Category Archives: The Denise Simon Experience

Russia’s Hybrid Warfare, Here to Stay

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Seems like everyday, Russia is in our house, in fact it is true. The hybrid warfare crafted by the Kremlin is here to stay so exactly when does the Trump White House deal with this constant threat? What threat you ask?

Adam Meyers is from the cyber-security firm CrowdStrike. As the Vice President of Intelligence, Adam heads a team that identifies the perpetrators of cyber-crimes, both in the private and public sectors. CrowdStrike helped to identify the hackers behind the Democratic National Committee’s email leaks last year, and more recently the mastermind behind the Kelihos Botnet.

*** Notice, there was no intrusion into Marie Le Pen’s campaign operations. Why? Putin endorses LePen and has provided campaign funds to her.

According to Trend Micro researchers, the campaign of French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has been hit by the same Russian hackers who targeted Democratic campaign officials in the U.S. before last year’s presidential election, the New York Times reports.

On March 15, the researchers say, they saw the Pawn Storm group (a.k.a. Fancy Bear, APT28 or the Sofacy Group) begin targeting Macron’s campaign with phishing attacks seeking campaign officials’ login information.

“The phishing pages we are talking about are very personalized Web pages to look like the real address,” Mounir Mahjoubi, Macron’s digital director, told the Times. “They were pixel perfect. It’s exactly the same page. That means there was talent behind it and time went into it — talent, money, experience, time and will.”

Still, Mahjoubi said none of the attacks was successful.

He described the phishing attacks as the invisible side of a Russian campaign against Macron, with the visible side being fake news published on Russian news sites like Sputnik and RT. More here.

***

Panel to Senate: Cyber Operations Influence Political Processes Worldwide

Russia used “useful idiots” to meddle in the U.S. presidential election and “fellow travelers” opposed to European Union and NATO to influence elections in France and Germany, while Islamic terrorists used “agent provocateurs” to topple Spain’s government in 2004 and cast another pall over French voting, a cyber security expert told a congressional subcommittee Thursday.

That, in capsule form, is how cyber is changing how the public views elections, Clint Watts, of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said at the Senate Armed Services cybersecurity subcommittee hearing.

So far in the case of the United States warding off this kind of activity, “far more is said than done.” He added it is a “human challenge, not technical ones” that needs to be addressed.

In the American and European elections, he said at the panel’s first public hearing since being formed the Russians created content, sent it out as if were “nuclear-powered and “pushed [it] in unison from many locations,” including “gray outlets” that appear to be legitimate sources of news. They also did all of this over long periods of time.

The goal in the American election was to plant doubt in the integrity of the voting, he said. He added there was no indication that actual votes were tampered with.

Later in answer to a question, Watts said the Russians “are picking parties and supporting them” in the United States and financially in Europe.

In cyber, not all is as it appears and its speed is instantaneous.

Rand Waltzman, senior information scientist at the RAND Corporation, described how an American special forces raid that successfully rescued a hostage and killed a number of terrorists in Iraq was turned into a terrorist propaganda victory. “Those guys film everything,” he said describing how they recorded the incident by placing the bodies on prayer rugs so it appeared that soldiers killed innocent civilians. The video was posted before the special forces soldiers returned to their base. “How did they manage to this so fast?” Their mobile phones.

This changed the story of what happened 180 degrees and put the United States in the position of having to refute the video rather than telling a story of rescue.

He said this kind of quick reaction by adversaries — misinformation, fake news — requires new thinking on cyber security. Instead of the traditional “denial of service” by causing a crash, they are applying “cognitive denial of service” — misinformation and propaganda — to achieve their ends.

“We’re hamstrung” by bureaucracy and directives in addressing the new “hyperkinetic world,” Michael Lumpkin, former acting under secretary of defense for policy, said. The United States’ government efforts in public diplomacy, public affairs and information operations have not been synchronized so that it becomes a credible source of information. It also needs to take the necessary steps “to make sure our information is accurate” before releasing it. “That has not always been the case.”

John Inglis, former deputy director of the National Security Agency, used his organization’s handling of metadata collection as an example. “You need to go first” to establish credibility and explain the value of what it is you are doing. “We went second. That made it more difficult to put it back in the bottle.”

Watts said one approach would be to have a rating non-profit, private agency, similar to Consumer Reports, vet every story on Twitter, Facebook and Google. He added Facebook and Google “are moving in that direction” to eliminate false news, but so far Twitter has not acted.

When asked how he rated RT, the Russian-sponsored media outlet, as a source of news, he said 70 percent was true, 20 percent was misleading and 10 percent false. Watts said he rated some American media outlets as falling in the same percentages of true, misleading and false.

A continuing difficulty in improving cyber security in and out of government is “how do you get people to share problems,” Waltzman said when they would prefer not to admit being hacked or even attacked. Lumpkin said more also needs to be done in training people how not to “provide access to adversaries unwittingly” and holding them accountable for security.

As for recruiting skilled cyber workers, “they’re motivated people out there” interested in the challenges they can find in government, rather than private sector, careers, Watts said. “Give them the space to be the tech savants they are.”

*** Need more? Do you ever watch C-Span and listen to testimony before Congressional committees? No? Too bad, but here is some help:

Full Spectrum Influence Operations: Synchronization of White, Gray and Black Efforts

Russian cyber enabled influence operations demonstrate never-before-seen synchronization of Active Measures.  Content created by white outlets (RT and Sputnik News) promoting the release of compromising material will magically generate manipulated truths and falsehoods from conspiratorial websites promoting Russian foreign policy positions, Kremlin preferred candidates or attacking Russian opponents.  Hackers, hecklers and honeypots rapidly extend these information campaigns amongst foreign audiences. As a comparison, the full spectrum synchronization, scale, repetition and speed of Russia’s cyber-enabled information operations far outperform the Islamic State’s recently successful terrorism propaganda campaigns or any other electoral campaign seen to date.

Cyber-enabled Influence Thrives When Paired with Physical Actors and Their Actions – 

American obsession with social media has overlooked the real world actors assisting Russian influence operations in cyber space, specifically “Useful Idiots,” “Fellow Travelers,” and “Agent Provocateurs.”

“Useful Idiots” – Meddling in the U.S. and now European elections has been accentuated by Russian cultivation and exploitation of “Useful Idiots” – a Soviet era term referring to unwitting American politicians, political groups and government representatives who further amplify Russian influence amongst Western populaces by utilizing Russian kompromat and resulting themes.

“Fellow Travelers” – In some cases, Russia has curried the favor of “Fellow Travelers” – a Soviet term referring to individuals ideologically sympathetic to Russia’s anti-EU, anti-NATO and anti-immigration ideology. A cast of alternative right characters across Europe and America now openly push Russia’s agenda both on-the-ground and online accelerating the spread of Russia’s cyber-enabled influence operations.

“Agent Provocateurs” – Ever more dangerous may be Russia’s renewed placement and use of “Agent Provocateurs” – Russian agents or manipulated political supporters who commit or entice others to commit illegal, surreptitious acts to discredit opponent political groups and power falsehoods in cyber space. Shots fired in a Washington, D.C. pizza parlor by an American who fell victim to a fake news campaign called #PizzaGate demonstrate the potential for cyber-enabled influence to result in real world consequences. While this campaign cannot be directly linked to Russia, the Kremlin currently has the capability to foment, amplify, and through covert social media accounts, encourage Americans to undertake actions either knowingly or unknowingly as Agent Provocateurs.

Each of these actors assists Russia’s online efforts to divide Western electorates across political, social, and ethnic lines while maintaining a degree of “plausible deniability” with regards to Kremlin interventions. In general, Russian influence operations targeting closer to Moscow and further from Washington, D.C. will utilize greater quantities and more advanced levels of human operatives to power cyber-influence operations. Russia’s Crimean campaign and their links to an attempted coup in Montenegro demonstrate the blend of real world and cyber influence they can utilize to win over target audiences. The physical station or promotion of gray media outlets and overt Russian supporters in Eastern Europe were essential to their influence of the U.S. Presidential election and sustaining “plausible deniability.”

It’s important to note that America is not immune to infiltration either, physically or virtually.  In addition to the Cold War history of Soviet agents recruiting Americans for Active Measures purposes, the recently released dossier gathered by ex MI6 agent Chris Steele alleges on page 8 that Russia used “Russian émigré & associated offensive cyber operatives in U.S.” during their recent campaign to influence the U.S. election. While still unverified, if true, the employment of such agents of influence in the U.S. would provide further plausible deniability and provocation capability for Russian cyber-enabled influence operations.

2) How can the U.S. government counter cyber-enabled influence operations?

When it comes to America countering cyber-enabled influence operations, when all is said and done, far more is said than done. When the U.S. has done something to date, at best, it has been ineffective. At worst, it has been counterproductive. Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars since 9/11, U.S. influence operations have made little or no progress in countering al Qaeda, its spawn the Islamic State or any connected jihadist threat group radicalizing and recruiting via social media.

Policymakers and strategists should take note of this failure before rapidly plunging into an information battle with state sponsored cyber-enabled influence operations coupled with widespread hacking operations – a far more complex threat than any previous terrorist actor we’ve encountered.  Thus far, U.S. cyber influence has been excessively focused on bureaucracy and expensive technology tools – social media monitoring systems that have failed to detect the Arab Spring, the rise of ISIS, the Islamic State’s taking of Mosul, and most recently Russia’s influence of the U.S. election.  America will only succeed in countering Russian influence by turning its current approaches upside down, clearly determining what it seeks to achieve with its counter influence strategy and then harnessing top talent empowered rather than shackled by technology – a methodology prioritizing Task, Talent, Teamwork and Technology in that order.

Task – Witnessing the frightening possibility of Russian interference in the recent U.S. Presidential election, American policy makers have immediately called to counter Russian cyber influence.  But the U.S. should take pause in rushing into such efforts. The U.S. and Europe lack a firm understanding of what is currently taking place.  The U.S. should begin by clearly mapping out the purpose and scope of Russian cyber influence methods.  Second, American politicians, political organizations and government officials must reaffirm their commitment to fact over fiction by regaining the trust of their constituents through accurate communications. They must also end their use of Russian kompromat stolen from American citizens’ private communications as ammunition in political contests. Third, the U.S. must clearly articulate its policies with regards to the European Union, NATO, and immigration, which, at present, sometimes seems to mirror rather than counters that of the Kremlin. Only after these three actions have been completed, can the U.S. government undertake efforts to meet the challenge of Russian information warfare through its agencies as I detailed during my previous testimony.

Talent –Russia’s dominance in cyber-enabled influence operations arises not from their employment of sophisticated technology, but through the employment of top talent. Actual humans, not artificial intelligence, achieved Russia’s recent success in information warfare. Rather than developing cyber operatives internally, Russia leverages an asymmetric advantage by which they coopt, compromise or coerce components of Russia’s cyber criminal underground.  Russia deliberately brings select individuals into their ranks, such as those GRU [Russia’s foreign intelligence agency] leaders and proxies designated in the 29 December 2016 U.S. sanctions. Others in Russia with access to sophisticated malware, hacking techniques or botnets are compelled to act on behalf of the Kremlin.

The U.S. has top talent for cyber influence but will be unlikely and unable to leverage it against its adversaries.  The U.S. focuses on technologists failing to blend them with needed information campaign tacticians and threat analysts.  Even further, U.S. agency attempts to recruit cyber and influence operation personnel excessively focus on security clearances and rudimentary training thus screening out many top picks.  Those few that can pass these screening criteria are placed in restrictive information environments deep inside government buildings and limited to a narrow set of tools.  The end result is a lesser-qualified cyber-influence cadre with limited capability relying on outside contractors to read, collate and parse open source information from the Internet on their behalf.  The majority of the top talent needed for cyber-enabled influence resides in the private sector, has no need for a security clearance, has likely used a controlled substance during their lifetime and can probably work from home easier and more successfully than they could from a government building.

Teamwork – Russia’s cyber-enabled influence operations excel because they seamlessly integrate cyber operations, influence efforts, intelligence operatives and diplomats into a cohesive strategy.  Russia doesn’t obsess over their bureaucracy and employs competing and even overlapping efforts at times to win their objectives.

Meanwhile, U.S. government counter influence efforts have fallen into the repeated trap of pursuing bureaucratic whole-of-government approaches. Whether it is terror groups or nation states, these approaches assign tangential tasks to competing bureaucratic entities focused on their primary mission more than countering cyber influence.  Whole-of-government approaches to countering cyber influence will assign no responsible entity with the authority and needed resources to tackle our country’s cyber adversaries.  Moving forward, a task force led by a single entity must be created to counter the rise of Russian cyber-enabled operations.

Technology – Over more than a decade, I’ve repeatedly observed the U.S. buying technology tools in the cyber- influence space for problems they don’t fully understand. These tech tool purchases have excessively focused on social media analytical packages producing an incomprehensible array of charts depicting connected dots with different colored lines. Many of these technology products represent nothing more than modern snake oil for the digital age.  They may work well for Internet marketing but routinely muddy the waters for understanding cyber influence and the bad actors hiding amongst social media storm.

Detecting cyber influence operations requires the identification of specific needles, amongst stacks of needles hidden in massive haystacks. These needles are cyber hackers and influencers seeking to hide their hand in the social media universe. Based on my experience, the most successful technology for identifying cyber and influence actors comes from talented analysts that first comprehensively identify threat actor intentions and techniques and then build automated applications specifically tailored to detect these actors.  The U.S. government should not buy technical tools nor seek to build expensive, enterprise-wide solutions for cyber-influence analytics that rapidly become outdated and obsolete.  Instead, top talent should be allowed to nimbly purchase or rent the latest and best tools on the market for whatever current or emerging social media platforms or hacker malware kits arise.

3. What can the public and private sector do to counter influence operations?

I’ve already outlined my recommendations for U.S. government actions to thwart Russia’s Active Measures online in my previous testimony on 30 March 2017. Social media companies and mainstream media outlets must restore the integrity of information by reaffirming the purity of their systems. In the roughly one month since I last testified however, the private sector has made significant advances in this regard. Facebook has led the way, continuing their efforts to reduce fake news distribution and removing up to 30,000 false accounts from its system just this past week. Google has added a fact checking function to their search engine for news stories and further refined its search algorithm to sideline false and misleading information. Wikipedia launched a crowd-funded effort to fight fake news this week.  The key remaining private sector participant is Twitter, as their platform remains an critical networking and dissemination vector for cyber-enabled influence operations.  Their participation in fighting fake news and nefarious cyber influence will be essential. I hope they will follow the efforts of other social media platforms as their identification and elimination of fake news spreading bots and false accounts may provide a critical block to Russian manipulation and influence of the upcoming French and German elections.

In conclusion, my colleagues and I identified, tracked and traced the rise of Russian influence operations on social media with home computers and some credit cards. While cyber-influence operations may appear highly technical in execution, they are very human in design and implementation.  Technology and money will not be the challenge for America in countering Russia’s online Active Measures; it will be humans and the bureaucracies America has created that prevent our country from employing its most talented cyber savants against the greatest enemies to our democracy. Full article here.

Sea of Japan is Crowded v. North Korea

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Japan’s biggest warship Izumo departs from Yokosuka base following the first order in history for the forces to protect U.S. ships amid heightened tension over North Korea.

Japan has dispatched its biggest warship, in the first such operation since it passed controversial laws expanding the role of its military.
The helicopter carrier Izumo is escorting a US supply vessel heading to refuel the naval fleet in the region.
The ships include the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group which was sent to the Korean peninsula.
North Korea has threatened to sink the Carl Vinson and a US submarine, amid rising tensions in the region.
It also carried out a failed missile test on Sunday, despite repeated warnings from the US and others to stop its nuclear and missile activity.

***

Japan launched a new spy satellite into orbit tonight (March 16) to help keep an eye on the nation’s unpredictable, nuclear-armed neighbor, North Korea.

The Information Gathering Satellite (IGS) Radar 5 lifted off atop a Japanese H-IIA rocket from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan at 9:20 p.m. EDT (0120 GMT, and 10:20 a.m. local Japan time on March 17). While the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency did not provide a live webcast for the IGS Radar 5 launch, a video stream was available via the company Neconvideo Visual Solutions.

Japan started the IGS program in 1998, presumably in response to North Korean missile tests around that time that sent missiles close to, or flying over, Japan.

In the years since, North Korea has repeatedly threatened to annihilate Japan (and South Korea and the United States), and continued to develop its nuclear-weapon and missile programs. The IGS satellites keep tabs on such efforts, help the Japanese government respond to natural disasters and perform several other functions, experts believe.

The first IGS craft lifted off in 2003. IGS Radar 5 is the 15th one in the program to take flight, though not all have made it to orbit. Two were lost to a launch failure in November 2003.

Some of the IGS spacecraft use optical sensors to study the ground below, whereas others depend on radar instruments. As its name suggests, IGS Radar 5 falls into this latter category.

Little else is known about the newly launched satellite; Japan does not reveal many details about its IGS spacecraft. It’s unclear, for example, what orbit IGS Radar 5 will inhabit, though some of the satellite’s predecessors are known to circle the Earth at an altitude of about 300 miles (480 kilometers).

France joins in.

Forbes: France’s Mistral amphibious assault carrier docked in Nagasaki, Japan on April 29 in advance of military exercises to be conducted with the U.K., U.S. and Japan. Nagasaki is the closest major Japanese port to South Korea, and coming at a time of tension on the peninsula, the French and U.K. naval presence sends a strong message to both China and North Korea. Japan’s increased naval activity is also welcome support for South Korea, and will decrease diplomatic tension between the two natural allies. The U.K. and French presence shows that NATO, including the U.S., is strongly behind South Korea. The effect of these international allied naval forces is to pressure North Korea to abandon its self-destructive drive for ever more powerful nuclear weapons atop long-range missiles capable of reaching North America.

The naval forces gathering in East Asia is an alliance of democracies making a point against autocracies like North Korea, and its allies, China and Russia. While North Korea is building nuclear weapons and missiles capable of reaching the continental U.S., China is making more complaints about the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system emplacement in South Korea than it is about North Korea’s offensive buildup. This is a strong indicator that China remains firmly on the side of its ally North Korea in the current crisis.

Russia supports China and North Korea, by calling for de-escalation to the status quo which allows for North Korea to periodically increase its nuclear development without significant consequences. Russia stated that THAAD, which protects South Korea, erodes China’s deterrent. Why does China need a “deterrent” against non-nuclear South Korea? To me it appears more of a threat.

President Trump flattered President Xi in recent days, no doubt buttering him up in case the U.S. needs to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. But giving China a good trade deal or concession on Taiwan in exchange for pressuring North Korea, which China should have done long ago, would go too far. Russia and China’s vague calls for peace and negotiation at this point are far too little, far too late. Trump’s tough approach now has China’s nationalist state-owned media, the Global Times, defending economic sanctions on North Korea.

Trump should keep up the pressure. It worked in Syria, and it will work with North Korea. That is peace through strength.

DHS’s Office for Community Partnerships, Stonewalling

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Release Date:
September 28, 2015  <– Note Jeh Johnson created this department

DHS: Violent extremism – that which is inspired by foreign terrorist groups and that which is rooted in a range of domestic-based radical ideologies – pose a persistent and unpredictable threat to our homeland. Countering violent extremism has become a key focus of DHS’s work to secure the homeland. Last year I appointed a Department-wide coordinator for our efforts to counter violent extremism. As Secretary of Homeland Security, I am also personally committed to this mission, having traveled to Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, northern Virginia and suburban Maryland to meet with community leaders as part of this effort. We heard many strongly-held views, generated conversations, and built some bridges.

It is now time to take our efforts to the next level.

Today I announce the creation of the DHS Office for Community Partnerships. This Office will be dedicated to the mission of countering violent extremism, but its ultimate mission is as its name suggests – community partnerships. My charge to this Office, to be set forth in a more detailed plan, is to continue to build relationships and promote trust, and, in addition, find innovative ways to support communities that seek to discourage violent extremism and undercut terrorist narratives. More here.

Problem? Either DHS was told to hide documents, not cooperate, there is collusion or the Obama White House applied executive privilege to the documents.

Just before Jeh Johnson left as Secretary of DHS:

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

In 2016, Congress answered our call for federal grants, awarded and administered by the Department of Homeland Security, to support local efforts to counter violent extremism. Today, I am pleased to announce the first round of awards of these grants.

A total of 31 proposals, from various organizations in multiple communities, have been accepted to receive some part of the $10 million appropriated by Congress last year. The funding will go for activities that include intervention, developing resilience, challenging the narrative, and building capacity. The organizations approved for grants include local governments, universities, and non-profit organizations, in locations across the country such as Boston, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Detroit, Nebraska, Houston, Illinois, New Jersey, Texas and New York City. Among the awardees are organizations devoted specifically to countering ISIL’s recruitment efforts in our homeland, and Life After Hate, an organization devoted to the rehabilitation of former neo-Nazis and other domestic extremists in this country. More here.

The lawsuit is found here.

Background:

Philadelphia – May 1, 2017 – The Middle East Forum has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to secure the release of documents related to the Obama administration’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) grant program.

The grant program, which began last year, is intended to assist “efforts at the community level to counter violent extremist recruitment and radicalization to violence,” but MEF was concerned about U.S. Islamist groups – themselves radicals – receiving CVE funds. Indeed, grant recipients have included the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), an organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and a long history of sanitizing Islamist terrorism.

On January 10, MEF filed a detailed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with DHS seeking documents about the selection criteria and specific decisions in awarding CVE grants. The request indicated that the documents are mostly located at the DHS Office for Community Partnerships (OCP), headed by George Selim.

Having failed to receive even a response to its request within the 20-day period mandated by law, MEF contacted DHS. Finally, on March 23, DHS FOIA officer Ebony Livingston informed us that the request had been routed to the Federal Emergency Management System (FEMA), which found no pertinent records.

On April 26, MEF filed a lawsuit alleging that DHS violated the law by not only failing to produce the documents, but failing even to conduct a search for the documents.

The complaint, prepared by attorney Matt Hardin, a specialist in FOIA litigation, seeks injunctive relief compelling DHS “to search for and produce all records in its possession responsive to plaintiff’s FOIA request.”

“We filed a detailed FOIA request, specifying the documents we were looking for and where they likely were,” said MEF Director Gregg Roman. “DHS not only failed to produce the documents, it failed even to conduct a search and closed our case without bothering to tell us. This is not just unacceptable but illegal.”

The case has been assigned to Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. It bears noting that Judge Lamberth previously handled FOIA litigation concerning former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails.

“The CVE program should be canceled altogether,” said Sam Westrop, director of MEF’s Islamist Watch project. “And guidelines should be put in place to make sure that extremist groups like MPAC never receive taxpayer money to counter extremism.”

Rep. Steny Hoyer, Million Dollar Porker

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CAGW Names Rep. Steny Hoyer April 2017 Porker of the Month  

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) named House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) its April 2017 Porker of the Month for his ridiculous attack on the most pro-taxpayer budget proposal in decades.

On March 16, 2017, President Donald Trump released his first budget proposal, which recommends the elimination of dozens of wasteful, duplicative, and failing federal programs that CAGW has long felt should be jettisoned.

The same day, Rep. Steny Hoyer appeared on CNBC and uncorked a hefty load of hyperbole and a number of questionable claims about the budget.  He called it “the most irresponsible budget that I’ve seen and the most unrealistic budget that I’ve seen.”  He labeled the budget a “hatchet job” with “irrational” cuts.

By rejecting the budget in such a reckless and melodramatic manner, Rep. Hoyer takes ownership of the wasteful spending he defends, including billions of dollars’ worth of federal programs that have been identified by CAGW in Prime Cuts, the Congressional Pig Book, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional Budget Office, and many other sources as not worthy of taxpayer funding.  The following programs are a tiny fraction of those that the Trump budget consolidates or eliminates, and Rep. Hoyer harbors:

  • $3 billion for Community Development Block Grants, where “outcomes [are] difficult to measure and evaluate,” according to the Obama White House.
  • $293 million for the Economic Development Administration, which the GAO found has no effect on employment.
  • $150 million for the Essential Air Service, which subsidizes often empty flights from remote airports.
  • $16.7 million for the East-West Center, which the State Department has tried to eliminate for decades.
  • $10 million for the Denali Commission, which even former President Obama wanted to terminate.

CAGW President Tom Schatz said, “When it comes to spending the taxpayers’ money, Rep. Hoyer has never seen a government program that he wanted to terminate, even if it means squandering billions of dollars.  Defenders of wasteful spending like Rep. Hoyer will exaggerate and muddy the waters, but he cannot obscure the hard truth that hundreds of federal programs simply do not deserve to be funded by taxpayers.”

For his baseless attack on the most pro-taxpayer budget in decades, CAGW names House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer its April 2017 Porker of the Month.

****

Image result for steny hoyer HuffPo

(He is 77 years old….sheesh…go Steny go)

PBS: Trump, who made improving veterans’ care a prominent issue as he campaigned for office, was to issue the order while visiting the VA. It will create a new Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection within the department. The eventual head of the office will report directly to VA Secretary David Shulkin.

The office is a byproduct of a 2014 scandal in which as many as 40 veterans died while waiting months for appointments at the VA medical center in Phoenix.

The House has passed a bill to make it easier for the VA to fire, suspend or demote employees for poor performance or bad conduct, and the Senate continues to work on its version of the measure. Shulkin said Trump’s decision to create the office before Congress sends him a bill speaks to his commitment to accountability at the VA.

As President Trump signed an executive order establishing a VA Accountability Office to protect whistleblowers, back in 2014, Steny Hoyer had a disgusting position with regard to Republicans and the VA.

The House‘s No. 2 Democrat accused Republicans of exploiting the scandal that has enveloped the Veterans Affairs Department for political gain and said he is worried that civil servants could be swept up unfairly in a witch hunt.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it … that is essentially the tactic that Republicans are trying to employ,” Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland told reporters.

Hoyer said that while any wrong-doers within the VA must be held accountable, it’s imperative that accused employees be given due process and that innocent federal workers aren’t needlessly punished as a knee-jerk reaction.

“I don’t think that serving veterans is antithetical to making sure that employees of the federal government have the civil service protections that were adopted as long ago as the Pendleton [Civil Service Reform] Act in the 19th Century,” said Hoyer, whose district includes a large number of federal workers.

“Our civil service system is designed not to be a system where people serve at the will of those who win elections. It’s a professional civil service [that is] protected.” More here.

Military Prepping for Major Power Grid Hack

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Image result for u.s. power grid

Military Is Ramping Up Preparation For Major U.S. Power Grid Hack

By 2020, the Pentagon hopes to be able to repair our power grid within a week of a massive attack

The U.S. Department of Defense is growing increasingly concerned about hackers taking down our power grid and crippling the nation, which is why the Pentagon has created a $77-million security plan that it hopes will be up and running by 2020.

The U.S. power grid is threatened every few days. While these physical and cyber attacks have never led to wide-scale outages, attacks are getting more sophisticated. According to a 494-page report released by the Department of Energy in January, the nation’s grid “faces imminent danger from cyber attacks.” Such a major, sweeping attack could threaten “U.S. lifeline networks, critical defense infrastructure, and much of the economy; it could also endanger the health and safety of millions of citizens.” If it were to happen today, America could be powered-down and vulnerable for weeks.

The DoD is working on an automated system to speed up recovery time to a week or less — what it calls the Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation, and Characterization (RADICS) program. DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, originally solicited proposals in late 2015, asking for technology that did three things. Primarily, it had to detect early warning signs and distinguish between attacks and normal outages, but it also had to pinpoint the access point of the attack and determine what malicious software was used. Finally, it must include an emergency system that can rapidly connect various power-supply centers, without any human coordination. This would allow emergency and military responders to have an ad hoc communication system in place moments after an attack.

“If a well-coordinated cyberattack on the nation’s power grid were to occur today, the time it would take to restore power would pose daunting national security challenges,” said DARPA program manager John Everett, in a statement, at the time. “Beyond the severe domestic impacts, including economic and human costs, prolonged disruption of the grid would hamper military mobilization and logistics, impairing the government’s ability to project force or pursue solutions to international crises.”

DARPA plans to spend $77 million on RADICS. Last November, SRI International announced it had received $7.3 million from the program. In December, Raython was granted $9 million. The latest addition is BAE Systems, which received $8.6 million last month to develop technology that detects and contains power-grid threats, and creates a secure emergency provisional system that restores some power and communication in the wake of an attack — what is being called a secure emergency network.

According to the military news site Defense Systems, BAE’s SEN would rely on radio, satellite, or wireless internet — whatever is available that allows the grid to continue working. The SEN would serve as a wireless connection between separate power grid stations.

While the ultimate goal of the RADICS program will be the restoration of civilian power and communications, the SEN will prioritize communication networks that would be used for defense or combat, so the U.S. government can still wage war while the rest of us are in the dark.

Image result for u.s. power grid Called the “largest interconnected machine,” the U.S. electricity grid is a complex digital and physical system crucial to life and commerce in this country. Today, it is made up of more than 7,000 power plants, 55,000 substations, 160,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and millions of miles of low-voltage distribution lines. This web of generators, substations and power lines is organized into three major interconnections, operated by 66 balancing authorities and 3,000 different utilities. That’s a lot of power, and many possible vulnerabilities. More here from USNews.

*** Last year from the Department of Energy:

Today’s electric grid increasingly uses “smart” devices that can be controlled remotely — letting operators manage the grid better and more efficiently. But as the electric grid becomes smarter, it also becomes more vulnerable to hackers. That’s why a new initiative underway at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) aims to prevent hackers from gaining control of parts of the nation’s power grid, which could damage electrical equipment and cause localized power outages.

Tackling the challenge is Erfan Ibrahim and his team at NREL’s Cyber Physical Systems Security and Resilience Center. Ibrahim’s team launched an effort to build the Test Bed for Secure Distributed Grid Management. It’s a hardware system that mimics the communications, power systems, and cybersecurity layers for a utility’s power distribution system, the part of the power grid that carries power from substations to homes and businesses.

The test bed incorporates a lot of brand-new cybersecurity technologies that need to be tested in order to make the system as secure as possible. So, naturally, they tried to break it. Specifically, they tried to hack the system.

Approaching the system from three different angles, they found a single vulnerability, which was due to a misconfigured cybersecurity device. Through that one cyber vulnerability, a designated white hat hacker was able to get into the system, gain administrator rights, and launch a denial of service attack that disabled the entire testbed. That’s the type of insight the test bed is designed to provide. One of the cybersecurity firms actually refined its product after seeing how it performed on the test bed.