Category Archives: #StopIran
Obama Sells Syrian Peace Talks that Will Never Come
As noted in the Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes interview with Barack Obama, when challenged on leadership, Obama said he leads on climate change.
The White House has falsely created a bucket-load of people to blame for any intelligence failures, including declaring CENTCOM had modified intelligence reports to make al Qaeda appear as though the terror group was decimated, which is hardly a fact of today.
It should also be noted, the U.S. intelligence agencies collaborate several times daily with allied foreign intelligence services and the United Nations has their own intelligence pathways. In fact, the UN has been approached to seek urgent agreements of peace, no-fly zones, cease fires or a discussion on a coalition government for Syria.
WASHINGTON —CIA-backed rebels in Syria, who had begun to put serious pressure on President Bashar Assad’s forces, are now under Russian bombardment with little prospect of rescue by their American patrons, U.S. officials say.
Over the past week, Russia has directed parts of its air campaign against U.S.-funded groups and other moderate opposition in a concerted effort to weaken them, the officials say. The Obama administration has few options to defend those it had secretly armed and trained.
The Russians “know their targets, and they have a sophisticated capacity to understand the battlefield situation,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who serves on the House Intelligence Committee and was careful not to confirm a classified program. “They are bombing in locations that are not connected to the Islamic State” group. More here.
So, within DC, there are arguments at every corner about what to do with regard to Russia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan. It is not a matter of failed intelligence. Saudi Arabia is especially concerned about Syria and has been equipping anti-Assad forces. The Saudis met with the Russians over the weekend.
U.S. intelligence officials fired back that they had provided lawmakers with warnings about Russia’s intentions to begin military operations in Syria, including in the weeks before airstrikes began in late September.
“Any suggestion that the intelligence community was surprised by Russia’s military support to the Assad regime is misleading,” a senior intelligence official told The Daily Beast. Members of Congress had access to intelligence reports on the movements of Russian aircraft into Syria as well as the buildup of ground troops and could read them anytime they chose, another official said.
Russia has long been a subject of close scrutiny for the CIA and other intelligence agencies. But since the end of the Cold War and a post-9/11 shift to focusing on terrorist organizations and the rise of extremist groups, some lawmakers have questioned whether the agencies are paying enough attention to old foes in Moscow.
“For several years, the Intelligence Community has provided regular assessments of Russia’s military, political, and financial support to the [Assad] regime,” Brian Hale, a spokesperson for the Director of National Intelligence, said in a statement. “In recent months, the Intelligence Community tracked and reported Moscow’s determination to play a more direct role in propping up Assad’s grip on power, including its deployment of offensive military assets to Syria. While these events unfolded quickly, the IC carried out its responsibilities with equal agility.”
The pushback from officials underscored how sensitive the agencies are to allegations of “intelligence failures” and in particular being behind the curve about Russia’s international ambitions and the rise of extremists groups in the Middle East. The Defense Department is also investigating allegations that senior intelligence officials at the military’s Central Command manipulated intelligence reports to paint a rosy picture about the U.S.-led air campaign against the so-called Islamic State, widely known as ISIS, in Iraq and Syria.
The congressional inquiry also highlights how politicized the Obama administration’s strategy in Syria has become in the wake of a total breakdown in the U.S. military’s training of rebel groups and a 13-month-old U.S.-led air campaign that has failed to destroy ISIS forces in Syria or Iraq.
The White House defended the quality of the intelligence reporting on Syria and noted that journalists had also been tracking the deployment of military aircraft and ground troops into the country.
“I don’t think there was anybody that had the expectation in the administration that Russia wasn’t prepared to use that equipment to advance what they view as their interests inside of Syria,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Thursday, adding that officials had already assessed Russia and wanted to prop up the embattled Assad regime before the airstrikes began.
“I don’t think that’s a surprise,” Earnest said. “The president, before Russia commenced their military activities, said that a decision by Russia to double down on Assad militarily would be a losing bet. That’s something that the President said before we saw this Russian military activity and we continue to believe that that’s true.”
Reuters first reported that lawmakers were examinig possible intelligence lapses over Russia’s intervention and were concerned that intelligence agencies were slow to grasp Putin’s intentions.
That’s a charge that lawmakers have made in the past.
After Russian forces invaded the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine in 2014, lawmakers blasted the Pentagon and intelligence community for failing to anticipate Putin’s plans.
“It was not predicted by our intelligence. That is well known, which is another massive failure because of our total misreading of the intentions of Vladimir Putin,” Sen. John McCain told then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during a hearing. That prompted James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, to defend his analysts’ work.
“I have lived through some genuine intelligence failures in my career, and this was not a failure by any stretch,” Clapper said in an interview with Washington news radio station WTOP in March 2014.
“We tracked [the situation in Ukraine] pretty carefully and portrayed what the possibilities were and certainly portrayed the difficulties we’d have, because of the movements of Russian troops and provided anticipatory warning of their incursion into Crimea,” Clapper said.
Three months later, when ISIS forces rolled into the Iraqi city of Mosul and established a major foothold inside the country, the agencies again found themselves on the defensive, recounting all the times they’d said they warned lawmakers about the rising strength of ISIS in the region and how it could threaten security. Critics said, however, that the intelligence agencies hadn’t predicted ISIS would take over whole cities, and that the reporting wasn’t specific enough to develop a counterattack.
The debate over intelligence assessments on Russia’s recent airstrikes has a similar theme. Lawmakers are zeroing in on specific reporting about military movements and potential targets, as well assessments about Putin’s intentions and his strategy, to get at the question of how the U.S. response to Russia’s operation might have been different with other kinds of information.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said in a statement on Thursday that it was “certainly true that few would have predicted that Putin would react to the weakening position of the Assad regime by sending in combat aircraft and augmenting its naval presence. An increase in Russia’s material support for the Assad regime seemed much more probable.”
That suggested that some lawmakers viewed the intelligence assessments as not declarative or precise enough for Congress to understand how the events would unfold.
But, Schiff added, “As Putin’s intention to deploy more military power to Syria became clearer in recent weeks, the Intelligence Community kept the Committee apprised of those developments. Although we will continue to look into the timeliness and accuracy of intelligence assessments, I do not think we should rush to find fault with the Intelligence Community in its ability to discern exactly what is in Putin’s head.”
Military and intelligence officials did warn that Russia was likely to begin military operations in Syria in the days before air strikes began.
Nine days before Russia’s first bombing runs on Syrian rebel groups, including those that the CIA had given weapons and training, three U.S. officials told The Daily Beast that airstrikes would begin “soon.” They noted that Russian drone flights to scout potential targets were underway—those same flights were also reported on social media by eyewitnesses in Syria.
The officials’ assessment on the imminence of Russian airstrikes marked a shift from previous statements, when officials had said they weren’t sure whether Russia intended to use force in Syria and enter into the country’s long and brutal civil war. That shifting analysis reflected the rapid increase in the number of Russian jets in the region, as well as reports by eyewitnesses that Russian military forces were working with Assad’s army. Videos supporting those claims could be found on YouTube.
And yet, those aggressive, visible moves were met with hardly a shrug in some circles in Washington.
“There are not discussions happening here about what this means for U.S. influence on the war against ISIS,” one defense official told The Daily Beast at the time.
In light of the administration’s response, it’s questionable whether more precise assessments of Russia’s movements would have led to any attempts to head off its intervention.
Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that reading the Russian leader’s mind was all but impossible.
“Putin notoriously keeps a tight counsel and employs a deliberate strategy of improvisation and unpredictability,” Schiff said. “That said, we need to make sure that we appropriately prioritize so-called hard targets like Russia.”
Only Obama Adheres to Iran Deal, Others Pretend
Primer:
SUBJECT: Iran’s ‘partial nod’ to nuclear deal
FULL TEXT: Iran’s parliament gave a partial nod to a nuclear deal with world powers Sunday but only after fiery clashes and allegations from a top negotiator that a lawmaker had threatened to kill him.
Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, went on the attack for the government at the end of a boisterous debate where he and other officials were accused of having capitulated.
Ultraconservative lawmakers repeatedly warned of holes in the text of the agreement and criticized President Hassan Rouhani for suggesting MPs were deliberately delaying the deal.
Red with anger, Alireza Zakani, who headed a panel reviewing the accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, for two months, demanded “fundamental changes” to the text.
“This deal serves Wendy Sherman” and not Iran’s interests, Zakani said, referring to America’s senior negotiator in talks which resulted in the agreement in Vienna on July 14.
Hardliners in Tehran often railed against two years of diplomacy that led to the deal. Iran’s government says the accord will protect the country’s nuclear program while seeing sanctions lifted.
Despite Sunday’s[11 Oct] disagreements, the outlines of a motion titled “Iran’s Plan for Reciprocal and Proper Action in Implementing JCPOA” were approved by 139 of 253 lawmakers present.
One-hundred lawmakers voted against and 12 abstained. Iran has 290 MPs in total. They stopped short of endorsing the nuclear accord on Sunday and said specific details of the text are to be discussed and voted on Tuesday. Members of the U.S. Congress failed in September to torpedo the White House’s historic deal with Iran.
Salehi, an atomic scientist by training and a former foreign minister, hit out at what he said was the “immoral” behavior of some MPs in the way they had responded to talks and the deal.
Having to raise his voice, Salehi said: “Truth might be bitter for some… Listen. Listen. Hear me once and for all. Hear it from someone who is going be buried under cement.”
The latter remark was in reference to a lawmaker who Salehi said took a vow to kill him because the government agreed to remove and disable the core of a reactor at Arak, one of Iran’s nuclear sites.
“We negotiated within a framework and principles. Who set that framework? Me? A minimum and maximum was set for us,” Salehi said.
So-called red lines for the talks were also laid down by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Supreme National Security Council that he oversees.
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who led Iran’s diplomacy with the six powers, attended Sunday’s parliament session but he did not speak publicly. State television broadcast only live audio of the session over stills of the parliament, citing “opposition from Majlis authorities.”
However, pictures posted on social media sites showed the fierce exchanges.
Now to Obama:
Obama will be the only person sticking to Iran deal
ISIS, Toyota Trucks and the U.S. State Dept
File this one under…..’shaking my head’.
Where did Islamic State get all those Toyota trucks?
The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was founded in Doha, Qatar in 2012. It is a lobby operation in Washington DC supporting the banner of the Free Syrian Army, presently led by Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition.
Sadly, while the West attempted to support the anti-Assad forces in an admittedly failed program this week with particular emphasis on Russian intervention into Syria with bombing of only an estimated 10% of Islamic State forces, the U.S. has terminated this program. Many of those trained by Special Forces and the CIA fell victim to being kidnapped, killed or defected to Islamic State and those pesky Toyota rides were seized by ISIS fighting factions.
As airspace de-confliction talks continue between Russia and the United States, a decision was made by Secretary Carter to begin to support the Kurds instead as airstrikes by the U.S. has picked up some pace in the last two days.
Heh, perhaps the targets now being watched are convoys with U.S. State Department Toyota trucks in the hands of Islamic State.
Mystery of ISIS’ Toyota Army Solved: Evidence Show Transferring Was Through Turkey
The US Treasury has recently opened an inquiry about the so-called “Islamic State’s” (ISIS/ISIL) use of large numbers of brand-new Toyota trucks. The issue has arisen in the wake of Russia’s air operations over Syria and growing global suspicion that the US itself has played a key role in arming, funding, and intentionally perpetuating the terrorist army across Syria and Iraq.
ABC News in their article, “US Officials Ask How ISIS Got So Many Toyota Trucks,” reports:
U.S. counter-terror officials have asked Toyota, the world’s second largest auto maker, to help them determine how ISIS has managed to acquire the large number of Toyota pick-up trucks and SUVs seen prominently in the terror group’s propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, ABC News has learned.
Toyota says it does not know how ISIS obtained the vehicles and is “supporting” the inquiry led by the Terror Financing unit of the Treasury Department — part of a broad U.S. effort to prevent Western-made goods from ending up in the hands of the terror group.
“This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors,” Faily said. “How could these brand new trucks… these four wheel drives, hundreds of them — where are they coming from?”
Not surprisingly, it appears the US Treasury is asking the wrong party. Instead of Toyota, the US Treasury’s inquiry should have started next door at the US State Department.
Mystery Solved
Just last year it was reported that the US State Department had been sending in fleets of specifically Toyota-brand trucks into Syria to whom they claimed was the “Free Syrian Army.”
US foundation-funded Public Radio International (PRI) reported in a 2014 article titled, “This one Toyota pickup truck is at the top of the shopping list for the Free Syrian Army — and the Taliban,” that:
Recently, when the US State Department resumed sending non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, the delivery list included 43 Toyota trucks.
Hiluxes were on the Free Syrian Army’s wish list. Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition, is a fan of the truck.
“Specific equipment like the Toyota Hiluxes are what we refer to as force enablers for the moderate opposition forces on the ground,” he adds. Shahbander says the US-supplied pickups will be delivering troops and supplies into battle. Some of the fleet will even become battlefield weapons..
The British government has also admittedly supplied a number of vehicles to terrorists fighting inside of Syria. The British Independent’s 2013 article titled, “Revealed: What the West has given Syria’s rebels,” reported that:
So far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4×4 vehicles with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25 tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4×4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications) and printers.
It’s fair to say that whatever pipeline the US State Department and the British government used to supply terrorists in Syria with these trucks was likely used to send additional vehicles before and after these reports were made public.
The mystery of how hundreds of identical, brand-new ISIS-owned Toyota trucks have made it into Syria is solved. Not only has the US and British government admitted in the past to supplying them, their military forces and intelligence agencies ply the borders of Turkey, Jordan, and even Iraq where these fleets of trucks must have surely passed on their way to Syria – even if other regional actors supplied them. While previous admissions to supplying the vehicles implicates the West directly, that nothing resembling interdiction operations have been set up along any of these borders implicates the West as complicit with other parties also supplying vehicles to terrorists inside of Syria.
What Mystery?
Of course, much of this is not new information. So the question remains – why is the US Treasury just now carrying on with this transparent charade? Perhaps those in Washington believe that if the US government is the one asking this obvious question of how ISIS has managed to field such an impressive mechanized army in the middle of the Syrian desert, no one will suspect they had a role in it.
Of course, the trucks didn’t materialize in Syria. They originated outside of Syria and were brought in, and in great numbers, with the explicit knowledge and/or direct complicity of the US and its regional allies. Asking Toyota where the US State Department’s own trucks came from is another indication of just how lost US foreign policy, legitimacy, and credibility has become.
Russia’s intervention, and what should become a widely supported anti-terror coalition must keep in mind the criminality of the US and its partners when choosing its own partners in efforts to restore security and order across the Middle East and North Africa.
They Are Coming
Per the FBI website: Good afternoon Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the current threats to the homeland and our efforts to address new challenges, including terrorists’ use of technology to communicate—both to inspire and recruit. The widespread use of technology propagates the persistent terrorist message to attack U.S. interests whether in the homeland or abroad. As the threat to harm Western interests evolves, we must adapt and confront the challenges, relying heavily on the strength of our federal, state, local, and international partnerships. Our successes depend on interagency cooperation. We work closely with our partners within the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center to address current and emerging threats. Counterterrorism Counterterrorism remains the FBI’s top priority, however, the threat has changed in two significant ways. First, the core al Qaeda tumor has been reduced, but the cancer has metastasized. The progeny of al Qaeda—including AQAP, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)—have become our focus. Secondly, we are confronting the explosion of terrorist propaganda and training on the Internet. It is no longer necessary to get a terrorist operative into the United States to recruit. Terrorists, in ungoverned spaces, disseminate poisonous propaganda and training materials to attract troubled souls around the world to their cause. They encourage these individuals to travel, but if they can’t travel, they motivate them to act at home. This is a significant change from a decade ago. We continue to identify individuals who seek to join the ranks of foreign fighters traveling in support of ISIL, and also homegrown violent extremists who may aspire to attack the United States from within. These threats remain among the highest priorities for the FBI and the Intelligence Community as a whole. Conflicts in Syria and Iraq continue to serve as the most attractive overseas theaters for Western-based extremists who want to engage in violence. We estimate approximately 250 Americans have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria to participate in the conflict. While this number is lower in comparison to many of our international partners, we closely analyze and assess the influence groups like ISIL have on individuals located in the United States who are inspired to commit acts of violence. Whether or not the individuals are affiliated with a foreign terrorist organization and are willing to travel abroad to fight or are inspired by the call to arms to act in their communities, they potentially pose a significant threat to the safety of the United States and U.S. persons. ISIL has proven relentless in its violent campaign to rule and has aggressively promoted its hateful message, attracting like-minded extremists to include Westerners. To an even greater degree than al Qaeda or other foreign terrorist organizations, ISIL has persistently used the Internet to communicate. From a homeland perspective, it is ISIL’s widespread reach through the Internet and social media which is most concerning as ISIL has aggressively employed this technology for its nefarious strategy. ISIL blends traditional media platforms, glossy photos, in-depth articles, and social media campaigns that can go viral in a matter of seconds. No matter the format, the message of radicalization spreads faster than we imagined just a few years ago. Unlike other groups, ISIL has constructed a narrative that touches on all facets of life—from career opportunities to family life to a sense of community. The message isn’t tailored solely to those who are overtly expressing symptoms of radicalization. It is seen by many who click through the Internet every day, receive social media push notifications, and participate in social networks. Ultimately, many of these individuals are seeking a sense of belonging. As a communication medium, social media is a critical tool for terror groups to exploit. One recent example occurred when an individual was arrested for providing material support to ISIL by facilitating an associate’s travel to Syria to join ISIL. The arrested individual had multiple connections, via a social media networking site, with other like-minded individuals. There is no set profile for the susceptible consumer of this propaganda. However, one trend continues to rise—the inspired youth. We’ve seen certain children and young adults drawing deeper into the ISIL narrative. These individuals are often comfortable with virtual communication platforms, specifically social media networks. ISIL continues to disseminate their terrorist message to all social media users—regardless of age. Following other groups, ISIL has advocated for lone offender attacks. In recent months ISIL released a video, via social media, reiterating the group’s encouragement of lone offender attacks in Western countries, specifically advocating for attacks against soldiers and law enforcement, intelligence community members, and government personnel. Several incidents have occurred in the United States and Europe over the last few months that indicate this “call to arms” has resonated among ISIL supporters and sympathizers. In one case, a New York-based male was arrested in September after he systematically attempted to travel to the Middle East to join ISIL. The individual, who was inspired by ISIL propaganda, expressed his support for ISIL online and took steps to carry out acts encouraged in the ISIL call to arms. The targeting of U.S. military personnel is also evident with the release of names of individuals serving in the U.S. military by ISIL supporters. The names continue to be posted to the Internet and quickly spread through social media, depicting ISIL’s capability to produce viral messaging. Threats to U.S. military and coalition forces continue today. Social media has allowed groups, such as ISIL, to use the Internet to spot and assess potential recruits. With the widespread horizontal distribution of social media, terrorists can identify vulnerable individuals of all ages in the United States—spot, assess, recruit, and radicalize—either to travel or to conduct a homeland attack. The foreign terrorist now has direct access into the United States like never before. In other examples of arrests, a group of individuals was contacted by a known ISIL supporter who had already successfully traveled to Syria and encouraged them to do the same. Some of these conversations occur in publicly accessed social networking sites, but others take place via private messaging platforms. As a result, it is imperative the FBI and all law enforcement organizations understand the latest communication tools and are positioned to identify and prevent terror attacks in the homeland. We live in a technologically driven society and just as private industry has adapted to modern forms of communication so too have terrorists. Unfortunately, changing forms of Internet communication and the use of encryption are posing real challenges to the FBI’s ability to fulfill its public safety and national security missions. This real and growing gap, to which the FBI refers as “Going Dark,” is an area of continuing focus for the FBI; we believe it must be addressed given the resulting risks are grave both in both traditional criminal matters as well as in national security matters. The United States government is actively engaged with private companies to ensure they understand the public safety and national security risks that result from malicious actors’ use of their encrypted products and services. However, the administration is not seeking legislation at this time. The FBI is utilizing all lawful investigative techniques and methods to combat the threat these individuals may pose to the United States. In conjunction with our domestic and foreign partners, we are rigorously collecting and analyzing intelligence information as it pertains to the ongoing threat posed by foreign terrorist organizations and homegrown violent extremists. We continue to encourage robust information sharing; in partnership with our many federal, state, and local agencies assigned to Joint Terrorism Task Forces around the country, we remain vigilant to ensure the safety of the American public. Be assured, the FBI continues to pursue increased efficiencies and information sharing processes as well as pursue technological and other methods to help stay ahead of threats to the homeland. Intelligence Integrating intelligence and operations is part of the broader intelligence transformation the FBI has undertaken in the last decade. We are making progress, but have more work to do. We have taken two steps to improve this integration. First, we have established an Intelligence Branch within the FBI headed by an executive assistant director (EAD). The EAD looks across the entire enterprise and drives integration. Second, we now have special agents and new intelligence analysts at the FBI Academy engaged in practical training exercises and taking core courses together. As a result, they are better prepared to work well together in the field. Our goal every day is to get better at using, collecting and sharing intelligence to better understand and defeat our adversaries. The FBI cannot be content to just work what is directly in front of us. We must also be able to understand the threats we face at home and abroad and how those threats may be connected. Towards that end, intelligence is gathered, consistent with our authorities, to help us understand and prioritize identified threats and to determine where there are gaps in what we know about these threats. We then seek to fill those gaps and learn as much as we can about the threats we are addressing and others on the threat landscape. We do this for national security and criminal threats, on both a national and local field office level. We then compare the national and local perspectives to organize threats into priority for each of the FBI’s 56 field offices. By categorizing threats in this way, we strive to place the greatest focus on the gravest threats we face. This gives us a better assessment of what the dangers are, what’s being done about them, and where we should prioritize our resources. Cyber An element of virtually every national security threat and crime problem the FBI faces is cyber-based or facilitated. We face sophisticated cyber threats from state-sponsored hackers, hackers for hire, organized cyber syndicates, and terrorists. On a daily basis, cyber-based actors seek our state secrets, our trade secrets, our technology, and our ideas—things of incredible value to all of us and of great importance to the conduct of our government business and our national security. They seek to strike our critical infrastructure and to harm our economy. We continue to see an increase in the scale and scope of reporting on malicious cyber activity that can be measured by the amount of corporate data stolen or deleted, personally identifiable information compromised, or remediation costs incurred by U.S. victims. For example, as the committee is aware, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) discovered earlier this year that a number of its systems were compromised. These systems included those that contain information related to the background investigations of current, former, and prospective Federal government employees, as well as other individuals for whom a federal background investigation was conducted. The FBI is working with our interagency partners to investigate this matter. FBI agents, analysts, and computer scientists are using technical capabilities and traditional investigative techniques—such as sources, court-authorized electronic surveillance, physical surveillance, and forensics—to fight cyber threats. We are working side-by-side with our federal, state, and local partners on Cyber Task Forces in each of our 56 field offices and through the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), which serves as a coordination, integration, and information sharing center for 19 U.S. agencies and several key international allies for cyber threat investigations. Through CyWatch, our 24-hour cyber command center, we combine the resources of the FBI and NCIJTF, allowing us to provide connectivity to federal cyber centers, government agencies, FBI field offices and legal attachés, and the private sector in the event of a cyber intrusion. We take all potential threats to public and private sector systems seriously and will continue to investigate and hold accountable those who pose a threat in cyberspace. * * * Finally, the strength of any organization is its people. The threats we face as a nation have never been greater or more diverse and the expectations placed on the Bureau have never been higher. Our fellow citizens look to us to protect the United States from all of those threats and the men and women of the Bureau continue to meet—and exceed—those expectations, every day. I want to thank them for their dedication and their service. Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Carper, and committee members, I thank you for the opportunity to testify concerning the threats to the homeland and terrorists’ use of the Internet and social media as a platform for spreading ISIL propaganda and inspiring individuals to target the homeland, and the impact of the Going Dark problem on mitigating their efforts. I am happy to answer any questions you might have.
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