International
Former Secret Service agents describe ‘apocalyptic security failure’ at Trump event
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/tvrd-cs-police-vehicles-butler-pennsylvania-donald-trump-shooting-image-2024-07-15.jpg)
Police vehicles near the site of the Butler, Pa., venue where President Donald Trump was speaking when he was struck in the ear by a bullet in an assassination attempt
From The Center Square
Former U.S. Secret Service agents and security experts argue the Secret Service’s failure to prevent an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump on Saturday was “apocalyptic,” exhibiting a “massive security breach.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, has called for a congressional investigation. Multiple members of Congress are asking how a shooter ever reached a rooftop of a building to fire a shot at Trump, including U.S. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Florida, an Army veteran and counter sniper for the State Department who coordinated protective details for then Vice President Joe Biden, Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush.
The assassination attempt on Trump was “a massive security breach,” Mills told CNN. The distance between the shooter and Trump was roughly 400 to 500 feet, “which is nothing for a shot adjacent to the stage of the president,” he said. “There was no one on that building, … in the building, standing next to the building to ensure there’s no access to the building,” he said. If there were, they “could have prevented this shooting.”
In an interview with Fox News, Mills said that the shots fired were the kind that soldiers learn in basic training boot camp and are “requested to make within nine weeks. This is one of the easiest shots.”
He said his job at the State Department involved working with an advanced team to establish a perimeter and “identify areas of threat that you would be able to mitigate … whether it be a building, … a lone tree … a parking lot. … Bottom line is this is massive negligence.”
Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi has said agents responded quickly and the agency “added protective resources and technology and capabilities as part of [Trump’s] increased campaign travel.”
Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino questioned this claim, asking on Fox News, “Which ones? You’re telling me the best technology you have was deployed and you missed a shooter 130 yards away … and even worse, it’s broad daylight on a white roof.”
He asked if there was forward-looking infrared deployed and if there was aerial support like drones and helicopters.
Bongino also pointed out that Trump “knew to duck … and saved his own life. That’s just a fact. The evacuation did not go right. The rule with the Secret Service is ‘cover the protectee’ and evacuate. The other rule is ‘maximum to the protectee, minimum to the problem. … Because you don’t know that’s the only problem. It could be a distraction. There could be another person in the crowd … you could be looking at multiple shooters.”
“The failure here is absolutely catastrophic,” he said, calling on Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle to resign immediately. He said Secret Service “absolutely resolutely 100% failed. This was an apocalyptic security failure. … An uneventful failure is never a success. The fact that Donald Trump didn’t die … is no reason for anybody to take some kind of victory lap.”
Former Secret Service agent Jeff James agreed, telling WTAE ABC News the agents on the stage should have moved Trump off sooner because the first shots fired “may have been the precursor in the real attack. There may have been four more gunmen who were going to start opening fire. I would have rather seen him get him into the armored cars and get him out of there more quickly.”
Bill Pickle, a former deputy assistant Secret Service director, told the Wall Street Journal, “The reality is there’s just no excuse for the Secret Service to be unable to provide sufficient resources to cover an open rooftop 100 yards away from the site. And there’s no way he should’ve got those shots off.”
Retired Secret Service agent Donald Mihalek called the failed assassination attempt “historic, drawing parallels to the 1912 shooting of Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee,” the Journal reported. “Roosevelt, then a former president who was running for a third term in the White House, was shot while heading to a campaign event. He survived the attempt on his life.”
Erik Prince, who previously provided diplomatic security services, said, “unaccountable bloated bureaucracies continue to fail us as Americans. Donald J. Trump is alive today solely due to a bad wind estimate by an evil would be assassin.”
Prince analyzed the wind at the time of the shot, arguing it was enough to displace the bullet two inches from Trump’s “intended forehead to his ear. DJT [Trump] was not saved by USSS [U.S. Secret Service] brilliance. The fact that USSS allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150 yards to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence.
“Clearly there was adequate uncontrolled dead space for a shooter to move into position and take multiple aimed shots,” he said, adding that one counter sniper “was clearly overwhelmed as his face came off his rifle instead of doing his job to kill the shooter.”
A counter sniper killed the alleged shooter after he shot several rounds, wounding Trump, killing one, and critically wounding two others.
“In my old business of providing Diplomatic Security in two active war zones we were expected to execute the basics, or we would be fired,” Prince said. “Clearly USSS failed at the basics of a secure perimeter and once shots were fired, their extraction was clumsy and left DJT highly exposed to follow on attacks.”
He also expressed no confidence in anyone being held accountable, saying, “That’s not the Washington way. Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster.”
International
Telegram founder Pavel Durov criticizes French authorities in first statement after his arrest
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/tvrd-ls-telegram-pavel-durov-image-2024-09-06.jpg)
From LifeSiteNews
The Telegram CEO implied that French authorities had not tried to reach out to him before his arrest and stressed that if a government was dissatisfied with how an internet service operates, it should start legal action against the company instead of arresting its owner.
Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov criticized French authorities for his surprising arrest in Paris.
In his first public statement after being released from jail on bail, Durov said that he was questioned by French police for four days and he “was told I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram.”
The Telegram founder said that his arrest was “surprising for several reasons” because Telegram employs a representative that replies to legal requests from the EU and French authorities “had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance,” implying that they had not tried to reach out to him before his arrest.
Moreover, he stressed that if a government was dissatisfied with how an internet service like Telegram operates in its country, it should start legal action against the company instead of arresting its owner.
“Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a simplistic approach,” Durov wrote. “Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools.”
The Telegram CEO said that “the right balance between privacy and security is not easy” and revealed that Telegram had often been at odds with governments and that if they were not able to find this balance between security and privacy, “we are ready to leave that country.”
“We’ve done it many times,” he recalled. “When Russia demanded we hand over ‘encryption keys’ to enable surveillance, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Russia.”
“When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Iran.”
“We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money. We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated.”
Durov said that Telegram is “not some sort of anarchic paradise” like some media outlets claim, rather it does regularly take down channels and post that are “harmful.”
“However, we hear voices saying that it’s not enough,” he said regarding censorship on the platform. “Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard.”
Durov was arrested on August 24 after his private jet landed at Le Bourget airport just outside of Paris. The billionaire entrepreneur had been under an arrest warrant as part of a police investigation in France into alleged lack of moderation and “criminal activity” on Telegram.
French President Emmanuel Macron denied the charges of Durov’s arrest being politically motivated. However, many have called that into question.
READ: Does anyone believe Emmanuel Macron’s claim that Pavel Durov’s arrest was not political?
While most large social media companies, specifically Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Google (YouTube) and Twitter before Elon Musk’s takeover, censored true information regarding COVID-19, vaccines, LGBT, and other issues in the past years, Telegram remained a mostly censorship-free area for dissidents all over the world.
Censorship Industrial Complex
Canada wants to add DEI measures to globalist WHO pandemic treaty
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/06/tvrd-ls-trudeau-image-2024-06-26.jpg)
From LifeSiteNews
Canada is suggesting measures to counteract ‘misinformation’ and promote ‘marginalized’ groups are included in the WHO pandemic treaty, an initiative which experts have warned will undermine national sovereignty.
Canada wants to add misinformation and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures to the World Health Organization’s controversial global pandemic treaty.
According to a July summary report from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), Canada is suggesting measures to counteract “misinformation” and promote “marginalized” groups be added to the WHO global pandemic treaty.
“Comprehensive prevention strategies, inclusive surveillance practices, and addressing challenges for marginalized communities are essential for effective pandemic prevention,” it said.
“Data ownership, privacy, inclusivity, race-based data and cultural sensitivity are important issues which could be given greater consideration,” the report continued.
“Data collection can be a challenge, compounded by strained relationships between Indigenous people and the health system, marked by trust deficits and ingrained power differentials,” it claimed.
The report discussed Canada’s participation in the WHO global pandemic treaty. Formally known as the Pandemic Accord, the agreement would give the WHO increased power over Canada and other countries in the event of another “pandemic” or other so-called emergencies.
The PHAC report further discussed the importance of countering so-called “misinformation” in the event of another pandemic.
“Countering misinformation and disinformation is critical to pandemic response efforts, as seen by its impact on vaccination and immunization rates around the world,” the report said.
“Efforts should be made to hold social media platforms accountable for the content they host. However, it is imperative to address misinformation in a manner that respects freedom of speech and expression,” it continued.
However, it seems unlikely that those “countering misinformation” would work to safeguard opinions that differ from the globalist narrative, considering Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s response to the 2022 Freedom Convoy which protested COVID regulations.
In addition to using violent police force to drive the protestors out of Ottawa, the Trudeau government froze the bank accounts of Canadians who donated to the protest.
In addition to potentially suppressing legitimate opinion, Conservative MP Colin Carrie has warned that the treaty could “institutionalize” freedom-throttling COVID “pandemic mistakes.”
Similarly, Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis has repeatedly warned that the new International Health Regulations (IHR) contained in the treaty will compromise Canada’s sovereignty by giving the international organization increased power over Canadians.
Lewis also gave her endorsement of a petition demanding the Liberal government under Trudeau “urgently” withdraw from the United Nations and its WHO subgroup, due to the organizations’ undermining of national “sovereignty” and the “personal autonomy” of citizens.
The petition warned that the “secretly negotiated” amendments could “impose unacceptable, intrusive universal surveillance, violating the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
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