Conservative Blogger
Friday, April 7, 2017
Twitter files lawsuit over US government attempt to identify users behind anti-Trump account
Twitter has filed a lawsuit against the U.S government over an attempt to reveal the identities of the users behind the @ALT_USCIS account, which has been critical of President Trump’s administration.
A “rogue” government account, @ALT_USCIS describes its goal as “immigration resistance” and is now at the center of the row between Twitter and two government agencies - the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Twitter wants to prevent the agencies from “unlawfully abusing a limited-purpose investigatory tool to try to unmask the real identity of one or more persons who have been using Twitter’s social media platform,” according to the lawsuit. The users have harnessed @ALT_USCIS “to express public criticism of the Department and the current Administration,” it adds.
TRUMP SAYS HIS TWITTER POWER IS WHY KAEPERNICK IS A FREE AGENT
@ALT_USCIS is one of a number of so-called “alternative agency” accounts set up on the social media site following Trump’s inauguration, Twitter explains. These accounts provide a platform for purported current or former employees of federal agencies, without revealing their identities.
“Like other accounts of this sort, @ALT_USCIS claims to be run by one or more current government employees—in this case, employees of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services,” Twitter says, in its suit. “And as with other such accounts, the person or persons who established and speak through @ALT_USCIS have identified themselves only by means of this pseudonymous account name.”
On March 14 Twitter received a CBP summons “demanding that Twitter provide them records that would unmask, or likely lead to unmasking, the identity of the person(s) responsible for the @ALT_USCIS account,” according to the suit, which describes the summons as unlawful. “Permitting CBP to pierce the pseudonym of the @ALT_USCIS account would have a grave chilling effect on the speech of that account in particular and on the many other ‘alternative agency’ accounts that have been created to voice dissent to government policies,” it added.
MCDONALD'S TWITTER ACCOUNT HACKED, BLASTS TRUMP
The account has racked up over 35,000 followers since it was set up in January 2017. In its description, @ALT_USCIS says that it does not express the views of DHS or the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The @ALT_USCIS account tweeted part of Twitter’s lawsuit Thursday.
The ACLU’s national Twitter account tweeted its support for the social media site Thursday. “We're glad Twitter is pushing back,” it said.
Twitter declined to comment on its legal action when contacted by Fox News. The DHS and CBP have not yet responded to a request for comment on this story.
Russia says Syria airstrike an 'aggression' by US
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| Miller says US strike signals Russia: 'Control your client' |
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin believes that the U.S. has dealt the strikes under "far-fetched pretext."
Russia also suspened an agreement with the U.S. to avoid mid-air collisions over Syria in wake of the airstrikes. The deal had been made for safety precautions when engaging military targets.
Russia has argued that the death of civilians in the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun on Tuesday resulted from Syrian forces hitting a rebel chemical arsenal there.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Thursday that "either Russia has been complicit (in the attacks) or Russia has been simply incompetent."
Peskov said that the U.S. has ignored past incidents of the use of chemical weapons by Syrian rebels. He argued that the Syrian government has destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles under international control.
Russia added that no servicemen dies in the U.S. airstrike.
The U.S. launched nearly five dozen cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield early Friday in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians, the first direct assault on the Damascus government since the beginning of that country's bloody civil war in 2011.
Trump addressed the media shortly after reports on the airstrike began to surface.
"It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons," Trump said. "Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types."
US missiles target Syria airfield in response to chemical weapons attack
The United States launched nearly five dozen cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield early Friday in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians, the first direct assault on the Damascus government since the beginning of that country's bloody civil war in 2011.
"It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons," President Donald Trump said in a statement. "Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types."
Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles targeted an airbase at Shayrat, located outside Homs. The missiles targeted the base's airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, officials said.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said initial indications were that the strike had "severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment ... reducing the Syrian Government's ability to deliver chemical weapons." There was no immediate word about any casualties.
Trump said the base was used as the staging point for Tuesday's chemical weapons attack on rebel-held territory, which killed as many as 72 civilians, including women and children.
"Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children," Trump said from Mar-a-Lago, Fla. "Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror."
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said the strike should cause a "big shift in Assad's calculus."
"Obviously the regime maintains a certain capability to commit mass murder with chemical weapons beyond this air field," McMaster said. "But it was aimed at this airfield because we could trace that attack back to this facility. It was not a small strike."
The U.S. missiles hit at 8:45 p.m. Eastern time, 3:45 a.m. Friday morning in Syria. Syrian state TV called the attack an "aggression" that lead to "losses."
U.S. military officials said they informed their Russian counterparts of the impending attack in an effort to avoid any accident involving Russian forces. Nevertheless, Russia's Deputy U.N. ambassador Vladimir Safronkov warned that any negative consequences from the strikes would be on the "shoulders of those who initiated such a doubtful and tragic enterprise."
Davis, the Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that "there are Russians at the base," but said they had been warned "multiple times" to leave. He did not know whether Russian aircraft were at the base when the missiles hit.
The U.S. also notified its partner countries in the region prior to launching the strikes.
U.S. defense officials tell Fox News that two warships based in the eastern Mediterranean, the USS Porter and the USS Ross, have been training for the past two days to execute this mission.
“Our forward deployed ships give us the capability to quickly respond to threats," said a Navy official. "These strikes in Syria are a perfect example - this is why we're there."
The original plans called for two targets, the airbase and a chemical weapons storage facility. However, Pentagon planners decided late Thursday to target just the airbase.
As a candidate, Trump warned against against the U.S. getting pulled into the Syrian civil war. But the president earlier in the week appeared moved by the photos of children killed in the chemical attack.
"I think what happened in Syria is one of the truly egregious crimes and shouldn't have happened and it shouldn't be allowed to happen," Trump told reporters traveling on Air Force One to Florida earlier , where he was holding a two-day summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Late Thursday, a U.S. government official told Fox News that the intelligence community has high confidence that the attack was carried out by Syrian government aircraft. The official said the analysis was consistent with eyewitness reports that fixed-wing aircraft launched the strike.
The official described the use of sarin gas in the attack as a watershed. The Assad government had agreed to disband its chemical weapons capability by 2014 under an agreement coordinated with the Obama administration and Russia. Tuesday's attack was considered a breach of that agreement.
The Turkish ministry of health says the preliminary results show the use of sarin gas. Sarin is a colorless, odorless liquid and is highly volatile while moving from its liquid state to a gas. Unlike chlorine, which the Assad government has used on a regular basis, sarin does not dissipate quickly. The victims in Tuesday’s attack showed all the hallmarks of a sarin attack – including twitching, jerking and foaming at the mouth.
Trump's decision to attack Syria came three-and-a-half years after President Barack Obama threatened Assad with military action after an earlier chemical weapons attack killed hundreds outside of Damascus. Obama had declared the use of such weapons a "red line." At the time, several American ships in the Mediterranean were poised to launch missiles, only for Obama to abruptly pull back after key U.S. ally Britain and the U.S. Congress balked at his plan.
He opted instead for the Russian-backed plan that was supposed to remove and eliminate Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles.
The world learned of the chemical attack earlier in the week in footage that showed people dying in the streets and bodies of children stacked in piles.
The U.S. show of force in Syria raises legal questions. It's unclear what authority Trump is relying on to attack another government. When Obama intervened in Libya in 2011, he used a U.N. Security Council mandate and NATO's overall leadership of the mission to argue that he had legal authority — arguments that many Republicans opposed. Trump can't rely on either justification here.
Unclear also is whether Trump is adopting any broader effort to combat Assad. Under Obama, the United States largely pulled back from its support for so-called "moderate" rebels when Russia's military intervention in September 2015 led them to suffer a series of battlefield defeats. Instead, Obama sought to work with Russia on a negotiated transition.
Trump and his top aides had acknowledged in recent days the "reality" of Assad being in power, saying his ouster was no longer a priority. But the chemical weapons attack seemed to spur a rethink. In Florida on Thursday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said of Assad: "There's no role for him to govern the Syrian people."
Initial reports indicate Syrian airbase 'almost completely destroyed' after US strike
The Syrian airfield targeted by United States airstrikes early Friday was “almost completely destroyed,” a human rights group in the country said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the missile attack damaged over a dozen hangars, a fuel depot and an air defense base. About 60 U.S. Tomahawk missiles hit the Shayrat air base, southeast of Homs, a small installation with two runways.
At least seven Syrian soldiers were killed and nine wounded in the airstrike, the country's military said. The governor of Homs province said he did not believe the strikes caused a large number of “human casualties.” A Syrian official the attack caused deaths and a fire, but did not elaborate.
The U.S. missiles hit at 3:45 a.m. local time in Syria. Syrian state TV called the attack an "aggression" that lead to "losses."
"Initial indications are that this strike has severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment at Shayrat Airfield, reducing the Syrian government's ability to deliver chemical weapons," Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said, according to Reuters.
Davis said the U.S. was still assessing the result of the 59 Tomahawks it fired, expressing hope that Assad's government learned a lesson. He said it was ultimately "the regime's choice" if more U.S. military action would be needed.
The U.S. launched nearly five dozen cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians, the first direct assault on the Damascus government since the beginning of that country's bloody civil war in 2011.
U.S. officials called the airstrike a “one-off” and said there are no plans for escalation.
The U.S. airstrike in Syria was an "aggression against a sovereign state" and in violation of international law, the Kremlin said in a statement. Shortly before the strikes, the head of information policy commission in the upper house of Russian parliament, Alexei Pushkov, said on Twitter said that if Trump launches a military action in Syria it would put him in "the same league with Bush and Obama."
President Trump on Thursday called for all “civilized nations” to join the U.S. “in seeking to end this slaughter and bloodshed in Syria.”
A survivor of the chemical attack in a northern Syrian town says he hopes the U.S. missile attack could help put an end to Syrian government airstrikes, creating a safe area for civilians.
Alaa Alyousef, a 27-year old resident of Khan Sheikhoun, said Friday the U.S. missile attack "alleviates a small part of our sufferings," but he worries it will be like "anesthetics," to save face. AlYousef said the U.S. is capable of "paralyzing" Syrian warplanes.
"What good is a strike on Shayart air base alone while we have more than 15 other air bases," he said.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Trump administration revokes Obama-era directive blocking controversial water project
The Trump administration issued a memo late last week revoking two federal directives implemented under President Obama that had blocked a controversial water project in California’s Mojave Desert.
An acting assistant director at the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rescinded two legal guidances that reinforced the agency’s 2015 decision that Cadiz Inc. could not use an existing federal railroad right-of-way in its long-standing project to pump groundwater from the project’s planned well field in the Mojave Desert and sell it to urban areas throughout Southern California that rely on the Colorado River Aqueduct.
While the BLM’s one-page order didn’t specifically mention the Cadiz project, it eases the way for the company to argue for the reversal of the findings of the agency’s California field office, which said the company needed federal approval to construct its 43-mile water pipeline. The memo also noted that any future right-of-way decisions will be determined by the BLM’s office in Washington, D.C.
The resource company hopes to pump groundwater stored in its privately-owned Mojave holdings to supply 100,000 households. If successful, Cadiz stands to make between $1 billion and $2 billion in revenue over the project's 50-year lifespan.
The pipeline has the support of many local lawmakers, including the San Bernardino County Board of Commissioners, which approved the project back in 2012. The board argued that the project would be a boon to the local economy by creating thousands of jobs and also bring water reliability to an area of the country that has suffered through a devastating drought over the past few years.
Cadiz also overcame a number of environmental lawsuits under state law. As part of its decision the San Bernardino County supervisors established an independent enforcement role over the project’s operations and authorized groundwater withdrawals that will avoid harm to desert resources.
Environmentalists and desert advocates, however, have decried the project, arguing that the project could deplete water needed to support the local wildlife and cause dust storms that would affect regional air quality.
Federal hydrologists have challenged Cadiz’s assertions about the rate of natural recharge of the desert aquifer. Public land advocates say that any pumping will dry up the natural springs on surrounding federal land.
“Many of the springs and seeps are going to dry up because of groundwater extraction,” Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Press Enterprise.
Sen. Diane Feinstein, who authored the California Desert Protection Act and was instrumental in creating the nearby Mojave Trails National Preserve, has been one of the biggest opponents of Cadiz. The California Democrat has for years attached riders to congressional appropriations bills preventing the BLM from spending money that would benefit the Cadiz project.
“The Trump administration wants to open the door for a private company to exploit a natural desert aquifer and destroy pristine public land purely for profit,” Feinstein said in a statement. “The administration is completely undermining federal oversight of railroad rights-of-way.”
Despite the pushback from Feinstein, the project enjoys a good deal of support in Congress. Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah – the chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee – was one of 18 members of Congress to urge Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to revoke the BLM directives.
The anti-sanctuary city: Arizona county bucks national trend
Casa Grande, Ariz. – While an increasing number of cities declare themselves safe zones for illegal immigrants, a sheriff in Arizona is bucking the trend by openly working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.
“I’m not for sanctuary cities,” said Pinal County Sheriff Paul Lamb. “That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.”
Pinal County, south of Phoenix, is the size of Connecticut. Its 450,000 residents are an ethnic mix – black, white, Hispanic and Native Americans.
SESSIONS TAKES AIM AT 'DANGEROUS' SANCTUARY CITIES, WARNS ON FUNDING
Lamb took office in January and instituted a cooperative program so his jail deputies are cross trained as ICE agents, allowing them to question and immediately determine an inmate’s immigration status. In practice, it allows for a seamless transition of criminal aliens from the Pima County courthouse or jail to ICE custody for deportation.
“Ultimately their goal is the same as ours – public safety,” said David Marin, an ICE director in Los Angeles. “Those sheriffs and law enforcement agencies realize that by turning over these criminal aliens to us they’re not going to be able to go out and commit additional crimes.”
Currently Pinal County has four jail deputies trained in the ICE 287g program, which allows local police to enforce immigration laws. The Trump administration hopes to expand the program to as many cities as possible.
“My job is to keep the people of Pinal County safe,” said Lamb. “The 287g program allows me to make sure I’m not putting criminals back in the community.”
MAYORS OF SANCTUARY CITIES SHOULD BE THROWN IN JAIL
As trained ICE agents, the deputies are able to tap into Department of Homeland Security computers and determine an inmates’ legal status. And unlike sanctuary jurisdictions, the county honors ICE warrants and detainers and will give ICE a call when an inmate is preparing to leave.
“This county cares about illegal immigration and it’s my job to make sure that we work with our federal partners to uphold the law,” Lamb said.
That includes the Border Patrol, which works closely with the county’s anti-smuggling unit.
“They back us up and we help them,” said Deputy Eddie Joseph.
Behind the wheel of an unmarked, black Dodge pickup, Joseph patrols Interstate 8 and 10, both of which cross east-west across Pinal County.
He watches a battered blue SUV suspiciously go up and down a desert road twice in 30 minutes. The behavior mirrors that of smugglers who are looking to pick up illegals hiding in the bushes along the road.
It’s a seven-day walk from the U.S. Mexican border about 80 miles away. Yet, piles of discarded clothes, water bottles and burlap sacks used to carry marijuana litter the desert in popular spots near the highways.
“We see a lot of drug and human smuggling” Joseph said. “You can see here the foot tracks in the sand. They’re probably a few days old.”
The Trump Administration sees local law enforcement as a front line in its battle against illegal immigration, at the border and in the interior. They do not expect to turn local cops into immigration agents. But once an immigrant is booked into jail, for any offense, they become fair game.
The administration argues it is the federal government’s prerogative – not a local mayor or city council – to decide who gets deported and who does not.
“It’s a slippery slope, when you get into that,” Lamb argued. “You can’t start determining this person meets a criteria and this one doesn’t. The bottom line is, it’s illegal (to be here). If someone is illegal, it’s against the law and my job to uphold the law.”
Marin wished more local law enforcement shared his attitude.
“It’s troubling for us because here’s a criminal alien, somebody that we can use our unique authorities to not only remove them from the community,” he said, “but ultimately remove them from the country and again there’s law enforcement agencies that are just letting them go.”
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