Top US General to Meet With Google on China Security Worries

WASHINGTON—The top U.S. military officer will meet with Google representatives next week amid growing concerns that American companies doing business in China are helping its military gain ground on the United States. Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on March 20 that efforts like Google’s artificial intelligence venture in China allow the Chinese military to access and take advantage of U.S.-developed technology.

“This is not about me and Google,” Dunford told an audience at the Atlantic Council. “This is about us looking at the second and third order of effects of our business ventures in China, Chinese form of government, and the impact it’s going to have on the United States’ ability to maintain a competitive military advantage.” Google says its AI activities in China are focused on“education, research on natural language understanding and market algorithms, and development of globally available tools.”

In a statement last week, Google said it is not working with the Chinese military. And the company said that it continues to work with the U.S. government, including the Defense Department, in many areas, including cybersecurity, recruiting and healthcare. Dunford’s comments reflect widespread U.S. government worries that any information or data an American company has or uses as it does business in China is automatically available to the Chinese regime and its military. U.S. companies in China are required to have a cell of the communist party present, said Dunford, adding, “that will lead to that intellectual property from that company finding its way to the Chinese military.”

Last week he and acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan expressed similar concerns during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “We watch with great concern when industry partners work in China knowing that there is that indirect benefit,” Dunford said during the hearing. “And frankly, indirect may be not a full characterization of the way it really is. It’s more of a direct benefit to the Chinese military.” Shanahan also noted that Google is stepping away from some Pentagon contracts.

Internal protests by workers at Google led the tech company to say last year that it is dropping out of Project Maven, which uses algorithms to interpret drone video images from conflict zones. Employees had complained that Google was helping with technology that could improve lethal targeting. Shanahan told senators that $5 trillion of China’s economy is state-owned enterprises, “so the technology that is developed in the civilian world transfers to the military world. It’s a direct pipeline. Not only is there a transfer, there’s also systemic theft of U.S. technology that also facilitates even faster development of emerging technology.” As a result, Shanahan said the U.S. military needs to continue to invest in artificial intelligence, adding that funding would double in the proposed 2020 budget. The Joint Staff did not release details on the timing of Dunford’s meeting next week or who would be attending from Google.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/top-us-general-to-meet-with-google-on-china-security-worries_2849007.html

DOJ inspector general confirms yearlong investigation into FISA abuse is still active

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday his office is still investigating possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the DOJ and FBI in their investigation into President Trump and associates of his 2016 campaign. The revelation came during a panel discussion in Washington, D.C., when Horowitz was asked to divulge his biggest projects. “We have a FISA-related review that people might have heard about that the deputy attorney general asked us to take a look at. But I’m not going to dwell on that," he said at the event alongside three other inspectors general hosted by the Atlantic Council.

Horowitz did not comment further. The moderator, Sarah Lynch of Reuters, made it clear that the watchdog's FISA abuse probe was off-limits for further questions. “I was also asked to just tell everybody — please don’t ask about an ongoing investigation. Don’t ask Michael [Horowitz] about the FISA-Carter Page investigation. He can’t talk about it. As much as we all want to know what the finding will be," she said.

Nearly one year ago, on March 28, Horowitz announced the start of the FISA abuse probe by his office, saying he was doing so following requests from then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Republican members of Congress. These GOP lawmakers alleged the DOJ and FBI had abused the FISA process and misled the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in their investigation and surveillance of Trump and his associates during the campaign and Trump's administration. At the time, the inspector general's office said it would “examine the Justice Department’s and the FBI’s compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person.” That “certain U.S. person” is believed to be Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

The DOJ IG also said it would “review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications.” The “alleged FBI confidential source” is widely believed to be Christopher Steele, the British ex-spy whose so-called Trump dossier was used in FISA applications presented before the Court to justify FISA warrants. The Trump-Russia investigation launched by the DOJ and the FBI would carry on into the special counsel investigation, which to this day is looking at Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Steele was being paid for his research by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm that was funded in part by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee through the Perkins Coie law firm. Republicans have alleged the the dossier's Democratic benefactors and Steele's anti-Trump bias was withheld from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and that the FISA process was abused.

Democrats have defended the actions of the DOJ and the FBI. “It is a shame that the Inspector General has to devote resources to investigate a conspiracy theory as fact-free, openly political, and thoroughly debunked as the President’s so-called ‘FISA abuse,'" Rep. Jerry Nadler, who is now chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said when the DOJ IG investigation began last year. "Any objective review of these claims should tell us what we already know — that the FBI was right, that there was sufficient evidence to continue investigating certain Trump campaign officials for their connections to the Russian government, and that the Republicans are desperate to distract from that investigation.” In recent days, court depositions have been unsealed, shedding light on Steele's efforts to share the dossier with journalists and government officials, and revealing at least one instance of a sloppy verification procedure by Steele. The deposition of David Kramer, a former State Department official who discussed the dossier with more than a dozen journalists, including BuzzFeed, and also provided it to Sen. John McCain after receiving it from Steele, was also unsealed.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-inspector-general-confirms-year-long-investigation-into-fisa-abuse-is-still-active

>>5826411

Let's hope that when he puts out the finished product he has left no stone unturned.

ROBERTS FLIPPED ON OBAMACARE’S MEDICAID EXPANSION

Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the four liberal justices to support the part of Obamacare that obligated states to accept the Medicaid expansion or otherwise lose out on the program entirely, according an adapted excerpt from the book “Chief” out Tuesday by CNN's Joan Biskupic. The 2012 ruling in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius to make the Medicaid provision in Obamacare optional ultimately landed at 7-2 as Roberts negotiated with Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer to side with the conservative justices in exchange for his vote to uphold the individual mandate.

The justices thought that states would go along with the Medicaid expansion because the federal government covers the majority of costs. That assumption turned out to be incorrect. More than a dozen states still haven’t expanded, and Republican state legislatures all over the country are advancing laws to scale back expansion. Supreme Court deliberations are private, and justices don’t respond to rumors that surface or to reporting. It’s difficult to assess the claims in the book because the inner workings of the Supreme Court are closely guarded, and justices do not tend to share what goes on during their conferences where they discuss cases and cast voters. Clerks, too, are notoriously tight-lipped and take a vow of confidentiality.

Jan Crawford had previously reported for CBS that Roberts initially believed the fine on the uninsured should be struck down, but the latest details from Biskupic on Medicaid are new. Roberts did not endorse the argument that the penalty could be upheld as an exercise of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, but he did uphold it as allowed under the power to tax.

In “Chief,” Biskupic reports that Roberts believed the individual mandate was only necessary to uphold Obamacare’s protections on pre-existing illnesses, but that without it the rest of the law could remain intact. His conservative colleagues disagreed and would not budge on their stance that the entire law would otherwise fall apart without it. Roberts unsuccessfully tried to convince Justice Anthony Kennedy, the notorious swing vote, not to support striking down the entire law, before instead turning to Kagan and Breyer. Roberts “acknowledged being torn between his heart and his head, as he put it, and express some hesitancy to strike down a law intended to solve the nation’s health insurance crisis,” Biskupic writes. The individual mandate ultimately was upheld 5-4. It was zeroed out this year as part of the tax law signed by President Trump, and is now facing additional legal challenges from Republican state officials who say it is an essential part of the law. The Trump administration believes it is only essential to the protections for people with pre-existing illnesses, as Roberts also believed, according to Biskupic’s reporting.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/healthcare/daily-on-healthcare-chief-justice-john-roberts-flipped-on-obamacare-medicaid-expansion