Friday, August 21, 2015

Tech Server Cartoon


Group is gunning for small town's veteran memorial cross


The memorial features a silhouette of a soldier holding a gun and kneeling at the foot of a cross.
It was installed a few months ago alongside Freedom Rock at Young’s Park in the small town of Knoxville, Iowa.

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“It was clear to us it was a memorial to fallen veterans,” Mayor Brian Hatch told me. But it wasn’t clear to everyone.
About a month ago a citizen filed an anonymous complaint -- arguing that the memorial was promoting Christianity and therefore violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Mayor Hatch told me the city council ignored the complaint.
“We didn’t take any action because it (the memorial) did not have any religious ties to us at all,” he said. “I only see it as a memorial to the veterans and it shocked me that someone could see it otherwise.”
Instead of letting bygones be bygones, the offended citizen contacted Americans United for Separation of Church and State – a group that relishes in bullying towns across the nation. On Tuesday their attorney fired off a letter to the town.
“Please remove the Latin cross from government property,” the letter demanded.
Americans United said the Constitution prohibits government bodies from promoting religion on public land and they argued that the Latin cross is the “preeminent symbol of Christianity.”
They suggested that the inclusion of the cross excludes service members of other faith groups.
“Another court prohibited a county government from displaying a war memorial featuring crosses and the Star of David, because this design ‘gave the impression that only Christians and Jews are being honored,’” Americans United wrote in their letter.
Mayor Hatch told me the council will meet next month to decide what course of action to take. Meanwhile, the citizens of Knoxville are launching a campaign to save the memorial.
“This political correctness stuff is getting way out of hand,” resident Doug Goff told me. “When we are bending to the will of one person in the town -- you know something is wrong there.”
Goff is a lifelong resident of Knoxville. He’s also a Navy veteran. And he’s helping to spearhead an August 30t rally to defend the cross.
“This is a memorial for our veterans,” he said -- wondering if Americans United has a problem with the crosses in Arlington National Cemetery.
“The cross is white because the headstones in Arlington are white,” he said. “Would you take that cross down, too?”
Americans United has given the town 30 days to respond to their demand. If they refuse to comply, don’t be surprised if the town of Knoxville gets hauled into court.
Meanwhile, I think Americans United should answer Mr. Goff’s question. Will they demand that Arlington Cemetery remove their crosses?
It’s doubtful Americans United would pull a stunt like that. I think they just like to bully small towns in the Heartland.

High-level federal employees used work Internet systems to join Ashley Madison


Hundreds of U.S. government employees -- including some with sensitive jobs in the White House, Congress and law enforcement agencies -- used Internet connections in their federal offices to access and pay membership fees to the cheating website Ashley Madison, The Associated Press has learned.

The AP traced many of the accounts exposed by hackers back to federal workers. They included at least two assistant U.S. attorneys; an information technology administrator in the Executive Office of the President; a division chief, an investigator and a trial attorney in the Justice Department; a government hacker at the Homeland Security Department and another DHS employee who indicated he worked on a U.S. counterterrorism response team.
Few actually paid for their services with their government email accounts. But AP traced their government Internet connections -- logged by the website over five years -- and reviewed their credit-card transactions to identify them. They included workers at more than two dozen Obama administration agencies, including the departments of State, Defense, Justice, Energy, Treasury, Transportation and Homeland Security. Others came from House or Senate computer networks.
The AP is not naming the government subscribers it found because they are not elected officials or accused of a crime.
Hackers this week released detailed records on millions of people registered with the website one month after the break-in at Ashley Madison's parent company, Toronto-based Avid Life Media Inc. The website -- whose slogan is, "Life is short. Have an affair" -- is marketed to facilitate extramarital affairs.
Many federal customers appeared to use non-government email addresses with handles such as "sexlessmarriage," "soontobesingle" or "latinlovers." Some Justice Department employees appeared to use pre-paid credit cards to help preserve their anonymity but connected to the service from their office computers.
"I was doing some things I shouldn't have been doing," a Justice Department investigator told the AP. Asked about the threat of blackmail, the investigator said if prompted he would reveal his actions to his family and employer to prevent it. "I've worked too hard all my life to be a victim of blackmail. That wouldn't happen," he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was deeply embarrassed and not authorized by the government to speak to reporters using his name.
The AP's analysis also found hundreds of transactions associated with Department of Defense networks, either at the Pentagon or from armed services connections elsewhere.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter confirmed the Pentagon was looking into the list of people who used military email addresses. Adultery can be a criminal offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
"I'm aware it," Carter said. "Of course it's an issue because conduct is very important. And we expect good conduct on the part of our people. ... The services are looking into it and as well they should be. Absolutely."
The AP's review was the first to reveal that federal workers used their office systems to access the site, based on their Internet Protocol addresses associated with credit card transactions. It focused on searching for government employees in especially sensitive positions who could perhaps become blackmail targets.
The government hacker at the Homeland Security Department, who did not respond to phone or email messages, included photographs of his wife and infant son on his Facebook page. One assistant U.S. attorney declined through a spokesman to speak to the AP, and another did not return phone or email messages.
A White House spokesman said Thursday he could not immediately comment on the matter. The IT administrator in the White House did not return email messages.
Federal policies vary for employees by agency as to whether they would be permitted during work hours to use websites like Ashley Madison, which could fall under the same category as dating websites. But it raises questions about what personal business is acceptable -- and what websites are OK to visit -- for government workers on taxpayer time, especially employees who could face blackmail.
The Homeland Security Department rules for use of work computers say the devices should be used for only for official purposes, though "limited personal use is authorized as long as this use does not interfere with official duties or cause degradation of network services." Employees are barred from using government computers to access "inappropriate sites" including those that are "obscene, hateful, harmful, malicious, hostile, threatening, abusive, vulgar, defamatory, profane, or racially, sexually, or ethnically objectionable."
Records also reveal subscribers signed up using state and municipal government networks nationwide, including those run by the New York Police Department, the nation's largest. "If anything comes to our attention indicating improper use of an NYPD computer, we will look into it and take appropriate action," said the NYPD's top spokesman, Stephen Davis.
The hackers who took credit for the break-in had accused the website's owners of deceit and incompetence, and said the company refused to bow to their demands to close the site. Avid Life released a statement calling the hackers criminals. It added that law enforcement in both the U.S. and Canada is investigating and declined comment beyond its statement Tuesday that it was investigating the hackers' claims.

Information in dozens of Clinton emails was 'born classified', report says


Dozens of emails that passed through Hillary Clinton's server during her time as secretary of state reportedly contained information automatically considered classified by the U.S. government and State Department's own regulations.

According to Reuters, at least 30 e-mail threads dating from as far back as 2009 contained what the State Department describes as "foreign government information." That number represents scores of individual emails that have already been made public, including 17 sent by Clinton herself. At least one of those emails was sent to longtime supporter Sidney Blumenthal, who did not hold a government position at the time.
The report says that the State Department identified the emails as containing "foreign government information" when it retroactively classified them upon their release earlier this year. However, the regulations say that such information, defined as having been provided orally or in writing to U.S. officials by their foreign counterparts in confidence, must be "presumed" classified, regardless of whether it is initially marked that way.
Reuters said the State Department disputed the report's analysis, but declined to say how it was incorrect.
"We do not have the ability to go back and recreate all of the various factors that would have gone into the determinations," State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach wrote in an e-mail,after initially accusing Reuters of making "outlandish accusations" about the emails. Reuters said it could not establish whether the State Department was applying its rules in a different manner from when the emails were first sent.
If true, the regulations would undercut Clinton's defense that she never sent or received information that was marked classified at the time it passed through her server. The Reuters report says that the government's standard nondisclosure form warns employees authorized to handle classified information that it may not be marked as such in writing and that a determination about its secrecy may be made orally.
"It's born classified," said J. William Leonard, a former director of the U.S. government's Information Security Oversight Office. "If a foreign minister just told the secretary of state something in confidence, by U.S. rules that is classified at the moment it's in U.S. channels and U.S. possession."
The report comes amid an ongoing federal investigation over whether Clinton mishandled classified information that passed through her so-called "homebrew" server during her tenure as America's top diplomat. On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the State Department to work with the FBI to try to recover approximately 31,000 emails that Clinton had described as personal. The Democratic presidential frontrunner has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Reuters reports that the unredacted portions of the emails appear to indicate information from one prime minister, one foreign minister and several intelligence chiefs. One e-mail, dated from November 2009, comes from the principal private secretary to then-British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and is addressed to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The British official writes that Miliband "very much wants the Secretary (only) to see this note." Abedin forwarded the e-mail to Clinton's private account.
A spokeswoman for one of the governments whose information appeared in the emails told Reuters that the information was shared confidentially with Clinton and her senior staff, making it classified according to the regulations. The spokeswoman said her government expected all private exchanges with U.S. officials to be treated as confidential.
According to State Department regulations in force in 2009, department employees "must ... safeguard foreign government and NATO RESTRICTED information as U.S. Government Confidential" or higher. Confidential information is considered the lowest level of classification for information that could harm national security if leaked, behind "Secret" and "Top Secret".

South Korea vows response to 'provocations' from North after exchange of fire



South Korea warned that North Korea was likely to launch "provocations" if Seoul did not meet a Saturday deadline to cease propaganda broadcasts as tensions heightened on the divided peninsula Friday.

South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo issued the warning at a press conference as a South Korean media outlet reported that Pyongyang appeared to be preparing to test-fire short- and mid-range ballistic missiles.
The report by Yonhap News Agency cited a South Korean government source who said that North Korea seemed to be "weighing the timing of the firing under its strategic intention to increase military tension on the Korean Peninsula to the highest level." The source also said that the apparent preparations for the test had been detected by South Korea's joint radar system, which it shares with the United States.
Earlier Friday, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared his country to be in a "quasi-state of war"and be fully ready for any military operations starting Friday evening, according to a report by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
In response, South Korea raised its military readiness to its highest level. Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Jeon Ha-kyu told a televised news conference that South Korea is ready to repel any additional provocation.
The North has also given Seoul a deadline of 5 p.m. Saturday evening (4 a.m. EDT) to remove border loudspeakers that, after a lull of 11 years, have started broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda. Failure, Pyongyang says, will result in further military action. Seoul has vowed to continue the broadcasts.
The North's media report said that "military commanders were urgently dispatched for operations to attack South Korean psychological warfare facilities if the South doesn't stop operating them." South Korea's vice defense minister said Friday this likely meant the North would fire on the 11 sites where South Korea had set up loudspeakers to broadcast propaganda.
The loudspeaker broadcasts began after South Korea accused the North of planting land mines that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month. One of the injured soldiers lost both legs and the other one leg. North Korea denies the South's accusation and demanded video proof.
The North's declaration Friday is similar to its other warlike rhetoric in recent years, including repeated threats to reduce Seoul to a "sea of fire," and the huge numbers of soldiers and military equipment already stationed along the border mean the area is always essentially in a "quasi-state of war." Still, the North's apparent willingness to test Seoul with military strikes and its recent warning of further action raise worries because South Korea has vowed to hit back with overwhelming strength should North Korea attack again.
The North's capital of Pyongyang was mostly business as usual Friday morning, although propaganda vans with loudspeakers broadcast the state media line that the country was in a "quasi-state of war" to people in the streets.
North Korea on Thursday afternoon first fired a single round believed to be from an anti-aircraft gun, which landed near a South Korean border town, Seoul said. About 20 minutes later, three North Korean artillery shells fell on the southern side of the Demilitarized Zone dividing the two Koreas. South Korea responded with dozens of 155-millimeter artillery rounds, according to South Korean defense officials.
North Korea said the South Korean shells landed near four military posts but caused no injuries. No one was reported injured in the South, either, though hundreds were evacuated from frontline towns.
On Friday, about 60 residents in the South Korean town near where the shell fell, Yeoncheon, were still in underground bunkers, Yeoncheon officials said. Yonhap reported that a total of about 2,000 residents along the border were evacuated Thursday.
Escalation is a risk in any military exchange between the Koreas because after two attacks blamed on Pyongyang killed 50 South Koreans in 2010, South Korea's military warned that any future North Korean attack could trigger strikes by South Korea that are three times as large.
Many in Seoul are accustomed to ignoring or discounting North Korea's repeated threats, but the latest have caused worry because of Pyongyang's warning of strikes if the South doesn't tear down its loudspeakers by Saturday evening. Observers say the North may need some save-facing measure to back down.
This is what happened in December 2010, when North Korea backed off an earlier warning of catastrophic retaliation after South Korea defiantly went ahead with live-fire drills near the country's disputed western sea boundary. A month earlier, when South Korea staged similar drills, the North reacted with an artillery bombardment that killed four people on a South Korean border island. North Korea said it didn't respond to the second drill because South Korea conducted it in a less provocative way, though the South said both drills were the same.
The rivals are currently at odds also over annual U.S.-South Korean military drills that North Korea calls an invasion rehearsal. Seoul and Washington say the drills are defensive in nature.
The Koreas' mine-strewn DMZ is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war. About 28,500 U.S. soldiers are deployed in South Korea to deter potential aggression from North Korea.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Army kicking out decorated Green Beret who stood up for Afghan rape victim


EXCLUSIVE: The U.S. Army is kicking out a decorated Green Beret after an 11-year Special Forces career, after he got in trouble for shoving an Afghan police commander accused of raping a boy and beating up his mother when she reported the incident. 

The case of Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland now has the attention of Congress, with Rep. Duncan Hunter writing to Defense Secretary Ash Carter challenging the decision.
"I am once again dismayed by the Army's actions in this case," Hunter, R-Calif., wrote in a letter to Carter.
Martland is described by many of his teammates as the finest soldier they have ever served alongside.
But his Army career changed course during his second deployment to Afghanistan in 2011. After learning an Afghan boy was raped and his mother beaten, Martland and his team leader confronted a local police commander they had trained, armed and paid with U.S. taxpayer dollars. When the man laughed off the incident, they physically confronted him.
They were punished by the Army at the time -- but why exactly Martland is now being discharged is a matter of dispute. Army sources cited his accolades, including being named runner-up for 2014 Special Warfare Training Group Instructor of the Year from a pool of 400 senior leaders in Special Forces, in questioning the decision.
As for the incident in 2011, Hunter told Carter: "To intervene was a moral decision, and SFC Martland and his Special Forces team felt they had no choice but to respond."
Casey, a former Green Beret teammate who would only use his first name since he is now a member of a federal counterterrorism team, told Fox News, "If I was a commander, I would have given him an award. They saved that kid's life."
Martland grew up south of Boston, in Milton, Mass. An all-state football player in high school, he set his sights on playing college football after graduating in 2001. Martland went for the Florida State University team, which just finished a season ranked #4 in the nation.
He made the team, impressing legendary head coach Bobby Bowdon and famed defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews. Still, he often remained on the sidelines. When Pat Tillman, a former NFL football player who volunteered for the Army Rangers, was killed in Afghanistan in 2004, he saw Tillman's sacrifice as motivation to apply for another elite program. Martland dropped out of college and graduated in 2006 from Special Forces Qualification Course, one of the U.S. military's toughest training programs. Over the years he became a jumpmaster, combat diver and sniper.
After a deployment to Iraq in 2008, he deployed to Afghanistan in January 2010 as part of a 12-man unit. He and his team found themselves fighting large numbers of Taliban militants in volatile Kunduz Province.
On one mission, one of their vehicles was struck by an IED, setting off a Taliban ambush. Fox News is told Martland rushed to the scene. He jumped in the turret of a damaged Humvee, exposing himself to enemy bullets while returning fire to help his teammates gather sensitive equipment.
"I thought he was gone, then he comes out of nowhere to save us," said an active-duty Green Beret who requested anonymity.
Martland was awarded a Bronze Star with Valor for his actions. According to one evaluation, he also was "praised" by Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan.
But very quickly, the Green Berets realized they had a problem with many of the Afghans they were training to become local police officers.
"We had been hearing for months about raping in our province, not just in Afghanistan," said Daniel Quinn, a West Point graduate and the team leader of the detachment sent to Kunduz.
One day in early September 2011 at their remote outpost, a young Afghan boy and his Afghan-Uzbek mother showed up at camp. The 12-year-old showed the Green Berets where his hands had been tied. A medic took him to a back room for an examination with an interpreter, who told them the boy had been raped by another commander by the name of Abdul Rahman.
After learning of the meeting, Rahman allegedly beat the boy's mother for reporting the crime. It was at this point, the Green Berets had had enough. Quinn and Martland went to confront Rahman.
"He confessed to the crime and laughed about it, and said it wasn't a big deal. Even when we patiently explained how serious the charge was, he kept laughing," Quinn said.  
According to reports of the incident, Quinn and Martland shoved Abdul Rahman to the ground. It was the only way to get their point across, according to Quinn. "As a man, as a father of a young boy myself at the time, I felt obliged to step in to prevent further repeat occurrences," Quinn said.
Rahman walked away bruised from getting shoved and thrown to the ground, but otherwise okay, according to teammates. But Rahman quickly reported the incident to another Army unit in a nearby village. The next day a U.S. Army helicopter landed and took Quinn and Martland away, ending their work in Kunduz Province.
For the next few weeks, both soldiers remained in Afghanistan but were not allowed to continue their mission. They were given temporary jobs in Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan and later in Herat. Pending the outcome of the investigation, both men were relieved from their positions and sent home. Their war was over.
Quinn has since left the Army and started a job on Wall Street.
Martland, though, has been fighting to stay in the Army. In February 2015, the Army conducted a "Qualitative Management Program" review board. His supporters suspect because Martland had a "relief for cause" evaluation in his service record, the U.S. Army ordered Martland to be "involuntary discharged" from the Army by Nov. 1, 2015.
The U.S. Army could not confirm the specifics of Martland's separation from service due to privacy reasons, according to Wayne Hall, an Army spokesman.
Critics point to the Army drawdown as a reason. One former Green Beret said any negative mark on a soldier's record can get them kicked out, given the drawdown.
Martland still has received the highest scores in evaluations since the incident.
"It's sad to think that a child rapist is put above one of our elite military operators. Sergeant Martland was left with no other choice but to intervene in a bad situation. ... The Army should stand up for what's right and should not side with a corrupt Afghan police officer," Hunter told Fox News.
A childhood friend who went on to play in the NFL, Tim Bulman, said of Martland: "You would want him in your corner and protecting our freedom."

Donald Trump: Vladimir Putin Can Be Dealt With


In an interview with FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump discussed who he admires most in foreign policy, military and business.

“When you look at business, a guy like Jack Welch. I've always been a fan of Jack… I actually did deals with Jack when he was at General Electric. And you know somebody like Jack Welch was certainly a great example. And there are so many of them. I've met so many corporate leaders, over the years, over the last four or five years in particular and so many that are so good. And people like, as an example, Larry Fink, I invest money, I put money with different people, and Larry Fink -- done a great job, you know, he's done a great job for me. And, you know, with the money that I have given them to invest and others. There are so many people that I have great respect for. Unfortunately there are far more people that don’t do a very good job,” he said.
Trump said he thinks German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a great leader.
“Fantastic leader.  She's -- I was with somebody the other day who thinks she is the greatest leader in the world today ... the smartest and the greatest leader in the world today and this is a person that has great knowledge of her and deals with her,” he said.
He said Vladimir Putin is someone “that can be dealt with.”
“I think his dislike of President Obama is so intense that it really has affected the whole relationship. We've driven them into the arms of China, so that now these two are together, which has always been the great sin. Don't ever let Russia and China get together. We've driven them together. I think he is somebody that I would have a very decent relationship with if I ever win,” he said.
He also weighed in on China’s leader Xi Jinping.
“Always smart. Chinese leaders are -- they have a different system than ours. They don't do it by television, they do it by a different route to get up there… I think what he did with the recent devaluations, which a lot of people said were market driven, they are not market driven. They did it to keep it going. But the -- the leaders in China always turn out to be smart, and he's certainly one of them,” he said.

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