Hillary, Emails, Russia, Foundation, Crisis, ALERT

Posted on June 15, 2016June 15, 2016 by Denise Simon

Russia Is Reportedly Set To Release Clinton’s Intercepted Emails

Reliable intelligence sources in the West have indicated that warnings had been received that the Russian Government could in the near future release the text of email messages intercepted from U.S. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server from the time she was U.S. Secretary of State. The release would, the messaging indicated, prove that Secretary Clinton had, in fact, laid open U.S. secrets to foreign interception by putting highly-classified Government reports onto a private server in violation of U.S. law, and that, as suspected, the server had been targeted and hacked by foreign intelligence services.

The reports indicated that the decision as to whether to reveal the intercepts would be made by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, and it was possible that the release would, if made, be through a third party, such as Wikileaks. The apparent message from Moscow, through the intelligence community, seemed to indicate frustration with the pace of the official U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the so-called server scandal, which seemed to offer prima facie evidence that U.S. law had been violated by Mrs Clinton’s decision to use a private server through which to conduct official and often highly-secret communications during her time as Secretary of State. U.S. sources indicated that the extensive Deptartment of Justice probe was more focused on the possibility that the private server was used to protect messaging in which Secretary Clinton allegedly discussed quid pro quo transactions with private donors to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for influence on U.S. policy.

The Russian possession of the intercepts, however, was designed also to show that, apart from violating U.S. law in the fundamental handling of classified documents (which Sec. Clinton had alleged was no worse than the mishandling of a few documents by CIA Director David Petraeus or Clinton’s National Security Advisor Sandy Berger), the traffic included highly-classified materials which had their classification headers stripped. Russian (and other) sources had indicated frustration with the pace of the Justice Dept. probe, and its avoidance of the national security aspects of intelligence handling. This meant that the topic would be suppressed by the U.S. Barack Obama Administration so that it would not be a factor in the current U.S. Presidential election campaign, in which President Obama had endorsed Mrs Clinton.

Moscow’s discreet messaging about a possible leak of the traffic, in time to impact the U.S. elections, was designed to pressure faster U.S. legal action on the matter, but was largely due to Russian concerns about possible U.S. strategic policy in the event of a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Apart from the breach of U.S. Federal law in the handling of classified material, the Clinton private server was, according to GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs analysts, always likely to have been a primary target for foreign cyber warfare interception operations, particularly those of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Russia, and North Korea (DPRK), but probably also by others, including Iran.

EXCLUSIVE: Cryptic NY Filing Reveals Clinton Foundation’s Millions In Foreign Donations

DCCallerNewsFoundation: Clinton Foundation officials used an obscure New York state charity board filing amendment to disclose that the non-profit received $17.7 million in donations from foreign governments while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

The specific foreign governments involved and the particular amounts they each gave were not disclosed on the document, entitled “Exhibit A” and filed to the public charity division operated by New York Attorney General Eric Schneidermann, a Democrat. The money was given between 2010 and 2013 when Clinton was America’s chief diplomat.

The amended document included a line that was present in November 2015 when the foundation announced revised federal tax filings for the four years. The line added in January 2016 said: “All other government grants came from foreign governments” with a total figure for each of the four years that equalled $17.7 million.

The foreign donations are still not listed on the financial portion of the foundation’s web site despite a claim in November by the non-profit’s president, Donna Shalala, that “there is nothing to suggest that the foundation intended to conceal the receipt of government grants, which we report on our website.”

Criticism of the the latest revelation concerning Clinton Foundation tax returns came from across the ideological spectrum.

Leslie Lenkowski, an expert on philanthropy who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1993 as a founding director of the Corporation for National and Community Service, a government-operated volunteer organization, told TheDCNF that the Clinton Foundation was “an appearance of a conflict of interest waiting to happen.”

President George W. Bush later appointed Lenkowski to also serve as CEO of the corporation in 2001.

Similarly Sandra Miniutti, vice president of Charity Navigator, which grades and ranks the financial disclosures of charities, said her group expects more transparency, not less from non-profits.

“I think more transparency is better than less and this is an issue that the public is questioning. Yeah, they should make it a point to be more transparent about it and share that information,” she told TheDCNF.

Former U.S. Attorney Joseph DiGenova told TheDCNF that the foundation’s failure to break out foreign government donations specifically was part of an effort to “protect” Clinton while she headed the Department of State.

“There is no doubt that the foundation purposely refused to make public certain things as a way of protecting the Secretary of State during her tenure,” DiGenova charged. “The entire process to hide information from the public is completely inconsistent with a public charity.”

DiGenova predicted that “the new revelations will up the ante for the FBI. This will just add fodder to the ongoing investigation.” The former federal prosecutor also doubted that the $18 million figure was accurate.

“There is no reason to believe that the $18 million figure is complete,” he said, citing the “unreliability” of past foundation accountings. “It may very well be much, much more.”

Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the Washington, D.C. law office of Foley & Lardner LLP who frequently represents conservative nonprofits, slammed the Clintons for “their determination to disguise what they are doing.”

The New York filings also were unusual in that the latest foundation submission constituted a third “official” revised version of the Clinton Foundation’s financial statements for those years.

Clinton officials last November publicly issued a second revision to their Internal Revenue Service form 990 filings that covered the same four years.

At the time, foundation officials revealed at least 29 separate “amendments,” including new revenue numbers and income from Clinton speaking engagements. But foundation officials did not list dollar amounts from foreign government donations.

During Clinton’s tenure at State, the foundation operated in at least 29 countries, including places that contained rampant corruption such as Nigeria, Uganda, Ukraine, Haiti, Mozambique, China and South Africa.

The amended Exhibit A also revealed how foreign government gifts vastly overshadowed domestic government contributions during her State Department tenure.

In the foundation’s revised 2010 filing, $7.8 million of $8.8 million in all government grants originated from foreign governments, according to the exhibit. In 2011, $2 million of the $3 million were foreign donations.

In 2012, $3.5 million came from foreign governments while only $300,000 came from domestic government sources. And in 2013, nearly 100 percent of the $4.4 million of the government donations came from overseas governments. Only $23,000 came from U.S. government entities, according to the exhibit.

The disclosures likely will fuel charges by presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who claims Clinton turned her secretaryship into a huge “hedge fund” where “the Russians, the Saudis and the Chinese all gave money to Bill and Hillary and got favorable treatment in return.” Trump demanded that the foundation return $25 million from the Saudis.

Clinton defended the foundation but admitted last week in a Politico interview that in “one or two instances” some foreign donations aiming to influence her office may have “slipped through the cracks.”

A 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between the Clinton Foundation and Valerie Jarrett, then-vice-chairwoman of President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team attempted to limit and in some instances to ban foreign government to the Clinton Foundation and its many projects.

The FBI currently has two criminal investigations involving Clinton and the foundation, with one focused on her use of a private email server located in her New York home to conduct official diplomatic business instead of a secure government communication channel.

The second investigation is focused on allegations of “pay-to-play” efforts in which Clinton traded policy or other official actions in return for contributions by foreign donors to the foundation.

DiGenova and Mitchell were also critical of Schneidermann for his inaction on the foundation’s filing.

“One has to wonder what the New York State Attorney General is doing,” DiGenova said. “He’s a very partisan Democrat. And it is readily apparent that he intends to do nothing about the Clinton Foundation.”

Mitchell agreed, saying “the Attorney General of New York has a statutory and fiduciary responsibility to conduct an investigation into the Clinton Foundation to determine whether this entity is engaged in fulfilling its charitable mission.”

Neither the Clinton Foundation nor Schneidermann responded to TheDCNF’s request for comment.

NATO Launches CyberSpace Mission

Posted on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

NATO to Recognize Cyberspace as New Frontier in Defense

Nasdaq: BRUSSELS—Allied defense ministers formally recognized cyberspace as a domain of warfare on Tuesday, an acknowledgment that modern battles are waged not only in air, sea and land, but also on computer networks.

The move comes the same day as the Democratic National Committee announced its computers had been hacked by the Russian government. DNC officials said the hackers made off with its opposition research related to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for President.

The effort is designed to bolster allies’ cyberdefenses, but also will begin a debate over whether NATO should eventually use cyberweapons that can shut down enemy missiles and air defenses or destroy adversaries’ computer networks.

“This is important to all possible conflicts we can foresee,” he said.

Mr. Stoltenberg declined to address the suspected cyberhack on the Democratic National Committee by the Russian government, and wouldn’t name any potential cyber adversaries, noting that NATO’s cyberdefenses weren’t aimed at any one country. U.S. and allied officials have previously said Russia remains the greatest cyberthreat to the alliance.

Developing capabilities to more quickly attribute responsibility for cyberintrusions and cyberattacks is a priority for the alliance, Mr. Stoltenberg said.

“One of the challenge when it comes to cyber is it is not easy to tell who is attacking you,” he said.

The decision by the ministers will allow the alliance to better coordinate its cyberspace efforts and defenses, Mr. Stoltenberg said.

“This is about developing our abilities and capabilities to protect NATO cyber networks but also to help and assist nations in defending their cyber networks,” he said.

For now, the alliance is focused on defending its own secure networks and helping allies build their cyberdefenses.

Tuesday’s announcement to recognize cyberspace as new sphere of conflict or battleground constitutes a bit of catch- up by the alliance. The U.S. military, for example, has expanded its cyber command, improved its training and developed weaponry and defenses to deploy in cyberspace.

The change comes as the number of cyberattacks against the alliance and member states has been increasing, a senior NATO official said.

By making cyber a warfare domain, NATO will open the door to stepped up military planning, dedicate more officers to cyber operations and better integrate electronic warfare into its military exercises.

Two years ago, at the previous summit in Wales, NATO leaders announced a cyberattack on one ally could trigger the alliance’s collective defense provisions.

Under NATO’s founding treaty, each ally primarily has responsibility for its own defense. But NATO officials acknowledge that the alliance is only as strong as its weakest link, which makes helping nations improve their cyber capabilities a priority.

As part of efforts to counter so-called hybrid warfare threats, the use of covert forces to stir unrest or make military gains, NATO has been pushing member countries to improve their cyberdefenses.

Russia has made cyber and electronic warfare a key part of its military operations. U.S. and allied officials said that Russia has demonstrated its willingness to use such techniques to interfere with the military capabilities of its opponents in Ukraine. Russia denies it is involved militarily in Ukraine.

U.S. officials have said countering Russia’s improving militarily capabilities—such as its advanced missiles and air defenses in the Kaliningrad exclave on the border of Poland and Lithuania—could require cyber capabilities.

“Russia has sophisticated cyber capabilities,” said Vaidotas Urbelis, the defense policy director for the Lithuania ministry of defense. “But, come on, NATO nations have invested a lot in cyber and we have the capacity to defend ourselves.”

On Monday, Douglas Lute, the U.S. ambassador to NATO said cyber operations could be a key part of the alliance’s defense against stepped up Russian advances in anti-access weaponry.

“A networked air defense system can be jammed. It can be disrupted by way of cyber techniques,” Mr. Lute said.

A discussion of additional NATO cyber capabilities—or offensive capabilities—is likely to wait until after the conclusion of the alliance summit in Warsaw next month.

The alliance lags well behind its most militarily advanced members, including the U.S. and Britain, in developing its cyber capabilities. In any potential conflict, the alliance would need to rely on the U.S. and its use of cyber weaponry.

“We welcome the decision to recognize cyber as a domain,” said British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, adding the U.K. has committed some $2 billion for its own cyberdefenses and capabilities.

The U.S. Army has been increasing its cyberdefense training at its training centers in the U.S. and Europe. A pilot program begun last year has aimed embedding “cyber elements” with tactical units.

“We know a variety of countries have increasing cyber capabilities that can interfere with your communications, your global position and navigating systems, your targeting systems,” said a U.S. defense official.
*****

Last year saw was a small uptick in defense spending across Europe and Canada, Stoltenberg said. “Our estimates for 2016 show a further increase across NATO’s European allies and Canada,” said he added. “These are only estimates. But they are encouraging.”

The annual real change in NATO defense spending, he said, currently stands at around 1.5 percent, which represents an increase of more than $3 billion.

Plans to Boost Defense Spending

Some 20 NATO allies plan to spend more in real terms on defense this year, Stoltenberg said.

“So, this is real progress,” he said. “After many years of going in the wrong direction, we are starting to go into the right direction.”

With more money comes increased capabilities, Stoltenberg said, noting that NATO has agreed to place four battalions in the eastern nations of the alliance.

“Based on the advice of our military planners, we will agree to deploy by rotation four robust multinational battalions in the Baltic states and in Poland,” he said. “This will send a clear signal that NATO stands ready to defend any ally. More from the Department of Defense.

WikiLeaks to Provide Hillary Secret Emails

Posted on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Nevermind, State Dept. – WikiLeaks is about to publish a batch of Hillary’s secret illegal emails

BizPac: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has not been in the news much recently, but the online provocateur is roaring back in the forefront this week with an announcement that will bedevil the Hillary Clinton campaign anew. Assange said he is set to release another large batch of emails Hillary sent from her illegal, secret server while she was Obama’s Secretary of State.

The announcement comes as the presumptive nominee for the Democrat Party presidential candidate essentially clinched the delegates needed to become the nominee even as she continues to fend off suspicions over whether or not the FBI will recommend she be indicted for breaking the nation’s security laws with her private, hackable email accounts.

According to The Guardian, Assange made his comments on the British political TV show “Peston on Sunday” saying, “We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton … We have emails pending publication, that is correct.”

Assange’s WikiLeaks already has a searchable data base of over 30,000 Clinton emails encompassing over 50,000 pages of documents sent from June 30, 2010, to August of 2014. The trove of information can be seen at WikiLeaks’ Hillary Clinton Email Archive.

When asked if he thought the U.S. Department of Justice would indict Hillary for breaking U.S. national security laws, Assange said that Obama would never allow it. Speaking of U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Assange said, “he’s not going to indict Hillary Clinton, that’s not possible. It’s not going to happen. But the FBI can push for concessions from a Clinton government.”

Assange, no fan of Hillary, also insisted she is a warmonger saying, “she has a long history of being a liberal war hawk.”

The WikiLeaks chief also slammed Internet giant Google for being “intensely aligned” with Clinton’s campaign.

Indeed, Assange’s comments come on the heels of charges that Google cooks its algorithms in order to hide the many decades of scandals connected to the Clintons when Google users search her name.

Recently Danny Sullivan of the website Search Engine Land realized that there is no automatic search parameter recommendation in the Google Search bar for “Crooked Hillary.” In contrast,”Lying Ted” comes up in the search bar as soon as users start typing the word “lying.”

Search Engine Land even discovered that searches for “Lying Ted” and “Crooked Hilary,” both terms used on the campaign trail by GOP front-runner Donald Trump, have been searched a similar number of times, yet the Hillary search still doesn’t afford users an automatic recommendation.

This led many to charge that Google is trying to make sure Hillary’s lies and criminal charges are harder for users to find.

This also led Robert Epstein, a psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, to say Google could help throw the presidential election to Hillary.

“We estimate, based on win margins in national elections around the world that Google could determine the outcome of upwards of 25 percent of all national elections,” Epstein said in a new study of Google’s search algorithm as reported in Wired magazine.

Russian Govt Hackers broke into DNC, Stole Trump Oppo

Posted on June 14, 2016June 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

They have been inside for a year.

Last month May, ODNI James Clapper already testified to this.

The director of national intelligence on Wednesday said officials had seen signs of attempted cyberattacks on 2016 presidential campaigns.

“We’ve already had some indications of that,” James R. Clapper Jr. said at a cyber-event at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington.

He did not indicate whether the attempted intrusions were successful or whether they were by foreign or domestic hackers. Nor did he specify whether the websites or campaign networks of Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders or Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump were targeted.

“We’re aware that campaigns and related organizations and individuals are targeted by actors with a variety of motivations — from philosophical differences to espionage — and capabilities — from defacements to intrusions,” said Brian P. Hale, director of public affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “We defer to FBI for specific incidents.” More here from WaPo.

Russian government hackers broke into DNC servers, stole Trump oppo

The hackers had access to the information for approximately one year.

Politico: Russian government hackers broke into the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee and accessed information about Democratic candidates as well as a database on opposition research against Donald Trump, POLITICO has confirmed.

The Washington Post first reported on Tuesday that the DNC was aware of suspicious activity in April; within 24 hours of the first signals that something was amiss, cyber firm CrowdStrike was brought in to install monitoring software to analyze the details of who was responsible.

The hackers had access to the information for approximately one year but were all cleared out over the last weekend, the Post reported, noting that the DNC said that no personal, financial or donor information had been accessed or taken.

“The security of our system is critical to our operation and to the confidence of the campaigns and state parties we work with,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the DNC chairwoman, in a statement. “When we discovered the intrusion, we treated this like the serious incident it is and reached out to CrowdStrike immediately. Our team moved as quickly as possible to kick out the intruders and secure our network.”

A spokesman for the Russian Embassy told the Post that he had no knowledge of the hacking.

Shawn Henry, the president of CrowdStrike, told MSNBC moments after the story broke that the DNC was “very responsive” to the hack.

“They immediately recognized and had a high degree of urgency that this was important by calling us in,” Henry said. “The key piece is moving towards remediation. How are we able to quickly kind of stop the flow of intelligence that’s leaving that network and move the attackers off the network and provide the organization, allow them to build a network that is free from this type of tools that the Russians had put on to the network.”

Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI, said the DNC contacted his organization through their legal counsel.

“We deployed certain pieces of technology that we use to try to get some visibility into the extent, the depth and breadth of this particular breach. In the course of this, working very closely with the I.T. staff of the DNC, we were able to identify with a very high degree of confidence a group that we have attributed back to the Russian government targeting that DNC network,” Henry said. “We know with certainty my time in the bureau and now at Crowd Strike that foreign intelligence services are constantly interested in political processes. They’re interested in strategies. They’re interested in foreign policy, et cetera. And the DNC and other NGOs that have been targeted over the years by this very, very sophisticated group with a high degree of capability and some very, very sophisticated technology.”

Obama Cool with Giving up Internet Control, But Wait…

Posted on June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

Duffy And Cruz Introduce the Protecting Internet Freedom Act

Jun 8, 2016

Press Release

Bill prohibits Obama administration from unilaterally giving away the Internet

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Sean Duffy (R-WI) Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today introduced the Protecting Internet Freedom Act, which would prevent the Obama administration from giving the Internet away to a global organization that will allow over 160 foreign governments to have increased influence over the management and operation of the Internet.

The bill would ensure the continued protection of Internet freedom by prohibiting the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from allowing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions contract to expire, unless specifically authorized by Congress. The Protecting Internet Freedom Act would also ensure that the United States maintains sole ownership of the .gov and .mil top-level domains, which are vital to national security.

Obama administration backs plan to relinquish Internet control

FNC: The Obama administration is getting behind a plan that would have the U.S. government relinquish its last bit of control over the Internet – a move Republican lawmakers are fighting tooth-and-nail.

The transfer was set in motion two years ago when a Commerce Department agency said it would cede oversight over an obscure, but powerful, Los Angeles-based nonprofit called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The agency, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, announced Thursday that the game plan they got back from ICANN – which would hand over the reins to a “multi-stakeholder” group, and not a single government – is now in line with what they want.

“The Internet’s multistakeholder community has risen to the challenge we gave them to develop a transition proposal that would ensure the Internet’s domain name system will continue to operate as seamlessly as it currently does,” NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling said in a statement. AFP first reported on the decision.

ICANN manages some of the most important elements of the Internet, including the domain name system and IP addressing. Domains include those tiny suffixes at the end of Internet addresses, like .com and .org; Internet Protocol addresses are the numerical sequences assigned to devices in a network.

Foreign governments had complained about the U.S. oversight, maintained through contracts with ICANN.

Yet the Obama administration has faced stiff resistance to a hand-off for months from vocal critics on Capitol Hill and in the tech community. One concern is that, in the void left by America’s transfer of oversight, other nations that don’t share the United States’ commitment to free speech and expression could make a grab at Internet influence.

On Wednesday, Republican Texas Sen. Cruz and Republican Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy introduced legislation to prevent the transfer of functions related to the Internet Domain Name System unless specifically authorized by Congress.

The Protecting Internet Freedom Act also aims to ensure that the U.S. maintains sole ownership of the .gov and .mil top-level domains.

“The Obama administration is months away from deciding whether the United States Government will continue to provide oversight over core functions of the Internet and protect it from authoritarian regimes that view the Internet as a way to increase their influence and suppress freedom of speech,” Cruz said in a statement. “This issue threatens not only our personal liberties, but also our national security. We must act affirmatively to protect the Internet and the amazing engine for economic growth and opportunity the Internet has become, and I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.”

In a press release, the lawmakers suggested the plan would “allow over 160 foreign governments to have increased influence over the management and operation of the Internet.”

Groups supporting the Protecting Internet Freedom Act include Americans for Limited Government, National Religious Broadcasters and Frontiers of Freedom.

Strickling reportedly is not calling his agency’s endorsement of the plan a formal “approval” yet – but if Washington stamps the plan, AFP reported, the U.S. government contract with ICANN would expire at the end of September. The plan reportedly is meant to prevent any single government from taking control and is not predicted to cause major changes for ordinary Internet users.

The push to transfer oversight dates back years.

In a July 2012 speech at an Internet governance forum, Strickling discussed giving the “global Internet community” more of a “direct say” in the process, and he said the Obama administration was making a “concerted effort” to expand international participation.

The latest push to transition oversight began with a 2009 agreement between NTIA and ICANN. The Commerce agency, though, has noted that the goal of completely privatizing the domain name system dates back to 1997, and that the U.S. government reiterated that goal when it partnered with ICANN a year later.

Two years ago, Strickling responded to criticism of the plan by asserting the transfer plan “in no way diminishes our commitment to preserving the Internet as an engine for economic growth and innovation.”