Twitter Cutting off Intel Agencies

Perhaps we must be reminded that Twitter is the platform of choice for Islamic State. Through Twitter, connections and conversation can be cultivated and used to glean activity, locations, photos, videos, names and organizations. Perhaps it would be important to remember that during the bin Ladin raid in Abbottabad, a local used Twitter to describe what was happening real time. Journalists in areas of hostilities also use Twitter to report live action and terror movement.

Twitter with this decision will also likely affect the work of the FBI when it comes to solving other worldwide criminal activity such as child-trafficking, slavery and exploitation. Shameful. There is a volunteer team that searches Twitter daily for terror accounts and removes them since Twitter refuses to cooperate. There are an estimated 40,000 ISIS Twitter accounts daily. What about hostages and beheadings like James Foley?

Knowing the importance and success of Islamic State on Twitter, the U.S. State Department even launched their own Twitter strategy, now this decision by Twitter is aiding the enemy.

Twitter cuts intel agencies off from analysis service: report

Washington (AFP) – Twitter has barred US intelligence agencies from accessing a service that sorts through posts on the social media platform in real time and has proved useful in the fight against terrorism, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The newspaper, in its report Sunday evening, cited a senior US intelligence official as saying that Twitter seemed worried about appearing too cozy with intelligence services.

Twitter owns about a five percent stake in Dataminr, which uses algorithms and location tools to reveal patterns among tweets. It is a powerful tool for gleaning useful information from the unending stream of chatter on Twitter.

Dataminr is the only company that Twitter authorizes to access its entire real-time stream of public tweets and sell it to clients, the Wall Street Journal said.

The move was not publicly announced and the newspaper cited the intelligence official and people familiar with the matter.

Dataminr executives recently told intelligence agencies that Twitter did not want the company to continue providing services to them, the report said.

Dataminr information alerted US authorities to the November attacks in Paris shortly after the assault began, the Wall Street Journal said.

It has also been useful for real-time information about Islamic State group attacks, Brazil’s political crisis and other fast-changing events.

Twitter told the newspaper in a statement that its “data is largely public and the US government may review public accounts on its own, like any user could.”

The development comes as high-profile tech companies in the US face off against the government on how information should be shared in the fight against terrorism.

Earlier this year, the FBI paid more than $1 million (880,000 euros) to a third party to break into an iPhone used by one of the shooters in a killing spree in San Bernardino, California, after Apple refused to help authorities crack the device.

The tech giant cited concerns over digital security and privacy.

Russia is Getting Away with it All

Russia Establishes New Military Base in Palmyra: Activists

Local activists claim Moscow has founded a second base in the desert city after taking over the Hmeimim military base in Lattakia last year

The Palmyra Coordination Committee released a statement on Sunday stating that Russia has established a second military base in Syria located in the area of Palmyra, Idleb province.

The statement added that the Islamic State group and Syrian regime forces facilitated handing the ancient city over to the Russians.

“Locals were forcibly displaced by regime and Russians bombings as well as [ISIS] while Assad today with international sponsorship gives Russians the right to violate the property of the people of Palmyra in reward [for] their efforts [by] occupying the city and violating locals’ property.”

The Committee also released footage with the statement showing a Russian military base surrounded by barbed wire.

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UN accuses Syrian government of blocking aid to Aleppo

The UN has accused the Syrian government of refusing UN appeals to deliver aid to 905,000 people, including in war-torn Aleppo, as the city suffered another day of attacks despite efforts to secure a ceasefire. “We seem to be having new possible besieged areas on our watch, we are having hundreds of relief workers unable to move in Aleppo,” UN humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said after a weekly humanitarian meeting of nations backing the Syria peace process.”It is a disgrace to see while the population of Aleppo is bleeding their options to flee have never been more difficult than now.”

Russia has said a new ceasefire to halt fighting in Aleppo could be imminent, with Syria’s divided northern city hit by a wave of violence that has killed more than 270 people since 22 April.

Reports on Wednesday said at least three people had died in new attacks in the city, as rebel forces pressed an offensive against government troops on the city’s western outskirts.

With the UN Security Council to hold urgent talks on the crisis later on Wednesday, diplomatic efforts to stem the violence shifted to Germany where Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was to meet UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, Syria’s main opposition leader Riad Hijab and France’s top diplomat Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said late on Tuesday he hoped to agree on a freeze of fighting in Aleppo “in the near future, maybe even in the next few hours”, after meeting de Mistura in Moscow. Full story here.

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Close Encounters With Jets Show Russia’s Anger at NATO Buildup, U.S.

NYT’s/ WASHINGTON — When the Pentagon complained about a Russian fighter plane performing a barrel roll near an Air Force reconnaissance plane in international airspace over the Baltic Sea on April 29, a quick response came from Moscow, which claimed that the American plane did not have its transponder turned on.

“The U.S. Air Force has two solutions,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a sharp statement. “Either not to fly near our borders or to turn the transponder on for identification.” (American officials said the transponder had, indeed, been turned on.)

With that, American officials and foreign policy experts said, Russia delivered its response to President Obama’s decision this year to substantially increase the deployment of heavy weapons, armored vehicles and other equipment to NATO countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The move is meant to deter Russia from further aggression in the region.

By sharply ramping up so-called intercepts of American ships and planes in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia is demonstrating its anger over the increased American military presence in a region it considers part of its backyard, White House officials said. They called the Russian actions harassment.

Obama administration officials said they interpreted Russia’s statement as a demand that the United States stay out of the Baltics — and that is not going to happen, these officials said.

“We’re going to continue to fly, and we’re going to continue to operate in the Baltic Sea,” Mr. Carpenter said. “This is not going to change our activities one iota.”

But the game of chance underway in the skies and on the seas of Central and Eastern Europe could lead to miscalculations, American officials warn. More from the NYT’s here.

There Goes Afghanistan

While we have been at war, or maybe not so much lately in Afghanistan, the forgotten war, the Taliban and al Qaeda have partnered once again in earnest. Further, al Qaeda is successfully competing for fighters, those leaving Islamic State. The reemergence of al Qaeda will likely go well in collaboration with the Taliban due in part to the Taliban’s increased revenue sources.

There are about 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan; about 8,500 of them are soldiers.

Current plans call for that number to drop to about 5,000 in 2016, but the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell, testified on Capitol Hill earlier this month that he wants “greater flexibility” to potentially keep more troops in-country. More from ArmyTimes.

Taliban Gets ‘Windfall’ from Poppy Harvest to Fund Offensives

The Taliban will reap “windfall” profits from a bumper poppy harvest in Afghanistan this spring to fund coming offensives, a U.S. military spokesman in Kabul said Thursday.

“The poppy crop is really the engine that provides all the money that fuels the Taliban,” and the insurgents were expected to benefit from “this very good poppy crop that they had this year,” said Army Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland.

“As a result, we do expect an uptick in Taliban efforts to attack” when the harvest is completed later this month, with offensives focused on southwestern Helmand province, the center of the Afghan narcotics trade, Cleveland, the deputy chief for communications of the Resolute Support mission, said in a video briefing from Kabul to the Pentagon.

Taliban fighters in recent weeks essentially dropped the fight to assist in the harvest, giving respite to the struggling 215th Division of the Afghan National Security Forces in Helmand province, Cleveland said.

“A lot of the Taliban fighters have been out harvesting the poppy,” he said. Once the harvest is complete later this month, “We think that will be the next big Taliban push,” he said. “We think it will come in Helmand.”

The poppy trade in in Afghanistan supplies about 90 percent of the world’s heroin and is estimated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to be worth about $3 billion annually to the Afghan economy.

Narcotics trafficking goes virtually unimpeded in Afghanistan. The U.S. has dropped its eradication and crop substitution efforts. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration still has an office in Kabul but no longer conducts field operations.

The United Nations estimated that the poppy crop fell by about 19 percent last year mostly due to poor weather, but plentiful rain this year was expected to produce a bumper crop.

“We are happy that we had a good harvest this year compared with previous years,” Abdul Rahim Mutmain, a farmer in Helmand, told The New York Times.

“There is no security concern for a single laborer being checked or robbed by the police,” he said. “The entire district is under Taliban control and the bulk of the harvesters are Taliban.”

A typical Afghan farmer can get $200 for a kilogram of opium produced from poppy, according to the United Nations. The same amount of green beans will fetch $1.

Cleveland said the U.S. has 700 to 800 troops in Helmand now to advise and assist the 215th Division in preparing for the expected Taliban offensive. The troops, including Special Forces and Army 10th Mountain Division troops, mostly work out of the grounds of the old Camp Leatherneck, the former headquarters for the U.S. Marine presence in Afghanistan, Cleveland said.

The Taliban’s strength and funding will be factors in the recommendations to higher command and President Barack Obama of Army Gen. John Nicholson, the new commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, on whether to continue with the planned U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Cleveland said Nicholson was expected to complete his assessment later this month. The U.S. currently has about 9,800 troops in Afghanistan and the current plan calls for that number to be reduced to about 5,500 by the end of this year.

Al-Qaeda Said To Boost Taliban Fight Against Afghan Government

al-Qaeda is working more closely with the Taliban in Afghanistan and could bolster the militant group’s fight against government forces, a NATO spokesman says.

“By themselves, we don’t think that they pose…a real significant threat, to the government of Afghanistan,” spokesman Brigadier General Charles Cleveland said on May 5.

“But because we think that Al-Qaeda is…beginning to work more with Taliban, they can present a bit of an accelerant for the Taliban. They can provide capabilities and skills and those types of things.”

Last fall, the head of Al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahri, announced his backing for the new Taliban leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansur.

“Since that time, we have seen more interaction” between the two groups, Cleveland said.

He estimated that there are 100 to 300 Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan.

“Although they have been significantly diminished, they do have the ability to regenerate very quickly, and they still do have the ability to pose a threat,” he said.

Cleveland said the Taliban will also get a boost this year from a bumper crop for poppies, its main source of funding.

***** The Afghanistan Failing Economy aids the Taliban

CNN: Several would-be recruits who talked to a local freelance cameraman working for CNN said the only reason they joined the Taliban was because they couldn’t put food on the table.
“I want to join them because of the lack of jobs and my other economic problems,” the first recruit told us.
The second man, who showed us his high school diploma, told us he’d been to university and still couldn’t find a job. The Taliban offered him more than he could earn in the army, he claimed.
“I don’t have anything to do with their viewpoints. My only reason to join them is my economical problems and unemployment,” he added.
A seven-month Taliban veteran who was trying to convince the pair to join their fight told us he’d been working for a foreign company who let him go when they ran out of contracts. It wasn’t long before he realized the Taliban were the only game in town, he said.
“I spent all my savings to feed my family and didn’t have another source of income, so I joined them.” More from CNN.

 

Illegal Border Crossings v. Visa Overstays

No one can get the image of the train carrying illegals out of their memory and with good reason. When anyone does a search on the internet to determine the actual and factual numbers of immigrants coming across the southern border by year, you will be disappointed, the charts and records are not there. Countless outlets and agencies report but with caveats and obscure labels. Still we are told the border is as secure as it has ever been.

Related reading: The Human Tragedy of Illegal Immigration: Greater Efforts Needed to Combat Smuggling and Violence

What is more chilling, are the reports that once again we are in a spike season of illegal entry due in part to threats of presidential candidates. Further, those already here are filing at an accelerated rate for citizenship for the exact same reason.

There is a clash however in the facts over which is worse, those coming across the border versus those coming in by air or other means possessing a vThe Visa Waiver Program (VWP) enables most citizens or nationals of participating countries* to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without first obtaining a visa, when they meet all requirements explained below. Travelers must have a valid Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) approval prior to travel. If you prefer to have a visa in your passport, you may still apply for a visitor (B) visa.isa that has an expiration date. Take note that any international airport across the United States is a port of entry. Once a visa is issued by State Department contractors, it becomes the burden of the Department of Homeland Security to ensure compliance to dates. This is where the problem, yet another lays with fault.

One cannot overlook the Visa Waiver Program concocted by the U.S. State Department of which several in Congress are calling for a suspension.

Citizens or nationals of the following countries* are currently eligible to travel to the United States under the VWP, unless citizens of one of these countries are also a national of Iraq, Iran, Syria, or Sudan.

Andorra Hungary Norway
Australia Iceland Portugal
Austria Ireland San Marino
Belgium Italy Singapore
Brunei Japan Slovakia
Chile Latvia Slovenia
Czech Republic Liechtenstein South Korea
Denmark Lithuania Spain
Estonia Luxembourg Sweden
Finland Malta Switzerland
France Monaco Taiwan*
Germany Netherlands United Kingdom**
Greece New Zealand

There are an estimated 35 unique types of visa classifications under the management of the U.S. State Department.

 

Obama Admin Deported Less Than One Percent of Visa Overstays

Nearly half a million individuals overstayed visas in 2015, fewer than 2,500 deported

Kredo/FreeBeacon: The Obama administration deported less than one percent of the nearly half a million foreign nationals who illegally overstayed their visas in 2015, according to new statistics published by the Department of Homeland Security.

Of the 482,781 aliens who were recorded to have overstayed temporary U.S. visas in fiscal year 2015, just 2,456 were successfully deported from the United States during the same period, according to DHS’s figures, which amounts to a deportation rate of around 0.5 percent.

The sinking rate of deportations by the Obama administration is drawing criticism from Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are warning that the administration is ignoring illegal overstays and potentially opening the United States to terrorist threats.

The 482,781 figure accounts for aliens who entered the United States on a nonimmigrant visitor visa or through the Visa Waiver Program, which streamlines travel between the United States and certain other countries. The figure encompasses foreign nationals who were found to have remained in the United States after their visas expired or after the 90-day window allowed by the Visa Waiver Program.

The actual number of overstays could be higher. The latest figures published by DHS do not include overstays from other visa categories or overstays by individuals who entered the United States through land ports, such as those along the Mexican border.

Deportations by the Obama administration have decreased steadily since 2009, according to figures codified by the Senate’s Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest and provided to the Washington Free Beacon.

Since 2009, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has expelled 51,704 individuals who overstayed their visas. The total number of those expelled has decreased every fiscal year.

At least 12,538 illegal overstays were deported in fiscal 2009, while 11,259 were removed in 2010, 10,426 in 2011, 6,856 in 2012, 4,240 in 2013, 3,564 in 2014, and 2,456 in 2015, according to the committee.

The drop is being attributed by sources to an Obama administration policy directing DHS and ICE not to pursue visa overstays unless the offender has been convicted of major crimes or terrorism.

“The decision by the Obama administration not to enforce immigration laws by allowing those who have overstayed their visas to remain in the country has not gone unnoticed by the American people,” sources on the Senate subcommittee told the Free Beacon. “A Rasmussen Reports poll released earlier this year indicates that approximately 3 out of 4 Americans not only want the Obama administration to find these aliens who overstay their visas, but also to deport them.”

“The same poll indicates that 68 percent of Americans consider visa overstays a ‘serious national security risk,’ and 31 percent consider visa overstays a ‘very serious’ national security risk,” according to the sources.

Congress has long mandated the implementation of a biometric entry-exit system to track individuals who overstay their visas and ensure they leave the United States.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), chair of the Senate’s immigration subcommittee, recently proposed an amendment aimed at speeding up implementation of this system. Senate Democrats blocked the amendment.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement has received substantially more taxpayer money in recent years despite the plummeting rate of deportations. At least 43 percent fewer aliens were removed from the United States from 2012 to 2015, according to DHS statistics.

Advanced Copy: Groundbreaking Interview/Ben Rhodes

This is the most chilling interview since that of Jeffrey Goldberg’s Atlantic interview with Barack Obama. It all comes down to how Iraq drove this White House on all foreign policy decisions including that of normalizing relations with Iran and how the Oval Office propaganda arm worked and still works with particular emphasis on the nuclear deal.

Please ensure you seat belt is securely buckled. Turbulence ahead….comes with knowing the real facts and truths.

The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru

How Ben Rhodes rewrote the rules of diplomacy for the digital age.