Russian Brinkmanship is Threatening America

Posted on June 18, 2015June 18, 2015 by Denise Simon

The war of words between America and Russia is escalating. So, too, is the movement of implements of war — from U.S. fighter jets to Russian nuclear weapons. So is an actual war imminent?

No one in Russia, NATO or the United States has gone that far yet. Still, the rhetoric and actions from both sides have definitely ratcheted up in recent days, raising concerns of a new arms race — if not worse — amid tensions both sides blame on each other….

Part of it has to do with the unpredictable nature of other actors, like Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine who may broaden their own conflicts by inadvertently or purposefully striking others. The biggest such example may be the 2014 shooting down of a Malaysia Airlines commercial plane over Ukraine by rebels.

Just a few days ago:

The Russian military has successfully test-fired a short-range anti-missile system, the Russian defense ministry announced Tuesday. The latest move comes four days after Pentagon officials said that the United States was considering deploying missiles in Europe to counter potential threats from Russia.

“The launch was aimed at confirming the performance characteristics of missile defense shield anti-missiles operational in the Aerospace Defense Forces,” the defense ministry said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

According to Lieutenant General Sergei Lobov, deputy commander of the Aerospace Defense Forces, “an anti-missile of the missile defense shield successfully accomplished its task and destroyed a simulated target at the designated time.”

The test’s timing is crucial as the U.S. government is considering aggressive moves, including deploying land-based missiles in Europe, in response to Russia’s alleged violation of a Cold War-era nuclear arms treaty, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

***

The Pentagon Response

Pentagon Building Cruise Missile Shield To Defend US Cities From Russia

From Defense One:

The Pentagon is quietly working to set up an elaborate network of defenses to protect American cities from a barrage of Russian cruise missiles.

The plan calls for buying radars that would enable National Guard F-16 fighter jets to spot and shoot down fast and low-flying missiles. Top generals want to network those radars with sensor-laden aerostat balloons hovering over U.S. cities and with coastal warships equipped with sensors and interceptor missiles of their own.

One of those generals is Adm. William Gortney, who leads U.S. Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, and North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD. Earlier this year, Gortney submitted an “urgent need” request to put those new radars on the F-16s that patrol the airspace around Washington. Such a request allows a project to circumvent the normal procurement process.

While no one will talk openly about the Pentagon’s overall cruise missile defense plans, much of which remains classified, senior military officials have provided clues in speeches, congressional hearings and other public forums over the past year. The statements reveal the Pentagon’s concern about advanced cruise missiles being developed by Russia.

“We’re devoting a good deal of attention to ensuring we’re properly configured against such an attack in the homeland, and we need to continue to do so,” Adm. Sandy Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a May 19 speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington.

In recent years, the Pentagon has invested heavily, with mixed results, in ballistic missile defense: preparations to shoot down long-range rockets that touch the edge of space and then fall toward targets on Earth. Experts say North Korea and Iran are the countries most likely to strike the U.S. or its allies with such missiles, although neither arsenal has missiles of sufficient range so far.

But the effort to defend the U.S. mainland against smaller, shorter-range cruise missiles has gone largely unnoticed.

“While ballistic missile defense has now become established as a key military capability, the corresponding counters to cruise missiles have been prioritized far more slowly,” said Thomas Karako, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington. “In some ways, this is understandable, in terms of the complexity of the threat, but sophisticated cruise missile technologies now out there are just not going away and we are going to have to find a way to deal with this — for the homeland, for allies and partners abroad, and for regional combatant commanders.”

Intercepting cruise missiles is far different from shooting down a missile of the ballistic variety. Launched by ships, submarines, or even trailer-mounted launchers, cruise missiles are powered throughout their entire flight. This allows them to fly close to the ground and maneuver throughout flight, making them difficult for radar to spot.

“A handful of senior military officials, including several current or past NORTHCOM commanders, have been among those quietly dinging the bell about cruise missile threats, and it’s beginning to be heard,” Karako said.

While many of the combatant commanders — the 4-star generals and admirals who command forces in various geographic regions of the world — believe cruise missiles pose a threat to the United States, they have had trouble convincing their counterparts in the military services who decide what arms to buy.

Fast-track requests like Gortney’s demand for new radars on F-16s have been used over the past decade to quickly get equipment to troops on the battlefield. Other urgent operational needs have included putting a laser seeker on a Maverick missile to strike fast-moving vehicles and to buy tens of thousands of MRAP vehicles that were rushed to Iraq to protect soldiers from roadside bomb attacks.

Last August, at a missile defense conference in Huntsville, Ala., then-NORTHCOM and NORAD commander Gen. Charles Jacoby criticized the Army and other services for failing to fund cruise missile defense projects. NORTHCOM, based in Colorado, is responsible for defending the United States from such attacks.

“I’m trying to get a service to grab hold of it … but so far we’re not having a lot of success with that,” Jacoby said when asked by an attendee about the Pentagon’s cruise missile defense plans. “I’m glad you brought that up and gave me a chance to rail against my service for not doing the cruise missile work that I need them to do.”

But since then, NORTHCOM has been able to muster support in Congress and at the Pentagon for various related projects. “We’ve made a case that growing cruise missile technology in our state adversaries, like Russia and China, present a real problem for our current defenses,” Jacoby said.

One item at the center of these plans is a giant aerostat called JLENS, short for the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System. The Pentagon is testing the system at Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving Ground, a sprawling military complex north of Baltimore. Reporters have even been invited to see the tethered airship, which hovers 10,000 feet in the air.

JLENS carries a powerful radar on its belly that Pentagon officials say can spot small moving objects – including cruise missiles – from Boston to Norfolk, Va., headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Atlantic Fleet. Since it’s so high in the air, it can see farther than ground radars.

JLENS is in the early stages of a three-year test phase, but comments by senior military officials indicate the Pentagon in considering expanding this use of aerostats far beyond the military’s National Capital Region district.

“This is a big country and we probably couldn’t protect the entire place from cruise missile attack unless we want to break the bank,” Winnefeld said. “But there are important areas in this country we need to make sure are defended from that kind of attack.”

New missile interceptors could also play role in the network too.

“We’re also looking at the changing out of the kinds of systems that we would use to knock down any cruise missiles headed towards our nation’s capital,” Winnefeld said.

Ground-launched versions of ship- and air-launched interceptors could be installed around major cities or infrastructure, experts say. Raytheon, which makes shipborne SM-6 interceptors, announced earlier this year that it was working on a ground-launched, long-range version of the AMRAAM air-to-air missile.

The improvements make the missiles “even faster and more maneuverable,” the company said in a statement when the announcement was made at the IDEX international arms show in Abu Dhabi in February.

The Threat

Driving the concern at the Pentagon is Russia’s development of the Kh-101, an air-launched cruise missile with a reported range of more than 1,200 miles.

“The only nation that has an effective cruise missile capability is Russia,” Gortney said at a March 19 House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee hearing.

Russian cruise missiles can also be fired from ships and submarines. Moscow has also developed containers that could potentially conceal a cruise missile on a cargo ship, meaning it wouldn’t take a large nation’s trained military to strike American shores.

“Cruise missile technology is available and it’s exportable and it’s transferrable,” Jacoby said. “So it won’t be just state actors that present that threat to us.”

During the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, American and Kuwaiti Patriot missiles intercepted a number of Iraqi ballistic missiles, Karako said. But they missed all five cruise missiles fired, including one fired at Marine headquarters in Kuwait. In 2006, Hezbollah hit an Israeli corvette ship with an Iranian-supplied, Chinese-designed, anti-ship cruise missile, Karako said.

Shooting down the missiles themselves is a pricy proposition, which has led Pentagon officials to focus on the delivery platform.

“The best way to defeat the cruise missile threat is to shoot down the archer, or sink the archer, that’s out there,” Gortney said at an April news briefing at the Pentagon.

At a congressional hearing in March, Gortney said the Pentagon needed to expand its strategy to “hit that archer.”

An existing network of radars, including the JLENS, and interceptors make defending Washington easier than the rest of the country.

“[T]he national capital region is the easier part in terms of the entire kill chain,” Maj. Gen. Timothy Ray, director of Global Power Programs in the Air Force acquisition directorate, said in March at a House Armed Services Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee hearing. “We remain concerned about the coverage for the rest of the country and the rest of the F-16 fleet.”

Winnefeld said that the JLENS and “other systems we are putting in place” would “greatly enhance our early warning around the National Capital Region.”

In an exercise last year, the Pentagon used a JLENS, an F-15, and an air-to-air missile to shoot down a simulated cruise missile. In the test, the JLENS locked on to the cruise missile and passed targeting data to the F-15, which fired an AMRAAM missile. The JLENS then steered the AMRAAM into the mock cruise missile.

But there are many wild cards in the plans, experts say. While the JLENS has worked well in testing, it is not tied into the NORTHCOM’s computer network. It was also tested in Utah where there was far less commercial and civil air traffic than East Coast, some of the most congested airspace in the world. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in March, Gortney acknowledged the project is “not without challenges,” but said that’s to be expected in any test program.

It is also unclear whether the JLENS over Maryland spotted a Florida mailman who flew a small gyrocopter from Gettysburg, Penn., to the U.S. Capitol lawn in Washington, an hour-long flight through some of the most restricted airspace in the country. The JLENS has been long touted by its makers as being ideal for this tracking these types of slow-moving aircraft.

Gortney, in an April 29 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing about the gyrocopter, told lawmakers the JLENS “has more promise” than other aerostat-mounted radars used by the Department of Homeland Security along the border with Mexico and in South Florida. He deferred his explanation to the classified session after the public hearing.

Experts say JLENS can not just spot but track and target objects like cruise missiles, making it better than other radars used for border security.

Raytheon has built two JLENS, the one at Aberdeen and another in storage and ready for deployment.

If a cruise missile were fired toward Washington, leaders would not have much time to react.

“Solving the cruise missile problem even for Washington requires not just interceptors to be put in place, but also redundant and persistent sensors and planning for what to do, given very short response times,” Karako said.

China did Not Hack OPM, Operative Just Signed In

Posted on June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 by Denise Simon

Per ARS Technica: Not only were the database records of POM not encrypted, it simply did not matter. At least 14 million personnel files have been compromised and protecting social security numbers by encryption did not mater.

But even if the systems had been encrypted, it likely wouldn’t have mattered. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity Dr. Andy Ozment testified that encryption would “not have helped in this case” because the attackers had gained valid user credentials to the systems that they attacked—likely through social engineering. And because of the lack of multifactor authentication on these systems, the attackers would have been able to use those credentials at will to access systems from within and potentially even from outside the network.

House Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told Archuleta and OPM Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour, “You failed utterly and totally.” He referred to OPM’s own inspector general reports and hammered Seymour in particular for the 11 major systems out of 47 that had not been properly certified as secure—which were not contractor systems but systems operated by OPM’s own IT department. “They were in your office, which is a horrible example to be setting,” Chaffetz told Seymour. In total, 65 percent of OPM’s data was stored on those uncertified systems.’

Even more chilling, a person or team just found a way to sign in as a root user.

Some of the contractors that have helped OPM with managing internal data have had security issues of their own—including potentially giving foreign governments direct access to data long before the recent reported breaches. A consultant who did some work with a company contracted by OPM to manage personnel records for a number of agencies told Ars that he found the Unix systems administrator for the project “was in Argentina and his co-worker was physically located in the [People’s Republic of China]. Both had direct access to every row of data in every database: they were root. Another team that worked with these databases had at its head two team members with PRC passports. I know that because I challenged them personally and revoked their privileges. From my perspective, OPM compromised this information more than three years ago and my take on the current breach is ‘so what’s new?'”

Given the scope and duration of the data breaches, it may be impossible for the US government to get a handle on the exact extent of the damage done just by the latest attack on OPM’s systems. If anything is clear, it is that the aging infrastructure of many civilian agencies in Washington magnify the problems the government faces in securing its networks, and OPM’s data breach may just be the biggest one that the government knows about to date.

Future consequences of lack of security of data systems is blackmail

Reuters: The same hackers breached several health insurance companies last summer and made off with the medical records of 11 million people, including members of Blue Cross/Blue Shield’s District of Columbia affiliate CareFirst.

Media pundits spent all week talking about how Deep Panda could compile all this information to craft a potential blackmail database on U.S. operatives for its patron, presumably China. But that’s ridiculous. Beijing is smarter than that.

Espionage is a long game, not a race, and countries are patient. Blackmail is a quick, brutal method of acquiring information in the short term.

It typically begins when foreign agents play on a target’s existing weakness — a penchant for gambling, for example, or deviant sexual behavior — enticing the target to indulge in it and then threatening exposure.

That’s a lot of work for a short-term gain. Blackmail targets are almost always found out, or turn on their blackmailers or end their lives. No, a better use for that database is as a reference to create the background for the perfect mole. Many additional details found here.

An additional security concern of real proporations is this cyber intrusion has affected Hill and Congressional staff.

In Part from the Hill: Officials had initially said the breach only encompassed 4.2 million federal employees, all within the executive branch. But the discovery of a second breach that compromised security clearance data has many expecting the breach to eventually expose up to 14 million people.

According to an email sent to House staff members shortly before midnight Tuesday and obtained by The Hill, many of them are at risk.

“It now appears likely that the service records of current House employees employed previously by ANY federal government entity (including the House, if an individual left the House and later returned to a House position) may have been compromised,” said the email said, sent by House Chief Administrative Officer Ed Cassidy.

When staffers leave Capitol Hill, or any federal agency, their retirement records are forwarded to the OPM.

“In addition, the background investigation files of individuals holding security clearances (whether currently active or not) may have been exposed,” the email added.

Senate staffers received a similar email from the Senate Sergeant at Arms several hours earlier on Tuesday, according to multiple reports.

Honduran President at WH, Where is the Money?

Posted on June 17, 2015June 17, 2015 by Denise Simon

Juan Carlos Hernandez has been a busy man reaching out to the White House several times since 2014. He is after money and he is likely getting it.

Hernandez has a big problem that the White House and the State Department are overlooking….it is called corruption and Hondurans know it well. Earlier this month, the protests began against the president and the with some amazement the United Nations anti-corruption body actually uncovered corruption in Guatemala but not so much in Honduras. Hondurans are calling for the resignation of Hernandez and the country has one of the highest murder rates globally for 2014.

Honduras is a key country in the matter of the DACA insurgency of people coming across our southern border in 2014. The matter was so bad that both Obama and Biden spoke to President Hernandez on the phone in 2014 on humanitarian issues and that those fleeing the country are not eligible for the DACA program.

Still desperate, President Hernandez was in the United States and had important time allotted to him at the State Department that was part of a 2 day program titled ‘Americas Society and Council of the Americas’ where the charter is to cover items including LGBT rights, economic development and the rule of law.

At the core of the corruption charges against President Hernandez is social security embezzlement. In 2014, yet another Honduran official was arrested for stealing more than $330 million in public money from a health pension fund.

Under Hillary Clinton at the State Department and with collaboration with the World Bank loans for more than a billion dollars have been pledged and then the United States augmented those dollars with 200 and 300 million going separately to countries in the region. With all this monetary infusion, why no clean up in corruption or a global cocaine network or an exodus of Hondurans?

Well at 3:00 PM, on June 17, 2015, President Hernandez just left the White House again.

President of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks to reporters on June 17, 2015 in Washington, DC

In part from AFP news: Hernandez has come to Washington to meet with the new secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, and with US Vice President Joe Biden to discuss the development plan.

President Barack Obama has asked Congress for one billion dollars for the initiative but Republicans in Congress have expressed reservations.

– Taking responsibility –

To overcome those misgivings Honduras will disclose details of the plan to leaders of the two chambers, Hernandez said.

A Central American region that is prosperous and peaceful “is a tremendous investment for the American people”, the president said.

“I would hope that the leaders in Washington would understand that,” he added.

Still, the American aid is only symbolic.

Passing the package, he said, would mean Washington acknowledges that a huge part of the problem is Americans’ appetite for drugs like cocaine that are produced in South America and smuggled through destitute nations like Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to reach the streets of the United States.

“In the end, it is not so much the money. It is the message that the United States takes responsibility for generating violence and migration as a result of drug trafficking in the region,” he said.

Obama and DHS Fully Compromised our Security

Posted on June 16, 2015June 16, 2015 by Denise Simon

Getting into America just got easier….

Easier? Yes and while no one is talking about it but I got a tip from an insider. Did you hear the announcement by Jeh Johnson? This program already exists.

It might be a lot easier – and faster – for international travelers to fly into the United States soon.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Friday it will seek approval to put pre-clearance centers at 10 airports in nine foreign countries.

If negotiations are successful, those centers will allow travelers to go through U.S. Customs and Border Protection clearance before they get on their airplane headed to the United States. Once landed, they would not have to be rescreened.

Here’s what Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in the DHS announcement:

“A significant homeland security priority of mine is building more preclearance capacity at airports overseas. We have this now in 15 airports. I am pleased that we are seeking negotiations with 10 new airports in nine countries.

“I want to take every opportunity we have to push our homeland security out beyond our borders so that we are not defending the homeland from the one-yard line. Preclearance is a win-win for the traveling public. It provides aviation and homeland security, and it reduces wait times upon arrival at the busiest U.S. airports.”

The U.S. will enter talks with officials in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom in Europe, as well as Japan and the Dominican Republic.

The 10 airports would be Brussels Airport, Belgium; Punta Cana Airport, Dominican Republic; Narita International Airport, Japan; Amsterdam Airport Schipol, Netherlands; Oslo Airport, Norway; Madrid-Barajas Airport, Spain; Stockholm Arlanda Airport, Sweden; Istanbul Ataturk Airport, Turkey; and London Heathrow Airport and Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom.

“These countries represent some of the busiest last points of departure to the United States – in 2014, nearly 20 million passengers traveled from these ten airports to the U.S.,” DHS said.

For travelers to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the pre-clearance would be available on flights from London Heathrow (American Airlines and British Airways); Amsterdam (KLM Royal Dutch Airlines); Tokyo Narita (American); Madrid-Barajas (American); and Punta Cana (Sun Country Airlines).

Officials from trade group Airlines for American and from American and JetBlue Airways quickly praised the DHS effort.

“U.S. airlines drive $1.5 trillion in economic activity, and by improving the passenger experience for visitors or those returning to the United States, while improving security, we can build on that,” A4A President and chief executive Nick Calio said. “The addition of these pre-clearance airports will help increase safety and security while improving the passenger experience with shorter wait times and quicker connections on arrival in the U.S.”

“Expanding air preclearance is a tremendous step forward for improving the overall travel experience for our customers and welcoming more visitors to the United States,” AA chief operating officer Robert Isom said. “Preclearance eases the congestion at our U.S. gateway airports and ensures our customers get to their destinations faster.”

In addition to the three airports served by American from its D/FW hub, the pre-clearance centers would go to four other airports served by American out of other U.S. airports – Manchester, Amsterdam, Punta Cana and Brussels.

JetBlue passengers would benefit from the Punta Cana pre-clearance center.

“We believe that in addition to the need for an increase in CBP staffing at key U.S. gateway airports, more preclearance facilities like the ones being proposed around the globe are an important tool to enhance our nation’s security and reduce the number of travelers clearing Customs stateside — and that ultimately reduces wait times for travelers on all airlines,” JetBlue president and CEO Robin Hayes said.

United also thanked DHS for the proposal.

“We have worked closely with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and support developments that provide more convenience for our customers,” the carrier said in a statement. “We thank Secretary Johnson and his team at the Department of Homeland Security and CBP for their engagement with United and the airline industry, and we look forward to partnering with them on this initiative to facilitate travel and reduce wait times.”

U.S. Travel Association president Roger Dow issued this statement:

“When the experience for the international traveler improves, the U.S. economy improves, and again this administration deserves praise for pressing ahead with innovative policies that simultaneously bolster national security and streamline the customs entry process.

“Customs preclearance is a program that has proven itself effective, and extending it to these key travel markets will undoubtedly boost visitation. As a bonus, adding preclearance facilities will further relieve pressure on the customs entry process here on our shores, improving the system generally.

“Evolving policies such as these are a big reason why we surpassed a record 74 million international visitors to the U.S. last year, and are well on pace to reach 100 million visitors annually by 2021. With overseas visitors spending an average of $4,300 per person, per trip, that’s just good economic sense.”

Customs and Border Protection currently staffs 15 centers in six countries: Dublin and Shannon in Ireland; Aruba; Freeport and Nassau in the Bahamas; Bermuda; Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg in Canada; and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

This is a ‘preclearance system’. Please read the full description here.

In 2013, there was a Customs and Border Patrol hearing on this matter in the House of Representatives. Essentially, we cant control security within our borders now we are extending them globally and relying on foreign governments and security services? That did not work out at all in Benghazi. Here is the testimony and it is a must read.

Listen and Read How Wrong Obama is on Iran

Posted on June 15, 2015June 15, 2015 by Denise Simon

Even the Russians did not lie as badly as the Iranians have and Kerry at the behest of the White House is ignoring the historical lies.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has sent a blistering letter to President Obama denouncing reported Iran concessions. It reads:

Dear Mr. President:

It is breathtaking to see how far from your original goals and statements the P5+1 have come during negotiations with Iran. Under your leadership, six of the world’s most important nations have allowed an isolated country with roguish policies to move from having its nuclear program dismantled to having its nuclear proliferation managed. Negotiators have moved from a 20-year agreement to what is in essence a 10-year agreement that allows Iran to simultaneously continue development of an advanced ballistic missile program and research and development of advanced centrifuges. This also will allow Iran’s economy to be restored with billions of dollars returned to its coffers, a development that administration officials concede will be used at some level to export terrorism in the region.

I am alarmed by recent reports that your team may be considering allowing the deal to erode even further. Only you and those at the table know whether there is any truth to these allegations, and I hope reports indicating potential concessions on inspections and on the full disclosure of Iran’s possible military dimensions (PMDs) are inaccurate.

Regarding inspections, surely your administration and those involved in the negotiations will adhere to an “anytime, anywhere” standard. No bureaucratic committees. No moving the ball. No sites off limits.

You have publicly acknowledged Iran’s long history of covert nuclear activity. We all are aware of the importance of having a full understanding of Iran’s nuclear program, including PMDs of those activities as part of any agreement. Yet, recently I have heard of a potential cumbersome process where the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with no confirmation from Iran, will make PMD determinations about Iran’s nuclear program in order to protect Iran’s national pride, meaning Iran will not have to publicly admit to these activities. Today, the IAEA cannot get access to information Iran agreed to share pursuant to a 2013 agreement. By not requiring Iran to explicitly disclose their previous weaponization efforts on the front end of any final agreement, we will likely never know, in a timely fashion, the full extent of Iranian capabilities.

I understand the dynamics that can develop when a group believes they are close to a deal and how your aides may view this as a major legacy accomplishment. However, as you know, the stakes here are incredibly high and the security implications of these negotiations are difficult to overstate. As your team continues their work, if Iran tries to cross these few remaining red lines, I would urge you to please pause and consider rethinking the entire approach. Walking away from a bad deal at this point would take courage, but it would be the best thing for the United States, the region and the world.

One hopes that Corker’s colleagues are paying attention and that they are ready to prevent a catastrophic deal.