Presidential Determination Signed to Accept 85,000 Refugees

No wonder the FBI is on a hiring blitz to attempt to vet what is told to be highly vetted and scrutinized refugee applicants.

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The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release

Presidential Determination — Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2016

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

SUBJECT:      Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2016

In accordance with section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the “Act”) (8 U.S.C. 1157), and after appropriate consultations with the Congress, I hereby make the following determinations and authorize the following actions:

The admission of up to 85,000 refugees to the United States during Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest; provided that this number shall be understood as including persons admitted to the United States during FY 2016 with Federal refugee resettlement assistance under the Amerasian immigrant admissions program, as provided below.

The admissions numbers shall be allocated among refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States in accordance with the following regional allocations; provided that the number of admissions allocated to the East Asia region shall include persons admitted to the United States during FY 2016 with Federal refugee resettlement assistance under section 584 of the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 1988, as contained in section 101(e) of Public Law 100-202 (Amerasian immigrants and their family members):

Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25,000

East Asia. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,000

Europe and Central Asia . . . . . . . . . . . 4,000

Latin America/Caribbean. . . . . . . . . . .  3,000

Near East/South Asia. . . . . . . . . . . .  34,000

Unallocated Reserve . . . . . . . . . . . .  6,000

The 6,000 unallocated refugee numbers shall be allocated to regional ceilings, as needed.  Upon providing notification to the Judiciary Committees of the Congress, you are hereby authorized to use unallocated admissions in regions where the need for additional admissions arises.

Additionally, upon notification to the Judiciary Committees of the Congress, you are further authorized to transfer unused admissions allocated to a particular region to one or more other regions, if there is a need for greater admissions for the region or regions to which the admissions are being transferred.

Consistent with section 2(b)(2) of the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962, I hereby determine that assistance to or on behalf of persons applying for admission to the United States as part of the overseas refugee admissions program will contribute to the foreign policy interests of the United States and designate such persons for this purpose. Consistent with section 101(a)(42) of the Act (8 U.S.C. 1101 (a)(42)), and after appropriate consultation with the Congress, I also specify that, for FY 2016, the following persons may, if otherwise qualified, be considered refugees for the purpose of admission to the United States within their countries of nationality or habitual residence:

  1. Persons in Cuba
  2. Persons in Eurasia and the Baltics
  3. Persons in Iraq
  4. Persons in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador
  5. In exceptional circumstances, persons identified by a United States Embassy in any location

You are authorized and directed to publish this determination in the Federal Register.

 

BARACK OBAMA

National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror

 

Related reading: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Bureau of Counterterrorism

Chairman McCaul Unveils Counterterrorism Strategy “A National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror”

Contains 100+ policy ideas and principles for fighting terrorism

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the heels of Islamist terror attacks in the homeland this past weekend, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) today unveiled his counterterrorism strategy, entitled A National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror. Chairman McCaul’s nonpartisan strategy contains over 100 policy ideas, recommendations, and principles for fighting terrorism.

The ideas put forward in the McCaul strategy were developed in consultation with an array of national security experts on both sides of the aisle. They are not “Republican” or “Democrat” ideas, but rather common-sense solutions for better protecting Americans.

Chairman McCaul: “As radical Islamist terror continues to sweep the globe, it has become clear that we are not winning the overall fight against it. There are now more terrorist foot soldiers and safe havens than any time in modern history, and our enemies have alarming momentum. They are reaching deep into the heart of the Western world—including our own communities—to spread their hateful ideology and perpetrate violent acts. Just this weekend we saw again that our homeland remains a terrorist target, and they have attacked our allies in places like Paris, Brussels, Nice, and beyond. Yet in recent years our strategy and policies have failed to roll back the threat, let alone contain it. That is why I’ve produced a new, national counterterrorism strategy aimed at reversing the tide of terror and protecting our great nation. The eyes of the world are now upon us, and American leadership is needed to defeat this evil.  My plan is a guidepost—for Congress and the next president—to do what is needed to win this generational struggle.”

National Strategy Social Media Release_Report

 

Overview of the Strategy

The McCaul strategy contains 100+ policy ideas and principles for fighting terrorism. Some are new, while others are abandoned policies we need to revive in order to protect America and its interests overseas against the surging terror threat.

The document is built around clear objectives: defend the homeland, defeat terrorists, and deny extremists the opportunity to re-emerge. It presents nine counterterrorism priorities, or “means,” needed to achieve the “ends” described above, including:

  1. Thwart attacks and protect our communities
  2. Stop recruitment and radicalization at home
  3. Keep terrorists out of America
  4. Take the fight to the enemy
  5. Combat terrorist travel and cut off financial resources
  6. Deny jihadists access to weapons of mass destruction
  7. Block terrorists from returning to the battlefield
  8. Prevent the emergence of new networks and safe havens
  9. Win the battle of ideas

This counterterrorism strategy is different than those that came before it. President Bush released a strategy for combating terrorism in 2003, and President Obama released one in 2011. Both are now outdated.

  • This strategy is written to keep pace with an evolving enemy. It proposes ways to fight terrorist propaganda online; counter homegrown radicalization; deal with terrorists’ use of encryption; and help communities better protect against IEDs, active shooter plots, and other changing terror tactics.
  • This strategy aims to bring our homeland security policies into the digital age. It proposes to improve the screening of foreign visitors, immigrants, and refugees using new technologies and better intelligence—including social media—to keep terrorists from infiltrating our country.
  • This strategy focuses on breaking the Islamist terror movement—not just defeating one group. Our nation’s last official counterterrorism strategy focused almost exclusively on al Qaeda, leaving us blind to the rise of ISIS. This plan is designed to go after Islamist terrorists, regardless of location or branding.

The bottom line is this: we cannot accept Islamist terror attacks as “the new normal.” We must defeat the perpetrators. The McCaul strategy makes clear that we are facing a long, generational struggle, but we should wage it with the same resolve we showed in defeating other totalitarian ideologies, including communism and fascism.

The full strategy is available, here.

Comey’s Testimony, Doesn’t Remember, Doesn’t Know

Very few of the responses Comey gave in his testimony made any sense especially to former prosecutors unless you see that Comey has no worries about his job as he mentioned in the hearing he still has 7 years left on his government contract. He defended the entire FBI investigation and said he would do nothing different including based on new evidence he would be unlikely to re-open the investigation case. Sigh…

  A side note: When Hillary did meet with the FBI, she had 8 people with her, there were 4 from the FBI and 4 from the Department of Justice.

In fact, David Harsanyi, Senior Editor at The Federalist agrees with me.

This is a terribly sad dad for America relying on the FBI leadership and what is worse a terribly sad day in America for the fact that Hillary and her entire team operates with wild abandon.

So….

Sometimes, when convenient, Cheryl Mills is Hillary’s lawyer while other times just her aide de camp.

Meanwhile…AFTER the Congress served and order to preserve documents and records and issued a subpoena, Mills ordered the IT personnel to destroy the emails. The FBI ignored this condition as did the Department of Justice and issued Mills in fact complete immunity, which is to clarify immunity from obstruction and destruction of documents. The IT person finally did so many months later after the initial phone call with Mills and other lawyers using BleachBit.

Meanwhile, the FBI was able to gain access to a laptop computer that did in fact have emails on it and many of those emails were….YES ….classified. The laptop was not approved by the State Department or any other agency to have classified material.

Another meanwhile, you can watch the hearing today before the House Judiciary Committee where exacting questions were asked of FBI Director Comey and often his responses were: I don’t remember, I don’t know or I don’t see it that way.

The exchange with Congressman Jim Jordan and Congressman Darryl Issa (second round) were especially important.

FNC:

FBI Director James Comey testified Wednesday that former Hillary Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and another top aide had “some” classified material on laptops they turned over to the bureau in its probe of Clinton’s private server use as secretary of state — yet the aides still received immunity.

Comey made the acknowledgment while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, where Republicans had tough questions about a newly revealed set of immunity deals in the Clinton case.

The director claimed the findings did not constitute a crime but declined to directly answer a question on whether having classified material on a laptop or other private electronic device was against federal regulations.

“You’d have to know the circumstances,” Comey told committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

The FBI’s two-year investigation into the private server found numerous Clinton server emails contained classified information and she was “extremely careless.”

However, the agency concluded the investigation without recommending criminal prosecution, and the Justice Department closed the case this summer.

“It seems clear that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies involving the passing of classified information through her private email server. The FBI, however, declined to refer the case for prosecution on some very questionable bases,” Goodlatte said Wednesday. “We, as Congress and the American people, are troubled how such gross negligence is not punished.”

Mills’ testimony in the FBI investigation and potential testimony before Congress was not covered in the immunity deal.

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FNC: In her interviews, Hanley told the FBI that during her time at the State Department, she learned “specifically how to handle and transport classified information/paper but could not recall who provided the training.”

Two emails from Hanley were marked classified with a c for “confidential,” the lowest level of classification. Fox News first reported some of the emails contained classified markings despite Clinton’s public claims.

The FBI document said “Hanley received a Top Secret/SCI clearance at DoS.” Despite the training, during one trip to Russia, Hanley was specifically criticized for leaving a classified document in a hotel suite she shared with Clinton during the trip. “Hanley was informed by DS (Department of State) that the briefing book and document should have never been in the suite,” the document said.

She was also involved in the response to the hack by Guccifer, whose real name is Marcel Lehel Lazar.

It was during her second interview with the FBI on June 23 that Hanley finally revealed details of a conference call she had with Abedin and top Clinton Foundation fundraiser Cooper as they scrambled “over concerns related to a reported hack by Sidney Blumenthal’s email account” in the spring of 2013, first reported by The Smoking Gun.

In the latest documents, the FBI redacted another individual’s name who apparently was on that conference call.

Hillary’s Aides Violated the Immunity Agreements…

 Heather Samuelson Image result for john bentel state department

We have come to understand the FBI was never going to take the Hillary email/server investigation seriously and the notion of lack of ‘intent’ was just another cover. Why? Well when the Barack Obama used as pseudonym to communicate with Hillary on yet another non dot gov email account and had at least another 22 email communications, the executive protection was applied. So, this FBI investigation was just a formal gesture.

Providing immunity to at least 5 witnesses involved was not really necessary but since no one trusts anyone else in Washington DC, Beth Wilkinson the lawyer of record for Hillary’s inner circle demanded immunity and those agreements do have limitations. But is anyone asking about the limitations or violations of immunity agreements? Yes…

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Clinton confidant’s immunity deal looms over debate: Jonathan Turley

FBI appears to have undermined its own investigation with ill-considered witness agreements.

USAToday: When FBI Director James B. Comey announced that there would be no criminal charges in the Clinton email scandal, there was an outcry by many who saw glaring contradictions, attempts to destroy evidence, and knowing failures to protect classified or sensitive information.  At the time, I acknowledged that Comey’s decision was understandable and, while criminal charges might have been possible, this was not out of bounds of prosecutorial discretion. However, the news this week of a previously undisclosed immunity deal with a top Clinton aide raises serious questions over the handling of the FBI investigation.

The latest recipient of an immunity deal from the Justice Department is one of Clinton’s closest aides and a figure at the heart of the email scandal, Cheryl Mills. She joins two other central figures in benefiting from such deals: former State Department staffer, Bryan Pagliano and tech specialist Paul Combetta. In addition to at least two other immunized witnesses according to the Associated Press, they represent the big three of officials involved in the underlying allegations of Clinton’s potential criminal conduct. Their collective immunization is baffling.

For the Obama Administration, the criminal investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee and its prior secretary of State came with a heightened level of public scrutiny and skepticism. Many doubted that the administration would seriously pursue the Clintons, a family of political royalty in both Democratic and establishment circles. The easiest way for prosecutors to scuttle a criminal case is to immunize those people who are at the greatest risk of criminal indictment. Often prosecutors will avoid immunity deals in favor of offering plea bargains to key players, tying their cooperation against others to reduced sentences. Although a witness can lose an immunity deal by withholding evidence or lying, a witness can undermine cases against superiors by tailoring their accounts or memories to avoid statements showing intent or knowledge.

Before the disclosure of the Mills immunity deal, the two prior deals were curious given the evidence against both Pagliano and Combetta. Pagliano set up the notorious private server and later joined Clinton at the State Department, where various people raised objections to her use of unsecured communications. If Pagliano was problematic, Combetta’s immunity deal was perplexing. Combetta used a product called BleachBit to eradicate evidence of Clinton emails after a telephone conference with Clinton staffers. When he used the product, he admitted that he knew that Congress had issued a subpoena ordering the preservation of the evidence. Then, this month, it was alleged by a “Twitter sleuth that Combetta, acting under the alias “stonetear,” solicited advice on how to change email records to remove a “VIP’s (VERY VIP) email address.”  Either Combetta did not disclose this effort in violation of his immunity deal or the Justice Department effectively removed a serious threat of indictment though the agreement. Despite immunity deals pledging cooperation with all parts of the government, both Pagliano and Combetta have refused to answer questions from Congress, and Pagliano is facing a contempt sanction.

Mills is a participant in key emails and features prominently in allegations of destroyed emails. She was alleged to have been informed repeatedly of the dangers to national security, particularly regarding Clinton’s use of a personal BlackBerry. She was also central in the deletion of tens of thousands of emails that Clinton claimed were purely personal and not work related.

Many of those emails are now known to have discussed official issues and potentially embarrassing disclosures. Mills’ role in the later investigations has also been controversial. Surprisingly, defense attorney Beth Wilkinson  agreed to jointly represent various former aides, including not just Mills but Deputy Chief Jake Sullivan, Mills’ deputy Heather Samuelson, and Clinton spokesman Philippe Reines. Wilkinson is a very accomplished lawyer and there is no evidence of unethical acts. However, attorneys rarely represent parties with potential conflicts of interest and the agreement allowed for a single attorney to monitor the consistency of aides in their accounts.

The joint representation of the Clinton aides increased the chance for a uniform account in the controversy. Making this even more concerning is that Mills was allowed by the FBI to sit in on the interviews with Clinton, despite that fact that she was a key witness herself in the investigation. Mills, who is a lawyer, did not hold a legal position at the State Department and should have been excluded from the interviews. Finally, Mills has continuing interests in the election of Hillary Clinton, a development that would place her at the very top of the government. 

Of all of the individuals who would warrant immunity,, most would view Mills as the very last on any list. If one assumes that there may have been criminal conduct, it is equivalent to immunizing H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman in the investigation of Watergate. Mills appears repeatedly at critical moments as one of the most senior figures making decisions or monitoring events, including being informed as Clinton chief of staff of the search for emails by the State Department in response to a Freedom of Information demand in 2012 (three years before the disclosure of Clinton’s use of a private email server). In such circumstances, immunity can amount to impunity. Immunity does not remove the threat of prosecution, but it certainly reduces that threat, while the value of defending prior benefactors or loyalties can remain. Given the overlapping immunity deals, many will now find it unsurprising that Comey did not find evidence of “intentional misconduct or indications of disloyalty . . .  or efforts to obstruct justice.”

Comey removed the greatest threat that could have been used to get two underlings to implicate senior officials, and then gave immunity to the senior official most at risk of a charge. In the land of the immunized, the degree of cooperation can sometimes be as difficult to establish as the truth.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.

 Immunity Process Denoted by the Justice Department

9-23.100 – Witness Immunity—Generally

This chapter contains the Department’s policy and procedures for seeking “use immunity” under Title 18 U.S.C. §§ 6001-6005. Sections 6001 to 6005 provide a mechanism by which the government may apply to the court for an order granting a witness limited immunity in all judicial, administrative, and congressional proceedings when the witness asserts his or her privilege against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment. (Section 6003 covers court and grand jury proceedings, Section 6004 covers administrative hearings, and Section 6005 covers congressional proceedings.)

See the Criminal Resource Manual at 716 through 719, for an overview of the differences between the various types of immunity, including use immunity, derivative use immunity, transactional immunity and informal immunity.

NOTE: Although Title 21 of the United States Code contains similar immunity provisions to those contained in Title 18, the Department of Justice utilizes only those provisions contained in Title 18.


9-23.110 – Statutory Authority to Compel Testimony

Section 6003 of Title 18, United States Code, empowers a United States Attorney, after obtaining the approval of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, or any designated Assistant Attorney General or Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice (DOJ), to seek a court order to compel testimony of a witness appearing in court proceedings or before the grand jury. Additional information regarding the approval process is set forth in USAM 9-23.130, below, and the Criminal Resource Manual at 720.


9-23.130 – Approval by Assistant Attorney General to Compel Testimony

The Attorney General has designated the Assistant Attorneys General and Deputy Assistant Attorneys General of the Criminal, Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Environmental and Natural Resources, and Tax Divisions to review (and approve or deny) requests for immunity (viz., authorization to seek compulsion orders) in matters assigned to their respective divisions (28 C.F.R. Sec. 0.175), although this approval is still subject to Criminal Division clearance. This authority extends to requests for immunity from administrative agencies under 18 U.S.C. § 6004. This delegation also applies to the power of the Attorney General under 18 U.S.C. § 6005 to apply to the district court to defer the issuance of an order compelling the testimony of a witness in a congressional proceeding.

NOTE: All requests for immunity, including those whose subject matter is assigned to a Division other than the Criminal Division, must be submitted to the Criminal Division, and no approval may be granted unless the Criminal Division indicates that it has no objection to the proposed grant of immunity (28 C.F.R. Sec. 0.175).

Requests for authorization to seek to compel testimony should be processed as described in the Criminal Resource Manual at 720, using the form contained in the Criminal Resource Manual at 721.

Obtaining the Court Order Criminal Resource Manual at 723
Expiration of Authority to Compel Criminal Resource Manual at 724
Use of Immunized Testimony by Sentencing Court Criminal Resource Manual at 725
Steps to Avoid Taint Criminal Resource Manual at 726
Civil Contempt Criminal Resource Manual at 727
Criminal Contempt Criminal Resource Manual at 728

 

[cited in USAM 9-23.110Criminal Resource Manual 721]


9-23.140 – Authority to Initiate Immunity Requests

Assistant United States Attorneys, with the approval of the United States Attorney or, in his or her absence, a supervisory Assistant United States Attorney, and Department attorneys, with the approval of an appropriate Assistant Attorney General or Deputy Assistant Attorney General of DOJ, may initiate requests to compel testimony under the use immunity statute.


9-23.210 – Decision to Request Immunity—The Public Interest

Section 6003(b) of Title 18, United States Code, authorizes a United States Attorney to request immunity when, in his/her judgment, the testimony or other information that is expected to be obtained from the witness “may be necessary to the public interest.” Some of the factors that should be weighed in making this judgment include:

  1. The importance of the investigation or prosecution to effective enforcement of the criminal laws;
  2. The value of the person’s testimony or information to the investigation or prosecution;
  3. The likelihood of prompt and full compliance with a compulsion order, and the effectiveness of available sanctions if there is no such compliance;
  4. The person’s relative culpability in connection with the offense or offenses being investigated or prosecuted, and his or her criminal history;
  5. The possibility of successfully prosecuting the person prior to compelling his or her testimony;
  6. The likelihood of adverse collateral consequences to the person if he or she testifies under a compulsion order.

These factors are not intended to be all-inclusive or to require a particular decision in a particular case. They are, however, representative of the kinds of factors that should be considered when deciding whether to seek immunity.

APT 28: Russian Cyber Attacks Britain and Germany as Well as U.S.

APT 28:

TechTimes: FireEye said in a white paper they released in 2014 that APT 28 had launched attacks against military and political organizations beginning in 2007. Other targets that the Kremlin have special interest in include the NATO alliance offices and government officials in Georgia. In these attacks, the group had reportedly gathered “malware samples with Russian language settings during working hours consistent with the time zone of Russia’s major cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg.”

The APT 28 used the same tools and hit the same targets performed by the Pawn Storm hackers that were described by security firm Trend Micro in a separate report. According to the company, the Pawn Storm hacking group recently increased their activity and targeted bloggers who conducted interviews with President Barack Obama. There is also speculation that the group had stolen online credentials of a military correspondent of an unnamed major publication in the U.S. More here.

 

RUSSIA’S HACKERS HIT BRITAIN

Putin’s cyber warriors the Fancy Bears targeted government websites and the BBC in the run-in to last year’s election

Defensive measures deployed to thwart the attack by Fancy Bears after it was discovered by spy agency GCHQ

TheSun: A RUSSIAN cyber attack on British government departments and TV broadcasters in the run-up to last year’s general election was thwarted by intelligence agencies, it emerged today.

GCHQ boffins halted the “imminent threat” by Kremlin-backed hackers Fancy Bears – the group behind the leak of Olympic athletes’ doping files.

Dimbleby on the BBC election show

Russian hackers targeted government departments and broadcasters including the BBC in the run-up to the 2015 general election.
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The revelation of the attack on the British election comes amid concerns Russian hackers are attempting to disrupt the US presidential race.Last week another Russian group, DC Leaks, hacked White House servers to obtain what appeared to be Michelle Obama’s passport.

Fancy Bears planned to attack every Whitehall server including the Home Office, Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence, security officials told the Sunday Times.

They were also targeting all the main UK broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky.

cyber-caliphate

Getty Image: An attack on France’s TV5Monde network claimed on behalf od ISIS by the ‘Cyber-Caliphate’ was traced to the Fancy Bears in Moscow
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The GCHQ eavesdropping agency uncovered the threat after probing the group’s successful attack against TV5Monde, one of France’s biggest TV networks, in April last year.

It was feared ISIS had reached new levels in its ability to wage cyber war after all 11 of the French broadcasters channels were take off air and its website was flooded with jihadist propaganda.

Related reading: Russia ‘was behind German parliament hack’

But GCHQ traced the hack – claimed by a group calling themselves the “Cyber-Caliphate” – back to Moscow and then uncovered they were planning to hit Britain next.

Analysts feared that the Putin-sponsored group could “embarrass” pillars of the British state and took defensive measures to protect government departments.

Senior security officials are also understood to have warned the TV networks so they could defend themselves.

One security official said: “We had information, and it could have been activated, which is why it was an imminent threat.

“They certainly could have defaced a website for propaganda reasons and they could have possibly taken it down.”

It is the first known threat by the Kremlin-backed hackers to interfere in the British political process.

News of the attack comes after Fancy Bears published details of athletes including Mo Farah and Sir Bradley Wiggins hacked from the global anti-doping watchdog Wada.

Papers revealed they were given medical exemption certificates to use banned drugs.

Fancy Bears website

AP:Associated Press: The Fancy Bears leaked confidential medical filed on dozens of Olympic athletes after hacking the anti-doping body Wada
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In July the hackers were blamed for the leak of 20,000 damaging emails from the US Democratic National Committee – just as it was about to confirm Hillary Clinton as presidential candidate.

The intervention was seen a Moscow’s attempt to boost Donald Trump’s chances in the election.

The group is thought to be behind a shutdown of the national grid in Ukraine and attacks on the governments of Syria, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Fancy Bears also targeted the BBC, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Reuters, CNN, Farnborough arms fair, defence contractor Northrop Grumman, one cyber security report says.

Separately a list published by security experts at the PwC consultancy shows 245 apparent Fancy Bears attacks on targets including Nato, the Chilean military, Apple, Google, the German ministry of defence and the Polish and Hungarian governments.

There is no suggestion any of these has been successful although one firm on the list, Yahoo, last week admitted the personal information of 500million users had been stolen by what it called “state-sponsored” hackers in late 2014.

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BroadbandTVNews: The BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky were involved in what David Anderson QC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, described the incident as a “possible imminent threat” to the UK. The Sunday Times reports that Anderson said the government’s monitoring agency GCHQ “deployed a capability to protect government networks from this cyber-attacker”.

The information was revealed in a previously unnoticed report released in July. Broadcasters were warned of the potential threat and advised to take action.

British security officials have told the paper the group plotting the attack was Fancy Bears, also known as APT28 and Sofacy, the same group that last April brought down the French international broadcaster TV5 Monde.

Within a few seconds of the April 8th attack, all of TV5’s channels stopped broadcasting, and it also lost control of its sites and social profiles. On screen messages declared allegiance to ISIS.