[Washington Examiner] One of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reforms undertaken by the FBI is implementing more stringent requirements for asking whether a possible target has been a source for the U.S. government. Carter Page displays his best John Brennan scowl.
The change was revealed following a related guilty plea in U.S. Attorney John Durham’s inquiry into the Russia investigation.
Dawn Browning, the acting general counsel for the FBI since July, submitted a declaration to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that was made public Monday. The filing said that updated FISA request forms, specifically related to requests for business records and the use of pen register and trap and trace devices, "include a number of improvements," including "questions about whether the target or subject of the request was previously interviewed by, or served as a confidential human source, asset, or operational contact of, the FBI, any other government agency, or a foreign government."
Durham collected his first guilty plea on Wednesday from former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted to a false statements charge for altering a CIA email in 2017 that helped justify the continued FISA wiretapping of onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page by fraudulently adding that Page was "not a source" for the agency, when the CIA had actually told Clinesmith and the bureau on multiple occasions that Page was an "operational contact" for them.
Browning argued in the court filings that "the FBI remains committed to ensuring that FISA applications it submits to this Court are accurate and complete." The FBI’s top lawyer said the bureau’s new request and verification forms, once implemented, will "require case agents and their supervisors to affirm the accuracy and completeness" of their FISA application.
Clinesmith, 38, who worked on the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server as well as on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane inquiry and special counsel Robert Mueller’s team during the Trump-Russia inquiry, admitted that he falsified a document during a court hearing last week after Durham had submitted a five-page criminal information filing to the federal court noting Clinesmith was being charged.
In a scathing July 2018 inspector general report on the FBI's Clinton emails investigation, Clinesmith was mentioned, but not by name, numerous times as one of the FBI officials who conveyed a possible bias against President Trump, including lamenting that “my god damned name is all over the legal documents investigating [Trump’s] staff” and proclaiming “Viva le resistance" after Trump's win.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz made it clear in a December report that this specific FISA flaw went beyond just Clinesmith, noting that the FBI’s “failure to provide accurate and complete information” to the Justice Department’s Office of Intelligence on Page's prior relationship with the CIA was “particularly concerning because” the DOJ attorney handling the case “had specifically asked the case agent in late September 2016 whether Carter Page had a current or prior relationship with the other agency” and had been told Page’s relationship was “dated.” But Horowitz said this was “contrary to information that the other agency had provided to the FBI in August 2016, which stated that Page was approved as an ‘operational contact’ of the other agency from 2008 to 2013.”
Horowitz said that “Page's status with the other agency overlapped in time with some of the interactions between Page and known Russian intelligence officers that were relied upon in the FISA applications to establish probable cause” and noted that “Page had provided information to the other agency about his past contacts with a Russian Intelligence Officer, which were among the historical connections to Russian intelligence officers that the FBI relied upon in the first FISA application (and subsequent renewal applications).” Horowitz said the other agency “assessed that Page ‘candidly described his contact with’ Intelligence Officer 1 to the other agency” but that “the FBI relied upon Page's contacts with Intelligence Officer 1, among others, in support of its probable cause statement in the FISA application." Emphasis added.
#1
Ok, so everyone knows Page was, and likely still is a US Intelligence registered source. Carter Page even "candidly acknowledged" his source role, yet Page somehow finds his way into the Donald Trump campaign.
But wait! His placement in the campaign is not the issue. The issue now is correcting the FISA request forms. Ok, I got it.
#2
“If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.” ― James Madison
[FoxNews] The California Supreme Court on Monday overturned the death penalty sentence for Scott Peterson, convicted in the Christmas Eve murder of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner.
The court's decision came more than 15 years after Laci, a Modesto, Calif., school teacher, was killed. Investigators said Peterson dumped his wife's body from his fishing boat into the San Francisco Bay in 2002. The bodies of Laci and Conner surfaced months later.
While the murder conviction against Peterson stayed in place, the court ordered a new penalty phase trial.
Continued on Page 49
DETROIT (AP) — A young woman who was declared dead at her suburban Detroit home opened her eyes at a funeral home as she was about to embalmed, a lawyer said Monday.
"They would have begun draining her blood to be very, very frank about it," Geoffrey Fieger told WXYZ-TV.
The Southfield fire department acknowledged it was involved in a bizarre set of events Sunday that began when a medical crew was summoned to a home where a 20-year-old woman was unresponsive.
Paramedics tried to revive the woman for 30 minutes and consulted an emergency room doctor, the department said.
The doctor "pronounced the patient deceased based upon medical information provided" from the scene, the department said.
The Oakland County medical examiner’s office said the body could be released to the family without an autopsy, according to the fire department.
But then came a startling discovery at the James H. Cole funeral home in Detroit: The woman was still alive more than an hour later. Hey Cecil, we may have a live one in chiller #4, she's asking for a blanket and some hot cocoa.
"Our staff confirmed she was breathing" and called a emergency medical crew, the funeral home said.
Fieger, who was hired by the family, identified the woman as Timesha Beauchamp.
[MAIL] China is conducting a series of military drills in four sea regions at roughly the same time, an unusual move that could be sending political signals, reports say.
Chinese maritime authorities announced the navy exercises in four locations, including the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea, in multiple notices issued between Friday and Sunday.
The naval operations were interpreted by experts as China showing 'its readiness to handle confrontation with the US and self-ruled Taiwan'.
#1
More likely the Navy personal have moved their families out of the three rivers flood plain and these ships are ready to take them to Taiwan in case the disaster causes a civil war in China. that is no matter what their orders actually say.
#3
Confinement in the same car for 48 hours (preferred location: Death Valley, new windows, of course) without water for the negligent parent should drive the point home.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
08/25/2020 17:49 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I am a huge death penalty supporter but killing the parents isn't going to help this. So in this case, a very nice public flogging will. No bullwhips though, need to use the cat.
I don't know how many of you know this douchenozzle (HBO show on the weekends), but this is one way you fight back against big leftist corporate media. I admire their creativity.
[Zero Hedge] - The Connecticut city formerly best known as "dirty Danbury" - perhaps previously best known for the name of the nearby women's prison where "Orange is the New Black"'s author served her sentence - is back in the headlines this week after announcing that it plans to name its new sewage treatment plant after HBO comedian John Oliver. The term 'comedian' being in the eyes of the beholder.
Why? Because Oliver lambasted the city in a bit from his popular weekly political humor show "Last Week Tonight". During a segment about discrimination in jury selection affecting most of Connecticut's small-ish cities (it's a mostly suburban state), Oliver offered to "fight" anybody from Danbury, because "f**k Danbury," he said. Aside from Oliver's charming rebuttal, I'd bet $100 on anyone of our Rantburg faithful, regardless of age, fighting and beating this complete wuss. Easy money!
During the unveiling, the mayor of the city said the name was appropriate because the plant is "full of crap, just like you, John".
The comedian focused on the racial disparities in jury selection and reports that minority residents of the Connecticut cities of Hartford and New Britain were excluded from selection. Rest at the link.
Xinjiang’s Urumqi city has been locked down for 40 days with even stricter measures than #Wuhan. Doors sealed with iron nails. People are locked in handcuffs. Citizens were seen venting their frustrations by shouting into the night.
#1
Ah, the old Italian approach, well Milanese. When 'the Plague' hit Europe Milan was an exception. Milan's significantly lower mortality rate may also be down to the city's stricter quarantine measures: The houses of infected families were simply bricked up (with the infected left to die inside).
h/t Instapundit
[CNBC] - A Texas A&M professor was charged with conspiracy, making false statements and wire fraud on allegations that he was secretly collaborating with the Chinese government while conducting research for NASA, the Department of Justice said Monday.
According to a criminal complaint, Zhengdong Cheng, 53, a professor in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M and a NASA researcher, obscured his affiliations and collaboration with a Chinese university and at least one Chinese-owned company.
"The terms of Cheng’s grant prohibited participation, collaboration or coordination with China, any Chinese-owned company or any Chinese University," the DOJ wrote in a release.
[KoreaTimes] North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has delegated some of his authority to his younger sister Kim Yo-jong and his close aides, according to the South Korean spy agency, Thursday.
However, the move is believed to have nothing to do with the leader's health, it added.
"Kim Yo-jong, the first vice department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party, is currently administering overall state affairs on behalf of her brother," National Intelligence Service (NIS) officials were quoted as saying in a closed-door briefing to the National Assembly by Rep. Kim Byung-kee of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and Rep. Ha Tae-keung of the main opposition United Future Party.
Continued on Page 49
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) is set to furlough 1,941 pilots in October, the carrier said in a memo seen by Reuters on Monday that noted the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and plunging air travel demand.
#2
/\ From Skidmark's article: "The Air Force is also working to improve the diversity of its pilot production, Jacobson said. This includes looking at how the Air Force reaches out to potential pilot candidates and evaluates them to make sure everything is race-, ethnicity- and gender-neutral, he said."
Fewer planes, fewer flight hours, and more staff jobs (probably in the Diversity/HR offices...) -- remember when the Air Force's job was to bomb the enemies of the USA?
[BREITBART] Richard Grenell, the former Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, told Breitbart News this weekend that President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... making him the first openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history has nothing to do with "identity politics" and simply reflected that the president picks the most effective people for federal positions.
"The one thing I love about President Trump is he doesn’t care about these issues," Grenell said on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel.
"He doesn’t play identity politics. You know, somebody recently asked me how many gays and lesbians work in the Trump administration. I had to answer, ’I have no idea. I really don’t know.’ This person said to me, ’well, there you go — that’s the reason — because we had 2,410 in the B.O. regime, the Obama-Biden administration.’
I said, ’I’d be pretty offended that I was on a list that says here’s our gay and lesbian list.’ Thank God we don’t keep a list. Thank God we don’t hire people because they come out of a box and say ’here is a black, here is a Hispanic, here is a gay person.’ President Trump, I know him well, he doesn’t care about these types of issues. They’re irrelevant characterizations about someone. What is relevant is whether or not they can do the job."
Log Cabin Republicans this past week released a video of Grenell, which the president shared on Twitter, hyping the fact that it was Trump — a Republican — who had the first-ever openly gay cabinet member in U.S. history, something former Democrat President Barack Obama I inhaled. That was the point... never did.
[YNet] - For many weeks now, Israel has been categorized as a "red" country due to its high coronavirus infection rates. But that sweeping designation does not reflect the true state of affairs.
According to the data presented last week to ministers, almost half of Israel's local authorities are actually "green" due to their low infection rates.
According to the same data, COVID-19 is actually rampant in just 20 of Israel's hundreds of cities and local councils; the second coronavirus wave is the result of outbreaks in two sectors - the Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities.
Almost 40% of new coronavirus patients are ultra-Orthodox and 20% are Arab. The figures may even be higher and not properly reflect the true picture, because the members of the ultra-Orthodox community rarely get tested.
Ultra-Orthodox Israelis form a disproportionate percentage of new coronavirus infections - some would say they constitute more than 50% of new infections while comprising just 10% or so of the overall population.
In the ultra-Orthodox sector, 31% of respondents said they are refraining from getting tested for fear they may need to enter isolation. More than 40% of those surveyed said they attended public gatherings that violated Health Ministry regulations. One third said they personally know someone who has violated isolation directives. Doesn't surprise me, or any other Israeli who seen how they drive - like they really believe G*d is watching out for them.
...Despite the disturbing figures regarding the infection rate among the Ultra-Orthodox, the government has thus far done nothing to help them get through the pandemic with dignity. They have representatives in government. In fact, ultra-orthodox parties are the keystone of the current (and every previous) ruling coalition. And that's why the government doesn't crack down on them.
Instead of lecturing, we need dialogue. The sector must be offered the tools to stem further infections while being able to adhere to custom and shown respect.
And if that doesn't work, the country must really crack down on the community and fully enforce the virus regulations. The good news, some of their top Ayatollahs (and I don't use the term lightly) got Covid with the expected results. This might make the rest think. Or it might not - holiness drives out logic.
Immigration Absorption Minister Pnina Tamano-Shata [who's Israel's first female minister of Ethiopian background], who was recently confirmed as infected with coronavirus, was at the meeting, but only a few participants entered quarantine.
[TechXplore] The world's fastest data transmission rate has been achieved by a team of University College London engineers who achieved internet transmission speed a fifth faster than the previous record.
Working with two companies, Xtera and KDDI Research,
I worked with KDDI people for many years. If it is something involving them it is done right with all conditions covered!
the research team led by Dr. Lidia Galdino (UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering), achieved a data transmission rate of 178 terabits a second (178,000,000 megabits a second) — a speed at which it would be possible to download the entire Netflix library in less than a second.
Not to worry. As soon as it hits, everything will become more detailed, blowing up the size of the files.
The record, which is double the capacity of any system currently deployed in the world, was achieved by transmitting data through a much wider range of colors of light, or wavelengths, than is typically used in optical fiber. (Current infrastructure uses a limited spectrum bandwidth of 4.5THz, with 9THz commercial bandwidth systems entering the market, whereas the researchers used a bandwidth of 16.8THz.)
To do this, researchers combined different amplifier technologies needed to boost the signal power over this wider bandwidth and maximized speed by developing new Geometric Shaping (GS) constellations (patterns of signal combinations that make best use of the phase, brightness and polarization properties of the light), manipulating the properties of each individual wavelength. The achievement is described in a new paper in IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.
The benefit of the technique is that it can be deployed on already existing infrastructure cost-effectively, by upgrading the amplifiers that are located on optical fiber routes at 40-100km intervals. (Upgrading an amplifier would cost £16,000, while installing new optical fibers can, in urban areas, cost up to £450,000 a kilometer.)
The new record, demonstrated in a UCL lab, is a fifth faster than the previous world record held by a team in Japan.
At this speed, it would take less than an hour to download the data that made up the world's first image of a black hole (which, because of its size, had to be stored on half a ton of hard drives and transported by plane). The speed is close to the theoretical limit of data transmission set out by American mathematician Claude Shannon in 1949.
Lead author Dr. Galdino, a Lecturer at UCL and a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow, said: "While current state-of-the-art cloud data-center interconnections are capable of transporting up to 35 terabits a second, we are working with new technologies that utilize more efficiently the existing infrastructure, making better use of optical fiber bandwidth and enabling a world record transmission rate of 178 terabits a second."
Since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, demand for broadband communication services has soared, with some operators experiencing as much as a 60% increase in internet traffic compared to before the crisis. In this unprecedented situation, the resilience and capability of broadband networks has become even more critical.
Dr. Galdino added: "But independent of the COVID-19 crisis, internet traffic has increased exponentially over the last 10 years, and this whole growth in data demand is related to the cost per bit going down. The development of new technologies is crucial to maintaining this trend towards lower costs while meeting future data rate demands that will continue to increase, with as yet unthought-of applications that will transform people's lives."
Posted by: Ebbomoger Speaking for Boskone4589 ||
08/25/2020 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
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#1
I will not pretend to understand any of this, except I anticipate this new technology will alliw Microsoft to project its Blue Screen of Death faster.
[War Zone] There are few truer sayings than "when you gotta go, you gotta go." When the time comes, though, finding a restroom can often be more difficult. Now imagine you're strapped into a tactical combat jet on an hours-long mission with limited options, most of them designed with men primarily in mind. That's the reality many female pilots in the U.S. Air Force face on a regular basis and one that the service is looking to change.
On Aug. 4, 2020, the Air Force began accepting proposals for what it has dubbed the Sky High Relief Challenge. AFWERX, a technology incubator the service established in 2017 to help foster innovation and accelerate the development and acquisition of novel technologies, is leading the effort, which is seeking systems to collect urine for disposal in flight that will be comfortable and easy to use for women on missions lasting up to 16 hours in total.
#1
Some Female Engagement Team (FET) members in Afghanistan used a Depends style under garment or a Shewee. As with anything else found in the battlespace, "if you didn't put it there, don't pick it up."
[MSN] The House of Representatives on Saturday approved legislation for a bailout for the US Postal Service, which, on paper, has been posting huge losses for years. But in reality, the agency is generating billions in cash.
Virtually all of the agency's financial problems stem from a unique, arcane accounting system that no other business or government body follows and that doesn't accurately reflect real costs. ("Utterly absurd," as one politician calls it.)
The financial problems have nothing to do with the expected surge in mail-in ballots for the election in November. And they are certainly not because of its contracts to handle delivery of Amazon packages, no matter what President Donald Trump
Continued on Page 49
#1
Actually all private companies with pension funds have to account for all pension costs accrued during the year that year and have a limited time to top up their pension fund with cold hard cash if it has a projected deficit.
That's the right way to do it and governments should have the same rules.
The USPS problem is that it was funding its pension fund "pay as you go" like a government entity until it was told to switch to using the private company approach and was told to catch up in a limited time.
The USPS is currently insolvent. If you shut it down today it would not have the money in its pension fund to meet its future obligations. That needs to be fixed.
Posted by: Michel Friedman ||
08/25/2020 4:17 Comments ||
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#2
Social Security is flat broke, too, with only a bunch of IOU's.
#3
Do the postal pension funds exist anywhere besides a Treasury IOU? Social Security funds were spent years ago, and only exist as obligations. Private pensions have to have genuine assets. Are postal pension funds real, or just mythical?
Posted by: Gordon Scott ||
08/25/2020 8:54 Comments ||
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#4
They'd in Al Gore's "lockbox..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/25/2020 9:22 Comments ||
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#8
When Social Security was challenged in court, the administration got away with it by saying it was a tax not a pension system. However, they kept the charade up till the mid-60s when during the Johnson years, the Donk controlled congress finally did away with double books and combined them into one general fund for taxes. As long as the central government has the printing presses and mint stamps, its all covered. They call it 'inflation' when it just good old debasing the currency practiced since money as an exchange came into existence.
#9
/\ Spot on analysis! Had it not been thrown into the general fund (and exploited for social causes and endless wars), there would be plenty of Social Security resources on hand. Difficult to imagine a mandatory enrollment insurance program going broke, difficult indeed.
Moved to Denver with a 90 day settlement.
Rented a room. Went to the USPO to rent a box.
Xmas approaching, line of box mailers.
Got my turn, told them I needed a PO box.
"Here, fill this form with your current address."
"I don't have an address. I want my mail forwarded to a PO box."
"You have to have a physical address to get a PO box."
"If I had a physical address, I wouldn't need a PO box."
Downhill from there into a SNL skit.
The lobby was ROTFL.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Washington Examiner] One of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act reforms undertaken by the FBI is implementing more stringent requirements for asking whether a possible target has been a source for the U.S. government.
[FoxNews] The California Supreme Court on Monday overturned the death penalty sentence for Scott Peterson, convicted in the Christmas Eve murder of his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son, Conner.
DETROIT (AP) — A young woman who was declared dead at her suburban Detroit home opened her eyes at a funeral home as she was about to embalmed, a lawyer said Monday.
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
[TechXplore] The world's fastest data transmission rate has been achieved by a team of University College London engineers who achieved internet transmission speed a fifth faster than the previous record.
