Iran, the Pivot Away

Posted on May 5, 2014May 5, 2014 by Denise Simon

Nothing has changed in Iran, except Rouhani is now wealthier given the suspension by the United States of key sanctions. Iran is as strong today globally as it ever was. Europe is considering stronger sanctions and Iran is working diligently to get more sanctions lifted to buy at least 400 aircraft.

Just keep in mind that the Obama White House has been negotiating with Iran and using several mediators, but even more disturbing is what is below. We are earnestly working with a state sponsor of terror.

Designated as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in 1984, Iran continued its terrorist-related activity, including support for Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and for Hizballah. It has also increased its presence in Africa and attempted to smuggle arms to Houthi separatists in Yemen and Shia oppositionists in Bahrain. Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and its regional proxy groups to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East. The IRGC-QF is the regime’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.

Iran views Syria as a crucial causeway in its weapons supply route to Hizballah, its primary beneficiary. In 2013, Iran continued to provide arms, financing, training, and the facilitation of Iraqi Shia fighters to the Asad regime’s brutal crackdown, a crackdown that has resulted in the death of more than 100,000 civilians in Syria. Iran has publicly admitted sending members of the IRGC to Syria in an advisory role. There are reports indicating some of these troops are IRGC-QF members and that they have taken part in direct combat operations. In February, senior IRGC-QF commander Brigadier General Hassan Shateri was killed in or near Zabadani, Syria.

Beyond terrorism, there is still the matter of the Iranian nuclear program and Iran is not cooperating with the IAEA.

The Iranian regime’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesman, Behrouz Kamalvandi, stated that “legally, they have no right to visit Parchin since we are not implementing the Additional Protocol (to the NPT) and even if we did, access needs to be managed” (State-run Fars news agency, May 3).

Iran and China are now strategic defense partners which the State Department seems to dismiss. Then there is Sudan.

Two Iranian warships docked for refuelling on Monday in Port Sudan, across the Red Sea from Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia.

Sudan’s army spokesman Sawarmi Khaled Saad said the warships, one of them a navy supply ship, had arrived in Port Sudan, where civilians could tour the vessels during their port call.

Naval vessels from Iran have periodically stopped in Port Sudan for what Khartoum describes as normal port calls.

The coastal city lies about 250 kilometres (155 miles) across the Red Sea from Saudi Arabia, which has long been wary of Iran’s regional ambitions.

In March, a Western diplomat said strained political relations between Riyadh and Khartoum over Iran could have been a factor in a decision by Saudi banks to stop dealing with Sudan.

Khartoum also has close ties with Qatar, which is perceived as supporting the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, towards which Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies have long been hostile.

Relations between Sudan and Saudi Arabia are “zero”, a senior Sudanese opposition politician told AFP last month.

But Ibrahim Ghandour, an aide to President Omar al-Bashir, said in a March interview that there is “nothing peculiar” in Sudan’s relations with Iran, insisting they had not affected ties with other countries, including Saudi Arabia, which remains a leading investor.

On Monday Sudan’s foreign ministry described relations with the Gulf as “stable” and said ties with Saudi Arabia are based on “mutual respect,” in a report to parliament, the official SUNA news agency said.

There are CIA political hacks and then the Others

Posted on May 5, 2014May 5, 2014 by Denise Simon

I have nothing to add to this one except to say, there once was a time when the oath and sense of duty meant something.

The CIA that saved Dick Holm

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, May 2, 2014 – Benghazi showed us a difficult truth. Once upon a time, the CIA left no man behind. The Agency took care of its own, even in the face of disapproval from the public or from other government organizations. Right or wrong, the Agency did everything it could to protect its employees.

And the leaders in the United States Government backed those decisions, anxious to protect Americans overseas.

That was the CIA that saved Dick Holm; that went into the Congo not once but twice to rescue him.

In 1964, Dick Holm was a young CIA officer. After a two-year tour in Laos and Thailand, Holm was assigned to the Congo, to collect intelligence and support Belgian operations in the country.

One day in 1965, the chief of the air unit directed Holm to conduct an air survey of the area to determine whether arms and ammunition were coming across the border with Sudan. Holm was to ride with pilot Juan Peron in his T-28, a two-seater plane where the passenger sits behind the pilot. The mission was to gather intelligence but, even more importantly, to attack military targets

Holm tells how he and Peron spotted some trucks and a power plant, and Peron attacked both targets.

After the attacks, the weather turned threatening, blowing the plane off course. Lost and low on fuel, Peron decided to take the plane down before dark while he still had the ability to land in a clearing. They crash-landed into the jungle.

During the landing, Holm was splashed with flaming jet fuel on his face, his hands and his legs. Juan was unhurt. The plane was on fire. Holm’s eyes were seared shut from the fire and he had little use of his hands. He could smell fire and hear Juan yelling at him to get out of the plane. He used his elbows to release the harness and then crawled out of the plane, and Juan helped him get away from the plane minutes before it exploded.

Holm was weak and barely able to move, and he and Juan were in enemy territory with no support. Holm says he knew burns meant dehydration and infection, and the jungle was an inhospitable place for someone hurt as badly as he was. Holm says in his book, “Juan used his knife to cut charred skin hanging from several of my fingers. There were already bugs on some of my burns.”

Holm and Juan were also in enemy territory. Simba rebels, the force the Belgians and Americans opposed, were in the jungle and would not hesitate to kill Holm and Juan if they found them. They were known to eat their enemies after killing them, believing they gained strength from eating their vital organs.

The next morning, Juan found a village. Village Chief Faustino agreed to help Holm and Juan to safety, and to take care of Holm while Juan went for help. When Juan and the villagers came back to Holm, he was covered in bees and barely conscious.

The villagers made a litter and carried Holm back to the village. They cared for his burns and dug out the worm-like bugs that had burrowed into his wounds. They applied a salve that hardened and created a type of coating, which Holm credits with saving his life. Juan and two villagers left Holm in the village to go for help.

Eight days later, Juan and the villagers arrived at an air station in Paulis. Within two hours, the Agency officers at Paulis received permission to use one of the Belgian helicopters at the field to rescue Holm. They also sent a T-28, piloted by Juan, and the air operations chief in Paulis had ordered a C130 to be at Paulis to transport Holm as soon as he arrived.

When the helicopter crashed on landing to rescue Holm, the air operation authorized a second helicopter to take its place.

That second helicopter saved Holm, and returned him to Paulis. He then immediately was transferred to the C130 and sent to a hospital in what was then Leopoldville, now Kinshasa.

Holm also reports that when CIA headquarters heard Holm was in Paulis, Dick Helms, the Deputy Director for Plans, now the Directorate of Operations, immediately went to Director of Central Intelligence John McCone and said the only way to save Holm’s life was to get him to the National Burn Center in San Antonio, Texas. The DCI called Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who authorized the US Air force to deploy a 707 to carry a burn team to care for Holm.

Holm survived, and after years of painful rehabilitation, returned to have an extraordinary 35-year career at the CIA.

The U.S. government went in to rescue Holm, one man, and spared no expense to give him the best care possible.

Where was that CIA on September 11, 2012?

On September 11, 2012, CIA-affiliated officers stood on a roof in Benghazi for seven hours waiting for help from the U.S. government. None came. Eventually, they could no longer hold back the terrorists, and they lost their lives.

Charles Woods and Glen Doherty, part of a Global Response Staff that provides security for CIA officers overseas held off hostile attackers at the US Consulate in Benghazi for seven hours on September 11. For seven hours after Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith were attacked, they manned machine guns on the roof of the CIA annex and defended US territory and personnel. They called for help but were ignored.

While the public still does not know exactly what happened in Benghazi, we do know that US government leaders did not deploy forces to rescue Americans stranded on a rooftop taking enemy fire. We know that for seven hours, those men called for assistance were ignored.

We don’t know where leaders were on September 11. We do know they were not on a rooftop in Benghazi and they did not send help, despite seven hours of requests.

We know they left those men behind.

Lisa M. Ruth

Lisa M. Ruth started her career at the CIA, where she won several distinguished awards for her service and analysis. After leaving the government, she joined a private intelligence firm in South Florida as President, where she oversaw all research, analysis and reporting. Lisa joined CDN as a journalist in 2009 and writes extensively on intelligence, world affairs, and breaking news. She also provides CDN with investigative reporting and news analysis. Lisa continues to write both for her own columns and as a guest writer on a wide variety of subjects, and is now Executive Editor for CDN. She is also a regular contributor to Newsmax and other publications.

VA Where Bonuses Trump Lives

Posted on May 5, 2014May 6, 2014 by Denise Simon

Update: May 6, 2014 Senators call for the resignation of the head of the Veteran’s Administration Eric Shinseki.

The Veteran’s Administration has a long standing policy that veterans seeking care must be seen by a VA doctor within 14 days. If that timeline cannot be met, then the VA must refer the case to a local private practice doctor. Sadly, too many veterans do not know this and what is worse, the VA administrators don’t bother to explain this to the veterans either. Consequently, death and manifested illnesses expand all without so much as a moments attention by any VA leadership including Eric Shinseki.

Each VA across the country has a mandate, but some have chosen to ignore for the sake of getting a bonus by falsifying records as is the case in several VA locations across the country. Whistleblowers are coming forward explaining the secret lists, the destruction of files and the lies where Ft. Collins Colorado is the latest to be added to the collusion.

But where is the Commander in Chief on the matter of the VA scandal? Well, as usual he will get to the bottom of the matter and that was about it. The VA had an Inspector General assigned to a VA medical center in California in 2011. By virtue of the methods to complain about medical and patient neglect offered by VA’s across the country in and of itself paint a chilling picture of how bad the neglect and obstruction of delivering care really is.

So two Senator are pressing for more answers by the Inspector General on the matter of VA abuse as witnessed by this letter. Question is where is Senator Lindsey Graham, who was JAG once in his career, why has he not weighed in? Where is the FBI and how come they are not assigned to investigate the years of abuse?

The matter of patient abuse and neglect is not about having enough money in the system, never was, it was more about personal awards of bonuses to VA administrators. Now the Concerned Veterans for America and the American Legion are calling for the resignation of Eric Shinseki, where actually the man should be tried to accessory to RICO, murder and breaking the law.

Pete Hegseth, CEO of CVA, issued the following statement:

“We’re proud to stand with The American Legion as they take this courageous—and historic stand. As America’s largest veterans organization, their moral authority on this issue is unimpeachable. We applaud their demands for accountability at the very top of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“As the American Legion knows, it is important to note that firing Shinseki will not solve VA’s systemic problems. What the VA really needs is oversight and accountability. The next VA secretary must be given the tools to enforce accountability—which is why CVA, along with the American Legion, supports the VA Management Accountability Act of 2014 (HR4031/S2013).

“Firing Shinseki, without passing this critical—and bipartisan—legislation, will be a hollow victory for veterans. Accountability needs to start at the top, but must also be infused in all aspects of VA. We need to replace Shinseki with a VA secretary who is fully empowered to change the culture at VA and implement long-overdue reforms.”

– See more at: http://concernedveteransforamerica.org/2014/05/05/concerned-veterans-america-fully-supports-american-legion-call-fire-veterans-affairs-secretary-eric-shinseki/#sthash.ywZ7RLnH.dpuf

This is the recommended solution to the common patient abuse and neglect by Eric Shinsheki. Attach the scarlet letter to all those involved in this neglect as ‘A’ stands for abuse, nothing more shameful …..nothing.

Obama’s Big Data is Big Trouble

Posted on May 3, 2014May 3, 2014 by Denise Simon

After the revelations of Wikileaks and Edward Snowden on the previously unknown activities of the NSA, the FBI, the ODNI and more, Americans and foreign leaders have come to understand the far reaching and obscure violations of any expectation of privacy. While countries spy on other countries, little has been preserved when it comes to the common citizen and their expectation of privacy.

Too many outside corporations are in partnership with Big Data that include internet technology companies, telecom companies and law enforcement.

Just this week without any fanfare, John Podesta, who is the White House Counselor to the President released the report and findings after his committee of Science and Technology were tasked with a 90 day study group on Big Data. The findings are disturbing and do nothing but encourage more violations of the 4th Amendment.

The big question remains, if the activities of the NSA and partners are preserving the Constitutional protections, then why is this study group suggesting legislation titled the ‘Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights’?

The study group fact sheet is here. The full 85 page report is here.

In the meantime, Yahoo is not your friend.

Yahoo joins companies which track their users, If PRIVACY MATTERS Leave Yahoo

http://hackersnewsbulletin.com/2014/05/yahoo-joins-companies-track-users-privacy-matters-leave-yahoo.html

Some technology companies like Apple and Facebook are reported to be defying NSA mandates on secrecy, but the question is just how much are these companies really telling users and is it accurate?

Frankly, after all the lies, subterfuge and collusion of this administration, what should we trust that is being told to us?

The summary of the report as posted on the White House website reads as follows:

Over the past several days, severe storms have battered Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and other states. Dozens of people have been killed and entire neighborhoods turned to rubble and debris as tornadoes have touched down across the region. Natural disasters like these present a host of challenges for first responders. How many people are affected, injured, or dead? Where can they find food, shelter, and medical attention? What critical infrastructure might have been damaged?

Drawing on open government data sources, including Census demographics and NOAA weather data, along with their own demographic databases, Esri, a geospatial technology company, has created a real-time map showing where the twisters have been spotted and how the storm systems are moving. They have also used these data to show how many people live in the affected area, and summarize potential impacts from the storms. It’s a powerful tool for emergency services and communities. And it’s driven by big data technology.

In January, President Obama asked me to lead a wide-ranging review of “big data” and privacy—to explore how these technologies are changing our economy, our government, and our society, and to consider their implications for our personal privacy. Together with Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, the President’s Science Advisor John Holdren, the President’s Economic Advisor Jeff Zients, and other senior officials, our review sought to understand what is genuinely new and different about big data and to consider how best to encourage the potential of these technologies while minimizing risks to privacy and core American values.

Over the course of 90 days, we met with academic researchers and privacy advocates, with regulators and the technology industry, with advertisers and civil rights groups. The President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology conducted a parallel study of the technological trends underpinning big data. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy jointly organized three university conferences at MIT, NYU, and U.C. Berkeley. We issued a formal Request for Information seeking public comment, and hosted a survey to generate even more public input.

Today, we presented our findings to the President. We knew better than to try to answer every question about big data in three months. But we are able to draw important conclusions and make concrete recommendations for Administration attention and policy development in a few key areas.

There are a few technological trends that bear drawing out. The declining cost of collection, storage, and processing of data, combined with new sources of data like sensors, cameras, and geospatial technologies, mean that we live in a world of near-ubiquitous data collection. All this data is being crunched at a speed that is increasingly approaching real-time, meaning that big data algorithms could soon have immediate effects on decisions being made about our lives.

The big data revolution presents incredible opportunities in virtually every sector of the economy and every corner of society.

Big data is saving lives. Infections are dangerous—even deadly—for many babies born prematurely. By collecting and analyzing millions of data points from a NICU, one study was able to identify factors, like slight increases in body temperature and heart rate, that serve as early warning signs an infection may be taking root—subtle changes that even the most experienced doctors wouldn’t have noticed on their own.

Big data is making the economy work better. Jet engines and delivery trucks now come outfitted with sensors that continuously monitor hundreds of data points and send automatic alerts when maintenance is needed. Utility companies are starting to use big data to predict periods of peak electric demand, adjusting the grid to be more efficient and potentially averting brown-outs.

Big data is making government work better and saving taxpayer dollars. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have begun using predictive analytics—a big data technique—to flag likely instances of reimbursement fraud before claims are paid. The Fraud Prevention System helps identify the highest-risk health care providers for waste, fraud, and abuse in real time and has already stopped, prevented, or identified $115 million in fraudulent payments.

But big data raises serious questions, too, about how we protect our privacy and other values in a world where data collection is increasingly ubiquitous and where analysis is conducted at speeds approaching real time. In particular, our review raised the question of whether the “notice and consent” framework, in which a user grants permission for a service to collect and use information about them, still allows us to meaningfully control our privacy as data about us is increasingly used and reused in ways that could not have been anticipated when it was collected.

Big data raises other concerns, as well. One significant finding of our review was the potential for big data analytics to lead to discriminatory outcomes and to circumvent longstanding civil rights protections in housing, employment, credit, and the consumer marketplace.

No matter how quickly technology advances, it remains within our power to ensure that we both encourage innovation and protect our values through law, policy, and the practices we encourage in the public and private sector. To that end, we make six actionable policy recommendations in our report to the President:

Advance the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights. Consumers deserve clear, understandable, reasonable standards for how their personal information is used in the big data era. We recommend the Department of Commerce take appropriate consultative steps to seek stakeholder and public comment on what changes, if any, are needed to the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, first proposed by the President in 2012, and to prepare draft legislative text for consideration by stakeholders and submission by the President to Congress.

Pass National Data Breach Legislation. Big data technologies make it possible to store significantly more data, and further derive intimate insights into a person’s character, habits, preferences, and activities. That makes the potential impacts of data breaches at businesses or other organizations even more serious. A patchwork of state laws currently governs requirements for reporting data breaches. Congress should pass legislation that provides for a single national data breach standard, along the lines of the Administration’s 2011 Cybersecurity legislative proposal.

Extend Privacy Protections to non-U.S. Persons. Privacy is a worldwide value that should be reflected in how the federal government handles personally identifiable information about non-U.S. citizens. The Office of Management and Budget should work with departments and agencies to apply the Privacy Act of 1974 to non-U.S. persons where practicable, or to establish alternative privacy policies that apply appropriate and meaningful protections to personal information regardless of a person’s nationality.

Ensure Data Collected on Students in School is used for Educational Purposes. Big data and other technological innovations, including new online course platforms that provide students real time feedback, promise to transform education by personalizing learning. At the same time, the federal government must ensure educational data linked to individual students gathered in school is used for educational purposes, and protect students against their data being shared or used inappropriately.

Expand Technical Expertise to Stop Discrimination. The detailed personal profiles held about many consumers, combined with automated, algorithm-driven decision-making, could lead—intentionally or inadvertently—to discriminatory outcomes, or what some are already calling “digital redlining.” The federal government’s lead civil rights and consumer protection agencies should expand their technical expertise to be able to identify practices and outcomes facilitated by big data analytics that have a discriminatory impact on protected classes, and develop a plan for investigating and resolving violations of law.

Amend the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The laws that govern protections afforded to our communications were written before email, the internet, and cloud computing came into wide use. Congress should amend ECPA to ensure the standard of protection for online, digital content is consistent with that afforded in the physical world—including by removing archaic distinctions between email left unread or over a certain age.

We also identify several broader areas ripe for further study, debate, and public engagement that, collectively, we hope will spark a national conversation about how to harness big data for the public good. We conclude that we must find a way to preserve our privacy values in both the domestic and international marketplace. We urgently need to build capacity in the federal government to identify and prevent new modes of discrimination that could be enabled by big data. We must ensure that law enforcement agencies using big data technologies do so responsibly, and that our fundamental privacy rights remain protected. Finally, we recognize that data is a valuable public resource, and call for continuing the Administration’s efforts to open more government data sources and make investments in research and technology.

While big data presents new challenges, it also presents immense opportunities to improve lives, the United States is perhaps better suited to lead this conversation than any other nation on earth. Our innovative spirit, technological know-how, and deep commitment to values of privacy, fairness, non-discrimination, and self-determination will help us harness the benefits of the big data revolution and encourage the free flow of information while working with our international partners to protect personal privacy. This review is but one piece of that effort, and we hope it spurs a conversation about big data across the country and around the world.

Select Committee, Benghazi

Posted on May 3, 2014May 3, 2014 by Denise Simon

House Speaker John Boehner has pulled the trigger on establishing a Select Committee for the Benghazi attack. The long wait was to establish this committee was due in part to having tangible and proven evidence that pointed inside the White House, which has now been delivered as a result of a law suit granting the delivery of additional emails.

The House must now vote officially for the creation of this committee and several other items need to occur before work gets underway. Members of this committee must be chosen and those members must be vetted and apply for a higher set of security clearances. Additionally, a resolution is to be crafted that defines the powers, rules and procedures as well as the scope of the investigation relating to Benghazi. This is a slow but measured process which has some history as we have come to know least of which is the Iran Contra Affair yet those before included select committees on Energy Independence and Global Warning as well as establishing the Treasury Department.

America is in a legislative crisis but most of all she is in an Executive Branch crisis and it has been established that key Cabinet Secretaries have crossed the legal lines of power. One such agency caught up in the matter of Benghazi especially is the State Department where two separate Secretaries where obfuscation is cancerous to the existing investigations on Benghazi. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry both have blood on their hands regarding Libya and the deaths of 4 Americans and even up to 24 more in Libya since the attacks.

WASHINGTON – Today, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry outlining the State Department’s continued obstruction into the investigation of the tragic events in Benghazi. While the Secretary stated in a House hearing this month that he was “not aware” of any State Department generated delay or obstruction into the investigation, Chairman Issa outlines specific incidences where the Department has used various tactics to stall and impede the investigation. This obstruction includes unusual restrictions on documents, threats to destroy Committee property, and attempts to hinder whistleblowers from obtaining legal representation cleared to view classified information.

The State Department has refused to provide requested information about procedures for attorneys representing whistleblowers can be cleared to handle classified information.

“During the course of the Committee’s investigation, numerous individuals have come forward with information related to the Benghazi attack,” wrote Issa in the letter. “Some witnesses may be required to retain personal counsel to represent them before the Committee and in case the Department retaliates against them for cooperating with the Committee’s investigation. Additional witnesses may be compelled by subpoena to give testimony to the Committee and can be reasonably expected to retain personal counsel at that time. In each case, witnesses may need to share sensitive or classified information with their lawyers. The Department’s unwillingness to make the process for clearing an attorney more transparent appears to be an effort to interfere with the rights of employees to furnish information to Congress.”

There has been a coordinated and intentional effort to cover up all the fallout of the 9-11 attacks but what is worse the re-election of Barack Obama was under an epic condition of fraud due in part to the IRS, NSA, PPACA and sadly the murders of 4 Americans.

For reference of the trail of blocking all investigative efforts by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, below is the text of the letter sent by the Chairman to Secretary of State John Kerry.

http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013-04-26-DEI-to-Kerry-DOS-Document-Production-Benghazi.pdf

This letter demonstrates the cautious steps taken by the Oversight Committee but more it illustrates the extent by which the State Department has blocked and challenged all investigation efforts. should be noted the Select Committee process will involve several agencies as this also has international implications and classified documents as well as covert operators.