Facebook Faces $1 Billion Lawsuit, Aids Terror

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Privacy is one thing, but offering encrypted platforms with no oversight for terror communications is quite another. Since at least 2014, Islamic State, al Qaeda and al Nusra have all used Facebook and other social media platforms where Twitter has been especially uncooperative with security and investigation officials fighting against terrorist exploitation. Is it really a 1st Amendment protection when communications are generated by declared enemy combatants? Then there is the New Black Panthers and Black Lives Matters. The debate continues.

Due mostly to Edward Snowden revealing abilities of the United States to capture intelligence of terror networks, global terrorists have successfully sought other platforms.

Some popular social media platforms are seeing a drop in use by terror groups, yet there are countless others replacing them including apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. Islamic State has a robust program on these apps for their sex trade.

Facebook began rolling out a new end-to-end encryption feature on Friday called “secret conversations” with the goal of making users feel more comfortable chatting about sensitive subjects in the app.

“We’ve heard from you that there are times when you want additional safeguards — perhaps when discussing private information like an illness or a health issue with trusted friends and family, or sending financial information to an accountant,” the company said in a release announcing the new feature.

With the new feature, Facebook Messenger’s 900 million users can choose to encrypt specific conversations so that the messages can only be read on one specific device. Facebook is also giving users the option to determine how long each message can be read for. More from CNN

Families of Victims of Hamas Terror Sue Facebook for $1 Billion

PJMedia: Facebook is being hit with a $1 billion lawsuit after allegedly allowing the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas use its platform to plot attacks in Israel and the West Bank that killed and wounded Americans. According to Bloomberg News: “Plaintiffs include the families of Yaakov Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old abducted and murdered in June 2014 after hitching a ride in the West Bank, and 3-year-old Chaya Braun, whose stroller was struck intentionally by a Palestinian driver in October 2014 at a train station in Jerusalem.”

“Facebook has knowingly provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook’s online social network platform and communication services,” making it liable for the violence against the five Americans, according to the lawsuit sent to Bloomberg by the office of the Israeli lawyer on the case, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.“Simply put, Hamas uses Facebook as a tool for engaging in terrorism,” it said.

Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union and Israel. The suit said the group used Facebook to share operational and tactical information with members and followers, posting notices of upcoming demonstrations, road closures, Israeli military actions and instructions to operatives to carry out the attacks.

Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas leader, said by phone that “suing Facebook clearly shows the American policy of fighting freedom of the press and expression” and is evidence of U.S. prejudice against the group and “its just cause.”

It’s not at all clear that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — an influential Obama ally — would disagree with al-Masri. It’s not clear that the president would either.

While Hamas has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State since 1997 President Obama and his national security team seem to have a far more favorable view of them. Rather than reject the Hamas and the Palestinian Authority unity government that was formed in 2014, the Obama administration continued to fund it to the tune of $500 million a year.

This alarmed American lawmakers so much, 88 senators from across party lines sent a message of “grave concern” to the White House, warning that the new PA unity effort might jeopardize direct negotiations with Israel. “Any assistance should only be provided when we have confidence that this new government is in full compliance with the restrictions contained in current law,” the letter read. More here.

Tehran Lives in John Kerry’s Head, Aggressions Approved

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

It is Iran stupid…yet both the National Security Council, led by Susan Rice, Barack Obama and John Kerry are declared honorary citizens of Iran with gold keys to the city of Tehran.

Check it…

U.S. Confirms Purchase of Iranian Nuke Materials for $8.6 Million

FreeBeacon: U.S. and Iranian officials confirmed on Monday that the United States had completed a $8.6 million taxpayer-funded purchase of Iranian nuclear materials, a deal undertaken by the Obama administration to keep Iran in compliance with last summer’s nuclear agreement.

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, right, embraces President Hassan Rouhani / AP

Abbas Araghchi, a top Iranian diplomat and negotiator of the deal, announced on Iranian television that the United States had moved forward with the purchase of 32 tons of heavy water for a price of $8.6 million. That money is said to have been successfully transferred to Iran, according to Persian language reports in the country’s state-run media.

An Energy Department spokesperson, speaking on background to the Free Beacon, confirmed the purchase.

“I can confirm reports that the DOE Isotope Program has completed the acquisition of 32 metric tons of heavy water from Iran,” the spokesperson said.

One U.S. official told the Free Beacon that while the deal is being announced officially now, it was actually concluded in April, when the administration first announced it.

“The heavy water deal was really concluded in April and it just took a few months to make all the necessary arrangements you would expect from such a deal,” the official said.

The disclosure could complicate matters on Capitol Hill with lawmakers who have been rebuffed by the administration in their attempts to learn more about the deal, sources said.

An Energy Department spokesperson told the Free Beacon in late April: “We cannot discuss details of the payment until after the purchase is complete.”

The timeline for the deal is raising new questions from congressional sources.

“The confirmation of this late April date is likely to anger lawmakers who were denied details of the deal because the Energy Department told them several months ago that key details surrounding the deal had not yet been firmed up,” said one congressional adviser familiar with attempts to compel further details about the deal.

The source pointed to a a letter presented to Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kansas). The Free Beacon was the first outlet to obtain that letter.

“The Obama administration’s deal with the Mullahs in Tehran to purchase heavy water demonstrates a disturbing, potentially illegal, willingness of the administration to subsidize Iran’s nuclear program,” Pompeo told the Free Beacon at the time. “This purchase allows the Iranians to offload previously unsellable product and it destigmatizes the act of doing business in Iran.”

The purchase has sparked opposition on Capitol Hill among lawmakers who say that the United States should not engage in nuclear-related business with Iran. The purchase was made outside of the nuclear accord and was touted by the administration as a way to keep Iran within the limits set under the deal.

Lawmakers have been critical of the sale due to their inability to get specific details from the administration about how the deal would be completed and how U.S. taxpayer funds would be awarded to Iran.

“One of the most important achievements of the JCPOA was that we are now recognized as a seller of heavy water by America, which did not accept heavy water production by Iran,” Araghchi was quoted as saying, according to an independent translation provided to the Free Beacon.

“Heavy water production has reached 25 tons per year and storing heavy water in Oman was the decision of the Atomic Energy Organization [of Iran]. … The need of Arak [heavy water reactor] was between 80 to 90 tons,” Araghchi added. “We considered 130 tons for caution. We have this amount inside the country and send some to storage facilities in Oman.”

Lawmakers are expected to vote Thursday on legislation that would ban the administration from carrying out similar purchases in the future.

Update, 5:30 p.m. The headline and body of this post have been revised to reflect confirmation of the purchase by an Energy Department official.

Oh wait….there is more…..beyond the IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps hijacking our sailors, naval aggression is a very common occurrence and threat.

Votel sees cause for concern as U.S., Iranian ships share tight space

TampaBayTimes: ABOARD THE USS NEW ORLEANS — The Iranian vessel with its antiship cruise missiles did what ships from Iran often do — cruise within 500 yards of a U.S. Navy vessel.

Only this time, the USS New Orleans had a special guest — Army Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command. Votel was visiting the ship in the Strait of Hormuz as part of his tour of the 20-nation CentCom region, which began last week when he flew out of headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base.

Two days after visiting Afghanistan, Votel arrived aboard the New Orleans on a tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey, landing on a flight deck in sweltering heat. He landed just in time to see a Houdong-class warship, belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps navy, cruise close by.

It would happen five times during the hours Votel spent passing through the Strait of Hormuz aboard the New Orleans, an amphibious transport dock ship. The experience gave Votel a front-row seat to the complex challenges Iran poses to the U.S. and its allies in the region — challenges that fall on Votel’s shoulders as officer in charge of U.S. military operations in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. More here.

**** Given the constant aggression by the IRGC with the knowledge and approval of Tehran, these events are likely a leak by Navy officials due to anger and rightly so. Since the Obama administration is pro Iran due to overwhelming protections of the deals with Iran including the Joint Plan of Action, the National Security Council and the State Department stop at nothing to ensure Iran’s actions are acceptable at the cost of law regarding international sea traffic and the major threat to our Navy.

In part from Reuters: The five Iranian vessels consisted of four speedboats, three with mounted machine guns, as well as a guided missile patrol ship.

One of the four speedboats that approached the New Orleans and its escort, a Navy guided missile destroyer, the USS Stout, cut its engines and watched as the U.S. warships passed. An hour before, a larger Iranian guided-missile patrol craft came by.

U.S. officials stressed that such approaches fell within the category of professional interactions, the kind they see during 90 percent of the U.S. Navy’s roughly 250 transits through the Strait of Hormuz each year. But the Navy says some 10 percent are classified as unsafe, abnormal or unprofessional. More here.

NATO Website Goes Dark During Summit

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

Those Russians are good, good at hacking…

A suspicious outage was reported and interesting that Obama was there too. The Warsaw Summit hosted by Poland where several distinct events happened. 1. There was an agreement to strengthen the alliance with military presence in the East that includes Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 2. The alliances also agreed to operational strength of ballistic missile defense as well as cyber defenses and applying cyberspace as an operational domain. 3. For Afghanistan, a resolution was approved to continue the mission and funding forces through 2020. 4. A comprehensive assistance package for Ukraine passed. 5. The NATO website/domain was likely hacked.

So….the chatter at more casual breakout sessions and in formal session did include escalating protections in the cyber realm. Obama got the message. Certainly on the heels of the Hillary emailgate scandal, Barack Obama finally admits there things still to be done to tighten up security.

Obama says U.S. government must improve cyber security

Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that the U.S. government has to improve its cyber security practices for the modern age of smart phones and other technology, saying that hackers had targeted the White House.

“I am concerned about it, I don’t think we have it perfect. We have to do better, we have to learn from mistakes,” Obama told a news conference in Madrid. “We know that we have had hackers in the White House,” he added.

Concerns have been raised about the security of government information after the head of the FBI said presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email servers may have been accessed by foreign actors when she was Secretary of State.

****

In 2015, Obama held a cyber security summit. Also there was an Executive Order. He wants better coordination between government and the private sector to fight online threats. Companies on board include Apple and Intel. It was a busy year in 2015 as Obama Announces New Cybersecurity Legislative Proposal and Other Cybersecurity Efforts.

Earmarking $19 billion for cyber programs by Obama also included a czar, Howard A. Schmidt. So how smart is Schmidt, or rather how UN-smart is he?

So far, there is no official proof that any country has ever engaged in a cyber attack, although certain malware attacks have been linked to different nations. The Stuxnet worm, which disrupted Iran’s nuclear facilities, has been attributed to the United States and Israel and the recently uncovered cyber espionage operation Red October is rumored to be either a Russian or a Chinese operation.

To avoid a cyber arms-race and an escalation in cyber attacks, Kaspersky has openly advocated for more online regulation, including international treaties limiting the use of malware — just like there are treaties against biological and nuclear weapons.

For Schmidt, that’s not a viable solution because it would be hard to enforce such a treaty. “At some point in the future maybe that will work but right now, number one, we have enough difficulty enforcing treaties of physical things that you can actually count, whether it’s weapon systems or whether it’s export import of these things, it’s extremely difficult,” he said.

Instead of a treaty that will take decades to become reality, Schmidt thinks countries should just respect the rules of engagement that already apply in real warfare. In war “we don’t just arbitrarily start shooting at people, we don’t send planes, we have respect for airspace, we have respect for a lot of the international laws,” he said. “Cyberspace should not be any different.” More here from Mashable.

One more thing to Obama and Mr. Schmidt….don’t forget the Office of Personnel Management, that experienced one of the largest intrusions of data belonging to and managed by the Federal government. Furthermore, that lady, Mrs. Katharine Archuleta who ran OPM never had any security experience with cyber and directly after the hearings on the cyber hack of the agency, well….she quit.

Cyber doom is here and no one talks about it….most of all the media…it is the best kept secret and classified condition inside the beltway.

Shhh, But 2 More Gitmo Detainees Transferred to Serbia

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

July 11, 2016

The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of Muhammadi Davlatov and Mansur Ahmad Saad al-Dayfi from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Government of Serbia.

Related reading: Lawsuit petition against Barack Obama

76 Detainees remain at Gitmo

From left, Mansoor al Dayfi, a Yemeni, and Umar Abdulayev, a Tajik, who were taken to Guantánamo Bay from Afghanistan on the same day, Feb. 9, 2002 pose for the International Committee of the Red Cross in separate undated photos provided by their attorneys.

From left, Mansoor al Dayfi, a Yemeni, and Umar Abdulayev, a Tajik, who were taken to Guantánamo Bay from Afghanistan on the same day, Feb. 9, 2002 pose for the International Committee of the Red Cross in separate undated photos provided by their attorneys.

Spotted in Guantánamo’s stacks of books for the detainees: A copy of a Serbian-English dictionary and phrase book that looked and felt like it had never been cracked before it was pulled from a shelf on Saturday, July 9, 2016. The stamp says it was approved for the detainees on July 21, 2009.

Spotted in Guantánamo’s stacks of books for the detainees: A copy of a Serbian-English dictionary and phrase book that looked and felt like it had never been cracked before it was pulled from a shelf on Saturday, July 9, 2016. The stamp says it was approved for the detainees on July 21, 2009.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article88852237.html#storylink=cpy

The weekend releases to Italy and Serbia raised to 30 the number of countries that have resettled detainees for the Obama administration.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

MiamiHerald: The Pentagon said Monday it delivered two prisoners to Serbia, ending more than 14 years of detention without charges and wrapping up a weekend of releases that downsized the captive population to 76.

One, a Tajik known here as Umar Abdulayev, 37, had been cleared for release by both Bush and Obama administration review panels but resisted repatriation. In 2009 he announced through his lawyer that he was so fearful of return that he’d rather spend the rest of his life on this remote base in southeast Cuba.

The other, a Yemeni named Mansoor al Dayfi, in his mid 30s, was cleared for release by the inter-agency review panel in October. From 2010, he had been held as a “forever prisoner,” a captive considered too dangerous to release but ineligible for trial until the board downgraded his dangerousness.

It was the second Defense Department transfer disclosure in 20 hours. Earlier, the Pentagon said that a Yemeni was being resettled in Italy. Neither Italy nor Serbia had offered sanctuary to a Guantánamo prisoner before. Now, 27 of the last 76 captives are approved for transfer with security assurances that satisfy Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

A Pentagon statement called Abdulayev by a different name, Muhammadi Davlatov. He was the last Tajik in the prison of now 14 nationalities and left the base with the other two before dawn Saturday.

“I’m delighted for him. It took way too long but it’s an enormous victory that he would get out of Guantánamo and he wouldn’t go to Tajikistan,” said Chicago attorney Matthew J. O’Hara, who seven years ago disclosed that Abdulayev feared repatriation more than spending the rest of his life in a Guantánamo cell.

Part of it was the stigma of having been at Guantánamo, he said. Part of it was fears that his family came out on the wrong side of that nation’s civil war.

Instead, O’Hara said the 37-year-old man who sports a long black ponytail wants to forge a career as a linguist or translator using the Arabic and English he learned in prison and the Tajik and Russian he learned before fleeing his homeland in 2001. He doesn’t speak Serbian but his attorney said “he’s a sponge” in his ability to pick up languages.

He also wants to marry and have children, he said.

Leaked prison records indicate that U.S. troops brought both men to the crude open-air prison compound called Camp X-Ray on Feb. 9, 2002, the eighth shipment of captives from Afghanistan. In all, 34 men were brought to Guantánamo that day to raise the total of war-on-terror captives to 220. Read more here

Hillary Was A Classification Authority

Posted on July 11, 2016July 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

December 29, 2009

Executive Order 13526- Original Classification Authority

Pursuant to the provisions of section 1.3 of the Executive Order issued today, entitled “Classified National Security Information” (Executive Order), I hereby designate the following officials to classify information originally as “Top Secret” or “Secret”:

TOP SECRET

Executive Office of the President:

The Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff

The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor)

The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism

The Director of National Drug Control Policy

The Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy

The Chair or Co-Chairs, President’s Intelligence Advisory Board

Departments and Agencies:

The Secretary of State

The Secretary of the Treasury

The Secretary of Defense

The Attorney General

The Secretary of Energy

The Secretary of Homeland Security

The Director of National Intelligence

The Secretary of the Army

The Secretary of the Navy

The Secretary of the Air Force

The Chairman, Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

The Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

The Director, Information Security Oversight Office

SECRET

Executive Office of the President:

The United States Trade Representative

Departments and Agencies:

The Secretary of Agriculture

The Secretary of Commerce

The Secretary of Health and Human Services

The Secretary of Transportation

The Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development

The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency

Any delegation of this authority shall be in accordance with section 1.3(c) of the Executive Order, except that the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency may not delegate the authority granted in this order. If an agency head without original classification authority under this order, or otherwise delegated in accordance with section 1.3(c) of the Executive Order, has an exceptional need to classify information originated by their agency, the matter shall be referred to the agency head with appropriate subject matter interest and classification authority in accordance with section 1.3(e) of the Executive Order. If the agency with appropriate subject
matter interest and classification authority cannot readily be determined, the matter shall be referred to the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office.

Presidential designations ordered prior to the issuance of the Executive Order are revoked as of the date of this order. However, delegations of authority to classify information originally that were made in accordance with the provisions of section 1.4 of Executive Order 12958 of April 17, 1995, as amended, by officials designated under this order shall continue in effect, provided that the authority of such officials is delegable under this order.

This order shall be published in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 29, 2009.

Related reading: Military Classification Procedures (She was on the Senate Armed Svcs. Cmte.

So…..are all these people trained or provided the standards for this authority? Judge for yourself. When Hillary speaks of retroactive classification status or applications, she cannot plea both dumb, unknown or unaware.

In the Senate, she served on the Armed Services Committee, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee, the Budget Committee and the Select Committee on Aging. She was also a Commissioner on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Going back to Hillary’s time on the Senate Armed Services Committee, there are rules of this committee that demonstrate secrecy, classified material and consequences.

So…hey Director Comey….she DID have the sophistication to know the markings, going back to her time in the Senate.

But…..

. Image result for hillary clinton classified information

EXCLUSIVE: State Dept Can’t Find Evidence Hillary Was Trained To Handle Classified Documents

DailyCaller: A senior Department of State official claimed there is no documentation showing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ever received training in the proper handling of classified materials, according to a June 30 Department of Justice filing in U.S. District Court.

The disclosure could buttress FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before a congressional committee that Clinton was perhaps not “sophisticated enough” to understand that the marking “C” on an email meant it was a classified document.

“It’s an interesting question whether she was sophisticated enough to understand what a C in parens means,” Comey said before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Wednesday. “It’s possible—possible—she didn’t understand what a (C) meant when she saw it in the body of the email like that.”

In the Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by The Daily Caller News Foundation, the department to date has failed to deliver any documents showing that Clinton ever enrolled and passed mandatory State Department courses that instructed officials in the proper handling of classified material.

Similarly, there was no evidence Huma Abedin, her deputy chief of staff, had taken and passed any security training during her four years at the Department of State.

All State Department officials normally receive annual reviews and certification as part of their training for the proper handling of all levels of classified materials, including top secret information.

It’s unclear if Clinton refused security training outright during her four years as secretary of state.

It is known she resisted many other security rules while serving as America’s top diplomat. She used a home-based private email server to conduct all Department of State business, shunned the use of any department email addresses, and insisted on using an unsecured private Blackberry cellphone inside the State Department headquarters in the nation’s capital.

Director Comey disclosed in a news conference July 5 the FBI found 110 classified emails in 52 email chains on her home server, including eight chains that contained top secret material.

Mark Zaid, the lead attorney in TheDCNF lawsuit, said in a statement that Comey’s comments about Clinton’s lack of sophistication “makes perfect sense,” in light of the fact that “there were absolutely no documents demonstrating Secretary Clinton had ever received even annual security training, a requirement that supposedly was imposed on everyone else at State.”

“I did not want to believe that could be true but now, in light of Director Comey’s statement, it might be true. I am still shaking my head in disbelief,” Zaid said, who specializes in national security cases and represents U.S. intelligence officials.

The department did produce some fragmentary evidence that Clinton’s other top aides — Cheryl Mills and Jacob Sullivan — were certified in the “cyber-awareness training.” But there are gaps in the certificates and do not cover their full four years at the department.

Eric Stein, the department’s co-director of Office Information Programs, stated in a June 30 declaration before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that his office could only identify 11 documents pertaining to security training and none show any certification for Clinton or Abedin.

Seven of the documents were released to TheDCNF earlier this year. The foundation sued the State Department under the Freedom of Information Act and is now before the court.

In a July 1 memorandum filed before Judge Leon, attorneys for TheDCNF noted that there were no documents showing Clinton and Abedin had ever taken any security training classes.

“Noticeably absent from the documentation produced by State was any record memorializing completion of a single mandatory security and/or Information Technology training course by either former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (“Secretary Clinton”) or former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin,” wrote national security attorney Bradley Moss in a July 1 memo before the court.

“Why are there no records for either Secretary Clinton or Ms. Abedin at all,” Moss asked Judge Leon in his filing before the court.

TheDCNF asked the court for discovery, the right to depose State Department officials or obtain affidavits.

Moss has handled FOIA issues since 2007 and has also represented intelligence, law enforcement and military officers in administrative proceedings.

In failing to find any certification, Stein did not tell the court they searched the hard drives, computers or other electronic devices used by Clinton or her aides that were in their offices.

Moss said the Stein declaration “demonstrates how State failed to meet its legal obligations to conduct an adequate search.”

“State did not even contemplate the possibility that responsive records could be located on individual-specific hard drives and/or shared drives utilized by any of the specific senior State officials during their respective tenures at State,” the attorney stated.

After the FBI and Justice Department reported they were closing their criminal investigation of Clinton, the Department of State announced last Thursday it was reopening an earlier administrative investigation into the matter, which could lead to the presumptive presidential nominee losing her security clearance.