Category Archives: Terror

What Would Loretta Lynch Do on IRS Targeting?

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The Obama administration is refusing to publicly release more than 500 documents on the IRS’s targeting of Tea Party groups.

Twenty months after the IRS scandal broke, there are still many unanswered questions about who was spearheading the agency’s scrutiny of conservative-leaning organizations. The Hill sought access to government documents that might provide a glimpse of the decision-making through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The Hill asked for 2013 emails and other correspondence between the IRS and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). The request specifically sought emails from former IRS official Lois Lerner and Treasury officials, including Secretary Jack Lew, while the inspector general was working on its explosive May 2013 report that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” to review the political activities of tax-exempt groups.

TIGTA opted not to release any of the 512 documents covered by the request, citing various exemptions in the law. The Hill recently appealed the FOIA decision, but TIGTA denied the appeal. TIGTA also declined to comment for this article.

Will anyone be charged?

In its written response to The Hill, TIGTA cited FOIA exemptions ranging from interagency communication to personal privacy. It also claimed it cannot release relevant documents “when interference with the law enforcement proceedings can be reasonably expected.”

Yet, congressional Republicans say there is no evidence of any prosecution in the works, and media outlets have indicated that the Department of Justice and the FBI have already determined that no charges will be filed.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) notes that eight months after Lerner was held in contempt of Congress for not testifying at two hearings, the matter has not yet been referred to a grand jury. The contempt citation is in the hands of Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia who was appointed by President Obama.

Asked for comment on the administration’s FOIA response to The Hill, Jordan said, “It’s par for the course. We’ve had a difficult time getting information from the IRS and the Department of Justice.” Jordan, a senior member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has held numerous hearings on the IRS scandal.

Last week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said the IRS recently delivered 86,000 pages of new documents to the panel. Hatch added, “These documents … were given to us without notice or explanation roughly twenty months after we made our initial document request [on the targeting].”

Republicans in both the House and Senate are stepping up their investigations of the IRS. They have criticized the IRS and TIGTA for not informing Congress about the Tea Party targeting before the 2012 presidential election. GOP lawmakers say the administration has largely stonewalled them, while Democrats have called the probes “a witch hunt.”

 

Who knew what when?

The crux of the GOP’s IRS targeting investigations is: Who knew what when?

On Friday, May 10, 2013, Lerner famously planted a question at an American Bar Association (ABA) conference where she acknowledged “inappropriate” handling of tax-exempt applications in 2012. Lerner, who has since said she did nothing wrong, released the news before the TIGTA report came out the following week.

The Obama administration considered several other options on how to release the information, including an April conference at Georgetown University and an April 25, 2013, Ways and Means subcommittee hearing. Then-Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson told Republican investigators that he informed the White House about the IRS plan to disclose the targeting “so that the White House wouldn’t be surprised by the news.”

Soon after Lerner’s comments attracted national attention, White House officials acknowledged they knew about the report but didn’t tell Obama about it.

Lew told Congress he first heard about the IRS matter at a “getting to know you” meeting with TIGTA chief J. Russell George in March 2013. But he said he didn’t learn the full extent of the findings until the media reported Lerner’s remarks at the ABA meeting.

Lew served as White House chief of staff before succeeding Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in 2013. Republicans on Capitol Hill are considering asking Geithner questions later this year on what he knew about the IRS’s targeting.

 

Weekly activity reports

TIGTA sends the Treasury secretary “weekly activity reports” on what it is working on. These reports, which are common in the executive branch and obtained through a FOIA request, serve as a “heads up” to Cabinet heads from inspectors general. They include categories such as “potential or expected press stories,” “upcoming hearings” and TIGTA reports that are awaiting public release.

From January through early May 2013, TIGTA referenced 25 reports that were subsequently issued in the weekly activity reports to Lew. But the agency’s most explosive report was not included in any of these weekly memos. It is unclear why, though a government official pointed out that Lerner spoke about the targeting at the ABA conference before TIGTA released its report. Her comments likely accelerated the Treasury Department’s clearance process.

Regardless, TIGTA officials briefed IRS and Treasury officials in 2012 and 2013, according to TIGTA memos provided to Congress. On May 30, 2012, TIGTA informed then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman and his deputies that criteria targeting Tea Party groups “were being used. …”

Jordan said neither the IRS nor TIGTA informed the Congress at that time — less than six months before the 2012 elections. He also pointed out Shulman didn’t correct his March 22, 2012, testimony to the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee where he said “there is absolutely no targeting” of Tea Party groups.

TIGTA’s FOIA practices have come under criticism before. In the fall of last year, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia admonished the agency for its use of FOIA exemptions. Cause of Action, a nonprofit group that has sued TIGTA, announced in December that the agency declined to fork over more than 2,000 documents related to a FOIA request.

Judicial Watch, another group that has sued the Obama administration on FOIA, said in December that the DOJ withheld 832 documents pertaining to meetings between the IRS and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section and Election Crimes Division.

Some of the documents that The Hill requested were released to Judicial Watch last year after a judge ruled in favor of the conservative group’s lawsuit.

Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that the DOJ will soon release a report on the IRS targeting that will include “some final recommendations.”

Lerner, who pleaded the Fifth Amendment before Congress, has given a lengthy interview to DOJ officials.

*** Let’s go deeper. DOJ Emails Suggest IRS Counsel’s Office Slowed Investigation

WASHINGTON, DC, Feb 05, 2015 (Marketwired via COMTEX) — Judicial Watch today released new internal Department of Justice (DOJ) documents revealing that the Internal Revenue Service Office of Chief Counsel’s office delayed approval of an IRS employee’s meeting with DOJ and FBI investigators into the Obama IRS targeting scandal. The emails also detail the involvement the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division with the investigation. The documents show the Public Integrity Section was investigating the IRS scandal only a month after it reached out to Lois Lerner about prosecuting targeted tax-exempt entities. This is the first window into the criminal investigation of the alleged IRS abuses.

The Public Integrity Section previously has been tied to an effort to work with the Obama IRS in an effort to prosecute the very groups and individuals critical of the Obama administration and the president’s reelection that the IRS has admitted to illicitly targeting.

The new documents were released by the DOJ as result of a court order in Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 14-cv-01239)). The lawsuit was filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a FOIA request seeking:

Any and all records concerning meetings and/or communications between the Department of Justice Criminal Division Public Integrity Section and the Internal Revenue Service Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division, the White House, Members of Congress and/or congressional staff, and any non-government entity, regarding 501(c)(4) or other tax-exempt organizations.

The emails show that, on June 12, 2013, the lawyer for a cooperating IRS employee in Cincinnati complained to a DOJ prosecutor about the IRS Counsel’s office delaying approval of a meeting between the IRS employee and Justice Department prosecutors: “[W]e find it amazing that they didn’t immediately respond giving us the green light to meet with you.”

The DOJ prosecutor wanted to know who the contact in the IRS Counsel’s office was and wrote back: “Let’s talk in am if they don’t get back to you. Thanks.” The new emails suggest that investigators had wanted to meet quickly but it was nearly a month before the unnamed IRS employee met to proffer evidence to two Justice Department prosecutors, two FBI officials, and an investigator from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The proffer session seems to have taken place in the IRS’ Cincinnati office on July 11, 2013, and included the IRS employee’s attorney, who the documents suggest works at the Cincinnati area law firm Adams, Stepner, Woltermann & Dusing PLLC. The documents detail that the proffer took place after a Garrity immunity waiver was secured for the IRS witness. Garrity immunity assures the right of public employees not to be compelled to incriminate themselves.

The email exchanges show that a trial attorney from the Public Integrity Section was partnered with an unnamed attorney from the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

Barbara Bosserman, an attorney at the Civil Rights Division, has been reported to be leading the IRS investigation at Justice. The DOJ, in court filings in another Judicial Watch lawsuit about Bosserman’s role in the case, confirmed that she is one of the attorneys investigating the IRS matter. According to Federal Election Commission records, Bosserman contributed $6,750 to Obama’s campaigns and the DNC from 2004 to 2012, including 12 separate contributions to Obama for America between 2008 and 2012.

William J. Wilkins, the Chief Counsel for the IRS, is a political appointee of President Obama’s. Wilkins was a former Democratic staffer the U.S Senate, a donor to Democratic candidates and committees, and was a lobbyist for several years. The May 14, 2013, Treasury Inspector General report that revealed that the IRS had singled out groups with conservative-sounding terms such as “patriot” and “Tea Party” in their titles when applying for tax-exempt status details that the “Chief Counsel” was involved in the IRS’s Tea Party and conservative targeting.

In this second “rolling production,” the Justice Department released 34 pages of heavily redacted emails, while admitting that it had reviewed 938 pages of responsive records related to its contacts with the IRS concerning the criminal prosecution of targeted tax exempt entities. As of today’s date, the DOJ has reviewed 1,772 pages of records in this case, but only produced 36 heavily redacted pages. Held in their entirety are 1,736 pages.

The new documents also provide detail on what the investigators were examining and the nature of the documents it wanted from the IRS witness. On July 12, 2013, the DOJ attorney (whose name is blacked out) emails:

First, we would appreciate receiving the time line related to the “TAG spreadsheet” and “BOLO” that [REDACTED] prepared. As we stated, that timeline will be covered by the proffer agreement she executed yesterday. Second, we would also appreciate obtaining the email communications that you obtained from [REDACTED-BLACKED OUT] pertaining to the 501(c)-application issues we discussed yesterday, i.e., the public allegations that the IRS “targeted” certain groups based on their political viewpoints, in particular groups associated with the ‘Tea Party.” As I explained yesterday, due to the filter procedures we have in place, could you please divide the communications into two groups, those dated before and those dated on or after March 1, 2012? To the extent practical, the emails dated on or after March 1, 2012, should be placed in a sealed envelope or otherwise clearly separated from the first batch (i.e., if they are scanned and emailed, please do so in separate files). To the extent any of these applications contain taxpayer information, return information, and/or taxpayer return information, the Department of Justice and the FBI have referral authority under 18 U.S.C. 6103(h) to view this information by virtue of our participation in a joint investigation with TIGTA.

The documents do not detail why the emails needed to be “filtered” according to the March 1, 2012, date, though there is a reference to Justice Department “filter team” elsewhere in the material.

“The IRS scandal is getting worse. These documents show that the Obama IRS Counsel’s office, run by an Obama political appointee, was stonewalling a federal criminal investigation. And only in the Holder Justice Department would it be deemed appropriate that the offices implicated in the IRS abuses should investigate the IRS abuses,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And one might wonder why the Justice Department was so quick to offer an immunity deal to an IRS employee. This is an ugly mess and it is no surprise that, after nearly two years, the criminal investigation of the Obama IRS by its co-conspirators at the Obama Justice Department is widely acknowledged as a farce.”

In early December 2014, Judicial Watch released the first batch of internal DOJ documents revealing that former IRS official Lois Lerner had been in contact with DOJ officials about the possible criminal prosecution of tax-exempt entities two full years before what the IRS conceded was its “absolutely inappropriate” 2012 targeting of the organizations. According to the documents, Lerner met with top Obama DOJ Criminal Division officials as early as October 2010.

In April 2014, Judicial Watch forced, through a federal court order, the release of IRS documents revealing that the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section reached out to former IRS official Lois Lerner on May 8, 2013, about whether it was possible to criminally prosecute targeted tax-exempt entities. The documents were obtained as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch FOIA lawsuit filed against the IRS.

Even the NYT’s Admits Obamacare Purgatory

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Ah, Sylvia Burwell if you received the memo, would you please call the White House for comment? The next step is beyond repealing Obamacare, if all else fails, at least rename it from ‘Affordable’ to Hell on Earthcare. Then last week while Burwell was providing testimony to Congress, the exchange did not go too well. During a hearing on the Health and Human Services (HHS) department budget, Secretary Sylvia Burwell had a contentious exchange with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, over whether the administration has a contingency plan should it lose the Supreme Court case that will be argued this session over the fate of the health care law.

The case, King v. Burwell, deals with whether the federal government can give subsidies to Obamacare recipients in states with federally-run health care exchanges.

Cornyn asked Burwell, “If the administration loses in the King vs. Burwell case, do you believe you already have the authority to make an administrative fix, or will you come to congress to ask for additional legislation?

Insured, but Not Covered

WHEN Karen Pineman of Manhattan received notice that her longtime health insurance policy didn’t comply with the Affordable Care Act’s requirements, she gamely set about shopping for a new policy through the public marketplace. After all, she’d supported President Obama and the act as a matter of principle.

Ms. Pineman, who is self-employed, accepted that she’d have to pay higher premiums for a plan with a narrower provider network and no out-of-network coverage. She accepted that she’d have to pay out of pocket to see her primary care physician, who didn’t participate. She even accepted having co-pays of nearly $1,800 to have a cast put on her ankle in an emergency room after she broke it while playing tennis.

But her frustration bubbled over when she tried to arrange a follow-up visit with an orthopedist in her Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield network: The nearest doctor available who treated ankle problems was in Stamford, Conn. When she called to protest, her insurer said that Stamford was 14 miles from her home and 15 was considered a reasonable travel distance. “It was ridiculous — didn’t they notice it was in another state?” said Ms. Pineman, 46, who was on crutches.

She instead paid $350 to see a nearby orthopedist and bought a boot on Amazon as he suggested. She has since forked over hundreds of dollars more for a physical therapist that insurance didn’t cover, even though that provider was in-network.

                                           

The Affordable Care Act has ushered in an era of complex new health insurance products featuring legions of out-of-pocket coinsurance fees, high deductibles and narrow provider networks. Though commercial insurers had already begun to shift toward such policies, the health care law gave them added legitimacy and has vastly accelerated the trend, experts say.

The theory behind the policies is that patients should bear more financial risk so they will be more conscious and cautious about health care spending. But some experts say the new policies have also left many Americans scrambling to track expenses from a multitude of sources — such as separate deductibles for network and non-network care, or payments for drugs on an insurer’s ever-changing list of drugs that require high co-pays or are not covered at all. For some, like Ms. Pineman, narrow networks can necessitate footing bills privately. For others, the constant changes in policy guidelines — annual shifts in what’s covered and what’s not, monthly shifts in which doctors are in and out of network — can produce surprise bills for services they assumed would be covered. For still others, the new fees are so confusing and unsupportable that they just avoid seeing doctors.

It is true that the Affordable Care Act has erased some of the more egregious practices of the American health insurance system that left patients bankrupt or losing homes to pay bills. Insurers can no longer deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, for example. And the new policies cap out-of-pocket spending so long as the patient receives care within the plan. Most important, the act has offered health insurance to an estimated 10 million Americans who did not have any, often by expanding Medicaid or providing subsidies.

But by endorsing and expanding the complex new policies promoted by the health care industry, the law may in some ways be undermining its signature promise: health care that is accessible and affordable for all.

“I’m always curious when I read this ‘good news’ that health costs are moderating, because my health care costs go up significantly each year, and I think that’s a common experience,” said Mark Rukavina, president of Community Health Advisors in Massachusetts.

While much of the focus in the past has been on keeping premiums manageable, “premiums now tell only a part of the story,” Mr. Rukavina said, adding: “A big part of the way they’ve kept premiums down is to shift costs to patients in the form of co-pays and deductibles and other types of out-of-pocket expenses. And that can leave patients very vulnerable.”

Such policies desperately need improvement, patients and professionals like Mr. Rukavina say. But with the Republicans attacking the Affordable Care Act at all turns, even political supporters seem reluctant to acknowledge that it has some flaws. The narrative has been cast in black or white: It’s working, or it’s a failure. The reality, of course, is gray.

AT this point, we don’t have a good definition of “affordable” — or how to measure it fully and fairly. Many studies show that national health costs, while still rising, are not growing as fast as they once were. But what does that mean for individual patients? So far the research has yielded mixed results.

A study by the Commonwealth Fund this month found that the rise in health insurance premiums in employer-based plans had slowed in 31 states since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (good news, right?). But premiums were still rising faster than median incomes (hmm). More important, perhaps, the researchers found that patients were paying more in health care expenses than ever before, during a time of stagnant wages (not so great). In fact, nearly 10 percent of median household income now goes to pay premiums and deductibles, the study found. And that does not include other kinds of health payments that patients now encounter, such as co-pays and uncovered drugs or services.

A recent New York Times/CBS poll found that 46 percent of Americans said they had trouble affording health care, up 10 percentage points in just one year. Some of the cost problems may ease as patients — now known as health care consumers — learn what to expect and how to choose and navigate their plans.

But other problems may be related to the process by which the plans are created. Under the Affordable Care Act each state was asked to select a benchmark plan as its standard. It had to cover certain “essential health benefits” like maternity care and prescription drugs; it had to have a defined actuarial value depending on the level of plan. Silver plans, for example, had to cover 70 percent of charges, leaving consumers with 30 percent. But within those parameters, competing insurers had leeway to set premiums, co-payments and deductibles, and to create networks by negotiating with doctors and hospitals. Naturally, they created policies that met the core criteria while minimizing their financial risk.

Suddenly there were hundreds of new insurance products that had never been tested in real time. Their shortcomings are now playing out in various ways.

Alison Chavez, 36, who is self-employed, signed up for a marketplace plan in October 2013 that she hoped would be an improvement on her previous plan. She had recently been given a diagnosis of breast cancer and was just beginning therapy, so she was careful to choose a policy on the Covered California marketplace that included her physicians.

But in March, while in the middle of treatment, she was notified that several of her doctors and the hospital were leaving the plan’s network. She was forced to postpone a surgery as she scrambled to buy a new commercial policy that included her doctors. “I’ve been through hell and back, but I came out alive and kicking (just broke),” she wrote in an email.

Dr. Alexis Gersten, a dentist in East Quogue, N.Y., switched her family and 11 employees to a new Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan for 2014, after a previous small-business group plan was canceled. She bought the plan through a broker, and says she was unaware that it was an Affordable Care Act plan. When her son needed an ear, nose and throat specialist, the nearest was in Albany, five hours away. Though her cardiologist was on the network list, he said he did not take the plan. She ended up driving an hour to see a new one. A dispute with the insurer about how to count deductibles left her with a $457 pediatrician’s bill. This year she has chosen a new policy.

“People may have a checklist when they buy insurance: First, premiums, then the deductible — and those are pretty easy to understand because they’re set dollar amounts,” said Lynn Quincy, associate director of health reform policy at Consumers Union. But new policies demand different and more difficult kinds of calculations, she said: “The terms are unfamiliar, and figuring out networks is especially murky.”

Compounding the problem is the lack of basic information to shop effectively. When Andrea Greenberg, a New York lawyer, called the help line of Health Republic to clarify the difference between two plans, she found herself speaking to someone reading off a script in the Philippines. “I was really outraged,” she said. “This is an important decision with potentially dire consequences. It’s not like you’re choosing a sweater.”

Likewise, it took many phone calls for Aviva Starkman Williams, a California computer engineer with insurance through her employer, to determine whether the pediatrician doing her son’s 2-year-old checkup was in-network for 2015. Only three of the pediatricians in her doctor’s six-person group were listed in her plan’s online directory, and since her deductible had tripled from the previous year’s, she wanted to limit her out-of-pocket payments.

The practice’s office manager couldn’t tell her for sure. The insurer’s representative said he didn’t know because doctors came in and out of network all the time, likening the situation to players’ switching teams in the National Basketball Association. “If you don’t have updated information, who does?” she asked. “Isn’t it your job to know?”

Ms. Quincy said regulators needed to do a much better job setting requirements and policing plan practices and offerings, particularly provider networks. Few states have clear standards and many rely on consumer complaints to ferret out problems.

Last month, the California insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, announced new emergency regulations concerning networks, noting: “Health insurers’ medical provider directories have been inaccurate, misleading consumers into signing up with a health insurer for access to a doctor, specialist or hospital, only to learn that these medical providers are not actually a part of the health insurer’s network.”

But for now, patients are most often left to fend for themselves. When Amy Moses, a tech entrepreneur in New York City, went online to select a plan, she paid a relatively pricey $650 per month for a United Healthcare plan to make sure her network included a longtime physician. One month into the year, the doctor’s practice was bought by a hospital, which then dropped the plan, so her doctor did as well. (A year later the doctor was still listed in the network directory.)

She discovered the change only when she contacted the physician for a referral for an urgent outpatient procedure costing thousands of dollars that had been recommended by an in-network surgeon. (Both the referring doctor and the surgeon had to be in-network for coverage.) “I literally had three days to find a new in-network internist and score an appointment to get a referral, or cancel my procedure,” she said. “I was stuck in insurance purgatory.”

Cyber-attacks surging in Utah

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NSA facility is likely cause….

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah state officials have seen what they describe as a sharp uptick in attempts to hack into state computers in the last two years, and they think it related to the NSA data center south of Salt Lake City.

The increase began in early 2013 as international attention focused on the NSA’s $1.7 billion warehouse to store massive amounts of information gathered secretly from phone calls and emails.

“In the cyber world, that’s a big deal,” Utah Public Safety Commissioner Keith Squires told a state legislative committee this week.

While most of the attempts are likely innocuous, cyber experts say it is possible low-level hackers, “hactivists” unhappy with the NSA’s tactics, and some foreign criminal groups might erroneously think the state systems are linked to the NSA.

“Maybe these hackers are thinking: ‘If we can attack state systems, we can get info that NSA isn’t releasing,” said Richard Forno, director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s, graduate cybersecurity program.

The state tracks the attempts with an automated system it purchased after a breach of health care information in 2012. The system detects, stops and counts the attempts to get into the computers, Squires said.

With that new equipment in place in January 2013, the state was seeing an average of 50,000 a day with spikes up to 20 million, Squires told The Associated Press. In February 2013, the number rose to an average of 75 million attacks a day, with up to 500 million on some days.

Attacks include direct attacks on websites, emails fishing for passwords, and something called “port scans,” where people probe a computer looking for weak spots.

The NSA didn’t immediately have any comment about the attacks.

Tim Junio, a cybersecurity researcher at Stanford University, said what officials refer to as “attacks” are likely just “noise from low-tech people rather than concerted efforts for meaningful foreign intelligence collection.”

But both Forno and Junio agree the NSA data center could draw the attention of hackers who think they can target state-run utilities that power the center. Being able to disrupt an NSA operation in any way would bring international notoriety to a foreign state or criminal group, Junio said.

State officials acknowledge that part of the increase is driven by an overall rise in hacking across the country. Hackers’ motivations vary, and it was impossible to determine what might be behind the activity in Utah.

Some steal personal information, like customer lists, to commit identity theft. Some take control of email servers to steal messages, send unwanted advertising or disguise the origin of their communications. Some steal corporate or government secrets from email or cloud servers, or use unlocked file servers as digital “dead drops” for their hacking tools, pirated movies, stolen files and more.

For hackers seeking notoriety, the NSA would be a prized target because it employs the world’s best hackers and routinely gives advice about how to keep computers safe from online criminals.

*** How much more do you really need to know?

In the 10 years since the Pew Research Center and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center first asked experts about the future of cyber attacks in 2004 a lot has happened:
 Some suspect the Russian government of attacking or encouraging organized crime assaults on official websites in the nation of Georgia during military struggles in 2008 that resulted in a Russian invasion of Georgia.
 In 2009-2010, suspicions arose that a sophisticated government-created computer worm called “Stuxnet” was loosed in order to disable Iranian nuclear plant centrifuges that could be used for making weapons-grade enriched uranium. Unnamed sources and speculators argued that the governments of the United States and Israel might have designed and spread the worm.
 The American Defense Department has created a Cyber Command structure that builds Internet-enabled defensive and offensive cyber strategies as an integral part of war planning and war making.
 In May, five Chinese military officials were indicted in Western Pennsylvania for computer hacking, espionage and other offenses that were aimed at six US victims, including nuclear power plants, metals and solar products industries. The indictment comes after several years of revelations that Chinese military and other agents have broken into computers at major US corporations and media companies in a bid to steal trade secrets and learn what stories journalists were working on.
 In October, Russian hackers were purportedly discovered to be exploiting a flaw in Microsoft Windows to spy on NATO, the Ukrainian government, and Western businesses.
 The respected Ponemon Institute reported in September that 43% of firms in the United States had experienced a data breach in the past year. Retail breaches, in particular, had grown in size in virulence in the previous year. One of the most chilling breaches was discovered in July at JPMorgan Chase & Co., compromised. Obama Administration  officials have wondered if the breach was in retaliation by the Putin regime in Russia over events in Ukraine.
 Among the types of exploits of individuals in evidence today are stolen national ID numbers, pilfered passwords and payment information, erased online identities, espionage tools that record all online conversations and keystrokes, and even hacks of driverless cars.
 Days before this report was published, Apple’s iCloud cloud-based data storage system was the target of a so-called “man-in-the-middle” attack in China that was aimed at stealing users’ passwords and spying on their account activities. Some activists and security experts said they suspected the Chinese government had mounted the attack, perhaps because the iPhone 6 had just become available in the country. Others thouThe threat of cyber attacks on government agencies, businesses, non-profits, and individual users is so pervasive and worrisome that this month (October 2014) is National Cyber Security Awareness Month.
To explore the future of cyber attacks we canvassed thousands of experts and Internet builders to share their predictions. We call this a canvassing because it is not a representative, randomized survey. Its findings emerge from an “opt in” invitation to experts, many of whom play active roles in Internet evolution as technology builders, researchers, managers, policymakers, marketers, and analysts. We also invited comments from those who have made insightful predictions to our previous queries about the future of the Internet.

It is NOT Just George Soros

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Soros Clones: 5 Liberal Mega-Donors Nearly as Dangerous as George Soros

From Buffett to Bloomberg, top left-wing supporters give $2.7 billion to push a liberal agenda.

Born: June 21, 1967

Net Worth: $7.6 Billion

Foundation: Omidyar Network Fund, Democracy Fund

Rating: 2 out of 5

Media Outlets: First Look Media, Center for Public Integrity, Center for Responsive Politics, Sunlight Foundation

EBay founder and chairman Pierre Omidyar took the idea of funding the liberal media one step further when he built a media powerhouse all of his own. He used $250 million of his own money and created the news start-up First Look Media.

Omidyar staffed First Look with career liberal journalists from other outlets, including The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald and Slate’s Matt Taibbi. Greenwald’s liberal rants now have a prominent place at The Intercept, First Look’s online magazine. That was the only news-oriented part of the website up and running at the time of this report.  

Greenwald was one of two journalists entrusted by Edward Snowden with the leaked NSA documents. (The other, Laura Poitras, also works at The Intercept.) According to the outlet’s own website, The Intercept’s “short-term mission is to provide a platform to report on the documents previously provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.”

According to Greenwald, The Intercept launched earlier than originally planned due to an “obligation to the NSA documents to have a place to report them.” Besides reporting on the Snowden documents, The Intercept promised to “move forward with what we believe is essential reporting in the public interest.”

Because of his connection to Snowden, Greenwald’s romantic partner, David Miranda, was temporarily held at London’s Heathrow airport in August 2013 under the U.K.’s Terrorism Act 2000. British authorities confiscated Miranda’s external hard drive containing “58,000 highly classified UK intelligence documents,” according to Greenwald’s then-employer The Guardian. Starting in June, 2013, Greenwald wrote a series of articles publicizing material from Snowden’s stolen files.

Omidyar prefers to keep his own politics quiet, but his funding revealed what his words didn’t. Through his foundation, the Omidyar Network Fund, he gave more than $213 million to liberal organizations – in addition to the $250 million he spent on First Look.

The liberal groups he funded included George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Tides Foundation (a foundation used to funnel liberal money anonymously to a variety of causes), as well as left-wing journalism groups like the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics.

Another one of Omidyar’s pet projects was promoting the idea of a “post-political” world. At first, the idea of a world without political bickering might sound appealing, but Omidyar’s end goal was to limit political opposition to the majority.

Omidyar himself said as much in the announcement notice for the creation of his latest grantmaking operation, the Democracy Fund. In the January 2013 open letter, Omidyar repeatedly accused the Republican-dominated Congress of being run by “big donors and lobbyists,” as well as being “dominated by the demonization of opponents and deceptive political rhetoric.”

Partial List of Omidyar’s Donations Since 2004:

  • First Look Media: $250,000,000
  • Sunlight Foundation: $20,505,184
  • Center for Public Integrity: $2,150,000
  • Open Society Foundation (London): $677,142
  • Tides Center: $501,000

 

Conclusion

George Soros doesn’t work alone. Despite liberal cries about conservative “dark money,” the left continued to be financed by an intricate network of dozens of millionaires, billionaires and foundations. This report highlighted only a handful of the most prominent members of this group.

The media coverage of these liberal donors was inexcusable. It was not the job of the media to promote or applaud partisan efforts, and it was negligent of them to ignore or bury connections between liberal policy initiatives and the liberals who funded them. Journalists were far more apt to cover conservative billionaires and their influence than they were to cover liberal billionaires.

As George Soros retires more and more from the political funding spotlight, liberal bankrollers like Buffett, Bloomberg, Steyer, Omidyar and the younger Soros were vying to take his place. And this report is just the tip of that iceberg. There are dozens of other millionaires, billionaires and political game changers on the left. Several big liberal players were not included in this report, including Rob McKay, the Taco Bell heir and big campaigner for higher minimum wage laws; George Kaiser, the billionaire oil tycoon who invested heavily in Oklahoma politics; Drummond Pike, the creator of the highly influential Tides Foundation.

Methodology

For this Special Report, the MRC’s Business and Media Institute looked at 990 tax returns for foundations and nonprofits associated with Bloomberg, Buffett, Steyer, Omidyar and Soros. These tax returns are available through Guidestar and the Foundation Directory. All net worth amounts come from the Forbes Billionaires List.

To gauge the media coverage of these liberal donors, BMI looked for mentions of their names in Nexis transcripts for the morning and evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC from January 2001 to June 2014.

Recommendations for Journalists

The Business and Media Institute has the following recommendations for journalists who are reporting on political organizations, donors and funding.

  • Follow the Money: Liberal billionaires funded a wide range of political organizations and media groups. These groups were then considered authorities by major media outlets, including ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN. Instead, reporters should challenge the biases of these groups.
  • Treat Public Figures Equally: Media outlets are quick to report on funding by Charles and David Koch to conservative organizations, but they often completely ignore the wide range of funding by liberal donors. Among them, these five liberal donors are worth more than $109 billion dollars, and they aren’t alone.
  • Dig Into Backgrounds of Both Sides: The Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states that journalists should, “Support the open exchange of views, even views they find repugnant.” It is incumbent upon journalists to analyze the background and funding sources for groups and individuals on both ends of the political spectrum.

— Mike Ciandella is MRC Business Senior Analyst at the Media Research Center. *** If you are rolling your eyes by now, it gets worse, add in the interference regarding the Ukraine.

Gitmo Detainee Joined ISIS, Dead by Drone

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(CNN)He was a Taliban commander captured by the United States and held at Guantanamo Bay. But he was let go and returned to Afghanistan. Mullah Abdul Rauf went on to become a recruiter for ISIS in Afghanistan.

He was killed in a drone strike Monday, two officials told CNN.

Rauf and five others were killed, four of them Pakistani militants, said Mohammed Jan Rasoulya, the deputy governor of southern Helmand province. A senior Afghan security source confirmed Rauf’s death.

The Washington Post, in a headline last month, called him “the shadowy figure recruiting for the Islamic State in Afghanistan.”

The New York Times called him the “militant commander at the center of the concerns in Helmand Province” but said some local Taliban figures “dismiss claims” that he had established “a significant new Islamic State cell in Helmand Province.”

He was known to many with the name “Khadim” tacked on to the end of his name.

“Until 9/11, the hard-nosed Khadim commanded (Taliban creator) Mullah Omar’s elite mobile reserve force, fighting regime opponents all over Afghanistan,” Newsweek wrote of Rauf in a 2011 list of list of most-wanted insurgents. “Arrested and sent to Guantanamo soon after the Taliban’s collapse, he was released in late 2007, having convinced his jailers that he wanted only to go home and tend his farm. Escaping from house arrest in Kabul, he fled to Pakistan.”

Although the United States does not publicize the names of detainees at Guantanamo, a document posted by WikiLeaks showed that the United States recommended Rauf be “transferred to the control of another country for continued detention” as early as 2004.

In a 2011 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations — part of the Armed Services Committee — a lawmaker asked about Rauf and another former detainee.

Ed Mornston, director of the Joint Intelligence Task Force of the Defense Intelligence Agency, responded that “there have been instances where detainees who have been transferred from Gitmo have reengaged and have been in the fight and have impacted the lives of U.S. service members. We do track that. I can’t discuss that much further in this open session, but we do in fact know that that has happened.”

*** But what else needs to be known about Afghanistan…..

Report: Afghan police-Taliban ties being investigated

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s national spy service is investigating the police force in Kunduz, a northern province that has fallen prey to criminal gangs, The New York Times reported Sunday.

So far at least 32 police officers have come under suspicion, a member of Parliament from Kunduz, Abdul Wadud Paiman, and other officials told the Times. Of those, more than a dozen police officers have been arrested, including several senior commanders, a spokesman for the governor, Wasi Basil, said. Others have been fired or suspended.

Mullah Mujahid, a Taliban commander in Kunduz province, was arrested last month. Under interrogation, the Times wrote, Mujahid began describing how police officers helped Taliban fighters, sometimes selling them ammunition, other times tipping them off to impending police operations, and began naming names, Paiman said.

The number of officers involved makes it one of the most significant corruption investigations within the national police force in years, the Times wrote. Although the police force in Afghanistan has a reputation for corruption, charges are rare.

                                       

Security in the province, which shares a border with Tajikistan, has worsened in recent years. By some estimates, Kunduz has about 3,000 armed militiamen, the paper reported.

By late last year, with most foreign troops departed, the Taliban effectively controlled two of the districts in Kunduz. President Ashraf Ghani has declared Kunduz a priority and appointed a new governor and security officials for the province. The army sent in troop reinforcements from a neighboring province.

It is not entirely clear why the most recent arrest of Mujahid, in mid-January, turned out so differently from his previous arrests, Paiman is reported as saying.

Mujahid, who is 30 years old and whose actual name is Anwar ul Haq, remains in custody, Paiman said, telling the Times, “Mullah Mujahid confessed in the interrogation and named who helped them from within the police.”

For the moment, it is not entirely clear whether investigators believe Mujahid’s allegations are credible. But the accusations against the officers go beyond selling ammunition, a not uncommon form of corruption, officials said.

Some have been accused of “sending information to the militants so that the Taliban could plan their attacks or ambushes,” Basil told the Times.