of Glocom’s early partners in Malaysia was Mustapha Ya’akub, a prominent member of Malaysia’s ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). Since 2014, he has been listed as a director of International Golden Services

As secretary of the UMNO youth wing’s international affairs bureau, Mustapha fostered political connections in the 1990s with countries, such as Iran, Libya and North Korea. Glocom’s Little India address once housed a company owned by UMNO Youth.

Mustapha, 67, said he had been a Glocom business partner “many years back” and said it has been continuously controlled by several North Koreans, including Kim Chang Hyok, whom he said he knew. He did not divulge his role in the company, and denied any knowledge of Glocom’s current business.

“We thought at the time it might be a good idea to go into business together,” Mustapha told Reuters about his first meeting with his North Korean business contacts. He did not say who those contacts were or what they discussed. He denied any knowledge of Glocom’s current business.

Glocom advertises and exhibits its wares without disclosing its North Korean connections.

“Anywhere, Anytime in Battlefield,” reads the slogan on one of several 2017 Glocom catalogs obtained by Reuters.

An advertisement in the September 2012 edition of the Asian Military Review said Glocom develops radios and equipment for “military and paramilitary organizations”.

A spokesman for the magazine confirmed the ad had been bought by Glocom, but said the magazine was unaware of its alleged links to North Korea.

Glocom has exhibited at least three times since 2006 at Malaysia’s biennial arms show, Defence Services Asia (DSA), according to Glocom’s website.

At DSA 2016, Glocom paid 2,000 ringgit ($450) to share a table in the booth of Malaysia’s Integrated Securities Corporation, its director Hassan Masri told Reuters by email.

Hassan said he had nothing to do with Glocom’s equipment and was unaware of its alleged links to North Korea.

Aside from the North Koreans behind Glocom, clues on its website also point to its North Korean origins.

For instance, one undated photo shows a factory worker testing a Glocom radio system. A plaque nearby shows the machine he is using has won a uniquely North Korean award: The Model Machine No. 26 Prize,” named in honor of late leader Kim Jong Il, who is said to have efficiently operated “Lathe No. 26” at the Pyongyang Textile Factory when he was a student.

*** It gets worse.

Executive Summary

In April 2018, Recorded Future published research on the internet browsing behavior of North Korea’s most senior leaders and revealed stark changes in how North Korea’s ruling elite utilize the internet from our original analysis in July 2017. Utilizing a data set spanning from December to mid-April, we compiled a significant amount of information on North Korea’s technology architecture, including which types, manufacturers, and models of hardware and software North Korean leaders used to access the internet.

Our analysis reveals the overwhelming presence of American hardware and software on North Korean networks and in daily use by senior North Korean leaders. We also examined the broad legal regime that restricts U.S. trade with North Korea and discovered that it is insufficient to prevent U.S. electronics, hardware, and software from reaching North Korea.

Key Judgements

  • This failure to keep American technology from reaching North Korea has enabled North Korea’s destabilizing, disruptive, and destructive cyber operations as well as its internet-enabled circumvention of international sanctions.
  • International inconsistency in the definition of the term “luxury goods” has also facilitated the Kim regime’s acquisition of American technology.
  • For seven years, between 2002 and 2017, the United States allowed the exportation of “computer and electronic products” to North Korea, totaling more than $430,000. Our analysis demonstrates that many of the electronic devices North Korean elite utilize are older models or are running older software, and that at least some of those devices could have been legally acquired from the U.S. during these seven years.
  • All U.S. exporters are liable for any violation of the sanctions regime, but beyond the implementation of a robust compliance program, there’s relatively little that can be done to actually stop prohibited goods from reaching sanctioned countries. This is especially true for North Korea, as they have proven to be sophisticated at utilizing intermediaries or spoofing identities.

History of Export Controls Against North Korea

Since the split of North and South Korea following World War II, the United States has regarded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) as an adversary. Despite the lack of open hostilities for nearly 65 years, the U.S. has never normalized diplomatic relations with the “Hermit Kingdom.” From the 1950s to 1980s, North Korea’s status as a Communist government, and sponsorship of international terrorism, ensured that the two countries remained enemies. Then, in 1988, after the bombing of Korean Air Flight 858, North Korea was officially designated as a state sponsor of terrorism by the Reagan administration, inaugurating the modern export control regime against North Korea.

Separately, export control as a response to North Korea’s nuclear proliferation efforts dates back to 1992 when the U.S. imposed sanctions on two North Korean companies due to their missile proliferation activities. Between June 1992 and June 2000, some restrictions were lifted as a result of the U.S.-North Korea bilateral missile talks, but the respite was short lived and the U.S. ratcheted up sanctions from January 2001 through to 2006. This period included the notorious labeling of North Korea as part of the “Axis of Evil” in President Bush’s 2002 State of the Union Address.

In 2006, the first widespread international sanctions began after North Korea carried out its initial nuclear weapons test. This test prompted the UN Security Council (UNSC) to pass two resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea — first Resolution 1695, and then Resolution 1718. These resolutions together banned a broad range of both imports and exports to North Korea by any UN member states.

While these resolutions initially focused on military materiel, they were supplemented by broader sanctions from the U.S., Australia, and Japan. After North Korea conducted its second underground nuclear test in May 2009, the UNSC adopted Resolution 1874, which further expanded the arms embargo and sought to target Pyongyang’s financial apparata. From 2009 to the present day, both the U.S. and UNSC have progressively strengthened and expanded earlier sanctions with Resolution 2087, 2094, 2270, 2371, 2375, and 2397, which covered everything from missile materiel to textiles and caps on oil trading.

Despite a perceived thaw in diplomatic relations beginning earlier this year, U.S. officials have re-emphasized numerous times that “all sanctions and maximum pressure must remain,” while denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is negotiated.

State of Current U.S. Sanctions Against North Korea

Current United States sanctions against North Korea can be split into two categories:

  1. Sanctions that specifically target North Korea.
  2. Sanctions related to “Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators.”

Until 2008, the bulk of U.S. sanctions specific to North Korea were implemented via the Trading With the Enemy Act (1917), which empowers the federal government to prohibit any and all trade with designated countries. On June 26, 2008, the Bush administration issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13466 under the authority of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. That same year, the National Emergencies Act. E.O. 13466 was supplemented by Executive Orders 13551, 13570, 13687, 13722, and the North Korea Sanctions Regulations (31 C.F.R. part 510). These measures extended a variety of trade restrictions and blocking of interests belonging to various figures in North Korea.

Pre-dating these sanctions, E.O. 13382 was issued in 2005 targeting various entities engaged in WMD proliferation. Three North Korean entities and numerous North Korean persons were listed as blocked entities.

Today, these regulations have culminated in six prohibited categories of transactions involving North Korea:

  1. Blocked property belonging to the state of North Korea and certain North Korean nationals (E.O. 13466, 13551, 13687, 13722, and 13382).
  2. U.S. persons are prohibited from registering vessels in North Korea, flying the DPRK flag, or operating any vessel flagged by North Korea (E.O. 13466).
  3. Goods, services, and technology from North Korea may not be imported into the U.S. (E.O. 13570).
  4. No new investment in North Korea by U.S. persons is allowed (E.O. 13722).
  5. No financing by a U.S. person involving North Korea is allowed (E.O. 13722).
  6. And most importantly for our purposes, goods, services, and technology may not be exported to North Korea from the U.S., or by a U.S. person wherever located, without a license (E.O. 13722).

U.S. export enforcement responsibility falls under three executive branch agencies: the Office of Foreign Asset Control within the Department of Treasury, the Office of Export Enforcement within the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, and Homeland Security Investigations within the Department of Homeland Security. These three agencies enforce the Executive Orders, U.S. sanctions, International Trafficking in Arms Regulation, Export Administration Regulation, and other laws which make up the body of export control laws in the United States. In 2010, Executive Order 13558 created the Export Enforcement Coordination Center to further strengthen the partnership between these independent agencies.

The United States is one of the only countries which enforces its export laws outside of its national boundaries. Federal agents located in foreign countries work in conjunction with local authorities to conduct end use license checks, knocking on doors to see whether the parties are still upholding their stated exporting intentions.

Currently, civil penalties of up to the greater of $284,582, or twice the amount of the transaction, can be imposed against any party that violates these sanctions. Similarly, upon conviction, criminal penalties of up to $1 million, imprisonment for up to 20 years, or both, may be imposed on any person that willfully violates the sanctions.

North Korea Leverages a Breadth of U.S. Technology Despite Export Controls

North Korea’s Technology Architecture

Numerous third-party data sources used for this analysis gave Recorded Future visibility into what types of devices North Korea’s most senior leadership use to access the global internet. As has been widely publicized over the past several years, Kim Jong Un has been photographed on several occasions with Apple devices, and North Korean-made mobile phones have been assessed as mimicking Apple technology.

While we cannot confirm the actual users behind the activity we see, our analysis indicates that numerous American and Western-manufactured devices are being used by North Korean elite to access the global internet. Several reports and accounts have documented how few North Koreans are granted access to the global internet. At most, only the inner circle of North Korea’s leadership, such as party, military, and intelligence leaders and their families, are allowed to own computers and independently utilize the global internet. This is one of the data points we use to determine with such certainty that North Korea’s ruling elite are the users of this hardware and software.

North Korea’s use of proxies and load balancers limited our ability to identify exactly how many of each device was present, but we can determine some models and versions:

  • Windows 7
  • Windows 8.1
  • Windows 2000
  • Windows XP
  • Windows 10
  • Microsoft Terminal Server
  • Samsung Galaxy S5
  • Samsung Galaxy J5
  • Samsung Galaxy S7
  • Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus
  • Huawei Mate 95c 6 v6
  • Apple iPhone 4S
  • Apple iPhone 5
  • Apple iPhone 5S
  • Apple iPhone 6
  • Apple iPhone 6S Plus
  • Apple iPhone 7 Plus
  • Apple iPhone 8 Plus
  • Apple iPhone X
  • Apple MacBook
  • IBM Tivoli Storage Manager server
  • Conexant Hasbani web servers
  • Ascend Communications1 switches
  • F5 BIG-IP load balancer

While the majority of North Korean cyber operations are likely conducted from abroad, a small minority historically have been conducted from territorial North Korea. These operations have been conducted utilizing this very same hardware and software. This means that minimally, U.S. technology has enabled North Korea’s destabilizing, disruptive, and destructive cyber operations as well as its internet-enabled circumvention of international sanctions.

Where Technology Export Control Fails

According to a Congressional Research Service study conducted in 2016, U.S. trade restrictions with North Korea are extensive, but do not amount to a comprehensive embargo.

The United States curtails trade with North Korea for reasons of regional stability, that country’s support for acts of international terrorism, lack of cooperation with U.S. antiterrorism efforts, proliferation, and its status as a Communist country and a nonmarket economy. The United States also prohibits transactions relating to trade with certain North Korean entities identified as those who procure luxury goods, launder money, smuggle bulk cash, engage in counterfeiting goods and currency, and traffic in illicit narcotics.

Further, ”a U.S. company may apply for a license to export to North Korea, but for nearly all items other than food and medicine, there is a presumption of denial.”

This is despite the fact that North Korea has been on and off the State Sponsors of Terrorism list twice in the last 10 years (President Bush rescinded the declaration in 2008 and President Trump re-applied it in November 2017). In terms of exportation of technology to North Korea, the State Sponsors of Terrorism designation has relatively little impact in and of itself because the sanctions resulting from that designation govern primarily U.S. foreign aid, defense exports, and dual-use items. There is a provision for sanctions on “miscellaneous financial and other restrictions,” however, it is not clear whether that provision goes above and beyond the existing prohibitions on technology exports to North Korea.

Most electronics, including laptop computers, digital music players, large flat-screen televisions, and “electronic entertainment software” are considered “luxury goods” and fall under the broad trade Export Administration Restrictions (EAR) for North Korea administered by the Department of Commerce.

While the United Nations (UN) clarified its definition of “luxury goods” in Resolution 2321 as not including electronics, each UN member state is allowed to interpret the “luxury goods” term as including different products, “creat[ing] a situation of uneven practice” in the application of export controls. For instance:

  • The European Union bans “electrical/electronic items and appliances for domestic use of a value exceeding EUR 50 each.”
  • Australia bans all “consumer electronics.”
  • Japan prohibits “portable computing devices consisting of at least a central processing unit (CPU), a keyboard, and a display.”
  • South Korea broadly restricts and governs trade with the North including “electronic goods” as a luxury item.
    China has not made a distinction on embargoed luxury goods and does not “honor the luxury goods lists of other countries when it exports to” North Korea.

The Saga of ZTE

In March 2016, Zhongxing Telecommunications Equipment (ZTE), a Chinese cellular device and hardware manufacturer, was added to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) Entities List. The EAR “imposes additional licensing requirements on and limits the availability of most license exceptions for, exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) to those listed” on the Entities List. ZTE was initially placed on the Entities List for violating U.S. sanctions by selling American-made goods to Iran and North Korea. Placement on the Entities List prohibited U.S. companies from selling goods to ZTE without a license, and because nearly all ZTE-manufactured products contained U.S. goods, essentially crippled the company.

For more than two years, ZTE and the U.S. government went back and forth attempting to reach an agreement over penalties and validate that ZTE was no longer violating U.S. sanctions. In April 2018, the Department of Commerce (DOC) ended the negotiations by imposing a denial order, prohibiting American companies from selling to ZTE for seven years.

The denial order was the end of a lengthy export control enforcement process which would have bankrupted ZTE. Instead, in late May, the DOC negotiated an agreement which lifted the denial order and re-opened ZTE to U.S. exports.

The case of ZTE, a company which was placed on the Entities List and under a denial order for violating U.S. sanctions against North Korea, is a useful example of how impactful successful export control can be — if allowed to be. Had ZTE been allowed to fail, it would have sent a powerful message to companies around the world indicating how seriously the U.S. considers these violations. Instead, the message is that a company can violate U.S export controls and sanctions if it is large enough and aligned with an economically powerful nation.

Technology Exports to North Korea Were Not Always Prohibited

The question of how U.S. technology gets to North Korea is not entirely a story of failed export control or inconsistent application. According to Department of Commerce data, the U.S. has actually exported over $176 million of goods to North Korea since 2002. While this number pales in comparison to export volume with nations such as China or Canada, it is important to note that the export of “computers and electronic products” to North Korea occurred until this year.

At its peak in 2014, the U.S. exported $215,862 worth of computers and electronic products to North Korea. We do not know exactly which products or how many were exported to North Korea that year. However, based on the Department of Commerce definition of “computers and electronic products,” we have an idea of what kind of electronics these exports might have included. This category includes “computers, computer peripherals (including items like printers, monitors, and storage devices), communications equipment (such as wired and wireless telephones), and similar electronic products (including audio and video equipment and semiconductors),” as well as components for these products.

Again, while we do not know exactly which computer and electronic products were exported to North Korea over the past 15 years, that data can be useful in an exercise to demonstrate exactly how much value North Korea could have derived from that amount of money.

For example, in 2014, a decent desktop could cost around $500, while a similarly specified laptop would cost $700. Hypothetically, if North Koreans were paying the average prices for computers, they could have purchased over 350 computers from U.S. suppliers in 2014 alone. In total, since 2002, the U.S. has legally exported $483,543 worth of computers and electronics to North Korea — a sum that could have legally supplied some of the ruling elites’ electronics needs.

Our analysis demonstrates that many of the electronic devices North Korean elite utilize are older models or are running older software. These legal exports certainly do not account for all of the devices we have observed on North Korean networks, nor is $483,543 sufficient to completely build a moderately sized and proxied network. However, it presents an interesting part of the answer to the question of exactly how North Korea could have acquired all of their Western hardware and software. At least some of the computers and software we observed being used in North Korean networks today was probably acquired during these past 15 years.

Outlook

It is the responsibility of any U.S. exporters to be familiar and compliant with federal export controls, as penalties can include fines, civil or criminal charges, imprisonment, negative publicity, revocation of exporting privileges, or debarment from U.S. government contracting. As explained by the Massachusetts Export Center, “[Even if the exporter is selling only] innocuous products or selling only to ‘friendly’ countries … the exporter is ultimately responsible to have a thorough understanding of export regulations and to establish operating procedures aimed at preventing violations.”

For U.S. companies and persons to avoid the risk of being found guilty of violating sanctions, it is expected that an effective export compliance program is implemented. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security suggest eight elements for an effective program:

  1. Statements and commitments from management
  2. Risk assessment of potential export violations
  3. Export authorization
  4. Effective record keeping
  5. Instituting training programs for employees
  6. Auditing records
  7. Detecting and correcting export violations
  8. Maintaining an export compliance manual

Generally, all U.S. business are not expected to perfect all eight elements, but any deviation from a robust compliance program poses a risk that an entity could be found in violation of the U.S. export regime. However, while a U.S. company may have a robust program, sanctioned states often use false flags or non-national facilitators to skirt even the most advanced programs. As a recent report from Arms Control Wonk and Reuters pointed out, the North Koreans are adept at falsifying addresses and names to circumvent sanctions programs. This flow of technology is not one way, either — recent reports point out that North Korea has used shell companies and various aliases to export various technologies, including facial recognition software to U.S. allies and encryption software in Asia.

One transaction involving the DPRK shell company Glocom that was widely reported last year demonstrates the ease with which North Korea is able to avoid technology control sanctions. Glocom used a network of Asian-based front companies to purchase components from electronic resellers, and the payment was even cleared through a U.S. bank account. Glocom, the company at the center of these transactions, was tied to Pan Systems Pyongyang via invoices uncovered by the UN and International Global System via WHOIS website registration data. Ryang Su Nyo is listed as a director of Pan Systems Pyongyang and a shareholder of International Global System, and Reuters has reported that Ryang reports to “Liaison Office 519,” a department within the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau.

Today, the varied interpretation of the term “luxury goods,” a sophisticated sanctions evasion operation, and lax enforcement of technology and electronics as a subcategory has created a situation where the Kim regime can acquire U.S. electronics, software, and hardware virtually at will. Technology resellers, North Koreans abroad, and the Kim regime’s extensive criminal networks all facilitate the transfer of American technology for daily use by one of the world’s most repressive governments. Unless there’s a globally unified effort to impose comprehensive sanctions on the DPRK, and multilateral cooperation to ensure that these sanctions cannot be thwarted by a web of shell companies, North Korea will be able to continue its cyberwarfare operations unabated with the aid of Western technology.

 

China and Soros Take the Fun out of the Triple Crown?

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Seems nothing is sacred from globalism including horse-racing, especially when one investor is a rogue nation and the other is a rogue person. Sigh…

DERBY HOPEFUL JUSTIFY TAKES SANTA ANITA ALLOWANCE BY 6 ½ ... photo

So, meet the China Horse Club founded by Teo Ah Khing. Born in Malaysia, he is apparently an acclaimed architect, entrepreneur and horse breeder. He has been a senior advisor to heads of state including the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mohamed, Musharrafh, President of Pakistan and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoun of United Arab Emirates.

Justify: Meet the Horse, Jockey, Owners & Trainer | Heavy ... photo

Then we have George Soros. Soros controls operations in SF Bloodstock and SF Racing Group. Okay, read on….and decided whether or not to bet of Justify to win the Triple Crown.

Kentucky: If the strapping chestnut colt Justify wins the Belmont Stakes on Saturday to become just the 13th horse in history to claim horse racing’s Triple Crown, two of the three groups that have an ownership stake in the horse’s breeding rights will be front and center during the celebration.

WinStar Farm, one of North America’s leading Thoroughbred racing and breeding operations, owns 60 percent of Justify’s breeding rights. China Horse Club owns 25 percent. A third group, a secretive entity that holds the remaining 15 percent, will remain out of the spotlight because it vigorously avoids any public attention. It is a company controlled by top employees of billionaire investor George Soros.

Soros’ connection to Justify, which was not previously reported, has garnered little notice in the sport despite the horse’s rousing success in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes because his group tries to operate almost invisibly. Several officials, who sit atop one of the biggest owners in stallion equity in the world, declined to comment about Soros’ involvement in horse racing through his fund.

Soros’ investment firm, Soros Fund Management, is behind SF Bloodstock and SF Racing Group, an international breeding and racing operation started in 2008. Executives from the investment firm oversee the breeding and horse ownership businesses. Gavin Murphy, an Australian based in New York who has served as the Soros Fund’s longtime tax counsel, is the manager of SF Bloodstock and SF Racing Group. Christopher Naunton, chief financial officer for the Soros Fund’s family office, is the president of SF Bloodstock and SF Racing Group, corporate filings show. Tom Ryan, an Irishman based in Lexington is the team’s bloodstock agent.

Soros.jpg
George Soros at his Open Society Foundations office in New York, May 27, 2014. If the strapping chestnut colt Justify wins the Belmont Stakes on June 9, 2018, to become just the 13th horse in history to claim horse racing’s Triple Crown, three groups have an ownership stake in the horse’s breeding rights, and one of them is a company controlled by top employees of Soros.
Joshua Bright The New York Times

SF, which is also a part-owner of Newgate Farm in Australia, has breeding stock in the United States, Australia, England, Ireland and France. It could not be determined how much money Soros’ firm has committed to the horse racing business.

SF Bloodstock, which according to court filings is owned by SF Agricultural Holdings LLC, employs a for-profit model and focuses on the breeding side of the industry, purchasing stallions, or shares in them, and broodmares while selling yearlings at auction. In 2015, it entered into a three-year partnership with WinStar Farm and China Horse Club that allowed them to spend big while spreading risk at yearling and 2-year-old sales. That is how the group partly acquired Justify and the third-place Kentucky Derby finisher Audible, but it quickly sold its racing rights in those horses to Head of Plains Partners and Starlight Racing.

“To me, and the couple guys that I do this with, it’s more fun to be in the winner’s circle when Justify wins the Derby holding the trophy,” said Sol Kumin, a hedge fund executive who runs Head of Plains. “So you kind of have to pick. If this became my full-time job, which it won’t, I would have a different program, focusing more on the stallion business and breeding. Now we still want to make money, and so far we’ve done well, but it’s hard.”

Just days after Justify’s Preakness victory, chatter began to surface about a $60 million deal with the rival farm Coolmore for his breeding rights. The deal is believed to include a bonus of about $25 million if he were to win the Triple Crown and would allow the partners to retain some shares and lifetime breeding rights in the horse. It was agreed to before the Preakness, people familiar with the deal said.

But Elliott Walden, Winstar’s president and chief executive, said a deal had not yet been completed. The partners might wait until September, when it will have owned Justify for two years, to complete a deal so they become eligible for the lower tax rates associated with capital gains.

Henry Field, head of SF’s Newgate Farm, and Eden Harrington, vice president of China Horse Club, are graduates of the Darley Flying Start program, a management and leadership training program for the industry, and have each worked for Coolmore.

American Pharoah, who in 2015 became the first horse in 37 years to sweep the Triple Crown, stands at Coolmore’s farm in Versailles, Kentucky, in the spring. He then shuttles to its Australian farm for the fall breeding season. In the past couple years in the United States, he was commanding about $200,000 per live foal that stands and nurses. Producing an average of 150 live foals from the breeding season in Kentucky, American Pharoah is racking up more than $35 million in stallion fees there. He commands about $50,000 per live foal in Australia.

WinStar, meanwhile, stands American Pharoah’s sire, Pioneerof the Nile, for $110,000 and will likely add Audible, the Florida Derby winner, to the mix.

Bradley Weisbord, who runs BSW Bloodstock, which manages Kumin’s stable along with several others, said that while a deal had not been completed, from an industry perspective, it made sense.

“Kenny Troutt has always run his WinStar Farm as a business,” he said of the owner of WinStar who made his fortune from a long-distance phone company that used a multilevel marketing approach. “On the flip side, Coolmore has always wanted the best.”

He continued: “Sure, it’s probably a tough decision for him and he’s probably going through it thinking, ‘Do I sell or do I keep him,’ but WinStar, SF, China Horse Club, they are traders, and there is a number where it becomes the perfect bloodstock deal, and that is when the buyers and the sellers both walk away with a smile on their face.”

Soros is one of the world’s most successful investors, who might be best-known for his bet in 1992 against the fortunes of the British pound. Soros is said to have made more than $1 billion by shorting the pound — a move that cemented his reputation as one of the shrewdest currency traders. Read the rest of the item here.

Rogue Meets Rogue, Obama and Iran

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While the United States has terminated it’s role in the JCPOA, the Iranian nuclear deal, Europe appears to be dedicated to remain. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is traveling in Europe meeting with leaders on the sole topic of Iran. As this item is published he is meeting with Theresa May of Britain.

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On May 8, 2018, the President announced his decision to cease the United States’ participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and to begin re-imposing the U.S. nuclear-related sanctions that were lifted to effectuate the JCPOA sanctions relief, following a wind-down period.  In conjunction with this announcement, the President issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) directing the U.S. Department of the Treasury and other Departments and Agencies to take the actions necessary to implement his decision.
Consistent with the President’s guidance, Departments and Agencies will begin the process of  implementing 90-day and 180-day wind-down periods for activities involving Iran that were consistent with the U.S. sanctions relief specified in the JCPOA.  To effectuate the wind-down periods, today the State Department issued the necessary statutory sanctions waivers to provide for a wind-down period and plans to take appropriate action to keep such waivers in place for the duration of the relevant wind-down periods.  As soon as is administratively feasible, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) expects to revoke, or amend, as appropriate, general and specific licenses issued in connection with the JCPOA.  At that time, OFAC will issue new authorizations to allow the wind down of transactions and activities that were authorized pursuant to the revoked or amended general and specific licenses.  At the end of the 90-day and 180-day wind-down periods, the applicable sanctions will come back into full effect.
OFAC posted today to its website additional frequently asked questions (FAQs) that provide guidance on the sanctions that are to be re-imposed and the relevant wind-down periods.
*** Iranian banks must comply with rules on money laundering ... photo

Why the big push on all of this? Iran has launched new uranium enrichment plans with meet the red line. But, could that enrichment exceed agreed limits? Yes and no one would know due in part to refused access by IAEA officials for inspection.

(Reuters) – Iran’s declaration that it could increase its uranium enrichment capacity if a nuclear deal with world powers falls apart risks sailing close to the “red line”, France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said on Monday he had ordered preparations to increase uranium enrichment capacity if the nuclear agreement collapsed after the United States withdrew from the deal last month.

It also informed the U.N. nuclear watchdog of “tentative” plans to produce the feedstock for centrifuges, which are the machines that enrich uranium.

“This initiative is unwelcome. It shows a sort of irritation,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio. “It is always dangerous to flirt with the red lines, but the initiative taken … remains totally within the framework of the Vienna (nuclear) deal.”

Tensions between Iran and the West have surged since President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran last month, calling it deeply flawed and reimposing unilateral sanctions.

European powers are scrambling to save the deal – under which Iran curbed its nuclear program in return for a lifting of international sanctions – as they regard it as the best chance to stop Tehran developing an atomic bomb.

However, they have warned Iran that if it were not to abide by the terms of the deal, then they would also be forced to pull out and reimpose sanctions as Washington has done.

“If they go to a higher level then yes the agreement would be violated, but they need to realize that if they do then they will expose themselves to new sanctions and the Europeans will not remain passive.”

Le Drian, who said Iran was for now still abiding by its commitments, was speaking a day after Israel’s leader urged France to turn its attention to tackling Iran’s “regional aggression”, saying he no longer needed to convince Paris to quit a 2015 nuclear deal between various world powers with Tehran as economic pressure would kill it anyway.

MSNBC Hires the Organizer of Obama's Iran Echo Chamber as ... photo

** There is yet another item that has bubbled to the surface. Enter Barack Obama.

(AP) — The Obama administration secretly sought to give Iran access — albeit briefly — to the U.S. financial system by sidestepping sanctions kept in place after the 2015 nuclear deal, despite repeatedly telling Congress and the public it had no plans to do so.

An investigation by Senate Republicans released Wednesday sheds light on the delicate balance the Obama administration sought to strike after the deal, as it worked to ensure Iran received its promised benefits without playing into the hands of the deal’s opponents. Amid a tense political climate, Iran hawks in the U.S., Israel and elsewhere argued that the United States was giving far too much to Tehran and that the windfall would be used to fund extremism and other troubling Iranian activity.

The report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations revealed that under President Barack Obama, the Treasury Department issued a license in February 2016, never previously disclosed, that would have allowed Iran to convert $5.7 billion it held at a bank in Oman from Omani rials into euros by exchanging them first into U.S. dollars. If the Omani bank had allowed the exchange without such a license, it would have violated sanctions that bar Iran from transactions that touch the U.S. financial system.

The effort was unsuccessful because American banks — themselves afraid of running afoul of U.S. sanctions — declined to participate. The Obama administration approached two U.S. banks to facilitate the conversion, the report said, but both refused, citing the reputational risk of doing business with or for Iran.

“The Obama administration misled the American people and Congress because they were desperate to get a deal with Iran,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, the subcommittee’s chairman.

Issuing the license was not illegal. Still, it went above and beyond what the Obama administration was required to do under the terms of the nuclear agreement. Under that deal, the U.S. and world powers gave Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in exchange for curbing its nuclear program. Last month, President Donald Trump declared the U.S. was pulling out of what he described as a “disastrous deal.”

The license issued to Bank Muscat stood in stark contrast to repeated public statements from the Obama White House, the Treasury and the State Department, all of which denied that the administration was contemplating allowing Iran access to the U.S. financial system.

Shortly after the nuclear deal was sealed in July 2015, then-Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testified that even with the sanctions relief, Iran “will continue to be denied access to the world’s largest financial and commercial market.” A month later, one of Lew’s top deputies, Adam Szubin, testified that despite the nuclear deal “Iran will be denied access to the world’s most important market and unable to deal in the world’s most important currency.”

Yet almost immediately after the sanctions relief took effect in January 2016, Iran began to complain that it wasn’t reaping the benefits it had envisioned. Iran argued that other sanctions — such as those linked to human rights, terrorism and missile development — were scaring off potential investors and banks who feared any business with Iran would lead to punishment. The global financial system is heavily intertwined with U.S. banks, making it nearly impossible to conduct many international transactions without touching New York in one way or another.

Former Obama administration officials declined to comment for the record.

However, they said the decision to grant the license had been made in line with the spirit of the deal, which included allowing Iran to regain access to foreign reserves that had been off-limits because of the sanctions. They said public comments made by the Obama administration at the time were intended to dispel incorrect reports about nonexistent proposals that would have gone much farther by letting Iran actually buy or sell things in dollars.

The former officials spoke on condition of anonymity because many are still involved in national security issues.

As the Obama administration pondered how to address Iran’s complaints in 2016, reports in The Associated Press and other media outlets revealed that the U.S. was considering additional sanctions relief, including issuing licenses that would allow Iran limited transactions in dollars. Democratic and Republican lawmakers argued against it throughout the late winter, spring and summer of 2016. They warned that unless Tehran was willing to give up more, the U.S. shouldn’t give Iran anything more than it already had.

At the time, the Obama administration downplayed those concerns while speaking in general terms about the need for the U.S. to live up to its part of the deal. Secretary of State John Kerry and other top aides fanned out across Europe, Asia and the Middle East trying to convince banks and businesses they could do business with Iran without violating sanctions and facing steep fines.

“Since Iran has kept its end of the deal, it is our responsibility to uphold ours, in both letter and spirit,” Lew said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in March 2016, without offering details.

That same week, the AP reported that the Treasury had prepared a draft of a license that would have given Iran much broader permission to convert its assets from foreign currencies into easier-to-spend currencies like euros, yen or rupees, by first exchanging them for dollars at offshore financial institutions.

The draft involved a general license, a blanket go-ahead that allows all transactions of a certain type, rather than a specific license like the one given to Oman’s Bank Muscat, which only covers specific transactions and institutions. The proposal would have allowed dollars to be used in currency exchanges provided that no Iranian banks, no Iranian rials and no sanctioned Iranian individuals or businesses were involved, and that the transaction did not begin or end in U.S. dollars.

Obama administration officials at the time assured concerned lawmakers that a general license wouldn’t be coming. But the report from the Republican members of the Senate panel showed that a draft of the license was indeed prepared, though it was never published.

And when questioned by lawmakers about the possibility of granting Iran any kind of access to the U.S. financial system, Obama-era officials never volunteered that the specific license for Bank Muscat in Oman had been issued two months earlier.

According to the report, Iran is believed to have found other ways to access its money, possibly by exchanging it in smaller quantities through another currency.

The situation resulted from the fact that Iran had stored billions in Omani rials, a currency that’s notoriously hard to convert. The U.S. dollar is the world’s dominant currency, so allowing it to be used as a conversion instrument for Iranian assets was the easiest and most efficient way to speed up Iran’s access to its own funds.

For example: If the Iranians want to sell oil to India, they would likely want to be paid in euros instead of rupees, so they could more easily use the proceeds to purchase European goods. That process commonly starts with the rupees being converted into dollars, just for a moment, before being converted once again into euros.

U.S. sanctions block Iran from exchanging the money on its own. And Asian and European banks are wary because U.S. regulators have levied billions of dollars in fines in recent years and threatened transgressors with a cutoff from the far more lucrative American market.

More Slime from The SWAMP

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Mitch McConnell cancels Senate’s traditional August recess

In a brief written statement, he said: “Senators should expect to remain in session in August to pass legislation, including appropriations bills, and to make additional progress on the president’s nominees.” More here.

At least that is something right?

All of us are mad, no furious with members of Congress. Imagine when some of those members are more angry than YOU at the system?

Leadership works with lobbyists and then leaks to the media. And then you think you have the whole story. Ah, not at all.

Just a teaser for Episode 3 is below.

The Swamp from Daniel Lippman on Vimeo.

In 2017, Congressman Ken Buck of Colorado wrote a book titled Drain The Swamp. 

It is a great primer and a book that can be read in a day. What does go on behind closed doors in Congress? Yep, you will learn it fast. What about those committee assignments and chairmanships? Yep, they are bought. Have you considered discretionary spending? It is illegal. A large handful of congressional members are in fact on our side. Some are so disgusted they are leaving Congress.

Run out and buy the book: Drain the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse than You ThinkCongressman Buck is hardly a rebel but there are those colleagues that say he is. BARTELS: Secretary Wayne Williams’ Denver Broncos shirt ... Yes due to the weapon on the wall for which he was investigated a few years ago.

Remember that shooting at the ballfield? Well, as an aside, prior to that these congressional members packed heat. Likely more are doing the same now.

Here are the members of the House Freedom Caucus who say they currently carry, or did as of 2013 (all are Republicans):

  • Alabama Rep. Gary Palmer
  • Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks
  • Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar
  • Arizona Rep. Matt Salmon
  • Arizona Rep. David Schweikert
  • Arizona Rep. Trent Franks
  • Colorado Rep. Ken Buck
  • Florida Rep. Ted Yoho
  • Florida Rep. Bill Posey
  • Indiana Rep. Marlin Stutzman
  • Louisiana Rep. John Fleming
  • Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan
  • South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan
  • South Carolina Rep. Mick Mulvaney
  • Tennessee Rep. Scott Desjarlais
  • Texas Rep. Randy Weber
  • Virginia Rep. Dave Brat

Brooks said the Second Amendment is the “bedrock” of all other amendments, and the pro gun-control argument that the Second Amendment only applies to a militia-owning firearms is preposterous.

“The purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that the citizenry could protect itself from a dictatorial and out-of-control government,” Brooks told TheDCNF.

“It has long been a primary goal of kings, dictators, communists, fascists and the like to disarm the citizenry so that there is minimal risk of opposition to centralized government, dictating to the citizenry that is unarmed and defenseless, and unable to assert their rights,” he said. (some of them have already left congress)

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