Sanders aides not expecting campaign suspension Tuesday

Bernie Sanders is not poised to suspend his campaign or immediately endorse presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton after their meeting Tuesday night, but he intends to keep his pledge to help defeat Donald Trump, two people close to Sanders told CNN.

Tuesday marks the final primary contest as Democrats in Washington, D.C., vote.

The Democratic candidates are planning to meet Tuesday night, and a person close to Sanders said, "It should be amicable and hopefully constructive."


https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/06/14/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-campaign/index.html

Judge blocks Seattle from revealing locations of FBI’s hidden cameras on utility poles

Source: Seattle Times

A federal judge has issued a temporary restraining order preventing Seattle City Light from disclosing the location of FBI cameras and other surveillance equipment hidden on some of the city’s utility poles.

U.S. District Judge Richard Jones said in a written order Monday that he reviewed classified material before issuing the order, finding that the bureau could be “irreparably injured” if the information is released. Turning over the information could damage national security or “harm important federal law enforcement operational interests as well as the personal privacy of innocent third parties.”

Federal prosecutors filed a complaint Monday in U.S. District Court asking that City Light be barred from turning over the information in response to a state public- disclosure request filed by Phil Mocek, a founding member of the Center for Open Policing, which has sued a number of public agencies over access to information.

According to the complaint, filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI claims it has “already been injured by the city’s unauthorized” disclosure of the existence of the cameras to KIRO-TV in November in response to a public-disclosure request.

Read more: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/judge-blocks-seattle-city-light-from-disclosing-locations-of-fbi-surveillance-cameras/

LIVE: Hillary Clinton Speaks About Donald's Orlando Shooting Speech

Judge links Clinton aide's immunity to 'criminal investigation'

Source: Politico

A former information technology aide to Hillary Clinton received immunity from the Justice Department in connection with a criminal investigation, a federal judge confirmed Tuesday.

Bryan Pagliano, a computer expert who worked at the State Department while Clinton was secretary of state and was also paid privately by her, was previously reported to have received immunity in connection with statements he gave to the FBI about Clinton's private server set-up.

However, there had been no explicit confirmation that the investigation—which Clinton has repeatedly referred to as a "security review"—is actually a criminal probe.

In the order, Sullivan declined to make Pagliano's immunity agreement public. The judge ordered the deal be submitted to the court so he could assess Pagliano's plan to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a planned deposition of Pagliano in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit related to Clinton's emails.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/hillary-clinton-judge-investigation-224314#ixzz4BZRF3U4r

Judge links Clinton aide's immunity to 'criminal investigation'

A former information technology aide to Hillary Clinton received immunity from the Justice Department in connection with a criminal investigation, a federal judge confirmed Tuesday.

Bryan Pagliano, a computer expert who worked at the State Department while Clinton was secretary of state and was also paid privately by her, was previously reported to have received immunity in connection with statements he gave to the FBI about Clinton's private server set-up.


However, there had been no explicit confirmation that the investigation—which Clinton has repeatedly referred to as a "security review"—is actually a criminal probe.

In the order, Sullivan declined to make Pagliano's immunity agreement public. The judge ordered the deal be submitted to the court so he could assess Pagliano's plan to assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a planned deposition of Pagliano in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit related to Clinton's emails.

"In the Court's opinion, the need for public access to Mr. Pagliano's agreement with the government is minimal. Mr. Pagliano's immunity agreement has not previously been disclosed. Mr. Pagliano and the government object to disclosure of the immunity agreement" Sullivan wrote. "Mr. Pagliano's immunity agreement with the government was filed with the Court by Mr. Pagliano solely to enable the Court to assess the legitimacy of his intent to assert his Fifth Amendment rights in this civil proceeding."


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/hillary-clinton-judge-investigation-224314#ixzz4BZRF3U4r
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Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump

Russian government hackers penetrated DNC, stole opposition research on Trump

Russian goverment hackers penetrated the Democratic National Committee and had access to the DNC network for about a year, but all were expelled over the past weekend, officials say. (Kacper Pempel/Reuters)
By Ellen Nakashima National Security
June 14 at 11:30 AM

Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security experts who responded to the breach.

The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC’s system they also were able to read all e-mail and chat traffic, said DNC officials and the security experts.

The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some GOP political action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.

Some of the hackers had access to the DNC network for about a year, but all were expelled over the past weekend in a major computer clean-up campaign, the committee officials and experts said.

The DNC said that no financial, donor or personal information appears to have been accessed or taken, suggesting that the breach was traditional espionage, not the work of criminal hackers.


The intrusions are an example of Russia’s interest in the U.S. political system and its desire to understand the policies, strengths and weaknesses of a potential future president — much as American spies gather similar information on foreign candidates and leaders.

The depth of the penetration reflects the skill and determination of the United States’ top cyber adversary as Russia goes after strategic targets from the White House and State Department to political campaign organizations.

“It’s the job of every foreign intelligence service to collect intelligence against their adversaries,” said Shawn Henry, president of CrowdStrike, the cyber firm called in to handle the DNC breach and a former head of the FBI’s cyber division. He noted that it is extremely difficult for a civilian organization to protect itself from a skilled and determined state such as Russia.

“We’re perceived as an adversary of Russia,” he said. “Their job when they wake up every day is to gather intelligence against the policies, practices and strategies of the U.S. government. There are a variety of ways. [Hacking] is one of the more valuable because it gives you a treasure trove of information.”


“The purpose of such intelligence gathering is to understand the target’s proclivities,” said Robert Deitz, former senior councillor to the CIA director and a former general counsel at the National Security Agency. “Trump’s foreign investments, for example, would be relevant to understanding how he would deal with countries where he has those investments” should he be elected, Deitz said. “They may provide tips for understanding his style of negotiating. In short, this sort of intelligence could be used by Russia, for example, to indicate where it can get away with foreign adventurism.”

Other analysts noted that any dirt dug up in opposition research is likely to be made public anyway. Nonetheless, DNC leadership acted quickly after the intrusion’s discovery to contain the damage.

“The security of our system is critical to our operation and to the confidence of the campaigns and state parties we work with,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the DNC chairwoman. “When we discovered the intrusion, we treated this like the serious incident it is and reached out to CrowdStrike immediately. Our team moved as quickly as possible to kick out the intruders and secure our network.”

The Clinton campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the Trump campaign referred questions to the Secret Service.

DNC leaders were tipped to the hack in late April. Chief executive officer Amy Dacey got a call from her operations chief saying that their information technology team had noticed some unusual network activity.

“It’s never a call any executive wants to get, but the IT team knew something was awry,” Dacey said. And they knew it was serious enough that they wanted experts to investigate.

That evening, she spoke with Michael Sussmann, a DNC lawyer who is a partner with Perkins Coie in Washington. Soon after, Sussmann, a former federal prosecutor who handled computer crime cases, called Henry, whom he has known for many years.

The firm identified two separate hacker groups, both working for the Russian government, that had infiltrated the network, said Dmitri Alperovitch, CrowdStrike co-founder and chief technology officer. The firm had analyzed other breaches by both groups over the last two years.

One group, which CrowdStrike had dubbed Cozy Bear, had gained access last summer and was monitoring the DNC’s email and chat communications, Alperovitch said.

The other, which the firm had named Fancy Bear, broke into the network in late April and targeted the opposition research files. It was this breach that set off the alarm. The hackers stole two files, Henry said. And they had access to the computers of the entire research staff — an average of about several dozen on any given day.

The computers contained research going back years on Trump. “It’s a huge job” to dig into the dealings of somebody who has never run for office before, Dacey said.

CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with “spearphishing” emails. These are communications that appear legitimate — often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted — but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. “But we don’t have hard evidence,” Alperovitch said.


The lack of coordination is not unusual, he said. “There’s an amazing adversarial relationship” among the Russian intelligence agencies, Alperovitch said. “We have seen them steal assets from one another, refuse to collaborate. They’re all vying for power, to sell Putin on how good they are.”

The two crews have “superb operational tradecraft,” he said. They often use previously unknown software bugs — known as “zero-day” vulnerabilities — to compromise applications. In the DNC’s case, the hackers constantly switched tactics to maintain a stealthy presence inside the network and used built-in Windows tools so that they didn’t have to resort to malicious code that might trigger alerts. “They flew under the radar,” Alperovitch said.


“This is a sophisticated foreign intelligence service with a lot of time, a lot of resources, and is interested in targeting the U.S. political system,” Henry said. He said the DNC was not engaged in a fair fight. “You’ve got ordinary citizens who are doing hand-to-hand combat with trained military officers,” he said. “And that’s an untenable situation.”

Russia has always been a formidable foe in cyberspace, but in the last two years “there’s been a thousand-fold increase in its espionage campaign against the West,” said Alperovitch, who is also a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “They feel under siege.”

Edited to conform to copyright guidelines.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russian-government-hackers-penetrated-dnc-stole-opposition-research-on-trump/2016/06/14/cf006cb4-316e-11e6-8ff7-7b6c1998b7a0_story.html

Hillary Clinton FULL Speech In Cleveland 6/13/16

Clinton: I'll say the words 'radical Islamism'

&quot CNN)- Hillary Clinton said Monday she's not afraid to say "radical" Islam as she countered attacks from Donald Trump that she's too politically correct to use the phrase.

"From my perspective, it matters what we do more than what we say," Clinton said on CNN's "New Day." "And it mattered we got bin Laden, not what name we called him. I have clearly said we -- whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I'm happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing."

Clinton -- who also reupped her call to restore the assault weapons ban -- was forceful in dismissing Republicans' criticism -- vocally echoed by Trump -- that President Barack Obama and Democrats won't describe such terror attacks as "radical Islamic terrorism."

Trump was also interviewed later on "New Day" Monday morning about the Orlando attack, and repeated the charge that Democrats' reluctance to say "radical Islamic terror" was hampering efforts to combat terror.

"The first thing you need is a president that will mention the problem. And he won't even mention what the problem is," Trump said. "Unless you're going to say that, you're never going to solve it."

Trump then claimed Clinton was "afraid to use [the term] because President Obama doesn't want her to" before host Christine Romans corrected him, pointing out Clinton had just used the term in the preceding interview. After Romans interjected, Trump replied, "She would love to use those words because almost everybody agrees that those words should be used."

In her appearance, Clinton also was quick to link the attack to the terror organization.

"This was a terrorist attack. ISIS appears to be claiming credit for it, whether it had anything to do with it or not -- at a minimum, they seem to have inspired it," Clinton told host Chris Cuomo."


http://m.wgal.com/politics/clinton-ill-say-the-words-radical-islamism/40028020

One-third of the world cannot see the Milky Way -- why that matters

"If you look up at the evening sky, there's a good chance you will not be able to see what your grandmother saw when she was a little girl.

That's because we're enshrouded in an artificial haze of light that is blocking the night sky, a phenomenon scientists call light pollution.

Scientists believe one-third of humanity cannot view the Milky Way — this includes 80% of Americans and 60% of Europeans because city lights are creating fogs of light pollution, according to a new study that published Friday in the journal of Science Advances.

An international team of scientists created a world atlas of artificial sky luminance that details how light pollution is permeating our planet. This light is obscuring our vision of the stars, celestial events and the Milky Way — the galaxy that contains our solar system.

Although there are a few patches of pristine dark sky still left in the world, 83% of the world's population and more than 99% of the U.S. and European populations live under the bright glow of light pollution.

"This is a huge cultural loss with unforeseeable consequences in the future generations," scientist Fabio Falchi, one of the authors of the study, says. "Pristine night skies are a precious merchandise."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/11/health/light-pollution-atlas-milky-way-irpt/

I remember going camping as a kid with there not being light for miles. Looking up at night always blew me away!

New Hillary Scandal Checks All the Boxes on the Clinton Controversy Bingo Card

"Hillary Clinton had an undeniably great day on Thursday, but Friday brought a stark reminder that as the presumptive Democratic nominee looks ahead to the general election, there will be plenty of people justifiably looking into her past.

Thanks to a newly released batch of State Department emails, ABC News was able to revisit the story of Rajiv Fernando, a wealthy securities trader who gave heavily to both Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and the Clinton Foundation—and who just so happened to land himself a plum spot on a sensitive government intelligence advisory panel after Hillary became secretary of state.

Politicos rewarding donors is sadly not uncommon but what makes this particular example stand out is Fernando’s lack of qualifications for a job that involved advising the secretary of state—and, by extension, the president of the United States—on the topic of nuclear weapons. And if that weren’t enough, the story also looks an awfully lot like a Clinton Controversy Bingo Card. In addition to the appearance of quid pro quo with a major fundraiser, we also have a clear lack of transparency, Clinton loyalists going to great lengths to protect her, questions over access to sensitive government information, and, of course, Hillary’s private email account.

You can read ABC’s full blow-by-blow here, but the short version is this: The rest of the International Security Advisory Board was filled with nuclear scientists, past Cabinet secretaries, and former members of Congress. But the only thing Fernando had to offer the group was, in ABC’s words, “his technological know-how,” which none of his fellow panelists seemed to find all that helpful. Fernando was so out of place, in fact, that one board member told ABC that none of his colleagues could figure out why he was even there.

Days after the network started asking questions about Fernando in the summer of 2011, he promptly resigned from the panel citing a need to focus on his business interests. He and the State Department declined to make public a copy of his résumé and refused to field follow-up questions at the time. Which brings us back to the present. Via ABC:
The newly released emails reveal that after ABC News started asking questions in August 2011, a State Department official who worked with the advisory board couldn’t immediately come up with a justification for Fernando serving on the panel. His and other emails make repeated references to “S”; ABC News has been told this is a common way to refer to the Secretary of State.

“The true answer is simply that S staff (Cheryl Mills) added him,” wrote Wade Boese, who was Chief of Staff for the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, in an email to [Jamie] Mannina, the press aide. “Raj was not on the list sent to S; he was added at their insistence.

ABC was unable to follow the trail directly to Clinton herself, though the emails did suggest her staff was eager to shield her from the controversy and any potential fallout. “We must protect the Secretary’s and Under Secretary’s name, as well as the integrity of the Board,” her press aide wrote. “I think it’s important to get down to the bottom of this before there’s any response.”

So just how big of a deal is this? In the big bucket of Clinton controversies (both real and imagined), this is merely a drop. Hillary and her staff had broad leeway to name pretty much whomever they wanted to the board, so while tapping Fernando was highly questionable, it wasn’t illegal. It is impossible to read the ABC report and not get a distinct whiff of favor trading, but there is no smoking gun—as there almost never is when it comes to this type of thing. In a political system where the inputs and outputs are both money and power, proof of guilt, or, really, innocence, rarely exists.

Still, it’s yet one more example of why Clinton is so fortunate that she’s set to face off against Donald Trump in the general."


http://amp.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/10/how_clinton_donor_rajiv_fernando_got_a_job_as_a_nuclear_expert_he_wasn_t.html