amuleaccount-blog

[wikipediapictures]

United States Secret Service

“Secret Service analyst examining counterfeit documents.” - via Wikimedia Commons

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Luke Rosiak

The Department of Homeland Security is facing a lawsuit after Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas refused to explain why a former spokesperson for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was still employed by the department months after The Daily Wire exposed her support for terrorism and extreme anti-Semitism.

Nejwa Ali was hired by the U.S. government to “perform credible fear interviews by reviewing evidence, credibility, and determine admissibility” of asylum-seekers. While working for DHS, her social media consisted largely of a jihad against Jews, posting memes celebrating Hamas terrorists paragliding into a dance festival with guns, writing “F*** Israel, the government, and its military. Are you ready for your downfall?” and sharing videos with captions like “F*** Israel and any Jew that supports Israel,” The Daily Wire revealed October 18.

DHS said it put her on leave after that story, but six months later, she was still being paid, gloating online about her unpaid leave and seeming to suggest that Mayorkas was protecting her. On social media, when somebody commented on her page, “When you do everything you can to get fired but the boss says NO,” she responded, “hilarious, seriously.

The department violated the Freedom of Information Act by refusing to provide documents about Ali in response to a November request, according to a new lawsuit filed by the Center to Advance Security in America (CASA) against DHS.

The FOIA sought “records related to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Adjudication Officer Nejwa Ali and a potential conflict of interest in administering her duties,” exploring whether she ushered in dangerous Palestinians or denied entry to Israelis.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Maryland’s top utility regulator was watching the news one February morning when a headline blindsided him: Two suspects with neo-Nazi ties had been charged with plotting to take down Baltimore’s power grid.

Jason Stanek, the then-chair of the state’s Public Service Commission, said Maryland regulators were “caught flat-footed,” not hearing a word from law enforcement before the news broke — or in the months afterward. Federal prosecutors have alleged the defendants were driven by “racially motivated hatred” to try to cut power to hundreds of thousands of people in the state’s largest city, which has a predominantly Black population.

The FBI declined to comment on its communications with the Maryland commission. But Stanek’s experience is not uncommon.

A POLITICO analysis of federal data and interviews with a dozen security, extremism and electricity experts revealed that despite a record surge in attacks on the grid nationwide, communication gaps between law enforcement and state and federal regulators have left many officials largely in the dark about the extent of the threat. They have also hampered efforts to safeguard the power network.

Adding to the difficulties, no single agency keeps a complete record of all such incidents. But the attacks they know about have regulators and other power experts alarmed:

— Utilities reported 60 incidents they characterized as physical threats or attacks on major grid infrastructure, in addition to two cyberattacks, during the first three months of 2023 alone, according to mandatory disclosures they filed with the Department of Energy. That’s more than double the number from the same period last year. DOE has not yet released data past March.

— Nine of this year’s attacks led to power disruptions, the DOE records indicate.

— The U.S. is on pace to meet or exceed last year’s record of 164 major cyber and physical attacks.

— And additional analyses imply that the true number of incidents for both 2022 and 2023 is probably even higher. POLITICO’s analysis found several incidents that utilities had reported to homeland security officials but did not show up in DOE data.

According to a report on grid security compiled by a power industry cyber clearinghouse, obtained by POLITICO, a total of 1,665 security incidents involving the U.S. and Canadian power grids occurred last year. That count included 60 incidents that led to outages, 71% more than in 2021.

While that report does not break down how many of those incidents occurred in which country, the U.S. has a significantly larger grid, serving 145 million homes and businesses, with nearly seven times Canada’s power-generating capacity.

Law enforcement officials have blamed much of the rise in grid assaults on white nationalist and far-right extremists, who they say are using online forums to spread tactical advice on how to shut down the power supply.

Concerns about the attacks have continued in recent months, with incidents including a June indictment of an Idaho man accused of shooting two hydroelectric stations in the state.

But law enforcement officers investigating alleged plots against the grid don’t necessarily alert the Energy Department or other regulatory bodies.

“We have no idea” how many attacks on the grid are occurring, said Jon Wellinghoff, a former chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the U.S. electric grid. “It looks like they’re escalating if you look at the data. But if you don’t have enough data, you can’t discern patterns and proactively work to stop these things from happening.”

Wellinghoff was FERC’s chair when an unknown sniper attacked a Pacific Gas and Electric substation in San Jose, Calif., in 2013 — an incident regulators have described as a “wake-up call” on the electricity supply’s vulnerability to sabotage.

Last year’s record number of physical and cyber disruptions to the U.S. power system included several incidents that captured public attention, such as a December shooting attack against two North Carolina substations that left 45,000 people without power for four days. The state’s medical examiner has blamed the attack for the death of an 87-year-old woman who died after her oxygen machine failed, ruling it a homicide. Nobody has been charged.

“There is no doubt there’s been an uptick over the last three years in the amount of incidents and also the severity of the incidents,” said Manny Cancel, senior vice president at the North American Electric Reliability Corp., the nonprofit body in charge of setting reliability standards for the bulk power system. He is also CEO of its Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, which gathers and analyzes data from power companies.

Cancel said NERC has “seen two pretty substantial increases” in incidents coinciding with the 2020 and 2022 election cycles.

Grid attacks that led to power outages increased 71% from 2021 to 2022, totaling 55 incidents in 2022, according to a NERC briefing to utilities that POLITICO obtained. That increase was primarily due to a rise in gunfire assaults against critical infrastructure.

The largest outage reported from a physical attack early this year — which occurred in March in Clark County, Nev. — affected more than 11,000 people, according to DOE data.

But the state Public Utilities Commission was not aware of any outage due to an attack occurring that day, spokesperson Peter Kostes told POLITICO by email. That’s even though state regulations require utilities to contact the commission within four hours of a significant outage.

The state’s largest utility, NV Energy, said in a statement that it had reported the incident to local law enforcement “as soon as we learned about this incident ... so we can continue to increase our resilience against ongoing threats to the energy industry.” A spokesperson for the utility did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether it had informed the commission.

Federal regulations also require utilities to report cyber or physical attacks to DOE, including physical attacks that cause “major interruptions or impacts” to operations.

They must also tell the department about disruptions from weather or other causes that meet certain criteria, such as those that cut off service to more than 50,000 customers for at least an hour, an uncontrolled loss of more than 200 megawatts of power, or a utility voluntarily shutting more than 100 megawatts, according to an Energy Department spokesperson. The spokesperson provided the information on the condition that they not be identified by name.

The Energy Department’s records don’t include at least seven reported physical assaults last year and this year that the Department of Homeland Security and the affected utilities said caused substantive economic damage or cut off power to thousands of customers. POLITICO found these incidents by cross-checking the department’s data against warnings issued by DHS and the FBI’s Office of the Private Sector.

DOE said the incidents may not meet its reporting thresholds.

Several of the incidents missing from DOE’s data involved clear physical attacks, based on other agencies’ descriptions. But the utilities involved said they did not report the incidents to the department because the attacks did not affect the kind of major equipment that could lead to widespread, regional power failures.

One of the incidents not found in DOE’s records cut off power to about 12,000 people for roughly two hours in Maysville, N.C., after a shooting damaged a substation in November, according to a DHS report. The FBI’s investigation into the incident is ongoing, according to the intelligence agency.

The utility affected by the incident, Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative, reported the incident to NERC’s Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, but didn’t report the attack to DOE because it was a “distribution-level” incident, said Melissa Glenn, a spokesperson for the utility. That means the outages caused by the damage would have been limited to local power customers and not lead to the wider blackouts federal regulators are most concerned with.

In another case unreported to the Energy Department, a substation owned by the East River Electric Cooperative serving the Keystone oil pipeline in South Dakota was attacked by gunfire late at night in July 2022, according to DHS. The incident caused more than $1 million in damage and forced the pipeline to reduce operations while repairs were underway.

East River co-op spokesperson Chris Studer said the utility reported the incident to local law enforcement, which brought in the FBI. East River also reported the incident to NERC and its E-ISAC, along with regional grid agencies, but said it did not report it to DOE because the attack did not affect the bulk power system.

Brian Harrell, a former assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at DHS, said in an email that utilities have too many competing agencies to report to, and suggested reporting be streamlined to NERC’s E-ISAC.

“This lack of consistency, by no fault of the utility, suggests that the numbers may not paint a complete picture,” he said.

Grid experts said these data gaps clearly indicate a lack of understanding about which agencies utilities need to report to and when.

Utilities may be using a “loophole” based on definitions of what constitutes “critical infrastructure,” said Jonathon Monken, a grid security expert with the consulting firm Converge Strategies. He was previously senior director of system resilience and strategic coordination for the PJM Interconnection, the nation’s largest power market.

There are “lots of ways” to work around DOE requirements, Monken added, but as he reads the regulation, utilities are required to report any operational disruptions caused by a physical attack.

“[I]t appears the information you collected shows that companies are still missing the boat when it comes to mandatory reporting,” he said. “Not good.”

One former FERC official who was granted anonymity to speak about a sensitive security issue said the commission also received no alerts from law enforcement officials about the planned and actual attacks that took place last year. That omission hinders agencies’ ability to respond to these kinds of events, the person said.

A spokesperson for FERC declined to comment on the commission’s communications with law enforcement.

But Cancel defended government agencies’ response to these incidents, and said federal investigators may have had specific intelligence reasons for keeping FERC and state utility agencies out of the loop.

“I’m not a lawyer or a law enforcement professional, but you had an active criminal investigation going on,” he said. “I don’t think they wanted to sort of blow the horn on that and compromise the integrity of the investigation.”

An FBI spokesperson offered no direct response to these criticisms in an email, but said the agency “views cybersecurity as a team sport.” The person commented on the condition that the remark be attributed to the bureau.

The FBI urged utility executives last month to attend security training hosted by intelligence agents in order to ensure they are up to speed on the threats posed by bad actors.

“We can’t do it without you,” Matthew Fodor, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said during an all-day FERC technical conference on Aug. 10. “The challenges that we have — and DOE can probably speak to this better than anybody — is limited resources.”

People attacking the electricity supply have thousands of potential targets, including power substations and smaller but critical pieces of utility infrastructure. The smaller pieces often go unprotected because federal standards do not require utilities to secure them.

Nearly half of the 4,493 attacks from 2020 to 2022 targeted substations, according to the NERC briefing from February, making them the most frequent targets for perpetrators over that period.

Details on how to carry out these kinds of attacks are available from extremist messaging boards and other online content, researchers and federal security officials say. These include maps of critical entry points to the grid, along with advice that extremists have gleaned from incidents like the assault in North Carolina.

Stanek, the Maryland electricity regulator, said he was “disappointed with the level of coordination and communication” that federal and state law enforcement displayed in handling the alleged plot in Baltimore. No trial date has been announced for the case, which is in U.S. District Court in Maryland.

Maryland’s Public Service Commission is in charge of ensuring that the state’s power system keeps the lights on. Regulators need to be kept informed of threats to the system so they can coordinate with other agencies in case an attack succeeds, Stanek said.

At the same time, he quipped, maybe he was better off in the dark after all.

“There’s a lot of colorful details in [the FBI report],” Stanek said. He paused, thinking. “And honestly, as a regulator, had I received these details in advance and shared the information with trusted sources within state government, I would have had sleepless nights.”

“So perhaps the feds did a favor by only sharing this information after everything was all said and done,” he added.

[whatareyoureallyafraidof]

I made the original of this one a few years ago; but I needed to go back and edit it.

[speedbird1987]

So far so good. I added some details to all characters with their Uniforms prior to their appearance in the series. The latest one that I did was earlier prior to my summer holiday break. I also fixed up the Fire Axe, Flashlight (Torch), and Fire Hose. In case anyone forgot, The list of each character with their Respective Uniform is here.

Station Officer Norris Steele: Pontypandy Fire Service (1987-1994)

Firefighter Elvis Cridlington: Pontypandy Fire Service (2003-2007)

Fireman Sam: Pontypandy Fire Service (2008-2015)

Firefighter Penny Morris: Pontypandy Fire Service (2015-2022)

Pilot Officer Tom Thomas: Royal Australian Air Force (Flight Suit)

Petty Officer 1st Class Ben Hooper: United States Coast Guard (Rescue Swimmer Dry Suit)

Firefighter Arnold McKinley: Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (Ballyclare EN469 Turnout)

Firefighter Ellie Phillips: London Fire Brigade (Ergotech Action) (2010-2018)

Police Constable Malcolm Williams: Metropolitan Police (Motorbike Patrol)

Sergeant Rose Ravani: South Wales Police/Heddlu de Cymru (Mounted Police Unit)

Pilot Krystyna Kaminski: Pontypandy Fire Service (Air Rescue/Air Support) (2022-present)

[justbeingnamaste]

The complete incompetence of the ladies of the Secret Service are on full display. One of the agents can’t properly holster her sidearm while another fiddles around with her sunglasses trying to look cool for the crowd.

An assassination attempt was made on former US President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. It happened when Donald Trump was leading a public meeting before the elections. The bullet grazed past the upper part of Trump’s right ear. Recalling this incident, he said that he heard a whizzing sound and shots and immediately felt the bullet ripping through his skin. The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) announced that Thomas Mattew Crook is the individual identified in the assassination attempt of the former President.

After this, the security formed a human chain around him and exited the area, but the video caught the panicking situation of the women security of Secret Services deployed in the area. One of the security personnel was panicking and failed to put her gun in the holster while Trump was sitting in his car.

“Imagine if the sh**ter hadn’t been this kid but [someone] well-trained? Our enemies are looking at us thinking we can take [him] or anyone out now without a problem.”

[illegalpeople]

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

The Department of Homeland Security launched a failed operation that ensnared hundreds, if not thousands, of U.S. protesters in what new documents show was as a sweeping, power-hungry effort before the 2020 election to bolster President Donald Trump’s spurious claims about a “terrorist organization” he accused his Democratic rivals of supporting. An internal investigative report, made public this month by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, details the findings of DHS lawyers concerning a previously undisclosed effort by Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security, Chad Wolf, to amass secret dossiers on Americans in Portland attending anti-racism protests in summer 2020 sparked by the police murder of Minneapolis father George Floyd.

[blackgirlslivingwell]

Rapper Sean 'Diddy' Combs' Homes Raided

Today, federal authorities targeted homes owned by Sean "Diddy" Combs in a trafficking investigation. The Department of Homeland Security conducted searches at Combs' properties, focusing on allegations of human trafficking. These raids are part of an ongoing investigation led by a specialized team within Homeland Security. Diddy, a prominent figure in the music industry, has faced multiple lawsuits accusing him of multiple SA related charges.

[tomorrowusa]

You never know when a Russian defector is going to show up at the border.

It’s a good thing some dumbass GOP governor was not at the border trying to make a name for himself.

A Russian military bomber engineer drove up to the U.S. Southwest border in late December, asking for asylum and offering to reveal some of Russia’s most closely guarded military secrets, according to an unclassified Customs and Border Protection report obtained by Yahoo News.

The man and his family arrived in an armored SUV and asked to be admitted into the U.S. because he feared persecution for participating in anti-Putin protests in support of Alexei Navalny, an imprisoned Russian dissident. He then told CBP officials that he had information wanted by the U.S. government.

He said he was a civil engineer and that “his past employment had included working ... from 2018 to 2021 in the making of a particular type of military airplane at the Tupolev aircraft production facility in the city of Kazan in west-central Russia,” according to a Jan. 11 unclassified CBP report obtained by Yahoo News.

“He described the aircraft type as ‘an attack jet’ and said it ‘was called White Swan-TU160, the largest military aircraft.’”

Hopefully the information the US got from this engineer can be used to help Ukraine fight off Russian aggression.

“The TU-160 White Swan, also known by the NATO reporting name ‘Blackjack,’ is reportedly the most advanced strategic bomber in the Russian inventory and has been also used in a tactical airstrike role in the Ukraine war. According to open-source reporting, a major new construction program of an improved version of the aircraft as well as an upgrade program of existing aircraft got underway at the Tupolev facility during the past few years,” according to the unclassified “CBP Indications and Warnings Daily.”

Obviously Putin would love to put Novichok or Polonium in the tea of this defector. So his identity remains secret for now.

Yahoo News is withholding his name and details of where he arrived and applied for asylum after several officials raised concerns about the man’s safety.

[ ... ]

The engineer is believed to be inside the U.S. and is still being questioned by U.S. officials. He is likely being questioned about the restart of the Blackjack production, and the revamped or upgraded versions believed to have been worked on during the time of the Russian engineer’s employment."

He is also likely being asked about matters unrelated to the bomber jet, which could include everything from the email system, software, staffing and manufacturer used by the aircraft production facility — information that could be used to carry out targeted cyberattacks or for intelligence gathering or other efforts.

So more bad news for Putin – wherever he’s hiding out these days.

[wikipediapictures]

United States Secret Service

[randomberlinchick]

I've noticed some confusion on my dash about how much the US spends protecting its borders. . . So being the nerd that I am, I'm happy to help clear that up. The budget is a public document and it takes less than 30 seconds to find it.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

After the arrival of a migrant family to Kalispell this week, Republican elected officials are calling for tighter immigration policy and the immediate deportation of the family, as well as casting blame on a local nonprofit group that provides support to immigrants and refugees in the Flathead Valley. While some officials publicly speculated the nonprofit paid to fly the migrants to Kalispell with the support of the Biden administration, the organization said it did not aid the migrants in traveling to the area.

Montana Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke on Thursday issued a press release describing the arrival of a Venezuelan migrant family and alleging that Kalispell nonprofit Valley Neighbors of the Flathead aided the family in traveling to Kalispell — an allegation the nonprofit denies. Zinke’s office described the nonprofit as a “dark money” group with ties to the Biden administration.

Valley Neighbors is a volunteer-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that offers support to refugee and immigrant families in the Flathead Valley. According to tax filings submitted by the organization, it provides families with housing support, legal referrals and funding, medical and dental referrals, language services, educational support and transportation to meetings with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Helena.

According to Valley Neighbors Vice Chair Rebecca Miller, the organization has assisted “on an occasional and limited basis” in helping immigrants who have been released from immigration detention centers relocate to be with family members who already live in the Flathead Valley. The nonprofit has also worked to connect immigrants with sponsors in the Flathead Valley, occasionally providing travel expenses. However, Miller said, Valley Neighbors is not part of any government effort to “bus people in” to the Flathead and “had nothing to do with the family’s arrival” on Wednesday night.

“Dark money” typically refers to 501(c)(4) groups that spend money on political campaigns and do not disclose their donors. Valley Neighbors is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and does not contribute to political campaigns.

Zinke is a racist! Vote for his replacement, Monica Tranel!

According to Flathead County Sheriff Brian Heino, a family from Venezuela arrived at the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday night after flying to Kalispell from New York. The family purportedly crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas before flying to New York and then Kalispell. Heino said they arrived at the sheriff’s office after being turned away at a local homeless shelter, which had no space. Valley Neighbors arrived to offer assistance and hotel accommodations shortly thereafter.

Following the arrival of the family, Zinke on Thursday sent a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas demanding DHS detain and deport the family. The letter included numerous questions for Mayorkas, including whether or not DHS had paid Valley Neighbors to help transport the family and what the department’s plan is to deport the individuals.

In response to the allegations by Zinke and others, Miller provided the following statement: “Valley Neighbors of the Flathead is a small community-supported nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid for immigrants in the Flathead Valley. As sometimes occurs, this week, we were made aware of an immigrant family in need after their arrival and responded by providing them assistance in accordance with our mission and the support of our community. We are saddened that our organization and the vulnerable families that we work with are being targeted and used for political gain through ill-informed and false statements made by some of our state’s elected officials.”

Heino on Thursday issued a two-page letter describing a recent increase in “contacts with individuals who have no residency status in the U.S.” The sheriff said his department has struggled to communicate with non-English speakers and to determine individuals’ identities and legal statuses during traffic stops and arrests.

“These, among many other challenges, cause deputies to spend significantly more time handling calls for service and are often unable to obtain a disposition acceptable to our community,” he wrote.

Heino also wrote that the increase in undocumented immigrants is “especially difficult” given the valley’s existing housing shortage and limited emergency resources.

“Our community has grown so fast and our resources have not,” he told the Beacon on Friday.

“I don’t blame anybody for wanting to come to the valley. It’s just, we’re maxed,” he said.

In the press release from Zinke’s office, Flathead County Commissioner Randy Brodehl described the arrival of the migrant family as “a continuation of a trend that has increased in both frequency and intensity over the last two years.”

The sheriff on Friday said the department could not provide exact numbers regarding interactions with undocumented immigrants. Brodehl said the county does not have any records or numbers of how many undocumented immigrants are in the area.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has reported 1.3 million encounters at the southern border since October 2023. Of the 1.3 million, 56% have been single adults, 39% have been members of a family unit and 5% have been unaccompanied minors. Republicans have accused the Biden administration of failing to address the influx of entrants at the border as major cities struggle to accommodate growing migrant populations.

Heino in his letter wrote, “Undocumented and illegal individuals are currently living in the Flathead, and many are working, often under the table, without contributing to the resources designed for those who work and live here legally. By working under the table, they are not paying into Social Security, workers’ compensation, state, or federal income taxes. They are allowed to utilize resources like Medicare, food stamps, housing assistance, and other resources designed to assist our legal citizens in our times of need.”

Under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), a 1996 federal act that established restrictions on welfare access, undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal public benefits including unemployment, retirement, welfare, disability, food assistance and public housing. PRWORA also bars undocumented immigrants from accessing most local and state public benefits. Exceptions include treatment under Medicaid for emergency medical conditions, immunizations and in-kind services delivered on the community level, such as food from soup kitchens or short-term shelters. Per federal law, undocumented minors are permitted to enroll in public schools.

Correction: Due to incorrect information provided to the Beacon, a previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Valley Neighbors does not aid migrants in traveling to the area. Valley Neighbors offers assistance to migrants relocating to the area to reunite with family on “an occasional and limited basis,” and occasionally supports families relocating who have been connected with local sponsors. The story also indicated that Valley Neighbors receives no funding from the federal government. The organization receives a limited amount of funding from the U.S. Department of State.

[speedbird1987]

The final updated version of the rescue team with their uniforms when they were in Pontypandy or before they arrived in Pontypandy from an Emergency Service, the Coast Guard, or the Military. It includes how long they were wearing this particular uniform, including how long they've been with their last Emergency Service or Military service (For some of them). The list is Below.

1. Station Officer Steele - Pontypandy Fire Service Woolen Tunic and Iconic yellow Leggings (1987-1994)

2. Elvis Cridlington - Pontypandy Fire Service Woolen Tunic and Iconic yellow Leggings (2003-2007)

3. Police Constable Malcolm Williams - Metropolitan Police Motorbike Officer Uniform (2013-2018)

4. Firefighter Ellie Phillips - London Fire Brigade (2007-2015), Ergotech Action (2010-2018)

5. Pilot Krystyna Kaminski - Pontypandy Fire Service (Air Support) Flight Suit (2022-Present)

6. Sergeant Rose Ravani - South Wales Police/Heddlu de Cymru Mounted Police Unit (2011-2018)

7. Firefighter Penny Morris - Pontypandy Fire Service Updated Tunic and Iconic Yellow Leggings (2015-2022)

8. Petty Officer First Class Ben Hooper - United States Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer (2003-2012)

9. Fireman Sam - Pontypandy Fire Service Updated Woolen Tunic and Iconic Yellow Leggings (2008-2015)

10. Pilot Officer Tom Thomas - Royal Australian Air Force Olive drab Nomex flying suit (1995-2002)

11. Firefighter Arnold McKinley - Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service Ballyclare EN469 Turnout Gear (2009-2015)