CNN Calls it a Coup

Venezuela has entered a new phase in its standoff between the forces of Maduro and Juan Guaido .  CNN is calling this a coup, phrasing the actions of the elected leader as a overthrow of the dictator.  Sometimes I think CNN is AT&T's worst nightmare.  The President of AT&T says he sees no bias in the way CNN reports news.  What is this, if not bias? 

China in Space and New Trade numbers

The US China Economic and Security Review Committee has recently published two new reports and the quarterly.   https://www.uscc.gov/ . They are both good reading.  "  In January 2019, U.S. exports of goods to China fell 27.5 percent year-on-year to $7.1 billion—a record-setting decline; the monthly U.S. trade deficit in goods with China totaled $34.5 billion."  Interesting that our deficit is still high, even with a record decline.

The China space report is worth the time.  The Chinese are showing real interest in space dominance and are putting a good bit of money into space.  In case you wondered about it, that experiment on the far side of the moon has a lot of interest since we can't actually see what they are doing there.  They could be building a space station for all we know.

Russians Want Unredacted Mueller Report

The Russian Intelligence services are going to be hard at work to get that unredacted report drawn up by the Special Counsel's Office.  If you look at the parts that are redacted, most of the reasons are Harm to Ongoing Matter, which means, if disclosed the information would negatively impact the criminal prosecution of a case under investigation. Having many instances of this in the past, I can tell you that is a big umbrella, but a necessary one. 

Suppose we have a simplified drug case that involves a person on drugs, a distributor of drugs in Cleveland, a distributor of drugs in Mexico, and a cartel of drug dealers operating under local government protection.  We indict the dealer in Cleveland and allow the buyer of drugs from that dealer to testify about where he bought these drugs and from whom.  It's dangerous, but he does it. 

We put that together with months of audio and video collected during a court-ordered surveillance.  We got that because we did not announce the arrest of the drug buyer when he was first detected.   We could, if we wanted and were short-sighted, stop there and take this guy to court, arrest his supplier and bring that to a Grand Jury for an indictment, try them both and announce a great victory against drug suppliers in one city.  This is what a lot of jurisdictions do because they want prosecution points for someone running for political office and that is the only picture they see. 

Or, we could do a search of our friendly associates, usually drug task forces, and see if they had any cases ongoing involving this same group or groups that get their drugs from the same sources do.  This takes a lot of time but we can start to get to where those drugs are coming from and who is behind distribution to them.  Getting higher up takes even more time, but at that level, you get a good deal more government intelligence. 

Now put together all the things you have and write a report about it for the FBI. 

 In this case, it is largely things surrounding the indictment of Russians who participated in one campaign to influence the 2016 election but there is a lot of other information that comes from asking for intelligence related to that subject.  That is what the Russians want.  How did the surveillance occur and who was detected during that time?  We could just hand that over directly by publicizing everything we have on this in our report, or we could make them guess and wonder what was coming next.  You get our original sources for the drug bust and the distribution center in Cleveland, killed.  Some people who want publicity for their own glorification over secrecy won't mind.  Nobody looks at them and says, "You killed that poor guy." I wish we did. 

Mueller Report can be Downloaded from Justice

I have had a lot of trouble finding the actual report where I could download it.  It will save time if you go to https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf  

Russian Manipulation of GNSS

The Russians are manipulating their GPS-like, GNSS according to a report at C4.   They indicate a number of Russian spoofing incidents have occurred and have a map of those events.

Feinstein Had Chinese Government on Her Staff

May this story escaped my notice before, but today William Barr being questioned by Lindsay Graham, said Diane Feinstein was told she had a Chinese government representative on her staff and she fired him when she got the warning.  This is not the usual discussion of the Budget Committee but it was entertaining.  It left us wanting to know more about this incident. 

The Washington Post did report it this way:

"Imagine if it emerged that the Republican chairman of the House or Senate intelligence committee had a Russian spy working on their staff. Think it would cause a political firestorm? Well, this month we learn that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) had a Chinese spy on her staff who worked for her for about 20 years, was listed as an “office director” on payroll records and served as her driver when she was in San Francisco, all while reporting to China’s Ministry of State Security through China’s San Francisco Consulate. The reaction of the mainstream media? Barely a peep...."

I have to agree that it was not widely reported.  This guy was well placed in this Intelligence Committee leader's office in California and chauffeured her around.  Not a good thing to have the ranking member being driven around by a spy.  How do they keep this kind of thing quiet? 

Espionage or Not?

An article in Ars Technica said the woman in the Mar-a-Lago intrusion had enough counter surveillance stuff in her hotel room to make sure nobody was monitoring her.  That is a spy, no matter what anyone else says.  They can wonder about it all they want, but this is the way spies work, if they don't want to get caught.  She must have been in there before and thought she could do it again. 

Check to See if you are Blocked in China

You can do a simple check to see if the Chinese block your website at https://www.comparitech.com/privacy-security-tools/blockedinchina/

My Blogger site is blocked in every site they tested.  Not a big surprise, but it is still nice to know and not have to guess.

Huawei Not Responsive to Security

The UK has recently said there are security flaws in some of Huawei's products, not because they were necessarily built in to allow attacks, but because they were identified and not corrected by Huawei.  Lots of companies have this problem, and it was one of my greatest frustrations when working for the government.  Huawei is different than the usual company. 

The story says this:  "In the report, U.K. officials said they were particularly concerned that Huawei hasn’t implemented companywide cybersecurity practices that it vowed to put in place in 2012, the same year a report from the U.S. Congress labeled Huawei a national security threat."  How many identified security flaws are allowed to go for 7 years before they are patched?  Not many.  Companies start to lose customers when people find out they are not responsive to fixing flaws in their software.  They start to get the idea that Huawei doesn't care about those holes and may be allowing them to remain for the very reasons the US government has accused them of working for the Chinese intelligence community.  

Grand Jury Testimony

We have a few Congressmen who think it is not important that are contemplating releasing the Muller report in its entirety which includes Grand Jury testimony.  I was on the Starr Grand Jury which looked at one case - President Clinton's activities in Washington D.C.  We met one week a month for 18 months.

It is not as simple as it appears to be.  There were 3 Starr Grand Juries - one in Maryland, one in Washington D.C. and one in Virginia, each looking at potential crimes committed in their jurisdictions.  All of those were combined in the final report and we never saw the others unless we needed to see parts which related to our cases.  The final report is much more inclusive than any single Grand Jury ever hears.

Lots of people testified, some reluctantly.  A few would leave and consult with an attorney because none are allowed in when they testified.  A few were giving us "canned" statements that were obviously not spontaneous.  Some of them were not able to answer follow-up questions very well and looked confused.  That doesn't show up in written testimony.  We thought a couple of them were lying, but we had little to go on except a feeling that what they were saying was a lie.  This is the nature of juries that decide guilt or innocence ( a Grand Jury doesn't) but the feeling that a jury has only shows up in a verdict.  You can see none of the non-verbal cues that go with that testimony in a transcript.

Most of all, some people who were more involved than in concealing or contributing to potential crimes were not indicted.  It would have been better for the public to not know who those people were or, in one case, what that person had done.  The absence of an indictment of one person can limit what can be indicted in another part of the case.  That is why Grand Jury information is protected the way it is.

Before you say, "Well, that's OK."  I don't think those reluctant witnesses think like that.  They didn't want to testify.  None of them were criminals.  But, saying who they were could expose them to political retribution, or loss of a job, for telling the truth about what they know.  If you want to stop witnesses from every testifying without a subpoena this is the best way to do it.  If you want to make sure you never get the whole truth from a witness, this is the best way too.  Never mind the people who get indicted, this is for the ones who testify.  These Congressmen have no appreciation for what it takes to tell all because they don't ever have to.  

Clapper says Report Not done Without Obama's Help

In praising President Obama, former DNI Clapper says the original intelligence report referencing Russian interference in US elections of 2016, was directed by Obama.  That report did not find that the Trump Campaign conspired with the Russians. 

What is more surprising is the link to CIA Director Brennen as the person papering the halls of Congress with the salacious dossier.  Devin Nunes pointed that out earlier this week. 

The two together show a dangerous politicalization of the Intelligence Community, which includes the FBI which had several of its best and finest removed for their actions.  That is partly the fault of the politicos in Washington, but equally a part goes to the willingness of senior leaders to engage in politics rather than stick to business.  Having been in the Intelligence business most of my career, I find it odd that so many have allowed themselves to become part of this.  It is shameful and deserves some special attention and oversight, something it will never get while Democrats remain in charge of the House of Representatives.