15 Apr, 2023 14:31

Former NATO troops see ‘disarray’ in Ukrainian military – CTV

“Generations of Ukrainians” might be lost if swift changes aren’t made, US and Canadian instructors havereportedlyclaimed

A chaotic military command structure is leading to huge losses among Ukrainian troops and is causing serious doubts over the outcome of the conflict with Russia, Canada’s CTV National News has claimed, citing a report by former NATO soldiers.

The so-called ‘White Papers’ were compiled by two former high-ranking members of the US Special Forces and one former major in the Canadian Armed Forces. Each of the group has been training local forces in Ukraine for the last nine months, the broadcaster reported on Friday. (Who leaked these?)

According to CTV, the papers describe Ukraine’s military command structure as being in disarray, while it further claims that the country’s military communication system is crumbling. If changes to tactics are not introduced rapidly, “generations of Ukrainians”could be lost, the document warns.

One of the authors, a former Canadian army major who chose to remain anonymous, told CTV that it was “well documented” that the Ukrainian army had suffered “huge losses with their junior officers.”

Earlier this month, leaked Pentagon papers claimed that Ukrainian forces have so far suffered between 124,000 and 131,000 dead and wounded during the conflict. The figure, which was based on US estimates, is several times higher than Kiev’s official death toll.

The source argued to CTV that the authors of the ‘White Papers’ were not looking to criticize Ukraine, but were “only striving for the better outcome” for the country.

The lack of coordination between Ukrainian units is leading to “greater losses of life and equipment as well as failed operations,” the paper is said to have stated.

Another issue of concern for the former NATO servicemen is that “military aid, such as tanks, are used as mobile artillery and not in combined operations with infantry” by Kiev’s forces. As a result, “[Ukrainian] infantry will watch as the enemy maneuvers and stages in front of their defensive positions just outside of effective artillery range.”

According to the report, Ukraine’s training approach “is based on the legacy Soviet model” which puts the commander at the center, “with no delegation of authority in training, planning, and especially operations.”

The widespread lack of application of NATO standards leads to painfully slow decision-making on the battlefield, the document reportedly claims.

Russia has long described the conflict with Ukraine as a “proxy war” waged against it by NATO. According to Moscow, the assistance provided to Kiev by the US and its allies, including the supply of weapons, training for Ukrainian troops, and intelligence sharing, has de facto made Western nations parties to the conflict.

(If Ukraine and allies were going to launch their Spring Offensive soon, I’d report… Zelenskyy begging for more arms weekly, release doctored documents from the DOD and pay NYTs, WAPO numerous outlets shouting how bad this is.have Ukraine crying “How Dare You!”And have NATO saying Ukrainian soldiers and the country is not at all prepared. Basically do a psyop for a month before, with headlines saying how desperate it is in Ukraine; to try and make the Russia’s relax some. It won’t work but it’s worth a try. Then I would send in NATO troops in since the papers said foreign fighters are already there, the cat is out of the bag anyway.)

https://www.rt.com/news/574805-ukraine-nato-us-canada/

14 Apr, 2023 02:39

Google ordered to disclose data passed to US spies

The top court in South Korea questioned the supremacy of US laws over citizens' privacy

South Korea's Supreme Court has ordered Google to disclose any personal data it has collected on South Korean citizens andshared with third parties, including US intelligence agencies. The decision is binding, even as the case against the tech giant continues in a lower court.

Thursday’s ruling came after several South Korean plaintiffs sued Google and its local branch, Google Korea, seeking to force the company to reveal whether it had gathered or shared their data. They alleged that personal information waspassed to the US National Security Agency (NSA) through its ‘PRISM’ program, which collects a massive amount of data from the internet, including private communications, as well as from service providers directly.

While South Korean law mandates that internet service providers must respond to customer inquiries related to their own personal data and whether it has been shared with third parties, an appeals court previously ruled that Google had the right to reject such requests so long as the decision was in line with US law.

However, the Supreme Court partially overturned that ruling, finding that Google must disclose the relevant information upon request regardless of American law, though it nonetheless returned the case to a lower court to continue litigation.

“Comprehensive consideration should be given to whether the need to respect foreign laws is significantly superior to the need to protect personal information,” the court said in a statement.

The top court also ruled that even if personal data was transferred to a foreign intelligence service for legitimate reasons, companies still must disclose that fact after the person in question is no longer under investigation.

In a statement, Google Korea said it would review Thursday’s decision “carefully,” and claimed that user privacy was a priority for the company.

The PRISM program was first revealed to the public in 2013, after NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked a massive trove of classified documents showing, among other things, the extent of domestic mass surveillance in the United States. According to the leaked material, PRISM was once “the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports” after it was launched in 2007 under President George W. Bush. The program has come under fire by privacy advocates for its sweeping scope, with Snowden deeming it “dangerous” and accusing the NSA of “nakedly, aggressively criminal acts.”

https://www.rt.com/news/574708-google-data-nsa-south-korea/

Exclusive — Trump Smacks DeSantis for ‘Campaigning’ While Fort Lauderdale Flooded: ‘He Should Be There’

Matthew Boyle15 Apr 2023

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — Former President Donald Trump ripped Florida governor Ron DeSantis in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News here after his National Rifle Association (NRA) speech, saying DeSantis should be in Fort Lauderdale helping oversee the response to the flooding of one of his state’s biggest cities instead of touring the nation “campaigning.”

“He shouldn’t be campaigning right now,” Trump said of DeSantis. “He should be there.”

DeSantis has not formally announced a 2024 presidential campaign, but an outside group with which he is aligned and which he currently controls has begun running attack ads against Trump in the GOP presidential primary. DeSantis is widely expected to formally announce a campaign later this year, but for all intents and purposes given the fact he is hiring staff and running attack ads he is basically running against Trump unless and until he says otherwise.

Fort Lauderdale, one of Florida’s biggest cities, has experienced historic flooding the past several days. The immediate damage has been so bad that the Fort Lauderdale airport was forced to close for at least a day this week, and much of the damage remains severe.

Rather than going there to oversee the response, DeSantis continued with his events in other places across the country this week—while the Fort Lauderdale airport was closed. He appeared in Ohio, in Virginia, and in New Hampshire this week while the ravaged city has raced to respond to the crisis.

Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s eldest son, had already ripped DeSantis publicly for not coming back to Florida to deal with the issues in Fort Lauderdale. But Trump himself doing it is new, and represents a significant escalation in the brewing war between the former president and the governor of Florida.

But it’s not just Trump allies criticizing DeSantis’s lackluster Fort Lauderdale response.The mayor of Fort Lauderdale, a Democrat, also said DeSantis has not called him. And some state legislators from the area are also ripping DeSantis. State Sen. Shevrin Jones, another Democrat, called DeSantis not returning to Florida and calling off the events in other states “disgraceful.”

In response, DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin said that DeSantis has been engaged in the response even though he is not physically present in Florida.

“The governor left yesterday, and the unprecedented flooding intensified later in the night. He returns today,” Griffin said, per Politico. “Nonetheless, at the direction of Governor DeSantis, the state emergency response apparatus is in full swing responding to the flooding and the needs of the localities as they are communicated to us. This now includes issuing a state of emergency in Broward County,”

Trump also told Breitbart News during the exclusive interview backstage after his speech at the NRA’s annual meeting thathe is considering going down to Fort Lauderdale himself to tour the damage and visit first responders. He noted his home at his luxurious Mar-a-Lago seaside resort in Palm Beach, Florida, is very close to Fort Lauderdale—and that most of southeast Florida also got hit hard by the storms causing the flooding.

“I may, I’m right there,” Trump said when asked if he will tour the damage. “I just left from that area—the Palm Beach area. Fort Lauderdale is very close. Palm Beach has been hit hard too, but not as hard as Fort Lauderdale.They say it’s once in a hundred years what happened there.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/15/exclusive-trump-smacks-desantis-campaigning-while-fort-lauderdale-flooded-he-should-be-there/

Report: FBI Surveillance of Rep. Darin LaHood was a Counterintelligence Operation

Sean Moran14 Apr 2023

The New York Times reported Thursday that the warrantless surveillance of Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL) was a counterintelligence measure.

As Congress inches towards the December deadline to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a law that allows intelligence agencies to collect communications of targeted foreigners,LaHood made the startling revelation that he believed the FBI surveilled him through Section 702 without “limiters,” as revealed by a Justice Department (DOJ) and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) routine audit.

Section 702 may also lead to incidental or even targeted collection of Americans’ communications. LaHood said during a March House Intelligence Committee hearing:

I think that the report’s characterization of this FBI analyst’s action as a mere misunderstanding of the querying procedures is indicative of the culture that the FBI has come to expect and tolerate. It is also indicative of the continued failure to appreciate how the misuse of this authority is seen on Capitol Hill. And I want to make clear, the FBI’s inappropriate querying of a duly-elected member of Congress is egregious and a violation that not only degrades the trust in FISA but is viewed as a threat to the separation of powers.

“I have had the opportunity to review the classified summary of this violation and it is my opinion that the member of Congress that was wrongfully queried multiple times solely by his name was in fact me. Now, this careless abuse of this critical tool by the FBI is unfortunate,” he continued.

After these revelations, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH) announced the panel’s working group to reform what is often referred to as the “crown jewel” of American intelligence agencies. LaHood is one of the six members of the bipartisan working group.

The Times reported that sources familiar with the matter said that the warrantless surveillance of LaHood wasmerely a “defensive measure” to inspect suspicions that a foreign governmenthad targeted him as part of an espionage or covert influence campaign. The Times‘ sources did not divulge which country may have allegedly tried to influence or spy on the Illinois Republican; however, the Times wrote that the FBI’s surveillance of LaHood did occur in 2019 when he was heavily involved in negotiating Chinese trade policies as then-President Donald Trump and Chinese officials discussed a potential trade deal.

Privacy advocates would like to impose a warrant requirement for Section 702 database queries where the subject is an investigative target. However, the Times noted that there has been less discussion about defensive searches when the subject is not believed to have been engaged in wrongdoing.

David Kris, a former senior DOJ official, said that judges could weigh under the “totality of circumstances” if a defensive query would be reasonable. Sean Vitka, a policy counsel for Demand Progress, a civil liberties group, said that a lower defensive standard for the FBI would still amount to a warrantless search in the context of the Fourth Amendment.

Vitka said, “Frequently there is ambiguity as to whether someone is a witness or a target, and there’s no ‘defensive’ or ‘offensive’ distinction in the Fourth Amendment — a search is a search.” David Segal, a cofounder of Demand Progress, said that the FBI, in response to Demand Progress’s finding aboutunlawful spying on LaHood, “absurdly argues it shd [should] be able to engage in warrantless surveillance of potential victims of future crimes.”(future crimes?)

He added that this is obviously not in accordance with the Fourth Amendment.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/04/14/report-fbi-surveillance-rep-darin-lahood-was-counterintelligence-operation/

The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier To Sue The Administrative State

Katelynn RichardsonApril 14, 2023 2:23 PM ET

The Supreme Court opened the pathway for constitutional challenges against two powerful regulatory agencies to be heard in federal court on Friday.

In a unanimous decision, the Court ruled that those facing complaints from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) can dispute their constitutionality directlyin federal court rather than going through the agency’s proceedings. Justice Elena Kagan wrote the majority opinion, stating that the “ordinary statutory review scheme does not preclude a district court from entertaining these extraordinary claims.”

Typically, when an agency chooses to enforce statutory violations through its own administrative proceedings, the one facing the complaint must go through the process with an in-house administrative law judge (ALJs). In the two cases before the Court, however, the plaintiffs circumvented the process, suing the agency in federal court without waiting for the ALJ decision.

In deciding Axon Enterprise v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran, the Court ruled this is a permissible option, reining in some agency power and opening the door for further constitutional challenges

The plaintiffs, manufacturer Axon Enterprise and accountant Michelle Cochran, argue that ALJs are insufficiently accountable to the President, a claim Kagan noted is “existential” and would make the agences “unconstitutional in much of their work.”

The Ninth Circuit previously rejected Axon’s lawsuit, holding that it did not have jurisdiction to hear its claims, which must go through the FTC’s administrative proceeding. Meanwhile, the Fifth Circuit had determined that the district court did have jurisdiction to hear Cochran’s claim against the SEC.

“For decades, Americans have been haled before agencies which act as investigator, prosecutor, judge and their first court of appeal,” said New Civil Liberties Alliance Senior Litigation Counsel Peggy Little, who represented Cochran, said in a statement. “Michelle Cochran had the courage to insist that any hearing that put her CPA license at stake must be constitutional. And today the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that she is entitled to her day in court before the constitutional injury takes place.”

After being “stuck” in the SEC system for seven years, Cochran said she is “thrilled” by the justices’ decision.

“From the first hearing forward, it was clear that the odds were stacked against me,” she said. “I am thrilled that every one of the Supreme Court justices agree that whether this costly, bruising and biased system is constitutional must be heard by a real judge before I have to undergo a second one.”

Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, and Justice Neil Gorsuch—the only one who did not join the majority—filed a separate opinion concurring in judgement.

Thomas stated that he had “=grave doubts about the constitutional propriety of Congress vesting administrative agencies with primary authority to adjudicate core private rights.”

“[It] may violate due process by empowering entities that are not courtsof competent jurisdiction to deprive citizens of core private rights,” Thomas wrote.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/04/14/the-supreme-court-just-made-it-easier-to-sue-the-administrative-state/