Peter Schweizer Is Back with a New Progressive Exposé Book, "Secret Empires"

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS NOT EVEN BEING TALKED ABOUT. Except on Fox News. • • • SECRET EMPIRES BY PETER SCHWEIZER. Everybody on Fox News istalking about the new book by Peter Schweizer, the four-time New York Times bestselling investigative journalist. Schweizer has garnered a reputation for unearthing never-before-revealed facts about how political elites enrich themselves. His last book, Clinton Cash, sparked an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation. Now, in Secret Empires, he exposes how top Democrats and Republicans have engineered what he calls “the new corruption” -- a system Washington elites use to grease highly lucrative deals by routing them through their children and family members. • Last Friday, the Mark Levin Show posted this comment on Secret Empires : "Peter Schweizer has been fighting corruption -- and winning -- for years. In Throw Them All Out, he exposed insider trading by members of Congress, leading to the passage of the STOCK Act. In Extortion, he uncovered how politicians use mafia-like tactics to enrich themselves. And in Clinton Cash, he revealed the Clintons’ massive money machine and sparked an FBI investigation. Now he explains how a new corruption has taken hold, involving larger sums of money than ever before. Stuffing tens of thousands of dollars into a freezer has morphed into multibillion-dollar equity deals done in the dark corners of the world. An American bank opening in China would be prohibited by US law from hiring a slew of family members of top Chinese politicians. However, a Chinese bank opening in America can hire anyone it wants. It can even invite the friends and families of American politicians to invest in can’t-lose deals. President Donald Trump’s children have made front pages across the world for their dicey transactions. However, the media has barely looked into questionable deals made by those close to Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Mitch McConnell, and lesser-known politicians who have been in the game longer." • Mark Levin rarely minces his words. Neither does another outlet, Investor's Business Daily, which wrote an Editorial last Wednesday titled "Think Obama Administration Wasn't Corrupt? Think Again?" Here's what IBD had to say about Peter Schweizer's new book : "Obama Scandal : Former President Obama and his political supporters have repeatedly stated that his administration was scandal-free, unlike administrations before and after. 'We're probably the first administration in modern history that hasn't had a major scandal in the White House,' Obama himself said. A new book puts the lie to that statement. Never mind that the left-leaning big media basically ignored major scandals during the Obama years, ranging from the IRS targeting scandal and the VA's deadly waiting lists for veterans to Hillary Clinton's illegal use of an unsecured, hackable home-brew server for her official duties as Secretary of State and the Fast and Furious gunwalking program. These and others were epic scandals that the media simply ignored or downplayed. The media have contrasted Obama's supposed honesty and forthrightness with President Trump's supposed venality and political unscrupulousness, as embodied in the year-and-a-half long Russia-Trump scandal investigation that shows few signs of letting up. But now comes Peter Schweizer's new book, 'Secret Empires : How Our Politicians Hide Corruption and Enrich Their Families and Friends,' which shows that the Obama administration and its cronies were up to their necks in questionable business deals and may even have intentionally distorted public policy to accommodate their own profit-making." The IBD says quotes Katelyn Caralle of the Washington Examiner, who wrote : "The book claims 'Obama and his administration would deem industries either destructive to the environment or exploitative for the financial and professional gain of his friends, including industries such as coal mining, offshore drilling, cash advance companies, and for-profit colleges. Schweizer's book, based on extensive research, says that Obama acted to regulate certain industries in such a way that the regulations lowered the value of some of the companies. These actions let two family friends to profit handsomely on deals through their own investment firm." • • • SCHWEIZER EXPOSES OBAMA ERA CORRUPTION AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS. Here's how it worked in one example in Secret Empires outlined by IBD : "Obama buddies Marty Nesbitt and Harreld Kirkpatrick III formed a private equity investment firm called Vistria, right around the time Obama was re-elected in 2012. Nothing wrong with that, except, as Schweizer notes in his book, 'A curious pattern began to emerge. Obama and his administration would attack industries with government power, which led to substantially lower valuations for these companies. Nesbitt and Vistria, or others close to Obama, could then acquire those assets for pennies on the dollar.' As an example, Schweizer cites the case of for-profit higher education schools like University of Phoenix, ITT Technical Institute, and DeVry University. In 2013, Obama blamed the schools for taking advantage of students by saddling them with massive amounts of student debt, ruining their credit and making a profit on it. He ordered the Federal Trade Commission to go after them. In the case of the University of Phoenix, its parent Apollo Education Group was suspended after a Federal Trade Commission investigation in 2015. The following year, three companies, including Vistria, swooped in to buy what remained of Apollo at a price 90% below its share price before the investigation. As Vistria's education investment portfolio bulged, a number of Obama Education Department officials, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, ended up taking high-level jobs with Vistria." • IBD states that : "Schweizer noted in his book that both Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry were deeply involved in trade and security talks with China even as that country began its aggressive campaign to expand its military and physical presence in the South China Sea. Contrary to standard diplomatic practice, however, both played 'good cop,' not seriously confronting China on its misbehavior. Remember, Biden and Kerry were close friends from their years spent together in the Senate. So there was little surprise when Biden's son, Hunter, and Kerry's stepson, Christopher Heinz, one of the heirs to the Heinz ketchup fortune, went into business together in 2009. They created a number of equity and real estate investment firms allied to Rosemont Capital, 'the alternative investment fund of the Heinz Family Office.' So far so good. Except, 'Over the next seven years, as both Joe Biden and John Kerry negotiated sensitive and high-stakes deals with foreign governments, Rosemont entities secured a series of exclusive deals with those same foreign governments.' In December of 2013, for instance, Biden traveled to China for talks. He brought Hunter Biden along. While there, the senior Biden soft-pedaled China's clear aggression, and played up the bilateral trade partnership. Ten days after the trip concluded, China's central bank, the Bank of China, set up a $1 billion investment joint venture called Bohai Harvest RST. For the record, the "RS" referred to Biden's son's firm, Rosemont Seneca. That's questionable enough. But months later, in July 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to China, also for talks. Kerry talked little of China's clear aggression, but did conspicuously note that 'China and the United States represent the greatest economic alliance trading partnership in the history of humankind.' He should know. In the ensuing months, Chinese government-linked firms took major stakes in several of the firms owned or controlled by Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz, and provided them with massive funding totaling billions of dollars. Nor is this the only scandal involving John Kerry." • IBD calls the new Schweizer book "a catalog, a virtual roadmap, to the way corrupt business gets done in Washington -- and why Americans are smart to question why their representative go to Washington as paupers, and return as millionaires." • IBD had already gone after Clinton Kerry "corrupt"' practices at the state Department. IBD wrote on September 13, 2016 : "Corruption: What is it about Democrats and the State Department? Despite their repeated claims of transparency, it turns out that both Hillary Clinton and current Secretary of State John Kerry used their positions to enrich members of their own families -- at taxpayer expense. As the murky ties between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary's State Department become clearer, a new report from the Daily Caller notes that current Secretary of State Kerry's daughter received money for her nonprofit group from State. Indeed, the Daily Caller investigation shows that more than $9 million of State Department money made its way through the Peace Corps to the nonprofit started by Dr. Vanessa Kerry, John Kerry's daughter. And the money was handed out without competition. Vanessa Kerry's nonprofit, Seed Global Health, got its first contract in 2012. Yes, that was when Hillary was still in office. But John Kerry then was a senator who headed the Committee on Foreign Relations, which is charged with overseeing both the State Department and the Peace Corps. There is a clear conflict of interest there. That's bad enough. But last year, in September, the Seed group got a four-year extension on its deal while John Kerry was Secretary of State. Another conflict of interest. Crony capitalism, anyone? Whether you think that what Seed does in Africa -- it helps train doctors and nurses -- is valuable or not, this no-competition grant to a nonprofit founded by a top official's daughter reeks of rank favoritism at best, corruption at worst. 'Kerry and government officials colluded to launch the program and ensure that Seed would get the contract,' the Daily Caller concluded, after reviewing the relevant memos and papers related to the deal. • But it doesn't end there, says IBD : "Because, even as the Kerry deal was being revealed, further strands of the heretofore hidden ties between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and a mysterious Russian billionaire with close ties to Vladimir Putin are coming to light. The Washington Examiner got its hands on emails showing that the Clinton Foundation sought ties with Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg at a time when he was in charge of an important element of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 'Russian reset.' Hillary helped create 'a major technology transfer initiative' that 'may have substantially undermined US national security,' according to Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and the author of Clinton Cash.' Part of the 'reset' was the creation of 'Skolkovo,' an industrial enclave near Moscow that was to become a kind of Russian Silicon Valley. The idea was to encourage US firms to help out with both technology and investment, in exchange for market access. Despite warnings from both the FBI and her own State Department about the possibility of Russia getting access to militarily sensitive technologies, Hillary went ahead with the program. Why? At the time, Vekselberg -- head of the Skolkovo Foundation and a pal of Vladimir Putin -- was also a contributor to the Clinton Foundation. These ties later proved quite lucrative, with 17 of the 28 American companies that participated in the Skolkovo project also being donors to the Clinton Foundation. All the way back in 2010, as Skolkovo was getting underway, former President Bill Clinton traveled to Russia to deliver a speech for which he was paid $500,000 by a mysterious Russian investment bank named 'Renaissance Capital.' [Note : this was part of the corrupt Uranium One deal to sell 20% of US unraniul resources to Russian firms.] While there he met with a variety of movers and shakers, including Vekselberg. With the Clintons, one hand always washes the other." • IBd revelas corrupt Hillary and Kerry acts as far back as 2010. IBD summarized in 2106 : "Now that it has been revealed that thousands of emails on Hillary's unsecured home-brew server have been intentionally destroyed, it is certainly fitting to wonder whether damning or incriminating evidence about the Clinton Foundation and its ties to Hillary's office at the State Department was destroyed. The US State Department used to be known for its high-toned and principled stands in defense of U.S. foreign-policy goals and interests. But today, after two Democratic leaders, it appears to be more of a revolving door for crony capitalists. We would hope Congress would continue to investigate the email scandal and what appears to be rampant abuse of office that has taken place at the State Department over the past eight years. Such clear conflicts of interest used to raise political hackles. Congress should, at minimum, make sure that future secretaries of state no longer abuse their office to personally enrich their families and friends. Anything less is to condone criminality." • We know now that htere are multiple ongoing investigations of both the Clinton Foundation and Hillary's email scandal. But, so far, the Swamp seems determined to drag out hte investigations at the -pre-charge level for as long as possible. Only the few non-Swamp Republicans in Congress -- led by Senator Chuck Grassley and Representative Devin Nunes -- are actively pushing Attorney General Jeff Sessions for a faster, more inclusive criminal probe. • • • WHAT IS REVEALED IN SECRET EMPIRES? Breitbart's Rbecca Mansour wrote on March 20, that "Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends" by Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer debuted at #3 on the Amazon bestseller list. MAnxour says : "The deeply researched book (it contains 859 endnotes) includes revelations involving George Soros, Barack Obama, Tom Steyer, Penny Pritzker, Jared Kushner, John Kerry, and myriad others. Four of the book’s central characters are Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Mitch McConnell, and Elaine Chao. In particular, Schweizer traces the intersection between these four individuals and deals involving China." Mansour lists five China-related revelations Schweizer exposes in his new book. §§1. Biden’s Son’s Firm Scored a $1.5 Billion Deal with the Bank of China 10 Days After Joe Biden and His Son Flew to China Aboard Air Force Two...in 2013, Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s firm signed a billion-dollar deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China ten days after Joe and Hunter Biden flew to China aboard Air Force Two. The newly formed investment fund is called Bohai Harvest RST. In a SiriusXM Breitbart News Tonight radio interview, Schweizer explained how the Biden-China deal unfolded : "In December of 2013, Vice President Joe Biden flies to Asia for a trip, and the centerpiece for that trip is a visit to Beijing, China...To put this into context, in 2013, the Chinese have just exerted air rights over the South Pacific, the South China Sea. They basically have said, ‘If you want to fly in this area, you have to get Chinese approval. We are claiming sovereignty over this territory.’ Highly controversial in Japan, in the Philippines, and in other countries. Joe Biden is supposed to be going there to confront the Chinese. Well, he gets widely criticized on that trip for going soft on China. So basically, no challenging them, and Japan and other countries are quite upset about this.' Schweizer said, “Well, I think the reason he goes soft on China is because with him on that trip, flying on Air Force Two, is his son Hunter Biden, and ten days after they return from China, Hunter Biden -- who has this small firm, he has no background in private equity, he has no background in Chinese finance -- gets a whopping $1.5 billion deal from the Chinese government. This is the Chinese government giving Joe Biden and a [John] Kerry confidante the management over this money, and they made huge fees off of this money, and it’s an example of this kind of corruption. That’s the first of three major deals that the Chinese government does with people who are either the children -- that is the sons -- or close aides to Vice President Biden or Secretary of State John Kerry.” §§2. The China-Backed Investment Fund Invested in Dual-Use Military Technology. As Schweizer explains: “So [Hunter Biden’s firm] get this $1.5 billion to invest, and what they are supposed to do is basically invest in companies that benefit the Chinese government,” stated Schweizer. “So just think about this for a second. This is the vice president of the United States whose father is supposed to be commanding American presence and power in the Pacific to deal with the rising challenge from China, and his son is investing $1.5 billion of Chinese government money. So what do they do? They invest in an American high-precision tools company called Henniges, which used to be owned by Rocket Company, but they produce anti-vibration technologies which have a dual-use application, so this transaction actually requires the approval of the federal government, as it has national security implications. So again, the vice president’s son is helping the Chinese government take over a dual-use military technology-related company called Henniges.” §§3. The Obama Justice Department Charged One of the Companies with Stealing US Nuclear Secrets. “But it gets even worse because another investment that they make is in something called CGN -- China General Nuclear -- which is an atomic power company,” says Schweizer. “They invest in this company in 2014. A year later, what happens? The FBI arrests and charges senior officials in this company with stealing nuclear secrets in the United States. Specifically, they’re trying to get access to something called the AP-1000 nuclear reactor that is very similar to the ones that we put on US submarines. So again, you have the son of the vice president, a close aide to the secretary of state who are investing in a company that is trying to steal nuclear secrets in the United States. It’s a stunning story, and here’s the thing : none of this is required to be disclosed because they’ve figured out a way to get around these disclosure laws.” §§4. Mitch McConnell and His Wife Elaine Chao Received a $5 Million to $25 Million Gift from a Family Member Who Sat on the Board of a Top Chinese Government Military Contractor. According to Secret Empires, in 1993, just months after Mitch McConnell married Elaine Chao (the current Secretary of Transportation), the Senator and his father-in-law, James Chao, flew to China. Chao is the owner of Foremost Group, a shipping company that has done substantial business with the state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC). The two men went to Beijing at CSSC’s invitation and had a meeting with a classmate of Chao’s, Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Schweizer says McConnell was only the second Republican Senator to visit China since the Tiananmen Square massacre. “McConnell’s rhetoric and policy toward mainland China softened in the decades that followed,” writes Schweizer, before citing several policy examples. “As McConnell gained political weight on Capitol Hill and his position toward China softened, the Chao family saw its business ties with the Chinese government increase dramatically -- to their financial benefit.” Starting in 2007, “just as the US Senate was taking up sensitive legislation concerning China,” Schweizer writes that the Chinese government’s CSSC Holdings, Ltd. -- the financial arm of the Chinese government’s military contractor CSSC -- appointed Mitch McConnell’s father-in-law to its board. CSSC Holdings also added Mitch McConnell’s sister-in-law Angela Chao to the board as well. “The fact that both the father-in-law and sister-in-law of Senator McConnell sat on the board of CSSC Holdings is highly unusual, to say the least,” writes Schweizer. “One could say it is unprecedented in American political history. In general, CSSC is a sensitive, critical asset of the Chinese government and operates under a veil of privacy and secrecy.” Then in 2008, following the death of his wife, James Chao gave a gift to Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao of between $5 million to $25 million, according to Senator McConnell’s Senate financial disclosure forms. Last week, the New York Post reported on the Secret Empire's McConnell revelation and showed its impact on the McConnell family’s net worth : “In 2004, current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, current US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, had an average net worth of $3.1 million. Ten years later, that number had increased to somewhere between $9.2 million and $36.5 million.” §§5. Mitch McConnell’s Sister-in-Law Sits on the Board of the Chinese Government’s Bank of China. Last week, the Wall Street Journal highlighted the book’s revelation that the Communist Chinese government’s Bank of China appointed Mitch McConnell’s sister-in-law, Angela Chao, to its small board of directors. “Mr. Schweizer also points to the appointment of Ms. Chao’s sister, Angela Chao, to the board of state-owned Bank of China, 10 days after the 2016 election,” reported the Journal. Indeed, the Bank of China’s website lists Angela Chao in its online listing of board members and includes a photo and professional bio. • • • FOX NEWS GIVES PETER SCHWEIZER AIR TIME. You can watch the Fox News interview of Peter Schweizer by Sean Hannity on You Tube video is at . In the video, you will hear just one example of the brazen audacity of Obama-era corruption. It runs deep and it was done with little regard to keeping secrets. The administration was so confident that media outlets would fail to investigate that they never bothered to hide their tracks. Watch it for yourself. The You Tube video is at . • Lou Dobbs also interviewed Peter Schweizer. That interview is on You Tube at < https://youtu.be/cIEYR0qFxOw >. In the Dobbs interview, Schweizer says : "It's not until President Trump takes office that suddenly...we're doing overflights to stop the further construction of those [Chinese] islands." • Peter Schweizer was also on Fox News "The Story" with Martha MacCallum and that video is at < https://youtu.be/uDinjrpGs7w >. Schweizer said in the transcript : "...so the Clintons just to, you know tally up, they made two hundred and forty million dollars much of it from foreign countries since 2001....it is fascinating so first of all Hillary Clinton claiming that the Trump folks have enriched themselves at the behest of government yeah it's pretty amazing to have Hillary Clinton lecture somebody on ethical standards...but look I mean, it's hard to know but I think if you look at Donald Trump's family you can probably make a case that they've lost money from going into public service...I don't see any clear-cut evidence yet at this point that that's happened." • • • OBAMA KEEPS ON POSING AS THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD. And the media lapdog -in-chief CNN wrote on Monday that : "Obama hopes to create 'a million young Barack Obamas or Michelle Obamas.' " If that doesn't terrify you into action, nothing ever will. Clare Foran of CNN wrote : "Former President Barack Obama says he aspires to create 'a million young Barack Obamas or Michelle Obamas' who will pick up the baton in what he describes as the 'relay race that is human progress.' At a conference in Japan on Sunday, the former President spoke about how he hopes the Obama Foundation, a nonprofit formed in January 2014, will help achieve his post-presidential aims. 'After I left office, what I realized is that the Obama Foundation could potentially create a platform for young, up-and-coming leaders, both in the United States and all around the world to come together, meet together, create a digital platform where they could exchange information,' Obama said. 'If I could do that effectively, then I would create a hundred, or a thousand, or a million young Barack Obamas or Michelle Obamas,' he added. Obama's remarks were previously reported by other media outlets, including The Guardian and The Washington Examiner. The former President has been on an Asia-Pacific trip that also included stops in Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. 'The single most important thing I can do is to help develop the next generation,' he said Sunday." • The Daily Wire had a different take on Barack Obama, writing last Friday : "A man who claimed he had a two-day love affair with a married Barack Obama back in 1999 is heated over the mainstream media's 'sickening' double standard concerning Stormy Daniels, a porn star who claims she had sex with a married Donald Trump back in 2006. Larry Sinclair claims he had a drug-induced sex romp with then-Senator Obama in Chicago after the duo were introduced by a limousine driver. Sinclair claims he performed oral sex on Mr. Obama on two occasions....Sinclair, who reportedly has political aspirations, is convinced the media are giving instant credibility without skepticism to women accusing Trump of sexual misconduct. The Washington Examiner cited a lack of photo of Obama and Sinclair together...Also, the site notes, Obama is reportedly straight....'To journalists I would say take your time, compare statements and call out contradictions in statements and previous interviews,' Sinclair said. 'When it comes to polygraphs be very sure you vet the examiners conducting them and always ask for the computer scoring results as well as the examiners findings.' In 2009, Sinclair released a book about the alleged affair called 'Barack Obama & Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, Sex, Lies & Murder?' He says he lost money on it." • • • DEAR READERS, the farther away we get from the Obama era, the more we see revealed facts and allegations of corruption, misuse of federal offices, lying on financial dsiclosure forms or simply finding ways to self-enrighment by acting through children and friends, and selling out America for that same self-enrichment. This is all hidden or ignored by the ProgDem mainstream media. Our children have been taught that Obama was and is a saint who will lead America to "human progress." Is there any hope of revealing Obama-era corruption for what it really was? Only if we continue to seek the facts and believe that we can make a difference. That is why our Constitution is so important and why we should protect it from the corrupt tampering of Progressives who see it as an historical document that is no longer relevant. "We the People" are the most relevant and living political words ever written. We must not forget that Americans are the only people left in the world who can make a difference in government. It is a responsibility to be taken very seriously.

Key News : John Bolton Becomes Tump's National Security Advisor, Obama Harvested Facebook Data with Its Okay, DiGenova to the Rescue, and Trump Is Forced to Sign a Terrible Budget

THE REALLY GOOD NEWS TODAY IS ABOUT JOHN BOLTON. President Trump announced Thursday that former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton will replace General H.R. McMaster as his National Security advisor effective April 9 : “I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.” The President’s announcement came after months of speculation over whether McMaster would resign or be fired from his post. As it turns out, General McMaster is retiring this summer after 34 years of active duty. The General said : “After thirty-four years of service to our nation, I am requesting retirement from the US Army effective this summer after which I will leave public service. Throughout my career it has been my greatest privilege top serve alongside extraordinary servicemembers and dedicated civilians. I am thankful to President Donald J. Trump for the opportunity to serve him and our nation as national security advisor. I am grateful for the friendship and support of the members of the National Security Council who worked together to provide the President with the best options to protect and advance our national interests.” McMaster said he was “especially proud” to have served with National Security Council staff, who he said “established a strong foundation for protecting the American people, promoting American prosperity, achieving peace through strength, and advancing American influence : “I know that these patriots will continue to serve our President and our nation with distinction." • White House chief of staff, General John Kelly, said McMaster is “a fine American and Military officer. He has served with distinction and honor throughout his career in the US Army and as the National Security Advisor. He brought and maintained discipline and energy to our vital interagency processes. He helped develop options for the president and ensured that those options were presented fully and fairly. A true solider-scholar, his impact on his country and this government will be felt for years to come.” • John Bolton told Fox News Thursday evening : “I didn't really expect that announcement this afternoon, but it's obviously a great honor. It's always an honor to serve our country and I think particularly in these times internationally, it's a particular honor.” Bolton told Fox News' Martha MacCallum that the process of his hiring “came to a conclusion this afternoon, but...there's still a transition. I look forward to working with H.R. and his team and the other senior members of the President's team on national security and I have no doubt there's a lot of work to do.” Bolton has served as a Fox News contributor. The position of White House national security advisor does not require Senate confirmation, which might have been difficult for Botlen. He was not confirmed as US Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006, serving under President Bush in a recess appointee because the Democrat-majority Senate woudl not confirm him, finding his views on acting aggressively in Iraq not to their liking. John Bolton alsoserved as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security from 2001 to 2005. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley tweeted : “Thank you to Lieutenant General HR McMaster for your service and loyalty to our country. Your selfless courage and leadership has inspired all of us. Most of all, thank you for your friendship.” • On Thursday evening, a White House official said the President and General McMaster “mutually agreed” that he would resign from his post. The two have been discussing this for some time, the official said, noting that the timeline was expedited as they both felt it was important to have a new team in place, instead of constant speculation. A White House official said the decision was not related to any one moment or incident, but rather the result of ongoing conversations between the two. The official told Fox News that the move has been contemplated for some time, and was just about the “worst-kept secret” in Washington. The President took his time to find a replacement for McMaster because he wanted the "right person." Fox said that while Trump spoke to Bolton many times about the job, the deal was cemented in an Oval Office meeting between the two Thursday afternoon. • A White House official said Bolton is one of the strongest voices and experts on the full range of national security issues and challenges facing the US. • This is one more step in putting in place the White House senior team that President Trump originally was reportedly seeking. With Mike Pompeo at State and John Bolton as National Security Advisor, President Trump has the hard-hitting and assertive foreign relations and security advisors that will match his policies. • • • OBAMA HARVESTED FACEBOOK PROFILES. The Great American Daily wrote on Monday that : "Barack Obama shocked Americans when he claimed his administration was scandal free. That was an obvious lie. And now one insider has stepped forward with the smoking gun that implicates Obama’s 2012 campaign in a real data harvesting scandal. The current media feeding frenzy is focused on Cambridge Analytica, the data firm that Trump hired in 2016, but de-emphasized during the general election. They are accused of misuse of data acquired on Facebook through a third party app in order to target online ads at voters. Cambridge is not accused of doing anything illegal or misusing Facebook, but the media is trying to frame the story as the Trump campaign having used a shady data firm to rig the election. • BUT, Carol Davidsen, who was the director of Obama for America’s Integration and Media Analytics, has declared that the Obama re-election campaign ran a similar program and that Facebook was fine with the initiative because they supported Obama’s campaign. Carol Davidsen tweeted : "Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but they didn’t stop us once they realized that was what we were doing....They came to office in the days following election recruiting & were very candid that they allowed us to do things they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side." • That nails it. Facebook allowed Obama to harvest whatever he wanted because Facebook was on Obama's side. Obama’s campaign was harvesting data through Facebook, and the Facebook executives applauded Obama’s program. Later, when Cambridge Analytics used harvested data from Facebook for the Trump campaign, Facebook suspended Cambridge. • As we said yesterday, Facebook has become the world's communication system and it should be treated and controlled and licensed like the public utility that it is. • • • TRUMP HIRES DiGENOVA. This surely means that President Trump has decided to take on a more confrontational posture with special counsel Mueller. The President id still cooperating with the investigation, but he attacked Mueller by name on twitter for the first time recently. • Joseph "Joe" DiGenova is a former US Attorney for the District of Columbia – and a one-time special counsel. DiGenova has been an aggressive critic of Mueller and has asserted that high level officials within the FBI and Justice Department are using the Russia investigation to frame the President. • The Daily Caller reported :“President Donald Trump has reportedly hired Joe DiGenova...to serve on his personal legal team. According to the New York Times, DiGenova will not serve in a 'lead' capacity....DiGenova has frequently stated that the Russia probe was orchestrated by Obama-era FBI and DOJ officials, a line of reasoning which the President himself pushed over the weekend." • Some anti-Trump members of the media took Trump’s tweets about the Mueller probe as evidence the President was laying the groundwork to firing the special counsel. Trump tweeted : That Mueller probe shouldk never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and thae DNC, and was improperly used in FISA court for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT! • President Trump is evidently seeking aggressive lawyers who will fight the special counsel investigation in the court of public opinion. Trump is right to fight back. While his supporters would like him to fire Mueller and end the Fake investigation, setting up a take-no-prisoners legal team is Trump’s next best option. • • • A DEMOCRAT HOUSE MEMBER SUGGESTS USING THE SECOND AMENDMENT AGAINST TRUMP. Congressman Tom Suozzi, a New York Democrat, was at a town hall event in his Long Island district when he was asked how far Democrats should be willing to go to resist the President. Suozzi suggested taking up arms and launching an armed rebellion, according to the New York Post, which wrote : "Representative Tom Suozzi made the remark...saying that folks opposed to Trump might resort to the Second Amendment." Here is what Suozzi said : "It's really a matter of putting public pressure on the President. This is where the Second Amendment comes in, quite frankly, because you know, what if the President was to ignore the courts? What would you do? What would we do?" Suozzi noted that the Second Amendment is "the right to bear arms." • This is an unthinkable suggestion from an elected representative. And when questioned about his remarks, his campaign doubled down on starting a shooting war with the President and his supporters by quoting Thomas Jefferson : "What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms." • It's an even more despicable statement coming from a member of Congress when we consider that Suozzi is a strong supporter of gun control. We can imagine what would happen to a Republican who dared to say such an outrageous thing. • • • THE MONSTROUS BUDGET. And, finally today's news is about the new budget -- it is a joke to even call it a "budget," which is a word that suggests control and self-discipline. Fox News reported on Friday afternoon that President Trump signd the spending bill as a "matter of national security," but he warned Congress that he will never sign such a massive spending bill again, and again called on the Senate to get rid of the filibuster rule, and create line-item veto power. • The President signed the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill Friday despite an earlier threat to veto the legislation due to the lack of border wall funding and a fix for DACA. Trump signed the mammoth legislation reluctantly, saying in a press availability with other members of the administration that, in order to secure a necessary increase in military spending, he had to give money to Democratic projects that he derided as a "wasted sum of money. It's not right and it's very bad for our country." But, President Trump said that military spending is very important, and that this concern overrode his thoughts about vetoing the legislation : “Therefore, as a matter of national security, I've signed this omnibus budget bill. There are a lot of things I’m unhappy about in this bill...But I say to Congress, I will never sign another bill like this again. I'm not going to do it again. To prevent the omnibus situation from ever happening again, I'm calling on Congress to give me a line item veto for all government spending bills. And the Senate must end -- they must end -- the filibuster rule and get down to work.” • President Trump had tweeted earlier Friday that he was considering using the veto, saying that recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program “have been totally abandoned by the Democrats.” He added that the border wall, which he said was "desperately needed for our National Defense" is not fully funded. Trump moved to end the DACA program in September, giving Congress a six-month window to come up with a legislative fix. That deadline has been delayed by court orders, but the fate of the 800,000 enrolled recipients is still uncertain. The President Trump addressed DACA recipients at the press availability : "Republicans are with you," he said, before accusing Democrats of blocking efforts to fix DACA "every step of the way." The White House has tried to use the DACA issue to convince Democrats to support approximately $25 billion in funding for Trump’s central campaign promise. But a congressional GOP source told Fox News talks broke drown after Democrats pushed for a path to citizenship to include also those who are currently eligible -- expanding those covered to 1.8 million. • The spending bill passed by Congress includes only $1.6 billion for border measures -- much of which is for repairs to already existing fencing. It explicitly rules out any new prototypes of the kind President Trump viewed this month in California. But House Speaker Paul Ryan and the White House pushed back against conservative concerns on Thursday, saying it provided for 100 miles of border construction. Democrats had claimed victory on the issue, pointing to the fact that Trump's requests for new deportation agents and detention center beds had gone unanswered, although they had expressed disappointment at the failure to get a DACA fix in the bill. • The deal has also irked more conservative members of Congress, who objected to the size and cost of the bill (which ran in at over 2,000 pages) as well as the failure to remove funding for Planned Parenthood and so-called "sanctuary cities." Other Republicans approved of the deal, pointing to a massive increase in military and infrastructure spending as well as funding to help combat the nation's opioid crisis. • Trump’s veto threat was totally unexpected, according to Fox News, particularly as the White House had signaled Trump would support the bill if passed by Congress. Most lawmakers have already left Washington for a two week recess. Some are on overseas trips already. The House adjourned Friday morning until Monday, meaning that if Trump had vetoed the bill then the government would have shut down. • It is time for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to do whatever it takes to break the death grip Democrats now have over any bill that requires a cloture vote and that can be stopped from reaching the Senate floor by a filibuster. McConnell's worry about the future is trivial compared to the damage to the Republic being inflicted daily by ProgDems who will do anything to stop Trump and advance their radically leftist agenda. • • • DEAR READERS, I will be unable to post a blog on Sunday night. So, our next blog will be posted on Monday, March 25. Have a great weekend, hug a Deplorable and support President Trump.

Trump and Israel Focus on Iran while Europe Addresses the Security Downside of Brexit

THE NEWS TODAY IS THAT ISRAEL HAS ANNOUNCED THAT IT TOOK OUT SYRIA'S NUCLEAR REACTOR. That was 10 years ago, and it has been known for mosto fthat time, but on Wednesday, Israel formally acknowledged that its air force destroyed Syria's nuclear reactor on September 6, 2007. Israel Today reported : "For over 10 years, Israeli officials have merely "winked" when asked about the operation. Now that it's official, the IDF is calling the covert bombing operation deep inside Syrian territory a warning shot for other enemies. IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot said : "The message of the attack on the reactor in 2007 is that Israel will not accept the construction of a capability that threatens the existence of the State of Israel. That was the message in ’81. That was the message in 2007. And that is the message to our enemies for the future." If anyone wonders what this means, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Intelligence Minister Israel Katz were more direct. Liberman said : "Our enemies’ motivation has increased in recent years, but so has the might of the IDF...This equation should be understood by anyone in the Middle East." Katz tweeted : "the courageous decision of the Israeli government almost 11 years ago to destroy the nuclear reactor in Syria and the successful operation following it sends a clear message: Israel will never allow countries like Iran who threaten its existence to have nuclear weapons." • Meanwhile, Israel Today reports that : "Tension between the Palestinian Authority and the Trump Administration ratcheted up yet again this week when Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas insulted the American ambassador to Israel. Speaking to Palestinian officials at his headquarters in Ramallah, Abbas referred to US Ambassador David Friedman as a 'son of a dog.' Trump 'has said that settlement building is legitimate,' Abbas complained. 'That’s what several American officials have said including, first and foremost, their ambassador in Tel Aviv, David Friedman. He said [settlers] are building on their land. Son of a dog, they are building in their land?' " Israel Today said Friedman was made aware of Abbas' remarks just moments before delivering a speech of his own at the Sixth Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, and the Ambassador "decided to bring up Abbas' insult, asking his audience, "Antisemitism or political discourse? Not for me to judge, I will leave that up to you." Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that such rhetoric from the Palestinian leadership has become the norm ever since Trump took office and Washington stopped blindly accepting the Palestinian narrative : "For the first time in decades, the American administration has stopped pampering the Palestinian leaders and says to them : ‘Enough is enough,’ said Netanyahu. 'Apparently, the shock from the truth is causing them to lose their tempers.' " • • • WAS TILLERSON TOO WEAK ON IRAN? The Washington Free Beacon reported last week that : "Almost immediately after the news broke that President Trump intends to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA director Mike Pompeo, media figures speculated that the decision was about Russia. The argument went like this : Tillerson was fired because he had recently criticized the Russian government for its attack using a nerve agent on a former spy living in the United Kingdom. He thereby endangered détente with Russian president Vladimir Putin and so, the critics said, Trump sacked him." Not so, says the Free Beacon : "Tillerson had been engaged in a months-long defense of the Iran nuclear deal that finally reached an impasse when he took Europe's side in debates over the agreement. As Trump said later, he and his Secretary of State disagreed on important policies such as withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and putting 'maximum pressure' on North Korea. When you add his backing of the Iran deal, widespread criticism of his management style, and the fact that he is said to have called his boss a moron, it's a wonder Tillerson made it this far." • The Iran deal may not last much longer than Tillerson, according tot he Free Beacon : "Last fall, Trump refused to certify the agreement. In January, he said he was waiving sanctions on Iran for the last time, barring alterations to the deal that strengthened America's position. Thus began a countdown that will expire in the middle of May. By then, Pompeo likely will have been installed at Foggy Bottom. A longtime critic of both Barack Obama's Iran policy and the Iranian regime's international terrorism and domestic repression, Pompeo will give Iran's rulers plenty of reasons to worry." • Iran is not in a very stable condition domestically, says the Free Beacon : "Protests and riots that broke out throughout Iran at the end of last year exemplified the regime's weakening grip. Beset by inflation, corruption, and a banking crisis, the Ayatollah Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani, and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have also to deal with imperial overstretch, changing social mores, and American financial pressure. Additional sanctions, coupled with the increased threat of military action, will make their problems even worse." And, soon Iran will have to worry about Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State. The Free Beacon says that the US is already in a conflict wiht Iran -- "one that Iran has been winning." It was Obama diplomacy that gave Iran the resources and opportunity to create chaos and undermine American interests throughout Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Bahrain. Mike Pompeo, says the free Beacon, will "shift the conflict into terrain of our choosing and decide it on our terms. Deterrence is based on fear of reprisal -- a fear magnified by the elevation of elected and appointed officials known to be hostile and unpredictable. We have seen this process at work in the Korean peninsula, where our threats of fire and fury, talk of nuclear buttons, punitive multilateral sanctions, solidarity with democratic allies, and pressure on China have backed Kim Jong Un into an apparent willingness to negotiate." The Free Bacon points out that the Wall Street Journal is "baffled" that "the Iranian fast boats that have plagued commercial and military traffic in the Persian Gulf for years suddenly stopped their provocations. 'It seems like they've absolutely made a conscious decision to give us more space,' a Navy spokesman told the Associated Press." But, the Wshingotn Free Beacon says this isn't so "baffling " -- "Might not the disappearance of the fast boats have something to do with anxiousness on the part of Iran, anxiousness caused by uncertainty that behavior tolerated under Barack Obama would not be tolerated under Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense James Mattis? And might not the presence at the table of Pompeo rather than Tillerson spook the Iranians even further?" President Trump is calling on Mike Pompeo to join him in getting rid of Obama's Iranian nuclear deal, the deal Trump always calls "the worst deal ever." • • • "EUROPE, THE EU THREAT PICTURE : DEVELOPING A GLOBAL RESPONSE." That is the title of The Washington Institute lecture by Wil van Gemert prepared for the Stein Counterterrorism Series. The lecture was to have been delivered on Wednesday by Wil van Gemert, Europol deputy executive director and head of the Operations Directorate at Europol since May 1, 2014. He manages a department of specialists dealing with serious and organized crime, as well as terrorism and cybercrime. Previously, he held a number of positions in basic policing, financial investigation, policy support, and combating fraud at the National Police Agency, Dutch National Intelligence Service, INTERPOL, and Europol. • Bad weather canceled the event. So, TWI published his prepared statement for the record. • Wil van Gemert addressed the terrorist threat facing Europe : "Europe is facing its most serious terrorist threat in generations. We saw twenty-four jihadist attacks in 2017, very different from what witnessed in the past: diversification in the range of perpetrators (radicalization of youths becoming one of the most important threats of jihadist terrorism, but also lone wolf attackers not associated with any particular group); an increased international dimension, with attackers forming a network in multiple EU Member States (e.g., Paris, Brussels, Barcelona); diversification in modus operandi, with indiscriminate killings rising, and attacks requiring little preparation and using accessible means (e.g., vehicles, knives—hard to foresee or prevent); and intense, professional use of social media for both communication within the network and recruitment and radicalisation. Security threats have become more international, more tech-enabled, and more interconnected." • Wil van Gemert noted that the threat: from returning foreign fighters to home-grown lone actors : "In the past three years, the EU has been confronted with carefully planned attacks carried out by networked groups partially composed of foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), but increasingly with attacks perpetrated by a single person who had never been to the conflict areas -- most of the time an EU national or resident for several years. A substantial number of the perpetrators, one way or another, were known to police but not considered to be an immediate terrorist threat, with minor criminal records unrelated to terrorism." The same three patterns can be seen in the attacks, according to van Gemert : "Indiscriminate killings targeting as many people as possible with weapons not requiring special skills or preparation (London, March and June 2017; Barcelona, August 2017). Attacks on symbols of Western lifestyle condemned by jihadist ideologists as morally corrupt, such as concert venues and nightclubs (Manchester, May 2017). Attacks on symbols of authority such as police and military officers (Paris, February, June, and August 2017)." Wil van Gemert says the evolution of the terrorist threat since 2014 is "closely linked to the rise and fall of the so-called Islamic State (IS). It can roughly be divided into three phases: (1) major flows of FTFs to conflict zones and large-scale attacks coordinated by these networks, supported by IS 'HQ'; (2) Disruption/prevention of travel to conflict zones and smaller-scale attacks by home-grown radicals; and (3) IS losing territory in Syria/Iraq and adapting its tactical response: namely, a change in propaganda to encourage radicalised individuals to carry out attacks wherever they live instead of travelling to conflict zones." Wil van Gemert noted that in 2017, attacks "seem to have primarily been perpetrated by self-organized individuals inspired by IS ideology without links to the group or any other organization. These terrorists, operating alone or, in some cases, with one or two accomplices, are either inspired single-actor terrorists, remotely directed single-actor terrorists, or remotely directed and facilitated single-actor terrorists. Radicalisation of single-actor terrorists makes detection extremely challenging." • Europol can support the efforts of EU countries in their fight against the globalised terror threat, says van Gemert, who sees an unprecedented increase in cooperation among EU Member States and partners, as well as in the support they are requesting from Europol : "The creation of the European Counter Terrorism Centre (ECTC) in January 2016 was a major policy statement. For the first time in the EU counter terrorism security policy context, it has been recognised that a cornerstone for cooperation at the EU level, represented by the ECTC, was necessary to support national counter terrorism efforts." Europol is a key to combatting European terrorism becasue it is "the only institution that connects the dots EU-wide, that maps the threat EU-wide, backed by a range of modern tools and capabilities : an information hub for counter terrorism, with unique information and intelligence sharing capabilities for law enforcement authorities in EU Member States and beyond; effective operational support, coordination, and expertise for Member States' investigations, by developing and deploying a comprehensive portfolio of support services; proactive mitigation of the use of social media for radicalization purposes, through terrorist and violent extremist propaganda, as well as support to operational analysis; a central strategic support capability to identify European-wide counter terrorism implications and promote outreach with relevant (international) partners." • A key game changer for ECTC's involvement in Member States' counter terrorism operations was the decision by French authorities in 2015 to share with Europol all investigative files from the Paris attacks. And, van Gemert reported that : "Europol profits from a unique setup : hosting the ECTC at Europol, together with the European Serious and Organised Crime Centre and the European Cybercrime Centre. This provides a response to an increasing need for linking investigation in organized crime and counter terrorism due to the growing connections between the two worlds. And these links are real: we see the merging of social networks, environments, or milieus of criminals and terrorists." Also, according to van Gemert, "Europol's cooperation with key international partners, in particular the United States, has been outstanding, the United States being one of the key providers of information on FTFs." • Wil van Gemert says that a lot has been achieved already : "But...a lot can still be done to integrate and coordinate international efforts...individual nations cannot tackle complex and interdependent criminal and terrorist threats alone. There is a strategic imperative for international cooperation. Multilateral channels like Europol provide numerous benefits in the globalized threat setting and complement the important bilateral cooperation between nation states." • • • GERMANY RESISTS EU INTEL AGENCY. What is also clear is that the threat of terrorist attacks is not going to diminish soon. Wil van Gemert's lecture reminds us "both the EU internally and transatlantic cooperation is moving the focus from collecting to connecting information. Information sharing is often only the start of cooperation. The real challenge is to build on this information exchange by developing proper transnational operations and by jointly working cases." As van Gemert noted, this requires a lot of trust to overcome the sensitivities in the intelligence area, but trust is necesssary and "is developing," says van Gemert. • This is especially true in Europe where the hesitancy to share intel has slowed the EU's overall planning against its terrorist threat. In 2017, Germany rejected creating a European intelligence agency, which has been suggested by EU leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. Bruno Kahl, president of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, said : “We don’t need a European intelligence agency or any other additional European intelligence institution. Intelligence is better organized on the national level.” Earlier, Macron called for creating a European intelligence academy “to strengthen links between our countries.” The European home affairs commissioner, Dimitris Avramopoulos, also suggested a united European intelligence system to help prevent terrorist attacks. The EU already has a law enforcement cooperation agency, Europol, but its powers are limited. Kahl told the German parliament that there is also the European Union Intelligence and Situation Center (EU INTCEN), which provides intelligence analysis and early warnings to EU officials. And, the head of Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen, said he was against creating an EU intelligence agency : “I’m also against creating such an institution. If we do, we would create bureaucratic double structures, both on the European and domestic level. This duality would lower our efficiency profoundly.” Kahl and Maaßen both said they are satisfied with the current cooperation among EU member countries’ intelligence agencies, arguing that the most efficient way to get information from other countries is through bilateral exchange “because it’s the quickest way.” Recent terror attacks in Europe boosted the pace and efficiency with which the agencies cooperate, the German intelligence leaders added. An additional EU agency would weaken this coordination, Maaßen said. • • • BREXIT REQUIRES A NEW EU-UK ARRANGEMENT. But, on February 16, 2018, the BBC reported that : "European spy chiefs in joint plea for post-Brexit co-operation" -- Bernard Emie (DGSE), Bruno Kahl (BND), and Alex Younger (MI6), the heads of the British, French and German intelligence agencies have called for continued security co-operation after the UK leaves the EU, in an unprecedented joint statement. Meeting in Munich, they said their countries must jointly fight major security threats such as terrorism, illegal migration and cyber attacks. Brexit may reduce some data exchanges, and the BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera says the joint statement is "a signal -- to politicians as well as the public -- that the spy chiefs do not want any political turbulence to complicate their relations." Security is part of the immigration negotiations between the UK and its EU partners, as new border arrangements will be needed post-Brexit. France and the UK have co-operated closely at the Channel ports to prevent migrants entering the UK illegally. • And, on March 20, the European Council on Foreign Relations released a long paper saying that : "There is a strong rationale for close EU-UK cooperation on security and defense (CSDP) after Brexit. Each side should preserve the principle of cooperation in different arrangements for different areas, from policing to foreign policy. The EU should embrace the UK’s proposal for a treaty on intra-EU security. Because no such treaty will be ready by March 2019, each side should aim for an interim agreement extending existing arrangements until one is in place. On foreign policy and defense, the UK should not expect a seat at the table in European bodies, including in discussions around possible CSDP operations. Instead, both sides should establish new arrangements that keep them in touch with the other’s thinking. Regular working-level exchanges rather than a treaty are the aim here, such as monthly bilaterals between the British embassy in Brussels and the PSC chair, and UKREP and the EDA chief executive. All this is achievable but needs clear principles if it is to succeed. These include: a broad understanding of the components of European security; agreement that unique arrangements are required for a unique situation; and a commitment not to treat security like just another element within the Brexit negotiations. Now is not the moment for either the European Union or the United Kingdom to risk allowing the political tensions around Brexit to harm their own interests or weaken protection of their citizens. On the contrary, this is a moment that demands cooperation, investment in research and capabilities, and renewed commitment in order to deepen European security, regardless of Brexit." The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) says the needed negotiaitons because of Brexit should prompt the EU "to look critically at the array of threats that Europe is currently facing as well as the ways in which it should respond to them. From that perspective, the issue of EU-UK post-Brexit cooperation on security should not get bogged down in procedural matters around EU treaties and the process side of exit. Instead it should be an inherently political and a strategic matter. The question that we should be asking is about how to develop a new EU-UK security partnership that enhances Europe’s comprehensive security and its power in the world." The ECFR echoes many of the thoughts expressed by Wil van Gemert in his Washington Institute lecture, and adds to his list -- Russian subversion and intimidation from the east; instability and asymmetric threats in the Mediterranean; economic and strategic competition from China and other emerging powers; immigration and integration pressures, linked to climate change, conflict, and resource scarcity; and the challenge of cyber threats; the growth in the scale, and the impact and complexity of terrorism, cyber crime, and organized crime." These threats have become more transnational and globalised in nature. Organised crime in particular now sees a more dominant role played by technology and cross-border movements of suspects, trafficked victims, firearms, and illicit money, blurring the distinction between state and non-state actors, and of who controls the technology and weapons that they use, according to the ECFR, and "growing interlinkages between external and internal security issues, as well as between military and non-military ones, in the form of hybrid threats" are emerging. • But ,while van Gemert sees the US intel cooperation s a plus, the ECFR sees possible "rising doubts concerning the US security guarantee for Europe, which did not begin only under Donald Trump. This has prompted European countries to strengthen their security and defense cooperation. These challenges threaten European security as a whole and are cross-border in nature, pointing towards a collective European security approach as the most effective response. Security is an interest shared by all European citizens, not only by EU citizens. Any dialogue between the EU and the UK on their future relationship on security should start from this point, taking as their guiding principle what is best for achieving this end, and not treating it as part of the wider Brexit negotiations." The ECFR states that : "Even if both the EU and the UK accept that they need each other in the security area and find creative ways of pursuing that cooperation, there is still a substantial risk that this may fail to materialise because of political considerations. There could be a mixture of unintended consequences, spillovers, and path dependencies -- as well as external pressures, including from the US -- which could push the EU and UK further away from the logic of cooperation and towards that of divorce." But, the ECFR recommends that the EU "embrace a security-driven approach right from the start. This should encourage the UK to follow the logic of cooperation, rather than that of divorce. Though enhancing European security is the guiding aim, this should not be to the cost of EU integrity. The cooperation arrangements that emerge should be primarily based on UK engagement with EU structures, rather than building new ones....The UK brings significant weight to diplomatic initiatives in the interests of European security : one notable example is its role with France and Germany in spearheading the Iran nuclear deal. Its military capability is also important in guaranteeing European efforts in regions of strategic interest -- for example, its contribution of a reserve for EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a mission of which the UK is a long-standing supporter. The UK is, today, an integral part of the European defense technological and industrial base (EDTIB) which the EU is now seeking to further strengthen. An EU negotiating stance that led to amputation of the UK from these arrangements would be perverse. Apart from that, uncomfortable though this is, full strategic autonomy will never be attained as long as Europe relies on others for the ultimate defense backstop of nuclear deterrence. The Brexit defense settlement needs, at the least, to keep open the possibility that the UK’s nuclear weapons could one day, with those of France, underpin Europe’s strategic autonomy. And finally, there is the unique nature and scale of the UK’s cooperation with EU partners on internal security." The ECFR says that bilateral relationships between the UK and some EU member states "can complement and reinforce this structure, as long as they do not undermine cooperation and consensus-building at the EU level. Such relationships could even be an alternative way to pursue cooperation with the UK if and when the EU political and legal framework becomes an obstacle to such close cooperation with third countries." • In addition, according to the ECFR : "The UK has played a key role in EU sanctions policy. It has not only demonstrated diplomatic leadership on adopting sanctions, it has provided the technical expertise to review and adjust these restrictive measures, and shared intelligence to refine targeting and give them a sound legal basis. The UK often claims to be responsible for at least 50 percent of current EU restrictive measures. Whatever the exact proportion, it is a fact that it has currently no peer in terms of capacity....The fact that the UK currently seems intent on maintaining its sanctions posture close to and consistent with that of the EU is important. Such close cooperation will require arrangements to cover: diplomatic coordination (especially at the PSC and Relex committee, but also in multilateral bodies such as the United Nations Security Council or the G7), sanctions design, intelligence-sharing, implementation and enforcement cooperation, as well as consistent postures against third parties (whether Russia’s counter-measures or US sanctions’ extra-territorial impact)." • The ECFR encourages the remaining EU member states to "start at home and step up their own game. Both the EU and the most interested capitals -- which at this stage would be Paris, but also Berlin, The Hague, as well as Stockholm and Brussels -- will need to increase resources and expertise to take over the current British leadership. Interviews in Paris indicate that the UK is currently considering seconding significant numbers of sanctions experts and is keen to nurture close consultations and exchange of information with some bilateral partners. But in any case, the EU and its 27 remaining member states should seek their own autonomous expertise on these strategic issues. This will not make close and intense cooperation with the UK less useful, but the EU will still need such expertise in order to be able to deploy sanctions in a strategic and effective way." • And, there is the issue of EU defense after Brexit. "All EU partners recognise the quality of both the civilian and, even more importantly, military capabilities that the UK can deploy in crisis management operations and welcome the UK’s focus on stabilization....Cooperation in minilateral European initiatives -- like Emmanuel Macron’s European Intervention Initiative -- and also within the framework of NATO, as well as increasing use of joint deployments in ad hoc coalitions, may also be helpful to keeping the UK close. They could create an indirect channel of cooperation with the EU through its member states. But bilateral relations, minilateral cooperation, and ad hoc coalitions would not exhaust all the opportunities under which the UK and EU member states could cooperate on crisis management, both under civilian or even military missions." • The ECFR also notes that the UK's financial contribution to development and humanitarian aid will be absent after Brexit. But, the ECFR is hopeful that the UK will "sustain its significant financial contributions to European aid levels. In addition, the UK may have quicker decision-making processes at a national level for aid expenditure than the EU budget mechanisms, meaning its potential to be a ‘first mover’ in crisis situations would be an added advantage for the EU in cooperating with it." To some extent this need for coordination might be met by UK diplomats being invited to participate in some aid coordination discussions at the EU, UN, World Bank, and other relevant multilateral forums. The EU should develop specific mechanisms for both strategic longer-term coordination and actual cooperation in specific countries and regions, especially in crisis situations. • Terrorism is also a Brexit issue for the EU. The ECFR says : "The UK has made a significant and leading contribution to the effort...in terms of strategic and thought leadership and the practical implementation of new initiatives. It is currently, for example, the top provider, among all member states, of intelligence contributions to many discrete projects on cybercrime and organized crime....There are precedents of third party access to some EU databases. But precedents may not help, because the EU’s approval has frequently required third parties to sign the Schengen agreement, which is not a requirement that the UK would be willing to meet." But, ECFR states that : "In the end, therefore, the general principle of securing a collective security interest is a very powerful one. The non-EU Schengen states already call for direct access to Europol databases for third parties at the political level. The resource burden on Europol of acting as an information gateway is also increasing and may stretch beyond reasonable levels once the UK becomes a third party. So this may be one of the areas where a practical compromise is required....If measured by the number of Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certificates, a must-have document for information security professionals, the UK has the best cybersecurity workforce in Europe. The UK is the tearaway leader among EU member states, boasting 5,559 CISSPs compared to the EU27 combined total of 8,664. If, in the context of Brexit, the principle of free movement of workers is undone, the British exit might end up being more detrimental to the EU rather than the other way around (unless hundreds of UK security professionals apply for EU citizenship)." • • • DEAR READERS, while the US can stand alone in the matter of security and intelligence measures and programs aimed at preventing terrorist attacks, it seems that the EU -- without the UK after Brexit -- will have a tougher job in doing so. The EU negoitating team has liked to 'bully' the UK, alternately calling for it to get on with Brexit and then asking if the UK would like to reconsider and stay in the EU. This is not helpful -- mostly to the EU if security and intel are the factors being considered. NATO will remain in place and be supported by the US, but the Euroepean Council on Foreign Relations has got it right in saying that : "A continued commitment is needed from not only the UK, but from all European states, to serious investment in and engagement on their security, keeping in mind not only the 2% of GDP target for defense spending, but also the 0.7% target for overseas development aid. The following recommendations for a future framework would underpin European security." • Wil van Gemert is right when he says : "But...a lot can still be done to integrate and coordinate international efforts...individual nations cannot tackle complex and interdependent criminal and terrorist threats alone. There is a strategic imperative for international cooperation. Multilateral channels like Europol provide numerous benefits in the globalized threat setting and complement the important bilateral cooperation between nation states." But, the EU needs to "get over" Donald Trump's election, quit listening to CNN, and get on with the traditional cooperation that has served Europe well since 1945. An EU 'grown-up' political approach to Brexit and a recognition of the major holes that excluding the UK out of spite would produce for EU security and counter-terrorism efforts would be the starting point for an integrated pan-Europe security and intelligence capacity that recognizes the major contributions of non-EU members such as Norway, Switzerland, and now Britain.

Is Facebook the Bad Guy, and Should Wunderkids Be Running the World's Internet Communications Platforms?

THE ONLY QUESTION TODAY -- IS FACEBOOK THE REAL BAD GUY?? Facebook and its leader Mark Zuckerberg are filling ths news space as the world tries to get to the bottom of the Cambridge Analytica ("CAMAL" for the Cambridge Analytica camel under the politcal tent) puzzle. • • • LAWMAKERS ON BOTH SIDES OF ATLANTIC SEEK ANSWERS FROM ZUCKERBERG. TheHill's Ali Breland and Harper Neidig reported on Wednesday that : "Mark Zuckerberg is drawing intense scrutiny from lawmakers demanding that the Facebook founder testify to Congress about the Cambridge Analytica controversy. Facebook’s data practices are under the microscope like never before following a report that the British research firm connected to President Trump’s campaign improperly obtained information on 50 million Facebook users as it sought to find ways of influencing voters at the polls." TheHill cites top Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee -- Senators John Thune, Roger Wicker, and Jerry Moran -- as having sent a list of questions to Zuckerberg about the “troubling” reports, with Moran saying Zuckerberg needed to testify. Moran spoke t oreporters : “That’s our first step, and then I think testimony in front of the Commerce Committee would be appropriate and required. I think there’s a lot of questions left to be answered.” And, of course, California Representative Adam Schiff got into the act -- and had media time on CNBC, because he is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee -- told TheHill on Tuesday that he believes Zuckerberg, along with other CEOs, should attend hearings : “We had the general counsel come in. That was quite some time ago. We’ve learned more about the Russian interference since then." • British lawmakers are also concerned about the episode with London-based Cambridge Analytica, and have called on Zuckerberg to appear before Parliament’s digital oversight committee to supplement prior testimony by Facebook executives. • BUT, where is Mark Zuckerberg. His grinning face and khaki teeshirt are usually taking credit for bringing the world together, but he has been silent. Facebook has tried to signal that it takes the CAMAL matter seriously, blaming Cambridge Analytica and other players. A Facebook prepared statement said : “Mark, Sheryl and their teams are working around the clock to get all the facts and take the appropriate action moving forward, because they understand the seriousness of this issue. [Sheryl Sandberg is Facebook's Chief Operating Officer.] The entire company is outraged we were deceived. We are committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people’s information and will take whatever steps are required to see that this happens.” And, finally late on Wednesday, Zuckerberg in a Facebook post acknowledged that Facebook had “made mistakes. We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can't then we don't deserve to serve you. I've been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn't happen again,” Zuckerberg wrote. Zuckerberg said Facebook is “working with regulators” that are examining the issue, a possible reference to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and officials in the United Kingdom. • TheHill says Facebook "has also promised to investigate the incident and Cambridge Analytica’s handling of the data. For its part, Cambridge Analytica has denied any wrongdoing and says that the data was not used during its work for the Trump campaign." • We remember that last October, Facebook admitted that Russian groups used its platform to influence the US political process, and that revelation led to hearings in November at which lawmakers questioned Facebook and other tech companies about how the influence campaign was able to use their platforms to sow discord among voters. Facebook sent its general counsel to testify in November. But, this time, accroding to TheHill, "Congress is strongly hinting that sending lawyers won’t be enough." TheHill quotes GOP Senator John Kennedy : “The last time we had a hearing, Facebook and Google and Twitter sent their lawyers, which were undoubtedly expensive because they did a damn fine job of dodging and bobbing and weaving. They didn’t say a damn thing.” Democrat Senator Amy Klobuchar and Kennedy this week urged Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley to hold a hearing with Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs about how their platforms oversee political firms’ data practices. Klobuchar says : “This is a major breach that must be investigated. It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves.” Klobuchar says that the Facebook controversy with Cambridge Analytica is further evidence that internet companies need to be regulated. She and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Mark Warner, are touting their Honest Ads Act legislation, which aims to hold tech companies to the same political ad transparency standards as radio, TV and print outlets, as a way to do this. • • • EX-FACEBOOK INSIDER CALLS ITS DATA HARVESTING POLICIES "HORRIFYING." The Guardian published an article on Wednesday about Sandy Parakilas, who says numerous companies deployed these data harvesting techniques affecting hundreds of millions of users -- and that Facebook looked the other way. The Guardian's Paul Lewis was in San Francisco to interview Sandy Parakilas, the Facebook platforms manager responsible for policing data breaches by third-party software developers in the period 2011-2012. Parakilas told Lewis that hundreds of millions of Facebook users are likely to have had their private information harvested by companies that exploited the same terms as the firm that collected data and passed it on to Cambridge Analytica. Parakilas told Lewis that he warned senior executives at the company that its lax approach to data protection risked a major breach : “My concerns were that all of the data that left Facebook servers to developers could not be monitored by Facebook, so we had no idea what developers were doing with the data.” Parakilas said Facebook had terms of service and settings that “people didn’t read or understand” and the company did not use its enforcement mechanisms, including audits of external developers, to ensure data was not being misused. Although Parakilas left Facebook before the Global Science Research data harvesting was passed on to Cambridge Analytica -- he said recent disclosures had left him disappointed with his superiors for not heeding his warnings. When the Gurardian's Lewis asked what kind of control Facebook had over the data given to outside developers, Parakilas replied : “Zero. Absolutely none. Once the data left Facebook servers there was not any control, and there was no insight into what was going on.” Parakilas told Lewis he “always assumed there was something of a black market” for Facebook data that had been passed to external developers. However, he said that when he told other executives the company should proactively “audit developers directly and see what’s going on with the data” he was discouraged from the approach. Parakilas said one Facebook executive advised him against looking too deeply at how the data was being used, warning him : “Do you really want to see what you’ll find?” Parakilas said he interpreted the comment to mean that “Facebook was in a stronger legal position if it didn’t know about the abuse that was happening.” He added : “They felt that it was better not to know. I found that utterly shocking and horrifying.” • Facebook's reply to the Parakilas accusations was to release a statement saying : “While it’s fair to criticize how we enforced our developer policies more than five years ago, it’s untrue to suggest we didn’t or don’t care about privacy. The facts tell a different story.” • What Parakilas, now a product manager at Uber, was objecting to was Facebook's previous policy of allowing developers to access the personal data of" friends" of people who used apps on the platform, without the knowledge or express consent of those friends. That feature -- "friends permission" -- was, says the Guardian, "a boon to outside software developers who, from 2007 onwards, were given permission by Facebook to build popular quizzes and games that were hosted on the platform. The apps proliferated on Facebook in the years leading up to the company’s 2012 initial public offering, an era when most users were still accessing the platform via laptops and computers rather than smartphones. Facebook took a 30% cut of payments made through apps, but in return enabled their creators to have access to Facebook user data. Parakilas does not know how many companies sought friends permission data before such access was terminated around mid-2014. However, he said he believes tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of developers may have done so." Parakilas estimates that “a majority of Facebook users” could have had their data harvested by app developers without their knowledge. Facebook, says the Guardian, now has stricter protocols around the degree of access third parties have to data. But, before 2104, Parakilas suggests that Facebook failed to take full advantage of its enforcement mechanisms, such as a clause that enables Fecebook to audit external developers who misuse its data. Parakilas said legal action against rogue developers or moves to ban them from Facebook were “extremely rare. In the time I was there, I didn’t see them conduct a single audit of a developer’s systems.” • Facebook announced on Monday that it has now hired a digital forensics firm to conduct an audit of Cambridge Analytica. The decision comes more than two years after Facebook was made aware of the reported data breach. • • • WHY DID FACEBOOK IGNORE SOFTWARE DEVELOPER HARVESTING OF FRIENDS. Before Facebook became a public company and listed its stock, it encouraged software developers to build apps for its platform. To encourage this, Facebook offered the developers access to user and friends data.” Parakilas said that shortly after arriving at Faceboook's Silicon Valley headquarters, he was told that any decision to ban an app required the personal approval of the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, although the policy was later relaxed to make it easier to deal with rogue developers, who were harvesting data of people who had not authorized the app to do it themselves. Facebook was relying on terms of service and settings that people "didn’t read or understand.” Cambridge Analytica exploited this policy through its contractor Global Science Research, that provided such data to Cambridge Analytica in 2014. The Guardian reports : "GSR was run by the Cambridge University psychologist Aleksandr Kogan, who built an app that was a personality test for Facebook users. The test automatically downloaded the data of friends of people who took the quiz, ostensibly for academic purposes. Cambridge Analytica has denied knowing the data was obtained improperly, and Kogan maintains he did nothing illegal and had a 'close working relationship' with Facebook. While Kogan’s app only attracted around 270,000 users (most of whom were paid to take the quiz), the company was then able to exploit the friends permission feature to quickly amass data pertaining to more than 50 million Facebook users." Parakilas says : “Kogan’s app was one of the very last to have access to friend permissions," adding that many other similar apps had been harvesting similar quantities of data for years for commercial purposes. Academic research from 2010, based on an analysis of 1,800 Facebooks apps, concluded that around 11% of third-party developers requested data belonging to friends of users." Parakilas says that the apps developers likely systematically culled “private and personally identifiable” data belonging to hundreds of millions of users because of the ease with which it was possible for anyone with relatively basic coding skills to create apps and start trawling for data. • Parakilas raised another key point -- Facebook was more concerned about the commercial value lost by Facebook through the trawling for "friends" data by apps developers than it was about the actual harvesting of the data. Parakilas says Facebook executives were worried "that the large app developers were building their own social graphs, meaning they could see all the connections between these people. They were worried that they were going to build their own social networks.” • Parakilas left Facebook disappointed that his warnigs were ignored, but he remained silent, according to the Guardian, until he heard the congressional testimony given by Facebook lawyers to Senate and House investigators in late 2017 about Russia’s attempt to sway the presidential election : “They treated it like a PR exercise. They seemed to be entirely focused on limiting their liability and exposure rather than helping the country address a national security issue.” At that point, Parakilas decided to go public with his concerns, writing an opinion article in the New York Times that said Facebook could not be trusted to regulate itself. Since then, Parakilas has become an advisor to the Center for Humane Technology, which is run by Tristan Harris, a former Google employee turned whistleblower on the industry. Paul Lewis can be contacted at < paul.lewis@theguardian.com >. • • • FACEBOOK AND CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA BARELY REACT. Fox News reporter Chris Ciaccia wrote on Tuesday that "Cambridge Analytica announced it has suspended CEO Alexander Nix pending the results of an ongoing investigation that it improperly accessed 50 million Facebook accounts." The Facebook statement said : "In the view of the Board, Mr. Nix’s recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation." The UK-based Cambridge Analytica describes itself as “a data-driven communications and marketing agency.” In the undercover Channel 4 recording, according to Fax News, Nix is heard saying that the company could use unorthodox methods to wage successful political campaigns for clients. He said the company could "send some girls" around to a rival candidate's house, suggesting that girls from Ukraine are beautiful and effective in this role. But, Cambridge has denied any wrongdoing in the Facebook data scandal, and Facebook said it is looking into forensic audits to investigate Cambridge's claims. In the statement about Nix, Cambridge added Dr. Alexander Tayler will serve as the acting CEO while the independent investigation is ongoing. It has also asked, Julian Malins, QC, to lead the investigation. The company's board of directors will share the findings publicly in due course. The UK firm has come under fire in recent days after it was suspended by Facebook for improper access to 50 million Facebook accounts. Cambridge has said that it had deleted the data in a legal document to Facebook, but the facts have been disputed. • And, the New York Post reported on Tuesday that : "Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Chris Wylie might have a few regrets about pissing off Facebook. Wylie’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended as news broke last weekend that CA was able to access private information from more than 50 million Facebook users. Wylie said Tuesday that it is as if Facebook had deleted him from the entire internet. 'We use Facebook to log in to everything,' he said. 'I can’t use Tinder now because you have to use f–king Facebook to verify yourself!' ” • • • FACEBOOK STOCK DOWN 8%. Facebook has lost approximately $8 billion in its market cap since Monday, but, Breitbart reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “saved tens of millions of dollars” by selling his Facebook stock before the company’s decline this week : “Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg saw his net worth decline by about $5 billion Monday, but it could have been worse,” Breitbart said, quoting Market Watch : “Ahead of Facebook’s worst one-day decline since 2012, prompted by news that data affecting 51.3 million members was improperly shared with a political consulting firm, Zuckerberg had been busy selling stock. So far this year, he has sold nearly 5 million shares. Disposing of those Facebook shares before Monday ended up saving about $40 million, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings and some arithmetic by MarketWatch. At Monday’s close, the 4.9 million shares Zuckerberg has sold this year under a predetermined plan would be worth $855 million. Zuckerberg made about $900 million selling those shares, according to calculations using average weighted prices reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission.” Zuckerberg’s stock sales were planned transactions on file with the SEC, reportedly to fund his charitable foundation. Facebook’s stock declined by almost 7% on Monday following allegations that the company mishandled user data from the platform. The controversy resulted in an emergency meeting with employees of Facebook, the resignation of Facebook’s data security chief, and a pending investigation from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)." • • • CONGRESS AND FTC CHASING FACEBOOK FOR ANSWERS. Bloomberg journalists David McLaughlin, Ben Brody, and Billy House report that : "Facebook Inc. is drawing scrutiny from the main US privacy watchdog and a half dozen congressional committees over how the personal data of 50 million users was obtained by a data analytics firm "that helped elect President Donald Trump." That includes the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, as well as the commerce and intelligence committees of both chambers. The US Federal Trade Commission is also probing whether Facebook violated terms of a 2011 consent decree over its handling of personal user data that was transferred to Cambridge Analytica without users’ knowledge, according to a person familiar with the matter. The FTC will be sending a letter to the company, another person said. Facebook slumped on the news, extending Monday’s decline. The FTC is the lead US agency for enforcing companies’ adherence to their own privacy policies and could fine the company into the millions of dollars if it finds Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree." Bloomberg also reported that New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced on Tuesday that he and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey had sent a demand letter to Facebook as part of a joint probe stemming from the fallout. Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen announced his own probe Monday. Bloomberg says that : "Facebook will be confronting immediate demands by Congress. In addition to the briefings, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he wants to hear testimony from Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, as well as Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey. Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said any decision about calling Zuckerberg to appear before the panel is farther off. Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who also serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that she has 'grown increasingly concerned as we’re learning more and more about the manipulation of data, the harvesting of data from Facebook, the ads that were placed to sow the seeds of discord in this country.' The panel has previously heard testimony into Russia’s use of Facebook to attempt to meddle in the 2016 election. 'I believe that Facebook, Twitter, the other social media platforms have a lot of questions to answer,' she said." • Bloomberg reprots that Facebook signed an FTC Consent Decree in 2011. Under the terms of the 2011 FTC settlement, Facebook agreed to get user consent for certain changes to privacy settings as part of its resolution of federal charges that it deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. That complaint arose after the company changed some user settings without notifying its customers, according to an FTC statement at the time. If the FTC finds Facebook violated terms of the consent decree, it has the power to fine the company more than $40,000 a day per violation. Facebook previously said in a statement it rejects "any suggestion of violation of the consent decree." • Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, tried t-o turn the affair into an attack on Trump, saying in a statement that that it would "be helpful for Facebook to testify about how the company protects user privacy and what steps it’s taking to combat bad actors. We have a lot of questions about how this information was used, whether it was given to Russia and whether Cambridge Analytica and the Trump campaign communicated with WikiLeaks." • WikiLeaks?? -- Cambridge Analytica’s chief executive officer faced questions during a meeting with the House Intelligence Committee in December about whether he sought material from WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange that was stolen from computers of the Democratic National Committee and from John Podesta, who chaired Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, according ot Bloomberg. • • • CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN. White House spokesman Raj Shah said Tuesday that President Trump “believes that Americans’ privacy should be protected” and supports federal investigations into the incident. “If Congress wants to look into the matter or other agencies want to look into the matter, we welcome that," Shah said on Fox News. • American Thinker's Rick Moran proposed the pro-Trump arguments, writing on Sunday that : "On the surface, the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica (CA) face-off is fairly straightforward : big tech vs. big data. But what happens if big tech was in bed with big data? What if Facebook's highly touted "privacy" efforts were nothing but a sham? And why is the use personal information of 50 million Facebook acounts being called "a breach"?....if you dig a little further, you find that Facebook actually worked with CA. Despite Facebook’s concerns in 2015, the social network continued to work with Cambridge Analytica. During the presidential election, Facebook employees assisting Donald Trump’s digital operation worked in the same office as Cambridge Analytica workers, according to a video by the BBC. One former Cambridge employee, Joseph Chancellor, continues to work at Facebook as a user-experience researcher, according to Facebook’s public website. Until 2015, Facebook allowed developers to use data harvested from apps available on the website. CA developed an app called 'Thisisyourdigitallife.' It was just one of several interesting apps that 'predicted' personality traits based on your 'likes' and other social media data. CA did absolutely nothing wrong when 270,000 Facebook users downloaded the app, giving the company access to not only some personal data of those who downloaded it, but their Facebook 'friends' as well. Estimates put the number of Facebook accounts that were mined for data at 50 million. But the problem is how CA used that data and whether they hung on to it despite promising to delete it." • Democrat Senator Mark Warner calls the online political advertising market "essentially the Wild West. Whether it’s allowing Russians to purchase political ads, or extensive microtargeting based on ill-gotten user data, it’s clear that, left unregulated, this market will continue to be prone to deception and lacking in transparency.” • The Trump campaign has been singled out by the media because Cambridge Analytica was funded by Trump supporter and hedge fund executive Robert Mercer, and once had on its board the President’s former senior advisor Steve Bannon. Cambridge Analytica has denied wrongdoing, but has said its “psychometric profiles” could predict the personality and political leanings of most US voters : “We worked with Facebook over this period to ensure that they were satisfied that we had not knowingly breached any of Facebook’s terms of service and also provided a signed statement to confirm that all Facebook data and their derivatives had been deleted.” That was CAMAL's Saturday statement. • Government scrutiny in the US and UK has skyrocketed not because was illegal, but becasue it scares them. CAMAL claims that they can predict voter behavior are almost certainly grossly exaggerated, if not a bunch of snake oil, says Rick Moran : "What they can do with all that data is find your likes and dislikes and precisely target ads and messages. How much 'persuasion' is involved is unknown. For instance, the idea that Russian-bought ads on Facebook won the election for Trump is pretty dumb -- but it sounds good on TV and makes Hillary Clinton feel better. Whether it's the truth is doubtful. I think Senator Warner is right. The sort of data mining is frightening when all things are considered. Facebook should suffer the consequences of their lax privacy policies and change them to make it harder for developers to access the kinds of data that Cambridge Analytica was able to utilize." Moran says : "Maybe I’m missing something since I’m not on Facebook, but isn’t the whole market value of Facebook based upon its ability to exploit its database of personal information for the purpose of influencing consumers on behalf of advertisers? Why would targeted advertising for elections be any different? And weren’t the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012 lauded for their sophisticated use of digital and social media, and didn’t the DNC and Hillary’s campaign geniuses attempt to build upon that and take the use of social media to a more advanced level?" • That is the Swamp at work. ProgDems are eager to accuse Donald Trump of using illegally obrtained data to target voters, but when that same tactic was used by Obama or Hillary, it was "genius." • Moran raises another piece of Swamp duplicity aimed at sticking it to Trump : "And I don’t understand why involvement of foreign persons in Cambridge Analytica would all of a sudden be this enormous and shocking issue. Wasn’t the individual who was secretly hired by the DNC and Clinton campaign via cutouts to create the dossier that was weaponized against the Trump campaign, a guy named Christopher Steele, a foreigner, albeit from a friendly country?" • As all of us, Rick Moran acknowledges that "Cambridge Analytica may have obtained the data from Facebook under false pretenses. But wouldn’t that be an issue to be resolved or litigated by the two parties? What would have prevented either campaign from paying Facebook directly to exploit its social media database capabilities to try to win votes? Doesn’t everyone do that when they pay for targeted advertisements?....is it possible that Facebook has no foreign computer geniuses working for it? Is it possible that Facebook doesn’t operate in and make money in other countries as Cambridge Analytica apparently does?" • All good questions. And, they are meant to point out the Swamp's double dealing and double standards that are routinely applied to Obama and Hillary vs Donald Trump. The ProgDem porpagandist Washington Post ran a headline on Saturday that read : "Trump campaign consultant took data about millions of users without their knowledge." • • • DEAR READERS, Facebook has piously stated : "In 2014, after hearing feedback from the Facebook community, we made an update to ensure that each person decides what information they want to share about themselves, including their friend list." But, it took Facebook until Friday, MArch 17, 2018, to ban Kogan, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica and a former Cambridge employee for improperly sharing the data and failing to destroy it after concerns arose about it in 2015. Facebook had asked the parties back then to certify they would not abuse data, but it did not take further action beyond that warning. And, Facebook continued to work with Cambridge Analytica -- during the 2016 presidential election, Facebook employees assisting Donald Trump’s digital operation worked in the same office as Cambridge Analytica workers, according to the BBC. • Despite years of reported abuse of Facebook data by developers, Facebook’s processes for dealing with developers who broke the company’s rules were lax -- no audits and no steps to ensure that data wrongfully obtained was returned or deleted. • The very idea that data, once obtained by anyone for any reason is "deleted" is ludicrous. We live in the data-community age where all data is hoarded and used to multiple purposes without consent by anyone. • So, let's honest about Facebook trying to retrieve data. It was never going to happen, and Facebook knew it. In fact, based on all the reports available about Facebook and apps developers who used Facebook data, it seems that Facebook had a financial interest in the data being taken, including "friends" data being harvested and hoarded, because Facebook got a 30% cut of any profits the apps generated. So why would Facebook want to restrict developers from harvesting all the Facebook data it could find??? And, all this was done, at least as to Kogan, his company Global Science Research, and Cambridge Analytica AFTER Facebook has signed a Consent Decree with the FTC in 2011. Facebook’s subsequent actions may have run afoul of its 2011 Consent Decree specifying that Facebook must give consumers clear and prominent notice and obtain their express consent before their information is shared beyond the privacy settings they have established. Facebook may play 'innocent,' but it is not. • And, to get right down to it, CAMAL entered the US political market in 2015, not for Donald Trump but by working on what was touted at the time as a groundbreaking voter outreach effort on behalf of Senator Ted Cruz. At first, Cruz campaign officials credited Cambridge’s “psychographic targeting” techniques -- including its use of Facebook data -- with pushing Cruz to the top tier of presidential hopefuls. But later, some officials expressed disappointment in some of Cambridge’s work, and its work for the Cruz campaign ultimately proved uneven, according to campaign officials, who said that while the firm’s data scientists were impressive, the psychographic analysis did not bear fruit as hoped. • Cambridge Analytica then moved on to serve as the Trump campaign’s data-science provider. While company officials said they did not have sufficient time to employ psychographics in the Trump campaign, they did data modeling and polling that showed Trump’s strength in the industrial Midwest, shaping a homestretch strategy that led to his upset wins in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. • We may take that as self-serving CAMAL marketing. • And, SCL, Cambridge’s parent company, says it has worked in 100 countries, including serving military clients with techniques in “soft power,” or persuasion. Nix described it as a modern-day upgrade of early efforts to win over a foreign population by dropping propaganda leaflets from the air. The clients? One was NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, which hired SCL to conduct a two-month training session in 2015 at its Riga, Latvia, facility for NATO personnel, followed by additional sessions in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia, officials said. The nearly $1 million contract was financed by Canada, as part of its support to help NATO allies counter Russia’s influence in the region. Another early client needed to identify groups of “persuadables,” and then target them with tailored messages, so SCL began testing the technique on health and development campaigns in Britain in the early 1990s, then branched out into international political consulting and later defense contracting. In a 2015 article for a NATO publication, Steve Tatham, a British military psychological operations expert who leads SCL’s defense business outside of the United States, explained that one of the benefits of using the company’s techniques is that it “can be undertaken covertly. Audience groups are not necessarily aware that they are the research subjects and government’s role and/or third parties can be invisible.” • Welcome to the data age. In this messy history of who used what data gotten how for which purposes, one thing is true. The world has entrusted the its worldwide internet communications system to a bunch of wunderkids in teeshirts. That these 20-somethings do not understand the importance of privacy is completely reasonable -- they are, after all, the ones who worked out how to eliminate privacy. Whether the CAMAL-Faceboook scandal will result in actual changes in the use of Facebook platform data remains to be seen. Will Facebook survive? Probably, but perhaps in a tightly regulated fashion that the wunderkids will then set out to avoid. If an FTC Consent Decree means nothing to them, why would a federal law??? • In the meantime, the internet is beginning to fill up with advice about how to de-Facebook yourself. Go to < https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/how-to-protect-your-facebook-privacy-or-delete-yourself-completely > if you want the exact advice. It isn't easy, but you can actually get out of Facebook and "eliminate" your profile and other data -- I'm not sure I totally believe that last bit -- it will ONLY take until September 2018 -- right, 6 months -- and you will be Facebook-free to pursue your life without data spies watching over your unsuspecting shoulder. • Talk about letting the children run the world -- we really fell into it this time. Will we learn our lesson???