espionage
After Suspected Tajik Terrorist Arrests,Little-Known Biden Border Entry Program Demands Hard Focus
From Todd Bensman as published June 20, 2024 in The Daily Wire
The ‘CBP One’ phone app entry scheme has brought in 888 other Tajiks, plus thousands more, from nations of terrorism concern
A multi-state FBI counterterrorism wiretap sting has rolled up eight Tajikistani nationals in three cities who had entered over the U.S. Southwest Border and were plotting some sort of bombing.
On its own, what little is known about this terrible new consequence of President Joe Biden’s ongoing historic mass migration border crisis – a coordinated, large-cell infiltration attack on the homeland – ranked as startling enough to draw congressional demands for much more basic information than the administration will currently release.
“Unfortunately, the unacceptable security failures that have allowed individuals with terrorist ties to enter the United States through the Southwest Border have become an alarming pattern under the administration,” states a recent U.S. House Homeland Security Committee letter demanding the Biden administration disclose how it failed here.
Not yet demanded, however, is attention to a recent revelation about the Tajik Eight case that should propel what is happening at the border to an even higher and broader level of national security concern. NBC News has reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), of all agencies, actually vetted and pre-approved the entry of at least one of the busted Tajikistanis on the administration’s “CBP One” phone app — a humanitarian parole scheme.
The CBP One phone app-based entry program has allowed more than 500,000 foreign nationals from 100 different countries who intended to illegally cross the border to instead schedule a DHS-approved “legal” escort through eight U.S.-Mexico land ports, according to information exclusively obtained and reported by the Center for Immigration Studies through Freedom of Information Act litigation over the past year.
The Biden administration began piloting the program in May 2021 but dramatically expanded it in January 2023, it said, as a means to clear politically damaging illegal entry border congestion.
Almost all 500,000, we are assured, were supposedly well vetted for security, then granted quick release into the United States, sight unseen, on two-year, renewable permits that also come with work authorization eligibility.
But the NBC revelation that one or more of the arrested Tajiks used the CBP One land ports entry scheme warrants new scrutiny about that land port pipeline into the country. It poses a unique national security risk, quite separate from traditional illegal border crossings, especially the vetting that is supposedly done byDHS before passage is granted.
In this case, the vetting obviously didn’t work.. But for how many others did the vetting system not work? The odds do not look promising.
It turns out that DHS personnel have approved not one or two problematic Tajiks of malintent for passage, but hundreds from that Muslim-majority country of U.S. terrorism concern over the past couple of years – and literally thousands from some two dozen other nations of terrorism concern, according to an analysis of the center’s FOIA lawsuit data on this program.
From its May 2021 inception through at least December 2023, DHS approved 888 Tajiks for land port passage and release into the country on the two-year humanitarian parole releases, no doubt many more during the first half of 2024.
And they are the least of a rich diversity of foreign nationals from two dozen nations of terrorism concern that the administration has wittingly allowed through the pipeline.
Thousands More Approved For Entry
The historical context as a homeland security matter for these entries is important to know. To reduce the risk of terrorist border infiltration a few years after 9/11, the U.S. homeland security enterprise began tagging those arriving from some 35-40 nations where Islamic terrorist groups operate as “special interest aliens,” or SIAs, which flagged them for detention and additional security vetting. The Biden administration now uses the term “special interest migrants” internally.
SIAs are not regarded as terrorists but, because they arrive from nations where avowed anti-U.S. terrorist groups are prevalent, homeland security protocols dating back to a 2004 CBP Memorandum required extra security procedures for those coming from the designated list of countries. Tajikistan has been on that list from the beginning.
In addition to the 888 Tajiks allowed in through the CBP One app program, DHS has authorized thousands more from 24 special interest countries to enter, including from Afghanistan (653), and smatterings from Iran (27), Lebanon (10), Syria (7), Iraq (4), Egypt (6), and Jordan (5). But the largest numbers of SIAs let in are coming from other Muslim-majority former Soviet republics in Central Asia neighboring Tajikistan, such as Kyrgyzstan (4,224 through December), Uzbekistan (2,071), and Kazakhstan (585).
The terrorism section of the CIA’s “World Factbook” notes that U.S.-designated foreign terrorist groups have long operated in the dangerous neighborhood that all three of the most numerous of the SIAs hail from: the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. Afghanistan is in the same tough neighborhood.
Among the groups operating in those three countries are the Islamic Jihad Union, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K). But there are many other extremist groups operating in the region too, such as the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan and various ISIS-affiliated groups the government has suppressed, according to the U.S. State Department’s 2021 Country Report on Terrorism for Tajikistan, and who might want to flee to the United States.
The same report notes that terrorist group members move throughout the mostly unguarded borders of these countries, with Tajikistan asserting that “thousands of militants” come and go from neighboring Afghanistan.
As one indication of public sentiment toward Islamic extremist ideology in the Kyrgyz Republic, an estimated 850 of its citizens reportedly joined ISIS between 2013 and 2015, and regional scholars insist the real number is higher, according to George Washington University’s Program on Extremism.
Uzbekistan also has figured prominently in global counterterrorism efforts, in part because the internationally designated terrorist organization known as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has had regional and global reach and regularly conducts attacks. Extremists from Uzbekistan have been implicated in U.S. attacks and plots too. Hundreds of Uzbeks also fought for ISIS and many have returned.
At issue with the entry of one or more of the Tajik Eight, along with the thousands of other government-authorized entries of SIAs, is whether the Biden administration’s DHS is conducting effective enhanced security screening.
Failing Security Screening
DHS Secretary Alejandra Mayorkas has repeatedly assured the American public that security vetting for this program is its highlight.
DHS policy documents say all approved CBP One applicants pass “rigorous biometric and biographic national security and public safety screening and vetting.”
CBP agents and U.S. processors, however, mainly run this information through criminal and domestic national security databases looking for matches to U.S. criminal records, warrants, and terrorism watch lists, those who do this work say. A DHS source with direct knowledge of government vetting processes for the CBP One land port parole program, who was not authorized to speak or be identified, told me last fall that all of the SIAs going through the CBP One appointment and parole at the land ports are run through more databases than non-SIA applicants — these ones containing classified intelligence information — as a means to detect terrorism problems.
But this vetting process is deeply flawed, experts say, because of a presumption that only fractional few real terrorists ever make intelligence databases. Database checks can’t detect information that is not in them.
“The only thing we can query is information that we have,” former FBI Director James Comey once said of vetting foreign national refugees. “So, if we have no information on someone, they’ve never crossed our radar screen, they’ve never been a ripple in the pond, there will be no record of them there and so it will be challenging.”
Neither can U.S. intelligence agencies very well check for derogatory information with governments that are diplomatically hostile to the United States and would never cooperate, such as Iran, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan.
Pertinent Questions
“That’s a really hard target to analyze, and to just shoot from the hip and let them in is absolute insanity in my book,” said James G. Conway, a retired FBI counterterrorism agent who after 9/11 worked in Mexico trying to detect terrorists within the SIA flows. “How would you knowingly and wittingly bring people from terrorist countries into the United States with that level of vetting? Some of these terrorism countries don’t even have an electric grid let alone a computer system, and you can’t scrub them on databases that don’t exist. The whole thing is insane to me.
“What’s the motivation? I mean, why would they do that?” Conway added, referencing the Biden administration’s approval of SIAs for the CBP One entry program.
That’s a pertinent question that lawmakers, media pundits, and reporters might start asking before there’s blood in American streets.
Daily Caller
Chinese Agents Can Now Access Every American’s Phone Calls And Texts, GOP Senator Warns
Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds warned Friday that China’s state-sponsored hackers, known as Salt Typhoon, have gained the capability to spy on millions of Americans through their mobile phones. (Screenshot/YouTube/HalifaxtheForum)
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Republican South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds warned Friday that China’s state-sponsored hackers, known as Salt Typhoon, have gained the capability to spy on millions of Americans through their mobile phones.
During an event at Halifax The Forum, Rounds revealed that hackers have infiltrated all major U.S. telecommunications firms. Rounds said these hackers have penetrated every major telecom provider in the country. He also said the Chinese Communist government is capable of reading texts and listening to conversations.
“Any one of us and every one of us today is subject to the review by the Chinese Communist government of any cell phone conversation you have with anyone in America. Because they have access to every single one of our major telecommunications companies. They have broken in. They can read your texts, and they can hear your conversations,” Rounds said. “It’s just a matter of who they want to listen to and who they don’t.”
Salt Typhoon, identified as a Chinese hacking group, has infiltrated the networks of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, and their presence lingers, according to Democratic Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, The Washington Post reported. Warner called the breach “the worst telecom hack in our nation’s history—by far.”
The breach, ongoing for over a year, affects telecom giants such as AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Hackers even accessed law enforcement wiretap request logs, revealing investigative targets, though the wiretap system itself remains uncompromised, WaPo said. The breach reportedly targeted communications involving former President Donald Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and White House officials.
Despite intervention from the FBI, the hackers remain embedded in the U.S. telecom infrastructure, according to WaPo. Warner explained that expelling them will require a massive overhaul, including the physical replacement of thousands of routers and switches across affected networks.
“This is an ongoing effort by China to infiltrate telecom systems around the world, to exfiltrate huge amounts of data,” Warner said.
The group exploited outdated infrastructure and inter-network trust, enabling real-time eavesdropping and data exfiltration, the outlet reported. While fewer than 150 individuals were directly targeted, the scope of compromised data extends to millions of associated contacts.
The Biden administration urges stricter cybersecurity measures to counter persistent Chinese aggression.
“We must lock our digital doors,” Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger said.
National security officials, including Trump appointees, vow heightened focus on combating cyber threats.
Censorship Industrial Complex
Tucker Carlson: Longtime source says porn sites controlled by intelligence agencies for blackmail
From LifeSiteNews
Journalist Glenn Greenwald replied with a story about how U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson changed his tune on a dime about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the government to spy on American communications without a warrant. The journalist made the caveat that he is not assuming blackmail was responsible for Johnson’s behavior.
Tucker Carlson shared during an interview released Wednesday that a “longtime intel official” told him that intelligence agencies control the “big pornography sites” for blackmail purposes.
Carlson added that he thinks dating websites are controlled as well, presumably referring at least to casual “hook-up” sites like Tinder, where conversations are often explicitly sexual.
“Once you realize that, once you realize that the most embarrassing details of your personal life are known by people who want to control you, then you’re controlled,” Carlson said.
He went on to suggest that this type of blackmail may explain some of the strange, inconsistent behavior of well-known figures, “particularly” members of Congress.
“We all imagine that it’s just donors” influencing their behavior, Carlson said. “I think it’s more than donors. I’ve seen politicians turn down donors before.”
Journalist Glenn Greenwald replied with a story about how U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson changed his tune on a dime about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the government to spy on American communications without a warrant. The journalist made the caveat that he is not assuming blackmail was responsible for Johnson’s behavior.
Greenwald told how he had seen Johnson grill FBI Director Christopher Wray about his agency’s spying and “could just tell that he felt passionately about (this),” prompting Greenwald to invite Johnson on his show, before anyone had any idea he might become Speaker of the House.
“One of the things we spent the most time on was (the need for) FISA reform,” Greenwald told Carlson, noting that the expiration of the current iteration of the FISA law was soon approaching. He added that Johnson was “determined” to help reform FISA and that it was in fact “his big issue,” the very reason he was on Greenwald’s show to begin with.
Johnson said regarding FISA, “We cannot allow this to be renewed; it’s a great threat to American democracy; at the very least, we need massive, fundamental reform” according to Greenwald.
Johnson became House Speaker about two months to three months later, and Greenwald was excited about the FISA reform he thought Johnson would surely help bring about.
“Not only did Mike Johnson say, ‘I’m going to allow the FISA renewal to come to the floor with no reforms.’ He himself said, ‘It is urgent that we renew FISA without reforms. This is a crucial tool for our intelligence agencies,’” Greenwald reounted.
He noted that Johnson was already getting access to classified information while in Congress, wondering at Johnson’s explanation for his behavior at the time, which was that he was made aware of highly classified information that illuminated the importance of renewing FISA and the spying capabilities it grants, as is.
Greenwald doesn’t believe one meeting is enough to change the mind of someone who is as invested in a position as Johnson was on FISA reform.
“I can see someone really dumb being affected by that … he’s a very smart guy. I don’t believe he changed his mind. So the question is, why did he?” Greenwald asked.
“I don’t know. I really don’t. But I know that the person that was on my show two months ago no longer exists.”
Theoretically, there are many ways an intelligence agency could coerce a politician or other person of influence into certain behaviors, including personal threats, threats to family, and committing outright acts of aggression against a person.
A former CIA agent has testified during an interview with Candace Owens that his former employer used the latter tactic against him and his family, indirectly through chemicals that made them sick, when he blew the whistle on certain unethical actions the CIA had committed.
“This is why you never hear about CIA whistleblowers. They have a perfected system of career destruction if you talk about anything you see that is criminal or illegal,” former CIA officer Kevin Shipp said.
As a form of coercion, sexual blackmail in particular is nothing new, although porn sites make the possibility much easier. In her book “One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein,” investigative journalist Whitney Webb discusses not only how the intelligence community uses sexual blackmail through people like Jeffrey Epstein but how it was used by organized crime before U.S. intelligence even existed.
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