Category Archives: Insurgency

Bergdahl Case Delayed, 10 More Detainees Approved

Posted on by

Bowe Bergdahl’s court martial was to begin in July and has been postponed until September, reasons cited is more time needed for discovery. Yet his lawyer is using lawfare on behalf of his client.

Not only did Bergdahl’s platoon mates know without question of his desertion in 2009, but the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen himself knew the exact details as did General McChrystal. There was in fact a private meeting that took place where details by his platoon mates were explained and non-disclosures were also forced to be signed.

Bergdahl wants court to disqualify courts-martial general

WASHINGTON (AP) – Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl (boh BURG’-dahl), the soldier who left his post in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years, is asking a military appellate court to disqualify the general with broad discretion in his case.

Bergdahl’s attorney, Eugene Fidell, says Bergdahl filed the request Friday in the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals in Washington.

Bergdahl wants the court to disqualify Gen. Mark Milley because he has a personal interest in being confirmed as the next Army chief of staff.

The Idaho native, who is charged with desertion, was exchanged last year for five senior Taliban officials held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Bergdahl’s preliminary hearing, which is similar to a civilian grand jury, is set for September. From there, his case could be referred for trial.

*** Meanwhile the release of the Taliban 5 that were swapped for Bergdahl has been delayed until more monitoring and managing details can be worked out between the United States, the Taliban and Qatar. Then 10 more Gitmo detainees are chosen to be released by the end of this month, June.

Expect Up to 10 Guantanamo Transfers Within Weeks

The Obama administration intends to transfer up to 10 detainees from the Guantanamo detention center to other countries this month, a senior defense official told Defense One. These would be the first since transfers came to a pregnant pause in January.

“You’re likely to see some progress in June,” the defense official said Wednesday. “I just talked to the National Security Council and State [Department], so we can say maybe up to 10 — no specific timeframe, but in the near future. And then we’re actively engaged with a number of countries in additional negotiations regarding the 57 that are eligible. But sometime this summer, maybe June, up to 10.”

Of the prison’s 122 detainees, 57 have been cleared for transfer to other countries by the Pentagon as part of an interagency review.

Last year, the Obama administration sped up transfers in a race to empty the detention center before the Republican-led Congress could block attempts to close it. Those transfers came to a halt in January. In April, the Washington Post reported they might start again, and today, the official told Defense One that some June transfers are likely.

These would be the first prisoners to leave Guantanamo under new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter. In February, he replaced Chuck Hagel, who clashed with the administration over his recalcitrance to approve transfers. Ultimately, Hagel transferred 44 Guantanamo detainees — more than half of those in the weeks before he stepped down in November. Still, that was ten times more than his predecessor, Leon Panetta, who transferred just four.

 

Carter wants to close Guantanamo. “He has also said that he wants to take a holistic approach,” the official said. “So he wants to focus on the 57 who are cleared for transfer, but he wants to see what we’re doing with the rest of those. So he’s thinking about all 122, not just the 57.”

The official said Carter was working hard on the issue. “I think it’s fair to say he’s fully engaged in all things Guantanamo — transfers, dealing with the Senate and the House and the Hill, talking with the White House on a regular basis,” the official said.

For Carter and others in the Obama administration, the official said, “There’s a been a lot of oversight and follow-up on the Hill, explaining why a specific transfer meets the statute; why somebody, who hypothetically is in Guantanamo because they’re not a choir boy, that threat can be substantially mitigated.”

On Wednesday, the Senate began considering the 2016 defense authorization bill, or NDAA, which over the years has become the main battleground for the fight to keep or close the prison.

Both existing versions of House and Senate NDAA would extend current restrictions on transferring prisoners to the United States, and restore stricter provisions stripped out in past years. In some cases, they would also add new obstacles, essentially blocking many of the third-party transfers. The House version would withhold 25 percent of Carter’s budget as punishment for what House Armed Services Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, characterized as foot-dragging on providing documents related to the detainees swapped for Bowe Bergdahl.

The Senate Armed Services Committee inserted a compromise provision drawn up by Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.: the president can close the prison if he can draw up a plan that gets Congressional approval; if not, stricter restrictions go into effect.

“This legislation contains a bipartisan compromise on how to address the challenge of the detention facility of Guantanamo Bay,” McCain said in his opening statement on the floor Wednesday. “President Obama has said from day one of his presidency that he wants to close Guantanamo, but six and a half years into his administration, the President has never provided a plan to do so.”

SASC Ranking Member Jack Reed, D-R.I., voted against the bill and spoke against it on the floor. “One problem is the familiar, oft-debated and very complicated challenge of Guantanamo,” he said. “While we have had some carefully crafted compromise language in this bill, there are other provisions that reverse progress, particularly on the overseas transfers of detainees.”

The White House has threatened to veto the NDAAs as drafted, arguing they not only move backward rather than forward on closing the facility, but that portions are unconstitutional infringements on the executive.

“The bill also continues unwarranted restrictions, and imposes onerous additional ones, regarding detainees at Guantanamo Bay,” the administration policy statement on the Senate NDAA reads, repeating the veto threat. “These provisions undermine our national security by limiting our ability to act as our military, diplomatic, and other national security professionals deem appropriate in a given case.”

The administration also specifically rejected the provision touted by McCain, who has long supported closing the facility, saying, “This process for congressional approval is unnecessary and overly restrictive.”

Obama Regime, Full Anti-Semite

Posted on by

It’s Nuclear: On Iran, Obama and the Scope of Anti-Semitism

Does the president understand the depths—and destructive implications—of the ayatollahs’ radical views on Jews?

Yesterday, Jeffrey Herf, a professor of modern European history at the University of Maryland and the author of a number of books on Nazi Germany, published an article in The Times of Israel called “Obama and his American critics on Iran’s anti-Semitism,” which is worth a read. In it, Herf examines the “unusual” public discourse that has begun to swell—a chorus he breaks down bit by bit, who wonder about the bounds of Obama’s understanding of anti-Semitism, and “how his view on that subject affects prospects for a nuclear deal to stop the ayatollahs from getting the bomb.”

Herf argues that Obama, “apparently stung by criticism that his approach to Iran is facilitating rather than preventing its path to the bomb and that he bears primary responsibility for the tensions in American-Israeli relations,” has gone on the offensive by giving an interview to The Atlantic‘s Jeffery Goldberg (read our coverage here), then hitting up Adas Israel in Washington, D.C., in what CNN called “foreign policy damage control.” Herf then cites Michael Doran’s essay in Mosaic, “A Letter to My Liberal Jewish Friends,” in which the author argues that the existence of shared values”—a tenet of Obama’s speech—”though important, was not the key issue. It was, instead, the necessary criticism of Obama’s policies towards Iran’s nuclear program.”

Herf has longed for Obama to publicly discuss his views on “the role of anti-Semitism in the government in Tehran.” He was pleased when Goldberg told Obama about his concerns in negotiating with people who are “captive to a conspiratorial anti-Semitic worldview not because they hold offensive views, but because they hold ridiculous views.” Continue Reading→

Illegals Protected Class at California University System

Posted on by

READ WRITE THINK AND DREAM

‘Undocumented Student Services’ at UC San Diego hosts workshops mandated by the school’s Vice Chancellor to plan strategies to get government financial assistance for housing, tuition, legal counseling with particular assistance for Latinos and Koreans. Remember that former Department of Homeland Security,Janet Napolitano is now the president of the University of California system.  She set aside $5 million dollars for such programs.

Not to be out done, CalState Los Angeles, CalState Fullerton and Long Beach all have the same programs. Suggestion: stop all federal dollars to the university system.

CALIFORNIA UNIVERSITIES ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Dreamers’ need a space ‘where they can feel safe’

Illegal immigrants in California are already eligible for state financial aid for college. Some public schools are now spending taxpayer money to help these students get money from other sources, even as legal students fight for sparse resources.

 

California State University-Los Angeles received a $1.6 million endowment late last month to fund the Dreamers Resource Center, which the school bills as a space that provides “academic guidance, referral assistance and other support” for so-called dreamers, or students whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally.

It’s just the latest Cal State campus to christen a center dedicated to students without documentation: Fullerton was the first a year ago and Long Beach came two months ago.

The Northridge campus has one “in the works,” and legislation pending in the Legislature would help create more centers across the Cal State system and in community colleges, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The CSU-LA gift will help the school underwrite staff costs and maintain a dedicated space for the center, which was created in October. It helps undocumented students with things like scholarship deadlines and applying for federal work authorization, the school said.

Erika Glazer, the philanthropist whose $1.6 million donation followed her earlier pledges of $700,000 for illegal immigrants, said in CSU-LA’s release that she hopes the center “will be obsolete in a few years and the funds can go toward other programs” at the school.

CSU-LA “has a long history in facilitating the academic success of special student populations” such as low-income students, Nancy Wada-McKee, assistant vice president for student affairs, told The College Fix in an email. She said the school also serves more than 700 veterans through their own resource center.

Technically, the Dreamers center is open to all students, Wada-McKee said, although it focuses on helping undocumented students.

Favoring one group over everyone else?

Under President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and California law, Dreamers who meet certain criteria are eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

The 2011 California Dream Act also granted access to financial aid to so-called AB 540 students who attend a college or university in California.

In fall 2014, about 850 CSU-LA students met the requirements for in-state tuition under AB 540, the Times said.

The Long Beach Press Telegram reported a year ago that around 6,400 undocumented students were enrolled at Cal State’s 23 campuses.

CSU-Long Beach’s own “Dream Success Center,” not quite three months old, has already run into opposition from some students who think it’s a waste of valuable resource for a school that’s stretched thin.

The Fix previously reported on lobbying against the center by CSU-LB College Republicans Chairman Nestor Moto, Jr., who said the money that went into creating it could have been used to shrink overcrowded classes or offer more counselors for all students.

“We have 10 advising centers and that is who the money should have been allocated to,” not one special student population, Moto told The Fix in March.

The Daily 49er reported that the renovation for Long Beach’s center cost $16 million, and ongoing costs – including a full-time coordinator for the 650 undocumented students – run to $80,000 a year.

Just ‘leveling the playing field’

Besides the CSU-LA pledge from philanthropist Glazer, University of California President Janet Napolitano has set aside $5 million in non-state funds for undocumented students and resource centers.

UC said last week that Napolitano’s efforts – paying “trained advisers” to help students get “mentoring and emotional support” as well as “find internship and work-study jobs” – are simply “leveling the playing field” for illegal immigrants.

Jose Guevara, a CSU-LA center adviser and political science major who previously received a Glazer scholarship, told the Times that it was “important that [Dreamers] have a space where they can feel safe.”

Glazer is not the only multimillionaire philanthropist putting undocumented students ahead of other college students.

Former Washington Post owner Donald Graham and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman each donated $15 million to Graham’s scholarship fund for illegal-immigrant children, TheDream.us, the organization said Wednesday.

The new money – up to $25,000 each for 1,200 students at TheDream.us partner colleges – comes on top of $10 million each the duo previously donated. They want to spur other philanthropists to donate $30 million for another 5,000 scholarships, the organization said.

TheDream.us teamed up with the City University of New York last year to give scholarships to undocumented students who have already filed for temporary legal status.

 

4 Million Federal Employees Hacked Months Ago

Posted on by

The Office of Personnel Management issued a warning today that all current and former federal employees may be the subject of hacking of personal data and security clearance information.

The Department of Homeland Security used a system called Einstein that determined the hack in April of 2015 but they did not reveal when the actual breach happened. Signs are pointing to China and the responsible country and it should be noted that Russia was responsible for an earlier breach of the IRS.

The Official Office of Personnel Management Press Release

Thursday, June 04, 2015 Contact: Sam Schumach
Tel: (202) 606-2402
OPM to Notify Employees of Cybersecurity Incident
WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has identified a cybersecurity incident potentially affecting personnel data for current and former federal employees, including personally identifiable information (PII).
Within the last year, the OPM has undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture, adding numerous tools and capabilities to its networks.  As a result, in April 2015, OPM detected a cyber-intrusion affecting its information technology (IT) systems and data. The intrusion predated the adoption of the tougher security controls.
OPM has partnered with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to determine the full impact to Federal personnel. OPM continues to improve security for the sensitive information it manages and evaluates its IT security protocols on a continuous basis to protect sensitive data to the greatest extent possible. Since the intrusion, OPM has instituted additional network security precautions, including: restricting remote access for network administrators and restricting network administration functions remotely; a review of all connections to ensure that only legitimate business connections have access to the internet; and deploying anti-malware software across the environment to protect and prevent the deployment or execution of tools that could compromise the network.
As a result of the incident, OPM will send notifications to approximately 4 million individuals whose PII may have been compromised.  Since the investigation is on-going, additional PII exposures may come to light; in that case, OPM will conduct additional notifications as necessary.  In order to mitigate the risk of fraud and identity theft, OPM is offering credit report access, credit monitoring and identify theft insurance and recovery services to potentially affected individuals through CSID®, a company that specializes in these services.  This comprehensive, 18-month membership includes credit monitoring and $1 million in identity theft protection services at no cost to enrollees.
“Protecting our Federal employee data from malicious cyber incidents is of the highest priority at OPM,” said OPM Director Katherine Archuleta. “We take very seriously our responsibility to secure the information stored in our systems, and in coordination with our agency partners, our experienced team is constantly identifying opportunities to further protect the data with which we are entrusted.”
OPM has issued the following guidance to affected individuals:
Monitor financial account statements and immediately report any suspicious or unusual activity to financial institutions.
Request a free credit report at www.AnnualCreditReport.com or by calling 1-877-322-8228.  Consumers are entitled by law to one free credit report per year from each of the three major credit bureaus – Equifax®, Experian®, and TransUnion® – for a total of three reports every year.  Contact information for the credit bureaus can be found on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website, www.ftc.gov.
Review resources provided on the FTC identity theft website, www.identitytheft.gov.  The FTC maintains a variety of consumer publications providing comprehensive information on computer intrusions and identity theft.
You may place a fraud alert on your credit file to let creditors know to contact you before opening a new account in your name.  Simply call TransUnion® at 1-800-680-7289 to place this alert.  TransUnion® will then notify the other two credit bureaus on your behalf.
How to avoid being a victim:
Be suspicious of unsolicited phone calls, visits, or email messages from individuals asking about employees or other internal information.  If an unknown individual claims to be from a legitimate organization, try to verify his or her identity directly with the company.
Do not provide personal information or information about your organization, including its structure or networks, unless you are certain of a person’s authority to have the information.
Do not reveal personal or financial information in email, and do not respond to email solicitations for this information. This includes following links sent in email.
Do not send sensitive information over the Internet before checking a website’s security (for more information, see Protecting Your Privacy, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-013).
Pay attention to the URL of a website.  Malicious websites may look identical to a legitimate site, but the URL may use a variation in spelling or a different domain (e.g., .com vs. .net).
If you are unsure whether an email request is legitimate, try to verify it by contacting the company directly.  Do not use contact information provided on a website connected to the request; instead, check previous statements for contact information.  Information about known phishing attacks is also available online from groups such as the Anti-Phishing Working Group (http://www.antiphishing.org).
Install and maintain anti-virus software, firewalls, and email filters to reduce some of this traffic (for more information, see Understanding Firewalls, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-004; Understanding Anti-Virus Software, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-005; and Reducing Spam, http://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-007).
Take advantage of any anti-phishing features offered by your email client and web browser.
Employees should take steps to monitor their personally identifiable information and report any suspected instances of identity theft to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.
Potentially affected individuals can obtain additional information about the steps they can take to avoid identity theft from the following agencies. The FTC also encourages those who discover that their information has been misused to file a complaint with them.

 

Disneyworld Discriminates Against Americans

Posted on by

October 2014 – Disney CEO Bob Iger is one of eight co-chairs of the Partnership for a New American Economy, a leading group advocating for an increase in the H-1B visa cap. Last Friday, this partnership was a sponsor of an H-1B briefing at the U.S. Capitol for congressional staffers. The briefing was closed to the press.

One of the briefing documents handed out at the congressional forum made this claim: “H-1B workers complement – instead of displace – U.S. Workers.” It explains that as employers use foreign workers to fill “more technical and low-level jobs, firms are able to expand” and allow U.S. workers “to assume managerial and leadership positions.”

The document was obtained by Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at the University of California at Davis and a longtime critic of the H-1B program. He posted it on his blog.
From the perspective of five laid-off Disney IT workers, all of whom agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, Disney cut well-paid and longtime staff members, some who had been previously singled out for excellence, as it shifted work to contractors. These contractors used foreign labor, mostly from India. The laid-off workers believe the primary motivation behind Disney’s action was cost-cutting.

“Some of these folks were literally flown in the day before to take over the exact same job I was doing,” said one of the IT workers who lost his job. He trained his replacement and is angry over the fact he had to train someone from India “on site, in our country.”

Disney officials promised new job opportunities as a result of the restructuring, and employees marked for termination were encouraged to apply for those positions. But  the workers interviewed said they knew of few co-workers who had landed one of the new jobs.

Employees said the original number of workers laid off back in October was more than several hundred. But the Disney source put that number lower, saying approximately 135 IT workers lost their jobs.

It gets worse.

Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacement
Disney executives said that the layoffs were part of a reorganization, and that the company opened more positions than it eliminated.

But the layoffs at Disney and at other companies, including the Southern California Edison power utility, are raising new questions about how businesses and outsourcing companies are using the temporary visas, known as H-1B, to place immigrants in technology jobs in the United States. These visas are at the center of a fierce debate in Congress over whether they complement American workers or displace them.

According to federal guidelines, the visas are intended for foreigners with advanced science or computer skills to fill discrete positions when American workers with those skills cannot be found. Their use, the guidelines say, should not “adversely affect the wages and working conditions” of Americans. Because of legal loopholes, however, in practice, companies do not have to recruit American workers first or guarantee that Americans will not be displaced.

Too often, critics say, the visas are being used to bring in immigrants to do the work of Americans for less money, with laid-off American workers having to train their replacements.

Read much more here.