Daily Archives: July 25, 2017

Is NATO ‘obsolete’ or still vital? – Futurity – Futurity: Research News

Posted: July 25, 2017 at 11:56 am

international relations New York University Posted by Eileen Reynolds-NYU July 24th, 2017

President Donald Trump has said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an almost 70-year-old international organization, may be obsoleteigniting a national debate over whether the United States should continue to take a leading role in the promised defense of European nations, who some perceive to have invested insufficiently in their own militaries.

While the administration has stopped short of a pay up or else message, strong words from the president and others have led some world leaders to wonder if the days of relying on the US as an indispensable ally are over.

For many of us, mention of NATO conjures little more than a fuzzy memory from history class. But at the time of its birth, it was considered an indispensable safeguard against a looming existential threat.

Created by the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 with nations from Western Europe and the United States and Canada, it was formed to provide a common defense against possible attacks from the Soviet Union in the early Cold War years. Over time, its membership grew from 12 to 29, with some countriessuch as Spain, Greece, and Turkeytransitioning into democracies after they became members.

But where does that leave NATO today? Michael John Williams, director of New York Universitys international relations program and the author of The Good War: NATO and the Liberal Conscience in Afghanistan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)and NATO, Security, and Risk Management: From Kosovo to Kandahar(Routledge, 2009) discusses the intricacies of transatlantic relations and what the consequences for a weakened NATO might be.

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Disputes Between Germany and Turkey Threaten to Affect NATO Mission – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Wall Street Journal (subscription)
Disputes Between Germany and Turkey Threaten to Affect NATO Mission
Wall Street Journal (subscription)
BRUSSELSThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization is working urgently to defuse a dispute between Turkey and Germany that threatens its operations including counterterrorism missions in the Middle East. The deepening political divide risks curtailing ...

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NATO – News: NATO supports Jordan’s national cyber defence … – NATO HQ (press release)

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NATO and the Jordanian Armed Forces inaugurated the newly established Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) in Amman on 19 July 2017. The CERT was set up as part of a NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) project to enhance Jordanian cyber defence capabilities.

Jordans geographical location and security environment the conflict in Syria and Iraq on its borders, the refugee crisis in the region and the threat of terrorist organisations such as ISIL make the country vulnerable to a number of threats. Particularly challenging are cyber attacks. To help counter this growing threat, NATOs SPS Programme has been strengthening the cyber defence capabilities of the country, an active partner country in NATOs Mediterranean Dialogue forum for cooperation. Launched in 2014, the SPS project led by experts from Germany and Jordan and further supported by France and the United States responds to a key national priority and forms part of the Defence and Related Security Capacity Building (DCB) package for Jordan. The DCB Initiative reinforces NATOs commitment to partners and helps to project stability beyond NATOs borders by providing support to nations requesting defence capacity assistance from NATO.

This project signifies a milestone for cooperation in the area of cyber defence with a partner nation, and is the first of its kind to have been approved by NATO Allies, says Christian Liflnder, Head of NATOs Cyber Defence Section. It supported Jordan in developing capabilities to defend its infrastructure, mitigate the impact of cyber attacks, and enhance the overall security situation in the county, he explains.

The SPS project established a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) within the Jordanian Armed Forces, which represents a major milestone in Jordans national cyber defence programme and enhanced the countrys cyber defence posture. Through training and professional development, it contributed to the creation of a qualified and well-trained workforce. The success of the project was underscored by a decree of the Jordanian government, declaring the project to be a recognised national priority.

Building on the projects accomplishments, a follow-on multi-year SPS project is currently under development. It will deliver additional capabilities that will complement, consolidate and strengthen those built during the first project.

NATO support for Jordan is not limited to the area of cyber defence. Under the umbrella of the SPS Programme, numerous practical activities to strengthen Jordans capabilities in the security sector have been launched. Two examples which also form part of the DCB package for Jordan, are a border security symposium for the Jordanian Armed Forces in March 2017 and a multi-year project in the domain of counter improvised explosive devices (C-IED) which was recently approved by NATO Allies. It will contribute to strengthening the C-IED capabilities of the Jordanian Armed Forces, including through the development of an official C-IED policy and doctrine.

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NSA Surveillance | American Civil Liberties Union

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The National Security Agencys mass surveillance has greatly expanded in the years since September 11, 2001. Disclosures have shown that, until recently, the government regularly tracked the calls of hundreds of millions of Americans. Today, it continues to spy on a vast but unknown number of Americans international calls, text messages, web-browsing activities, and emails.

The governments surveillance programs have infiltrated most of the communications technologies we have come to rely on. They are largely enabled by a problematic law passed by Congress the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which is set to expire this year along with Executive Order 12,333, the primary authority invoked by the NSA to conduct surveillance outside of the United States. The Patriot Act has also made it easier for the government to spy on Americans right here at home over the past 15 years. Although the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court oversees some of the governments surveillance activities, it operates in near-total secrecy through one-sided procedures that heavily favor the government.

Our Constitution and democratic system demand that government be transparent and accountable to the people, not the other way around. History has shown that powerful, secret surveillance tools will almost certainly be abused for political ends.

The ACLU has been at the forefront of the struggle to rein in the surveillance superstructure, which strikes at the core of our rights to privacy, free speech, and association.

The FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA) gives the NSA almost unchecked power to monitor Americans international phone calls, text messages, and emails under the guise of targeting foreigners abroad. The ACLU has long warned that one provision of the statute, Section 702, would be used to eavesdrop on Americans private communications. In June 2013, The Guardian published documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden confirming the massive scale of this international dragnet. Recent disclosures also show that an unknown number of purely domestic communications are monitored, that the rules that supposedly protect Americans' privacy are weak and riddled with exceptions, and that virtually every email that goes into or out of the United States is scanned for suspicious keywords.

In 2008, less than an hour after President Bush signed the FAA into law, the ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. The case, Amnesty v. Clapper, was filed on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and organizations whose work requires them to engage in sensitive and sometimes privileged telephone and email communications with individuals located abroad. But in a 54 ruling handed down in February 2013, the Supreme Court held that the ACLU plaintiffs did not have standing to sue because they could not prove their communications had actually been surveilled under the law.

In March 2015, the ACLU filed Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA, a lawsuit challenging Upstream surveillance under the FAA. Through Upstream surveillance, the U.S. government copies and searches the contents of almost all international and many domestic text-based internet communications. The suit was brought on behalf of nine educational, legal, human rights, and media organizations, including the Wikimedia Foundation, operator of one of the most-visited websites on the internet. Collectively, the plaintiffs engage in more than a trillion sensitive internet communications every year, and each has been profoundly harmed by NSA surveillance.

Executive Order 12,333, signed by President Reagan in 1981 and modified many times since, is the authority primarily relied upon by the intelligence agencies to gather foreign intelligence outside of the United States. Recent disclosures indicate that the U.S. government operates a host of large-scale programs under EO 12333, many of which appear to involve the collection of vast quantities of Americans information. These programs have included, for example, the NSAs collection of billions of cellphone location records each day; its recording of every single cellphone call into, out of, and within at least two countries; and its surreptitious interception of data from Google and Yahoo user accounts as that information travels between those companies data centers located abroad.

In December 2013, the ACLU, along with the Media Freedom Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding that the government release information about its use of EO 12,333 to conduct surveillance of Americans communications.

For many years, the government claimed sweeping authority under the Patriot Act to collect a record of every single phone call made by every single American "on an ongoing daily basis." This program not only exceeded the authority given to the government by Congress, but it violated the right of privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment, and the rights of free speech and association protected by the First Amendment. For this reason, the ACLU challenged the government's collection of our phone records under Section 215 of the Patriot Act just days after the program was revealed in June 2013 by The Guardian. In May 2015, a court of appeals found that the phone records program violated Section 215, and Congress allowed the provision to expire in June of that year. The program was reformed by the USA Freedom Act, which passed days later.

To bring greater transparency to the NSA's surveillance under the Patriot Act, the ACLU filed two motions with the secretive FISC asking it to release to the public its opinions authorizing the bulk collection of Americans' data by the NSA.

Our earlier work to reform the Patriot Act includes a number of successful challenges to the government's use of and secrecy surrounding National Security Letters.

The ACLU has long fought to bring greater transparency and public access to the FISC the secretive court that oversees the governments surveillance programs. When the FISC was first established in 1978, it primarily assessed individual surveillance applications to determine whether there was probable cause to believe a specific surveillance target was an agent of a foreign power. In recent years, however, the FISCs responsibilities have changed dramatically, and the FISC today oversees sweeping surveillance programs and assesses their constitutionality all without any public participation or review.

The ACLU has been advocating and petitioning for access to the FISC for more than a decade, working with Congress and the executive branch, and appearing before the court itself to push for greater transparency. Days after the courts Section 215 order was published in the press in June 2013, we filed a motion seeking access to the secret judicial opinions underlying the NSA's mass call tracking program. We have since filed two other access motions in the FISC, seeking significant legal opinions authorizing bulk collection and those interpreting the governments secret surveillance powers in the years after 9/11. We also signed a brief filed in the FISC in support of the First Amendment rights of the recipients of FISC orders, such as telephone and internet companies, to release information about the type and volume of national security requests they receive from the NSA and the FBI.

Secret law has no place in a democracy. Under the First Amendment, the public has a qualified right of access to FISC opinions concerning the scope, meaning, or constitutionality of the surveillance laws, and that right clearly applies to legal opinions interpreting Americans' bedrock constitutional rights. We all have a right to know, at least in general terms, what kinds of information the government is collecting about innocent Americans, on what scale, and based on what legal theory.

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Should NSA and CYBERCOM Split? The Legal and Policy Hurdles as They Developed Over the Past Year – Lawfare (blog)

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In light of Michael Sulmeyers excellent recent piece on splitting NSA and CYBERCOM, which ran at War on the Rocks last week, I want to pull together some of the key legal and policy developments of the past year in a single narrative. My aim is to put them in context with each other in a way that will provide useful background for those new to this issue, while also putting a spotlight on the deconfliction-of-equities issue that the split proposal raises. My apologies that this is a longer-than-normal post (I did not have time to be shorter!).

1. July 2016 Reports of DOD frustration over pace of anti-ISIS cyber operations

In July 2016, the Washington Post (Ellen Nakashima & Missy Ryan) reported on CYBERCOMs efforts to disrupt the Islamic States online activities (internal communications, external propaganda, financing, etc.), emphasizing the view of DOD leadership that CYBERCOM was underperforming:

An unprecedented Pentagon cyber-offensive against the Islamic State has gotten off to a slow start, officials said, frustrating Pentagon leaders and threatening to undermine efforts to counter the militant groups sophisticated use of technology for recruiting, operations and propaganda.

But defense officials said the command is still working to put the right staff in place and has not yet developed a full suite of malware and other tools tailored to attack an adversary dramatically different from the nation-states Cybercom was created to fight.

Although officials declined to detail current operations, they said that cyberattacks occurring under the new task force might, for instance, disrupt a payment system, identify a communications platform used by Islamic State members and knock it out, or bring down Dabiq, the Islamic States online magazine.

The report is an excellent snapshot of several distinct challenges the military use of computer network operations can pose.

One such challenge is operational capacity. The story suggests that CYBERCOM simply did not have the right personnel and the right exploits on hand for this particular mission, at least at the start. Thats a problem that can be fixed, and the report details the steps DOD began taking in 2016 to do just that.

Another challenge is the need to have an effective process for deconfliction between intelligence-collection and operational-effect equities. As the article summarized the issue:

Whenever the military undertakes a cyber-operation to disrupt a network, the intelligence community may risk losing an opportunity to monitor communications on that network. So military cybersecurity officials have worked to better coordinate their target selection and operations with intelligence officials.

This is not a novel tension, in the abstract. For as long as there has been signals intelligence, there have been tensions of this kind. When one side has access to the others communications, there will always be tension between the temptation to exploit that access for operational effect (with the opportunity cost of risking loss of that access going forward as the enemy realizes it has been monitored) and the temptation to instead exploit it for indirect intelligence advantage (with the opportunity cost of forgoing direct operational advantage in at least some cases). World War II provides famous examples. And so one might fairly ask: is there anything really different about computer network operations, warranting special attention to the topic in this setting?

Perhaps. In this domain there is much more overlap between the means of collection and the means of carrying out a disruptive operations. Indeed, those means often will be the exact same: a particular exploit providing access to an enemy device, network, etc. It seems to me that this ensures that the tension between collection and operational equities will arise with greater frequency, and less room for workarounds, than in more familiar settings.

Having mentioned both the operational capacity concern and the competing-equities concern, now is a good time to emphasize the significance of the status-quo for NSA and CYBERCOM: the dual-hatted commander. Whereas more familiar, traditional scenarios involving tension between collection and operational equities usually involve distinct underlying institutions and commanders, the status quo with respect to computer network operations has always (well, the past seven years) involved the dual-hatting of NSAs director and CYBERCOMs commander.

This model in theory ensures that neither institution has a home-field advantage, and maximizes the chance that the key decisionmaker (yes, there can be important decisions both below and above the dual-hat, but the dual-hat is obviously in the key position) fully buys into and fully grasps the importance of each institutions mission.

Of course, it is possible that the dual-hat might tilt one direction to an unfair or undesirable degree. And it is possible that some might perceive such a tilt even when there isnt one. As 2016 wore on, questions of this kind began to appear in public, and by September the media was reporting that DNI Clapper and SecDef Carter both were in favor of splitting up the dual-hat. It was not the first time this topic had come up, to be sure; President Obama had considered ordering a split in 2013 (during the aftermath of the Snowden controversy), but had not taken that step at least in part out of concern about CYBERCOMs independent operational capacity. Now the idea appeared to have momentum.

A report from Ellen Nakashima in the Washington Post that same month suggested that this momentum was in part a product of CYBERCOMs operational maturation, but also in significant part driven by the perception that Admiral Rogers, the current dual-hat, favored collection equities to an undue extent:

Whether or not its true, the perception with Secretary Carter and [top aides] has become that the intelligence agency has been winning out at the expense of [cyber] war efforts, said one senior military official.

(See also this report by the New York Times, stating that frustration along these same lines contributed to the effort to get President Obama to remove Admiral Rogers in late 2016.)

The Washington Post report also highlighted concerns that splitting NSA and CYBERCOM at the leadership level might actually weaken rather than empower CYBERCOM, as NSA inevitably would become free to withhold from CYBERCOM at least some exploits or other forms of access so that sources would not be lost:

Cyber Commands mission, their primary focus, is to degrade or destroy, the former official said. NSAs is exploit [to gather intelligence] only. So without having one person as the leader for both, the bureaucratic walls will go up and youll find NSA not cooperating with Cyber Command to give them the information theyll need to be successful.

2. December 2016 Congress puts on the brakes

Against this backdrop, Congress intervened in late 2016 to slow down the Obama administrations move to split the dual-hat. Section 1642 of the NDAA FY17, enacted in late December, provides that NSA and CYBERCOM must continue to share a dual-hatted director/commander unless and until the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff jointly certify to certain Congressional committees (SASC & HASC; SSCI & HPSCI; and the Appropriations Committees) that separation will not pose unacceptable risks to CYBERCOMs effectiveness, and that the following six conditions are met:

(i) Robust operational infrastructure has been deployed that is sufficient to meet the unique cyber mission needs of the United States Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, respectively.

(ii) Robust command and control systems and processes have been established for planning, deconflicting, and executing military cyber operations.

(iii) The tools and weapons used in cyber operations are sufficient for achieving required effects.

(iv) Capabilities have been established to enable intelligence collection and operational preparation of the environment for cyber operations.

(v) Capabilities have been established to train cyber operations personnel, test cyber capabilities, and rehearse cyber missions.

(vi) The cyber mission force has achieved full operational capability.

Section 1642(b)(2)(C) (emphasis added). President Obamas signing statement criticized Congress for imposing this requirement, but did not include a claim that it was unconstitutional. It remains the law at this time.

3. Early 2017 Complications in the War Against the Islamic State

While lawmakers and policymakers wrestled with the pros and cons of splitting NSA and CYBERCOM, computer network operations against the Islamic State continued to accelerate.

Along the way, however, new problems emerged.

As Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post reported in May 2017, CYBERCOM by late 2016 had encountered a new set of challenges in its enhanced effort to shut down ISIS sites and platforms: third-country effects.

A secret global operation by the Pentagon late last year to sabotage the Islamic States online videos and propaganda sparked fierce debate inside the government over whether it was necessary to notify countries that are home to computer hosting services used by the extremist group, including U.S. allies in Europe. Cybercom developed the campaign under pressure from then-Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, who wanted the command to raise its game against the Islamic State. But when the CIA, State Department and FBI got wind of the plan to conduct operations inside the borders of other countries without telling them, officials at the agencies immediately became concerned that the campaign could undermine cooperation with those countries on law enforcement, intelligence and counterterrorism. The issue took the Obama National Security Council weeks to address

This article highlights a third significant challenge associated with computer network operations: attacking the enemys online presence often requires, or at least risks, some degree of impact on servers located in other countries. Third-country impact involves both legal and policy challenges, and as the quote above illustrates it also brings into play otherwise-unrelated equities of other agencies. Thus, the competing-equities tension is not just a clash between collection and operational equities, but in some cases many others as well. The dual-hat command structure is primarily an answer only to the former, not the latter.

Meanwhile, a sobering reality about the utility of cyberattacks on Islamic State communications began to become clear: the effects often did not last. This was the thrust of an important piece by David Sanger and Eric Schmitt in the New York Times in June 2017:

[S]ince they began training their arsenal of cyberweapons on internet use by the Islamic State, the results have been a consistent disappointment, American officials say. [It] has become clear that recruitment efforts and communications hubs reappear almost as quickly as they are torn down. In general, there was some sense of disappointment in the overall ability for cyberoperations to land a major blow against ISIS," or the Islamic State, said Joshua Geltzer, who was the senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council until March. "This is just much harder in practice than people think..."

This suggested that the military equities that some felt had been undervalued by Admiral Rogers in the past were less weighty than proponents had assumed. Nonetheless, momentum towards separationand concern that the dual-hat unduly favors collection equitiescontinues.

In mid-July, reports emerged that the Pentagon had submitted to the Trump administration a plan for effectuating the split, with some of the accompanying commentary continuing to advance the argument that NSA holds CYBERCOM back to an improper extent:

The goal, [unnamed U.S. officials] said, is to give U.S. Cyber Command more autonomy, freeing it from any constraints that stem from working alongside the NSA, which is responsible for monitoring and collecting telephone, internet and other intelligence data from around the world a responsibility that can sometimes clash with military operations against enemy forces.

Meanwhile, however, Congress is in the midst of producing the next NDAA, and it may impose a further hurdleone that wont prevent the split, but may well slow it down considerably.

4. Congress reengages

In mid-July, the House passed H.R. 2810, which includes a section addressing the potential NSA/CYBERCOM split. Section 1655 requires the SecDef to provide SASC, HASC, SSCI, and HPSCI with a report on DODs progress in addressing the issues that must be certified to Congress before NSA and CYBERCOM may be split (under the terms of section 1642 of NDAA FY17). That report must address:

(1) Metrics and milestones for meeting the conditions described in subsection (b)(2)(C) of such section 1642.

(2) Identification of any challenges to meeting such conditions.

(3) Identification of entities or persons requiring additional resources as a result of any decision to terminate the dual-hat arrangement.

(4) Identification of any updates to statutory authorities needed as a result of any decision to terminate the dual-hat arrangement.

Meanwhile, the Senates NDAAFY18 draft (S.1519) has begun its trek through that chamber, and it includes a requirement (section 1627) that the commander of CYBERCOM report to SASC and HASC on the costs associated with meeting the conditions needed to enable NSA and CYBERCOM to split. As the SASC Committee Report accompanying the bill explains:

The committee believes any decision to separate Cyber Command and the National Security Agency should be conditions-based. The committee also believes that the funding associated with separating the dual-hat arrangement will be a multiyear sustained effort. The committee notes that the fiscal year 2018 budget request failed to include the funding necessary to resource the separation of the dual-hat arrangement. The committee looks to Cyber Command to estimate the funding required to meet the conditions identified in section 1642(b) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017 (Public Law 114328) and intends to closely monitor future budget submissions and the cost, schedule, and performance of key cyber programs to ensure that Cyber Command is appropriately resourced prior to any decision to end the dual-hat arrangement.

5. What is the bottom line in light of all this?

* The statutory obstacles to a split of the dual-hat, from the current NDAA, are not onerous. The certifications required by section 1642 of NDAA FY17 can be dealt with easily enough given the high level of generality with which they are framed, once the political will is there to carry out the separation. It sounds as if the will is there, and that the only real hurdle is specifying something realistic in terms of the requirement that the cyber mission force reach full operational capacity.

* Deconfliction and Competing-Equities Tensions remain a significant issue that needs to be addressed very carefully. Yes, section 1642 of NDAA FY17 requires a certification on deconfliction, but as just noted the requirement is framed at a high-level of generality. People need to focus on the fact that a main driver of the effort to split NSA and CYBERCOM has been the perception that Admiral Rogers gives collection equities too much weightbut that he may well have been quite right to do so. And people also need to focus on the converse risk: that NSA might pull back on cooperation with CYBERCOM to an undesirable degree, post-split, in order to preserve the means of its collection. All of this can be managed, and its not obvious that the current dual-hat solution is the only way to do it. But there needs to be a credible process of some kind, if not the dual-hat. Its not clear that the certification requirement under section 1642 actually will compel sufficient consideration of this issue.

* Section 1627 of NDAA FY18, if it is enacted as SASC has proposed, will be a more serious hurdle. Budgets matter, and it is likely that the correct answer to the budget question posed by that section will involve a substantial need. That money then needs to be found and appropriated. Probably it should be and no doubt it will be. But it will take time for all this to grind out. Possibly this delay would track the time needed in any event to produce a credible claim that the cyber mission force has reached full operational capacity.

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Should NSA and CYBERCOM Split? The Legal and Policy Hurdles as They Developed Over the Past Year - Lawfare (blog)

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Former prosecutors join accused NSA leaker’s legal defense team – MyAJC

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A former top U.S. Justice Department official and a former federal prosecutor have joined Reality Winners legal defense team in the National Security Agency leak investigation.

Joe Whitley, who served as the acting associate U.S. attorney general during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, is a partner with the Atlanta law firm of Baker Donelson. He also worked as the U.S. Department of Homeland Securitys general counsel and served as a federal prosecutor in Georgia. Joining Whitley is Matthew Chester, a former assistant U.S. attorney who works for the same law firm in New Orleans.

They are teaming up with John Bell and Titus Nichols of Bell & Brigham in Augusta. The attorneys joined the case after First Look Media, the parent company of The Intercept online news outlet, announced this month that it would help Winners legal defense. First Look said its Press Freedom Defense Fund would provide $50,000 in matching funds to Stand With Reality, a nonprofit campaign to support Winners case through advocacy and fundraising.

RELATED:Owner of The Intercept assisting accused NSA leakers legal defense

The U.S. Justice Department has accused Winner of leaking to The Intercept a top-secret NSA report about Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Intercept published the report, which says Russian military intelligence officials tried to hack into the U.S. voting system just before last Novembers election.

A federal grand jury has indicted Winner, 25, on a single count of "willful retention and transmission of national defense information. She faces up to 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Winner, who is being held in the Lincoln County Jail, has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Winners mother, Billie Winner-Davis, released a statement to Stand With Reality about the new attorneys joining her daughters defense team.

I am very excited about Mr. Whitley joining Realitys defense team, she said, as he appears to have extensive experience. His background with homeland security should be helpful.

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Two new attorneys join accused NSA leaker’s defense team | The … – The Augusta Chronicle

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Two additional attorneys have joined Reality Leigh Winners defense team in the espionage prosecution in U.S. District Court in Augusta.

U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Brian K. Epps granted Joe Dally Whitley and Matthew Scott Chester permission to to be admitted to practice in the Southern District of Georgia to help defend Winner, 25.

Winner has pleaded not guilty to a single count of willful retention and transmission of national defense information. She is accused of copying a secret document while at work for National Security Agency contractor Pluribus at Fort Gordon and sending it anonymously to online news publication The Intercept. She has been held without bond since her arrest June 3.

Two days later, The Intercept published an in-depth article about a NSA analysis of Russias attempts to meddle in the presidential election, a subject now under scrutiny by the Senate and House intelligence committees and a special prosecutor investigating possible collusion between Russia and people supportive of Trumps campaign.

A tentative trial date for Winner is the week of Oct. 23.

The newest members of the defense team are both former federal prosecutors with the national law firm Baker Donelson.

Whitley of Atlanta served in the Department of Justice under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, serving as the acting associate attorney general, the number three position at the DOJ for a time. After 9/11, George W. Bush selected Whitley to serve as the first general counsel for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Whitley also previously served as the U.S. Attorney in the Northern District of Georgia. At Baker Donelson, Whitley specializes in complex civil and criminal cases, according to the firms website.

Chester works in the Baker Donelson office in New Orleans. He previously served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the New Orleans office where he prosecuted white collar crimes and public corruption cases.

In 2015, he was awarded the Department of Justices Superior Performance in Litigation award for his work on the prosecution team that helped convict New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin of charges that included bribery, wire fraud and tax evasion. Nagin is serving a 10-year prison term. Chester now also serves as an adjunct faculty member at Tulane University School of Law where he graduated cum laude in 2004.

Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226 or sandy.hodson@augustachronicle.com.

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Chinese media now trains gun on NSA Ajit Doval, calls him ‘main schemer’ – Economic Times

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BEIJING: Ahead of NSA Ajit Doval's visit, China's state media struck two different notes with the China Daily hopeful of a peaceful resolution to the deadlock with India while the Global Times said the "main schemer's" trip wouldn't sway Beijing.

In its editorial, 'It's never too late for India to mend its way', China Daily pressed for exploring ways to avoid confrontation.

The Global Times editorial, 'Doval visit won't sway China over border standoff', said Beijing would not talk until Indian troops were withdrawn.

Doval is to visit China for a meeting of NSAs from BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - on July 27-28. He is expected to discuss the standoff with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.

Both officials are also the Special Representatives of their countries for the boundary talks.

The military standoff began on June 16 after the Chinese army tried to build a road near the Bhutan trijunction. India has protested the construction of the road, fearing it would allow China to cut India's access to its northeastern states.

"There are still hopes that the deadlock can be resolved peacefully, which serves both countries' best interests," the China Daily said. Doval's visit is "hoped" to "carry on that slight shift in India's previously bellicose stance", it said, referring to Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar's recent comments that both the countries should not let their "differences become disputes".

"The two sides need to explore ways to avoid confrontation. It would be damaging to both countries and regional stability if India cannot use its reason and wisdom to avoid the military collision both countries are currently on course for," it said.

But The Global Times, part of the Communist Party's publication group, said in its editorial that Beijing will not "talk" until Indian troops were withdrawn.

"As Doval is believed to be one of the main schemers behind the current border standoff between Chinese and Indian troops, the Indian media is pinning high hopes on the trip to settle the ongoing dispute," the daily said.

"New Delhi should give up its illusions, and Doval's Beijing visit is most certainly not an opportunity to settle the standoff in accordance with India's will," it said. It added that India should not take lightly yesterday's comments by the Chinese Defence ministry that New Delhi should not "harbour any illusions" and withdraw troops.

The two editorials come a day after the Chinese Foreign Ministry hinted that a bilateral meeting between Doval and Yang could happen on the sidelines of a BRICS NSAs' meet.

India has maintained that both the countries withdraw troops from the disputed area and resolve the issue through talks.

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Labor Dept partners with NSA in St Johnsbury to find workers – Vermont Biz

Posted: at 11:55 am

Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Department of Labor has partnered with NSA Industries, LLC in St. Johnsbury in an effort to fill the companys available positions with skilled, available talent. On Wednesday, July 26, 2017, NSA will open its doors from 4 pm 7 pm for an onsite recruitment event for the general public. NSAs facility is located at 210 Pierce Road, St Johnsbury.

Founded in 1982, NSA specializes in machining, sheet metal fabrication, engineering and logistics. The company currently employs over 200 individuals and is looking to hire machine operators, assemblers, testers/inspectors and welders, as well as a variety of other positions.

This event displays our desire to actively work with employers to assist them in finding the talent they need to be competitive in todays economy. Additionally, this job fair provides another opportunity for the displaced workers in the Northeast Kingdom to find meaningful employment, said Michael Harrington, Deputy Commissioner for the Vermont Department of Labor.

Wednesdays job fair is open to all interested individuals, and the Vermont Department of Labor will be onsite to provide support services, including application assistance.

For a complete list of jobs available at NSA or across the State, visit: http://www.nsaindustries.com or http://www.vermontjoblink.com.

Source: Vermont Department of Labor 7.24.2017

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Labor Dept partners with NSA in St Johnsbury to find workers - Vermont Biz

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Libor and London Whale Cases Show Hurdles With Foreign Defendants – New York Times

Posted: at 11:54 am

The prosecution of two Rabobank traders from London, Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti, ran afoul of the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan tossed out their convictions and, in a rare step, dismissed the indictment against them because the government used tainted testimony from its main witness.

The Financial Conduct Authority in England first started looking at Libor manipulation at Rabobank. Under British law, an individual working for a bank under investigation can be required to answer questions or face imprisonment for refusing to comply with the request. In exchange, the statements cannot be used directly against the person at a subsequent proceeding, although they can be used to develop new leads in a case

The British regulator dropped its investigation after Mr. Allen and Mr. Conti testified, and then prosecutors in the fraud section in the Justice Department took up the case, filing charges against the two men in 2014.

Mr. Allen and Mr. Conti were convicted after a trial on conspiracy and wire fraud charges involving their role in manipulating the submissions made by Rabobank that were used to set Libor. The governments theory was that they accommodated requests from the banks derivatives traders rather than making a good-faith estimate of the actual borrowing rate for that day. Evidence included a response to a traders request, I am fast turning into your Libor bitch!!! not a helpful comment.

Even with questionable messages, however, prosecutors needed a witness to explain what was taking place inside the bank and that the defendants knew they were acting improperly. That turned out to be Paul Robson, a co-worker subject of a Financial Conduct Authority enforcement action in Britain who also pleaded guilty in the United States for his role in the Libor manipulation.

Mr. Robson proved to be an effective witness, providing what the Second Circuit described as significant testimony against the two defendants, stating in court that the Libor submissions were nonsense and a charade.

The problem was that he carefully reviewed the defendants immunized statements to the Financial Conduct Authority and the appeals court found that the knowledge gained from them helped shape his testimony. It noted that Mr. Robsons own statement to the British authorities was toxic to the governments case because he later changed the description of the roles of Mr. Allen and Mr. Conti in setting Libor to reflect what they said.

The crucial legal issue was whether a grant of immunity by a foreign government in requiring testimony should be treated the same as if a witness received that protection from an American court. The Second Circuit was quite clear in its answer: The Fifth Amendments prohibition on the use of compelled testimony in American criminal proceedings applies even when a foreign sovereign has compelled the testimony.

The protection afforded under United States law is broader than in Britain, prohibiting any indirect use of an immunized statement to aid the prosecution. The Second Circuit concluded that Mr. Robsons testimony was tainted by what he read, even though prosecutors never introduced the statements in court.

Thus, any use of the statements against the defendants at their trial, like having a witness review it to assist in giving testimony, is a violation of their Fifth Amendment rights that can require reversal of a conviction. The cornerstone case for that proposition is United States v. North, a decision overturning the conviction of Oliver L. North because his immunized testimony before Congress in the Iran-contra hearings affected the recollection of a witness at his criminal trial.

The Second Circuit also dismissed the indictment because it found that the grand jury indirectly received Mr. Robsons views on the defendants involvement in manipulating Libor through the testimony of a F.B.I. agent, so the decision to indict the two men was also tainted by the immunized statements.

The appeals court had no sympathy for the governments complaint that applying the constitutional protection would make it more difficult to work with foreign governments to prosecute cases involving cross-border violations. The practical outcome of our holding today is that the risk of error in coordination falls on the U.S. government (should it seek to prosecute foreign individuals), rather than on the subjects and targets of cross-border investigations, the judges wrote.

Although prosecutors can seek a new indictment and a second trial, they may not use Mr. Robson or any other witness who might have reviewed the immunized statements made by Mr. Allen and Mr. Conti. That most likely means the case is over because there does not appear to be enough evidence, beyond some questionable messages, to show their intent to manipulate Libor submissions.

The decision will present a significant challenge to the Justice Department in pursuing fraud cases in which it works with foreign prosecutors and regulators to gather evidence. Many nations, especially in Europe, require those involved in the financial services sector to provide testimony during an investigation, and now any use of that power to gather evidence could make it more difficult to prove charges in the United States.

Prosecutors in this country are well aware of the potential pitfalls of prosecuting someone granted immunity because it requires showing that every piece of evidence to be used at trial is untainted by the immunized statements. Future investigations of international wrongdoing will have to avoid tripping the Fifth Amendment protection if a target is required to provide a statement.

The fallout from the Second Circuits decision is already being felt in the prosecution of two former Deutsche Bank traders accused of manipulating Libor. One of the defendants was compelled by the Financial Conduct Authority to testify and has asked that the court to scrutinize whether his statements have tainted the governments evidence.

Even if there are no Fifth Amendment issues, when the reliability of a crucial cooperating witness is open to question, the governments case can go straight down the drain.

The New York Times reported that the prosecution of two former JPMorgan Chase traders, Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout, involved in transactions that culminated in 2012 in over $6 billion in losses for the bank, ended last Friday when the Justice Department announced it was dropping the case. Called a nolle prosequi motion, which means to be unwilling to pursue, prosecutors told the Federal District Court in Manhattan that Bruno Iksil, the major witness involved in the trades, who received the nickname London Whale for the outsize bets, was no longer a reliable witness.

Mr. Iksil created a website called London Whale Marionette to give his version of what happened, stating that this account looks quite different from the testimonies that I gave to the authorities. His admission that previous statements may not be accurate was certain to provide defense lawyers fodder for cross-examination to undermine his credibility if the case went to trial.

Whether that was ever going to happen was another question about the case. The Justice Department acknowledged in its motion that it was unable to extradite the two defendants from their home countries, Spain and France, so long as they stayed away from a nation that would send them to the United States.

Blaming Mr. Iksils commentary as the reason for dismissal could be a convenient face-saving means to drop a prosecution that was never going to reach the courtroom. The indictment of Mr. Martin-Artajo and Mr. Grout had languished since 2013, and the charges never reached anyone in JPMorgans senior management, despite Mr. Iksils claims that those well above him encouraged the risky trading. The bank paid out $920 million to settle multiple civil investigations of how it reported its losses.

The demise of the Libor and London Whale prosecutions shows how difficult it is for federal prosecutors to pursue charges in cases that reach across markets and involve defendants acting largely outside the United States.

One byproduct may be that the Justice Department will be more hesitant when it seeks to hold individuals responsible for misconduct by global financial companies, raising the prospect of even less accountability for corporate wrongdoing.

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Libor and London Whale Cases Show Hurdles With Foreign Defendants - New York Times

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