Homeland Security DHS

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promoted to primary: migrant mom in solitary via geo gp, fusion ctr spy on occupy

see chad wolf, cuccinelli, edit reports // djt caputo

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blindsided Jan 6 b/c routinely ignored?! twitter saw shitsorm violence coming, but not fusion ctrs?

just security timeline https://www.justsecurity.org/74138/incitement-timeline-year-of-trumps-actions-leading-to-the-attack-on-the-capitol/

Later reports suggest that DHS officials were directed to make sympathetic statements toward Rittenhouse. It is unclear whether these directions originated at the White House or within the DHS press office, NBC reports.

September 8, 2020: Brian Murphy, a whistleblower in the Department of Homeland Security submits a complaint that claims that the two most senior DHS officials tried to suppress threat assessments of white supremacy because it would reflect poorly on President Trump.

The complaint alleges that acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli wanted Murphy to “ specifically modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent ‘left-wing’ groups.” The complaint also alleges that DHS leadership asked Murphy to “modify intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and ‘anarchist’ groups.”

The complaint garners wide media attention.

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federal judge rules Trump's DHS secretary was illegally appointed — so his anti-immigrant moves are invalid

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DHS officials were told to speak positively about the 17-year-old vigilante gunman who allegedly killed two people during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin

NBC News revealed on October 1 that instructions were given to public-facing DHS officials to speak kindly about Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who allegedly killed two people with an AR-15 rifle during protests in Kenosha.

A Media Matters analysis found that the DHS instructions were covered for a total of 27 minutes across the top broadcast and cable news programming -- and 26 of those minutes were on MSNBC. ABC, CNN, and Fox failed to cover the story at all, and NBC and CBS each covered the story for about 30 seconds apiece.

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/14/katharine-gorka-dhs-islam-anti-muslim/

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/22/stephen-paddock-las-vegas-shooting-far-right/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/dhs-officials-told-to-maintain-a-sympathetic-stance-regarding-kyle-rittenhouse-report

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Internal documents reportedly suggest federal law enforcement officials with the Department of Homeland Security were directed to maintain a publicly sympathetic stance regarding Kyle Rittenhouse — the 17-year-old facing murder charges for the fatal shootings of protesters in Kenosha, Wisc.

In preparation for questions from the media regarding the highly publicized shootings, DHS officials were advised to focus on focus on Rittenhouse's initial efforts, according to NBC News. The document, which included multiple talking points regarding the case, advised officials to suggest Rittenhouse "took his rifle to the scene of the rioting to help defend small business owners."

A different set of talking points distributed to officials also discussed the media's depiction of the group, Patriot Prayer. While the media is said to have labeled the group as "racist" following their clash with protesters amid civil unrest in Portland, Ore., DHS officials were reportedly told to dismiss the claims.

It remains unclear whether or not the directives came from the White House but President Donald Trump has shown support for Rittenhouse and law enforcement.

Now, multiple former Homeland Security officials have expressed concern about the handling of internal affairs at the government agency. Peter Boogaard, who served as a spokesperson for Homeland Security under the Obama administration, condemned the reports.

"It is as unprecedented as it is wrong," Boogaard said.

Elizabeth Neumann, who served as DHS's assistant secretary for threat prevention and security policy in the Trump administration, also pointed out one important suggestion that did not appear to be highlighted in the internal talking points.

"What strikes me about the talking points is that they didn't call for calm among the public," Neumann said. "Even in the early hours after the incident, it was known private militias had self-deployed. …They seemed more interested in Rittenhouse's reputation than calling for calm and actual law and order."

The latest regarding Kyle Rittenhouse follows multiple reports about the staggering number of donations he has received through fundraising efforts sphere headed by a Christian crowdfunding website. According to Rittenhouse's lawyer, the Christian has received more than $1 million in donations from more than 11,000 donors.

As of Monday night, a total of $605,550 had been donated to the FightBack Foundation for Rittenhouse's legal fund. Another $534,000 had also been donated to Rittenhouse through the Christian fundraising platform GiveSendGo. However, all funds will ultimately be transferred to the FightBack Foundation.

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upping fees for immig struck down by ct in part b/c gig not official

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/adam-schiff-accuses-trump-administration-of-obstruction-in-probe-of-dhs-whistleblower/

House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff accused the Trump administration of obstructing his investigation of a whistleblower in the Department of Homeland Security.

In response to this "obstruction," Schiff has issued subpoenas for the department and for its acting head of intelligence.

The power struggle arose from the investigation into claims from Brian Murphy, a DHS intelligence official who has alleged misconduct, illegality, and improper political influence from his superiors. In particular, he has claimed that he was instructed to ignore and downplay intelligence on threats from Russia and white supremacy while focusing instead on China, Iran, and left-wing domestic actors like "antifa."

But as Schiff has tried to investigate these striking allegations, DHS is putting up roadblocks.

According to the letter, Murphy's lawyers have been attempting to get a security clearance from the administration so that they can discuss sensitive matters with their client and appropriately advise him in his interactions with the committee. This is a routine process that should not be subject to political or partisan interference, but Schiff said it has been improperly delayed....

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homeland Security gave $6M in contracts to firm where acting secretary's wife is executive: report

:{:{ALEX HENDERSON - ALTERNET:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::(style="box-sizing:border-box;text-transform:uppercase"):}:

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/department-of-homeland-security-acting-secretary-chad-wolf-speaks-at-an-event-at-dhs-headquarters-in-washington-wednesday-sept-9-2020-ap-photo-susan-walsh-dhs-whistleblower-accuses-chad-wolf-of/

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For weeks, Donald Trump ordered a rag-tag mix of border patrol, U. S. marshals, and other elements of federal enforcement—none of them trained to deal with the public—into the streets of Portland, Oregon, where they upped the level of violence, grabbed people off the street without charges, and savagelybeat a group of local moms trying to get them to halt their violence. After some weeks, Trump finally decided he’d done enough to generate footage for his doom-themed campaign commercials (with a few supplements) and took his beat-down squad off the streets.

Understandably, Congress would like to talk to the people who thought that dragging people into unmarked vans, shooting journalists in the face, defying local officials, and filling the streets with banned chemical weapons was a great idea. They’ve asked officials form the Department of Homeland Security to provide witnesses about the incident in Portland, and about ongoing efforts to create a make-believe threat of “antifa terrorists” to justify their actions, while ignoring their own analysisshowing the genuine threat posed by white supremacist groups.

At the same time, Congress is dealing with a whistleblower complaintfrom a former DHS official who says that Wolf ordered him to stop trying to both stop prevent Russian interference, and instead create a false narrative about China and Iran. That same officials says that the white supremacist threat was deliberately played down as DHS suppressed information that might be “embarrassing” to Trump. But the DHS has decided that it doesn’t want to talk about any of this. Instead, it’s refusing to provide witnesses to the House intelligence Committee, setting off yet another conflict between a Congress that needs to know the truth, and a White House that needs to keep the truth hidden.

Failing to cooperate with Congress in any way has become the hallmark of the Donald Trump White House. Statements that re supposed to be regularly provided to the House, are not being sent. Standard briefings are being halted. And from the moment he sat down, Trump has been bypassing Congress entirely with an unprecedented number of executive orders and the use of a national emergency declarationto get around the congressional budget.

as The Washington Post reports, DHS has sent a response to Congress saying that they simply have too many questions. They have “unreasonably broadened their scope” after getting the whistleblower complaint from former DHS official Brian Murphy who says he was twice told to stop reporting about the threat of Russian interference in the election—in spite of compelling evidence that Russia is absolutely interfering in the election. Murphy also reports that he was told to remove statements about white supremacists “to bring them in line with President Trump’s public comments.” Among his claims, Murphy says that a July analysis that showed Russia interfering in a way designed to help Trump was not released because “it was embarrassing to Trump.”

DHS officials have denied Murphy’s charges and claimed they are “looking forward” to an investigation. Except for the part where they cooperate with that investigation.

But DHS has tried to explain to Congress that everything is just fine. Rather than having anyone answer questions, assistant secretary Beth Spivey provided committee chair Adam Schiff with an email in which whistleblower Murphy says that “The acting secretary has never given me any direction on what to do Regarding [sic] threats,” only … it’s not a whole email. It’s just a that text from a larger statement … text that looks suspiciously as if even that tiny scrap has been edited.

Schiff has said the Intelligence Committee will consider “compulsory process” to force witnesses to appear, but so far the House has been unwilling to move forward with steps that would prevent the White House from simply turning any effort to pull in witnesses into a months-long court battle.

trump’s political henchmen are corrupting the administration to keep Americans in the dark

Heather Cox Richardson / BillMoyers.comSeptember 13, 2020

September 12, 2020 Last night, at about 10:30, reporter Dan Diamond posted another blockbuster story in Politico. Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have been altering the weekly…

https://theintercept.com/2020/09/12/homeland-security-whistleblower-corruption/

If CHAD WOLF, the man currently running the largest law enforcement agency in the country, had any idea of what was coming, he didn’t show it. On Wednesday, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security stood before his colleagues and delivered the 2020 “State of the Homeland Address,” detailing the many ways in which his department was living up to its post-9/11 mission and supporting President Donald Trump’s agenda. Everyone on the DHS livestream was socially distanced and wearing masks — everyone, that is, but KenCuccinelli, the department’s “senior official performing the duties of the deputy secretary.”

Last month, the Government Accountability Office issued a report concluding that both Wolf and Cuccinelli are illegally occupying their positions atop DHS. But what the two men lack in legal authorization to work, they make up for in fealty to the president. Teeing up the crowd for Wolf’s remarks this week, Cuccinelli spoke of threats to “our cherished homeland” and said that “after decades of putting globalinterests ahead of the safety and the prosperity of our citizens, this administration has boldly put America first.”

Wolf, a former Transportation Security Administration lobbyist, struck a similar tone in his prepared remarks, drawing applause when he mentioned Homeland Security’s role in policing protests in Portland, Oregon, and his department’s ongoing efforts to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. The event had just barely concluded when the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence published a 24-page whistleblower complaint accusing Wolf, Cuccinelli, and other current and former DHS leaders, including former Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was also present at Wednesday’s address, of illegally manipulating and politicizing intelligence to bolster the president’s talking points and policy objectives in numerous ways across multiple years.

The man behind the complaint was Brian Murphy, a war on terror veteran who ran Homeland Security intelligence operations and served as a principle adviser to the secretary of DHS and the director of national security. Though complicated by the fact that Murphy himself had previously been accused of overseeing disturbing surveillance practices earlier this year, the whistleblower complaint marked the latest revelation in a long line of stories suggesting that DHS has become the armed extension of a Trumpian political project.

Murphy’s allegations ranged from inflating the number of known or suspected terrorists crossing the border, to the suppression of intelligence on right-wing terrorists, to the stifling of reports on Russian interference in the coming election. Murphy claimed that his efforts to push back on the senior DHS officials were met with retaliation and a demotion. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chair of the intelligence committee, described his complaint as “grave and disturbing,” adding in a statement, “We will get to the bottom of this, expose any and all misconduct or corruption to the American people, and put a stop to the politicization of intelligence."

john Sandweg, a former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the politicization of Homeland Security operations under the Trump administration has been “tremendous,” and that it first began in the border and immigration realms and steadily expanded to include militarized Border Patrol BORTAC units deployed to arrest protesters in a major American city against the wishes of local officials.

“It’s at the point now where it’s really undermining the operational capability of DHS to work with the state and local governments,” Sandweg told The Intercept. “There’s going to be repercussions.”

In his complaint, Murphy claimed that in a series of meetings, Wolf and Cuccinelli personally intervened in an effort to doctor information related to the recent protests surrounding the killing of George Floyd, instructing him to “modify intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and ‘anarchist’ groups.” Murphy also claimed that the men improperly inserted themselves in the creation of a “Homeland Treat Assessment” report earlier this year, blocking circulation of the document out of concerns over how it “would reflect upon President Trump.”

“Two sections were specifically labeled as concerns: White Supremacy and Russian influence in the United States,” Murphy’s complaint said. The complaint went on to describe a series of meetings in May and June, as protests against police brutality spread to every state in the country, in which “Mr. Cuccinelli stated that Mr. Murphy needed to specifically modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent ‘left-wing’ groups.”

Murphy’s allegations come two months after an investigation by The Intercept that analyzed a trove of hacked law enforcement documents that were posted online under the title “BlueLeaks.” The materials included documents produced at the local, state, and federal level, including Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, otherwise known as I&A, where Murphy worked. The Intercept’s analysis focused on hundreds of documents produced during the recent protests that referenced “antifa,” a loose movement of antifascist political activists, and revealed glaring disparities between law enforcement’s depiction of groups on the right and the left.

In the case of antifa, the documents revealed that law enforcement intelligence was often vague, mixed up in online conspiracy theories or untethered to evidence of suspected criminal activity. On the far right, on the other hand, the documents showed law enforcement agencies across the country sharing detailed and specific information on the mobilization of armed groups looking to use the unrest as cover to attack law enforcement and protesters and set off a civil war. In July, the sergeant of an elite Air Force security unit with ties to the so-called boogaloo movement was arrested on suspicion of assassinating a federal court security officer and killing a California sheriff’s deputy, strongly suggesting that the online threats circulating at the time went beyond mere posturing.

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During the protests, I&A shared intelligence that was both dubious and disturbing. On June 2, for example, the office circulated a tweet to law enforcement agencies across the country reporting that antifa was stashing bricks to “fuel protests.” As Mainer magazine later reported, the original source of the information was a pro-Trump biker who called himself “the wolfman” and previously spread conspiracy theories online.

At the same time, I&A circulated intelligence in late May detailing conversations inside an encrypted white supremacist Telegram channel, in which thousands of followers were encouraged to use guns, Molotov cocktails, and chainsaws to attack police and “spread racial hatred.” The following day, I&A published an intelligence note again describing conversations in another white supremacist Telegram channel, in which followers were encouraged to “engage in violence and start the ‘boogaloo’ — a term used by some violent extremists to refer to the start of a second Civil War — by shooting in a crowd.”

At the time, Trump, along with Wolf, Cuccinelli, and U.S. Attorney General William Barr were agitating for a crackdown on antifa, with Trump calling the movement a terrorist organization and Barr announcing that Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country would be called to root out leftist “agitators.”

The Justice Department has launched hundreds of domestic terrorism investigations in the weeks since, while a Trump Super Pac has used the antifa crackdown to raise money for the president’s reelection efforts.

On June 1, Trump boosted a tweet from Brian Kilmeade, in which the “Fox and Friends” co-host said he saw no evidence of white supremacists mobilizing in response to the protests. “TRUE!” Trump tweeted. Later in the day, Trump delivered an address in the Rose Garden threatening to use the military in response to the “professional anarchists” and antifa elements in the streets. He made no mention of groups on the far right. The next morning, DHS circulated a report acknowledging “media reports” indicating “that neo-Nazi, and other paramilitary far-right groups, are calling for terror attacks during the ongoing unrest throughout the United States.” According to a distribution list at the bottom of the report, the document was shared with the White House Situation Room, DHS headquarters, federal interagency operations centers, and state and local partners.

Despite the intelligence circulating in his own office regarding threats from the far right, Cuccinelli continued to keep the focus on the left, tweeting, “Their silence is deafening. Cities across America burn at the hands of antifa and anarchists while many political leaders are refusing to call it what it is: domestic terrorism.”

Murphy and his office drew national attention in late July, when news broke that I&A had disseminated three Open Source Intelligence Reports summarizing the tweets of a New York Times reporter and the editor of a prominent Washington, D.C. national security blog; both had published unclassified DHS documents related to the Portland protests. At the time, Wolf said he had ordered a stop to the intelligence gathering and launched an investigation into the matter. Murphy was singled out as the official driving the intelligence collection, with sources telling the Washington Post that the former FBI agent had “earned a reputation at DHS for aggressively trying to expand the operations of the intelligence office.”

In his complaint, Murphy said the media reports concerning the collection of information on journalists were “significantly flawed and, in many instances, contained completely erroneous assertions,” and that “I&A never knowingly or deliberately collected information on journalists, at least as far as Mr. Murphy is aware or ever authorized.”

The expansive network of law enforcement fusion centers where I&A directs much of its work product have been the subject of years of criticism for exhibiting a “persistent pattern of violating Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, producing unreliable and ineffective information, and resisting financial and other types of standard public accountability.” As The Intercept reported in late July, I&A under Trump has repeatedly directed its intelligence-gathering efforts at immigration advocates on the border. DHS officials in San Diego oversaw a sweeping, binational intelligence-gathering operation targeting lawyers, journalists, and asylum advocates associated with the migrant caravans that became a key political talking point for the Trump administration during the 2018 midterm elections.

Federal Agents at Protests Renew Calls to Dismantle Homeland Security

It is unclear what role, if any, Murphy played in those events, though his complaint notes that during his March 2018 to July 2020 tenure, he was “responsible for all intelligence activities in DHS.” He has been called to testify before Congress later this month, where those questions may come up.

Throughout the past three and half years, the leadership of DHS has been steadily hollowed out, resulting in a department increasingly run by allies of Trump’s anti-immigration adviser, Stephen Miller. To many Homeland Security veterans, the ascent of Wolf and Cuccinelli is the disturbing encapsulation of that trend — one former DHS official, speaking to The Intercept on background, described Wolf as a “back bencher” and “literally a joke.”

On Thursday, one day after Murphy’s complaint made news across the country, the White House sent a letter to the Senate formally nominating Wolf to head DHS. Twenty-four hours later, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, subpoenaed Wolf to testifybefore his committee, noting in a statement that the acting secretary had been dodging the lawmakers’ questions since protests picked up in June.

“This administration has so completely fueled the negative stereotype of the agency, that is going to have real world implications for the agency for years to come, not just in dealing with Congress,” Sandweg said. “I think they’ve done incalculable damage.”

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/7-bombshell-allegations-in-a-damning-new-trump-administration-whistleblower-report/

a new whistleblower complaint from U.S. Department of Homeland Security employee Brian Murphy released Wednesday provided a slew of provocative and disturbing allegations of criminal behavior and abuse of authority within the Trump administration.

The document was released by the House Intelligence Committee, and it actually summarizes numerous previous complaints that Murphy, the principal deputy under secretary for the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, has previously filed with the inspector general.The complaint alleged that he has since faced professional retaliation from his superiors because of his previous allegations, despite the fact that he is protected from such actions by federal law.

While the retaliation is condemnable on its own, most striking are the series of allegations the complaint described. It paints a picture of a department completely warped by the president’s distorted priorities and determined to cater to his whims and prejudices, regardless of the facts — sometimes putting the country in danger.

Here are seven key details:

1. Murphy said he was illegally directed to manipulate intelligence assessments to support aggressive border policies.

On or about October 29, 2018, Mr. Glawe informed Mr. Murphy that instructions from Mr. Taylor and Ms. Marquadt had been issued for Mr. Murphy to ensure the intelligence assessments he produced for Secretary Nielsen’s review supported the policy argument that large numbers of KSTs were entering the United States through the southwest border. Mr. Murphy declined to censor or manipulate the intelligence information, viewing it as an improper administration of an intelligence program, and stated to Mr. Glawe that doing what was being requested would constitute a felony.

2. The complaint makes a compelling case that former DHS Secretary Kirtjen Nielsen repeatedly and deliberately lied to Congress to exaggerate the threat at the border.

Murphy said that the secretary purposely tried to blur the distinction between “Known or Suspected Terrorists” (KSTs) and other categories of migrants, thereby misleadingly suggesting the border posed a greater threat of terrorism than it actually does. Even after he explained these distinctions to Nielsen, Murphy said, she consistently misled Congress about the matter:

Prior to Secretary Nielsen’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on December 20, 2018, Mr. Murphy attended a preparation session that went over the information within the proposed testimony. During that session, Mr. Murphy sought to clarify for Secretary Nielsen the distinction between a KST and a Special Interest Alien (“SIA”). An SIA is a term of art created by U.S. Customs and Border Protection meant to describe a category of migrants who come from countries where there is a significant terrorism threat but regarding whom there is no individualized basis for suspecting the person is themselves a terrorist. An SIA does not constitute a KST.

Notwithstanding the clarification provided by Mr. Murphy, he has a good faith belief that the testimony Secretary Nielsen subsequently provided on December 20, 2018, regarding KSTs constituted a knowing and deliberate submission of false material information. This assessment formed the basis of the anonymous OIG complaint Mr. Murphy submitted on November 2, 2018. On January 9, 2019, without consulting with Messrs. Glawe or Murphy, DHS issued a document – apparently crafted by Messrs. Wolf and Taylor, and Ms. Marquadt – entitled “Myth/Fact: Known and Suspected Terrorists/Special Interest Aliens”. The document contained erroneous information regarding the number of KSTs and SIAs encountered along the southwest border.

On March 5, 2019, Mr. Murphy participated in another preparation session with Secretary Nielsen, this time in advance of her testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security. Messrs. Wolf and Taylor were also present. During the session, Mr. Murphy provided Secretary Nielsen with documentation reflecting that the number of documented KSTs crossing the southwest border only consisted of no more than three individuals, not 3,755 individuals as she had previously attested to in her testimony on December 20, 2018. 3 Mr. Wolf and Mr. Taylor responded by saying Secretary Nielsen should claim the details were classified, state any KST crossing was one too many and deflect away from addressing the significant discrepancy in the data. Mr. Murphy advised Secretary Nielsen that he did not believe that was appropriate, and noted that the few “known” KSTs who were apprehended were derivative contacts, in so much as they merely had a name or phone number of a person who was known to be in contact with a terrorist. At that point, Mr. Murphy was removed from the meeting by Mr. Wolf. He then informed Messrs. Glawe and Hanna what transpired that evening.

It is Mr. Murphy’s good faith belief that the testimony Secretary Nielsen delivered on March 6, 2019, regarding KSTs again constituted a knowing and deliberate submission of false material information. Mr. Murphy outlined that assessment in his anonymous May 13, 2019, OIG complaint.

3. Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli illegally tried to distort intelligence reports he viewed as too favorable to asylum seekers, claiming they were concocted by the “Deep State,” the complaint said.

In December 2019, Mr. Murphy attended a meeting with Messrs. Cuccinelli and Glawe to discuss intelligence reports regarding conditions in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The intelligence reports were designed to help asylum officers render better determinations regarding their legal standards. Mr. Murphy’s team at DHS I&A completed the intelligence reports and he presented them to Mr. Cuccinelli in the meeting. Mr. Murphy defended the work in the reports, but Mr. Cuccinelli stated he wanted changes to the information outlining high levels of corruption, violence, and poor economic conditions in the three respective countries. Mr. Cuccinelli expressed frustration with the intelligence reports, and he accused unknown “deep state intelligence analysts” of compiling the intelligence information to undermine President Donald J. Trump’s (“President Trump”) policy objectives with respect to asylum. Notwithstanding Mr. Murphy’s response that the intelligence reports’ assessments were consistent with past assessments made for several years, Mr. Cuccinelli ordered Messrs. Murphy and Glawe to identify the names of the “deep state” individuals who compiled the intelligence reports and to either fire or reassign them immediately.

After the meeting, Mr. Murphy informed Mr. Glawe that Mr. Cuccinelli’s instructions were illegal, as well as constituted an abuse of authority and improper administration of an intelligence program.

4. Under Secretary David Glawe was reportedly almost fired by Trump after he testified about the threat posed by Russian election interference.

In approximately September 2018, Mr. Glawe testified in front of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Mr. Murphy was not present during the testimony. Immediately following that hearing, Mr. Glawe informed Mr. Murphy that he had been “challenged” by Republican members of the Committee regarding Mr. Glawe’s confirmation of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Mr. Glawe was subsequently summoned to the White House a few days after his testimony. Mr. Glawe informed Mr. Murphy that Secretary Nielsen had warned him that President Trump had demanded Mr. Glawe be fired. However, Secretary Nielsen and White House Chief of Staff, John Kelly, had convinced President Trump to “give Glawe another chance”. After that meeting at the White House, Mr. Glawe informed Mr. Murphy that while he (Mr. Glawe) would continue to support him on most matters he (Mr. Murphy) was on his own when it came to election interference assessments.

5. Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf told Murphy to stop reporting on Russian interference and to focus on China and Iran, which Murphy believed “would put the country in substantial and specific danger,” the complaint said.

In mid-May 2020, Mr. Wolf instructed Mr. Murphy to cease providing intelligence assessments on the threat of Russian interference in the United States, and instead start reporting on interference activities by China and Iran. Mr. Wolf stated that these instructions specifically originated from White House National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien. Mr. Murphy informed Mr. Wolf he would not comply with these instructions, as doing so would put the country in substantial and specific danger.

6. Officials were concerned that discussing the threats posed by white supremacists and Russian intelligence operations would reflect badly on Trump, and they preferred that Murphy’s team work on “violent ‘left-wing’ groups” like “antifa.”

These changes would clearly better match Trump’s preferred rhetoric, though not reality.

In March 2020, Mr. Murphy’s team at DHS I&A completed a Homeland [Threat] Assessment (“HTA”). Completion of the HTA was a requirement set forth by Acting Secretary Kevin McCleenan prior to his departure from DHS. Mr. Murphy was intimately involved in the editing and crafting of the HTA. Following its completion, the HTA was distributed by Mr. Glawe to Messrs. Wolf, Cuccinelli, and Gountanis. Shortly after the distribution, Mr. Glawe was informed that further distribution of the HTA was prohibited due to concerns raised by Messrs. Wolf and Cuccinelli regarding how the HTA would reflect upon President Trump. Two sections were specifically labeled as concerns: White Supremacy and Russian influence in the United States. Mr. Murphy stated to Mr. Glawe that this constituted an abuse of authority by Messrs. Wolf and Cuccinelli, and Mr. Glawe concurred with that assessment.

In May 2020, Mr. Glawe retired, and Mr. Murphy assumed the role of Acting Under Secretary. In May 2020 and June 2020, Mr. Murphy had several meetings with Mr. Cuccinelli regarding the status of the HTA. Mr. Cuccinelli stated that Mr. Murphy needed to specifically modify the section on White Supremacy in a manner that made the threat appear less severe, as well as include information on the prominence of violent “left-wing” groups. Mr. Murphy declined to make the requested modifications, and informed Mr. Cuccinelli that it would constitute censorship of analysis and the improper administration of an intelligence program.

…

During multiple meetings between the end of May 2020 and July 31, 2020, Mr. Murphy made protected disclosures to Messrs. Wolf and Cuccinelli regarding abuse of authority and improper administration of an intelligence program with respect to intelligence information on ANTIFA and “anarchist” groups operating throughout the United States. On each occasion, Mr. Murphy was instructed by Mr. Wolf and/or Mr. Cuccinelli to modify intelligence assessments to ensure they matched up with the public comments by President Trump on the subject of ANTIFA and “anarchist” groups. Mr. Murphy declined to modify any of the intelligence assessments based upon political rhetoric, and advised both officials he would only report accurate intelligence information as collected by DHS I&A.

7. Classified material

Much of what is concerning about the complaint is what it doesn’t mention. At several points, the complaint makes clear it can’t repeat the substance of allegations regarding DHS officials because the material involved is classified. This is particularly concerning because other parts of the complaint indicate that officials abused the classification system to cover up embarrassing or inconvenient facts.

Additional point: One interesting point to note is that Murphy tried to push back on some reporting that was critical of DHS because it supposedly implied falsely that DHS was collecting intelligence information on journalists and reporters.

Murphy claims this didn’t happen. Putting aside the particulars, this detail in the report may be seen as bolstering Murphy’s credibility. Defenders of the administration will likely argue he’s a disgruntled employee trying to hurt Trump and DHS, but it’s notable that he seems to be willing to defend the department when he thinks the facts have been unfairly reported. This suggests Murphy is someone who cares about getting to the truth, rather someone who is trying to hurt the president and the administration no matter the cost:

To be unequivocally clear, the press reporting was significantly flawed and, in many instances, contained completely erroneous assertions. For example, DHS I&A never knowingly or deliberately collected information on journalists, at least as far as Mr. Murphy is aware or ever authorized. There were, to be sure, efforts to track publicly available media reporting that included information that had been leaked from the U.S. Government, including publicly-accessible posts by journalists on social media, but DHS I&A did not seek authorization to and was not engaging in surveillance of journalists’ private data.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/a-critic-of-the-russian-government-sought-asylum-in-the-us-and-was-treated-shamefully-under-trump/

Gregory Duralev has been seeking asylum in the United States since 2016 after exposing corruption in Russia’s economy. It’s no exaggeration to say that this could be a matter of life or death, when critics of the Russian government continue to die “mysteriously.” But Politico’s Natasha Bertrand reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has sought to deport Duralev to exactly that—and even as he’s been allowed to legally remain in the U.S. while his asylum claim plays out.

“Duralev has no criminal record in the U.S. or Russia,” Bertrand reported. “Nor do Russia and the United States have a formal extradition treaty. But he was arrested, deemed a flight risk and denied bond, he says, because of a Red Notice issued by Russia and shared with POLITICO. Experts who have reviewed the document say it was so incomplete and riddled with inaccuracies that it was nearly incomprehensible.”

The *Atlantic* in 2018 described Interpol-issued Red Notices as “the closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today,” though it “cannot compel any member country to arrest an individual who is the subject of a Red Notice, according to its guidelines.” Per the Justice Department, the Atlantic said, “the United States does not consider a Red Notice alone to be a sufficient basis for the arrest of a subject because it does not meet the requirements for arrest under the 4th Amendment to the Constitution.”

But during the Trump administration, Kremlin-demanded Red Notices “are being met with increasing deference by the Department of Homeland Security,” the Atlantic continued.

Duralev could now be its next victim. He was detained by ICE when he was arriving for a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) appointment that he assumed was part of his asylum process. It wasn’t. ICE under the Trump administration has in fact detained many other immigrants in this same “bait and switch” deceit, with a Maryland judge earlier this year issuing an injunction blocking mass deportation agents from sweeping up immigrants who were detained when they arrived for what they also assumed were immigration interviews.

Duralev was detained for 18 months, at one point “placed in protective custody and told to know his ‘place’” after complaining about his treatment, Politico continued. He tried asking both the immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals to let him fight his case in freedom, but that was denied due to the faulty Red Notice. “The fact that immigration judges are relying on Russian Red Notices to penalize Russians who have fallen out with the state makes no legal sense,” Bill Browder, another activist previously targeted by the Kremlin, told Politico. “It shouldn’t happen. It’s illegal and it’s unjust.”

But that’s ICE, and the Trump administration. Federal immigration officials have also resumed wide-scale sweepsin the middle of a pandemic, detaining more than 2,000 people in July and August to keep filling up inhumane and dangerous detention facilities that advocates have said should instead be emptied due to the novel coronavirus. ICE has in fact actively made the crisis in these facilities worse, by shifting detained people from facility to facility instead of just releasing them.

Politico reports that while Duralev was finally released in February, he could still face deportation. “In the meantime, from his home in California, Duralev is now pursuing a civil lawsuit against DHS for ‘fabricating charges’ against him—accusing him of illegal visa overstay, despite USCIS allowing him to remain in the U.S. pending an asylum decision. He has also sent a complaint to the DHS inspector general, which has yet to be answered.” Duralev told Politico that “DHS has acted no better than the Russian authorities.”

Trump administration’s top officials at the Department of Homeland Security—Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli—were illegally appointed to their positions, the Government Accountability Office said Friday.

The decision from the internal government watchdog states that the appointments were not in compliance with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act or Homeland Security Act.

Kirstjen Nielsen is trying to cover up the horrors she enacted at DHS with a barrage of lies720 an Gabe Ortiz / Daily kos

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/dhs-threatens-netflix-filmmakers-to-keep-damning-footage-from-airing-before-the-election-report/

On Thursday, The New York Times reported that a pair of Netflix filmmakers shooting a behind-the-scenes documentary about President Donald Trump’s immigration policy were threatened by federal officials, ordered to delete footage unflattering to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers, and told to delay release of the documentary until after the 2020 election.

“In early 2017, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepared to carry out the hard-line agenda on which President Trump had campaigned, agency leaders jumped at the chance to let two filmmakers give a behind-the-scenes look at the process,” reported Caitlin Dickerson. “But as the documentary neared completion in recent months, the administration fought mightily to keep it from being released until after the 2020 election.After granting rare access to parts of the country’s powerful immigration enforcement machinery that are usually invisible to the public, administration officials threatened legal action and sought to block parts of it from seeing the light of day.”

“In heated phone calls and emails, they said, [an] official pushed to delay publication of the series, currently set to air on Netflix next month,” continued the report. “He warned that the federal government would use its ‘full weight’ to veto scenes it found objectionable. Several times, the filmmakers said, the official pointed out that it was their ‘little production company,’ not the film’s $125 billion distributor, that would face consequences. The filmmakers said they were told that the administration’s anger over the project came from ‘all the way to the top.'”

According to the report, the filmmakers responded by “using an encrypted messaging service to communicate with their production team,” putting security cameras in their office, and concealing the hard drives on which they were storing raw footage.

over the past four years, immigration policy has been one of the most controversial and contentious aspects of the Trump presidency, from the Muslim travel ban, to the “zero tolerance” family separation policy, to the recent effort to exclude undocumented immigrants from apportionment, which experts consider unconstitutional.

You can read more here.

:{Wyden:(style="border:0px solid black;box-sizing:border-box;display:inline;font-style:inherit;font-variant:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;white-space:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;min-width:0px"):}:

A peaceful protester in Portland was shot in the head by one of Donald Trump’s secret police. Now Trump and Chad Wolf are weaponizing the DHS as their own occupying army to provoke violence on the streets of my hometown because they think it plays well with right-wing media.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Wolf

**^3** Elaine Duke served as acting secretary in her capacity as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security.(after kelley quit?)

**^4** Kevin McAleenan served as acting secretary in his capacity as Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.(after k nielsen fired/bailed?)

**^5** Chad Wolf serves as acting secretary in his capacity as Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Strategy, Policy, and Plans. his # is COOCH?!, not legally in job?!

https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/1151617/

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) authorized domestic surveillance to identify threats against monuments and statues in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting vandalism against federal memorials, according to a department memo obtained by Lawfare.

The document, issued by the DHS Office of Intelligence & Analysis, described “Activities in Furtherance of Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, Statues and Combatting Recent Criminal Violence.”

The document says DHS personnel are “collecting and reporting on various activities in the context of elevated threats targeting monuments, memorials and statues.” It also provides legal guidance on the “expanded intelligence activities necessary to mitigate the significant threat to homeland security” posed by threats to statues.

Senior DHS official Ken Cuccinelli appeared to refer to intelligence gathering on protests during a Monday interview with CNN.

AD REMOVED FOR SUBSCRIBED USER

“We got intelligence about planned attacks on federal facilities,” he said in response to questions about the administration’s controversial deployment of federal authorities to Portland. “If we get the same kind of intelligence in other places about threats to other facilities or officers, we would respond the same way.”

But the memo “makes clear that the authorized intelligence activity covers significantly more than just planned attacks on federal personnel or facilities,” wrote Benjamin Wittes, a Lawfare editor, and Steve Vladeck, a national security law expert at the University of Texas School of Law. “It appears to also include planned vandalism of Confederate (and other historical) monuments and statues, whether federally owned or not.”

The document provides legal guidance to personnel detailing what kind of intelligence collection is appropriate. The document was issued after Trump signed an executive order on June 26 reasserting that the federal government would prosecute “any person or any entity that destroys, damages, vandalizes or desecrates a monument, memorial or statue within the United States or otherwise vandalizes government property.”

The order directed Attorney General William Barr to work with local law enforcement to pursue investigations and prosecutions of alleged monument and statue vandals “regardless of whether such structures are situated on federal property.”

Though the order was “widely mocked for not doing anything” since a 2003 statute already made it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison to damage any “any structure, plaque, statue or other monument on public property commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States,”Wittes and Vladeck wrote, the DHS appears to be “interpreting the June executive order as defining a new homeland security priority — one that actually justifies intelligence collection.”

The document says the legal guidance is “specific to expanded intelligence activities necessary to mitigate the significant threat to homeland security articulated in the president’s executive order of June 26, 2020.”

It specifically authorizes personnel to “engage in physical surveillance, the use of mail covers and the use of monitoring devices only to the extent permitted by and consistent with [rules limiting their use to counterintelligence investigations].”

“I&A personnel are not permitted to engage in electronic surveillance or unconsented physical searches,” it adds. “Use of these techniques within the United States will be coordinated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

This means, Wittes and Vladeck wrote, that protesters can “reasonably expect that there will be ongoing DHS collection and analysis of public source information” and likely the social media posts of demonstrators.

The document states that this intelligence collection is authorized in response to threats of violence and threats to damage government facilities. But it also adds that it can be used in response to “threats to damage or destroy any public monument, memorial or statue (MMS).”

The memo clarifies that the surveillance cannot be used “for the sole purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment or the lawful exercise of other constitutional or legal rights, or for the purpose of suppressing or burdening criticism or dissent.” Officials must “establish reasonable belief” that the intelligence collection supports one of the stated missions.

“You may collect information about (i) threats to MMS; (ii) individuals or groups that pose such threats, or their tactics, techniques or procedures (TTPs); and (iii) information that otherwise informs an overall assessment that threats to MMS will materialize,” the memo says, adding that “persons merely engaging in non-violent protest activities near MMS or making hyperbolic statements about MMS likely do not constitute a threat to MMS.”

A “‘threat to MMS’ means the infliction of any damage sufficient to impede the purpose or function of the MMS,” the memo continues.

The document goes on to add that any information collected which does not relate to one of the stated missions must be purged within 180 days. Information retained by the agency can be disseminated to other federal, state and local law enforcement in advance of any of the stated missions.

The memo drew concerns from legal experts.

“It is unpersuasive, because it should be obvious that vandalism and other damage to monuments, even federal monuments, does not threaten the security of the homeland to any greater extent than most property crimes,” Wittes and Vladeck wrote. “The premise is alarming, because it uses the cover of minor property damage, whether to federal property or otherwise, to justify intelligence gathering against ordinary Americans — most of whom have nothing to do with the underlying property damage, and many of whom are engaged in the most American of activities: peacefully protesting their government.”

see portland secret police, retaliation, threat to pull $

Oregon

State law passed in 1987: "Oregon Revised Statute 181.850, which prohibits law enforcement officers at the state, county or municipal level from enforcing federal immigration laws that target people based on their race or ethnic origin, when those individuals are not suspected of any criminal activities.^[169][170]

Beaverton city council passed a resolution in January 2017 stating, in part, "The City of Beaverton is committed to living its values as a welcoming city for all individuals ...regardless of a person's ... immigration status" and that they would abide by Oregon state law of not enforcing federal immigration laws.^[171]
Corvallis^[172]
Portland^[173]

same day! COVID info

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/white-house-to-oust-dhhs-inspector-general-whose-report-drew-trump-fury/

an 520

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/trump-administrations-serial-ig-purges-fuel-calls-for-anti-corruption-provisions-in-next-covid-19-package/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-white-house-ignores-bipartisan-group-of-senators-demanding-explanation-for-firing-of-former-intelligence-ig/

an 320

vacancies at the top of the Homeland Security Department threaten coronavirus response

Laura Clawson / Daily Kos

The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of implementing some of Donald Trump’s favorite policies.

*****

We’ve noted the regime’s past hostility toward investigating white supremacist terrorism. This week, CREW sued the Department of Homeland Security for refusing to turn over documents “that would explain former-DHS Advisor for Policy Katharine Gorka’s involvement in revoking grants combating white supremacy and white nationalism.” Gorka is the wife of Sebastian Gorka, the fascist former deputy assistant to Trump.

Before joining the government, [Katharine] Gorka was a contributing author of Breitbart, a website favored by white nationalists and white supremacists. While Gorka was a DHS official, DHS focused almost exclusively on combating Islamic extremism while reducing or eliminating funding of programs to combat white supremacy. DHS even reportedly considered renaming the DHS Countering Violent Task Force to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.”

This comes in the wake of leaked emails revealing that senior White House advisor Stephen Miller, the regime’s point-person on immigration and refugee policy–sent a bunch of white supremacist claptrap to his sources at Breitbart.

*****

Ileana Garcia, a co-founder of the campaign’s Latinas for Trump, was appointed in October as deputy press secretary in the Department of Homeland Security.

Todd Thurman, a Heritage Foundation staffer who used to write for the Daily Signal and Breitbart, was appointed as the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s digital strategy specialist in September.

https://projects.propublica.org/trump-town/staffers/ileana-ydolia-garcia

Antonin Scalia, the namesake grandson of the late Supreme Court justice, was appointed in September as a temporary assistant in the State Department. Scalia graduated from college last year. Scalia and the State Department did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comments.

Do you know something about one of the Trump administration staffers in Trump Town? Send us an email at trump@propublica.org or send a Signal message to 347-244-2134.

Ileana Ydolia Garcia DEPARTED MARCH 8, 2019

Homeland Security (joined: Oct. 14, 2018)

Deputy Press Secretary | $114,590

Bio, via NBC News:

Ileana García, who created Latinas for Trump to express "freedom" and counter antagonism against Hispanic supporters of Donald Trump, was hired recently by the Trump campaign and is spending the week at the Republican National Convention to act as a liaison with Latino media

we keep ticking off the boxes to fascism, but attacking political enemies certainly rate, not 1st time/ pro-immigrant activists deported?

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/despite-arrest-by-homeland-security-79-year-old-immigrant-rights-activist-vows-to-keep-protesting-report/

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/warnings-of-eco-terrorism-mass-casualties-at-new-okla-tenn-oil-pipeline

OPINION: WASHINGTON SECRETS

Warnings of eco-terrorism, 'mass casualties' at new Okla-Tenn oil pipeline

by Paul Bedard

| April 18, 2017 02:13 PM

[odd pix, scary? Dakota Access pipeline opponents burn structures in their main protest camp in southern North Dakota near Cannon Ball, N.D., on Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017, as authorities prepare to shut down the camp in advance of spring flooding season. (AP Photo/James MacPherson)

Just months removed from the violence and attacks on police by environmental extremists fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, state and federal officials are warning of similar, potentially catastrophic, attacks against another new pipeline between Oklahoma and Tennessee that enters service in the fall.

A report from the Department of Homeland Security, and Arkansas, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, warns of attacks from eco-terrorists to anti-government militia on the Diamond Pipeline project.

"Law enforcement are assessing what environmental extremists did to disrupt Dakota Access Pipeline – Molotov cocktails, rocks, arson, roadblocks, chaining themselves to equipment,improvised explosive devices, etc – and seeing many of the same activities potentially happening around Diamond pipeline," according to a police representative.

[map pipe route]

The 11-page "field analysis report," stamped "Unclassfied//For Official Use Only," said that there are no pending threats to the $900 million, 440-mile pipeline under construction, but that the potential is very real.

"While the Diamond Pipeline project has not seen the same level of disruption as the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), we are concerned that negative perceptions about enforcement efforts against DAPL opponents could inspire like-minded individuals to seek out reprisal violence against similar targets, including the Diamond Pipeline," said the report, provided to Secrets.

Some peaceful protests have already occurred.

The report revealed that five oil pipelines crossing the U.S.-Canada border were shutdown in October, and it provided photographic evidence of the arson and sabotage of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Police are keen consumers of the report because it was sheriffs and local cops that felt the brunt of the pressure at Dakota, sometimes getting in violent clashes with protesters.

According to the report, "Pipeline construction projects frequently arouse concerns about environmental and land-use issues. While most opposition activity related to pipeline construction remains nonviolent and lawful protest activity, some violent extremists may take advantage of lawful gatherings to attempt to threaten, incite, or commit violent acts against public safety officers or facility staff."

Thebiggest concerns cited in the report:

— "DHS and the authoring fusion centers assess the most likely potential domestic terrorist threatto the Diamond Pipeline construction project or associated entities is fromenvironmental rights extremists motivated by resentment over perceived environmental destruction."

— "We assess that the second most likely potential domestic terrorist threat to the Diamond Pipeline or associated entities—including law enforcement and private contract security guards—is from militia extremists opposed to government enforcement of eminent domain policies."

— "We assess that potential attacks against the Diamond Pipeline or related entities would most likely be simple and designed to damage physical infrastructure or equipment by sabotage or arson. Previous attacks against pipelines or related targets have included assaults on law enforcement, private contract security guards, or construction personnel."[where? Fallin gun?]

— "We assess the primary potential threat of violence against the Diamond Pipeline and related entities is fromlone offenders who adhere to environmental rights extremist beliefsand believeviolenceis justified against such projects due to theirperceived harm to the environment. Previous incidents involving lone offenders committing violent acts against targets associated with similar energy projects suggest that the pipeline and associated entities could be attractive targets for an attack by lone environmental rights extremists."

— "Militia extremists have engaged in armed standoffs, threats, and disrupted IED plots targeting law enforcement entities perceived to be enforcers of oppressive government land-use policies, according to media reporting. Although their capabilities vary, some militia extremists have well-rehearsed paramilitary skills, as well as access to and proficiency using firearms and explosives. As a result, successful violent attacks have the potential to cause mass casualties."

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com

mma 519

We know that Fox News has unprecedented influence on Trump's decision-making. One example this week shows just how pervasive Fox's influence is-- and how much taxpayer money could be at risk.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Trump has “alarmed” military commanders and Department of Homeland Security officials by aggressively lobbying them to grant a border wall contract to Fisher Industries, a North Dakota-based construction company whose CEO, Tommy Fisher, has regularly appeared on Fox and other conservative outlets to promote his company’s bid.

Fisher has used a Fox-centric PR strategy to directly pitch the president in hopes of obtaining a federal contract, making at least 10 appearances on Fox News and Fox Business since January 2018.

And Fox’s promotion of Fisher’s bid has not been limited to the network’s supposed “opinion” shows. The network’s flagship “news” broadcast, Special Report, ran a packaged report that essentially served as an infomercial for Fisher’s proposal. Introduced by anchor Bret Baier and reported by national correspondent William La Jeunesse, the segment featured an interview with Fisher and credulously repeated his claims that he could construct the wall “faster, better, and cheaper.”

contractor direct line to trump brain // whitaker:

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/05/24/how-one-company-used-fox-centric-pr-strategy-try-get-trump-give-it-lucrative-federal-contract/223793

omg

Fox News has unprecedented influence over President Donald Trump’s decision-making. Trump’s worldview is shaped by the hours of propagandistic and sycophantic programming he often watches in a day, as well as his private consultations with many of the network’s stars on a wide variety of topics. As a result, Fox’s commentators have at times dictated the president’s policy agenda and political strategy, harnessed the news cycle by directing his attention to their particular obsessions, provided staffers for his administration, and hand-picked the recipients of his pardons.

And now, the network is emerging as a platform that can determine who could receive hefty federal contracts.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Trump has “alarmed” military commanders and Department of Homeland Security officials by aggressively lobbying them to grant a border wall contract to Fisher Industries, a North Dakota-based construction company whose CEO, Tommy Fisher, has regularly appeared on Fox and other conservative outlets to promote his company’s bid.

Fisher claims that his company can build a border wall both faster and cheaper than his competitors thanks to a patent-pending installation system, but the Army Corps of Engineers determined that Fisher’s design “did not meet its requirements and lacked regulatory approvals” and that the firm’s previous work on a barrier project “came in late and over budget,” the Postreported. Rejected through the procurement process, Fisher is trying to go around it through the right-wing media, a method that has allowed him to reach the president. Trump is now trying to sidestep the contracting process because, as Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) explained to the Post, he “had seen [Fisher] on television” -- specifically on Fox -- “advocating for his version of the barrier.”

Fisher has used a Fox-centric PR strategy to directly pitch the president in hopes of obtaining a federal contract, making at least 10 appearances on Fox News and its sister network, Fox Business, since January 2018, according to a Media Matters review. Programs the president regularly watches, including Fox & Friends and The Ingraham Angle, have repeatedly granted Fisher an uncritical platform to shill for his company.

Fisher’s strategy mimics that of K Street lobbyists who pay off TV pundits to promote their messages during on-air appearances and lawyers who put their clients and their relatives on Fox to ask the president for pardons.

The CEO has honed his pitch to appeal to the president in particular, as demonstrated by his March 5 appearance on Fox & Friends, during which co-host Ainsley Earhardt asked him to explain “why should the president, or why should his administration, choose your company?"

[vid]

Fisher first appealed to the president as a businessman, saying Trump should know that his company would do the work for less money than other companies, get it completed faster, and throw in access roads and other additions.

He went on to describe his company as “the first responder” of the industry, appealing to Trump’s well-known obsession with police officers and firefighters.

And he also tried to link the bid to one of Trump’s notable construction successes, the renovation of the Wollman Rink in Central Park in the 1980s. “I think he’ll understand,” Fisher argued, “just like the Central Park deal with the ice skating rink, if you need it done now, nothing against government bureaucracy, but it takes time, so you need an expert to come in there and do it now and do it right.”

Earhardt ended the interview by giving Trump another reason to prefer Fisher: “You might be able to build it just in time for that election, too.”

And Fox’s promotion of Fisher’s bid has not been limited to the network’s supposed “opinion” shows. On April 19, the network’s flagship “news” broadcast, Special Report, ran a packaged report that essentially served as an infomercial for Fisher’s proposal. Introduced by anchor Bret Baier and reported by national correspondent William La Jeunesse, the segment featured an interview with Fisher and credulously repeated his claims that he could construct the wall “faster, better, and cheaper."

[vid]

All of this laudatory coverage has had Fisher’s desired effect, with the president reportedly promoting the company’s bid in meetings with senior military and DHS officials and forcing them to explain “that the president could not just pick a company” to get the contract in defiance of the federal procurement process.

Fisher harnessed the incredible power of Fox’s hold on the president to get much closer than he should have to taxpayer dollars. He won’t be the last to try to do so.

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/4/29/headlines/trump_admin_disbanded_domestic_terror_unit_amid_rising_far_right_violence

latest white nationalist killing comes after theDepartment of Homeland Security disbanded its domestic terrorism unit last year, reassigning its analysts to other departments. DHS says the threat of “homegrown extremism” has been significantly reduced, but in a review of 50 murders committed by extremists in 2018, the Anti-Defamation League found 49 came at the hands of right-wing extremists, with white supremacists alone accounting for 39 of the murders.

Topics:

basically fired when she told trump he was asking he to do crimes

Kirstjen Nielsen Steps Down as :{DHS:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: Secretary

miller calling deputies to scream for not being tough enough

https://www.alternet.org/immigration/calling-me-liar-are-fighting-words-democratic-lawmaker-walks-out-dhs-sec-nielsen-after

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/trump-ignores-the-law-in-naming-acting-homeland-security-secretary-after-nielsens-resignation/

After Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned Sunday, Donald Trump moved swiftly to announce her temporary replacement. But, characteristically for Trump, he ignored what the law says about that.

“I am pleased to announce that Kevin McAleenan, the current U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, will become Acting Secretary,” Trump tweeted. The law, though, says that the deputy secretary would become acting secretary, and, because there’s currently no deputy secretary, the agency’s third-ranking position, the undersecretary for management, would take over. That would be Claire Grady.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jamie Dupree reports that Nielsen’s shift from resigning immediately on April 7 to staying in her role until April 10 is “a move which could give her the ability to help alter the chain of succession inside DHS.” It’s not exactly babies in cages, but it would be appropriate for Nielsen to end her tenure by taking one last chance to help Donald Trump do questionably legal things.

Confirmation hearings for anyone Trump nominates to replace Nielsen are likely to become a major showdown over Trump’s immigration and border policies.

basically fired when she told trump he was asking he to do crimes

Kirstjen Nielsen Steps Down as :{DHS:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: Secretary

miller calling deputies to scream for not being tough enough

Nielsen’s rehabilitation tour has already begun

DN 11/18 atomwaffen

...A.C. THOMPSON: James Mason was kind of an obscure figure in the neo-Nazi movement. He had been involved with the American Nazi Party of George Lincoln Rockwell, he had been involved with other neo-Nazi groups but he was not really a main player. Mason’s deal is he says, “Hey, we’re not going to create Nazism, fascism in America through the ballot box. We’re not going to do it through politics. We’re not going to do it through political protest. We’re going to do it through the gun. And the way that we’re going to do this is terrorism, assassination, acts of hyper-violence and just general chaos. We’re going to collapse the system and then we will take charge.”

And that message, which he promulgated in a newsletter called Siege throughout the '80s, has been adopted by this new generation of white supremacists who say, “Yeah, that's what we want to do. That’s the most extreme thing we can do. Let’s do it.” And they have sort of adopted him as their guru, as their intellectual eminence.

AMY GOODMAN: How important are these people? How many are there? And let’s go back, A.C., to when President Obama first came into office, this report on the threat of white supremacy and domestic terrorists that was squelched by right-wing congressmembers who demanded it not be released. Is this what they were tracking?

A.C. THOMPSON: Yeah. This is exactly what they were tracking. I think we should say also it was retracted eventually by the Obama administration. Yeah, that is when thiswhole thing starts ticking up–2008, 2009. You see resistance to the first African American president in this country. You see dissatisfaction from veterans coming home from wars that have been very hard on them, and they’re returning to a disastrous economy and having difficulties fitting in, in some cases. And you see anger about potential gun control legislation.

What has happened since then is all of these things have ticked up, they’ve escalated and now we’re in a much more dangerous place than even Daryl Johnson at DHS was predicting at that time. One of the things that he predicted is he said, “Look, I’m concerned that these returning veterans will get involved with these groups. We have seen it in the past. It may happen again.” And that is exactly what has happened.

...

activ suppress

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/11/15/vermont_immigrant_rights_group_sues_ice

major new federal lawsuit claims that immigration agents are targeting undocumented organizers for their activism in Vermont.The suit accuses Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Homeland Securityand the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles of carrying out a multiyear campaign of political retaliation against members of the group Migrant Justice. According to the lawsuit, Migrant Justice was infiltrated by an informant, and its members were repeatedly subjected to electronic surveillance. At least 20 active members of Migrant Justice have been arrested and detained by ICE. We speak with Will Lambek, an organizer with Migrant Justice, a Vermont-based group founded and led by immigrant farmworkers.

NBC News is reporting the Trump administration is ending a program that provides grants to groups fighting domestic terrorism. The Countering Violent Extremism grant program is run by the Department of Homeland Security and was established during the Obama administration. It supports organizations fighting hate groups, including white supremacist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and racist groups.

FEMA coast guard hurri response diverted to ICE baby jails 13K kids 819

https://YYY.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/20/keystone-pipeline-protest-activism-crackdown-standing-rock

will parrish and sam---

no lnx

"Treating protest as terrorism': US plans crackdown on Keystone XL activists

Documents suggest an aggressive response to possible protests against the oil pipeline amid fears of another Standing Rock

Will Parrish and Sam Levin

Thu 20 Sep 2018 04.00 EDT Last modified on Thu 20 Sep 2018 11.39 EDT

Protests at Standing Rock during the resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock]

Angeline Cheek is preparing for disaster. The indigenous organizer from the Fort Peck reservation in Montana fears that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could break and spill, destroy her tribe’s water, and desecrate sacred Native American sites.

But environmental catastrophe is not the most immediate threat.

The government has characterized pipeline opponents like her as “extremists” and violent criminals and warned of potential “terrorism”, according to recently released records.

[Life on the Keystone XL route: where opponents fear the ‘black snake’

Protesters Under Surveillance

As activists were fighting the Diamond Pipeline in Oklahoma, Energy Transfer Partners was planning another oil pipeline at the southern end of its network.

The Bayou Bridge pipeline is slated to run from Texas to St. James Parish, Louisiana, already home to many petrochemical facilities. Along the way, it crosses through the Atchafalaya Basin, the nation's largest river swamp and a center of the state's crawfish industry.

Environmentalists were alarmed by the risks the project posed to residents of St. James Parish and the swamp's fragile ecosystem. And they quickly felt as if law enforcement agencies were working against them. For one thing, some officials openly supported the project. Joseph Lopinto, now Jefferson Parish sheriff, last year on behalf of the National Sheriffs' Association and urged regulators to approve the pipeline.

Anne Rolfes, an organizer of the pipeline resistance and founder of the advocacy group Louisiana Bucket Brigade, said activists also suspected they were being watched.

During the protests at Standing Rock, a private security company hired by Energy Transfer Partners had compiled daily intelligence briefings and coordinated with local law enforcement, as detailed in reports by The Intercept.

Rolfes' group this year also obtained a handful of documents through a public records request that indicate state officials were tracking their efforts.

One state police report from November said the agency sent an investigator from its criminal intelligence unit to a hearing where activists had allegedly planned a protest, and that alocal sheriff's office planned to send a plainclothes officer.Rolfes said no protest was planned; activists merely intended to speak at a public hearing.

In the following months, an intelligence officer with the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness sent two emails to colleagues describing environmental groups' priorities, quoting Rolfes' newsletter and an article about the groups and adding a photograph of her.

Louisiana State Police declined to comment. Mike Steele, a spokesman for the state Homeland Security Department, rejected the notion that his agency spies on activists. He said this type of open-source tracking was similar to what they conduct ahead of football games or festivals. "We do that with any type of event, because safety is the number one concern," he said.

Energy Transfer Partners spokeswoman Alexis Daniel issued a statement saying, "any claims that our company or our security contractors have inappropriately monitored protestors in false." It's unclear what surveillance, if any, the company or its contractors have deployed in Louisiana. Energy Transfer Partners has also been accused of spying by a family in Pennsylvania.

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Rolfes said Louisiana officials are treating activists like criminals. "We're going to be followed while we participate in the democratic process?" she said.

The arrests in August of the three protesters on boats who were detained by off-duty officers only deepened the activists' feelings that the state and energy industry were working against them. While the arresting officers were working as contractors, they wore their state uniforms and badges and carried weapons.

Spees, with the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the incident represented a problematic melding of public and private authorities. After the industry-supported bill was enacted by the state, she said, state employees acted on behalf of an energy company to detain activists under the new law.

"It's as though they've become the hired hands for private oil companies and pipelines companies," she said.

Activists in Virginia, where two gas pipelines are drawing protests, have also been tracked by that state's Fusion Center—which shares information across agencies to combat terrorism and crime—according to a report by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

In Washington state, a local sheriff's office has monitored activists opposed to a major pipeline project that connects with Canada's tar sands, sharing information with that state's Fusion Center, documents obtained by The Intercept show. Protest groups there already tried to block tanker traffic associated with the project, and local authorities have conducted trainings to prepare for mass protests.

The nation's intelligence community has a dark history of tracking political movements, including the FBI's COINTELPRO, which snooped on Martin Luther King, Jr., and others. Earlier this decade, FBI agents monitored opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline, according to The Guardian,yyy and the bureau had at least one informant at Standing Rock.

Even if local law enforcement agencies today are doing little more than collecting news articles and other open source information, covert surveillance risks equating political protest with criminal activity, said Keith Mako Woodhouse, a historian at Northwestern University who wrote a book about radical environmentalists.

"It gives a sense that law enforcement is, if not on the side of, at least more sympathetic to the industries and practices that are being protested," he said. "Presumably they're not surveilling the energy companies."

Pipeline companies have cultivated that relationship. They have reimbursed state law enforcement millions of dollars for providing security for their projects in North Dakota, Iowa and Massachusetts, for example. Most major pipeline companies also run charitable campaigns that have contributed millions of dollars to local emergency responders and other agencies and groups along their routes. The National Sheriff's Association, in turn, supported the Bayou Bridge and Dakota Access pipelines while it called protesters"terrorists."

A Worrying Trend

Over the past decade, the sense of urgency around climate change has intensified. Scientists say there is little time before the planet is committed to potentially devastating warming. The only practical way to avoid that is to largely eliminate fossil fuel use over the next several decades.

The government's response has been minimal, "so the next step is civil disobedience," said Woodhouse, the historian. "And if anything, it's surprising that it hasn't happened sooner and at a greater scale."

Woodhouse said efforts to suppress environmental protest trace back to the rise of radical environmental groups in the 1980s and `90s, when public officials slapped names like "eco-terrorism" and "ecological terrorism" on activists who vandalized equipment or animal testing facilities.

Now, Woodhouse said, environmentalists are threatening one of the country's most powerful industries. Some advocates say the new push against activists seems more widespread and unabashed.

"I think there is a very worrying trend—and the trend is on both sides of the political aisle to be perfectly frank and candid—a trend of trying to suppress political speech that you don't agree with," said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition.

"I think a lot of people feel a lot more threatened than they have in a long time," he said, "and I think that's true on all sides of the political spectrum. And when people feel threatened, they tend to lash out."

a nationally televised incident that "should disturb every single person living in the United States," agents from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General's Office on Wednesday interrupted an interview with former ICE spokesperson James Schwab, who resigned from his position in March after he was asked to perpetuate lies on behalf of the Trump administration.

"This is intimidation," Schwab told CBS reporter Jamie Yuccas after the agents left his doorstep. "And this is why people won't come out and speak against the government."

Watch:

baby jails

https://www.alternet.org/you-are-lying-period-trump-dhs-secretary-blasted-denying-existence-family-separation-policy

In a "heinous lie" aimed at distorting the historical record and avoiding responsibility for the mass cruelty perpetuated on her watch, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen falsely claimed in a series of tweets late Sunday that the Trump administration does "not have a policy of separating families at the border."

"This misreporting by members [of Congress], press, and advocacy groups must stop. It is irresponsible and unproductive," Nielsen wrote, neglecting to mention data from her own department showing that nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their families in just six weeks due to the Trump adminstration's so-called "zero tolerance" immigration policy.

Lawmakers, activists, and reporters who have persistently highlighted and denouncedthe Trump administration's family separation policy—which was officially unveiled byAttorney General Jeff Sessions in May—were quick to call out Nielsen's blatant lie on Sunday, pointing out that a quick look at her department's website is enough to expose the falsehood.

https://theweek.com/articles/766230/homeland-security-wants-monitor-journalists-time-sound-alarm

Department of Homeland Security intends to list and trackhundreds of thousands of news outlets, journalists, bloggers, and "influencers" in traditional and new media alike. Its plan is to analyze targets' "sentiment," monitor "any and all" coverage of select news stories, and possibly share data with "federal, state, local, tribal, and private partners."

If you find yourself skeptical of this proposal of mass state monitoring of the press, consider yourself a bonafide member of the "tinfoil hat wearing, black helicopter conspiracy theorists," DHS representative Tyler Houlton said Friday. It's all very routine, he argued, casting the project as an innocent means of "monitoring current events." Just shut up and let us do this, crackpots.

Yet I am bareheaded, untroubled by black whirlybirds, and utterly unconvinced.

Consider the practical incongruities. While a database of the sort DHS wants could be used to follow news stories, it isn't necessary for the job. From basic Google News alerts to subscription services none;">document says, an existent public relations service would easily do the trick. The Department of Homeland Security in the Year of Our Lord 2018 is DHS is surely aware media services are available, which raises the question of why it did not elect to use one. If the aim here, as Houlton claims, is "nothing more than the standard practice of monitoring" the news, why not use the standard programs to do it?

The distinction seems to be twofold. First, the DHS database is noticeably personal. It is not content with assessing the general mood on a given news story, or even the editorial stance of an entire outlet. No, the database will list individuals — "journalists, editors, correspondents, social media influencers, bloggers etc." — including not only their contact information, employment, and beat, but "any other information that could be relevant." Any other information. Is it so surprising this plan is anxiety-provoking for those of us who could conceivably be listed?

The second distinction is this is a government list — DHS evidently wants a proprietary database, not the rent-a-list services it could obtain more quickly and cheaply — and government lists do not have a stellar reputation. The terrorist watchlist is exemplary on this point, and reviewing its record of abuse and incompetence takes us nowhere tinfoil territory.

Officially known as the Terrorist Screening Database, the watchlist includes the no-fly list and 10 other lists and screening programs in the Departments of Justice, Defense, Treasury, and Homeland Security. It is a sprawling data monster best known for its failures, and it has explodedfrom fewer than 50,000 entries at the close of the Bush administration to more than 1.8 million people today. Almost 40 percent of those listed have no demonstrable ties to terrorism, and 99 percent of the names suggested for the list are accepted. Evidence as flimsy as a suspicious social media post is enough for inclusion. The removal process is slow, confusing, and secretive.

....

administration to more than 1.8 million people today. Almost 40 percent of those listed have no demonstrable ties to terrorism, and 99 percent of the names suggested for the list are accepted. Evidence as flimsy as a suspicious social media post is enough for inclusion. The removal process is slow, confusing, and secretive.

This is how you end up with list members like actor Mark Ruffalo, former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), a 4-year-old boy, a Marine veteran, an Air Force veteran, a "wheelchair-bound Stanford University scholar," acquitted people, and dead people. "The watch lists operate like a ratchet: It is beyond easy for a government official to ‘nominate’ someone for listing, yet exceedingly difficult to be removed," explains law professor Ramzi Kassem at The Washington Post. "And the consequences of such highly arbitrary and potentially abusive government action can be devastating."

It is this list-making expertise DHS now seeks to apply to the press, and the potential for abuse both individual and institutional is enormous. Unethical law enforcement agents have used databases to creep on love interests, exes, and others they find sexually interesting. Now, they can add the press to their stalking pool.

At an institutional level, a supply of big data creates its own demand for state action. If this list is created, DHS will want to do something with it, and that something almost certainly won’t be limited to innocuous fare like sending out press releases and keeping up with current events.

Despite its deeply flawed construction and sloppy maintenance, the terrorist watchlist has been pitched as a means of gun control. What opportunities might present themselves to a press-phobic administration once a media list like this is on hand

...

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/kamala-harris-blisters-racist-kirstjen-nielsen-fiery-senate-interrogation

Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as “antifa” had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as “domestic terrorist violence,” according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents obtained by POLITICO.

Since well before the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, turned deadly, DHS has been issuing warnings about the growing likelihood of lethal violence between the left-wing anarchists and right-wing white supremacist and nationalist groups.

Previously unreported documents disclose that by April 2016, authorities believed that “anarchist extremists” were the primary instigators of violence at public rallies against a range of targets. They were blamed by authorities for attacks on the police, government and political institutions, along with symbols of “the capitalist system,” racism, social injustice and fascism, according to a confidential 2016 joint intelligence assessment by DHS and the FBI.

After President Donald Trump’s election in November, the antifa activists locked onto another target — his supporters, especially those from white supremacist and nationalist groups suddenly turning out in droves to hail his victory, support crackdowns on immigrants and Muslims and to protest efforts to remove symbols of the Confederacy.

Those reports appear to bolster Trump’s insistence that extremists on the left bore some blame for the clashes in Charlottesville and represent a “problem” nationally. But they also reflect the extent that his own political movement has spurred the violent backlash.

In interviews, law enforcement authorities made clear that Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric and policies — first as a candidate and then as president — helped to create a situation that has escalated so quickly and extensively that they do not have a handle on it.

“It was in that period [as the Trump campaign emerged] that we really became aware of them,” said one senior law enforcement official tracking domestic extremists in a state that has become a front line in clashes between the groups. “These antifa guys were showing up with weapons, shields and bike helmets and just beating the shit out of people. … They’re using Molotov cocktails, they’re starting fires, they’re throwing bombs and smashing windows.”

Almost immediately, the right-wing targets of the antifa attacks began fighting back, bringing more and larger weapons and launching unprovoked attacks of their own, the documents and interviews show. And the extremists on both sides have been using the confrontations, especially since Charlottesville, to recruit unprecedented numbers of new members, raise money and threaten more confrontations, they say.

“Everybody is wondering, 'What are we gonna do? How are we gonna deal with this?'” said the senior state law enforcement official. “Every time they have one of these protests where both sides are bringing guns, there are sphincters tightening in my world. Emotions get high, and fingers get twitchy on the trigger.”

Even before Charlottesville, dozens and, in some cases, hundreds of people on both sides showed up at events in Texas, California, Oregon and elsewhere, carrying weapons and looking for a fight. In the Texas capital of Austin, armed antifa protesters attacked Trump supporters and white groups at several recent rallies, and then swarmed police in a successful effort to stop them from making arrests.

California has become another battleground, with violent confrontations in Berkeley, Sacramento and Orange County leading to numerous injuries. And antifa counter-protesters initiated attacks in two previous clashes in Charlottesville, according to the law enforcement reports and interviews.

By JACQUELINE KLIMAS and WESLEY MORGAN

Rallies are scheduled over the next few months across the country, including in Texas, Oregon, Missouri and Florida. Authorities are particularly concerned about those in states where virtually anyone, including activists under investigation for instigating violence, can brandish assault rifles in public.

Tensions have gotten so heated that after activists traded accusations after Charlottesville, a rumor circulated online that antifa would try and shut down the massive Sturgis, South Dakota, motorcycle rally because there were too many Confederate flags and Trump signs. It wasn’t true, but it prompted an outpouring of pleas by attendees for anti-fascists to come so they could assault them. One displayed a “Sturgis Survival Kit” for potential antifa protesters, complete with a tourniquet, morphine, body cast and defibrillator.

“Both the racists and a segment of violent antifa counter-protestors are amped for battle in an escalating arms race, where police departments are outmaneuvered, resulting in increasingly violent dangerous confrontations,” said former New York City police officer Brian Levin, who has been monitoring domestic militants for 31 years, now at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “It’s an orchestrated dance. The rallies spill over into social media and then even more people show up at the next rally primed for violent confrontation.”

In recent decades, authorities have focused almost exclusively on right-wing groups as the most likely instigators of domestic terrorist violence, especially since Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995, killing 168 people.

More recently, the antifa groups, which some describe as the Anti-Fascist Action Network, have evolved out of the leftist anti-government groups like “Black bloc,” protesters clad in black and wearing masks that caused violence at events like the 1999 Seattle World Trade Organization protests. They claim to have no leader and no hierarchy, but authorities following them believe they are organized via decentralized networks of cells that coordinate with each other. Often, they spend weeks planning for violence at upcoming events, according to the April 2016 DHS and FBI report entitled “Baseline Comparison of US and Foreign Anarchist Extremist Movements.”

Protesters in black, associated with Antifa, beat a man with a pole and shield during a "No-To-Marxism" rally Aug. 27 in Berkeley, California.

Protesters in black, associated with Antifa, beat a man with a pole and shield during a "No-To-Marxism" rally Aug. 27 in Berkeley, California. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

Dozens of armed anti-fascist groups have emerged, including Redneck Revolt and the Red Guards, according to the reports and interviews. One report from New Jersey authorities said self-described antifa groups have been established in cities including New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.

Some of the DHS and FBI intelligence reports began flagging the antifa protesters before the election. In one from last September, portions of which were read to POLITICO, DHS studied “recent violent clashes … at lawfully organized white supremacist” events including a June 2016 rally at the California Capitol in Sacramento organized by the Traditionalist Workers Party and its affiliate, the Golden State Skinheads.

According to police, counter-protesters linked to antifa and affiliated groups like By Any Means Necessary attacked, causing a riot after which at least 10 people were hospitalized, some with stab wounds.

At the Sacramento rally, antifa protesters came looking for violence, and “engaged in several activities indicating proficiency in pre-operational planning, to include organizing carpools to travel from different locations, raising bail money in preparation for arrests, counter-surveilling law enforcement using three-man scout teams, using handheld radios for communication, and coordinating the event via social media,” the DHS report said.

The intelligence assessments focus less on guns than handmade weapons used by antifa, with photos of members brandishing ax handles and shields, often with industrial-sized bolts attached to create crude bayonets. A senior state law enforcement official said, “A whole bunch of them” have been deemed dangerous enough to be placed on U.S. terrorism watch lists.

The FBI and DHS had no comment on that, or on any aspect of the assessments, saying they were not intended to be made public.

By the spring of 2016, the anarchist groups had become so aggressive, including making armed attacks on individuals and small groups of perceived enemies, that federal officials launched a global investigation with the help of the U.S. intelligence community, according to the DHS and FBI assessment.

The purpose of the investigation, according to the April 2016 assessment: To determine whether the U.S.-based anarchists might start committing terrorist bombings like their counterparts in “foreign anarchist extremist movements” in Greece, Italy and Mexico,possibly at the Republican and Democratic conventions that summer.

Some of the antifa activists have gone overseas to train and fight with fellow anarchist organizations, including two Turkey-based groups fighting the Islamic State, according to interviews and internet postings.

In their April 2016 assessment, the DHS and FBI said the anarchist groups would likely become more lethal if “fascist, nationalist, racist or anti-immigrant parties obtain greater prominence or local political power in the United States, leading to anti-racist violent backlash from anarchist extremists.”

The assessment also said the anarchist groups could become more aggressive if they seek to “retaliate violently to a violent act by a white supremacist extremist or group,” they acquire more powerful weapons or they obtain the financial means to travel abroad and learn more violent tactics.

Several state law enforcement officials said that all of those accelerating factors have come to pass. And recent FBI and DHS reports confirm they are actively monitoring “conduct deemed potentially suspicious and indicative of terrorist activity” by antifa groups.

But one of the internal assessments acknowledged several significant “intelligence gaps,” including an inability to penetrate the groups’ “diffuse and decentralized organizational structure,” which made it difficult for law enforcement to identify violent groups and individuals. Authorities also “lack information to identify the travel patterns linking U.S. and foreign anarchist extremists,” the assessment said.

The two agencies also said in their April 2016 assessment that many of the activities the groups engaged in “are not within the purview of FBI and DHS collection” due to civil liberties and privacy protections, including participating in training camps, holding meetings and communicating online.

In another assessment this past August, DHS warned about the potential for unprecedented violence at Charlottesville. The agency also acknowledged gaps in its understanding of antifa, saying it had only “medium confidence” in its assessments regarding both the affiliations among the various groups and the motivation of attackers.

Said one senior New Jersey law enforcement official following the antifa groups: “There’s a lot more we don’t know about these groups than what we do know about them.”

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-10-25/ice-seeks-to-reopen-private-prisons-shuttered-by-justice-department

http://www.propublica.org/article/library-support-anonymous-internet-browsing-effort-stops-after-dhs-email

immigr moms in solitary for hunger strike, w/ kids; paid 3$/day, ice cream is 350, color bedspread syndrome kpfa 4/17

For the second time this spring, mothers held in a southern Texas privately-run immigrant detention center with their children have staged a hunger strike and work stoppage to protest their inhumane conditions of confinement and demand immediate release for themselves and their families.

Ten mothers detained at Karnes Detention Camp began the peaceful protest on Tuesday, vowing to eat only one meal per day until their demands are met, Mohammad Abdollahi, advocacy director for the San Antonio-based Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (Raices), told Common Dreams Wednesday morning.

The women's demands echo those issued by dozens of mothers who staged a similar peaceful protest at the facility in late March and early April to coincide with the Easter holiday.

The hunger strike launched on Tuesday aims high in the chain of command, calling forImmigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Sarah Saldaña to reverse course from the Obama administration's controversial policy of detaining families seeking asylum, and instead, grant the strikers parole and release.

The women say the situation is urgent.

They report harrowing conditions at the prison, which has a capacity of 532 but is slated to expand to more than double its current beds. People held there are compensated just $3 a day for working to run the facility, denied their rights to meet with legal aid workers, forced to drink water contaminated by fracking waste, and their children are suffering ill health and psychological effects related to their incarceration, according to a letter sent toColorlines.

Women have alleged sexual abuse and assault from prison guards and staff, prompting community protests outside the facility.

Abdollahi, who is involved in direct support, compared the facility to an internment camp: "The conditions are absolutely horrendous. Parents are not allowed to be parents, to decide what their kids eat, how many times their diapers have changed. They have to ask permission for milk to nurse their children with."

These conditions are "very harmful and detrimental," Abdollahi added, because a majority of people in the prison are fleeing violence.

Delmi Cruz is a 37-year-old mother and asylum-seeker from Honduras who has been detained at the facility with her 11-year-old son for over six months. "It’s very hard here, the food isn’t adequate, it’s awful, horrible...the children who eat it become sick," Cruz toldthe Guardian, according to an article published Tuesday. "My son has horrible stomach pain and is still very sick."

Cruz is participating in the hunger strike despite what she described as retaliation from guards for her part in the earlier protest, when she was placed in the medical unit's solitary confinement along with her son.

Abdollahi said there are signs this punishment is beginning again: "Cruz called us frightened on Tuesday, saying that women are being called to medical and there has been retaliation."

Bob Libal, executive director of the advocacy organization Grassroots Leadership, toldCommon Dreams that the women on hunger strike are victims of the Obama administration's harsh policies towards people who seek asylum in the United States.

"Between 2009 and 2014, the policy was not to detain asylum-seeking families," said Libal. "This was after a very controversial policy during the Bush administration of locking up families. Many groups were involved in organizing and legislative efforts to end the practice of detaining families, and in 2009, the Obama administration said it was ending this practice."

"However," Libal added, "last summer after the increase in the number of refugee kids made the news, the administration reversed course."

Amid this political climate, theKarnes facility was opened by ICE last summer under orders from the Department of Homeland Security to detain asylum-seekers at the border, rather than grant them bond.

GEO Group, the private company that runs the prison, has faced numerous accusations of abuse, medical neglect, violence, and civil rights violations, including hundreds of lawsuits, at its prisons and mental health facilities around the world. A report released on Wednesday by Grassroots Leadership reveals that GEO Group, along with other private prison corporations, has aggressively lobbied for harsher immigration policies.

Outside the Karnes prison, people across the country are mobilizing to defend the people impacted by these policies.

Supporters of the hunger strike are making phone calls to ICE, signing petitions, and even planning solidarity vigils and fasts, said Abdollahi, adding, "These women are desperate to get out."

Keystone XL Activists Labeled Possible Eco-Terrorists in Internal TransCanada Documents

By Steve Horn

Documents recently obtained :{by :(style="letter-spacing:0.03em"):}:*Bold Nebraska* show that TransCanada - owner of the hotly-contested Keystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline - has colluded with an FBI/DHS Fusion Center in Nebraska, labeling non-violent activists as possible candidates for "terrorism" charges and other serious criminal charges.

Further, the language in some of the documents is so vague that it could also ensnare journalists, researchers and academics, as well.

TransCanada also built a roster of names and photos of specific individuals involved in organizing against the pipeline, including 350.org's Rae Breaux, Rainforest Action Network's Scott Parkin and Tar Sands Blockade's Ron Seifert. Further, every activist ever arrested protesting the pipeline's southern half is listed by name with their respective photo shown, along with the date of arrest.

spooky biz spy on occupy

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Homeland

Security.156

Today, there’s nothing alien about that most un-American of terms. It has slipped so smoothly into our lives that “Homeland” is the name of a popular TV show, and college students looking for a good livelihood can now get a BA or an MA coast to coast in... yep, homeland security. (“You can build a career helping to protect our nation by earning your Bachelor of Science Degree in Homeland and Corporate Security at St. John’s University.”) And if you happen to be into securing the homeland, you can even join the “corporate and homeland security club” on campus. After college, given the money pouring into the “field,” the sky’s the limit.

Perhaps Booz Allen will hire you to consult for firms on -- you guessed it -- homeland security. (“Booz Allen is able to serve the Department of Homeland Security and our other clients because we make their mission our mission. We therefore understand what is needed to react quickly to rapidly changing events.”) Or perhaps you’ll be taken on by the Homeland Security Research Corporation in Washington to provide “premium market, technology, and industry expertise that enables our global clients to gain critical insight into the business opportunities that exist within the Homeland Security & Homeland Defense market. Government clients include the US, UK, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Canada, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Finland, and Singapore. US Congress, DHS, US Army, US Navy, DOD, DOT, GAO, NATO, and the EU are among others. HSRC serves over 600 private sector clients, including all major defense contractors and many Fortune 500 companies.”

Or what about the Chertoff Group, headed by Michael Chertoff, the former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, or the Ashcroft Group, headed by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, or for that matter Good Harbor Security Management, led by former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism Richard Clarke.

And that only scratches the surface. By 2006, only three years after the Department of Homeland Security had been set up, the New York Times was already reporting that “at least 90 officials” who worked there or at the White House office that preceded it had zipped through the revolving door into the private sector and were “executives, consultants, or lobbyists for companies that collectively do billions of dollars' worth of domestic security business.”

What makes all of this remarkable is how quietly, how easily, how securely that most alien of words and the organization that goes with it have entered American life (and changed it). Which is why, thanks to TomDispatch regulars Mattea Kramer and Chris Hellman from the invaluable National Priorities Project, this website is doing something rare these days: putting a spotlight on that modern cash cow and giant boondoggle lurking in the shadows of our world, the Department of Homeland Security. Tom

“Homeland Security”

The Trillion-Dollar Concept That No One Can Define

By Mattea Kramer and Chris Hellman

http://www.t

5. Biometric databases.

Federal agencies ranging from the DoD to the FBI to the DHS are revamping their databases [8] to include iris scans, voice patterning, measures of gait, face recognition, and records of scars and tattoos. They also have a mandate to indiscriminately share this information between agencies and with unnamed foreign entities.

See more stories tagged with:

surveillance [9],

mannequin [10],

creepy

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/5-unbelievably-creepy-surveillance-tactics

CIR: oct 2 The nation’s vast network of anti-terrorism “fusion centers” for law enforcement have produced shoddy, untimely and often useless intelligence reports that have done little to keep the U.S. safer, a scathing U.S. Senate report concludes.

The 141-page report, a copy of which was obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting, identified problems with nearly every significant aspect of the Department of Homeland Security’s more than 70 fusion centers, which were designed for law enforcement to coordinate their intelligence gathering.

The report marks one of the most blistering indictments to date of the Department of Homeland Security’s domestic intelligence operation. The department, investigators conclude, “has not attempted to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the value federal taxpayers have received for that investment.”

Fusion centers were created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks as the best way to get local, state and federal officials to share terrorism-related information, speak with each other and “connect the dots” of terrorist plots before they happened.

Many of the conclusions in the new U.S. Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee probe mirror a CIR report last year on the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence and analysis office, which supports the fusion centers. The report found that intelligence and analysis often produced "intelligence spam" that relied on stale information and provided little valuable analysis, and which was widely ignored by federal counterterrorism officials.

In the rush to stand-up the department’s intelligence arm, the short-staffed office relied heavily on contractors, such as Booz Allen Hamilton and General Dynamics, which reaped millions of federal dollars.

In the new Senate report, investigators found that with the lack of oversight, fusion centers spent money wildly, including a San Diego fusion center that bought 55 flat-screen televisions at a cost of $75,000 to watch the news and display calendars.

Some fusion centers only exist on paper. For instance, taxpayers have shelled out millions of dollars in federal grants for a planned Philadelphia fusion center, but Department of Homeland Security dollars for it have since been frozen, and as of August this year, "the center still did not physically exist," according to the report.

All told, Homeland Security officials couldn’t account accurately for how much money has been spent on fusion centers, offering an estimate that ranged from $289 million to $1.4 billion, a billion-dollar swing.

maddow bk

http://www.alternet.org/world/154836/Rachel_Maddow%3A_How_America%27s_Security-Industrial_Complex_Went_Insane_/?page=entire

Rendell and Ridge: From "Militant" Labelers to Terrorist Enable

In the fall of 2010, while Ed Rendell was Governor and Tom Ridgewas :{Strategic Advisor:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}: of the :{Marcellus Shale Coalition:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}:, the media discovered that Pennsylvania's Office of Homeland Security (DHS) was monitoring and filing intelligence reports on citizens speaking out against the then nascent shale gas industry's presence in the Marcellus Shale basin. http://marcelluscoalition.org/ In one bulletin, PA Homeland Security refers to "militants" and "environmental extremists" who dare to question the fossil fuel industry's practices.

That incident came and went, with many believing it was an isolated incident. It wasn't. Far from it, in fact.

PSYOPs, Insurgents, and "Eco-Terrorists" in the Marcellus and Eagle Ford

The industry was again caught red-handed in the fall of 2011 when DeSmogBlog, with the help of Earthworks' activist Sharon Wilson, uncovered a bombshell story.

The short version: at an October 2011 Houston, TX conference for shale gas industry public relations professionals, PR flacks for gas industry corporations Range Resources and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation revealed that they utilize psychological warfare tactics on concerned stakeholders in the areas in which they are fracking, and that they see themselves fighting a counterinsurgency war against these stakeholders, who in this fight are viewed as "an insurgency."

Then in February, *The Public Herald* reported that, during an August 2011 team reporting trip at Tioga State Forest in Troy, PA, some of its journalists were accused by Seneca Resources truck drivers as being "trespassing eco-terrorists." That's ironic given that Tioga is a *public* park operated by PA's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Seneca proceded to threaten to detain these journalists without legal authority to do so and also attempted to seize the camera ofThe Herald's reporting crew.

The Heraldstated in response,

"To be labeled as, or even associated with, an ecoterrorist is no small thing…Clearly, a need for government to protect the people within the United States from real acts of aggression or violence has been usurped by private interests when journalists, or the public, can be so easily labeled as 'ecoterrorists.'"

There's more. On February 28, The Washington Post reported that the FBI is labeling anti-fracking activists in Texas' Eagle Ford shale basin, in the city of Denton, TX, as "eco-terrorists."

"Even as environmental and animal rights extremism in the United States is on the wane, officials at the federal, state and local level are continuing to target groups they have labeled a threat to national security, according to interviews with numerous activists, internal FBI documents and a survey of legislative initiatives across the country,"**wrote*****The Post***.

The Hypocrisy Reeks

An insurgent, by definition in U.S. lexicon, is another name for a "terrorist."

While citizens concerned about the impacts from fracking and reckless gas industry practices are being labeled "eco-terrorists" and "an insurgengy," those responsible, directly or indirectly for having them labeled as such, are shilling on behalf of a State Department-designated terrorist organization.

The hypocrisy here reeks any way you slice it.

steve horn

http://www.nationofchange.org/rendell-and-ridge-militant-labelers-terrorist-enablers-1335453791