https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/28/california-slaps-travel-ban-on-florida-4-other-sta/
SAN FRANCISCO — California added five more states, including Florida, to the list of places where state-funded travel is banned because of laws that discriminate against members of the LGBTQ community, the state attorney general announced Monday.
Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta added Florida, Arkansas, Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia to the list that now has 17 states where state employee travel is forbidden except under limited circumstances.
“Make no mistake: We’re in the midst of an unprecedented wave of bigotry and discrimination in this country - and the State of California is not going to support it,” Bonta said.
awmakers in 2016 banned non-essential travel to states with laws that discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The 12 other states on the list are: Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi, Tennessee.
The five states newly added to the list have introduced bills in their legislatures this year that prevent transgender women and girls from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity, block access to health care and allow the discrimination of the LGBTQ community, Bonta said.
Florida, Montana, Arkansas, and West Virginia passed laws that prevent transgender women and girls from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity.
North Dakota signed into law a bill allowing certain publicly-funded student organizations to restrict LGBTQ students from joining without losing funding. ..
who has the power?
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/29/negotiating-ransomware-criminals-creates-new-busin/
A growing swarm of ransomware attacks has created a cottage industry of tech whizzes willing to do what companies and law enforcement won’t — negotiate with the cybercriminals who are taking systems and data hostage.
The FBI’s stated policy is that it does not negotiate with cyberattackers, the same way it does not negotiate with terrorists. That refusal has helped open a market for private cybersecurity professionals who specialize in interacting with the attackers on behalf of victims who have made the difficult decision to pay up rather than wait for the government to solve their case.
The increase in attacks against victims with an incentive to pay has created plenty of potential work that did not exist a few years ago. The FBI is investigating “about a hundred different variants” of ransomware responsible for dozens to hundreds of attacks, said Tonya Ugoretz, FBI Cyber Division deputy assistant director. She said there were maybe a handful of such highly impactful variants a year or two ago.
Cybersecurity company GroupSense handled its first ransomware negotiation case last year, said its founder, Kurtis Minder. He said the Arlington, Virginia, company’s first negotiation prompted law firms assisting victims and a cyber-insurance company involved in the case to refer a surplus of work his way.
After Mr. Minder added ransomware negotiation to the offerings on his company’s website at the prodding of a law firm, he said he received more requests for his services, especially from those who could not afford costly lawyers or an insurance policy to cover the digital setbacks.
Mr. Minder, however, was not a trained negotiator. He hurriedly got up to speed by reading books and taking online classes, particularly watching the MasterClass videos of Chris Voss, a former hostage negotiator with the FBI. He also leaned on his connections among federal officials.
“I called in a lot of favors, like I just called in people I knew that were trained negotiators and asked them questions,” Mr. Minder said. “I gave them specific scenarios that I was going through while I was going through them and saying, ‘What would you do?’ And so I kind of learned on the job, I like to say I built the bicycle while I was riding it.”..
People still have the power in many ways imo
the trick is to unite them and inform them
when it starts to work, you see FFs and shills working ot
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/28/us-war-iran-backed-militias-escalates-despite-dipl/
The Pentagon on Monday threatened Iran with “serious consequences” if it continues funding militias that target American troops in the Middle East, once again raising questions about President Biden’s compartmentalized strategy of negotiating with the Islamic republic on a new nuclear deal while waging war on paramilitary forces closely allied to Tehran.
The Defense Department issued its warning less than 24 hours after the president ordered a series of airstrikes along the Iraq-Syria border against the Iraqi Shiite militias Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, which boast thousands of fighters and have routinely targeted U.S. personnel with drones, rockets and other weaponry. Pentagon officials said the groups have carried out at least five drone operations since April, along with numerous rocket attacks.
Those assaults have continued even as U.S. and international diplomats work with Iran to reinstate an Obama-era deal that limited Tehran‘s nuclear program in exchange for economic sanctions relief. President Trump repudiated that pact in 2018 partially because it did not address Iran‘s support of dangerous militias and its funding of major terrorist outfits.
Despite its defense alliance with Washington, Iraq’s government condemned the strikes as a violation of its sovereignty. Baghdad has long feared Iraq will wind up as the battleground if the U.S. and Iran come to blows.
The semi-official umbrella organization for Iraq’s Shiite militia groups, known as the PMF, also harshly denounced the “sinful” attacks and said its members were at the border as part of the united fight against the Islamic State group. In a statement carried by the Iraqi News Agency, the PMF said four “martyrs” were killed in the U.S. strikes, a claim that could not be independently confirmed.
Iran‘s financial and logistical support of such groups has been largely absent from the administration’s latest round of nuclear talks with Tehran in Geneva. But it has been increasingly difficult to separate the two issues, particularly as the Pentagon sharpens its rhetoric toward Iran and hostilities between the two sides threaten to overshadow diplomacy.
The strikes Sunday “were necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation,” Pentagon spokesperson Cmdr. Jessica McNulty said in a statement. “Through these and other means, we seek to make clear to Iran and Iran-backed militia groups that there will be serious consequences if they continue to attack, or to arm, fund and train militia groups that attack our people. We will take necessary and appropriate measures to defend U.S. personnel, partners and allies in the region.” ..
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/28/desantis-hit-shows-why-us-ranks-last-among-46-coun/
A Washington Post reporter over the weekend posted a factually wrong, egregious tweet against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on social media, indicating he delayed activating the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the Surfside condominium collapse.
“There’s a saying in emergency management: The first 24 hours are the only 24 hours,” Post reporter Hannah Dreier wrote on Twitter. “FEMA was ready to deploy to the condo collapse almost immediately, and included the crisis in its daily briefing, but didn’t get permission from Gov. DeSantis to get on the ground for a full day.”
Almost immediately after Ms. Dreier posted the false report, Florida Democrats and FEMA’s director, sided with Mr. DeSantis, saying all the agencies, both local and federal were doing everything they could – and working collectively – in the search and rescue mission.
The mayor of Miami-Dade County, a Democrat, was asked about Mr. DeSantis’ perceived delayed reaction on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday and said it wasn’t true.
“Not only the state of Florida has been here in force … we’ve not lacked for any support,” Mayor Daniella Levine Cava told NBC.
Florida Democrat, Biden voter and former state FEMA Director Jared Moskowitz also took to Twitter to debunk Ms. Dreier’s claim.
“FEMA’s mantra is ‘locally executed, state managed, and federally supported. As the former director in FL who voted for Biden this tweet below is 100% malarkey,” Mr. Moskowitz tweeted referring to Ms. Dreier’s tweet. “FEMA would have deployed the federally funded USAR teams, which are located in Miami-Dade County. They were already there.”
FEMA Director Deanne Criswell also weighed in on Twitter: “After witnessing the heroic rescue efforts and meeting with partners today, I’m confident we are doing everything we can to help the Surfside community. FEMA will continue providing resources and technical support while also helping people apply for disaster assistance.”
In order for FEMA assistance, an emergency declaration needs to be signed by the local government, then at the state government, then the federal government can act. Mrs. Levine Cava signed an emergency order at 4:33 p.m. the day of the collapse. Mr. DeSantis then signed his less than an hour later at 5:32 p.m., and FEMA assistance was immediate and on-the-scene. ..
>14014395
>You guys HRC is dead for treason, then she shows up in public, what gives?
kek
kek
https://youtu.be/wwD38Zj5E-M
Ingraham: The crime wave is coming
don't go away mad, jus go away
haha
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/28/desantis-hit-shows-why-us-ranks-last-among-46-coun/
.. This is just one example – among many – that explains why the U.S. ranks last among 46 counties in trust in media, according to a new report. Just 29% of people surveyed in the U.S. said they trust the news, compared to 45% in Canada and 54% in Brazil, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford found, in a study released June 28th.
It’s not the first time the fake-media has taken aim at Mr. DeSantis – and has been proven wrong, with local Democrats having to defend him. A CBS “60 Minutes” story claimed Mr. DeSantis gave preferential treatment to distribute COVID-19 vaccinations to the grocery store chain Publix because it donated $100,000 to his reelection campaign. Yet, it failed to deliver any evidence that Mr. DeSantis ever engaged in this pay-to-play scheme, nor did anything illegal or unusual transpire. Even Democratic Mayor of Palm Beach County Dave Kerner said the “60 Minutes” piece was “intentionally false.”
Then there was the entire mainstream media’s elevation of Rebekah Jones, the former dashboard manager at the Florida Department of Health, who alleged Mr. DeSantis was cooking the books on the number of COVID-19 patients in the state. It was all a massive conspiracy theory – Ms. Jones wasn’t fired for her failure to go-in on the scheme, she was fired for misconduct, stealing government data, including personnel, and publishing it without the state’s permission on social media. Moreover, Ms. Jones never had the ability to edit the raw COVID-19 data, thereby making her claims of having been directed to reduce the number of COVID-19 patients in the state, a lie.
Yet, the media happily ran with the story, because it made Mr. DeSantis look bad, all the while ignoring New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo – who was actually fudging his state’s COVID-19 data. It’s no mystery as to why: Mr. DeSantis is an up-and-coming GOP star, while Mr. Cuomo is Democratic royalty.
So why is American trust in media at an all-time low? It’s because our mainstream media has exposed themselves over and over again, as Democratic propagandists, with absolutely no desire to tell the truth and an unflinching desire to smear Republicans, no matter what the cost to their own reputations.
https://youtu.be/TyVdWQo3w7k
House Republican leaders speak to press
>wapo source warning
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/nsa-surveillance-xkeyscore-privacy/2021/06/29/b2134e7a-d685-11eb-a53a-3b5450fdca7a_story.html
An extensive surveillance program first revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in 2013 continues to operate with no judicial and limited congressional oversight despite its potential to capture Americans’ communications, a member of a privacy watchdog agency said in a statement released Tuesday.
The National Security Agency’s XKeyscore program was the subject of a five-year investigation by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), an independent government privacy watchdog, that wrapped up in December.
According to documents leaked by Snowden, the program has existed for more than a decade. It allows analysts to use a Google-like search function across vast databases of Internet traffic captured from sites worldwide to pluck out the emails, Web browsing histories and social media activity of specific people.
The program relies heavily on the “autonomous collection of massive data sets,” and analysis driven by artificial intelligence, Travis LeBlanc, a Democratic board member appointed by President Donald Trump, said in a statement. His partly redacted statement was released after it went through a declassification process.
LeBlanc was alone among the board’s five members to vote against approving the panel’s classified report on XKeyscore in December, saying that the board “failed to adequately investigate or evaluate” the NSA’s collection activities.
“What most concerned me was that we have a very powerful surveillance program that eight years or so after exposure, still has no judicial oversight, and what I consider to be inadequate legal analysis and serious compliance infractions,” LeBlanc said in an interview. ..
they are pushing the global airport entry i noticed
>you're worse than oss. at least he stopped pretending to be an anon a while ago and went full retard
kek
16 post 0 research calling out others
weak
.. LeBlanc was alone among the board’s five members to vote against approving the panel’s classified report on XKeyscore in December, saying that the board “failed to adequately investigate or evaluate” the NSA’s collection activities.
“What most concerned me was that we have a very powerful surveillance program that eight years or so after exposure, still has no judicial oversight, and what I consider to be inadequate legal analysis and serious compliance infractions,” LeBlanc said in an interview.
The board sent copies of the report to Congress, the White House and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in March.
NSA officials pushed back against LeBlanc’s assertions, saying the agency conducted appropriate legal reviews of the use of XKeyscore. They also said the agency has protections to safeguard Americans’ privacy. They pointed to a document issued in January that outlines the rules.
Former board chairman Adam Klein, an appointee of Trump who stepped down from the board this month, defended its work. “The board produced a detailed, comprehensive report and recommendations on a very complex program,” he said. “The clarity of description will enable Congress and other appropriate actors in the executive branch to ask hard questions as needed about this program.”
The program operates under a broad framework laid out by a presidential directive known as Executive Order 12333, which governs most surveillance taking place outside the United States and some surveillance taking place inside the United States. When collection activities take place under 12333, they are not subject to oversight by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. ..
.. According to a 2009 slide released by Snowden and published in the Intercept in 2015, many of the sites that XKeyscore relies on for data were either in the United States or linked to sites in the United States. LeBlanc, in his statement, suggested as much. “It is beyond obvious that NSA must gather or collect that signals intelligence from somewhere — in the United States or abroad.”
The NSA declined to discuss the location of the collection.
“I continue to be concerned that Americans still know far too little about the government’s surveillance activities under EO 12333 and how it threatens their privacy,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the Intelligence Committee, in a statement to The Washington Post. “I’ve been pressing for multiple PCLOB reports about EO 12333 to be declassified, which will shed light on these secret authorities that govern the collection and use of Americans’ personal information.”
The program also resulted in hundreds of compliance incidents in 2019, a majority of which were considered “questionable intelligence activities” — a category that means the action may have involved improper surveillance of Americans’ communications, according to U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because details are classified.
“Obviously violations of U.S. law and the known collection or processing of U.S. person information are serious compliance issues,” LeBlanc said in his statement.
Rebecca Richards, NSA’s civil liberties and privacy officer, said: “When we looked at the [questionable intelligence activities] associated with this, we didn’t find any of them to identify systemic issues or any particular concerns. We found them to be standard intelligence practices.”
The incidents could include making a typo in a query or making too broad a query, she said.
Richards noted that the NSA has adopted the board’s recommendation that it provide training for analysts specifically on XKeyscore. Analysts, she said, already receive general compliance training.
LeBlanc devoted some of his strongest criticism to the NSA’s legal analysis, which he said “lacks any consideration of recent relevant” privacy case law, including Supreme Court decisions that have imposed stricter limits on cellphone and geolocation surveillance.
Agency spokesman Charlie Stadtlander said “NSA’s Office of General Counsel regularly reviews NSA intelligence programs and capabilities to ensure compliance with the Constitution, laws, and other applicable regulations and policies.”
But some privacy advocates say the technical capabilities have outpaced the law. For instance, according to slides disclosed by Snowden, the program enabled an analyst to review communications indiscriminately as long as they were not tagged as belonging to an American, meaning that the analyst could inadvertently be viewing an American’s information without penalty, said Ashkan Soltani, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for Technology Law and Policy.
And much of the indexing work on the data is done by machines, before a human even sets eyes on it, Soltani said. “The realities of the Internet today means the likelihood that the NSA might accidentally be processing an American’s communications is quite high,” he said.
LeBlanc said the board did not analyze the extent to which XKeyscore’s use of machine analysis — as opposed to human review — of Americans’ information triggers Fourth Amendment scrutiny.
The board, he said, ultimately “failed the public” by not using its investigation to “delve into important technological and modern electronic surveillance issues” raised by XKeyscore.
https://gab.com/JimWatkins
>>14015001
and again
and again
until there is only 1 and need a mirror for company
haha
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2021/sonny-perdue-adm-land-deal
It was a curious time for Sonny Perdue to close a real estate deal.
In February 2017, weeks after President Donald Trump selected him to be agriculture secretary, Perdue’s company bought a small grain plant in South Carolina from one of the biggest agricultural corporations in America.
Had anyone noticed, it would have prompted questions ahead of his confirmation, a period when most nominees lie low and avoid potential controversy. The former governor of Georgia did not disclose the deal — there was no legal requirement to do so.
An examination of public records by The Washington Post has found that the agricultural company, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), sold the land at a small fraction of its estimated value just as it stood to benefit from a friendly secretary of agriculture.
Perdue did not respond to repeated requests for comment on the real estate deal. Jackie Anderson, a spokeswoman for Chicago-based ADM, denied that the company sold the property at a discount, saying that ADM began negotiations with Perdue’s former company, AGrowStar, in 2015 — well before Trump was elected — and could not find another buyer.
“This was nothing more than a business decision to sell a significantly underperforming asset,” she said.
Danny Brown, the former president of AGrowStar, confirmed negotiations began in late 2015. But Brown said ADM wanted $4 million for the plant — 16 times what Perdue’s company ultimately paid for it.
The timing of the sale just as Perdue was about to become the most powerful man in U.S. agriculture raises legal and ethics concerns, from the narrow question of whether the secretary followed federal financial disclosure requirements to whether the transaction could have been an attempt to influence an incoming government official, in violation of bribery statutes, ethics lawyers say.
“This stinks to high heaven,” said Julie O’Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor. “It deserves a prosecutor’s attention,” she added. “Only a prosecutor with the powers of the grand jury can find out, in fact, whether there was a quid pro quo that existed at the time of the deal.”..