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National Security Tag

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 17, 2017 5 Comments
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that closing the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, is under review after numerous diplomats have suffered health problems due to possible sonic attacks. From The Associated Press:
"We have it under evaluation," Tillerson said of a possible embassy closure. "It's a very serious issue with respect to the harm that certain individuals have suffered. We've brought some of those people home. It's under review."

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 15, 2017 15 Comments
South Korea's government reported that North Korea fired another missile over Japan from Sunan, which is located just north of Pyongyang, at 6:30AM local time. From CNN:
The missile flew about 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) and reached an altitude of 770 kilometers (480) miles. It landed in the Pacific Ocean, South Korea said.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 14, 2017 8 Comments
Authorities decided to ban Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's (D-FL) IT aide Imran Awan from the House network due to a secret server. From The Daily Caller:
Now-indicted former congressional IT aide Imran Awan allegedly routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server. Police grew suspicious and requested a copy of the server early this year, but they were provided with an elaborate falsified image designed to hide the massive violations. The falsified image is what ultimately triggered their ban from the House network Feb. 2, according to a senior House official with direct knowledge of the investigation.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 06, 2017 20 Comments
The Washington Examiner reported that Hina Alvi, the former Democrat IT aide that fled to Pakistan after coming under a federal investigation, has struck a deal with authorities and will return to the states. Alvi is married to Imran Awan. Both of them worked as IT aides to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). Authorities arrested Awan on bank fraud charges at Dulles airport in July.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 30, 2017 24 Comments
Ready for another bombshell in the case of a former IT aide to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)? Turns out that Imran Awan still has an active email account connected to Rep. André Carson (D-IN), even though he's been banned from the network since the Capital police named him in an investigation concerning stolen equipment and breaching the House IT system.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 24, 2017 17 Comments
CBS News obtained medical records from U.S. diplomats in Cuba that show doctors diagnosed them with brain injuries from possible sonic attacks while in Havana. From CBS News:
The diplomats complained about symptoms ranging from hearing loss and nausea to headaches and balance disorders after the State Department said "incidents" began affecting them beginning in late 2016. A source familiar with these incidents says officials are investigating whether the diplomats were targets of a type of sonic attack directed at their homes, which were provided by the Cuban government. The source says reports of more attacks affecting U.S. embassy workers on the island continue.

Posted by Mary Chastain on August 02, 2017 19 Comments
Republicans have suggested that Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz should testify to explain why she kept IT aide Imran Awan on her payroll after he became a subject of an FBI investigation in March. Wasserman Schultz did not fire Awan until last week when authorities arrested him at Dulles Airport on bank fraud charges. The Capital Police placed Awan along with his wife and two brothers under investigation months ago for breaching House IT systems and stealing equipment. Other House lawmakers fired the four, but Wasserman Schultz kept Awan on payroll.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 26, 2017 34 Comments
Authorities arrested Imran Awan, the IT aide of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) under an FBI investigation, at Dulles Airport after he wired almost $300,000 to Pakistan. The police arrested Awan on bank fraud charges and cannot leave the country. A source recently told The Daily Caller “that the FBI has joined what Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into ‘serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network'” by Awan, his wife Hina Alvi, and his brothers Abid and Jamal.

Posted by Mary Chastain on July 24, 2017 39 Comments
The Daily Caller reported that the FBI has taken the smashed hard drives from the home of Pakistani-born Imran Awan, a former IT aide that worked for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). The Capitol Police took "computer equipment tied to the Florida lawmaker." A source told The Daily Caller "that the FBI has joined what Politico previously described as a Capitol Police criminal probe into 'serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network'" by Awan, his wife Hina Alvi, and his brothers Abid and Jamal. Officials suspect these four people “accessing members’ computer networks without their knowledge and stealing equipment from Congress.”

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 11, 2017 21 Comments
Que Twilight Zone theme.  Scott Johnson of the conservative blog Powerline has been served a draft subpoena ordering that he preserve records of items he noted in his blog posts. Judge James Robart, presiding over the Hawaii v. Trump "travel ban" case, authorized the move. Johnson writes:
These are strange days. I seem to have been caught up in the so-called “travel ban” litigation challenging President Trump’s executive orders “Protecting the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States.” Yesterday I was served with a letter and draft subpoena from one Tana Lin of the Keller Rohrback law firm’s Seattle office alerting me to my “document preservation obligations with respect to documents that are relevant or potentially relevant to this litigation.” Lin represents plaintiffs in Doe v. Trump, venued in the federal district court for the Western District of Washington.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on June 10, 2017 21 Comments
Just when you thought Obama's disastrous Iran deal couldn't get any worse, we learn that in order to protect the bad deal, Obama systematically disbanded units investigating Iran's terror-funding networks.  Not only that, but he also disbanded units investigating the state funding of terrorists by Syria and Venezuela. The Washington Free Beacon reports:
The Obama administration "systematically disbanded" law enforcement investigative units across the federal government focused on disrupting Iranian, Syrian, and Venezuelan terrorism financing networks out of concern the work could cause friction with Iranian officials and scuttle the nuclear deal with Iran, according to a former U.S. official who spent decades dismantling terrorist financial networks.

Posted by Mary Chastain on May 24, 2017 14 Comments
Four IT staff for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other lawmakers lost their jobs in February after suspicions arose that they breached security on the House IT network. The U.S. Capitol Police named Hina Alvi, her husband Imran Awan, and his brothers Abid and Jamal "as subjects of a criminal probe." Now relatives have said that Alvi has fled the United States with her daughters and sought protection from the Pakistani government.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on April 23, 2017 3 Comments
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a stop in my hometown on Friday. During the visit, he urged cities and other government jurisdictions with sanctuary policies to reconsider and work with federal law enforcement to identify criminals who should be deported.

Posted by Mary Chastain on February 20, 2017 37 Comments
President Donald Trump has picked U.S. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new national security adviser. Acting national security adviser Keith Kellogg will remain as chief of staff to the National Security Council:
“I think that combination is something very, very special,” Trump said of the pair.

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on December 04, 2016 14 Comments
A raid conducted by authorities in Ghana shut down a fake U. S. embassy that was set up and run by a crime ring who issued legitimate visas and other documents to anyone who could pay for them. It is not yet known where they got the genuine U. S. passports, birth certificates, visas, and other documents.  Such documents for other countries were also found at the site. It is also not known how many of these documents were used to illegally enter the U. S. over the past ten years.

Posted by Mary Chastain on October 21, 2016 13 Comments
Earlier this month, the United States District Court in Baltimore charged ex-NSA contractor Harold Thomas Martin III with removal of classified documents and theft of government property. Officials have revealed that Martin took over 500 million pages of records and secrets over two decades. The Justice Department will probably charge Martin with other crimes, "including violating the Espionage Act." The latest DOJ document does not say if Martin shared this information, but made it known he had the ability to do so.
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