USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Now in the Med, USS Theodore Roosevelt Heads to the Middle East

THE PENTAGON – Aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) has departed the Red Sea while USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), currently in the Pacific, will leave for the Middle East to continue a U.S. presence mission in the region, USNI News has learned.

“[The] Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group departed the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility today and will remain briefly in the U.S. European Command area of responsibility before returning home after more than seven months deployed in support of U.S. regional deterrence and force protection efforts, reads a Saturday statement from Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder.

“Next week, the TR CSG will depart the Indo-Pacific for the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility. The United States will continue to maintain a robust presence in the Indo-Pacific region to strengthen peace, stability, and deterrence alongside allies and partners.”

Ryder said TR would leave the Pacific following the completion of a planned exercise.

While Ike and its cruiser escort are now in the Mediterranean Sea, the destroyer escorts assigned to the strike group will stay in U.S. 5th Fleet, a U.S. official told USNI News on Friday.

The decision comes as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin elected not to extend the Navy’s second-oldest carrier for a third time, the official confirmed. As of Friday, the carrier had been deployed for more than eight months. USNI News reported earlier this month Ike has deployed for more days than any other U.S.-based carrier for the last five years.

“Time to bring them home,” the official said.

It’s unclear how long Roosevelt, which deployed in January, will need to stay on station before it’s relieved by the next carrier slated to operate in the region. The next carrier on the East Coast preparing to leave is USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75), which is still early in its workups ahead of a deployment later this summer, USNI News understands.

The last time a Pacific carrier deployed to the Middle East was in 2021 when the U.S. evacuated troops from Afghanistan. Then Japan-based USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) moved to the North Arabian Sea to provide air cover for the departure of U.S. forces, USNI News reported at the time.

Roosevelt is the second busiest aircraft carrier in the past five years, USNI News previously reported.

Ike deployed on Oct. 13 and headed to the Red Sea, where it has been part of the U.S. response to the Houthi attacks on commercial ships and posture in light of the war between Israel and Hamas. Ike’s departure comes as tensions between Lebanon-based group Hezbollah and Israel have escalated over the past couple of days. The official told USNI News Ike’s move was not related to the recent escalation between Israel and Hezbollah.

Austin ordered the second extension for the ship in late May. Carriers sent to the Med or the Red Sea have seen multiple extensions since February 2021 when Russia invaded Ukraine to maintain a U.S. presence in the region.

USS Harry S. Truman, which went to the Med as part of the U.S. response, deployed for 285 days. It was replaced by USS George H.W. Bush, which deployed for 257 days.

USS Gerald R. Ford was the next carrier to enter the Med, which then moved over to the Eastern Mediterranean following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. It spent 257 days on deployment, some of which crossed over with Ike.

Ike is the Navy’s busiest aircraft carrier in the past five years, with the ship deploying in 2020 for 171 days, as well.

While in the Red Sea, Ike and the other ships that made up the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group were part of Operation Prosperity Guardian. They were involved in several Central Command activities that saw them shoot down Houthi drones and weapons. Most recently, aircraft from Ike and cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG-58) helped evacuate crews from commercial ships struck by Houthi weaponry.

USS Mason (DDG-87), one of the destroyers assigned to the Ike Carrier Strike Group transited the Strait of Gibraltar on June 14 and pulled into port at Rota, Spain, and has since left.

https://news.usni.org/2024/06/21/uss-dwight-d-eisenhower-leaving-red-sea-pacific-carrier-heading-to-the-middle-east

Five Men Convicted of Operating Massive, Illegal Streaming Service That Allegedly Had More Content Than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Prime Video Combined

Five men were convicted by a federal jury in Las Vegas this week for their part in operating Jetflicks, which officials say was one of the largest illegal streaming services in the U.S.

Jetflicks, which charged $9.99 per month for the streaming service, generated millions of dollars in subscription revenue and caused “substantial harm to television program copyright owners,” the Justice Department said Thursday.

At one point, Jetflicks claimed to host more than 183,200 TV episodes — a lineup larger than the combined catalogs of Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Amazon Prime Video, according to prosecutors.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, beginning as early as 2007, the five men — Kristopher Dallmann, Douglas Courson, Felipe Garcia, Jared Jaurequi and Peter Huber — operated the Jetflicks streaming service. The group used “sophisticated computer scripts” and software to scour piracy services (including the Pirate Bay and Torrentz) for illegal copies of TV episodes, which they then downloaded and hosted on Jetflicks’ servers, according to federal prosecutors. The men were charged in 2019 with conspiring to violate federal criminal copyright law.

The jury convicted the five men of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement. In addition, the jury convicted Dallmann of two counts of money laundering by concealment and three counts of misdemeanor criminal copyright infringement. Dallmann faces a maximum penalty of 48 years in prison, while Courson, Garcia, Jaurequi and Huber each face a maximum of five years in prison, according to the Justice Department. A sentencing date has not yet been set.

According to federal prosecutors, when complaints from copyright owners and issues with payment service providers threatened to bring down the illegal outfit, the defendants “tried to disguise Jetflicks as an aviation entertainment company.”

“The defendants operated Jetflicks, an illicit streaming service they used to distribute hundreds of thousands of stolen television episodes,” principal deputy assistant attorney general Nicole Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a June 20 statement. “Their scheme generated millions of dollars in criminal profits, while causing copyright owners to lose out. These convictions underscore the Criminal Division’s commitment to protecting intellectual property rights by prosecuting digital piracy schemes and bringing offenders to justice.”

Motion Picture Association senior EVP and global general counsel Karyn Temple called the verdict “a landmark victory for intellectual property rights.”

“The Motion Picture Association applauds the Department of Justice for its successful prosecution of five individuals who brazenly and illegally profited by infringing upon copyrighted works belonging to ACE,” Temple said, referring to the Alliance for Creativity in Entertainment, a coalition of entertainment companies focused on combatting piracy. “The jury’s conviction underscores the criminal nature of these types of offenses and the significant harms caused to the creative industry and the tens of thousands of workers who earn a living from key industry roles, including set designers, caterers, hair and makeup artists, and camera operators, to name a few.”

According to federal prosecutors, a member of the original Jetflicks group, Darryl Julius Polo (aka “djppimp”), left to create a competing site called iStreamItAll, whose subscription plans had a monthly fee of $19.99. Like Jetflicks, iStreamItAll did not have permission to distribute the TV and movie content on the platform, officials said. In 2019, Polo pleaded guilty to criminal copyright and money laundering charges, according to the Justice Department. In 2020, he was sentenced to 57 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $1 million in “criminal proceeds.”

https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/five-men-convicted-jetflicks-illegal-streaming-service-1236044194/

Manhattan DA drops charges against most of the Columbia University protesters

Nearly all of the people who were arrested inside Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall last month had their cases dropped Thursday.

Of the 46 people charged with trespassing in connection with the building’s occupation, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office dismissed cases against 31 people largely due to a lack of evidence. Prosecutors told 14 others that their cases would be dropped if they avoid being arrested in the next six months, but those defendants rejected that offer and will be due back in court on July 25.

The remaining defendant, James Carlson, has two other open cases against him involving separate charges, including flag burning. Carlson has no affiliation with the school.

Protesters had seized the building on the Manhattan campus of Columbia University on April 30 as demonstrations against the war in Gaza erupted on some U.S. college campuses and as tensions at Columbia intensified over mass suspensions.

Dozens were arrested the next day when police with riot helmets cleared the damaged and barricaded building.

Those arrested included at least 14 Columbia undergraduates, nine graduate students, two employees and six students from affiliated schools, a Columbia spokesperson previously said. At least 13 of them had no affiliation with Columbia, the school said.

The 31 people whose cases were dismissed were students or staff at Columbia, Barnard or Union Theological Seminary.Of the defendants who would have later had their cases dismissed, pending no further arrests, 12 were not staff members or students at Columbia and two were students, the district attorney’s office said.

At a news conference after the hearing, some of them, flanked by supporters, said they rejected the prosecutors’ conditional dismissal to show solidarity with those facing the most extreme repression across the pro-Palestinian movement.

During the court appearances Thursday afternoon, a prosecutor said the defendants do not have criminal histories and that they will face internal disciplinary proceedings at Columbia.

A Columbia University official said the disciplinary process is ongoing but declined to comment further.

The prosecutor said it would have been “extremely difficult” to prove the dismissed cases because the district attorney’s office lacks evidence, including surveillance footage from cameras that were covered up. The fact that some of the defendants wore masks also made it difficult to identify their specific actions.

An attorney for the defendants asked the court to immediately dismiss the charges against all of the accused, saying there are no allegations that the defendants hurt people or damaged property.

In the downtown courtroom, some of the defendants wore face masks and some wore kaffiyehs, which are distinctly patterned Palestinian scarves. At least two wore sunglasses.

As the hearings began, police confiscated what appeared to be a protest sign found under one of the seats.

When a prosecutor told the court that Carlson was accused of burning an Israeli flag, some of the defendants seated in the room could be heard snickering. A police officer instructed them to be quiet.

Hamilton Hall was famously occupied by people protesting the Vietnam War in 1968.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/manhattan-da-drops-charges-columbia-university-protesters-hamilton-hal-rcna157976

Four Members of Notorious Cybercrime Group ‘FIN9’ Charged for Roles in Attacking U.S. Companies

NEWARK, N.J. – An indictment was unsealed today charging four Vietnamese nationals for their involvement in a series of computer intrusions that caused victim companies to collectively suffer more than $71 million in losses, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.

According to the indictment, Ta Van Tai, aka “Quynh Hoa,” aka “Bich Thuy;” Nguyen Viet Quoc, aka “Tien Nguyen;” Nguyen Trang Xuyen; and Nguyen Van Truong, aka “Chung Nguyen,” were members of a sophisticated international cybercrime group known as “FIN9.” From at least May 2018 through October 2021, the defendants hacked the computer networks of victim companies throughout the United States and used their access to steal or attempt to steal non-public information, employee benefits, and funds. The defendants caused their victims to suffer more than $71 million in losses.

“The FIN9 defendants were prolific international hackers who, for years, allegedly used phishing campaigns, supply chain attacks and other hacking methods to steal millions from their victims. They did all of this while hiding behind keyboards, VPNs, and fake identities, and even then, the Department of Justice found them. My office remains committed to its pursuit of justice for victims, and cybercriminals everywhere should take notice.”

-U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger

(read more)

https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/four-members-notorious-cybercrime-group-fin9-charged-roles-attacking-us-companies

Missouri AG says he'll sue New York over Trump hush money case

https://www.axios.com/2024/06/21/missouri-attorney-general-ny-lawsuit-trump-case

https://x.com/AGAndrewBailey/status/1803942813245280715

Huge Rare Earths Discovery is Gamechanger in Americas Trade War with China

(long read)

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Huge-Rare-Earths-Discovery-is-Gamechanger-in-Americas-Trade-War-with-China.html