Tag Archives: National Security

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DHS whistleblower was ordered to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties

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Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?
Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?

This is from The Hill.

Full text:

Amid the chaos of the 2009 holiday travel season, jihadists planned to slaughter 290 innocent travelers on a Christmas Day flight from the Netherlands to Detroit, Michigan. Twenty-three-year old Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab intended to detonate Northwest Airlines Flight 253, but the explosives in his underwear malfunctioned and brave passengers subdued him until he could be arrested. The graphic and traumatic defeat they planned for the United States failed, that time.

Following the attempted attack, President Obama threw the intelligence community under the bus for its failure to “connect the dots.” He said, “this was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had.”

Most Americans were unaware of the enormous damage to morale at the Department of Homeland Security, where I worked, his condemnation caused. His words infuriated many of us because we knew his administration had been engaged in a bureaucratic effort to destroy the raw material—the actual intelligence we had collected for years, and erase those dots. The dots constitute the intelligence needed to keep Americans safe, and the Obama administration was ordering they be wiped away.

After leaving my 15 year career at DHS, I can no longer be silent about the dangerous state of America’s counter-terror strategy, our leaders’ willingness to compromise the security of citizens for the ideological rigidity of political correctness—and, consequently, our vulnerability to devastating, mass-casualty attack.

Just before that Christmas Day attack, in early November 2009, I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to “connect dots.”  Every day, DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, then look for patterns. Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that. Even worse, going forward, my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database.

A few weeks later, in my office at the Port of Atlanta, the television hummed with the inevitable Congressional hearings that follow any terrorist attack. While members of Congress grilled Obama administration officials, demanding why their subordinates were still failing to understand the intelligence they had gathered, I was being forced to delete and scrub the records. And I was well aware that, as a result, it was going to be vastly more difficult to “connect the dots” in the future—especially beforean attack occurs.

As the number of successful and attempted Islamic terrorist attacks on America increased, the type of information that the Obama administration ordered removed from travel and national security databases was the kind of information that, if properly assessed, could have prevented subsequent domestic Islamist attacks like the ones committed by Faisal Shahzad (May 2010), Detroit “honor killing” perpetrator Rahim A. Alfetlawi (2011); Amine El Khalifi, who plotted to blow up the U.S. Capitol (2012); Dzhokhar or Tamerlan Tsarnaev who conducted the Boston Marathon bombing (2013); Oklahoma beheading suspect Alton Nolen (2014); or Muhammed Yusuf Abdulazeez, who opened fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee (2015).

It is very plausible that one or more of the subsequent terror attacks on the homeland could have been prevented if more subject matter experts in the Department of Homeland Security had been allowed to do our jobs back in late 2009. It is demoralizing—and infuriating—that today, those elusive dots are even harder to find, and harder to connect, than they were during the winter of 2009.

Has the Obama administration done a good job of preventing terrorist attacks? Does his attitude of blaming America deter terrorist attacks, or does it embolden radical Islamists to perform more attacks?

The Daily Caller lists 7 terrorist attacks that occurred during the 7 years of the Obama presidency, as of July 2015.

Here is one:

In November 2009, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire in an attack at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. Hassan killed 13 people and wounded over 30 more.

In a document dated Oct. 18, 2012 obtained by Fox News, Hasan wrote: “I, Nidal Malik Hasan, am compelled to renounce any oaths of allegiances that require me to support/defend man made constitution (like the constitution of the United States) over the commandments mandated in Islam.”

The U.S. government has steadfastly refused to call Hasan’s militant slaughter a terrorist attack. Instead, federal officials have repeatedly characterized Hasan’s actions as “workplace violence.”

A U.S. military court sentenced Hasan, a military psychiatrist, to death in 2013.

And another:

In April 2013, Chechen brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev exploded two pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

The bombings killed three people including an eight-year-old boy. Hundreds of runners and spectators were seriously injured. Seventeen people saw their limbs blown off.

Three days later, the brothers ambushed and killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died when his brother ran over him with a stolen Mercedes SUV in the midst of a shootout with police. In April, a jury found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of 30 criminal counts. He later received the death penalty.

There is a plan to protect us from these sorts of activities, and it was recently announced by Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch.

The Daily Wire reports:

Speaking to the audience at the Muslim Advocates’ 10th anniversary dinner Thursday, Lynch said her “greatest fear” is the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric” in America and vowed to prosecute any guilty of what she deemed violence-inspiring speech.

“The fear that you have just mentioned is in fact my greatest fear as a prosecutor, as someone who is sworn to the protection of all of the American people, which is that the rhetoric will be accompanied by acts of violence,” she said.

[…]After touting the numbers of “investigations into acts of anti-Muslim hatred” and “bigoted actions” against Muslims launched by her DOJ, Lynch suggested the Constitution does not protect “actions predicated on violent talk” and pledged to prosecute those responsible for such actions.

This is the same woman who declined to charge Lois Lerner for using the IRS as a weapon to persecute conservative groups in an election year.

Do you feel safe now? Do you think that the Democrats are serious about the threat of Islamic terrorism? Do you think that you should elect the Democrats again in November 2016?

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Satellite missile launch proves that North Korea can hit United States with ICBM

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This story is from the Daily Signal.

It says:

North Korea has again successfully put a satellite into orbit, demonstrating the same technology needed to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and showing that its long-range missile program is becoming increasingly reliable.

In 2015, the U.S. commanders of U.S. Forces Korea, Pacific Command, and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) publicly assessed that North Korea has the ability to hit the United States with a nuclear weapon.

Preliminary assessments indicate that the satellite was approximately 450 pounds, twice as heavy a payload as the previous successful satellite launch in Dec. 2012, and that the missile may have a range of 13,000 km, an increase from the previous estimated 10,000 km range.

The longer range would put virtually the entire continental United States within range. Even at 10,000 km, approximately 38 percent of the United States, comprising 120 million people, was already within range.

It is clear that North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests are serious, irreparable violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions. This while the North Korean regime remains openly defiant of the international community despite countless attempts to reach a diplomatic resolution.

How did North Korea get nuclear weapons?

Hot Air explains how the North Korea deal was presented to the American people by Bill Clinton and his allies in the left-wing news media (note how similar it is to the way that Obama raved about his deal with Iran):

“This is a good deal for the United States,” said President Clinton. “North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.”

This whole agreement collapsed in 2002, when the CIA discovered that North Korea was secretly enriching uranium for further weapons production. The country, which also carried the title of virtually being the world’s largest prison, not only kept the nuclear weapons it already had at the time–which estimates said was to be just one–but they built more (shocker) and the geopolitical situation in Asia hasn’t changed.

You can read about the full chronology for Clinton’s North Korea deal, the subsequent CIA discoveries, and the missile launches that violated the United Nations resolutions. It’s important for young people to know the history of the efforts by Democrats to give goodies to bad actors in the world. It never works, but young people are often not taught about these things in liberal schools. And they don’t do much on their own to find the truth about these issues.

Where do Republicans stand on the threat from North Korea?

Texas Senator Ted Cruz
Texas Senator Ted Cruz

Texas senator Ted Cruz reacted to the North Korea missile launch in the ABC News debate last Saturday night, connecting it to the Democrat Party’s previous deal with North Korea.

CNS News explains what Ted Cruz said about the missile launch:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), asked to respond toNorth Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, called for an expanded missile defense capacity and a “hardened” electrical grid.

But first, he noted that President Bill Clinton relaxed sanctions against North Korea, just as President Obama has relaxed sanctions against Iran: “So, what we are seeing with North Korea is foreshadowing of where we will be with Iran.”

At Saturday’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, moderator Martha Raddatz asked Cruz how he would respond as commander in chief to the North Korean missile launch:

“Well, I would note initially, the fact that we’re seeing the launch, and we’re seeing the launch from a nuclear North Korea, is the direct result of the failures of the first Clinton administration. The Clinton administration led the world in relaxing sanctions against North Korea. Billions of dollars flowed into North Korea in exchange for promises not to build nuclear weapons. They took those billions and built nuclear weapons.

“And, I would note also the lead negotiator in that failed North Korea sanctions deal was a woman named Wendy Sherman who Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton promptly recruited to come back to be the lead negotiator with Iran. So, what we are seeing with North Korea is foreshadowing of where we will be with Iran.”

Cruz said one of the first things the U.S. should do is expand its missile defense capacity: “We ought to put missile defense interceptors in South Korea. South Korea wants them.

“One of the real risks of this launch, North Korea wants to launch a satellite, and one of the greatest risks of the satellite is they would place a nuclear device in the satellite. As it would orbit around the Earth, and as it got over the United States, they would detonate that nuclear weapon and set of what’s called an EMP, and electromagnetic pulse, which could take down the entire electrical grid on the Eastern seaboard, potentially killing millions.

“We need to harden the grid to defend ourselves, and we need missile defense to protect ourselves against North Korea.”

One of the first things that Barack Obama did when he became president was kill a deal to deploy missile defense interceptors to Poland and other European countries. He wouldn’t protect America from missile launches from nations that hate us, but he did release $100-150 billion dollars to Iran to continue their arms development. We can see where that leads by looking at where the Bill Clinton deal lead North Korea. We need to learn from history. Democrats don’t do foreign policy to protect America. Democrats do foreign policy so they can congratulate themselves on achieving “world peace” by giving away everything to aggressive regimes who want to destroy us.

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State Dept: 22 “top secret” e-mails on Hillary’s unsecure private e-mail server

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Put an orange suit on her and ship her to Gitmo
Put an orange suit on her and ship her to Gitmo

This is from The Federalist.

Excerpt:

Hillary Clinton’s email woes just got a whole lot worse Friday after the State Department announced it considers 22 of her emails to be “top secret.”

Last week, Fox News reported that Clinton has shared extremely sensitive information, including intelligence obtained from human spying, which could have put lives at risk.

Some information contained in the email was classified as “HCS-O,” an intelligence agency code for human spy operations on the ground, or “HUMINT Control System Operations.” Additionally, several of her emails contained information for “special access programs” (SAP), which is a level of classification even higher than “top secret.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby has confirmed that the 22 emails containing SAP information were indeed top secret, though he maintained that the documents were not deemed classified at the time they were sent, according to Politico.

But I thought that Hillary said that there was only yoga routines and e-mails about her daughter’s wedding on her e-mail server?

Why did she do it?

This New York Post article explains why Hillary decided to create a parallel e-mail server system that was not under the control of the government:

The State Department is lying when it says it didn’t know until it was too late that Hillary Clinton was improperly using personal e-mails and a private server to conduct official business — because it never set up an agency e-mail address for her in the first place, the department’s former top watchdog says.

“This was all planned in advance” to skirt rules governing federal records management, said Howard J. Krongard, who served as the agency’s inspector general from 2005 to 2008.

The Harvard-educated lawyer points out that, from Day One, Clinton was never assigned and never used a state.gov e-mail address like previous secretaries.

“That’s a change in the standard. It tells me that this was premeditated. And this eliminates claims by the State Department that they were unaware of her private e-mail server until later,” Krongard said in an exclusive interview. “How else was she supposed to do business without e-mail?”

He also points to the unusual absence of a permanent inspector general during Clinton’s entire 2009-2013 term at the department. He said the 5¹/₂-year vacancy was unprecedented.

“This is a major gap. In fact, it’s without precedent,” he said. “It’s the longest period any department has gone without an IG.”

Inspectors general serve an essential and unique role in the federal government by independently investigating agency waste, fraud and abuse. Their oversight also covers violations of communications security procedures.

“It’s clear she did not want to be subject to internal investigations,” Krongard said. An e-mail audit would have easily uncovered the secret information flowing from classified government networks to the private unprotected system she set up in her New York home.

When Hillary created a private unprotected e-mail system, she was pushing away all of the security measures that are in place on government e-mail systems.

So was she hacked?

This Post and Courier article explains:

As for the Clinton camp’s attempts to dismiss this scandal as election-year politics, consider the bipartisan credentials — and expert perspective — of Robert Gates.

Mr. Gates has worked for presidents of both parties during a distinguished public service career, including tenures as Secretary of Defense under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Mr. Gates is not known for taking politically motivated shots at our nation’s leaders. He has praised Mrs. Clinton’s work as secretary of state in the past.

But last week, Mr. Gates said he agreed with former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell that Mrs. Clinton’s personal email account was probably hacked by Russia, China and Iran, among others.

So, Robert Gates and Mike Morell agree –  foreign governments were reading the mail of our Secretary of State. The Secretary of State!

I think that’s enough to indict her. Of course, when I ask my Democrat friends how much they know about the things I wrote about in this post, they have no idea. You don’t learn a lot about reality by watching MSNBC and laughing at Trevor Noah tweets.