Alleged Ringleader of UFC Terrorist Plot is a Mexican Illegal Alien

Release Date: June 18, 2026


This illegal alien was granted DACA by the Obama Administration

WASHINGTON – The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the following statement announcing that the suspected ringleader of the failed terrorist plot against UFC Freedom 250 is a Mexican illegal alien who overstayed a B2 visitor visa.

According to local reporting, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, a Mexican illegal alien, in Omaha, Nebraska on June 14, for his alleged involvement in the plot to carry out a mass-casualty attack against government officials and other attendees at Sunday’s event at the White House. Four other co-conspirators were arrested over the weekend in Ohio, Missouri, and California.

Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez

On June 16, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced federal charges for the five suspects, including Alvarez, who went by the alias “Shepherd.” The FBI assessed that Alvarez was responsible for planning, organizing, and directing the planned attack. Alvarez detailed the plot in an encrypted group chat, including the planned use of “counter sniper(s) and drones,” with the explicit intention of being “as deadly as we can get.”

Alvarez and his co-conspirators face federal charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has lodged a detainer for Alvarez.

“This illegal alien from Mexico should never have been allowed in our country. He was the ringleader of a failed terror attack targeting UFC Freedom 250 at the White House,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “He and his co-conspirators now face charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit violence on White House grounds. He will face justice and swiftly be removed from our country.”

Alvarez entered the United States on a B2 visitor visa and failed to depart before it expired in December 2001. The Obama Administration granted him Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2014.

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Minnesota fraud: Authorities arrest suspect who jumped from balcony

 

 

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Pressure on DOJ to prosecute Anthony Fauci grows after adviser indicted—with days left to charge COVID ‘lies’

By
Steven Nelson
Published April 28, 2026, 6:41 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The indictment of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s former adviser David Morens Tuesday revived calls for the Justice Department to prosecute Fauci himself for allegedly lying to Congress about funding risky research in China before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just two weeks remain before the five-year legal deadline on May 11 to indict Fauci for denying under oath that he funded “gain of function” experiments that modified bat coronaviruses in the same city where the pandemic started.

Morens, 78, was charged with one count of conspiracy, two counts of destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations and two counts of concealment, removal, or mutilation of records relating to the origins of COVID-19. He faces up to 51 years in prison.

  

Dr. Anthony Fauci allegedly lied to Congress in 2021 about funding gain of function research.Getty Images

Critics say Fauci, 85, bears the most responsibility and that he should be hauled into court.

Trump told The Post in a phone interview on March 31 that he intended to “look into” Fauci’s status and Republicans say they believe acting attorney general Todd Blanche, who is seeking the role permanently, might be willing to test Trump’s assertion that former President Joe Biden’s preemptive autopen pardons, including for Fauci, are invalid.

“99% of this country has no idea who Morens is,” said Oversight Project President Mike Howell.

“It’s Fauci that they will blame for one of the worst government catastrophes in history in America. And so the test is Fauci. The Morens indictment is great, and we applaud it. But there are a lot of people out there that want to see Fauci held to account for the damage he wrought.”

Howell, whose group sent the Justice Department a draft indictment for Morens last year, believes the adviser’s actions were closely linked to his boss.

“[Fauci] lied about one of the most damaging events in American history routinely and was behind a massive coverup of the key factors,” Howell said.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), to whom Fauci allegedly lied, told The Post that “we’ve been looking through a lot of information on this for the last year or so. The Trump administration has been much more forthcoming than the Biden administration ever was.”

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Snowden: I Left the NSA Clues, But They Couldn’t Find Them

BY ANDY GREENBERG
08.13.14 |
7:00 AM |




Platon

If the NSA still doesn’t know the full extent of the greatest leak of secrets in its history, it’s not because of Edward Snowden’s attempts to cover his tracks. On the contrary, the NSA’s most prolific whistleblower now claims he purposefully left a trail of digital bread crumbs designed to lead the agency directly to the files he’d copied.

In a WIRED interview published today, the 31-year-old megaleaker has revealed that he planted hints on NSA networks that were intended to show which of its documents he’d smuggled out among the much larger set he accessed or could have accessed. Those hints, he says, were intended to make clear his role as a whistleblower rather than a foreign spy, and to allow the agency time to minimize the national security risks created by the documents’ public release.

The fact that NSA officials have told the press that his haul may have been as large as 1.7 million documents, says Snowden, is a sign that the agency has either purposely inflated the size of his leak or lacks the forensic skills to see the clues he left for its auditors. “I figured they would have a hard time,” Snowden tells WIRED, describing the agency’s attempts to reverse-engineer his leak. “I didn’t figure they would be completely incapable.”

In a speech late last year, NSA director Keith Alexander said that Snowden had given reporters “between 50,000 and 200,000 documents.” But in later statements to the press, NSA officials have said only that Snowden “accessed” 1.7 million documents, without specifying how much of that access was part of his authorized NSA duties. And Alexander also admitted in an interview after his resignation that the NSA still doesn’t know the full extent of Snowden’s leak. Indeed, an agency official said in a 60 Minutes interview that its post-leak investigation removed from the NSA’s classified network every computer Snowden could have ever accessed, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, for fear that he might have planted spyware on the machines for future data collection.

That image of Snowden as a stealthy spy contrasts sharply with Snowden’s own depiction of his leaking actions. As journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote in his book No Place To Hide, Snowden claims he could have left no trace on the NSA’s network due to its lack of audit controls. But he said he instead left behind some “footprints” to show NSA investigators that he had acted alone and to prevent suspicion of his coworkers.

Snowden’s new claims go further: That he intended those footprints to outline exactly what he’d taken. In addition to shedding light on his motives, Snowden says he meant the clues to allow the NSA to avoid collateral damage from his leaks, changing codenames and plans to anticipate the release of some of its most sensitive secrets.

The repetition of the 1.7 million number by political figures and the press is at least partly intended to mischaracterize Snowden’s intentions, argues his lawyer Jesselyn Radack, who is also national security director for the whistleblower-focused Government Accountability Project. “I think they probably didn’t spot the bread crumbs,” she says of the NSA’s investigators. “Even if they did get them, I think this [1.7 million] number is manufactured out of whole cloth to give the impression of a wholesale data dump. In fact, Ed very carefully selected exactly what he wanted to turn over and why.”

When WIRED asked an NSA spokesperson to comment on Snowden’s new claims or its internal estimate of the size of his leak, spokesperson Vanee Vines responded with this statement: “If Mr. Snowden wants to discuss his activities, that conversation should be held with the U.S. Department of Justice. He needs to return to the United States to face the charges against him.”

In a followup inquiry through his ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner, Snowden wouldn’t offer any more details on how exactly he left his network bread crumbs for the NSA or the real total number of documents he took. In forensic analyses of a typical computer network, a leaker’s behavior could be found in everything from logs kept by network monitoring tools to changes in operating system files like Windows’ system registry, which can be analyzed to show what documents a user has opened.

Despite his early intention to make the NSA aware of the scope of his data theft, Snowden may have good reason to now keep the extent of his leaks secret. That knowledge could serve as an important bargaining chip if Snowden seeks to return to the U.S. and negotiate a plea deal, an option he’s hinted at exploring.

In the meantime, Snowden tells WIRED—perhaps with a certain amount of schadenfreude—that the government’s overestimation of the size of his leak has left it to imagine the worst. “I think they think there’s a smoking gun in there that would be the death of them all politically,” Snowden says. “The fact that the government’s investigation failed—that they don’t know what was taken and that they keep throwing out these ridiculous huge numbers—implies to me that somewhere in their damage assessment they must have seen something that was like, ‘Holy shit.’ And they think it’s still out there.”

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Senate Report Shows CIA Torture Ineffective

 

A Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation” is poised to elevate hostility between the two groups into an all-out war.


By Frederick Reese @FrederickReese | April 2, 2014
 



Protestors demonstrate the use of water boarding to volunteer Maboud Ebrahim Zadeh, Monday, Nov. 5, 2007, in front of the Justice Department in Washington. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)


In recent months, the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee have been in a perceived state of hostility. A disagreement over the CIA’s handling of the “enhanced interrogation” program under former President George W. Bush has evolved into a rare fight between a federal agency and its oversight board. The escalation of harsh words and allegations — including the Intelligence Committee accusing the CIA of illegal spying on, and hacking into the computers of the committee and vice versa — has turned the investigation into allegations of George W. Bush-era torture into an embarrassment for both the Democrat-ran Senate and the Obama White House.

A 6,300-page Senate Intelligence Committee report is set to add fuel to this spreading fire. As reported by The Washington Post, the classified, recently-concluded report alleges that the CIA knowingly misled the government and the American people about the severity and effectiveness of the “enhanced interrogation” program. The agency allegedly took credit for intelligence obtained without the use of “enhanced interrogation” and overstated the importance of information that “enhanced interrogation” did manage to extract.

“The CIA described [its program] repeatedly both to the Department of Justice and eventually to Congress as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives,” one U.S. official briefed on the report told The Washington Post. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the classified nature of the report. “Was that actually true? The answer is no.”

However, with the committee stating that it does not seek any administrative or criminal inquiries based on the findings of the report, and considering that the administration has already closed the door on seeking culpability in the question of the use of “enhanced interrogation,” the question begs to be asked: What is the net result of this investigation?

As this report will likely reignite the debate on the use of torture, it will also likely create a screaming match this election year between Republicans defending the actions of the last Republican president and Democrats defending their rationale for not prosecuting these “crimes against humanity.”


“Enhanced interrogations”

“Enhanced interrogations” refer to a set of interrogation methods involving torturous or physically- and mentally-stressing activities to coerce cooperation. It includes tactics such as inducing hypothermia, waterboarding and stress positioning, or positioning the body in such a way that extraordinary weight is supported by just one or two muscle groups, as in forcing someone to stand on the balls of his feet and making him squat low to the ground.

Waterboarding is a form of water torture in which a victim is immobilized on a downward-inclined table with a cloth covering his face while water is poured over the cloth. This triggers the gag reflex and causes the victim to think he is drowning. As the gag reflex can cause the victim to vomit, the procedure is potentially fatal. In World War II, the United States arrested and hanged Japanese soldiers accused of waterboarding, as pointed out by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during a 2007 Republican Presidential Primaries debate.

“Enhanced interrogations” were carried out in “black sites,” or secret detention facilities, spread throughout the Afghan and Iraqi war zones and within allied nations. In 2009, President Obama brought an end to such interrogation activities, and the CIA and the U.S. Department of Defense closed all of the “black sites.” The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report mentions undisclosed acts of terror that do not appear on the U.S. Department of Justice’s approved list of interrogation techniques, such as the repeated dunking of a terrorism suspect in Afghanistan in tanks of ice water.

Torture is recognized as a grave violation of basic human rights and is explicitly prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture and all four of the Geneva Conventions. However, due to the United States’ status as a veto-carrying permanent member of the Security Council, the agency charged with the enforcement of international law, the international community does not have the power to force the U.S. to obey these laws or punish the nation if it breaks them.


Differences in interpretation

Defenders of “enhanced interrogations” point to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida’s propagandist from 1999 to 2001. In 2003, Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in a joint CIA-Pakistan raid. In 2006, Mohammed left CIA custody and was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

According to early reports of the death of Osama bin Laden, news agencies reported that CIA interrogators were able to retrieve the pseudonym of one of bin Laden’s aides from Mohammed and Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Officials from the George W. Bush administration credited this information gathering to “enhanced interrogation.”

However, later reports indicated that waterboarding did not prompt Mohammed to reveal the information. Instead, he gave the information up under standard interrogation months before the military started the procedure. Mohammed’s disclosure occurred three years after the CIA waterboarded him 183 times. The Senate report indicated that the National Security Agency — not the CIA — was the most useful in securing intelligence that led to the death of bin Laden.

While the report’s favoring of the NSA over the CIA may reflect the current politics of the committee, which is trying to justify the NSA’s current surveillance apparatus as being both useful and essential for national security, it still points to the George W. Bush administration’s willingness to use violence to gather information, despite the fact that most experts agree that torture is not an effective means of gathering credible intelligence.

“The defenders of ‘enhanced interrogation’ believe it ‘saved American lives,’ yet never identified which life it saved,” Joseph Wippl, a former CIA officer and currently a professor of the practice of international relations, told MintPress News. “Had it really done so, I am confident that person or persons would have been identified.

“The debate about whether enhanced interrogation was effective against terrorists is the wrong debate. What if it was effective? Would you still engage in methods defined as torture — that is, ‘cruel, inhumane, degrading?’ Those methods of enhanced interrogation which can be defined as torture are wrong, even if justified by Justice Department memorandum, under all circumstances — even at the expense of American lives.”


Making amends

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been working to expose the “enhanced interrogation” program, argues that the Obama administration must do four things in order to redress the fact that the U.S. submitted to the use of torture: fully investigate the use of torture and kidnapping by the federal government and prosecute those responsible; release the records documenting the planning and approval of the program; honor and pardon those service members that objected to the use of torture; and publicly apologize for what has happened and duly compensate the victims and their families. While there is no indication that the administration will agree to every term dictated by the ACLU, there are signs that the White House seeks disclosure on this issue.

“There needs to be a further accounting of what took place during this period, I think for Congress to examine ways that it can be done in a bipartisan fashion, outside of the typical hearing process that can sometimes break down and break it entirely along party lines, to the extent that there are independent participants who are above reproach and have credibility, that would probably be a more sensible approach to take,” President Obama said on April 21, 2009.

With the Senate Intelligence Committee set to vote Thursday on whether the report should be sent to the White House for declassification, this report may be the first step in the nation’s reconciliation with its use of torture. However, with the CIA fervently refuting its accounting, the report is more likely to result in in-fighting and political arguments than healing.


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Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice

David Burnham
Above the Law: Secret Deals, Political Fixes, and Other Misadventures of the U.S. Department of Justice
Scribner, 1996
ISBN 0-684-80699-1
444 pages, $27.50 hb.
Reviewed by Gary McGath
This review copyright 1996 by Gary McGath


The Department of Justice wields a great amount of power; and as our government as a whole grows more powerful and abusive of our liberties, it is only to be expected that many of these abuses will be found in its law enforcement apparatus. David Burnham has provided an illuminating account of some of these abuses.

Burnham's political sympathies clearly lie toward the left side of the conventional political spectrum, but he addresses his subject matter with a minimum of bias. For example, in discussing the Senate's investigation of Watergate, he points out that previous Presidents, notably Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, had also made use of the FBI for their own political purposes, obtaining background checks on their opponents and leaking information to influence campaigns.

Some of Burnham's views are disturbing. For instance, he notes that two-thirds of the corporations in a survey violated environmental laws, in the opinion of their own lawyers; but rather than thinking that there might be something wrong with a system of laws which makes the large majority of the affected parties criminals, he appears to take this as evidence that not enough businesses are being prosecuted. But the fact that Burnham provides enough facts to support arguments against his own conclusions does illustrate his thoroughness.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations come under scrutiny. Burnham condemns Jimmy Carter's orders to expel Iranian students en masse and Bill Clinton's exploitation of the Oklahoma City bombing to promote "antiterrorism" legislation which "had very little to do with terrorism," as well as Ronald Reagan's alleged violation of tax laws and Richard Nixon's many manipulations. And he gives credit where due to Republican actions, such as Rep. Henry Hyde's strong opposition to the excesses of civil forfeiture. (Yes, this is the same Hyde who wrote language into the Telecommunications Act outlawing the posting of information about abortion. His name seems eerily appropriate.)

The discussion of the FBI's attempts to increase its surveillance capabilities and reduce the privacy of citizens will be of special interest to most of the online readers of this review. Burnham discusses the efforts to make the key-escrowed Clipper chip the de facto standard for encryption, Louis Freeh's campaign to outlaw strong encryption and obtain a vast expansion of federal wiretapping capability, and the sweeping use of telephone call logs to gain information on anyone who calls or is called by a suspect. The book argues that Freeh has used distorted statistics to make the crime problem look worse than it is; while its does not directly tie this to Freeh's claims that encryption will frustrate legitimate law enforcement efforts, the material in the book provides at least a starting point for casting doubt on the FBI chief's arguments.

In discussing the War on Drugs, Burnham takes a conventional liberal position; he does not dispute the legitimacy of laws criminalizing people's choice to ingest certain substances, but he recognizes that the enforcement of anti-drug laws is ineffective in stopping drug abuse, especially harsh on some ethnic groups, and often detrimental to people's liberties. He notes that intensive anti-drug efforts have often let crimes against people increase by diverting enforcement resources. He also points out the rapidly growing cost to the taxpayer: "For the Justice Department alone, spending for drug-control purposes has grown at an astonishing pace, increasing more than eleven times, from $360 million in 1981 to slightly more than $4 billion in 1994."

The current Attorney General also comes in for criticism; for example, Burnham notes that Janet Reno has spoken in favor of arbitrary sentencing disparities in drug laws and has defended the practice of seizing the assets of people who have not been convicted of any crime. Curiously, there is no mention of the Waco siege, although other examples of stormtrooper justice are cited.

Above the Law is heavy but rewarding reading for those who want to learn more about how the growth of government power has injured our liberties. While I do not agree with all of Burnham's conclusions, I think he has presented a compelling and well-documented case that the government officials who are charged with protecting us from crime are often the ones from whom we are most in need of protection.


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Trawl the Net, says Congress report on U.S. security clearances

By Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON Tue Feb 11, 2014 10:25am EST




The Capitol building is seen before U.S. President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address in front of the U.S. Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington January 28, 2014.
Credit: Reuters/Gary Cameron



Related Topics

U.S. »
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(Reuters) - The U.S. security clearance process that failed to flag former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden and the Washington Navy Yard shooter needs reforms as simple as letting investigators use the Internet and forcing local law enforcement to cooperate, a congressional report said on Tuesday.

The report suggested federal investigators be allowed to tap tools ordinary Americans use to find out about a specific person: Facebook, Twitter and Google.

The Office of Personnel Management's Investigative Handbook, updated in 2007, places an almost blanket restriction on Internet use, it said, but social media and search sites "contain a treasure trove of information about their users".

"Congress should force OPM's investigative practices into the 21st century by allowing investigators to use the Internet and social media sources in particular for the first time," it said.

The report was compiled by the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee and reflected closer government scrutiny of the security clearance process and the contractors who carry it out. The report was released before a committee hearing with key figures in the security process.

It was triggered by last September's killings of 12 people at the Navy Yard. Shooter Aaron Alexis was a Defense Department contract employee who received a "secret" clearance in 2008 despite his involvement in a series of violent incidents and his erratic behavior.

Last month, the Justice Department accused United States Investigations Services, the largest private provider of security checks for the government, of bilking the government of millions of dollars through improper background checks.

USIS vetted both Alexis and Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who disclosed secrets about U.S. government surveillance before taking refuge in Russia.

The House committee report said Congress had a responsibility to determine how Alexis got clearance despite red flags, which included a warning from his mother to his employer that Alexis had "a history of paranoid episodes and most likely needed therapy.

Much of Alexis' background information was not passed on to the adjudicator who granted his clearance, the report said. Specifically, his 2004 arrest was not included in the Office of Personnel Management's background investigative file that went to the Navy, which ultimately granted him clearance twice.

MORE REGULAR CHECKS NEEDED

The committee, led by Republican U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, said legislative fixes it was considering included requiring continuous evaluation of clearances, which now have to be re-evaluated every five or 10 years.

It also proposed giving government greater access to the mental health information of people holding clearances and ensuring local law enforcement offices fulfill their obligation to provide specific information to background investigators.

The report said local police departments are now required by law to cooperate in federal security clearance investigations, but more than 450 offices around the country do not, including New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

The OPM is in charge of background investigations for security clearances for non-intelligence personnel. Information compiled by OPM and its contractors is relayed to the agency that requested clearance, which decides whether to grant it.

In prepared testimony before the committee, OPM Director Katherine Archuleta, who has been in the job three months, said that last week she ordered the quality review process be done only by federal employees, not contract workers.

"We no longer will have contractors participating in our ongoing final federally controlled quality review process," she said.

The Justice Department lawsuit said USIS failed to perform quality control reviews of its background investigations.

The new CEO of USIS, which said it is cooperating with the government, tried to minimize contractors' role.

"It is critical to recognize that USIS and OPM's other contractors have no role in deciding whether an individual actually receives or retains a security clearance," Sterling Phillips said in prepared testimony. "We only collect and report information and we do not even make a recommendation."

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by David Storey and James Dalgleish)


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Justice Department will advocate for same-sex couples' rights, Holder says

Faith Compiled by Mark Kellner

Monday, February 10, 2014



WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice beginning Monday will instruct its employees nationwide to apply the same protections and privileges to spouses in same-sex marriages as they do to heterosexual marriages, regardless of how a given state might view those relationships.

Addressing the Human Rights Campaign's annual gala in New York City Sunday night, Attorney General Eric Holder said: "This means that, in every courthouse, in every proceeding, and in every place where a member of the Department of Justice stands on behalf of the United States — they will strive to ensure that same-sex marriages receive the same privileges, protections and rights as opposite-sex marriages under federal law."

In practical terms, this would mean same-sex spouses could not be compelled to testify against each other, such couples could jointly file for bankruptcy, and would have the same prison visitation and furlough rights as traditionally married couples now have, reported David Sherfinski in The Washington Times.

Sherfinski also quoted Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., who, speaking on CBS, said the move "appears to be another example of the Obama administration imposing its will on the states. It could be an issue for other states that are having this debate or have made different policy decisions."

Holder said his actions stem from the Windsor decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which in June overturned several sections of the 1993 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. Earlier, Holder and President Obama said the Justice Department would no longer defend DOMA before the high court, believing the measure to be unconstitutional.

The move drew a positive response from HRC President Chad Griffin, who said in a statement: "This landmark announcement will change the lives of countless committed gay and lesbian couples for the better. While the immediate effect of these policy decisions is that all married gay couples will be treated equally under the law, the long-term effects are more profound."

Those "profound" effects didn't warm the hearts of traditional marriage advocates, however.

"While the Supreme Court's ruling in the Windsor case last summer required the federal government to recognize such unions in states which also recognize them, the Court was conspicuously silent on the status of such couples when they reside in a state which considers them unmarried. The Obama administration's haste to nevertheless recognize such unions in every state actually runs counter to the Windsor decision's emphasis on the federal government's obligation to defer to state definitions of marriage," said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins in a statement released by the group.

Perkins' statement also called for activists to support the State Marriage Defense Act of 2014, introduced by Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas. The bill currently has 51 co-sponsors and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee for action on Jan. 9. Weber's bill would prohibit moves such as those envisioned by Holder in those state that do not recognize same-sex marriages.

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, released a statement blasting the move: "The American public needs to realize how egregious and how dangerous these usurpations are and how far-reaching the implications can be. The changes being proposed here to a process as universally relevant as the criminal justice system serve as a potent reminder of why it is simply a lie to say that redefining marriage doesn't affect everyone in society."



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INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble Visits INTERPOL Washington

April 11, 2013


On April 9-10, 2013, INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald Noble visited INTERPOL Washington, the United States National Central Bureau. Mr. Noble is the first United States citizen to hold the position of INTERPOL Secretary General and the youngest in the history of INTERPOL. Mr. Noble's visit signified the vital partnership between INTERPOL and the United States in the increasingly globalized effort to combat transnational crime. During Mr. Noble's visit, INTERPOL Washington Director Shawn Bray stated that "The fact that both INTERPOL President Ballestrazzi and Secretary General Noble took the initiative to visit our office during the past month was very significant for us. Mr. Noble was very supportive of the work that we do and even took the time to personally thank our staff individually."

In addition to Mr. Noble's visit to INTERPOL Washington, he also delivered the keynote address at the third annual International Engagement on Cyber conference at Georgetown University. Mr. Noble addressed the threat of cybercrime stating that it often "originates in one country, is aided in another, and felt in a third" which is "the reason why countries and their law enforcement have looked to INTERPOL." INTERPOL offers tools and resources, as well as a network of over 190 National Central Bureaus all over the world to put an end to transnational crime. Mr. Noble also noted INTERPOL's new International Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) that recently broke ground in Singapore. The IGCI will expressly address cyber security issues and build capacity in combating digital crime. Attendees of the conference varied from military to academia, from members of the intelligence community to cyber technology leaders.

Following his keynote address, Mr. Noble also met with recently-elected INTERPOL Vice President of the Americas region, Alan Bersin. A U.S. citizen, Mr. Bersin serves as the Assistant Secretary of International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Pictured below is Secretary General Noble, Vice President of the Americas Region Bersin, and INTERPOL Washington Director Bray following the conference at Georgetown University.

Source: http://www.justice.gov/interpol-washington/news.html#apr1113a

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Sarah Palin: Fire Eric Holder

CyHawkThoughts: Week 11 In Honor of America’s Veterans

Posted by Guest Posts .
Nov 10, 2011.

By Sarah Palin

It’s tempting to get distracted with the horse race aspect of electoral politics during a primary season. But as pundits talk about “who’s up and who’s down” in the 24 hour news cycle, we must keep our eye on the ball with the Obama administration. They rely on distraction to skirt responsibility, but we’re going to hold them accountable for their corruption and incompetence.

When the stories about Operation Fast and Furious first broke, it sounded too crazy even for this administration.

Why would any government official with an ounce of common sense think it’s a good idea to facilitate the smuggling of thousands of guns into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels? That’s what Operation Fast and Furious did.

You might think Eric Holder’s Department of Justice was setting up a sting operation in which our federal agents would swoop down and arrest the bad guys the minute the guns traded hands. But that’s not what happened. Eric Holder’s DOJ had American gun dealers sell weapons to “straw purchasers” tied to drug cartels without actually following the movement of the guns as they were then sold to Mexican drug lords. They apparently thought this so-called “gun-walking” operation would help them chart the path of gun smuggling, but they didn’t have a plan to actually control the weapons’ movements as the guns were allowed to “walk” into Mexico. All Holder’s DOJ did was arm violent criminals. What manner of fools do we have working in this administration? What’s next? Supplying nuclear weapons components to the Iranians so we can track their activities?

Fast and Furious isn’t just your typical government incompetence. This is a deadly tragedy. U.S. border agent Brian Terry was gunned down with weapons connected to Holder’s debacle. At least 200 Mexican citizens were also killed by criminals using Fast and Furious weapons. We can only imagine how many more people will be murdered by criminals our government armed.

When an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives blew the whistle on this operation, the DOJ leaked sensitive information about him to the press. This week, the former U.S. Attorney for Arizona, who was ousted in the wake of the scandal, admitted to being the leaker.

And where is President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder in all of this? When did he first know about the operation? In his testimony to the House Oversight Committee on May 3, 2011, Holder stated, “I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.” But the DOJ’s own documents prove that Holder had been receiving briefings on Fast and Furious for nearly a year before that date. In other words, our government’s top law enforcement official, Eric Holder, lied to the American public. He finally admitted this week to the Senate Judiciary Committee, “In my testimony before the House committee [on May 3], I did say a few weeks. I probably could have said a couple of months. What I said about a few weeks was inaccurate based on what happened.”

When the nation’s highest law enforcement official lies to the American people, he must go.

And if he claims that he didn’t lie, then how else do we explain this situation? He’s either lying or he’s so grossly incompetent and lazy that he didn’t read important life and death briefings from his deputy attorney general and didn’t know about this deadly operation run by people under him. So, which is it? Incompetent, lazy, or lying? No matter which explanation fits, he needs to go.

Holder conceded this week, “I have ultimate responsibility for what happens in the department.” He can prove it by resigning. And if he refuses to resign, then President Obama – with whom the bucks ultimately stop – can prove that he respects honesty, transparency, and accountability in his administration by firing Holder.

I stand with the members of Congress who are calling for Holder’s resignation. I stand with the family members of Brian Terry who are demanding transparency and accountability. Mr. President, where do you stand?


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McCain calls for Holder, Napolitano, Jones to testify about Gunwalker under Oath

It isn’t just the House Oversight Committee that has focused on the Gunwalker fiasco. Arizona Senator John McCain has called for an investigation from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, putting Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric Holder and the new acting ATF director under oath.

In a letter sent Wednesday, McCain said additional information released about the operation last week warrants a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, of which McCain is a member.

“The committee should hold a meeting as soon as possible to examine these new revelations and determine what additional measures are needed to help prevent this type of malfeasance from occurring again,” McCain wrote in a letter addressed to Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The veteran Arizona Senator is asking for the committee to call the U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder; the Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; and the ATF’s acting director, B. Todd Jones; as witnesses.

Before taking over for Ken Melson, Jones was briefed on Operation Fast and Furious, and may be just as complicit in allowing the operation to go on as DOJ officials.

This is going to get real ugly, real fast, for the Obama Administration.

Posted at 4:58 pm on September 7th, 2011 by

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ATF's 'Fast and Furious' firearms tracked to at least 11 violent crimes

Bill Newell, special agent in charge of ATF Phoenix, speaks behind a cache of seized weapons in Phoenix. The ATF is under fire over a Phoenix-based gun-trafficking investigation called "Fast and Furious," in which agents allowed hundreds of guns into the hands of straw purchasers in hopes of making a bigger case. (Matt York / Associated Press / January 25, 2011)


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By Richard A. Serrano

August 16, 2011, 3:11 p.m.

Firearms illegally trafficked under the ATF’s Fast and Furious program turned up at the scenes of at least 11 “violent crimes” in this country in addition to being involved in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona last year, the Justice Department has acknowledged to Congress.

Although Justice did not provide any details about those crime scenes, it has been learned that the additional violent crimes occurred in cities such as Phoenix, where Operation Fast and Furious was managed, and as far away as El Paso, Texas, where a total of 42 Fast and Furious weapons were seized in two separate crimes.

The new numbers, which vastly broaden the scope of the danger the program posed to U.S. citizens over a 14-month period, are contained in a letter Justice Department officials turned over last month to Senate Judiciary Committee members.

Documents: Fast and Furious paper trail

In the letter, obtained Tuesday by The Times, Justice officials also reported that ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson “likely became aware” of Fast and Furious as early as December 2009, a month after the program began, and not after January of this year, as he had said. The July 22 letter was signed by Assistant Atty. Gen. Ronald Weich and sent to Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. It was in response to questions posed to the Justice Department about Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder and Fast and Furious.

Justice officials were asked how many “violent crime” scenes turned up more Fast and Furious weapons besides the two semiautomatics found after Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry’s slaying last December.

They responded that while the “ATF does not have complete information” on the whereabouts of all the lost guns, “it is our understanding that ATF is aware of 11 instances” where a Fast and Furious firearm “was recovered in connection with a crime of violence in the United States.”

Justice officials did not respond. But a source close to the unfolding controversy said that as early as January 2010, just after the operation was underway, Fast and Furious weapons turned up at crime scenes in Phoenix, Nogales, Douglas and Glendale in Arizona, and in El Paso. The largest haul was 40 Fast and Furious weapons at one crime scene in El Paso.


Documents: Fast and Furious paper trail

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