Category Archives: Presidential campaign

The NYT’s Doing the WH Work to Close Gitmo

Posted on by

Hundreds of Convicted Terrorists
Are Already Held in U.S. Prisons

By HANNAH FAIRFIELD and TIM WALLACE

NYT’s Republican leaders have blocked the closing of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, because they say they do not want terrorists held on United States soil. But American prisons currently hold 443 convicted terrorists, far more than the 89 men who remain imprisoned in Cuba.

The New York Times was able to confirm locations for about a third of the terrorists, shown on the map above. The Department of Justice would not release the names or locations of the other prisoners who had been convicted of terrorism.

The most notorious terrorists are being held in the maximum security sections of just a few federal prisons. But many others, serving lesser sentences for crimes like financing attacks or bomb hoaxes, are at facilities across the country.

Florence, Colo.

At least 30 convicted terrorists in the SuperMax

Many of the most well-known convicted terrorists are at the highest security prison in the country: the supermax in Florence, Colo., about 100 miles south of Denver.

Zacarias Moussaoui, a member of Al Qaeda who was directly linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is there, as is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the Boston Marathon bombers. Richard Reid, known as the shoe bomber, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the underwear bomber, are also held there.

Terre Haute, Ind., and Marion, Ill.

Medium security prison At least 12 convicted terrorists

 

Medium security prison At least 11 convicted terrorists

 

At least 25 convicted terrorists are held in two federal prisons in Indiana and Illinois that have special Communications Management Units, designed to isolate certain prisoners from other inmates and limit contact with the outside world.

Mail and telephone calls are restricted. Prisoners in the units are not allowed to have any physical contact with visitors or family members. The majority of prisoners in the units, which were opened in 2006 and 2008, are Muslims.

Other Prisons Across the Country

The Hazelton, W. Va., complex has four separate prisons. Inmates here include Hawo Mohamed Hassan, one of only seven female convicted terrorists The Times was able to locate.

The low security prison on Terminal Island, at the Port of Los Angeles, houses Mohammad El-Mezain, who was convicted of providing material support to Hamas in 2009.

This multilevel security prison in Brooklyn, New York, houses two inmates with Qaeda ties and one linked to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.

Hundreds of other convicted terrorists are held in prisons around the country. Many of these are for lesser crimes and shorter sentences.

Sabri Benkahla, who is held at a federal prison in Washington, D.C., was convicted in 2007 of perjury, obstructing justice and giving false statements to the F.B.I. He had denied visiting an overseas jihad training camp eight years prior, and denied knowing that several of his contacts were suspected of being terrorists.

The Rising Number of Convicted
Terrorists in American Prisons

400

300

International

200

100

Domestic

0

2007

2009

2011

2013

2015

The New York Times|Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons

The number of convicted terrorists in American prisons has increased by more than 150 inmates since 2007. The number of domestic terrorists, some of whose crimes are related to white supremacy or eco-terrorism, has fallen in recent years, but the number of convicted terrorists who are not American citizens continues to rise.

Historical Monastery in Syria Destroyed by ISIS

Posted on by

Christian saint’s bones unearthed in monastery destroyed by ISIS

FNC: A Christian saint’s bones have reportedly been unearthed amid the rubble of an ancient Syrian monastery destroyed by Islamic State.

Mar Elian monastery appears ravaged after heavy fighting between Syrian Army and the Islamic State group in Qaryatain, Syria, Monday, April 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Natalia Sancha)

Mar Elian monastery appears ravaged after heavy fighting between Syrian Army and the Islamic State group in Qaryatain, Syria, Monday, April 4, 2016. (AP Photo/Natalia Sancha)

Much of the fifth-century St. Elian, or Mar Elian, monastery in the town of Qaryatain has been reduced to stones by ISIS. Qaryatain was recaptured by Syrian government forces Sunday.

Channel Four News journalist Lindsey Hilsum reports that the bones of saints were clearly visible among the wreckage of the monastery, a once-cherished pilgrimage site.

The bones of Christian saints in the rubble of St Eliane monastery in . blew it up last August.

The bones are thought to be those of St. Elian, also known as St. Julian of Emesa, which is the ancient name for the Syrian city of Homs. St. Elian was martyred in 284 A.D.  after his refusal to renounce Christianity.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights reported that ISIS destroyed the monastery in August 2015. “They pulled it down using bulldozers claiming that ‘the monastery is worshiped beside Allah,’ SOHR said in a statement released Aug. 20 2015.

Militants also trashed an ancient church next to the Assyrian Christian monastery, and desecrated a nearby cemetery, breaking the crosses and smashing name plates.

Bones of saints, chucked into a room, after destroyed their resting place at St Eliane monastery

Related: Syria works to save Palmyra’s treasures as ISIS advances on ancient city

Midway between the ancient city of Palmyra and the Syrian capital, Damascus, Qaryatain  was once home to a sizeable Christian population. Before IS took it over last August, it had a mixed population of around 40,000 Sunni Muslims and Christians, as well as thousands of internally displaced people who had fled from the nearby city of Homs.

As it came under militant attack, many of the Christians fled. More than 200 residents, mostly Christians, were abducted by the extremists, including a Syrian priest, the Rev. Jack Murad, who was held by the extremists for three months.

During the eight months that Qaryatain was under IS control, some Christians were released and others were made to sign pledges to pay a tax imposed on non-Muslims. Some have simply vanished.

Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra from ISIS last month, ending their reign of terror at the UNESCO World Heritage site. Palmyra, located about 150 miles northeast of Damascus, dates back to the second millennium B.C. The city was one of the most important cultural centers of the ancient world and has been home to Arabic, Aramaic, and Greco-Roman culture.

ISIS took control of Palmyra last year and subsequently demolished some of its best-known monuments, such as the Temple of Ba’al. The jihadists, who beheaded the city’s former antiquities chief, also used Palmyra’s ancient amphitheater for public executions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

      

Did China Connect with Hillary’s Email?

Posted on by

The clue is in the details. Dates matter, events matter and travel itinerary matters. Additionally, Hillary and her team are already attempting to limit the scope of questions during the upcoming and scheduled interrogatories.

Was an Asian government reading Hillary Clinton’s emails in February 2009?

WaPo: I continue to be fascinated by the very early chapters of the Hillary Clinton homebrew email saga. For one simple reason:  the clintonemail.com server apparently didn’t have the digital certificate needed to encrypt communications until late March 2009 — more than two months after the server was up and running, and after Secretary Clinton’s swearing-in on January 22.

Two questions are raised by this timing:  First, why didn’t the server have encryption from the start? And second, why did it get encryption in March, at a time when Clinton should have been extraordinarily busy getting up to speed at State, not messing with computer security protocols?

The simplest answer to the first question is that the lack of a certificate was just a mistake.  But what about the second?  What inspired the Secretary to get an encryption certificate in March when her team hadn’t bothered to get one in January or February?

The likely answer to that  question is pretty troubling.  There now seems to be a very real probability that Hillary Clinton rushed to install an encryption certificate in March 2009 because the U.S. intelligence community caught another country reading Clinton’s unencrypted messages during her February 16-21, 2009, trip to China, Indonesia, Japan, and S. Korea.

 

Thanks to FOIA lawsuits, the State Department has released a few documents from this early period.  They show that Clinton began using the clintonemail.com server as early as January 28, 2009, just after her inauguration.  Other messages from Cheryl Mills used the server in early February.

Even as she kept her homebrew server, Clinton and her staff were fighting to hang on to their Blackberries, just like President Obama. That provoked resistance from the State Department’s top security official, Assistant Secretary Eric Boswell.  On March 2, he sent the Secretary a memo — “Use of Blackberries on Mahogany Row” —declaring that  “the vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries in Mahogany Row [the State Department’s seventh floor executive offices] considerably outweigh their convenience.”

On March 11, at a staff meeting, Clinton seemed to throw in the towel on her Blackberry, telling Boswell that she had read the memo and “gets it.” We know this from correspondence among Boswell’s staff.

But what’s fascinating and troubling is something else in the correspondence.  One staff message says that during Clinton’s conversation with Boswell, “her attention was drawn to a sentence that indicates we [the diplomatic security office] have intelligence concerning this vulnerability during her recent trip to Asia.”

I am struck by the mix of delicacy and insistence in that phrasing.  It seems likely that Clinton’s attention was drawn to that sentence because the intelligence was about Secretary Clinton’s own communications security, something a discreet diplomat would not want to say directly in written communications.  Clinton certainly acted like the intelligence concerned her.  She asked Boswell to get her “the information.”On March 11, Boswell is told by his staff that the report is already on the classified system, and he is reminded that he had already been briefed on it. Presumably he conveyed it to Clinton soon after March 11.

Eighteen days later, Clinton’s server acquires a digital certificate supporting TLS encryption, closing the biggest security hole in her server.

I suppose this could all be coincidence, but the most likely scenario is that the Secretary’s Asia trip produced an intelligence report that was directly relevant to the security of Clinton’s communications.  And that the report was sufficiently dramatic that it spurred Clinton to make immediate security changes on her homebrew server.

Did our agencies see Clinton’s unencrypted messages transiting foreign networks?  Did they spot foreign agencies intercepting those messages?  It’s hard to say, but either answer is bad, and the quick addition of encryption to the server suggests that Clinton saw it that way too.

If that’s what happened, it would raise more questions.  Getting a digital certificate to support encryption is hardly a comprehensive response to the server’s security vulnerabilities. So who decided that that was all the security it needed?  How pointed was the warning about her Asia trip?  Does it expand the circle of officials who should have known about and addressed the server’s insecurity? And why, despite evidence that Clinton was using the server in connection with work in January and February, did Clinton turn over no emails before March 18?

We don’t know the answers to those questions, and they may have perfectly good answers.  But they do suggest that the investigation should be focusing heavily on who did what to clintonemail.com in January through March of 2009.

State Department: Don’t Ask Hillary Aides About Classified Info in Lawsuit

DailyBeast: Lawyers object to any attempt to ask Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, and others about how information was handled—and are dead set against Clinton testifying.

Lawyers for the State Department want to limit the types of questions that a watchdog group can ask former aides to Hillary Clinton, and potentially the former secretary of state herself, about her creation and use of a private email system while she was in office.

The department asked a federal judge Tuesday night to grant “limited discovery” to Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that wants to depose some of Clinton’s closest associates and staffers.

State’s lawyers proposed that the group only be allowed to ask questions about “the reasons for the creation of the clintonemail.com system,” and not about how classified information was handled on the system or any issues related to protecting it from hackers.

The State Department lawyers also indicated that they may object to any attempt to depose Clinton. Judicial Watch hasn’t proposed to depose the Democratic presidential front runner, but has said it wants to interview Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides and a personal friend; Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff; Patrick Kennedy, a senior State Department official; and others who were involved in discussions among State Department officials about Clinton’s email usage.

Based on the schedule that both State Department and Judicial Watch lawyers have proposed, interviews with ex-Clinton aides could begin in the weeks heading into the Democratic presidential nominating convention in July.

The questions that State wants to put off limits have been at the center of multiple inquiries by inspectors general and the FBI about how Clinton handled classified information and whether she or her staff violated any laws or rules about maintaining government records. Investigators have found that some of the emails in Clinton’s server contained classified information when they were sent, though she has maintained they were never marked as such.

The lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch is one of dozens by activists and journalists seeking information about Clinton’s private email system, which was run out of a “homebrew” server in her house in New York. It’s unusual, however, in that it’s only one of two cases in which a federal judge has agreed to allow discovery, including potential examination of government documents and interviews with current or former officials.

Judicial Watch brought the suit in an effort to obtain information about the government’s employment agreement with Abedin, a key member of Clinton’s inner circle who simultaneously held four jobs for a six month period in 2012: at the State Department, at the Clinton family’s foundation, in Hillary Clinton’s personal office, and at a private consulting firm with connections to the Clintons.

The group also wants to depose Bryan Pagliano, who reportedly maintained Clinton’s email server. Pagliano has been granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation with FBI investigators, and State’s lawyers asked the judge to prevent Judicial Watch from asking questions about the bureau’s investigation.

Meanwhile, FBI Director James Comey told reporters in Buffalo on Monday that he was in no rush to complete the investigation, which he said could extend past the Democratic and Republican conventions.

“The urgency is to do it well and promptly,” Comey said. “And ‘well’ comes first.”

Clinton said Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that FBI agents had yet to contact her for an interview but that she is willing to sit down with them.

The State Department had fought to keep Judicial Watch from conducting discovery at all, arguing that the group sought to expand the question about Abedin’s employment situation “into a far-ranging inquiry” about whether records laws had been broken.

But U.S. district judge Emmet Sullivan expressed his frustration in a hearing last February over the fragmentary way that new revelations and disclosures about Clinton’s email system have come to light. He concluded that discovery, which is rare for cases like this one brought under the Freedom of Information Act, was warranted.

“This is a constant drip, a declaration drip. That’s what we’re having here, you know, and it needs to stop,” Sullivan said, before ordering that limited discovery could proceed.

The lack of a complete explanation for why Clinton had set up a private email system gave rise to “a reasonable suspicion of bad faith” on the part of State Department officials, who may have been trying to thwart transparency laws, Sullivan said. There was no question that senior officials working for Clinton knew she was using a private email server, he noted.

“It appears that no one took any steps to ensure that agency records on Clintonemail.com were secured within the State Department’s record systems” in order to respond to records requests in the future, Sullivan said. “How in the world could this happen?”

At one point, Sullivan asked rhetorically, “Was the system created to accommodate the former secretary? Was the system created to thwart [Freedom of Information Act] compliance?” Until those questions are answered, he said, the court can’t determine whether the government had fully and adequately searched for records in the underlying case.

“We’re talking about a cabinet-level official who was accommodated by the government for reasons unknown to the public,” Sullivan said.

In the other case in which a judge has granted discovery, U.S. district court judge Royce Lamberth ruled last week that “where there is evidence of government wrong-doing and bad faith…”

That case, which was also brought by Judicial Watch, is about government talking points that officials crafted following the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

 

 

7 Questions on the Hillary Email Investigation, Only 7?

Posted on by

At least some in Washington DC are asking some questions. What questions do you have? Here is a question…Where are the emails between Hillary and the White House especially Barack Obama?

7 lingering questions in the Clinton email investigation

TheHill: The FBI appears to be entering the home stretch of its investigation into Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton private email server.

Yet even as arrangements are reportedly being made to interview Clinton and her top aides, much remains unclear.

The FBI under Director James Comey refuses to publicly discuss the investigation, as is customary, but critics say the lingering questions show the review is anything but routine and could result in criminal indictments.
Here’s a look at what is still not publicly known.

When will the investigation end?

The FBI’s investigation had dogged Clinton’s presidential campaign since last summer. The longer it goes, the more likely it is to damage to her chances of winning the Democratic nomination and the White House.

Reports indicate that the bureau is sprinting to complete its work so it won’t be seen as meddling in the presidential election.

Still, according to Clinton, the FBI has yet to reach out to her to schedule an interview, despite reports that she and other top aides could soon be brought in for questioning.

“They haven’t,” Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” this weekend. “But, you know, back in August, we made clear that I’m happy to answer any questions that anybody might have. And I stand by that.”

What law(s) might have been broken?

Top officials at the FBI and Justice Department have refused to discuss what charges — if any — might result from the investigation.

Speculation about the charges has centered on federal statutes prohibiting against removing federal documents, especially 18 U.S.C. § 2071. A portion of that law bars officials from “willfully and unlawfully” concealing, removing or destroying federal records.

Other laws identified by the watchdog group Cause of Action include prohibitions against removing defense-related information “from its proper place of custody” and against removing classified information to keep “at an unauthorized location.”

Critics also say Clinton or her top aides may have violated internal State Department procedures about handling classified information.

Who’s in the crosshairs?

Clinton is the highest-profile name floated as a possible target of the FBI’s probe, but she isn’t alone.

According to Al Jazeera, the FBI is also seeking to interview Clinton’s former chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, and ex-spokesman Philippe Reines. Questions have also mounted about longtime aide Huma Abedin, Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy and former State Department official Jake Sullivan, who authored more emails now considered classified on Clinton’s server than anyone else, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

A conservative legal watchdog group has asked for eight people to testify in a separate court case relating to Clinton’s server, including Mills, Abedin, Kennedy and IT official Bryan Pagliano. In that case, a federal judge said current and former State Department officials could be questioned about whether the department willfully circumvented the Freedom of Information Act.

Pagliano, who is believed to have been responsible for setting up the server in Clinton’s Chappaqua, N.Y., home, was granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation with the FBI.

What would the government have to prove to file charges?

Perhaps the biggest question for the bureau is whether there was the intent to “willfully” remove government documents, or whether Clinton’s situation was merely an oversight, as she has claimed.

None of the thousands of emails that Clinton handed over to the State Department were marked as classified, the government has said, but classified information can appear in unmarked emails as well.

Upon entering office, Clinton signed a nondisclosure agreement vowing to protect classified information, whether it is “marked or unmarked.”

Last week, the State Department halted its internal probe of whether 22 emails that have been deemed top secret — the highest level of classification — were classified at the time they were sent. The department said it was deferring to the FBI’s investigation.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who served under President George W. Bush, has said the evidence suggests that Clinton knew at least some of the information was sensitive, and yet kept it on her personal server anyway.

“The simple proposition that everyone is equal before the law suggests that Mrs. Clinton’s state of mind … justifies a criminal charge of one sort or another,” Muksaey wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

How much will the FBI say?

The Justice Department is in a difficult spot, as it is likely to face a political backlash no matter what it decides in the Clinton case.

Many conservatives already doubt that the Obama administration is willing to pursue an indictment connected to the Democratic presidential front-runner. Lack of formal charges might merely be viewed as proof that the process was not above-board.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has pressed for the FBI to release the evidence collected during its investigation once the probe is concluded — regardless of the outcome — to reassure the public that political considerations did not play a role in the Department’s decision.

To avoid concerns about impartiality, Grassley and other prominent Republicans have pressed for Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special independent prosecutor to handle the Clinton investigation.

So far, she has denied the request.

Was the server secure?

Clinton’s camp has refused to outline precisely which digital protections she used to safeguard the information on her private server.

Independent cybersecurity analysts have concluded that the server went at least two months without using standard encryption protections that make data inaccessible to hackers.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates in January said “the odds are pretty high” that foreign spies in China, Russia or Iran would have gotten access to Clinton’s data.

Adm. Michael Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency and the U.S. Cyber Command, testified before Congress that, for foreign intelligence agencies, the server “would represent opportunity.”

Clinton only gave about half of the approximately 60,000 emails she sent while secretary of State to the federal government for record keeping. The rest of the messages, she said, were purely personal in nature and were deleted.

The claim set off a firestorm in Washington, with many Republicans and transparency advocates fretting that Clinton and her team had unilaterally decided to delete half of her email correspondence, without affirming with the government that it was truly personal.

It remains unclear whether those messages can be recovered from the server or if they will ever be released.

 

The Looming Military Showdown with Russia

Posted on by

U.S. F-15s deployed to Iceland

(CNN)Demonstrating its commitment to a “free” and “secure” Europe, the United States deployed 12 F-15C Eagles and approximately 350 airmen to Iceland and the Netherlands on Friday, the Air Force announced.

U.S. aircraft units from the 131st Fighter Squadron at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts and the 194th Fighter Squadron at Fresno Air National Guard Base in California will support NATO air surveillance missions in Iceland and conduct flying training in the Netherlands.
The F-15s are not the only package of American fighters being sent to Europe in an effort to deter further Russian aggression in the region.
In February, the U.S. said it will send six F-15s to Finland as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which the United States initiated in 2014 to reassure NATO allies after Russian military intervention in Ukraine. These aircraft are scheduled to deploy next month.
Although it maintains a small coast guard force, Iceland is the only country in NATO that does not have a military.
The F-15s are part of the U.S.’s Theater Security Packages, a rotational force used to augment existing Air Force capabilities in Europe, according to the Air Force.
It is also somewhat of a secret that while Russia was taking over yet another country outside of Crimea and Ukraine, meaning Syria, Russia was in fact testing pilots, electronic warfare and newly developed ordnance obscured with the dropping over older and prohibited cluster unguided munitions.
TurkishWeekly: Russia’s engagement in Syria presents an apposite opportunity for the Russian military to test the effectiveness of its modernization program even though its involvement in the conflict is very limited.
 

Some of the modern Russian munitions with modern precision technology include the Kh-25 laser-guided missile and the KAB-500S Glonass satellite-guided bomb. However, these weapons are used in limited numbers, according to the defense consultancy company IHS. A Russian military expert Mikhail Barabanov said “There have been no casualties, the intensity of action is quite high, and new types of weapons — such as satellite-guided bombs, cluster munitions with smart elements, and cruise missiles — have been tested.” Barabanov believes it is still too early to judge the success of the new equipment.

In 2014, Russia has been flying bombers in Northern Europe to likely test NATO’s defense systems and responsive actions by NATO members.
FreeBeacon: Six Russian aircraft, including two Bear H nuclear bombers, two MiG-31 fighter jets and two IL-78 refueling tankers were intercepted by F-22 fighters on Wednesday west and north of Alaska in air defense identification zones, said Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Two other Bears were intercepted by Canadian jets on Thursday.
Additionally, Russia has introduced and has been testing a new stealth AMUR 1650 attack submarine. In February of 2016, it was announced by a U.S. Navy Vice Admiral that Russia’s activities are at Cold War levels.
Putin is challenging NATO in Europe and the Obama administration is responding with all the guidance being coordinated by General Breedlove. Europe requires hard military assets and is receiving them while the same goes for the Baltic States.
The possible showdown could come at the time the West is most vulnerable, not only for Europe dealing with a migrant and economic crisis but for the United States when a new president and administration takes over. It worked for al Qaeda just a mere few months into the Bush administration.
Russia is anything but bashful having made this declaration less than a week ago.

Russian Officials: Russia Is Ready To Militarily Answer NATO’s Growing Potential In Europe

MEMRI: In recent days, tensions have risen between the U.S. and Russia over the U.S. decision to increase the budgets and activities of NATO forces in Eastern Europe. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has stated that Russia is ready to respond to NATO’s growing potential in Europe. On March 25, 2016, he denounced the upgrade of NATO troops in Europe, in particular near Russia’s borders, thus compelling Russia to react. “NATO continues to build up its military potential in Europe, including in close vicinity to the Russian borders. No doubt, this situation cannot but concern us. We are forced to respond to it,” the minister said.[1]

Shoigu added that in 2016, Russia’s Western Military District will be upgraded with over 1,100 pieces of military hardware, including Sukhoi Su-35 advanced fighter jets, Koalitsiya-SV and Msta-SM self-propelled howitzers, and S-400 antiaircraft missile systems. The District has set up a new 1st Tank Army headquartered in the Moscow area. During 2016, Russia will raise its alert levels and conduct 800 operative and combat training drills to boost the military’s response readiness.[2]  More here.

Add in the emerging threats of Iran and North Korea, the West has a trifecta of a military showdown.