Category Archives: Trump Administration

More to the Venezuela Revolution, Carnet de la Patria

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SOCIAL CONTROL

Let lil miss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in please on a few of these details:

Sorta president Nicolas Maduro blames the United States for leading the mission to remove him from office. He has cut off diplomatic relations with the United States, while calling for the expulsion of our diplomatic staff. Only non-essential personnel of the United States has been told to leave Venezuela.

Presently, a self declared president is in hiding for his own safety it seems, Juan Guaido. Guaido has been approved and recognized not only by the United States, but Europe and Canada as other countries in the region have done the same.

On January 10, 2019, the Organization of American States, a Latin American council have all agreed to not recognize the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro’s new term, hence any political action he has taken since the beginning of 2019 has also been deemed as illegitimate.

Maduro put simply is a killer, criminal and globally corrupt.

It is also important to note Maduro’s #2 man in country, Tareck Zaidan El Aissami Maddah. He was born in Venezuela to a Lebanese mother and Syrian father. He is just as corrupt as noted by the United States.

According to PanAm Post, US prosecutors have alleged that El Aissami was Venezuela’s “liaison” with Hezbollah and has provided passports to “terrorist organizations.” A report by the Center for a Secure Free Society released in 2014 alleged that El Aissami has “developed a sophisticated financial network and multi-level networks as a criminal-terrorist pipeline to bring Islamic militants to Venezuela and neighboring countries, and to send illicit funds from Latin America to the Middle East.” The alleged “pipeline” consists of 40 shell companies which have bank accounts in Venezuela, Panama, Curacao, St. Lucia, Miami and Lebanon and is also involved in drug smuggling.

Most all of the El Aissami family worked for Saddam Hussein and the Baathist Party including in Iraq and in Venezuela.

Meanwhile, with the previous Venezuelan president Chavez and through Maduro, Venezuela has been under the multi track influence of China, Russia, Syria, Cuba and Iran.

While much political and national security debate in the United States has included Huawei, other other telecom threat is ZTE. ZTE along with Huawei have both been banned from any government use by legislation signed by President Trump.

ZTE is important to understand as millions of U.S. cell phones in use are manufactured by ZTE. There is spy intrusion technology inside these phones. But there is something much more nefarious about China, ZTE and Venezuela and that is the ‘carnet de la patria’ otherwise known as the ‘fatherland card’.

This application was created and is in use today in China so Venezuela is doing the same. Read on for the nastiness and here is what lil Ms. Ocasio-Cortez along with the rest of the socialists in Congress are subscribing to.

***  Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro wins reelection, officials say ...

Caracas (Reuters) – In April 2008, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dispatched Justice Ministry officials to visit counterparts in the Chinese technology hub of Shenzhen. Their mission, according to a member of the Venezuela delegation, was to learn the workings of China’s national identity card program.

Chavez, a decade into his self-styled socialist revolution, wanted help to provide ID credentials to the millions of Venezuelans who still lacked basic documentation needed for tasks like voting or opening a bank account. Once in Shenzhen, though, the Venezuelans realized a card could do far more than just identify the recipient.

There, at the headquarters of Chinese telecom giant ZTE Corp, they learned how China, using smart cards, was developing a system that would help Beijing track social, political and economic behavior. Using vast databases to store information gathered with the card’s use, a government could monitor everything from a citizen’s personal finances to medical history and voting activity.

“What we saw in China changed everything,” said the member of the Venezuelan delegation, technical advisor Anthony Daquin. His initial amazement, he said, gradually turned to fear that such a system could lead to abuses of privacy by Venezuela’s government. “They were looking to have citizen control.”

The following year, when he raised concerns with Venezuelan officials, Daquin told Reuters, he was detained, beaten and extorted by intelligence agents. They knocked several teeth out with a handgun and accused him of treasonous behavior, Daquin said, prompting him to flee the country.

Government spokespeople had no comment on Daquin’s account.

The project languished.

But 10 years after the Shenzhen trip, Venezuela is rolling out a new, smart-card ID known as the “carnet de la patria,” or “fatherland card.” The ID transmits data about cardholders to computer servers. The card is increasingly linked by the government to subsidized food, health and other social programs most Venezuelans rely on to survive.

And ZTE, whose role in the fatherland project is detailed here for the first time, is at the heart of the program.

As part of a $70 million government effort to bolster “national security,” Venezuela last year hired ZTE to build a fatherland database and create a mobile payment system for use with the card, according to contracts reviewed by Reuters.

A team of ZTE employees is now embedded in a special unit within Cantv, the Venezuelan state telecommunications company that manages the database, according to four current and former Cantv employees.

The fatherland card is troubling some citizens and human-rights groups who believe it is a tool for Chavez’s successor, President Nicolas Maduro, to monitor the populace and allocate scarce resources to his loyalists.

Opposition and drivers reject vehicle census in Venezuela ...

“It’s blackmail,” Hector Navarro, one of the founders of the ruling Socialist Party and a former minister under Chavez, said of the fatherland program. “Venezuelans with the cards now have more rights than those without.”

In a phone interview, Su Qingfeng, the head of ZTE’s Venezuela unit, confirmed ZTE sold Caracas servers for the database and is developing the mobile payment application. The company, he said, violated no Chinese or local laws and has no role in how Venezuela collects or uses cardholder data.

“We don’t support the government,” he said. “We are just developing our market.”

An economic meltdown in Venezuela is causing hyperinflation, widespread shortages of food and medicines, and a growing exodus of desperate citizens. Maduro has been sanctioned by the United States and is criticized by governments from France to Canada as increasingly autocratic.

In that, critics say, Maduro has an ally. The fatherland card, they argue, illustrates how China, through state-linked companies like ZTE, exports technological know-how that can help like-minded governments track, reward and punish citizens.

The database, according to employees of the card system and screenshots of user data reviewed by Reuters, stores such details as birthdays, family information, employment and income, property owned, medical history, state benefits received, presence on social media, membership of a political party and whether a person voted.

So far, the government’s disclosure of ZTE’s involvement in the fatherland project has been limited to a passing reference in a February 2017 press release that credited the company with helping to “fortify” the underlying database.

Venezuela’s government didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article. Nadia Perez, a spokeswoman for Cantv, the state-run telecoms firm, declined to comment and Manuel Fernandez, the company’s president, didn’t respond to emails or text messages from Reuters. China’s Justice Ministry and its embassy in Caracas didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Although ZTE is publicly traded, a Chinese state company is its largest shareholder and the government is a key client. ZTE has run afoul of Washington before for dealings with authoritarian governments.

The company this year paid $1 billion to settle with the U.S. Commerce Department, one of various penalties after ZTE shipped telecommunications equipment to Iran and North Korea, violating U.S. sanctions and export laws. The Commerce action was sparked by a 2012 Reuters report that ZTE sold Iran a surveillance system, which included U.S. components, to spy on telecommunications by its citizens.

Legal experts in the United States said it is unclear whether ZTE and other companies that supply the fatherland system are violating U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan leaders by providing tools that critics believe strengthen the government’s grip on power.

Fernandez, the Cantv president, is one of the targets of those sanctions because of the telecom company’s censorship of the internet in Venezuela, according to a U.S. Treasury Department statement. But the prohibitions thus far are meant primarily to thwart business with Maduro and other top officials themselves, not regular commerce in Venezuela.

Still, U.S. lawmakers and other critics of Maduro’s rule are concerned about ZTE’s role in Venezuela. “China is in the business of exporting its authoritarianism,” U.S. Senator Marco Rubio told Reuters in an email. “The Maduro regime’s increasing reliance on ZTE in Venezuela is just the latest example of the threat that Chinese state-directed firms pose to U.S. national security interests.”

To understand how the fatherland card works and how it came to be, Reuters reviewed confidential contracts and internal government documents related to its development. Reporters also interviewed dozens of current and former employees of ZTE, Venezuela’s government and Cantv, or Compania Anonima Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, as the company is formally known.

They confirmed details of the project and the outlines of Daquin’s account of its origins.

“AN ATTEMPT TO CONTROL ME”

Maduro for the past year has urged citizens to sign up for the new card, calling it essential to “build the new Venezuela.” As many as 18 million people, over half the population, already have, according to government figures.

“With this card, we are going to do everything from now on,” Maduro said on state television last December.

To encourage its adoption, the government has granted cash prizes to cardholders for performing civic duties, like rallying voters. It has also given one-time payouts, such as awarding moms enrolled in the card a Mother’s Day bonus of about $2. The payment, last May, was nearly a monthly minimum wage – enough to buy a carton of eggs, given the current pace of inflation.

Maduro is also taking steps to force the card’s adoption. The government now says Venezuelans need it to receive public benefits including medicine, pensions, food baskets and subsidized fuel. In August, retirees protested outside social security offices and complained the fatherland rule limits access to hard-won pensions.

Benito Urrea, a 76-year-old diabetic, told Reuters a state doctor recently denied him an insulin prescription and called him “right wing” because he hasn’t enrolled. Like some other Venezuelan citizens, especially those who oppose the Maduro administration, Urrea sees the card with suspicion.

“It was an attempt to control me via my needs,” Urrea said in his Caracas apartment. Reuters was unable to contact the doctor.

Using the servers purchased from ZTE, the government is creating a database some citizens fear is identifying Venezuelans who support the government and those who don’t.

Some of the information, such as health data, is gathered with card usage. Some is obtained when citizens enroll. Cardholders and local human rights groups told Reuters that administrators ask questions about income, political activities and social media profiles before issuing the card.

Civil servants are facing particular pressure to enroll, according to more than a dozen state workers.

When scanning their cards during a presidential election last May, employees at several government offices were told by bosses to message photos of themselves at polls back to managers, they said. A Justice Ministry document reviewed by Reuters featured a list of state employees who didn’t vote.

After Chavez became president in 1999, he sought to empower “invisible” Venezuelans who couldn’t access basic services. In the following years, more citizens received documentation, but the cards were fragile and easily forged, according to a 2007 Justice Ministry report.

The report, reviewed by Reuters, recommended a new, microchip-enabled card that would be harder to counterfeit. No such effort got underway.

That December, after nearly a decade of soaring popularity, Chavez suffered his first electoral defeat, losing a referendum to scrap term limits. Oil prices plummeted shortly thereafter, hammering the economy.

Chavez worked to appease his working-class base, including throngs still lacking identity credentials. He sent Daquin, the top information security advisor at the Justice Ministry, to China.

The technology Daquin and colleagues learned about in Shenzhen underpinned what would become China’s “Social Credit System.”

The still-evolving system, part of which uses “smart citizen cards” developed by ZTE, grades citizens based on behavior including financial solvency and political activity. Good behavior can earn citizens discounts on utilities or loans. Bad marks can get them banned from public transport or their kids blocked from top schools.

ZTE executives showed the Venezuelans smart cards embedded with radio-frequency identification, or RFID, a technology that enables monitors through radio waves to track location and data. Other cards used so-called Quick Response, or QR, codes, the matrix barcodes now commonly used to store and process information.

After the trip, Venezuela turned to Cuba, its closest ally, and asked for help creating its own version of RFID cards. “The new goal was Big Data,” Daquin said.

In June 2008, Venezuela agreed to pay a Cuban state company $172 million to develop six million of the cards, according to a copy of the contract. Cuban government officials didn’t respond to questions about the agreement.

By 2009, Daquin grew uneasy about the potential for abuses of citizens’ privacy.

He expressed those concerns to officials including Vladimir Padrino, a general at the time and now Venezuela’s defense minister. The Defense Ministry didn’t respond to phone calls, emails or a letter presented by Reuters for comment.

On the morning of Nov. 12, at his local Caracas bakery, six armed officials in uniforms of Venezuela’s national intelligence agency awaited Daquin, he told Reuters.

They showed him photos of his daughter and forced him to drive east toward the town of Guatire. Off a back road, Daquin said, they beat him with pistols, forced a handgun into his mouth and dislodged several teeth, still missing.

“Why are you betraying the revolution?” one asked.

They demanded $100,000 for his release, Daquin said.

Daquin, who says he had been saving for years to buy property, went home, pulled cash from a safe and delivered it to the men. That evening, he booked a flight for himself, his wife and their three children to the United States, where he has lived since, working as an information security consultant.

His brother, Guy, who also lives in the United States, confirmed Daquin’s account. Documentation reviewed by Reuters corroborates his role at the ministry, and people familiar with Daquin’s work confirmed his involvement in the card project.

After Daquin fled, the Cuban contract went nowhere, according to another former advisor.

In March 2013, Chavez died. Maduro, his heir as Socialist Party candidate, was elected president the next month. The lingering oil crash dragged Venezuela into recession.

“WE’LL FIND OUT”

With hunger increasing, the government in 2016 launched a program to distribute subsidized food packages. It hired Soltein SA de CV, a company based in Mexico, to design an online platform to track them, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. The platform was the beginning of the database now used for the fatherland system.

Soltein’s directors, according to LinkedIn profiles, are mostly former Cuban state employees. A person who answered a telephone listed for Soltein denied the firm worked on the fatherland system. A woman at the company’s registered address in the resort city of Cancun told Reuters she had never heard of Soltein.

The system worked. Nearly 90 percent of the country’s residents now receive the food packages, according to a study published in February by Andres Bello Catholic University and two other universities.

Now more satisfied with its ability to track handouts, the government sought to know more about the recipients, according to people involved in the project. So it turned back to ZTE.

The Chinese company, now in Venezuela for about a decade, has over 100 employees working in two floors of a Caracas skyscraper. It first worked with Cantv, the telecommunications company, to enable television programming online.

Like many state enterprises in Venezuela, Cantv has grown starved for investment. ZTE became a key partner, taking on many projects that once would have fallen to Cantv itself, people familiar with both companies said.

ZTE is helping the government build six emergency response centers monitoring Venezuela’s major cities, according to a 2015 press release. In 2016, ZTE began centralizing video surveillance for the government around the country, according to current and former employees.

In its final push for the fatherland cards, the government no longer considered RFID, according to people familiar with the effort. The location-tracking technology was too costly.

Instead, it asked ZTE for help with QR codes, the black-and-white squares smartphone users can scan to get directed to web sites. ZTE developed the codes, at a cost of less than $3 per account, and the government printed the cards, linking them to the Soltein database, these people said.

In a phone call with Reuters in September, Su, the head of ZTE’s Venezuela business, confirmed the company’s card deal with Cantv. He declined to answer follow-up questions.

Maduro introduced the cards in December 2016. In a televised address, he held one up, thanked China for lending unspecified support and said “everybody must get one.”

The ID system, still running on the Soltein platform, hadn’t yet migrated to ZTE servers. Disaster soon struck. In May 2017, hackers broke into the fatherland database.

The hack was carried out by anonymous anti-Maduro activists known as TeamHDP. The group’s leader, Twitter handle @YoSoyJustincito, said the hack was “extremely simple” and motivated by TeamHDP’s mission to expose Maduro secrets.

The hacker, who spoke to Reuters by text message, declined to be identified and said he is no longer in Venezuela. A Cantv manager who later helped migrate the database to ZTE servers confirmed details of the breach.

During the hack, TeamHDP took screenshots of user data and deleted the accounts of government officials, including Maduro. The president later appeared on television scanning his card and receiving an error message: “This person doesn’t exist.”

Screenshots of the information embedded in various card accounts, shared by TeamHDP with Reuters, included phone numbers, emails, home addresses, participation at Socialist Party events and even whether a person owns a pet. People familiar with the database said the screenshots appear authentic.

Shortly after the hack, Maduro signed a $70 million contract with Cantv and a state bank for “national security” projects. These included development of a “centralized fatherland database” and a mobile app to process payments, such as the discounted cost of a subsidized food box, associated with the card.

“Imperialist and unpatriotic factions have tried to harm the nation’s security,” the contract reads.

It says an undisclosed portion of the funding would come from the Venezuela China Joint Fund, a bilateral financing program. A related contract, also reviewed by Reuters, assigns the database and payment app projects to ZTE. The document doesn’t disclose how much of the $70 million would go to the Chinese company.

ZTE declined to comment on financial details of its business in Venezuela. Neither the Venezuelan nor the Chinese government responded to Reuters queries about the contracts.

In July 2017, Soltein transferred ownership of fatherland data to Cantv, project documents show. A team of a dozen ZTE developers began bolstering the database’s capacity and security, current and former Cantv employees said.

Among other measures, ZTE installed data storage units built by U.S.-based Dell Technologies Inc, according to one ZTE document. Dell spokeswoman Lauren Lee said ZTE is a client in China but that Dell doesn’t sell equipment to ZTE in Venezuela. She said Dell reviewed its transactions in Venezuela and wasn’t aware of any sale to Cantv, either.

“Dell is committed to compliance with all applicable laws where we do business,” Lee said in an email. “We expect our customers, partners and suppliers to follow these same laws.”

In May, Venezuela held elections that were widely discredited by foreign governments after Maduro banned several opposition parties.

Ahead of the vote, ruling party officials urged voters to be “grateful” for government largesse dispensed via the fatherland cards. They set up “red point” kiosks near voting booths, where voters could scan their cards and register, Maduro himself promised, for a “fatherland prize.”

Those who scanned their cards later received a text message thanking them for supporting Maduro, according to several cardholders and one text message reviewed by Reuters. The prizes for voting, however, were never issued, cardholders and people familiar with the system said.

Current and former Cantv employees say the database registers if, but not how, a person voted. Still, some voters were led to believe the government would know. The belief is having a chilling effect.

One organizer of a food handout committee in the west-central city of Barinas said government managers had instructed her and colleagues to tell recipients their votes could be tracked. “We’ll find out if you voted for or against,” she said she told them.

State workers say they are a target.

An internal Cantv presentation from last year said the system can feed information from the database to ministries to help “generate statistics and take decisions.” After the vote, government offices including Banco Bicentenario del Pueblo, a state bank, sent Cantv lists with employees’ names to determine whether they had voted, according to the manager who helped set up the servers.

Banco Bicentenario didn’t respond to a request for comment. Officials at the Economy Ministry, which the bank reports to, didn’t respond to requests, either.

With personal data now so available, some citizens fear they can lose more than just their jobs, said Mariela Magallanes, an opposition lawmaker who headed a commission that last year investigated how the fatherland card was being linked to the subsidized food program.

The government, the commission said in a report, is depriving some citizens of the food boxes because they don’t possess the card. “The government knows exactly who is most vulnerable to pressure,” she said.

Pelosi/Schumer Against Wall, Why? Quanergy Systems

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This could be the real ah hah!

A stealth wall and they are tapping Pelosi and Schumer:

And how cool is it that Quanergy completed Series C financing with a valuation surpassing $2 BILLION only happened last October. Really? Yuppers and an IPO process is on track. It is all about Silicon Valley and we know those pesky democrats are quite tied, obligation and dependent on Silicon Valley money.

A stealth wall? A digital wall? A virtual wall? Yuppers again.

You see Silicon Valley wants Nancy and all the other democrats to win over this wall debate and not Trump. Other companies include advances in artificial intelligence, digital cameras, lidar, advanced and surveillance technology.

Oh wait there is more. We have yet another company called Anduril. The founder of Anduril is Palmer Luckey who built a a virtual reality enterprise and sold it to who? Oh—–> FACEBOOK in 2014 for a mere $2BILLION.

Okay, how about Cogniac? Well they offer technology identifying people and objects in digital images and cameras.

Okay, I am all for VERY advanced technology and this could be a real prudent solution to several variations of miles along our southern border.

This all seems to go back as far as 2008 and lil Ms. Nancy was on board back then.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called upon Silicon Valley leaders on Monday to send Washington their ideas on how the United States can reverse global warming, improve education and health care and rebuild U.S. infrastructure.

‘We have to pass this planet on to the next generation better than we found it,’ she told a meeting of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in Santa Clara Convention Center with coffee and cake for several hundred people. ‘I will compete with any initiative anyone wants to put forward for funding.’

The group was founded by David Packard in 1978 as the Santa Clara County Manufacturing Group. Packard wanted to improve the region’s economy and quality of life, and the group started with 33 companies. It has evolved into a policymaking forum for 260 companies that tackle issues of global importance.

Pelosi, D-San Francisco, was one of a many speakers who talked Monday about how the country can stay competitive in the global economy. She got a standing ovation as she took the stage.

She called for ‘a massive infusion of resources’ into basic biomedical research, investment in electronic health records, preventive medical care and innovations in green technology to create American jobs.

She also called on Silicon Valley leaders to follow in the footsteps of Presidents Thomas Jefferson, who built roads and canals through the territories of the Louisiana Purchase, and Theodore Roosevelt, who established the national park system.

‘We have a responsibility to build infrastructure in America … and to do it in a green way and think in an entrepreneurial way,’ she said. ‘Our competitors are way ahead of us on this.’

The group also heard from U.S. Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto; George Miller, D-Martinez; and Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who is working on a bill to help the United States retain talented immigrants who graduate from American universities. ‘Why send them home to compete with us when they could be part of our team?’ Lofgren asked.

Bill Watkins, chief executive officer of Seagate Technology in Scotts Valley Santa Cruz County, said the United States and California in particular has to improve its schools and provide health insurance for children. ‘We have the best military in the world because someone sticks up and demands it,’ he said. ‘People in this room need to start demanding the best education system.’

Other speakers included Mike Splinter, the CEO of Applied Materials, and venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, who called on companies to contribute to his Middle School Math Initiative, which trains teachers to teach math, by adopting at least one school in Silicon Valley for $5,000 a piece. ‘If these kids don’t have a math ‘Aha!’ moment, we’re going to lose them,’ he said.

Not to be left out is Senator Kamala Harris and her overwhelming admiration for social planning by the ‘Valley’.

President Trump is not against advanced technology along the border either, in fact he has said there should be various types of barriers and technology where feasible. Of note, Quanergy Systems is constructing a pilot program applying lidar border security along the India-Pakistan border. The founder of Quanergy, Mr. Eldada declares that concrete walls are an eyesore and they intrude on the environmental landscape impeding the free movement of wildlife.

The time is now to get on with the solution to the government shutdown and begin the pilot programs at our border with perhaps variations of technology and concrete…at least Pelosi and Schumer should go through those open doors and the White House and get on with it all.

2003, Sheila Jackson Lee’s Position on Immigration

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Actually, I was researching something else that is part of the same topic and came across this Congressional hearing from 2003. Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee offered her opening statement to the hearing. Read it here. Take note, I did.

***

OPENING STATEMENT
The Honorable John N. Hostettler, a Representative in Congress From the State of Indiana, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims

The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress From the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress From the State of Texas

WITNESSES

Mr. John Feinblatt, Criminal Justice Coordinator, City of New York
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement

Mr. Michael J. Cutler, former Senior Special Agent, New York District Office, Immigration and Naturalization Service
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement

Mr. John Nickell, Officer, Houston Police Department
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement

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Ms. Leslye E. Orloff, Immigrant Women Program, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund
Oral Testimony
Prepared Statement

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

Executive Order 124, City Policy Concerning Aliens, New York City

General Order, Houston Police Department

Immigration and Naturalization Service Memo

APPENDIX

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

The Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative in Congress From the State of Texas, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress From the State of Michigan, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary

NEW YORK CITY’S ‘SANCTUARY’ POLICY AND THE EFFECT OF SUCH POLICIES ON PUBLIC SAFETY, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND IMMIGRATION

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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2003

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Immigration,
Border Security, and Claims,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:07 a.m., in Room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John Hostettler [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. The Subcommittee will now come to order.

On December 19, 2002, a 42-year-old mother of two was abducted and forced by her assailants into a hideout near some railroad tracks in Queens, New York. She was brutally assaulted before being rescued by a New York Police Department canine unit.

The NYPD arrested five aliens in connection with that assault. According to records that the Judiciary Committee has received from the INS, four of those aliens entered the United States illegally. Three of those four had extensive arrest histories in New York City. The fifth alien, a lawful permanent resident, also had a criminal history prior to the December 19, 2002, attack.

Despite the criminal histories of the four aliens, however, it does not appear from the records that the Committee has received that the NYPD told the INS about these aliens until after the December 19 attack.

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These heinous crimes prompted extensive public discussion of whether New York City police were barred from disclosing immigration information to the INS, a policy that may have prevented the removal of these aliens prior to the December 19 attack.

Some suggested that the only reason that the three illegal aliens were in the United States, despite their extensive arrest histories, was because the NYPD officers who arrested these aliens previously were barred by a so-called ”sanctuary” policy from contacting the INS. That policy, critics claimed, prevented NYPD officers from contacting the INS when they arrested an illegal alien.

We will examine New York City’s policy on the NYPD’s disclosure of immigration information to the INS. New York’s Executive Order, or E.O. 124, barred line officers from communicating directly with the INS about criminal aliens. That executive order was issued by Mayor Ed Koch in 1989 and reissued by Mayors Dinkins and Giuliani.

Two Federal provisions, both of which were passed in 1996, preempted this executive order. In particular, section 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act bars States and localities from prohibiting their officers from sending immigration information to the INS. New York City challenged that provision in Federal court and lost.

We will examine whether New York City continued E.O. 124, amended it, or scrapped it altogether. We will also examine what guidance the city has sent to its officers on the street about reporting criminal aliens to the INS.

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At this hearing, the Subcommittee will also explore what effect any New York City sanctuary policy had on the fact that the three illegal aliens with arrest histories had not been deported. We will also examine the INS’s responsiveness to the information that it receives from New York City about arrested criminal aliens if, in fact, the INS does receive such information. In addition, we will examine similar policies that other localities have implemented.

In particular, Officer John Nickell of the Houston Police Department will discuss that department’s policy concerning officer contacts with the INS about criminal aliens. That policy bars Houston officers from contacting the INS about suspected illegal aliens, unless the suspected illegal alien is arrested on a separate criminal charge other than a class of misdemeanors ”and the officer knows the prisoner is an illegal alien.”

Significantly, despite this knowledge, requirement for contacting the INS, Houston officers are barred from asking arrested criminal suspects their citizenship status.

The Subcommittee will assess the effect that such policies have had on law enforcement, immigration enforcement, and public safety as well as their consistency with Federal law.

Joining us today are four witnesses. First of all, John Feinblatt is the criminal justice coordinator for the City of New York. He received his law degree from Columbus School of Law at Catholic University, and his bachelor of arts degree from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. He has served as a criminal defense attorney in New York, executive director of victim services, and director of the Midtown Community Court and the Center for Court Innovation.

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Michael Cutler is a retired senior special agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, New York District Office. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Brooklyn College and the City University of New York in 1971 before joining the INS that same year as an immigration inspector at JFK airport. He also served as a green card adjudicator before becoming an INS criminal investigator, working with the Israeli national police and the FBI.

He was the INS representative to the Unified Intelligence Division of the DEA in New York. Finally, in 1991, Mr. Cutler was assigned to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Mr. Cutler last testified before this Subcommittee as a witness for the minority in March 2002.

John Nickell is an officer with the Houston Police Department. Officer Nickell has served with the Houston Police Department for 11 years, specializing in DWI detection and drug recognition enforcement. He served 6 years in the United States Marine Corps and is a Desert Storm veteran.

Ms. Leslye Orloff is the director of the Immigrant Women Program for the National Organization for Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund. She received her law degree from UCLA, and her bachelor of arts degree is from Brandeis University. She has previously worked as the director of the Latino Project at the George Washington University National Law Center, the director of the Clinica Legal Latina, and director of Ayuda’s national policy program. She has also written and testified extensively.

Before I go to the witnesses, I would like to now turn to the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Ms. Jackson Lee, for any opening remarks she may have.

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Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

As we begin the 108th Congress with the very first hearing for our Subcommittee, I want to express to you my belief that we’ll have an opportunity to work together and work together on issues and commonality for the good of this Nation. And as well, hopefully, to reflect the values that we both have, though they may be distinctive, that we do have the responsibility to govern and oversee the very effective policies of immigration laws here in the United States, many of which are reminding us that we are a Nation of immigrants as we are a Nation of laws.

And so I look forward to the challenges that we will have, and I hope that as we proceed, even in our different perspectives, we’ll have an opportunity to be able to serve this Country and present very effective resolutions to some problems that we will face.

This morning, obviously, we are pursuing an issue that needs addressing. And certainly, we are told of accounts, many accounts, that deal with immigrant issues and the criminal system.

In particular, we are aware of an incident that occurred in New York—Queens, New York, in particular—that an alleged group of young and homeless men surrounded a couple sitting on a bench in an isolated part of Queens, New York. And the allegations of a criminal incident that occurred where they beat and robbed the man and raped the woman.

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    Apparently, it was alleged that four of the men were undocumented aliens from Mexico who had been arrested previously.

One of the questions for this hearing, as was stated, is whether a New York City policy prevented the police involved in the previous arrest from reporting the men to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The policy in question is set forth in Executive Order No. 124, which was issued by New York Mayor Ed Koch on August 7, 1989. It is entitled, ”City Policy Concerning Aliens.”

[The New York Executive Order follows:]

EO124A.eps

EO124B.eps

EO124C.eps

This order prohibits the transmission of information about an alien to the Immigration Service. But the prohibition has three exceptions, one of which is for the situation in which the alien is suspected of engaging in criminal activity. And I repeat that again. There is an exception. The police did have discretion.

This order, therefore, did not prevent the police from reporting the homeless men to the Immigration Service when they were arrested previously. The pertinent issue regarding that case is whether New York Police Department should have been required by Federal law to report the homeless men to the Immigration Service.

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I believe it is imperative to assess the challenges that local police have. They have enormous challenges. And so the question is whether or not you add to them the responsibility of enforcing immigration law.

But when we ask that question, we have to look to the issue of whether or not, by definition, immigration equates to either terrorism or criminal activity.

I think the statistics would prove that that is not the case, so discretion is appropriate. That means that when there is suggestion of criminal activity, when there is any activity—whether it be misdemeanor level or otherwise—and they are engaged in a criminal activity, discretion does come about.

We have to realize that our immigrants do many things. They work for us. They live in our communities. They provide police officers with insight and information about criminal activity going on in their particular communities. They speak, sometimes, two languages. If they’ve learned the English language, which they will and eventually do, and therefore are able to provide information because they are bilingual or maybe even multilingual.

Immigration law is a complicated body of law that requires extensive training and expertise. It is also not a body of only criminal law or criminal law at all. It is a civilian body of law. It is a law that deals with immigrants accessing the process of citizenship.

Local law enforcement officials do not have the training and expertise that is necessary to determine who is presently lawfully in the country and who is not.

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Community-based policing is one of the most powerful law enforcement tools available. I know for a fact that it is utilized in New York. I know for a fact it is utilized in Houston. It is effective.

Police get to understand and know the community, and people, by their very nature of wanting to be law-abiding—no matter who they are, immigrant or citizen—come to respect and admire the police and provide them with information to help them solve cases and problems.

By developing strong ties with local communities, police departments are able to obtain valuable information that helps them to fight a crime, even in a bilingual immigrant community or a single-language immigrant community. The development of community-based policing has been widely recognized as an effective tool for keeping kids off drugs, combating gang violence, and reducing crime rates in neighborhoods around the country.

In immigrant communities, it is particularly difficult for the police to establish the relationships that are the foundations for such successful police work. Many immigrants come from countries in which people are afraid of police who may be corrupt or even violent, and the prospect of being reported to the Immigration Service would be further reason for distrusting the police here in the United States of America.

In some cities, criminals have exploited the fear that immigrant communities have of all law enforcement officials, and certainly that should not be the case. For instance, in Durham, North Carolina, thieves told their victims in a community of migrant workers and new immigrants that if they called the police they would be deported, and they may be—may have been under legitimate agricultural visas and provisions to be in this Country.

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Local police officers have found that people are being robbed multiple times and are not reporting the crimes because of such fear instilled by robbers. These immigrants are left vulnerable to crimes of all sorts, not just robbery.

In 1998, Elena Gonzalez, an immigrant in New Jersey, was found murdered in the basement of her apartment. Friends of the woman said that the suspected murderer, her former boyfriend, threatened to report her to the INS if she did not do what she was told.

We realize that there are sex slaves. There are young women who are brought into this country and held for months and years at a time, because I know that they are fearful of the police as well.

Many communities find it difficult financially to support a police force with the personnel and equipment necessary to perform regular police work. Requiring State and local police forces to report to the Immigration Service would be, I believe, an imbalanced, misdirected use of these limited resources.

Remember, it is important to note that the police have discretion, that as they encourage and become familiar and involved with the immigrant community, as the police forces are diversified with Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, individuals from the Muslim community, Arab community—those are individuals who are men and women who believe in upholding the law.

Let them become familiar with these neighborhoods, and I can assure you that crime will come down and problems will be solved.

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The Immigration Service has limited resources, yes. But as we look toward this new year—the Homeland Security Department, the Justice Department—we know that we’ll be refining these resources and adding training to these particular law enforcement agencies as we give more dollars to the first responders.

Let us be reminded of the terrible, horrific act of the snipers here in this region and the information that was important that was given to solve those problems by immigrants who were first allegedly targeted as the perpetrators, and it was not the case.

The immigrant service does not have the resources it needs to deport dangerous criminals, prevent persons from unlawfully entering or remaining in the United States, and we must give them those resources. And we need to have the INS with the resources that it needs to enforce immigration laws in the interior of the country.

That is what we will be working on. That is an important responsibility, and that is a responsibility that I support.

Having to respond to every State and local police officer’s report of someone who appears to be an illegal alien would prevent the Immigration Service from properly prioritizing its efforts and working to ensure that its major work of getting those dangerously in our Country deported would be delayed.

Local police can and should report immigrants to the immigration service in many situations. I encourage them to do so. With that kind of process and policy, we can work collectively together, keeping our responsibilities as a Federal Government and keeping our responsibilities to our local constituents in the work that the local official should be doing. The decision to contact Immigration Service, however, should be a matter of police discretion and not a Federal law decision.

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I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this will be an important hearing.

I welcome Mr. Nickell to this particular hearing, and he certainly is a very able representative of the Houston Police Department, of which I count many of them as my friends.

And I want to acknowledge publicly the greatest respect I have for the great work that you do.

And I know that as I listen to you, I will be attentive and certainly know that the police department in my community has been able to work within the laws of this land, with the Federal laws as they are, and your laws using your discretion, your expertise, and of course, your commitment to the community as the basis of serving us.

Thank you very much for your service.

Mr. HOSTETTLER. Thank you, Ms. Jackson Lee.

Read the full testimony from the hearing here.

Complicating the China Trade Talks, Taiwan

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Since 1972, the United States has had a policy position titled the ‘One China Policy‘. This policy regarded that Taiwan was part of China. Since 1972, conditions have changed dramatically where Taiwan wants complete independence and should have it. China is now prepared for war to halt that independence move and it could snare the United States into a military conflict.

Without any fanfare, President Trump signed into law the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018 on New Year’s Eve. As a result of this new law, China’s President Xi told his top military authority to take responsibility for preparing and waging war.

Meanwhile, as a result of the detention of Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei in Canada and is to be prepared for extradition to the United States, a travel advisory has been issued by the U.S. State Department for Americans traveling in China for either business or pleasure.

Even more importantly, President Trump has taken a harder line on Chinese foreign investment in the United States….finally. Remember it was CFIUS that gave us Uranium One. So, with this harder line, Chinese investors planted in Silicon Valley are bailing out. Silicon Valley is complaining.

Washington demonstrated its tougher stance even before the new law was passed, when Trump in March blocked a $117 billion hostile bid by Singapore-based Broadcom Ltd (AVGO.O) to acquire Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O) of San Diego. CFIUS said the takeover would weaken the United States in the race to develop next-generation wireless technology.

The above is an example and for more context, go here.

Just in the past few days, a U.S. guided missile destroyer traveled through the South China Sea, quite near the Paracel Island chain. The USS McCampbell did so under the ‘freedom of navigation operation essentially challenging China and China has responded by dispatching military ships and aircraft identifying the U.S. flag and to issue warnings.

China has constructed islands in the region and made them into military bases. Further, Vietnam along with other nations including Malaysia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei also have laid claims to the disputed islands.

USS McCampbell | 121015-N-TG831-208 SOUTH CHINA SEA (Oct ...

As part of the law that was signed by President Trump, a particular section is noted as follows with regard to Taiwan:

SEC. 209.Commitment to Taiwan.

(a) United States commitment to Taiwan.—It is the policy of the United States—

(1) to support the close economic, political, and security relationship between Taiwan and the United States;

(2) to faithfully enforce all existing United States Government commitments to Taiwan, consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 (Public Law 96–8), the 3 joint communiques, and the Six Assurances agreed to by President Ronald Reagan in July 1982; and

(3) to counter efforts to change the status quo and to support peaceful resolution acceptable to both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

(b) Arms sales to Taiwan.—The President should conduct regular transfers of defense articles to Taiwan that are tailored to meet the existing and likely future threats from the People’s Republic of China, including supporting the efforts of Taiwan to develop and integrate asymmetric capabilities, as appropriate, including mobile, survivable, and cost-effective capabilities, into its military forces.

(c) Travel.—The President should encourage the travel of highlevel United States officials to Taiwan, in accordance with the Taiwan Travel Act (Public Law 115–135).

When it comes to freedom of navigation in the new law, this is noted:

SEC. 213.Freedom of navigation and overflight; promotion of international law.

(a) Freedom of navigation.—It is the policy of the United States—

(1) to conduct, as part of its global Freedom of Navigation Program, regular freedom of navigation, and overflight operations in the Indo-Pacific region, in accordance with applicable international law; and

(2) to promote genuine multilateral negotiations to peacefully resolve maritime disputes in the South China Sea, in accordance with applicable international law.

(b) Joint Indo-Pacific diplomatic strategy.—It is the sense of Congress that the President should develop a diplomatic strategy that includes working with United States allies and partners to conduct joint maritime training and freedom of navigation operations in the Indo-Pacific region, including the East China Sea and the South China Sea, in support of a rules-based international system benefitting all countries.

Pray for peace, prepare for war. Imagine how complicated those trade talks really are.

 

US Treasury’s Evidence Iran and Russia Cooperating in Syria

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The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned nine targets last week related to an illicit oil network between Iran and Russia.

“We are acting against a complex scheme Iran and Russia have used to bolster the [Bashar] Assad regime and generate funds for Iranian malign activity,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. “Central Bank of Iran officials continue to exploit the international financial system, and in this case even used a company whose name suggests a trade in humanitarian goods as a tool to facilitate financial transfers supporting this oil scheme.

“The United States is committed to imposing a financial toll on Iran, Russia and others for their efforts to solidify Assad’s authoritarian rule, as well as disrupt the Iranian regime’s funding of terrorist organizations,” he added.

Experts said this move was crucial in combating the Iranian threat.

“The scheme uncovered by the Treasury Department shows just how closely Iran and Russia are cooperating to not only help prop up the Assad regime financially, but to help finance the leading players in Iran’s global terrorism,” Boris Zilberman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told JNS. “So when Russia talks about cooperating with the United States to counter-terrorism this is empty rhetoric plain and simple.”

“As this scheme shows, Russia works hand in hand with some of the very terror groups we seek to counter,” he continued. “Russia is not a partner in our counter-terrorism efforts, but is, in fact, an adversary.”

“There are already sanctions on Russian arms exporters, but the United States should continue to uncover and sanction schemes such as this,” added Zilberman. “The administration could also consider, in conjunction with Israel, striking destabilizing arms transfers by Hezbollah.

“It’s an important step, and highlights just how much [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has supported Iran, Hezbollah and Assad, and how committed he is, despite hopes that Putin’s partnership with Iran is skin-deep short-lived,” the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Anna Borshchevskaya told JNS.

“Hard to tell if this pressure will succeed without being incorporated into a broader strategy,” she continued. “It comes as no surprise that the Kremlin said earlier this month it will continue to help Iran trade oil. It’s possible to imagine Moscow setting up another intermediary to continue shipping oil to the Syrian regime, but nonetheless, this is an important step.”

The State Department joined Treasury in sending a message to the Islamic Republic.

Islamic State crisis: US hits IS oil targets in Syria ...

“The sanctions levied today directly target the Iranian regime’s exploitation of the international financial system to hide revenue streams it uses to fund terrorist activity, provide support for sectarian militias responsible for abuses against civilian populations and destabilize the region,” said the department in a statement. “The Iranian regime, Iranian-commanded forces inside Syria and the proxy terrorist groups it supports such as those targeted today continue to foment instability to extend their malign influence. These actions by the Iranian and Assad regimes undermine the legitimate processes to resolve the conflict in Syria.”

This development preceded Secretary of State Pompeo blasting Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday for calling Israel a “cancerous tumor” and a “fake regime.”

“This is a dangerous and irresponsible step that will further deepen Iran’s isolation,” warned Pompeo.

“The Iranian regime is no friend of America or Israel when they repeatedly call for the death of millions, including Muslims,” he added. “The Iranian people know better and do not agree with their government, which has badly represented them to the world for 39 years. The people have suffered under this tyranny for far too long.”

*** It is quite right that Iran is no friend of the United States or Israel. That Obama/Kerry nuclear deal was supposed to lay the groundwork for Iran to be a good citizen of the world….read on…not so much.

***

Two Iranian Men Indicted for Deploying Ransomware to Extort Hospitals, Municipalities, and Public Institutions, Causing Over $30 Million in Losses

A federal grand jury returned an indictment unsealed today in Newark, New Jersey charging Faramarz Shahi Savandi, 34, and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri, 27, both of Iran, in a 34-month-long international computer hacking and extortion scheme involving the deployment of sophisticated ransomware, announced Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito for the District of New Jersey and Executive Assistant Director Amy S. Hess of the FBI.

The six-count indictment alleges that Savandi and Mansouri, acting from inside Iran, authored malware, known as “SamSam Ransomware,” capable of forcibly encrypting data on the computers of victims.  According to the indictment, beginning in December 2015, Savandi and Mansouri would then allegedly access the computers of victim entities without authorization through security vulnerabilities, and install and execute the SamSam Ransomware on the computers, resulting in the encryption of data on the victims’ computers.  These more than 200 victims included hospitals, municipalities, and public institutions, according to the indictment, including the City of Atlanta, Georgia; the City of Newark, New Jersey; the Port of San Diego, California; the Colorado Department of Transportation; the University of Calgary in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and six health care-related entities: Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles, California; Kansas Heart Hospital in Wichita, Kansas; Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, more commonly known as LabCorp, headquartered in Burlington, North Carolina; MedStar Health, headquartered in Columbia, Maryland; Nebraska Orthopedic Hospital now known as OrthoNebraska Hospital, in Omaha, Nebraska and Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc., headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

According to the indictment, Savandi and Mansouri would then extort victim entities by demanding a ransom paid in the virtual currency Bitcoin in exchange for decryption keys for the encrypted data, collecting ransom payments from victim entities that paid the ransom, and exchanging the Bitcoin proceeds into Iranian rial using Iran-based Bitcoin exchangers.  The indictment alleges that, as a result of their conduct, Savandi and Mansouri have collected over $6 million USD in ransom payments to date, and caused over $30 million USD in losses to victims.

“The Iranian defendants allegedly used hacking and malware to cause more than $30 million in losses to more than 200 victims,” said Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein.  “According to the indictment, the hackers infiltrated computer systems in 10 states and Canada and then demanded payment. The criminal activity harmed state agencies, city governments, hospitals, and countless innocent victims.”

“The allegations in the indictment unsealed today—the first of its kind—outline an Iran-based international computer hacking and extortion scheme that engaged in 21st-century digital blackmail,” said Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski.  “These defendants allegedly used ransomware to infect the computer networks of municipalities, hospitals, and other key public institutions, locking out the computer owners, and then demanded millions of dollars in payments from them. As today’s charges demonstrate, the Criminal Division and its law enforcement partners will relentlessly pursue cybercriminals who harm American citizens, businesses, and institutions, regardless of where those criminals may reside.”

“The defendants in this case developed and deployed the SamSam Ransomware in order to hold public and private entities hostage and then extort money from them,” said U.S. Attorney Carpenito.  “As the indictment in this case details, they started with a business in Mercer County and then moved on to major public entities, like the City of Newark, and healthcare providers, like the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles and the Kansas Heart Hospital in Wichita—cravenly taking advantage of the fact that these victims depend on their computer networks to serve the public, the sick, and the injured without interruption.  The charges announced today show that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey will continue to act to disrupt such criminal acts, and identify those who are responsible for them, no matter where in the world they may seek to hide.”

“This indictment demonstrates the FBI’s continuous commitment to unmasking malicious actors behind the world’s most egregious cyberattacks,” said Executive Assistant Director Hess.  “By calling out those who threaten American systems, we expose criminals who hide behind their computer and launch attacks that threaten our public safety and national security.  The actions highlighted today, which represent a continuing trend of cyber criminal activity emanating from Iran, were particularly threatening, as they targeted public safety institutions, including U.S. hospital systems and governmental entities.  The FBI, with the assistance of our private sector and U.S. government partners, are sending a strong message that we will work together to investigate and hold all criminals accountable.”

Savandi and Mansouri are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and related activity in connection with computers, two substantive counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and two substantive counts of transmitting a demand in relation to damaging a protected computer.

According to the indictment, Savandi and Mansouri created the first version of the SamSam Ransomware in December 2015, and created further refined versions in June and October 2017.  In addition to employing Iran-based Bitcoin exchangers, the indictment alleges that the defendants also utilized overseas computer infrastructure to commit their attacks.   Savandi and Mansouri would also use sophisticated online reconnaissance techniques (such as scanning for computer network vulnerabilities) and conduct online research in order to select and target potential victims, according to the indictment.  According to the indictment, the defendants would also disguise their attacks to appear like legitimate network activity.

To carry out their scheme, the indictment alleges that the defendants also employed the use of Tor, a computer network designed to facilitate anonymous communication over the internet.  According to the indictment, the defendants maximized the damage caused to victims by launching attacks outside regular business hours, when a victim would find it more difficult to mitigate the attack, and by encrypting backups of the victims’ computers.  This was intended to—and often did—cripple the regular business operations of the victims, according to the indictment.  The most recent ransomware attack against a victim alleged in the indictment took place on Sept. 25, 2018.

This case was investigated by the FBI’s Newark Field Office.  Senior Counsel William A. Hall Jr. of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Cybercrimes Unit Justin S. Herring of the District of New Jersey are prosecuting the case.  The Department thanks its law enforcement colleagues at the National Crime Agency (UK), West Yorkshire Police (UK), Calgary Police Service (Canada), and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Significant assistance was provided by the Justice Department’s National Security Division and the Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs.