Category Archives: Human Rights Violations United Nations

Apple, China and iCloud Data Safety?

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Primer: Pegatron, the factory at the corner of Xiu Yan and Shen Jiang roads is one of the most secretive facilities at the heart of iPhone production and covers an area equal to almost 90 football fields. In the center is a plaza with a firehouse, police station and post office. There are shuttle buses, mega-cafeterias, landscaped lawns and koi ponds. The grey and brown-hued concrete buildings are meant to evoke traditional Chinese architecture. The brand-new Shanghai Disneyland, which opens its doors in June, is a 20-minute drive away.

Inside, the factory still hides a secret, according to China Labor Watch. Base pay remains so low that workers need overtime simply to make ends meet, the advocacy group said. It said 1,261 pay stubs from Pegatron’s Shanghai facility from September and October 2015 show evidence of excessive overtime. Pegatron, an Asustek spinoff, is the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer after Foxconn, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. More here.

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This Wednesday, Apple will be making some significant changes to how data is stored for users of its iCloud service in China – raising major concerns that the Chinese authorities will now be able to freely monitor Apple’s users in China. This may be quite worrying for he population and may remind you of the iCloud breach on 31 August 2014. Ever since then, people have been very sceptical of storing precious information online and have been purchasing services from businesses like http://www.thefinalstep.co.uk/ to protect their data from any hackers.

Apple has a reputation for being a powerful advocate for privacy and security. The company uses strong encryption by default in its services and grabbed headlines when it appealed a US court order that would allow the FBI to get around the phone’s security. Apple CEO Tim Cook even sent all Apple consumers a personal letter explaining the importance of privacy.

With China, however, a different story has emerged. Apple has been criticised for blocking Chinese users’ access to the Apple News app and for removing VPN apps from the App Store in China. The changes being made to iCloud are the latest indication that China’s repressive legal environment is making it difficult for Apple to uphold its commitments to user privacy and security. What do these changes mean and what options do Apple’s customers have to protect themselves?

  1. What is happening to Apple’s iCloud service in China?

On 28 February, Apple will transfer operation of its iCloud service for Chinese users to a Chinese company, Guizhou-Cloud Big Data Industry Development Co., Ltd (“GCBD”). The concept of iCloud and other Cloud computing services can be quite confusing to some, especially if it is something completely new to you. It is very interesting to look into. As many of us use services like this to store our files and photos, it makes sense to know what this is all about. Why not look into a site like https://www.salesforce.com/what-is-cloud-computing/ to stay informed.

The move will affect any photos, documents, contacts, messages and other user data and content that Chinese users store on Apple’s cloud-based servers. New Chinese legislation enacted in 2017 requires cloud services to be operated by Chinese companies, meaning companies like Apple must either lease server space inside China or establish joint ventures with Chinese partners.

  1. How does storing user data in China put individuals at risk?

Domestic law gives the Chinese government virtually unfettered access to user data stored inside China without adequate protection for users’ rights to privacy, freedom of expression or other basic human rights. Chinese police enjoy sweeping discretion and use broad and ambiguously constructed laws and regulations to silence dissent, restrict or censor information and harass and prosecute human rights defenders and others in the name of “national security” and other purported criminal offences. As a result, Chinese Internet users can face arrest and imprisonment for merely expressing, communicating or accessing information and ideas that the authorities don’t like.

Furthermore, China’s Cyber Security Law requires network operators to provide “technical support and assistance” to law enforcement and state security agents. That means that when the authorities come to GCBD requesting information about an iCloud user for the purposes of a criminal investigation, the company has a legal obligation to provide it and few, if any, viable legal avenues to challenge or refuse the request.

  1. Apple says it has control over encryption keys and that it won’t allow backdoors. Won’t that protect users in China?

It all depends on the circumstances under which the company will allow GCBD – and the Chinese authorities – access to intelligible decrypted data on iCloud users. When users accept the terms of service for iCloud in China, they agree to allow their information and content to be turned over to law enforcement “if legally required to do so”. Significantly, from now on Apple will store the encryption keys for Chinese users in China, not in the US – making it all but inevitable that the company will be forced to hand over decrypted data so long as the request complies with Chinese law.

Given that many provisions of Chinese law offer inadequate protection to privacy, freedom of expression and other rights, simply checking whether government information requests comply with Chinese law doesn’t address whether complying with the request might contribute to human rights violations. Apple hasn’t confirmed whether or how it will assess whether government information requests might violate users’ human rights. We won’t really know how Apple will respond until it’s put to the test, and unfortunately that’s probably just a matter of time.

As for “backdoors”, or technical measures that would allow law enforcement or other government agencies to access unencrypted user data without having to ask for it, Apple’s commitment to prevent their use is admirable. But the commitment is meaningless if law enforcement can get the companies to decrypt user information simply by saying that it is for a criminal investigation.

  1. What should iCloud users inside China do to protect themselves?

The best way to protect your personal information from being accessed by the Chinese government is to avoid storing it on servers inside China. Users with a credit card and billing address outside China can use those to register their accounts and keep storing their iCloud data outside China. Otherwise, the only option available to Chinese users is to delete their iCloud accounts and permanently opt out of the service. (Apple has provided instructions for how to do so here.) Individual users should seriously consider the risks involved and come to their own decision, but Apple should protect Chinese users by switching iCloud off by default and giving users very clear warnings about the risks they may face by opting in to the service.

  1. How can ICT companies act responsibly when operating in China?

Companies have a responsibility to respect all human rights wherever they operate in the world. Users of their products and services need to be given clear and specific information about risks they might face to their privacy and freedom of expression in China, and what action the company is taking in response. Companies should carry out regular and verifiable human rights impact assessments and demonstrate publicly that they have oversight, due diligence and accountability measures in place to ensure respect for human rights. Finally, companies should do everything they can to influence the Chinese government to protect and respect human rights and speak up and challenge government actions when they threaten human rights. If a company finds that it is unable to mitigate the high risk of human rights violations, it may be forced to decide not to operate in China.

Apple’s official website declares: “At Apple, we believe privacy is a fundamental human right.” It remains to be seen whether Apple can put its words into action.

DACA and the Temporary Protected Status Back in Play, Check Houston

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How about some White House officials visit Houston…

More than 100 countries are represented in Houston. Routinely ranked top in the country for job growth, with a school system where 80 percent of students are disadvantaged. For details, go here.

Lee High School for instance has 1700 students, a Vietnamese principal and student are from 40 different countries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illegal immigrant “Dreamers” said they staged a sit-in to block the entrance to the Democratic National Committee’s offices in Washington on Monday in order to show they blame Democrats as well as Republicans for missing President Trump’s March 5 deadline for action.

Immigrant-rights activists who are U.S. citizens and who are supporting the Dreamers will also cancel their membership in the Democratic Party in order to make their point, the organizations said.

Monday marked six months since Mr. Trump announced a phaseout of the Obama-era DACA deportation amnesty. The president had said Congress should use the phaseout period to approve a new plan, with full congressional authorization, to grant DACA recipients legal status.

Mr. Trump offered a middle-ground approach, but the security enhancements went too far for Democrats, while his proposed amnesty for illegal immigrants went too far for many Republicans, and the bill stalled.

While Democrats have blamed the GOP, activists made clear Monday they will pin some of the blame on Democrats.

“The Democrats made the calculation to kick the can down the road and allow hundreds of thousands of us undocumented youth to live in uncertainty. We are anxious and we are scared of being torn away from their homes and our community”, said Maria Duarte, one of 683,000 people covered by DACA.

DNC Chairman Tom Perez, though, said Mr. Trump is the problem, calling his phaseout “cruel and reckless.”

“Donald Trump’s decision to end DACA created an unnecessary crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of Dreamers uncertain about their future. And now his arbitrary deadline has passed without any action from the president or Republicans in Congress,” Mr. Perez said in a statement.

The protesters Monday were part of the Seed Project, which staged a march from New York to Washington late last month, in anticipation of the March 5 deadline.

The protesters said they expect Congress to pass a “clean” bill granting perhaps 2 million illegal immigrants citizenship rights — without agreeing to any other provisions such as Mr. Trump’s planned border wall or changes to legal immigration policy.

Work permits expiring March 31 are automatically extended through Sept. 27

WASHINGTON—Current beneficiaries of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) under Syria’s designation who want to maintain their status through Sept. 30, 2019, must re-register between March 5, and May 4, 2018. Re-registration procedures, including how to renew employment authorization documentation, have been published in the Federal Register and on the USCIS website.

All applicants must submit Form I-821, Application for Temporary Protected Status. Applicants may also request an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) by submitting a completed Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization, when they file Form I-821, or separately at a later date. Both forms are free on USCIS’ website at uscis.gov/tps.

USCIS will issue new EADs with a Sept. 30, 2019, expiration date to eligible Syrian TPS beneficiaries who timely re-register and apply for EADs. However, given the timeframes involved with processing TPS re-registration applications, USCIS is automatically extending the validity of EADs with an expiration date of March 31 for 180 days, through Sept. 27.

To be eligible for TPS under Syria’s current designation, individuals must have continuously resided in the United States since Aug. 1, 2016, and have been continuously physically present in the United States since Oct. 1, 2016, along with meeting the other eligibility requirements.

On Jan. 31, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M. Nielsen announced her determination that the conditions supporting Syria’s TPS designation continue. The secretary made her decision after reviewing country conditions and consulting with appropriate U.S. government agencies. Before the 18-month extension ends, the secretary will review conditions in Syria to determine whether its TPS designation should be extended again or terminated.

UN Declares Sadness and Desperation in Venezuela is About Food

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Except for the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley that is.

Amid growing food insecurity and rising malnutrition among children on the back of a protracted economic crisis in Venezuela, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Friday called on all actors for rapid and coordinated assistance efforts to reach those most in need.

“While precise figures are unavailable because of very limited official health or nutrition data, there are clear signs that the crisis is limiting children’s access to quality health services, medicines and food,” said the UN agency in a news release, Friday, underlining the severity of the situation.

According to UNICEF, national reports in 2009 (the most recent official figures) showed that the prevalence of wasting (low weight to height ratio) in children under five was, at the time, 3.2 per cent.

However, more recent non-official studies indicate “significantly higher rates” of as much as 15.5 per cent, and an additional 20 per cent of children at risk of malnutrition.

Similarly, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017 (a comprehensive report on the subject prepared by a number of UN agencies) suggested that undernourishment – a measure of hunger indicating the proportion of population with inadequate energy consumption – in Venezuela rose from 10.5 per cent in 2004-2006 to 13 per cent in 2014-2016.

In response, the Venezuelan Government has implemented measures to mitigate the impact of the crisis on the country’s children, including providing regular food packages at affordable prices to the most vulnerable families, cash transfers, and strengthening of nutritional and recuperation services.

“But more needs to be done to reverse the worrisome decline in children’s nutritional wellbeing,” said UNICEF, calling for the rapid implementation of a short-term response to counter malnutrition, based on disaggregated data and coordinated between the Government and partners.

On its part, the UN agency is working with the Ministry of Health, National Institute of Nutrition and the civil society to strengthen and expand nutritional surveillance at the community level and provide nutritional recuperation services through partners organizations.

The efforts are being implemented through activities such as nutrition screening days aiming to reach over 113,000 children, provision of supplementary and therapeutic foods when required, training programmes and communication campaigns, added UNICEF.

Venezuela has been mired in a socio-economic and political crisis since 2012 and has witnessed rising consumer prices even as the overall economy has contracted.

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Some 3 million Venezuelans—a tenth of the population—have left Venezuela since late leader Hugo Chavez started his socialist revolution in 1999. More than 500,000 have fled to Colombia—many illegally—hoping to escape grinding poverty, rising violence and shortages of food and medicine in the once-prosperous nation.

Photographer Jaime Saldarriaga joined Reuters journalists at the Paraguachón border crossing to document the exodus from Venezuela, which is now on a scale echoing the departure of Myanmar’s Rohingya people to Bangladesh.

Venezuela Colombia exodus Venezuelans line the street at the border between Venezuela and Colombia, in the city of Cúcuta. Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters

Hundreds of migrants lugging heavy suitcases and overstuffed backpacks walk along the road to the Colombian border town of Maicao, beneath the blazing sun. The Venezuelans arrive hungry, thirsty and tired, often unsure where they will spend the night—but they are relieved to have escaped the calamitous situation in their homeland.

The broken line snakes back eight miles (13 km) to the border crossing, where more than a hundred Venezuelans wait in the heat outside the migration office.

Venezuela Colombia exodus Venezuelans walk along a highway in Colombia after crossing the border at Paraguachón. Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters

Money-changers sit at tables stacked with wads of bolívares—Venezuela’s currency—made nearly worthless by hyperinflation under President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government.

Venezuela Colombia exodus A money changer uses a calculator at the Paraguachón border crossing between Colombia and Venezuela. Jaime Saldarriaga/Reuters

“It’s migrate and give it a try or die of hunger there. Those are the only two options,” Yeraldine Murillo, 27, who left her six-year-old son behind in the Venezuelan city of Maracaibo, told Reuters. “There, people eat from the trash. Here, people are happy just to eat,” she said, adding she hopes to find work in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, and send for her son.

Migrants told Reuters they were paying up to 400,000 bolívares for a kilo of rice in Venezuela. The official monthly minimum wage is 248,510 bolívares—around $8 at the official exchange rate, or $1.09 on the black market.

Food shortages, which many migrants jokingly refer to as the “Maduro diet,” have left people noticeably thinner than in photos taken years earlier for their identification cards.

Mechanic Luis Arellano and his children were among the lucky ones who found beds at a shelter in Maicao run by the Catholic diocese with help from the U.N. refugee agency. The 58-year-old said his children’s tears of hunger drove him to flee Venezuela. “It was 8 p.m. and they were asking for lunch and dinner and I had nothing to give them,” he said, spooning rice into his 7-year-old daughter’s mouth. He raised his children’s spindly arms and said: “[These aren’t] the size they should be.”

Read More: Venezuela Must Stop Presidential Elections

The shelter, where bunk beds line the walls of the bedrooms, provides food and shelter for three days and, for those joining family already in Colombia, a bus ticket onwards. It will soon have a capacity for 140 people a night—a fraction of the daily arrivals.

At another shelter in the border city of Cucuta, some 250 miles (400 km) to the south, people regularly spend the night on cardboard outside, hoping places will free up. The largest city along the frontier, Cucuta, has borne the brunt of the arriving migrants.

 

About 30,000 people cross the pedestrian bridge that connects the city with Venezuela on daily entry passes to shop for food.

The mass migration is stirring alarm in Colombia. A migration official told Reuters as many as 2,000 Venezuelans enter Colombia legally through the border crossing at Paraguachón each day, up from around 1,200 late last year. But officials estimate as many as 4,000 people cross illegally every day.

Colombia is letting the migrants access public health care and send their children to state schools. Santos is asking for international help to foot the bill, which the government has said runs to tens of millions of dollars.

Under pressure from overcrowded frontier towns such as Maicao, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced a tightening of border controls this month, deploying 3,000 additional security personnel. But the measures are unlikely to stem the flow of illegal migrants pouring across the 1,379-mile (2,219 km) frontier.

While many feel a duty to welcome the migrants, in part because Venezuela accepted Colombian refugees during that country’s long civil war, others fear losing jobs to Venezuelans being paid under the table. After locals held a small anti-Venezuelan protest last month, police evicted 200 migrants who were living on a sports field, deporting many of them.

Migrants are verbally abused by some Colombians who refuse them work when they hear their accents, said Flavio Gouguella, 28, from Carabobo. “Are you a Veneco? Then no work,” he said, using a derogatory term for Venezuelans.

Locals also worry about an increase in crime and support police efforts to clear parks and sidewalks. They already have to cope with smuggled subsidized Venezuelan goods damaging local commerce, and have grown tired of job-seekers and lending their bathrooms to migrants. Spooked by police raids, migrants in Maicao have abandoned the parks and bus stations where they had makeshift camps, opting to sleep outside shuttered shops. Female migrants who spoke to Reuters said they were often solicited for sex.

Despairing of finding work, some entrepreneurial migrants turn the nearly worthless bolivar currency into crafts, weaving handbags from the bills and selling them in Maicao’s park. “This was made from 80,000 bolivars,” said 23-year-old Anthony Morillo, holding up a square purse featuring bills with the face of South America’s 19th-century liberation hero Simon Bolivar. “It’s not worth half a bag of rice.”

Despite four months of violent anti-government protests last year, Chavez’s successor Maduro is expected to win a fresh six-year term at elections on April 22. The opposition, whose most popular leaders have been banned from running, are boycotting the vote. Go here for more photos.

N Korea Linked to Syrian Chemical Weapons

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While there has been some chatter that the United States would consider talks with North Korea, that likelihood appears rather dim.

Ambassador Joseph Yun, the special representative for North Korea Policy, is retiring this week after more than 30 years in the Foreign Service.

Yun is yet another member of the Senior Foreign Service who is leaving while the department is still under a hiring freeze and many top roles have not been filled.

There has been growing frustration among the diplomatic ranks over the Trump administration’s handling of foreign policy and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s “redesign” plan of the department. Spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement Yun was retiring for “personal reasons and the Secretary has reluctantly accepted his decision and wished him well.” More here.

Meanwhile….as more sanctions have been applied to North Korea, the Trump administration’s biggest national security challenge, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned one person, 27 companies and 28 ships, according to a statement on the U.S. Treasury Department’s website.

The United States also proposed a list of entities to be blacklisted under separate U.N. sanctions, a move “aimed at shutting down North Korea’s illicit maritime smuggling activities to obtain oil and sell coal.”

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UNITED NATIONS — North Korea has been shipping supplies to the Syrian government that could be used in the production of chemical weapons, United Nations experts contend.

The evidence of a North Korean connection comes as the United States and other countries have accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons on civilians, including recent attacks on civilians in the Damascus suburb of eastern Ghouta using what appears to have been chlorine gas.

The supplies from North Korea include acid-resistant tiles, valves and thermometers, according to a report by United Nations investigators. North Korean missile technicians have also been spotted working at known chemical weapons and missile facilities inside Syria, according to the report, which was written by a panel of experts who looked at North Korea’s compliance with United Nations sanctions.

The report highlights the potential danger posed by any such trade between Syria and North Korea, which could allow Syria to maintain its chemical weapons while also providing North Korea with cash for its nuclear and missile programs.

The possible chemical weapons components were part of at least 40 previously unreported shipments by North Korea to Syria between 2012 and 2017 of prohibited ballistic missile parts and materials that could be used for both military and civilian purposes, according to the report, which has not been publicly released but which was reviewed by The New York Times.

The eight experts who make up the panel all come from different countries and possess specific expertise in areas like weapons of mass destruction, maritime transport and customs controls. Since 2010 the panel has had a mandate from the Security Council to investigate possible sanctions violations by North Korea and present its findings in an annual report.

Though experts who viewed the report said the evidence it cited did not prove definitively that there was current, continuing collaboration between North Korea and Syria on chemical weapons, they said it did provide the most detailed account to date of efforts to circumvent sanctions intended to curtail the military advancement of both countries.

William Newcomb, who was chairman of the United Nations panel of experts on North Korea from 2011 to 2014, called the report “an important breakthrough.”

Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, there have been suspicions that North Korea was providing equipment and expertise to maintain the chemical weapons program of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. Those suspicions were not assuaged when in 2013 Syria signed onto the Chemical Weapons Convention and claimed to give up its chemical weapons stocks.

“We knew stuff was going on,” Mr. Newcomb said. “We really wanted to up the game on chemical weapons programs, and we just weren’t able to get what we needed to do so.”

The report, which is more than 200 pages long, includes copies of contracts between North Korean and Syrian companies as well as bills of lading indicating the types of materials shipped. Much information was provided by unidentified United Nations member states. More here.

Diplomacy to Address Russian Olympic and War Cheating and Lies?

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C’mon really? The Russians cheat, steal and lie. Why would any Western ally trust any part of the Kremlin or operatives dispatched worldwide? Russian nefarious ‘active measure’ plots are global and so easy to achieve. The question is why?

The International Olympic Committee is no exception when it comes to going easy on Russia, buckling to pressure from Moscow. Russia has made legitimate and clean athletes in the games a mockery. The IOC was forced to defend its decision to include Russian athletes in these Pyeongchang Games on Monday morning after curler Alexander Krushelnytsky reportedly failed a drug test, jeopardizing the bronze medal he won last week in mixed doubles and inviting increased scrutiny on the IOC’s handling of the situation.

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First: a Russia-linked group calling itself “Fancy Bears” published a set of apparently stolen emails. They purportedly belong to officials from the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and third-party groups associated with the organizations. It’s not the first time Russia has lashed out at the IOC and the anti-doping agencies in the last few years. And with a month left until the games begin, it may not be the last.

The emails appear to span from the end of 2016 to the spring of 2017, and focus on correspondence between antidoping investigators who helped uncover a wide-scale, systematic doping scheme carried out by Russian athletes. It’s not clear yet whether the emails are entirely authentic; Russian hacking groups have snuck false information into their leaks before. But the World Anti-Doping Agency Wednesday indirectly acknowledged that the emails were real, but not current.

“The Fancy Bears are a criminal organization which seeks to undermine the work of WADA and its partners,” says WADA spokesperson Maggie Durand. “Everything that they have posted today is dated.”

The hack appears to be retaliation for kicking the Russia out of 2018 PyeongChang games, at which only a handful of the country’s athletes will be allowed to compete. More here.

Second: (Reuters) – A Russian medalist at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics is suspected of having tested positive for a banned substance, a source at the Games said on Sunday, in a potential major blow to Russia’s efforts to emerge from a drug-cheating scandal. Alexander Krushelnitsky, a bronze-medalist along with his wife in mixed-doubles curling, is suspected of having tested positive for meldonium, the source said. Meldonium increases blood flow which improves exercise capacity in athletes. Russia has been accused of running a state-backed, systematic doping program for years, an allegation Moscow denies. As a result, its athletes are competing at Pyeongchang as neutral “Olympic Athletes from Russia” (OAR).

Third: Seems to be a systemic condition when it comes to doping by Russian athletes regardless of the sport and or location. Remember Maria Sharapova and tennis? In 2017, Maria Sharapova makes her return after a 15-month suspension for use of meldonium this week, with the tennis star serving as the most high-profile of those sanctioned for use of the drug. After hundreds of positive tests in Olympic sports last year, Sharapova remains one of the relative few to be suspended for its use. While the facts of her case differ from the issues the World Anti-Doping Agency faced in determining how long it stays in an athlete’s body, her presence among those testing positive drew attention to WADA’s ban of the drug.

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Fourth: And it goes to the militant battlefield as well. Russia and the United States have clashed at the United Nations Security Council over allegations the Syrian government has again used chemical weapons in rebel-held areas of the country.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley on February 5 accused Russia of blocking an investigation of possible chemical weapons use by President Bashar al-Assad’s army in attacks in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta over the weekend despite “obvious evidence from dozens of victims.”

“Russia has delayed the adoption of this statement, a simple condemnation of Syrian children being suffocated by chlorine gas,” Haley said. “This council has been outspoken on ending Syria’s use of chemical weapons, and yet, they continue.”

Russia, which has been conducting military operations in support of Assad since September 2015, rejected the allegations as “slander.”

Finally: If anyone watched the hearing and ODNI Dan Coats summary –>

The nation’s top intelligence officials said Tuesday that Russia is targeting the 2018 elections as it seeks to undermine America’s political process and sow partisan division with cyber attacks and other digital disruption.

“Frankly, the United States is under attack,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that Russia is attempting to “degrade our democratic values and weaken our alliances.”

In unequivocal language, Coats said Russian President Vladimir Putin was emboldened by Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections and is targeting the midterms.

“There should be no doubt that (Putin) views the past effort as successful,” said Coats who was joined Tuesday by the nation’s other top intelligence officials, including CIA Director Mike Pompeo, National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The national intelligence director’s comments came against the backdrop of congressional and criminal investigations into Russia’s alleged interference in the presidential election and whether the Kremlin coordinated its activities with Donald Trump‘s campaign.