NYPD to Purge Anti-Terrorism Material Offensive to Muslims As part of a court settlement.

NYPD to Purge Anti-Terrorism Material Offensive to Muslims As part of a court settlement. HT :JudicialWatch.

As part of a court settlement announced this month the NYPD will purge a highly acclaimed report (Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat) that’s proven to be a critical tool in terrorism investigations. The NYPD will also limit the use of undercover officers and informants in Muslim communities and create a policy that bans religious discrimination.

The change comes on the heels of an increase in terrorism attacks by radicals associated with groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

The settlement stems from a 2013 lawsuit filed by three New York Muslims, two mosques and a Muslim nonprofit accusing the NYPD of “discriminatory surveillance” after 9/11.

This appears to be a frightening trend that Judicial Watch has reported on extensively in the last few years. Muslim rights groups, especially the terrorist front organization Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), have proven they wield tremendous power in the Obama administration. 

This is especially true when it comes to the way the nation’s law enforcement agencies conduct anti-terrorism training. In fact, it was CAIR that got the FBI to purge anti-terrorism material determined to be offensive to Muslims. Judicial Watch uncovered that scandal a few years ago and obtained hundreds of pages of FBI documents with details of the arrangement. JW also published a special in-depth report in 2015. Read the full story here.

Five young Middle Eastern men Arrested Near Mexican Border with Steel Cylinders.

Hamas Qassam Rockets.

Five young Middle Eastern men Arrested Near Mexican Border with Steel Cylinders. (JudicialWatch).

Five young Middle Eastern men were apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol this week in an Arizona town situated about 30 miles from the Mexican border, law enforcement and other sources told Judicial Watch.

Border Patrol agents spotted the men crossing a ranch property in the vicinity of Amado, which is located about 35 miles south of Tucson and has a population of 275. Two of the Middle Eastern men were carrying stainless steel cylinders in backpacks, JW’s sources say, alarming Border Patrol officials enough to call the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for backup. A multitude of federal agents descended on the property and the two men carrying the cylinders were believed to be taken into custody by the FBI.


Only three of the men’s names were entered in the Border Patrol’s E3 reporting system, which is used by the agency to track apprehensions, detention hearings and removals of illegal immigrants. E3 also collects and transmits biographic and biometric data including fingerprints for identification and verification of individuals encountered at the border. The other two men were listed as “unknown subjects,” which is unheard of, according to a JW federal law enforcement source.

“In all my years I’ve never seen that before,” a veteran federal law enforcement agent told JW. Hmmm........No doubt were planning to do some plumbing (sarc). Read the full story here.

Video - Clarion Project Exposes CAIRs Terror Links

Geeesh I wonder why? FBI anti-extremist website for kids on hold after Muslim, Arab groups protest.

Source and story here.

Geeesh I wonder why? FBI anti-extremist website for kids on hold after Muslim, Arab groups protest. (RT).

Seeking to enlist students in counterterror operations, the FBI created a games website meant to help children identify someone in the process of radicalization. The site is now on hold as some questioned why it focused almost solely on Islamic extremism.

The website, called Don't Be a Puppet, offers users exercises, as described by the Washington Post, or "a series of games and tips," as reported by the New York Times, that aim to teach children signs to watch for that may indicate someone is falling deeper into extremist behavior. As players answer questions correctly, a pair of scissors cut the puppet's strings until it is set free.

"The quiz asked students: What would be activities that would concern the FBI?" the Post reported.

Some of the options included a youth posting on Facebook that she intended to attend a political protest, a young person posting about feeling emotional about something or a youth with a stereotypically Muslim-sounding name who 'posted that he’s going overseas on a mission [and] does anyone want to chat?'" Hoda Hawa, director of policy and advocacy for Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), told the Post. "All our hands went up, like: What’s with this?” Hawa added.

The FBI would not detail the program or why it decided to hold off on releasing the website, but did offer a statement on Sunday.
“The FBI is developing a website designed to provide awareness about the dangers of violent extremist predators on the Internet with input from students, educators and community leaders,” an FBI spokeswoman said.

MPAC and other Muslim, Arab, Yemeni and Sikh advocacy groups were briefed on the site by the FBI last month. At the meeting, the FBI also discussed its "Shared Responsibility Committees," which would be groups of community leaders and FBI agents who would share information on particular kids. Participating groups said they voiced concern with the agency, and with the US Department of Justice, over the plan.

“We were all on the same page in terms of being concerned,” said Hawa told the Post. “It seems like they’re asking teachers to be extensions of law enforcement and to police thought, and students as well. That was very concerning to us all.”

During "a very tense meeting" between the groups and the FBI, the law enforcement agency included a tutorial of the program various types of potentially-violent groups and ideologies, as well as some personality swings that could lead to extremist behavior, Abed A. Ayoub, legal and policy director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told the NY Times.

The FBI said during the meeting that it would reach out to schools to promote participation, and that some school districts in Northern Virginia had already committed, Ayoub said.
“The one that should be involved is the Department of Education. The FBI is overreaching its mission,” Ayoub told the Post. “This kind of thing should come from professionals who create educational curriculum. You don’t just have a law enforcement agency get it out to students without thinking about the ramifications on students in schools.”

The groups at the meeting said the program fails to address issues relating to the common occurrence of school shootings in the US, with most of the emphasis on extremism relating to Muslim or Arab communities.

Domestic extremists, such as white supremacists and right-wing groups, have been responsible for twice as many murders in the US since 2001 as "individuals motivated by Jihadist ideology,"according to a June report by the New America Foundation. Hmmmm.........How about .9-11? Read the full story here.

Related: FBI DIRECTOR ESTIMATES 900 ACTIVE INVESTIGATIONS OF ISIS OPERATIVES IN U.S.

Video - "Pallywood presents" - Hamas propaganda uses Hollywood's 'Final Destination4'

Hmmmm......I wonder if the FBI will react to this copyright infraction?

What It's Like When The FBI Asks You To Backdoor Your Software.

What It's Like When The FBI Asks You To Backdoor Your Software.HT: PC Mag.

At a recent RSA Security Conference, Nico Sell was on stage announcing that her company—Wickr—was making drastic changes to ensure its users’ security. She said that the company would switch from RSA encryption to elliptic curve encryption, and that the service wouldn’t have a backdoor for anyone.

As she left the stage, before she’d even had a chance to take her microphone off, a man approached her and introduced himself as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He then proceeded to “casually” ask if she’d be willing to install a backdoor into Wickr that would allow the FBI to retrieve information.

Documents Obtained by Judicial Watch Reveal FBI Training Curricula Purged of Material Deemed “Offensive” to Muslims.

Documents Obtained by Judicial Watch Reveal FBI Training Curricula Purged of Material Deemed “Offensive” to Muslims.HT: Judicial Watch. (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch has released hundreds of pages of FBI memos and other documents revealing that, in 2012, the agency purged its anti-terrorism training curricula of material determined by an undisclosed group of “Subject Matter Experts” (SME) to be “offensive” to Muslims. The excised material included references linking the Muslim Brotherhood to terrorism, tying al Qaeda to the 1993 World Trade Center and Khobar Towers bombings, and suggesting that “young male immigrants of Middle Eastern appearance … may fit the terrorist profile best.”
Judicial Watch obtained the materials on January 15 and on April 16, 2013, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed on July 18, 2012 (Judicial Watch v. Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:12-cv-01183)). The original FOIA request was made on March 7, 2012. It sought access to records detailing a February 8, 2012, meeting between FBI Director Robert Mueller and various Islamic organizations.  The FOIA request also asked for “any and all records setting criteria or guidelines for FBI curricula on Islam or records identifying potentially offensive material within the FBI curricula on Islam,” as well as any directives to withdraw FBI presentations and curricula on Islam.
During the February 8 meeting, Mueller reportedly assured the Islamic groups in attendance that the agency had ordered the removal of presentations and curricula on Islam from FBI offices around the country that were deemed “offensive.” As reported by NPR: “The FBI has completed a review of offensive training material and has purged 876 pages and 392 presentations, according to a briefing provided to lawmakers.”
Documents obtained by the Judicial Watch FOIA request revealed that among the reasons given by the FBI’s SME for purging “offensive” training documents were:

• “Article is highly inflammatory and inaccurately argues the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization.”

• “Page 13 inaccurately states that AQ [al Qaeda] is responsible for the bombing of the Khobar Towers and that AQ is ‘clearly linked’ to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.”

• “The overall tenor of the presentation is too informal in the current political context.”

• “The Qur’an is not the teachings of the Prophet, but the revealed word of God.”

• “Remove references to mosques specifically as a radicalization incubator.”

• “Remove sweeping generality of ‘Those who fit the terrorist profile best (for the present at least) are young male immigrants of Middle Eastern appearance’”

•  “author seems to conflate ‘Islamic militancy’ with ‘terrorism’ and needs to define the difference and use it in their analysis”

In its May 22, 2013, article on some of the Judicial Watch revelations, The Washington Examiner reported, “While the Muslim Brotherhood is not on the U.S. State Department’s official list of international terrorist organizations, some of its offshoots, including the Palestinian group Hamas, are.” Ironically, FBI Director Mueller, who ordered the purge of “offensive” material – including the exoneration of the Muslim Brotherhood – has described the organization as a group that supports terrorism in the US and overseas.
“The FBI is rewriting history in order to help al Qaeda. This shows that the law enforcement agency is in need of serious top-to-bottom reform. As we recently learned from the Boston Marathon terrorist attack, the country is less safe when we allow radical Muslim organizations to tell the FBI how to train its agents and do its job,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
“The FBI’s purge of so called ‘offensive’ material is political correctness run amok, and it puts the nation at risk. The Obama administration needs to stop putting the tender sensibilities of radical Islamists above the safety of the American people.”Hmmmm......"I will stand with my Muslim Brothers?"Read the full story here.

Obama's new FBI chief approved Bush's NSA warrantless wiretapping scheme, leading advocate for Bush's denial of the most basic due process.

Obama's new FBI chief approved Bush's NSA warrantless wiretapping scheme, leading advocate for Bush's denial of the most basic due process. HT: Guardian.By Glenn Greenwald.

One of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration (which is really saying something) began on December 16, 2005. That was when the New York Times' James Risen and Eric Lichtblau were finally allowed to reveal what they had learned more than a year earlier: namely, that President Bush, in 2002, had ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the electronic communications of US citizens without first obtaining warrants from the FISA court as required by 30-year-old criminal law. For the next three years, they reported, the NSA "monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants." The two NYT reporters won the Pulitzer Prize for that story.

To say that progressives and liberals bellowed sustained outrage over that revelation is to understate the case. That NSA program was revealed less than two months after I first began writing about political issues, and I spent the next full year overwhelmingly focused on that story, and also wrote my first book on it. In progressive circles, the NSA warrantless eavesdropping program was the pure symbol of Bush/Cheney radicalism and lawlessness: they secretly decided that they were empowered to break the law, to commit what US statutes classified as felonies, based on extremist theories of executive power that held that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, was entitled under Article II of the Constitution to eavesdrop however he wanted in the name of national security, even if it meant doing exactly that which the law forbade.

The FISA law provided that anyone who eavesdrops without the required warrants - exactly what Bush officials did - is committing a felony "punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both" - for each offense. Moreover, all three federal judges who actually ruled on the merits of the Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program concluded that it violated the law.

So why, then, was there no accountability for this systematic illegal spying? That happened for two reasons. First, both the Bush DOJ and then the Obama DOJ successfully convinced obsequious federal courts that the eavesdropping program was so secretive that national security would be harmed if courts were to adjudicate its legality - in other words, top government officials should be placed above and beyond the rule of law because doing so is necessary to Keep Us Safe™. Second, the Bush DOJ's most senior lawyers - Attorney General John Ashcroft, Deputy Attorney General James Comey and OLC chief Jack Goldsmith - approved a legal memorandum in 2004 endorsing radical executive power theories and warped statutory interpretations, concluding that the Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program was legal, thus making it more difficult to prosecute the Bush officials who ordered it (even if the Obama DOJ were inclined to prosecute, which they were not).

Another of the most controversial acts of the Bush administration was the due-process-free imprisonment of US citizen Jose Padilla, who was arrested in 2002 on US soil, then put in a military brig, without charges, for 3 1/2 years. During that time, he was denied a lawyer, held incommunicado, and tortured. That was the incident that, more than any other, really motivated me to begin writing about politics: back then, it actually shocked me that the US government would claim the power to imprison US citizens on US soil without charges of any kind. As Charles Davis recalls, it was James Comey who took a leading role in the Bush administration in defending that lawless imprisonment, arguing in 2004:

"Had we tried to make a case against Jose Padilla through our criminal justice system, something that I, as the United States attorney in New York, could not do at that time without jeopardizing intelligence sources, he would very likely have followed his lawyer's advice and said nothing, which would have been his constitutional right.

"He would likely have ended up a free man, with our only hope being to try to follow him 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and hope -- pray, really -- that we didn't lose him. . . .

"Two years ago, the president of the United States faced a very difficult choice. After a careful process, he decided to declare Jose Padilla for what he was: an enemy combatant, a member of a terrorist army bent on waging war against innocent civilians. And the president's decision was to hold him to protect the American people and to find out what he knows.

"We now know much of what Jose Padilla knows, and what we have learned confirms that the president of the United States made the right call, and that that call saved lives."

Indeed, when the Bush administration declared Padilla to be an "enemy combatant" and thus removed him from the civilian court system and imprisoned him without charges, Comey was the US Attorney in New York, where Padilla's case was contested. He then became a leading advocate for Bush's denial of the most basic due process to this US citizen. That is who Obama-loyal progressives today are hailing. And that is who is about to lead the FBI, thanks to President Obama.

On Monday, when I wrote about Obama's terrorism speech, I noted the gushing editorial from the New York Times that was published very shortly after the speech was over, and suggested that its length and detailed discussion of the speech meant that the editors had been given an advanced preview by the White House. The paper's editorial page editor, Andy Rosenthal, did acknowledge yesterday that at least part of the praise for Obama's speech was unwarranted. Furthermore, Charlie Savage did preview the speech in the NYT the day before it was delivered. But the NYT editorial page editors insist to me that they did not themselves receive any advanced review, but rather wrote the editorial based on the speech as it was delivered. I take them at their word that this is true.

The ACLU today issued a statement on Comey's nomination which, among other things, pointed out that "as the second-highest ranked Justice Department official under John Ashcroft, Comey approved some of the worst abuses committed by the Bush administration." In other words, he's the ideal choice for President Obama to run the FBI. Anyway, as the president taught us long ago, it's really unproductive - and more than a little crass - to Look Backward when it comes to our most powerful political officials. It's just not a nice thing to do. What's a little illegal warrantless eavesdropping, torture, and lawless imprisonment of US citizens among friends? We all make mistakes. Just keep Looking Forward.Hmmmm........'I'm not a Dictator'.Read the full story here.

Gaza Violence Leads Seven House Republicans To Call For Shuttering Terror Groups On Twitter.

Gaza Violence Leads Seven House Republicans To Call For Shuttering Terror Groups On Twitter.(TheHill).The past week’s violence in Gaza has rekindled calls for Twitter to shutter the accounts of U.S.-labeled terror groups such as Hamas. Seven House Republicans asked the FBI in September to demand that Twitter take down the accounts of U.S.-designated terrorist groups, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Somalia’s al Shabaab. 
The letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller was spearheaded by Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), who said Wednesday that the recent events vindicated the request. “Allowing foreign terrorist organizations like Hamas to operate on Twitter is enabling the enemy,” Poe said in an e-mailed statement to The Hill. “Failure to block access arms them with the ability to freely spread their violent propaganda and mobilize in their War on Israel. “Anti-American foreign terrorist groups around the world are doing the same thing every day. The FBI and Twitter must recognize sooner rather than later that social media is a tool for the terrorists.” Poe is a member of both the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House Judiciary panel’s subcommittee on terrorism. Separately, the pro-Israel group Christians United for Israel launched a petition on Monday calling for Twitter to “ban” Hamas. An FBI spokesperson told The Hill Wednesday that the agency “will respond to members of Congress directly. Our response is being considered internally.”Hmmm..... Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has made a $300 million investment in Twitter Inc.Read the full story here.

Family of Radical Dearborn Muslim Luqman Ameen Abdullah Sues FBI for Killing Him in Raid.

Family of Radical Dearborn Muslim Luqman Ameen Abdullah Sues FBI for Killing Him in Raid.(AM).DETROIT — The family of a man shot to death in a raid at an east Dearborn warehouse in 2009 is suing the FBI, claiming that his rights were violated.

Luqman Ameen Abdullah, aka Christopher Thomas, was shot 21 times by FBI agents during a raid at the warehouse at 5171 Miller Road, just north of Michigan Avenue, just after noon Oct. 28, 2009. An FBI dog was shot twice in its neck and also died.

A house on Tireman in Detroit also was raided.

The suit, filed Oct. 26 in U.S. District Court in Detroit, maintains that Abdullah did not display a gun; government reports written in the incident’s wake claim he fired a pistol.

The FBI was investigating the sale of stolen truck parts. Twenty-nine agents were in the warehouse, which was under the FBI’s control on an undercover basis, when Abdullah and four counterparts arrived; 66 agents were involved in the operation.

Dearborn police were not part of the tactical operation or shooting.

The initial FBI report said that 11 defendants, including Abdullah, were part of a group known as the Ummah (“brotherhood”), a Sunni group mostly composed of blacks who were converts to Islam and wanted to establish a separate Shariah law-governed state in the U.S.

The group’s leader was Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, aka H. Rapp Brown, who is serving a life sentence for killing two police officers in Georgia. The group reportedly promoted violence against police officers and trained members to use guns and martial arts in anticipation of government violence, according to the FBI.

Dearborn police investigated the shooting because it happened in the city. The investigation took several months because it required the help of several law enforcement and other governmental agencies, and officers interviewed about 85 witnesses. The 300-page report was forwarded to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, which concluded in fall 2010 that no state law was broken.

“My office’s review found undisputed evidence that (Abdullah) resisted arrest and fired a gun first in the direction of the agents,” then-Attorney General Mike Cox said in a written statement. “Under Michigan law, law enforcement agents are justified in using deadly force in these types of situations, and, therefore, we found no crimes.”Read the full story here.

Video - FBI informant armed and trained Black Panthers.

Video - FBI informant armed and trained Black Panthers.(RS).A video published Monday by the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that the man responsible for arming and training members of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s did so while acting as a federal informant.
According to reporter Seth Rosenfeld, Richard Aoki was approached by FBI agent Burney Threadgill Jr. in the late 1950s, around the time he was graduating high school, and developed into a source into the activities of various political groups during the following decade.
“I said, ‘Well, why don’t you just go to some of the meetings and tell me who’s there and what they talked about?’” Threadgill is quoted as saying. “Very pleasant little guy. He always wore dark glasses.”
Aoki, who committed suicide in 2009 after working as an educator for 25 years following his involvement with the party, has been remembered for his activism. He was the subject of the biography Samurai Among Panthers: On Race, Resistance And A Pardoxical Life, which traced his ascent within the organization, where he became the highest-ranking non-black member of the party. Read the full story here.

Muslim group CAIR blasts US judge over 'sea monster' comparison

Muslim group CAIR blasts US judge over 'sea monster' comparison.(TDS).A Muslim rights group criticised a federal judge on Wednesday, complaining he had compared the civil liberties of Muslim Americans to a "hideous sea monster" while tossing out a lawsuit over the infiltration of California mosques by an FBI informant. US District Judge Cormac Carney dismissed the lawsuit on Tuesday, which charged that the undercover FBI informant had violated civil liberties of US Muslims by spying on them, ruling that allowing the case to proceed could risk disclosure of government secrets.

In his 36-page order, Carney invoked the fictional Greek hero Odysseus, who was forced to sail his ship between a six-headed sea monster and a dangerous whirlpool during an epic voyage home from the Trojan War. "

Odysseus opted to pass by the monster and risk a few of his individual sailors, rather than hazard the loss of his entire ship to the sucking whirlpool," Carney wrote. "Similarly, the proper application of the state secrets privilege may unfortunately mean the sacrifice of individual liberties for the sake of national security." Carney allowed the case to go forward only against five current or former agents named as individual defendants, who the plaintiffs claim violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Plaintiffs attorneys have said they will appeal. "Our civil liberties are not a hideous sea monster, but they are instead the most stalwart defense against the real threats of tyranny and oppression," Ameena Mirza Qazi, deputy executive director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a written statement.The FBI and US Department of Justice declined to comment on Wednesday. The FBI has acknowledged in court documents that Monteilh was used as a confidential informant during the operation but denies any wrongdoing, saying it took reasonable measures to investigate credible evidence of possible terrorist activity. Carney wrote in his ruling that he did not reach the decision lightly and conducted a careful review of classified government filings with "a skeptical eye" before ruling.Hmmmm........A 'Classic' ruling?Read the full story here.

F.B.I. warning :"You may not be able to connect to the internet after July 9".

F.B.I. warning :"You may not be able to connect to the internet after July 9". HT: IsraelMatzav.On July 9, 2012, there is a chance that many computers will cease to be able to surf the web because of malware that proliferated among millions of computers starting in 2007. You can find out if your computer is among them.
Starting in 2007, an Internet fraud ring running out of Estonia infected millions of computers worldwide with a virus to manipulate internet advertising. The way they did this was by redirecting users to rogue DNS servers which gave the cyber thieves the ability to manipulate users’ web activity by redirecting them from legitimate websites to fraudulent ones.
US authorities seized the rogue servers and replaced them with legitimate ones in order not to disrupt victims’ access to the web. However, those servers have been funded by US taxpayer dollars since November 2011, and of course this cannot go on indefinitely. The planned date for turning off the servers is July 9, which means that computers that have been accessing the web via these rogue-turned-legit servers, will lose that ability.

How to check if your computer is using rogue DNS servers

To find out if your computer is clean, or is using the rogue DNS servers, take the following steps:

1. Find out what your computer’s IP address is. You can do this by visiting this site: WhatIsMyIP. Your IP address is the 10 digit number that looks like this: 12.123.12.123. Copy it down somewhere.
2. Visit the following page on the FBI site: https://forms.fbi.gov/check-to-see-if-your-computer-is-using-rogue-DNS. Paste your IP address in the tiny field that appears towards the top of the page.
3. Click on Check Your DNS. If your computer is clean, you’ll see the message: “Your IP is not configured to use the rogue DNS servers,” and you can breathe a sigh of relief.
If your computer is not clean, then you’ve got quite a job ahead of you. Visit this page on the DNS Changer Working Group site to see the steps you should take to clean your computer.

The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org, that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem.
After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.

Will : I've posted on April 21 - 2012. a story on this before. It can be read here.

FBI quietly forms secretive Net-surveillance unit.

FBI quietly forms secretive Net-surveillance unit.(CNET News).The FBI has recently formed a secretive surveillance unit with an ambitious goal: to invent technology that will let police more readily eavesdrop on Internet and wireless communications.

The establishment of the Quantico, Va.-based unit, which is also staffed by agents from the U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Agency, is a response to technological developments that FBI officials believe outpace law enforcement's ability to listen in on private communications.
While the FBI has been tight-lipped about the creation of its Domestic Communications Assistance Center, or DCAC -- it declined to respond to requests made two days ago about who's running it, for instance -- CNET has pieced together information about its operations through interviews and a review of internal government documents.
DCAC's mandate is broad, covering everything from trying to intercept and decode Skype conversations to building custom wiretap hardware or analyzing the gigabytes of data that a wireless provider or social network might turn over in response to a court order. It's also designed to serve as a kind of surveillance help desk for state, local, and other federal police.Here's the full text of the FBI's statement in a Google+ post.
One person familiar with the FBI's procedures told CNET that the DCAC is in the process of being launched but is not yet operational. A public Justice Department document, however, refers to the DCAC as "recently established."
The FBI has disclosed little information about the DCAC, and what has been previously made public about the center was primarily through budget requests sent to congressional committees. The DCAC doesn't even have a Web page.
"The big question for me is why there isn't more transparency about what's going on?" asks Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco. "We should know more about the program and what the FBI is doing. Which carriers they're working with -- which carriers they're having problems with. They're doing the best they can to avoid being transparent."Hmmmm......."The most transparant Admin EVAH".Read the full story here.

FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites - now

FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites - now.(CNet).The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance.
In meetings with industry representatives, the White House, and U.S. senators, senior FBI officials argue the dramatic shift in communication from the telephone system to the Internet has made it far more difficult for agents to wiretap Americans suspected of illegal activities, CNET has learned.
The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.
“If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding,” an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI’s draft legislation told CNET. The requirements apply only if a threshold of a certain number of users is exceeded, according to a second industry representative briefed on it.
The FBI’s proposal would amend a 1994 law, called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA, that currently applies only to telecommunications providers, not Web companies. The Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA in 2004 to apply to broadband networks.Read the full story here.

"CAIR" - Police Shut-down Event Promoting U.S. Constitution -- Thomas More Law Center Files Lawsuit Against CAIR-Michigan.; Allegan Officials

"CAIR" - Police Shut-down Event Promoting U.S. Constitution -- Thomas More Law Center Files Lawsuit Against CAIR-Michigan; Allegan Officials.(CNW).ANN ARBOR, Mich.-- In the middle of an event to extol the virtues of the U.S. Constitution and "American Laws For American Courts," the audience learned first-hand how easy it is to lose their freedom of Speech and Assembly. Amid shouts of "What about free speech?" from the audience, the Allegan Police Department ordered the event shut-down. School officials notified police that they had received a letter complaining about the event from Dawud Walid, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI). The letter asked the school to disallow the event despite an existing contract. CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism funding trial in U. S. history, U.S. v. Holy Land Foundation. As a result, the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced today that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR- MI), its Executive Director, the City of Allegan, the Allegan Police Department and the School District were named as defendants in a thirty-four page civil rights lawsuit filed in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Michigan, this morning. The claims included constitutional and contract violations. Click here for copy of federal complaint.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center commented, "It's amazing how much clout CAIR has with the political establishment of both parties in Lansing and throughout Michigan and the nation. This, despite the fact that CAIR has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, and the FBI's former chief of counterterrorism, noted that CAIR, its leaders, and its activities effectively give aid to international terrorist groups." Continued Thompson, "Press accounts make it clear that an indictment naming CAIR as a defendant in the Holy Land Foundation trial was squelched by Attorney General Holder's office despite vehement objections by FBI agents and the federal prosecutors in Dallas."
 TMLC's federal lawsuit was brought on behalf of State Representative David Agema; a chapter leader of ACT! for America, Elizabeth Griffin; Allegan County Commissioner, Willis Sage; and Mark Gurley, one of the event sponsors. The event in question, entitled, "Constituting Michigan – Founding Principles Act" took place on January 26, 2012 at an Allegan High School auditorium which had been rented by Willis Sage. The purpose of the event was to inform the public about the importance of honoring the United States Constitution, to recognize the internal threat to America posed by radical Muslims and the dangers to our free society caused by the imposition of Sharia law. At first the Allegan police chief police indicated he shut down the event because of threats to one of the speakers, Kamal Saleem; however, shortly thereafter, the chief admitted to a reporter that there was no specific threat to the event and no real danger at all. In fact, no specific threats of violence relating to the event were received by the City of Allegan, its police department, the Allegan Public School District or Allegan Public High School. Police gave as their reason, the appearance of one of the featured speakers, Kamal Saleem, a former Muslim terrorist who converted to Christianity. Saleem has spoken at numerous high schools and universities, Christian churches and Jewish temples across the nation. He has also spoken at the U. S. Air Force Academy, Michigan's State Capital, and Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. At no time before the Allegan event or afterwards has an event where he has spoken been shut down by law enforcement. Sage notified the Allegan police chief ten days before the event and invited him to check out the background of Saleem, which he never did. Erin Mersino is the TMLC attorney handling the case.Contact: Kathleen Lynch, Thomas More Law Center, 734-827-2001.Read the full story here.

F.B.I. warning :"You may not be able to connect to the internet after July 9".

F.B.I. warning :"You may not be able to connect to the internet after July 9".(E24/7).For computer users, a few mouse clicks could mean the difference between staying online and losing Internet connections this summer.
Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world.
In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users.But that system is to be shut down.
The FBI is encouraging users to visit a website run by its security partner, http://www.dcwg.org, that will inform them whether they're infected and explain how to fix the problem.
After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the Internet.
Most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.
Last November, the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a hacker ring that had been running an Internet ad scam on a massive network of infected computers.
"We started to realise that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands because ... if we just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and threw everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without Internet service," said Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent. "The average user would open up Internet Explorer and get ‘page not found' and think the Internet is broken."
On the night of the arrests, the agency brought in Paul Vixie, chairman and founder of Internet Systems Consortium, to install two Internet servers to take the place of the truckload of impounded rogue servers that infected computers were using.
Federal officials planned to keep their servers online until March, giving everyone opportunity to clean their computers. But it wasn't enough time. A federal judge in New York extended the deadline until July.
Now, said Grasso, "the full court press is on to get people to address this problem." And it's up to computer users to check their PCs.
Hackers infected a network of probably more than 570,000 computers worldwide. They took advantage of vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows operating system to install malicious software on the victim computers.
This turned off antivirus updates and changed the way the computers reconcile website addresses behind the scenes on the Internet's domain name system.
The DNS system is a network of servers that translates a web address , such as www.ap.org, into the numerical addresses that computers use.
Victim computers were reprogrammed to use rogue DNS servers owned by the attackers. This allowed the attackers to redirect computers to fraudulent versions of any website.
The hackers earned profits from advertisements that appeared on websites that victims were tricked into visiting.
The scam netted the hackers at least $14 million, according to the FBI. It also made thousands of computers reliant on the rogue servers for their Internet browsing.
When the FBI and others arrested six Estonians last November, the agency replaced the rogue servers with Vixie's clean ones. Installing and running the two substitute servers for eight months is costing the federal government about $87,000.
The number of victims is hard to pinpoint, but the FBI believes that on the day of the arrests, at least 568,000 unique Internet addresses were using the rogue servers.Five months later, FBI estimates that the number is down to at least 360,000.
The US has the most, about 85,000, federal authorities said. Other countries with more than 20,000 each include Italy, India, England and Germany. Smaller numbers are online in Spain, France, Canada, China and Mexico.
Vixie said most of the victims are probably individual home users, rather than corporations that have technology staffs who routinely check the computers.
FBI officials said they organized an unusual system to avoid any appearance of government intrusion into the Internet or private computers. And while this is the first time the FBI used it, it won't be the last.
"This is the future of what we will be doing," said Eric Strom, a unit chief in the FBI's Cyber Division.
"Until there is a change in legal system, both inside and outside the United States, to get up to speed with the cyber problem, we will have to go down these paths, trail-blazing if you will, on these types of investigations."
Now, he said, every time the agency gets near the end of a cyber case, "we get to the point where we say, how are we going to do this, how are we going to clean the system" without creating a bigger mess than before.Read the full story here.

'October Surprise' in the making? Without Warning, FBI Halts Intel Sharing.

'October Surprise' in the making? Without Warning, FBI Halts Intel Sharing.(PJMedia).The FBI has responded to our exclusive reporting this morning that they had cut off intelligence sharing of Terrorist Screening Center watch encounter reports to fusion centers nationwide. According to several fusion center officials interviewed today, the FBI is now saying that they will resume sending TSC watch encounter reports beginning next Monday. However, these reports will no longer contain Personal Information Intelligence (PII) related to the subject on the terror watch list. As one official said, “This is like promising us free bags of M&Ms, but without the M&Ms. There is practically nothing we can do with these reports without PII, which seems to be the FBI’s intent. They want to keep up the appearance of intel sharing without actually sharing intel.” Without making a public or private announcement, the FBI has ended critical intelligence sharing with all 77 law enforcement fusion centers nationwide. This policy was implemented less than two days after a top FBI official told Congress about the FBI’s extensive efforts to share intelligence with state and local partners. On Monday, a state fusion center official told PJ Media: The FBI has effectively put us out of business. We are right back to September 10. Two other fusion center officials in other states confirmed the FBI’s new policy to PJ Media. On March 1, the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) stopped sharing watch encounter reports with the fusion centers.
The Watch Encounter reports document incidents of individuals on terror watch lists having encounters with state or local law enforcement. Until now, the Watch Encounter reports were forwarded to the fusion center responsible for the area where the encounter occurred. Since the TSC doesn’t share the terror watch lists with the fusion centers, the Watch Encounter reports were the only means that state officials had of knowing that someone on a terror watch list had either traveled to or lived in their area.
On February 28, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Directorate of Intelligence Eric Velez-Villar appeared before the House Homeland Security Counterterrorism and Intelligence Subcommittee. The hearing focused on the FBI’s intelligence sharing with state, local, and tribal law enforcement ten years after the 9/11 attacks. Velez-Villar discussed the importance of the fusion centers in the FBI’s investigative process: Fusion centers maximize our ability to detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity. They assist the FBI by providing information made available by the combination of knowledge, expertise, and information within local law enforcement and homeland security agencies operating throughout the nation, and our participation allows us to provide a national perspective on regional threats and trends so we can better inform decision makers at all levels. The exchange of intelligence that takes place in fusion centers aids other intelligence and law enforcement organizations — including the JTTFs — in their investigative operations and serves as a critical tool for collaboration at all levels. Two days later, the sharing stopped. Said another fusion center official who spoke with PJ Media on Tuesday: After a couple of days our analysts noticed that the reports had stopped coming. No notice, no explanation. Congressional staffers are now investigating, and a key point has been raised in the investigation: it appears the FBI may be required to provide such intelligence to the fusion centers by presidential executive orders and federal law.Hmmm......The Director of the FBI reports directly to the Deputy Attorney General........Holder and Co.Read the full story here.

France: FBI Agent Forgets Secret Obama File....Hmmm....no mention of birth certificate?

France: FBI Agent Forgets Secret Obama File....Hmmm....no mention of a birth certificate?(LF).An FBI agent accidentally left his top secret file on Barack Obama at the counter at a Lebanese restaurant in Cannes, France during the G20 summit last November.
Ultimately, November’s G20 summit was full of gaffes. Let’s start with the private conversation between American president Obama and French president Nicolas Sarkozy that was accidentally broadcast to a host of listening journalists.
But French journalists at the daily Nice Matin recently revealed that an even more dramatic mistake happened the day before when an American FBI agent left a confidential file on the president’s visit at the counter of a local Lebanese restaurant.
“It was a really normal-looking binder,” said Bilal Herche, the manager of the restaurant Al Charq. “I opened it to see and it was then that I understood instantly that it was something crazy.”
The file contained a detailed plan of the 5th floor of the Carlton Hotel, where the American president was supposed to stay during the G20. It also included details on each of his routes, starting with his arrival at the Nice Airport all the way up to his departure.
Unsure what to do next, the restaurant manager finally found the telephone number for the FBI on the internet.
He called and finally managed to convince the agent on the other side of the Atlantic that he was telling the truth by reading the first page of the binder.
As soon as he finished reading, Herche said the American agent’s response was immediate: “Don’t move. We’re on our way.”
The young man didn’t even need to give the FBI his address. They had already traced his cell phone and two agents arrived in his restaurant minutes later.
The two agents returned every day during the G20 to eat lunch in Herche’s restaurant.
Herche, for his part, received the FBI medal of honor.Hmmmm.........He might get a mention in the Michelin guide under "Lost and Found" might be worth a 'Lone Star'?Read the full story here.

FBI May Shut Down Your Internet Access March 8th

                                                             Dees Illustration.

FBI May Shut Down Your Internet Access March 8th.(AP).This March 8th, the FBI is planning to unplug DNS servers it set up to help eliminate malware from over half of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies still infected in early 2012.The change could potentially leave a great number of Internet users without access to the Web.
InfoWorld reports:  ...the feds replaced the criminals' servers with clean ones that would push along traffic to its intended destination. Without the surrogate servers in place, infected PCs would have continued trying to send requests to aim at the now-unplugged rogue servers, resulting in DNS errors.
The malware, called DNSChanger Trojan, is said to illegally redirect traffic and prevent users from accessing the updates necessary to remove it. Without access to these critical patches, these large companies, government agencies, and home users are said to be more susceptible to hackers.
This prompted InfoWorld to wonder: This fact does raise the question of why so many Fortune 500 companies and government agencies have failed to notice they have a problem, as they presumably have IT security professionals on staff who should be monitoring such incidents.Those computers still infected with the Trojan will not be able to access the Internet after the FBI shuts down their temporary servers.The feds received a court order in November, 2011 to replace the "rogue" servers with surrogate servers to operate "just long enough for companies and home users to remove DNSChanger malware from their machines."
Rod Rasmussen, president of Internet security company Internet ID, told Krebs on Security that there are still millions of PCs infected with DNSChanger. “At this rate, a lot of users are going to see their Internet break on March 8.”A working group advising the FBI is said to be considering requesting an extension of the court order to give more time to users of infected machines to remove the malware.
Although this may indeed be a very real problem that Internet users must be vigilant to protect themselves from, depending on the government to provide servers when their own agencies are infected doesn't seem like a trustworthy solution. Additionally, a previous private-government working group put together in 2009 to combat the Conficker Worm has accomplished very little as 3 million computers are still said to be infected.
These viruses are called Trojans because they are disguised as something friendly, enter computers, and then install malicious software. Someone with a healthy distrust of the government may see the FBI's warning that millions will be cut off from the Internet as a Trojan Horse itself so that they may retain control over the new servers.After all, if the FBI is controlling the "legitimate" servers, wouldn't they have access to all the traffic information of individual users and large corporations?
To ensure your computer is not infected please follow the instructions here. And follow Krebs on Security for news updates pertaining to this story.Read the full story here.


Related? Flashback 08 Feb,  MFS- The Other News:

Bill would give DHS broader control of cybersecurity, follows corporate-sponsored MIT study recommendations.(AP).By Madison Ruppert.In December of last year I covered a study conducted by MIT with the help of “advisers” from the exact corporations which would benefit from the implementation of the recommendations of the report, and now it appears that these ideas have made their way all the way to Capitol Hill.This bill, which is reportedly currently before Congress, would give the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) significantly more monitoring power of the cybersecurity practices of private industries and services which are supposedly part of the United States’ critical infrastructure.The details of the bill have yet to be released, and I have not even been able to track down a number for the legislation yet so I can actually read it (if anyone can help me out with this I would be quite grateful).The small portions of the bill which have been made public attempt to define which companies are covered by the bill, although it is hardly as precise as one might like.Furthermore, I find it laughable that any legislation is allowed to be kept from the public at all, although given that our current government refuses to even justify why they think they are able to murder Americans without charge or trial, this is hardly unusual.The companies which will be affected by the bill have systems “whose disruption could result in the interruption of life-sustaining services, catastrophic economic damage or severe degradation of national security capabilities.”As I’m sure you can tell, this leaves a lot of wiggle room, something which legislators and bureaucrats love because it allows them to exploit the legislation as much as possible without technically violating it.A recent article in the Washington Post claims that the bill is just going to allow DHS to inspect the computer systems and networks which fall under this jurisdiction in order to determine if they are sufficiently secured against cybersecurity threats.I’m not sure if DHS and our so-called Representatives are aware, but our own deadly drone fleets are infected with malware. Maybe they should worry about securing the most critical of government systems before beginning to impose themselves on private industries.If they can’t even manage to secure unmanned aerial vehicles or Pentagon networks, who in their right mind would trust them to tell private industries what to do when it comes to securing their networks?This bill would allow the DHS to actually require companies to upgrade their systems and improve security if they decide they do not meet their arbitrary standards.Read the full story here.