Tag Archives: Homeland Security

Senate blocks bill for tighter Syrian refugee screening

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats narrowly blocked legislation on Wednesday that would slow the entry of refugees from Syria and Iraq into the United States in a contentious vote cloaked in presidential election-year politics.

The vote was 55-43, with “yes” votes falling short of the 60 needed to advance the Republican-backed measure in the 100-member Senate. No Republicans voted against the bill, and only two Democrats backed it.

Among other things, the bill would have required high-level U.S. officials to verify that each refugee from Iraq and Syria posed no security risk before being allowed into the United States.

Republicans said the tighter screening was essential to ensure the safety of Americans and prevent attacks within the country by Islamic State and other militant groups.

Democrats called the legislation an attack on people who are fleeing war. They accused Republicans of holding the vote to allow their 2016 presidential candidates in the Senate to back legislation touted as tough on security.

All three of the Senate Republican 2016 presidential hopefuls, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, backed the bill.

Democrats had also sought to play politics. They tried and failed to reach a deal with Republicans that would have set up a vote on an amendment establishing a religious test for would-be immigrants.

That vote was planned to see if Republicans would side against 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has advocated barring Muslims from entering the United States.

The Syria refugee bill passed the House by a large, bipartisan margin in November days after the Nov. 13 Islamic State attacks in Paris, supported by dozens of Democrats who broke from their party despite Democratic President Barack Obama’s threatened veto.

“We need to talk about efforts to defeat ISIS, not creating more paperwork for cabinet secretaries,” Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic leader, told reporters before the vote.

It currently takes 18-24 months for Syrian refugees to be screened before they can move to the United States.

The United States has offered refuge to far fewer of the millions fleeing war in Syria and Iraq than many of its closest allies in Europe and the Middle East.

Obama announced last year that he would admit 10,000 Syrians, a plan opposed by many Republicans as a potential threat to U.S. security.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Eric Beech and Cynthia Osterman)

Government announces new anti-terrorism task force, initiative

The United States government took new steps in the fight against the Islamic State and other extremist groups on Friday, with three separate departments unveiling new measures designed to help stop terrorist organizations from spreading their radical messages to a global audience.

The Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security teamed up to establish a new anti-extremism task force and the State Department created a new Global Engagement Center that will help counter terrorist propaganda, according to news releases from the departments.

“The horrific attacks in Paris and San Bernardino this winter underscored the need for the United States and our partners in the international community and the private sector to deny violent extremists like ISIL fertile recruitment ground,” National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement about the new efforts, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

Price noted the announcement came on the day that top White House and national security officials were meeting with several leading technology companies in California’s Silicon Valley.

Lawmakers and President Barack Obama have publicly called for more to be done to help prevent terrorist organizations from using social media to share information about their actions and messages. In December, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism released a report that said it identified at least 300 Islamic State sympathizers in the United States who spread propaganda or communicated with other “like-minded individuals” on social media.

Following the San Bernardino terrorist attacks, lawmakers proposed legislation that would require social media companies to report any evidence of terrorist activities to the proper authorities. The Department of Justice has said one of the San Bernardino shooters pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State on Facebook on the morning of the deadly rampage.

“Today’s developments reflect President Obama’s commitment to take every possible action to confront and interdict terrorist activities wherever they occur, including online,” Price said in a statement.

The State Department said its Global Engagement Center would “more effectively coordinate, integrate and synchronize” its anti-terrorism communications. The State Department currently runs a social media campaign called “Think Again Turn Away,” that says it offers “truths about terrorism.” Its recent Twitter postings tout victories the United States-led coalition and Iraqi military have scored against ISIS, including killing of 75 terrorists and destroying equipment.

It’s not exactly clear if or how this new effort will differ from the existing campaign.

The State Department’s news release said the Global Engagement Center will “focus more on empowering and enabling partners … who are able to speak out against these groups and provide an alternative to ISIL’s nihilistic vision.” The department said the efforts will center on things like how terrorists treat women and defectors, rather than what the groups publicize.

The Department of Justice said the Countering Violent Extremism Task Force is part of the government’s increased effort “to prevent extremists from radicalizing and mobilizing recruits, especially here at home.” The task force will aim to coordinate the anti-terrorism efforts of a variety of government agencies, bringing officials from the Homeland Security and Justice departments, FBI and National Counterterrorism Center together under one roof.

U.S. Officials Deporting Fewer Illegal Immigrants

Newly released data indicates Homeland Security officials removed far fewer unauthorized immigrants from the United States this past fiscal year, but the department says the drop reflects efforts to prioritize catching those who present the most risk to the public.

The Department of Homeland Security released its annual report on immigration enforcement on Tuesday. It covers the period from Oct. 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2015.

The data show Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials deported 235,413 people in that period. That number was 315,943 in 2014, 368,644 in 2013 and an Obama administration high of 409,849 in 2012.

However, as the number of deportations dropped, the percentage of convicted criminals removed rose slightly. In 2012, about 55 percent of ICE removals were convicted criminals. That rose to 59 percent last year.

In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the data “reflect this Department’s increased focus on prioritizing convicted criminals and threats to public safety, border security and national security.” Officials said 86 percent of the deportations were “top priority” cases that were considered threats.

Crunching the numbers further, ICE reported about 91 percent of its nearly 70,000 interior removals – people who were living in the United States, rather than being caught as they tried to illegally cross the border – were convicted criminals, a 9 percent increase from 2013.

Officials also reported a stark drop in the number of people apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol.

The Border Patrol arrested 337,117 people in the past fiscal year, which the report said was the second-lowest yearly apprehension total since 1972. The number of arrests was 486,651 last year and 420,789 in 2012.

Johnson said that the consecutive drops reflect “a lower level of attempted illegal migration at our borders.” But not everyone with ties to the Border Patrol sees it that way.

“To me, if our numbers of arrests have gone down, that just means that we have missed more (people). The same number of people are getting in, we’re just taking in less,” Terence Shigg, the president of a local chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, told the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Homeland Security officials said 18 percent fewer Mexican nationals were apprehended in fiscal year 2015 than in fiscal year 2014. Arrests of people from other countries – mainly Central America – dropped about 68 percent. Officials also seized some 3.3 million pounds of narcotics.

“(Fiscal year) 2015 was a year of transition, during which our new policies focusing on public safety were being implemented,” Johnson said in a statement. “In (fiscal year) 2016 and beyond, I want to focus even more interior enforcement resources on removing convicted criminals.”

Homeland Security Scrapped Proposal to Check Applicants’ Social Media Profiles

Homeland Security officials debated a policy that would have allowed authorities to review the social media profiles of foreigners who applied to come to the United States as far back as 2011, but ultimately decided against the idea, MSNBC reported on Thursday.

The news agency published a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo detailing a proposed policy that would have allowed officials to utilize social networking sites “for purposes of verifying information related to applications and petitions.” The memo indicates doing so could help detect “criminal activity, or egregious public safety or national security concerns.”

The memo itself isn’t dated, though MSNBC reported it was ultimately rejected in 2011 after a lengthy process that included multiple revisions. Speaking anonymously to the news agency, a former senior Homeland Security official said it was “unusual” for the policy to go through the revision process, which took about a year to complete, only for it to be axed by senior officials.

Public demand to check foreign applicant’s social media profiles before allowing them to come to the United States has surged after the Dec. 2 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Tashfeen Malik and Syed Rizwan Farook killed 14 people and wounded 21 more during a holiday party for Farook’s coworkers in what President Barack Obama has called an act of terrorism.

FBI Director James Comey has testified before federal lawmakers and said the shooters were communicating about jihad and martyrdom over the Internet as far back as 2013, yet Malik was still able to obtain a fiancee visa and move to the United States despite those communications. She was living in Saudi Arabia when she met Farook, a U.S. citizen, on an online dating website.

Since then, lawmakers have said they’re crafting bills that would make checking an applicant’s social media profiles, or at least the publicly available information on them, a required part of the visa screening process. While there are some pilot programs for those reviews in place, ABC News has reported it’s still not a widespread policy, partly due to civil liberties concerns.

But the memo obtained by MSNBC indicates that federal policymakers had discussed allowing employees to review applicants’ social media profiles at least four years before the San Bernardino shootings.

The memo indicates that “many social networking websites” actually could not be accessed from Homeland Security computers, as the department’s security controls blocked them. The memo doesn’t specify what websites could not be viewed by employees, but says that “access to certain sites may be blocked to maintain employee productivity or to reduce security risks to agency networks.”

The policy would have allowed “certain agency personnel to access social networking sites for verification purposes.” The memo notes that while some sites have privacy settings that hide information, it’s possible for anyone on the Internet to see certain personal details or posts. The memo indicated that officials would only be allowed to review “publicly available information.”

The axed policy would have allowed applicants “to explain or refute any derogatory information obtained from social networking sites,” before any immigration ruling, according to the memo.

Ted Koppel States that the U.S. is Unprepared for an Attack on the Power Grid

Veteran journalist, Ted Koppel, is getting the word out to the American public that the U.S. does not have a plan for a cyberattack against the power grid.

In his latest book “Lights Out,” Koppel writes on what would happen if another country took out the nation’s power grid via hacking, and how it would be difficult for unprepared American residents to survive.

“It’s frightening,” Koppel told CBS News. “I mean, it is frightening enough that my wife and I decided we were going to buy enough freeze-dried food for all of our kids and their kids.”

Koppel went on to say that the former Chief Scientists of the NSA told him that Russia and China were already in the power grid. And soon, Iran and terrorist groups like ISIS may be able to hack their way into the power grid’s system that is connected to the Internet.

“I’m not sure why it hasn’t happened yet,” cyber security consultant Larry Pesce told CBS. “It’s definitely not for lack of capability on various parts, be it us or the enemy. I think it comes down to timing. I think we need to make the right people mad at the right time.”

According to Koppel, he has talked with every former secretary of Homeland Security and they all said the same thing: there is no plan for a cyberattack against the power grid. However, Homeland Security replied to CBS saying that there is a plan, but they did not give details.

A former Defense Department official, Paul Stockton, told CBS that Koppel is wrong. While there is a plan in place, Stockton did admit that there could be improvement in security measures both through the government and the power companies.

“The government is building plans very, very quickly now to help manage the consequences of an attack on the grid,” Stockton said.

Stockton did add that Koppel was smart for stocking up on food and water for him and his family.

Average citizens need to be able to take care of their own families and their own neighborhoods and their own communities, and not assume that Uncle Sam is somehow going to magically bring in the cavalry and rescue them,” he said.

Florida Murder Investigated as “Ritualistic Killing” Connected to Witchcraft

An elderly mother and her two sons were found dead in their Florida Panhandle home last week and now police say it’s looking like they were killed as part of a witchcraft ritual.

At a news conference, Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan told reporters they are suspecting witchcraft because of the positioning of the victim’s bodies.

“Initial research has led us to believe it was a ritualistic killing,” Morgan said. “The method of the murder — positioning of bodies — and our person of interest has some ties to a faith or religion that is indicative of that. The time of the death on Tuesday also coincides with what’s referred to as a blue moon, which occurs every three years.”

The sheriff described the scene as “very complex.”

“There are different factions of (witchcraft). While it doesn’t bother me to release that particular thing, I most assuredly do not want to defame or demean any particular practice,” Morgan said.

One of the victims was an employee of the Department of Homeland Security.  Morgan said there was no sign of forced entry or robbery at the home.

Homeland Security Admits Cybersecurity Bill Could “Sweep Away Important Privacy Protections”

The Department of Homeland Security has given some powerful ammunition to opponents of a new cybersecurity bill, admitting that the bill could trample some privacy protections for citizens.

Answering a query from Minnesota Senator Al Franken, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security admitted the bill “could sweep away important privacy protections” and that the proposed legislation “raises privacy and civil liberties concerns”.

The bill in question, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, could reach the Senate floor as early as Wednesday.

The bill would allow private companies such as Experian, which tracks information from loyalty cards at businesses to track customer movements, to expand their reach.

Section 4 of CISA states: “[a] private entity may, for cybersecurity purposes, monitor A) the information systems of such a private entity; B) the information systems of another entity, upon written consent of such other entity […] and D) information that is stored on, processed by, or transiting the information systems monitored by the private entity under this paragraph.”

The bill was introduced by California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein who says the bill “incentivizes” the sharing of cybersecurity information.

“It responds to the massive and growing threat to national and economic security from cyber intrusion and attack, and seeks to improve the security of public and private computer networks by increasing awareness of threats and defenses,” Ms. Feinstein has stated about CISA.

Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are calling on members to contact their Senators to vote against the bill, saying it is a violation of citizen’s rights.

One of the bill’s biggest opponents in the Senate is Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, who says the bill doesn’t promote cybersecurity but rather erases protections for many citizens.

“Right now, we are seeing the government is having trouble keeping its own data security,” Wyden told the Huffington Post. “But now Congress is setting up an arrangement where companies are going to hand over enormous amounts of additional private and personal information. That just doesn’t add up.”

New York Stock Exchange Halted By Computer Glitch

Trading at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was suddenly halted around 11:32 a.m. Eastern Time because of what officials termed a “computer glitch.”

The market was down over 200 points (over 1%) at the time of the halt.

“We’re currently experiencing a technical issue that we’re working to resolve as quickly as possible,” Marissa Arnold, an NYSE spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement. “We will be providing further updates as soon as we can, and are doing our utmost to produce a swift resolution, communicate thoroughly and transparently, and ensure a timely and orderly market re-open.”

The Nasdaq reported to problems and said they continue to trade stocks that are listed on the NYSE.

“It’s been a little bit of a bumpy day. We had some technical problems even before the opening,” said Art Cashin, director of floor operations at the NYSE, in a CNBC interview.

“This will not cause a move in any particular direction, so I would kind of wait it out and see what happens,” he added.

The uncertainty about Greece and a massive selling of Chinese stocks were driving the market lower.

The Department of Homeland Security told CNN they found “no sign of malicious activity” at the stock exchange and no sign of a cyberattack.

Security Measures Increased Ahead of July 4th

Federal officials say that security measures across the country will be increase ahead of the July 4th holiday weekend.

Police say that they are concerned about ISIS sympathizers in the country who might heed the group’s call for major terror attacks during the month of Ramadan.

New York Congressman Peter King told ABC there was “great concern” about terror attacks and that it was unusual for officials to put out warnings so far in advance of a holiday unless they had major reason for concern.

“ISIS is incomparable as far as terrorist organizations as far as being able to reach,” King said on “This Week.” “They can reach the disaffected, they can reach the deranged, they can also reach the ideologically committed.”

King is not alone in his concern.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re sitting here a week from today talking about an attack over the weekend in the United States. That’s how serious this is,” Former CIA deputy director Michael Morrell told CBS News.

The warnings come on the heels of three coordinated terrorist attacks in Europe that were claimed by ISIS.

Senator Calls Out Homeland Security For Altering Freedom of Religion Definition

A Senator is challenging the Department of Homeland Security over the DHS quietly changing the definition of “freedom of religion” to “freedom of worship.”

Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, a former youth pastor who helps head the Congressional Prayer Caucus, sent a letter to the head of Homeland Security demanding to know why prospective citizens are asked about “freedom of worship” rather than freedom of religion on civics test study materials.

“We are doing a great disservice to those seeking citizenship in this great country if we distort our history and fail to teach new citizens about the founding and constitutional principles of this nation,” Lankford wrote in the letter. “How can your Department request that Congress create a new United States Citizenship Foundation when your own naturalization materials do not even accurately reflect the constitutional rights of American citizens?”

“Our Constitution is clear— Americans have the freedom of religion. The naturalization tests and its corresponding materials must be equally clear,” Lankford continued. “As such, I ask that you immediately change all documents that are part of the naturalization test, including the study materials, to correctly show that Americans have the right to free exercise of religion.”

DHS made the change in their naturalization materials in 2008.  A spokesman for DHS told the Daily Signal the change was made to be “more inclusive.”

Lankford says the change distorts the real meaning in the Constitution of religious freedom.

“The freedom of religion is much more than just the freedom of worship. Worship confines you to a location,” the senator explained. “Freedom of religion is the right to exercise your religious beliefs — it is the ability for Americans to live out their faith or to choose to have no faith.”