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    Discredited Ex-CISA Chief Says Election Lies and Denial a ‘Risk to Democracy

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    Missvain, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – Apparently now to flailing Democrats, everything is a ‘threat to democracy.’ So much so that Chris Krebs, the discredited former head of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is joining the liberal chorus.

    He simply replaced the term ‘threat’ with ‘risk.’

    “Threat to democracy’ is the Democrats’ 2022 version of ‘Russia collusion.’

    Recall that Krebs was fired by then-President Trump in 2020 after Krebs, without any way to confirm, stated that the 2020 election was the “most secure” ever. 

    CISA is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is tasked with“strengthening cybersecurity and infrastructure protection across all levels of government.”

    However, while it plays a role in elections, and coordinates with the states, it is not the ultimate arbiter of whether election fraud occurred, or whether there were irregularities.

    There is no ultimate arbiter of that, except maybe the American people.

    Regardless, Krebs is now joining Team Biden in wailing about the ‘risk to democracy’ posed by Trump, his supporters, and many GOP politicians.

    During a Washington Post Live event on Monday, Krebs said that election-related falsehoods and misinformation represent “a tactical and strategic risk to democracy,” citing the number of election denialists running for statewide offices that “have the ability to determine the certification of the 2024 election,” as well as the chilling effect that election-related lies can have on voter turnout. 

    As Defense One reports:

    Krebs said that lies about the 2020 midterm elections—as well as falsehoods about the accuracy of the midterm elections—exist, because “it’s a great fundraising mechanism” for the former president, his allies and political candidates, and also because “it’s a great clout-chasing mechanism.”

    “It’s a benefit to them from an incentive perspective,” Krebs added. “And I think the real harm is that it is shifting the Overton window, it’s shifting what’s politically acceptable in American political discourse into something that’s much more dangerous and much more violent.”

    To combat these claims, Krebs said it’s important for Republican lawmakers, in particular, to speak truthfully about the voting process and election security. 

    Some of what he says is valid, and I do agree with Krebs’ last point; something Democrats ignore as they push for government efforts to quash free speech.

    The best way to combat false claims by politicians (a constant for millennia, but now called ‘disinformation’), is by counterarguments. 

    This is the essence of America’s democracy – the marketplace of ideas.

    While I believe we must ensure our elections are secure, this involves far more than worrying about, or demonizing free speech as so-called ‘disinformation.’

    It involves election integrity of the voting process, mail-in ballots, voter ID, and a range of other concrete issues Democrats ignore, rebuff, and refuse to address.

    And yes, there are foreign threats to America’s elections, such as Russian and Chinese hacking and influence operations, which I have repeatedly noted, and these should also be a primary focus of our federal government. 

    As Krebs added: “We’ve seen reports lately of Russia, China, and Iran back at their old tricks, and it is going to create a very chaotic environment.” 

    Indeed, Mr. Krebs.

    That too is a ‘risk to our democracy, and it is where the government can have the most impact in securing our elections without unconstitutionally targeting Americans or their freedom of speech.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Amanda Head: Are You on the #TrumpTrain for 2024?

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0

    Donald Trump officially kicked off this third presidential campaign while delivering a speech Tuesday evening from his Mar-a-Lago resort.

    Are you all in on Trump 2024 or keeping your options open?

    Watch Amanda break it down below.

    Woke Pentagon Brass and Media Cheer Tucker Carlson’s Exit

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – I rarely watch TV news. And I didn’t always agree with Tucker Carlson. Sometimes I strongly disagreed – such as on Russia. 

    But I often did agree. 

    And he challenged the left AND the GOP establishment every night on Fox.

    He will be missed.

    He also challenged the woke leadership at the Pentagon. And for that he should be greatly applauded.

    Carlson was never anti-military. 

    On the contrary, he was opposed to its current emasculation by Joe Biden and his team. Carlson was also opposed to the divisive, destructive, and subversive neo-Marxist ideology being imposed on our troops.

    Sadly, the lefty spinmeisters in the media and those same leftist ideologues, partisan hacks, and simply misguided folks at the Department of Defense (DoD) keep trying to paint a different picture.

    Politico’s Lara Seligman tries to paint Carlson as anti-military by conflating his criticism of the woke brass with the entire armed forces. In her piece, ‘Good riddance’: Pentagon officials cheer Tucker Carlson’s ouster, she writes:

    From maternity flight suits to diversity policies to Ukraine aid, the military was a favorite punching bag for Tucker Carlson. Now that he’s off the air, some Pentagon officials are quietly cheering his departure.

    Her flawed journalism is also obvious as she mostly quotes a couple of unnamed (likely Biden Pentagon appointee) sources.

    Per her two “DoD officials”: 

    “We’re a better country without him bagging on our military every night in front of hundreds of thousands of people,” said one senior DoD official, who like others interviewed for this story was granted anonymity to discuss a politically sensitive topic.

    “Good riddance,” said a second DoD official.

    Seligman goes on to quote these unnamed sources, writing:

    Carlson “made a mockery” of the free press and “repeatedly cherry-picked department policies and used them to destroy DoD as an institution,” said the first senior DoD official.

    What nonsense. The leftist ideologies in charge are the ones destroying DoD, not a cable TV talk show host.

    Still, she voids most of her own reporting when she admits that most of the American military agreed with Carlson, and it’s the Pentagon leadership that is grossly out of touch:

    Carlson’s criticism of Biden-era personnel policies appealed to many of the rank-and-file, which has a large bloc of conservative members. But at the upper levels of the Defense Department, news of Carlson’s firing from Fox News on Monday was met with delight and outright glee in some corners.

    Then there is the un-self-aware liberal executive editor of Defense One, Kevin Baron, who never served in the military, who absurdly claimed “Tucker Carlson Helped Turn Americans Against the Military.”He writes: “For all the ways Tucker Carlson left his mark on U.S. politics, few are as startling as helping to turn right-wingers against the troops they once revered.”He also ignorantly called the notoriously independent Carlson a “partisan firebrand” when he criticized GOP establishment politicians almost as much as the left.

    Well, I can tell Baron that, as one of those ‘right wingers’ who still reveres the troops – and was once one of them – he is a lefty ideologue. 

    And sadly, Baron doesn’t realize it.

    That makes him a biased, partisan journalist who tries to appear not to be.

    Every point he makes is suffused with his anti-Trump rancor and lefty disdain. And many of his arguments are unsupportable, false, or make the opposite case.

    Baron writes:

    Right-wing scholars and editorial boards interpreted the data to say that Biden’s “woke” policies were to blame, noting that half of respondents said it was a contributing factor. But that ignores the partisan cross-section: 68% of Trump voters were more upset about wokeness, while just 44% of Biden voters were. That’s the Carlson effect.

    Well, that gives a cable TV talk show host with 3 million viewers a lot of sway in a country of 330 million and a dozen liberal media outlets that reach many tens of million.

    But Baron best undermines his own case most when he concludes:

    The most recent Reagan Forum poll found that 80% of Biden voters and 83% of Trump voters said they still have either “a great deal” or “some” confidence in the U.S. military. That shows that even his audience knows the difference between the performance art of partisanship and the apolitical service to one’s country. 

    Yes, Mr. Baron, we absolutely understand. Sadly, you clearly don’t.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Pentagon Warns Biden’s Offshore Wind Farms Are National Security Risk

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Joe Biden has made his radical ‘green’ climate agenda a centerpiece of his administration. He even had his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the rest of his security team make it a national defense priority, superseding in some ways, China, Russia, and terrorism.  

    A lot of Biden’s agenda is pushed by radical leftist activists, but the green energy industry is an increasingly wealthy and powerful lobby.

    And they operate hand in hand.

    And Biden’s ‘climate czar,’ John Kerry, is one of its biggest cheerleaders inside the administration.

    Still, it seems reality is now seeping in at the Pentagon as the stuff is hitting the fan. 

    The fan, in this case, is the wind turbine used in vast wind farms throughout the northeast coastal regions of the United States.

    Coincidentally, this is also where a lot of military bases are located, and our air and naval forces operate. 

    And the Department of Defense (DOD) is quietly expressing its frustration and concern with Biden’s expansive climate agenda’s impact on our military operations and American national security.

    Especially the creation of massive wind farms on federally leased waters off the mid-Atlantic coast.

    Some at the Pentagon are even referring to it as a national security risk.

    And Congress must take note and take action.

    Bloomberg reported on Monday that an Oct. 6, 2022 report produced by the U.S. Navy and Air Force, which includes maps highlighting sensitive military zones off the mid-Atlantic coast, was circulated with the energy industry and state officials earlier this month.

    Non-political DOD officials are trying to raise the alarm even as their politicized leadership tows the Team Biden ‘green’ line.

    Of course, political appointees at DOD will downplay any conflict between the Pentagon and Biden’s extreme climate agenda.

    Pentagon spokesperson Kelly Flynn only told Fox News Digital that: “The initial assessment performed by DoD found complicated compatibility challenges with wind turbines near Navy and Air Force training.” 

    “Compatibility challenges” is doublespeak for we can’t put wind farms offshore without damaging our military training and readiness across the entire eastern seaboard.

    While this has been an issue since before Biden, the danger has just been supercharged by the current administration, which refuses to listen or doesn’t care.

    Fox News Digital reminds us of the prior warnings: “The Pentagon’s warning late last year… came years after it similarly warned in 2019 that much of the North Atlantic wind lease planning area was an ‘exclusion zone.’ And a DoD map obtained by that was published in 2018 identified nearly the entire East Coast as “highly problematic” for leasing.”

    Still, Biden and his radical climate cronies in the wind farm industry, such as the American Clean Power Association, a leading industry group representing wind developers, are plowing ahead.

    Bloomberg explained that the new DOD maps show massive acreage cordoned off in federal waters near North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. 

    At least four offshore wind lease areas proposed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) are described as “highly problematic” by DOD, while another two are identified as “requiring further study.”  

    Fox News Digital continued:

    “The Navy has said there is not an area in that whole east block that does not interfere with DoD missions. But BOEM is continuing ahead,” said Meghan Lapp, the fisheries liaison for Rhode Island-based fishing company Seafreeze. “And when I’ve asked them on webinars, ‘The Navy said that this is a problem. How can you still be leasing it?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, well, we’re just going to continue the discussions.'” 

    Well, this is serious stuff, and if the administration won’t listen to its own Defense Department, Congress must get involved.

    Gabriella Hoffman, a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum’s Center for Energy and Conservation, told Fox News Digital: “The Pentagon’s warning about national security implications stemming from offshore wind development on the Atlantic Coast, including proximity to critical Virginia military installations, shouldn’t be dismissed.” 

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    FBI Finally Raids Communist China’s Illegal Police Outpost in NYC

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    8

    ANALYSIS – The fight against China’s growing global network of illegal police outposts has finally heated up here in the United States with the FBI raiding the large Chinese station in New York City (NYC).

    This is the mission the FBI should be focused on, rather than raiding pro-life activists or colluding with Big Tech to censor Americans.

    I’ve written about these extraterritorial Chinese police stations several times, highlighting the ones in NYC, as well as those in Canada and Europe.

    Beijing says these outposts aren’t doing any police work, only helping Chinese citizens abroad, but Chinese state media reports that they in fact “collect intelligence” and solve crimes far outside their jurisdiction.

    But they do far more than that. 

    They are accused of conducting illegal surveillance on legal U.S. residents and citizens of Chinese extraction and intimidating, threatening, and coercing them.

    In some cases, they have reportedly even kidnapped people outside of China.

    According to the New York Times (NYT), the FBI raided the suspected Chinese police outpost, hidden in New York City’s Chinatown last fall, seizing materials from one of the secretive operations for the first time.

    The Chinatown outpost was on the third floor of a six-story office building on a busy street. It was raided by FBI counterintelligence agents working on a criminal investigation with the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

    Of course, as the NYT reports, the Chinese Embassy in Washington downplayed the outposts, claiming they are staffed by volunteers who help Chinese nationals perform routine tasks like renewing their Chinese driver’s licenses.

    Despite the official Chinese denials, the NYT reports, “Western officials see the outposts as part of Beijing’s larger drive to keep tabs on Chinese nationals abroad, including dissidents. The most notorious such effort is known as Operation Fox Hunt, in which Chinese officials hunt down fugitives abroad and pressure them to return home.”

    In October, prosecutors in Brooklyn — the same office that searched the New York office — charged seven Chinese nationals with harassing a U.S. resident and his son, pressuring the man to return to China to face criminal charges.

    As reported by the NYT, “It’s outrageous that China thinks it can come to our shores, conduct illegal operations and bend people here in the United States to their will,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in 2020.

    At least 102 such outposts have been documented in 53 countries in recent months by the human rights group Safeguard Defenders. Wray said in November that he’s “very concerned” about the outposts, which he called “police stations.”

    “It’s a long-arm power to show their own citizens inside China that their government is so strong,” said Safeguard Defenders researcher Chen Yen-ting. “We have the power to reach globally, and even if you go out, you’re still under our control.”

    These outposts are ostensibly set up by local Chinese municipalities or regions. At least four Chinese localities — Fuzhou, Qingtian, Nantong and Wenzhou — have reportedly set up dozens of foreign police outposts in Japan, Italy, France, Britain, Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and other nations.

    These don’t include the ones in Canada and the U.S.

    Let’s hope the FBI keeps up the pressure on illegal Chinese police activity in the U.S., and the State Department gets involved in controlling any Chinese entities and personnel it has allowed to enter and operate on U.S. soil.

    Communist Chinese influence and subversion in the U.S. is the greatest domestic threat we face, not Americans exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Veteran Gun Store Owner Saves Lives by Storing Other Vet’s Firearms

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    Police image via Pixabay free images

    ANALYSIS – Every now and then you see a story that just hits home, and you know you need to write about it and spread the word. This one, reported by CBS News, is absolutely one of them.

    Caleb Morse, 39, an Army combat veteran, set up Rustic Renegade, a gun shop and shooting range in 2018 in Lafayette, Louisiana.

    Morse had served two combat tours in Iraq with the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division Special Troops Battalion, followed by service in the National Guard, and then worked as a military contractor in Iraq for four years.

    One day an Army buddy Morse served with in Iraq showed up at his gun store with his car and his dog. Then he brought a lot of guns inside the store, Morse said, adding: “And I’m like, brother, what are you doing?”

    Morse knew well that often when people, especially combat veterans, start giving away their things, they may be considering suicide. 

    But before Morse could have a chat with his buddy, the vet simply left. And for six months his buddy didn’t answer his phone.

    Meanwhile, Morse decided to hold his friend’s guns at Rustic Renegade in case he ever came back. 

    Thankfully, as CBS News reported:

    …his friend called and explained he had been in a bad spot and wondered where his guns were.  Morse said he told him, “They’re your guns, man. They’re yours, you may want them back. And whenever you’re ready, they’re here for you.

    “More than half of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2022, the CDC reported that 26,993 people died by firearm suicide. Deaths by gun suicide are at an all-time high and have steadily increased, nearly uninterrupted, since 2006 according to researchers at John Hopkins School of Public Health. 

    In the veteran population the problem is acute; in its 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Report, the Department of Veterans Affairs found that the suicide rate in 2020 was 57.3 % greater for veterans.  

    Guns are more commonly involved among veteran suicides, at 71%, than the rest of the population, at 50.3%, according to the CDC.

    Soon after his first buddy chose to drop off his guns with Morse, another veteran came by to do the same, telling Morse that he was “in a bad spot.”

    Morse, who had similarly been very depressed after returning from Iraq, accepted the vet’s gun and decided to set up a system to hold and track guns being left for storage by troubled vets in his store’s inventory, telling them to pick up their firearms when they felt better. 

    Within a year, other veterans dropped off guns “about a dozen times,” CBS reported. Since then, he has stored about 100 firearms.

    Soon after the second vet asked for gun storage, Morse was contacted by Gala True, an associate professor at Louisiana State University School of Medicine who specializes in efforts to prevent veteran suicides.

    According to CBS, she met with Morse in 2021 to work on a project she was coordinating with gun store owners who wanted to store firearm storage for those in crisis who, for a time, didn’t want their firearms in their homes. 

    The Armory Project was launched in Louisiana that same year with three different gun shop owners interested in providing storage for firearms.

    Through a Veterans Administration (VA) grant, True and her team helped the gun dealers build local networks and partnerships.

    Mike Anestis, a suicide prevention expert, professor at Rutgers University, and  Executive director of the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center and a professor at Rutgers University, said that in a country with roughly 400 million guns, the solution can’t be about banning firearms or stopping people from buying them.

    And Anestis is absolutely correct. Voluntary outside storage, like preventing drunk driving by “taking away the car keys,” is a far better solution for preventing suicide by gunshot, than bans that violate our 2nd Amendment rights.

    However, storing guns as part of a gun store’s inventory can cause liability issues.

    So, as CBS reported, in July 2023 the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) got involved (in a good way this time). It issued an open letter to Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL) and gun shops advising how to legally and safely store firearms for these individuals. 

    Providing gun storage lockers at the gun store that individuals can open themselves and put their firearms inside, is one option.

    As the ATF letter states: “In this situation, an FFL does not “receive “or “acquire ” the firearm into its inventory, nor does the FFL assume control of the individual’s firearm.” This can reduce liability for gun shop owners like Morse, who want to provide outside storage for others in need. 

    This is a great idea, and a great story. Look up The Armory Project and see if you can help with the effort in your state, city, or locality.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    We Should Be Talking About Biden Corruption not Trump-Created Drama

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2
    Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Yes, it’s a big deal, that former President Donald Trump has been booked and charged in federal court with 37 counts of violating federal law. And we should be talking about it. 

    It’s definitely not Watergate, but some of the charges, such as obstruction, are similar to those Richard Nixon faced before he resigned in 1974.

    Thirty-one of the counts are for violating the Espionage Act through “willful retention” of classified records. The other six counts include obstruction of justice and false statements stemming from his alleged efforts to impede the investigation. 

    Meanwhile, the media is conveniently ignoring all of Joe Biden’s brewing scandals, which are far worse; even surpassing Watergate.

    We should be talking about Biden corruption, not Trump stubbornness.

    Many Trump loyalists argue that the Trump indictment proves there is a double standard compared to how Biden is being treated. And I would agree. 

    The investigation into Hunter Biden should not have taken five years and still be unresolved.

    That is an outrage.

    And then there are the bribery and foreign influence peddling allegations against Joe Biden himself.

    That should be the big story today. Not Trump’s rants on Truth Social about his latest legal woes.

    Hillary Clinton was also treated with kid gloves by the Justice Department (DOJ) and FBI, even though she destroyed evidence from hard drives and deleted 30,000 emails, some of which may have contained classified information. 

    She got off. That was absolutely wrong.

    If Republican ex-presidents and current presidential candidates are going to be indicted so should Democrat former Secretaries of State running for president. If not, then we have a partisan, two-tiered justice system.

    And I have written about this a lot. But here is where I see things a bit differently.

    We are today talking about Donald Trump and his drama, primarily because of Donald Trump. He did this one mostly to himself.

    Trump could have avoided this criminal legal battle had he simply turned over all classified materials he had in his possession when asked for them over an 18-month period.

    That’s what Joe Biden and former vice president Mike Pence both did when they were discovered to have ‘unknowingly’ kept classified documents after leaving office. They actually turned them over right away. 

    Did Biden do more than that, we don’t really know yet. But neither have been charged with any crimes.

    And Trump was not charged over any materials or records that he returned. Only those he willfully kept.

    Trump first made ludicrous claims about the documents, including that he had declassified them, which he hadn’t. And he fought back in court and delayed and delayed until he was forced to finally give 15 boxes of records to the National Archives and Records Administration.

    But a lot more remained.

    Then he began obstructing and moving the remaining boxes of records, including classified materials at his home in Florida. Despite repeated efforts by the FBI and DOJ to try to get them back, Trump refused.

    And like Watergate, the cover-up is what gets you in trouble.

    That is why the FBI finally raided Mar-a-Lago in August of last year. It was an unprecedented action, which I condemned at the time.

    We have also since learned that the FBI had preferred to continue trying to get Trump’s lawyers to turn over the remaining classified materials and surveil Trump home in case anyone tried to remove materials, but DOJ insisted on the raid.

    Maybe the raid could have been (should have been) avoided, but it was legal. And what the raid uncovered was that Trump had hidden a lot of classified materials in numerous unsecure places in his home.

    Further investigation showed that Trump also had admitted on tape that he didn’t have the authority to declassify documents after leaving office, and that he hadn’t done so prior to leaving. He also reportedly flashed highly classified plans to attack Iran in front of the faces of uncleared persons visiting him.

    None of this is good for Trump or the nation. The classified documents included “defense and weapons capabilities” of the United States and foreign countries. 

    But none of this would have been a legal issue if Trump simply turned over these extremely sensitive national security materials when requested, or at some point over the 18 months in question.

    So, now instead of talking about all of the incredible Biden corruption, we are here again talking about Trump-created drama.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Pentagon Spying on Everything for Bad Comments About Generals

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2
    David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – Big Brother keeps growing – As part of the broader government war against free speech, the Department of Defense (DoD) is now using Orwellian means to search the internet, social media, and just about everything else, for things we say or post.

    And it’s not just for legitimate physical threats against generals, it will also be looking for simple negative comments about our top military leaders.

    And we should all be outraged. This really is scary stuff. This even goes beyond recent reports of the government buying our detailed personal information from data brokers, which I wrote about here.

    The military runs a little-known outfit called the Army Protective Services Battalion under the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID). Think of it as the Pentagon’s Secret Service for generals.

    Its mission specifically falls under CID’s Executive Protection and Special Investigations Field Office. And it has a lot of resources. Its new webpage notes:

    With over 400 assigned special agents, police officers, analysts, physical security specialists, and professional support personnel spread across three continents, the Executive Protection Field Office is the largest office within CID providing worldwide dignitary protection for the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of the Army, Chief of Staff of the Army, and over a dozen other protectees in domestic and overseas locations.

    Executive Protection also protects foreign counterparts during official visits to the United States, along with designated former or retired Department of Defense officials. Army CID’s dignitary protection mission is supported by robust protective intelligence and threat management investigative capabilities. [Emphasis added].

    This perfectly legitimate organization exists to safeguard our senior military brass, as well as foreign brass visiting our country. As part of its duties, it conducts legitimate ‘protective intelligence’ to identify potential physical threats to its protectees. 

    I am very familiar with their mission having worked with some of these folks as a military attaché during high-level foreign visits by our Defense Secretary and generals. I also have professional experience with dignitary protection. 

    All this is very good and vital stuff.

    The problem arises when the scope of the protective intelligence mission expands to include things that it shouldn’t. In this case, the unit is tasked to protect current and former high-ranking military officers from “assassination, kidnapping, injury or embarrassment.” 

    Yes, among the big threats is “embarrassment.” 

    That’s bad enough since it opens the door to looking into things that they shouldn’t just because they might embarrass a general. 

    But now, according to an Army procurement document from September 2022, reports the Intercept, the detachment’s mission has expanded to include monitoring social media for “direct, indirect, and veiled” threats and identifying “negative sentiment” regarding its protectees. 

    And it’s hiring a technology contractor to do its dirty work.

    “Negative sentiment” – that is almost as bad as “mean tweets.” It is beyond outrageous.

    I have expressed ‘negative sentiment’ toward a few senior military leaders numerous times online and in published articles – including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley.

    And I will continue to do so, as is my 1st amendment right.

    The line should be when anyone makes veiled or direct physical threats against any political or military leader, not just says mean things.

    As The Intercept reports: “There may be legally valid reasons to intrude on someone’s privacy by searching for, collecting, and analyzing publicly available information, particularly when it pertains to serious crimes and terrorist threats,” Ilia Siatitsa, program director at Privacy International, said.

    “However,” he added, “expressing ‘positive or negative sentiment towards a senior high-risk individual’ cannot be deemed sufficient grounds for government agencies to conduct surveillance operations.”

    Siatitsa rightly concluded: “The ability to express opinions, criticize, make assumptions, or form value judgments — especially regarding public officials — is a quintessential part of democratic society.”

    Beyond that, what if the Army is protecting a Chinese general visiting the United States? Will they surveil or target Americans who are critical of this foreign adversary’s general or of China?

    And according to the documents uncovered by The Intercept, the program the Army is procuring for its newly expanded intelligence mission is a dystopian surveillance nightmare. 

    It will scour everything, everywhere, and then even pinpoint the location of the person making the comment.

    This is extremely frightening.

    The Army describes their surveillance system as “a reliable social media threat mitigation service” with an “Open-Source Web-based toolkit with advanced capabilities to collect publicly available information (PAI).”

    Information is not only grabbed up from Twitter’s “firehose” but also from 4Chan, Reddit, YouTube, Discord, Telegram, private contractors like Dataminr, as well as smartphone apps and advertisers.

    Combined with cellular location data the Army could also precisely pinpoint those who might make a mean tweet about current or former military officials. 

    The Intercept adds that all this data, plus CCTV feeds, radio stations, personal records, and even webcams – would be available via a “universal search selector.” That means they can access just about anything.

    The Army also wants the contractor to preserve the “anonymity and security needed” by “using various egress points globally to mask their identity.” This means they can conveniently make it look like the folks doing the snooping are in China or Russia.

    This is a very scary domestic spying capability to use against Americans. Congress must investigate this Orwellian program immediately and remove elements that will infringe on our constitutional rights.

    Or it will soon be used against you.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    FBI Now Going After Its Critics as ‘Conspiracy Theorists’ Spreading ‘Misinformation’

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    14
    Arrest image via Pixabay

    ANALYSIS – Be very afraid. It just keeps getting worse. Under Joe Biden, the FBI is daily being further weaponized against its critics and critics of the administration’s chosen narratives.

    Following the disclosures that the FBI was in regular contact with Twitter employees to ensure they censored speech they designated ‘misinformation,’ the Bureau attacked anyone who criticizes them by, you guessed it – calling it ‘misinformation.’

    It also called these FBI critics – ‘conspiracy theorists.’

    This is a favorite leftwing buzz phrase often used to smear conservatives. 

    The most recent outrage came when the FBI made a statement to FOX News this week after journalists posted screenshots of messages showing how FBI agents communicated with top Twitter officials relating to reports and potential posts about Hunter Biden.

    In its response statement, rather than addressing the valid concerns, the Bureau slammed its critics as ‘conspiracy theorists’ spreading misinformation.’

    And one legal expert, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, is sounding the alarm.

    He told FOX News that it is a “menacing thing” for the nation’s largest law enforcement agency to declare that “combatting disinformation” is one of its top priorities, and then attack free speech advocates for criticizing them.

    The Epoch Times reports:

    A spokesperson for the FBI told Fox News, in response to several “Twitter Files” installments, that “conspiracy theorists” are “feeding the American public misinformation” and said they are trying to discredit the bureau and its agents.

    That statement, Turley told Fox News, is “disturbing” because the FBI has allegedly “attacked many of us who were raising free speech concerns and called all of us collectively ‘conspiracy theorists spreading disinformation.’

    “It was highly inappropriate, because the FBI has said that combatting disinformation is one of its priorities. So, it is a very menacing thing when you have the largest law enforcement agency attacking free speech advocates,” Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University who served as an expert witness during former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment inquiry, told the outlet.

    The FBI’s outrageous response comes after journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote about the outrageous FBI-Twitter collusion:

    “What I quickly put together is a pattern where it appears that FBI agents, along with former FBI agents within the company [Twitter], were engaged in a disinformation campaign aimed at top Twitter and Facebook executives, as well as at top news organization executives to basically prepare them, prime them, get them set up to dismiss Hunter Biden information when it would be released.”

    Turley noted that Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk “has confirmed that the FBI paid social media companies to help them deal with what they called disinformation, which most of us call censorship.”

    Turley added to FOX that the FBI “were in continuous communication [with Twitter], as were other agencies, targeting specific citizens and specific posters to be banned or suspended.”

    “That really does smack of an agency relationship and that could violate the first amendment,” he warned.

    But be very afraid, because things are now getting worse.

    Now the FBI may also be coming after anyone who points out this clear and demonstrated FBI-Big Tech collusion for being a “conspiracy theorist” spreading “misinformation.”

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    2023: The Year of War – China Readies to Battle America over Taiwan

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    9
    See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – Former Trump National Security Advisor and retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster is on a tear with the media, warning the nation of the biggest threats America faces in 2023. 

    Earlier, I wrote about the growing risk that Israel’s new nationalist government led by prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may strike Iran before the end of this year to prevent the Islamist regime from finally getting a nuke.

    In that piece I quoted McMaster as saying: “the chances are quite high of a significant conflict in the Middle East, maybe entailing an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program.”

    An Israeli-Iranian conflict would certainly spread across the Middle East as Iran retaliates directly and asymmetrically, including targeting U.S. bases and interests.

    And now McMaster warns about something most of us already know, but he brings new urgency to the threat – that China is preparing its military for war with the United States war over Taiwan.

    On CBS Face The Nation, McMaster said: “Xi Jinping has made it quite clear, in his statements, that he is going to make, from his perspective, China whole again by subsuming Taiwan.” 

    “And preparations are underway,” he added.

    Earlier, I reported here that the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) had just deployed one of its three aircraft carriers within miles of the U.S. territory of Guam, America’s small but strategic outpost in the Western Pacific.

    This is the closest the Chinese navy has ever sailed a warship of this size to any American territory.

    And it is sending a message – Chinese naval forces can get close to U.S. bases as well.

    But there is more. Newsweek also reported on McMaster’s CBS appearance:

    “China has become increasingly aggressive, not only from an economic and financial perspective and a wolf warrior diplomacy perspective, but physically, with its military,” McMaster said. “And what’s really disturbing is, I think, Xi Jinping is preparing the Chinese people for war.”

    He pointed to some of Xi’s speeches, which have taken on a hardline tone in recent months, as evidence that the U.S. should take the threat of war more seriously and “extend our power.” Doing so would also compel allies to invest more in their national defense, which would further serve as a deterrent, he added.

    Newsweek continued:

    McMaster’s warning follows other indications that China may be considering a war over Taiwan. In November, The Guardian reported that Xi told his military to “focus all its energy on fighting” to prepare for a potential war.

    “Focus all [your] energy on fighting, work hard on fighting and improve [your] capability to win,” he reportedly said.

    Welcome to 2023, the year America should be concerned not only with Russia’s war in Ukraine escalating and spreading into NATO Europe and possibly triggering some sort of nuclear incident, but also a war between Israel and Iran that could engulf the entire Middle East.

    And to top it off, this could also be the year we see a major catastrophic war with China over Taiwan.

    Or even worse – we may face all three regional military conflicts at once. Happy New Year!

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

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