Apple Creating Portal to Give Law Enforcement Agencies Your Data

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Apple, a company that gained fame for its well-publicized standoff against police who wanted the secrets held in the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino mass shooters, now says it wants to be a good partner with law enforcement.

The company said this week that by the end of the year, it will launch a portal for law enforcement officers who have what Apple terms “lawful requests for information,” according to the San Jose Mercury News.

“We believe that law enforcement agencies play a critical role in keeping our society safe and we’ve always maintained that if we have information we will make it available when presented with valid legal process,” Apple said in a new statement on its website.

Apple maintained on its site that it will strike the right balance.

“We’ll continue working for greater transparency and data security protections on behalf of our customers. Apple has never created a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services. We have also never allowed any government direct access to Apple servers. And we never will,” the site said.

However, Apple also touted its track record of working with police.

Apple said it has a “team of dedicated professionals within our legal department who manage and respond to all legal requests received from law enforcement agencies globally” and provides training to teach law enforcement how to request data in alignment with Apple’s rules.

Apple said it will do more.

“We are building a team of professionals dedicated to training law enforcement officers globally, which will significantly increase our ability to reach smaller police forces and agencies. This will include the development of an online training module for officers,” Apple wrote.

“This will assist Apple in training a larger number of law enforcement agencies and officers globally, and ensure that our company’s information and guidance can be updated to reflect the rapidly changing data landscape,” it said.

Also this past week, Apple responded to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which discussed balancing privacy and security. One of its main questions was a basic one: In a changing landscape, who has what data?

“Increasingly, information that is critical is digital, and it’s in the hands of third-parties tech providers that control and manage so much information about their users and customers, and law enforcement with adequate privacy protections should be able to access that data,” said Jennifer Daskal, a co-author of the CSIS report, Business Insider reported.

She said the two sides have faced an inability to communicate.

“Law enforcement, generally, was incredibly frustrated with what they saw as a lack of clarity from service providers about what they needed to do to get information, such that some suggested that service providers were trying to thwart access in some cases,” Daskal said.

Whereas service providers from their perspective seemed to be concerned that law enforcement in their view was asking for information that they didn’t have or making requests that were overbroad or from the service providers perspective inappropriate or without sufficient limitations, with respect to time, for example,” she added.

Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island was told by Kate Adams, senior vice president and general counsel for Apple, that Apple’s new actions are in the spirit of the report.

“As the CSIS report finds, the rapidly changing nature of technology makes law enforcement’s job more complex,” she wrote.

During 2017, she said that Apple responded to more than 14,000 requests from various levels of law enforcement involving more than 62,000 devices, accounts or other identifiers. (For more from “Apple Creating Portal to Give Law Enforcement Agencies Your Data” please click HERE)

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North Korea Committed to Denuclearize by the End of Trump’s Term

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North Korea will complete its journey along the rocky road to denuclearization by the end of President Donald Trump’s current term in office, according to a South Korean official.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in Sept. 18-20 to discuss “practical measures” toward denuclearization, Moon’s national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, said Thursday, according to Reuters.

Moon’s trip to Pyongyang will be the first visit of a South Korean leader to the capital of North Korea since 2007. It will also be the third meeting of the year between Moon and Kim.

Chung met with Kim on Wednesday and said the North Korean leader indicated his faith in Trump was “unchanged.”

“This trust, despite some difficulties surfaced during the negotiation process between the U.S. and the North, will continue,” Chung said, according to CNN.

North Korean state media said Kim “remains unchanged in his determination to strive hard to bring the fellow countrymen better results at an early date.”

“Noting that it is our fixed stand and his (Kim’s) will to completely remove the danger of armed conflict and horror of war from the Korean peninsula and turn it into the cradle of peace without nuclear weapons and free from nuclear threat, he said that the north and the south should further their efforts to realize the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” North Korea’s news agency said.

Kim also set the goal of achieving denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and overhauling U.S. relations by the time Trump’s current term ends, Chung said.

Chung said North Korea “was willing to take more active measures toward denuclearization if his advance steps could be met with matching measures (from the U.S.).”

“He particularly emphasized that he has never said anything negative about President Trump,” Chung said.

Trump responded to the comments with a tweet.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo conceded getting the concepts of an alliance down on paper remains daunting.

“The work of convincing Chairman Kim to make this strategic shift that we’ve talked about for a brighter future for the people of North Korea continues,” Pompeo said, according to The Daily Caller.

“It is the case that there is still an enormous amount of work to do,” he added. (For more from the author of “North Korea Committed to Denuclearize by the End of Trump’s Term” please click HERE)

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Mattis Makes Surprise Stop for Talks With New U.S. Commander, Afghan Officials

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U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in the Afghan capital on Friday in an unannounced visit, amid upheaval in the senior ranks of American and Afghan officials waging the 17-year war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

Mr. Mattis, accompanied by Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was to hold meetings with senior Afghan officials and with Army Gen. Austin Miller, the new commander of American-led international forces here, as well as hold a town-hall style forum with troops.

Peace talks with the Taliban, the country’s largest insurgency group, were expected to be high on the agenda of discussions between Mr. Mattis and Afghan officials.

In July, U.S. diplomats and Taliban representatives met in the Gulf state of Qatar to discuss a possible framework for talks aimed at ending the war. However, a series of devastating Taliban attacks last month and the insurgency’s refusal to reciprocate Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s call for a three-month cease-fire have slowed momentum for further discussions.

Still, while the war against the Taliban and Islamic State’s local branch has expanded since President Trump announced his rejuvenated Afghanistan strategy little more than a year ago, Mr. Mattis made clear this week that the prospect of talks with the Taliban hasn’t evaporated. (Read more from “Mattis Makes Surprise Stop for Talks With New U.S. Commander, Afghan Officials” HERE)

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Source: New York Subpoenas Every Catholic Diocese in the State

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The New York attorney general’s office has issued civil subpoenas to all eight of the state’s Roman Catholic dioceses, a law enforcement source told Reuters, as investigations into sexual abuse allegations within the Catholic Church gain steam across the country.

The unidentified source revealed these subpoenas were part of an ongoing investigation into dioceses’ review processes and potential cover-ups of alleged sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, Reuters reported.

“The Attorney General’s Charities Bureau has launched a civil investigation into how the dioceses and other church entities — which are non-profit institutions — reviewed and potentially covered up allegations of extensive sexual abuse of minors,” the attorney general’s announcement read.

New York is among the growing number of states across the nation that have begun investigations into claims and cover-ups of sex crimes in the church.

More have also begun to consider pulling secret and/or decades-old files from the dioceses for review as well, according to The Washington Post.

The Associated Press reported that following the issuing of subpoenas in New York, New Jersey announced a criminal task force Thursday that will look into the handling of abuse allegations in its seven dioceses.

“We owe it to the people of New Jersey to find out whether the same thing happened here,” New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement. “If it did, we will take action against those responsible.”

The Post reported that New Mexico began its investigation this week, and Nebraska and Missouri may soon follow suit.

Last month, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro announced the results of a grand jury report on a two-year investigation that uncovered records stating that, over 70 years, nearly 1,000 people, mainly children, had been sexually abused by over 300 priests in six of the state’s dioceses.

The shocking announcement has caused many in the church to demand criminal investigations. According to the statement by New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, it compelled officials to take action in New York.

“The Pennsylvania grand jury report shined a light on incredibly disturbing and depraved acts by Catholic clergy, assisted by a culture of secrecy and cover ups in the dioceses,” Underwood said Thursday in her announcement.

“Victims in New York deserve to be heard as well — and we are going to do everything in our power to bring them the justice they deserve.”

Joseph Zwilling, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of New York, said it would be as cooperative as possible as the investigation moves forward.

“Not only do we provide any information they seek, they also notify us as well when they learn of an allegation of abuse, so that, even if they cannot bring criminal charges, we might investigate and remove from ministry any cleric who has a credible and substantiated allegation of abuse,” he said.

So far, the Diocese of Buffalo has agreed to cooperate with the investigation by the New York State attorney general or district attorney, Reuters reported.

Victim hotlines have been set up in New York and New Jersey to assist officials as the investigations begin. (For more from the author of “Source: New York Subpoenas Every Catholic Diocese in the State” please click HERE)

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Obama Takes Direct Shot at Trump, Calls Him out by Name Publicly for First Time Since Leaving Office

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After taking a few indirect swipes at his successor since leaving office last year, Barack Obama mentioned President Donald Trump by name for the first time in public at an event in Illinois on Friday.

According to The Hill, his address took place at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and focused on the deep division within American politics and society.

He said some of the tension is being caused by frustrated Americans who are “genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change,” but attributed a more sinister motive to much of the rest of the nation’s socioeconomic tension and resentment.

“More often it’s manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical,” he said. “Because it helps them maintain the status quo and keep their power and keep their privilege.”

He told the students gathered for the address that they “happen to be coming of an age during one of those moments.”

In a remark that drew applause from the audience, Obama said that the current administration is “a symptom, not the cause” of that division.

“It did not start with Donald Trump,” he said.

With the radical changes in technology, culture and elsewhere in recent years, Obama said Trump has been able to use the tactics he described in more effective ways.

“He’s just capitalizing on resentments politicians have been fanning for years,” Obama said. “A fear, an anger that’s rooted in our past, but it’s also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.”

He went on to describe some of the changes he believes many Americans have found loath to accept.

“Think about it,” he said. “You’ve come of age in a smaller, more connected world where demographic shifts and the winds of change have scrambled not only traditional economic arrangements, but our social arrangements and our religious commitments and our civic institutions. Most of you don’t remember a time before 9/11 when you didn’t have to take off your shoes at an airport.”

As The Hill reported, Obama’s address Friday was expected to launch a series of campaign stops during which he will rally for Democrat candidates and policies.

“He will make a pointed case in his speech on Friday, and on the trail this fall, that this moment in our country is too perilous for Democratic voters to sit out,” said Obama spokesperson Katie Hill.

She added that the former president will build on previous concerns he has raised since Trump’s inauguration.

“He will echo his call to reject the rising strain of authoritarian politics and policies,” Hill said. (For more from the author of “Obama Takes Direct Shot at Trump, Calls Him out by Name Publicly for First Time Since Leaving Office” please click HERE)

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Andrew McCabe Under Grand Jury Investigation

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Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has been under investigation by a grand jury for months, according to a new report from The Washington Post.

The investigation is underway to determine whether criminal charges should be filed against McCabe, months after the Department of Justice inspector general found McCabe “lacked candor” in his discussions with officials regarding his disclosure of information to the media about the FBI’s investigation into Secretary Hillary Clinton.

“Such panels are sometimes used only as investigative tools, and it remains unclear if McCabe will ultimately be charged,” The Post explained.

Federal prosecutors impaneled the grand jury after a recommendation from the Justice Department. Already more than one witness has been summoned before the jury, according to The Post.

McCabe’s lawyer downplayed the development.

“Today’s leak about a procedural step taken more than a month ago — occurring in the midst of a disastrous week for the president — is a sad and poorly veiled attempt to try to distract the American public. We remain confident that a thorough review of the facts and circumstances related to this matter will demonstrate that there is no basis on which criminal charges should be brought,” said Michael R. Bromwich, McCabe’s attorney, according to Fox News.

Bromwich said he does not expect his client will face prosecution unless there is interference from “high levels of the administration.”

McCabe was found to have leaked information to the media in 2016 in an effort to portray himself in a favorable light regarding the investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server.

McCabe sought to “rebut a narrative that had been developing … that questioned McCabe’s impartiality in overseeing” the investigation into Clinton’s emails and the Clinton Foundation, the Washington Examiner reported.

McCabe was a controversial figure within the FBI even prior to his role investigating Clinton, as his wife sought political office with the help of Clinton’s Democratic allies.

In November last year, the watchdog group Judicial Watch noted that McCabe had conflicts during the investigation.

“The FBI is compromised. Mr. McCabe should have been nowhere near the Hillary Clinton investigations,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “That he saw fit to recuse himself only days before the election further demonstrates the FBI’s Clinton email investigation was a sham. No wonder it took a year and a federal lawsuit to get these records. It is well past time for the Justice Department to reopen the Clinton email investigation.”

McCabe was fired from his role in the FBI in March, shortly before he planned to retire.

“The FBI’s OPR then reviewed the report and underlying documents and issued a disciplinary proposal recommending the dismissal of Mr. McCabe,” a statement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time. “Both the OIG and FBI OPR reports concluded that Mr. McCabe had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor — including under oath — on multiple occasions.”

“Pursuant to Department Order 1202, and based on the report of the Inspector General, the findings of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility, and the recommendation of the Department’s senior career official, I have terminated the employment of Andrew McCabe effective immediately,” Sessions said then.

McCabe has insisted he has been unfairly attacked by the Trump administration.

In the same month as his firing, McCabe defended himself in an Op-Ed for The Washington Post in which he said he may not have always told the truth but that he never meant to mislead anyone.

“I have been accused of ‘lack of candor.’ That is not true. I did not knowingly mislead or lie to investigators,” McCabe wrote. “When asked about contacts with a reporter that were fully within my power to authorize as deputy director, and amid the chaos that surrounded me, I answered questions as completely and accurately as I could. And when I realized that some of my answers were not fully accurate or may have been misunderstood, I took the initiative to correct them.”

“At worst, I was not clear in my responses, and because of what was going on around me may well have been confused and distracted — and for that I take full responsibility,” he added. “But that is not a lack of candor.” (For more from the author of “Andrew McCabe Under Grand Jury Investigation” please click HERE)

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Former Senator Explains What Should ‘Disqualify’ Kavanaugh

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Franken believes he has exposed Republicans’ agenda in how they have handled the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings this week. For instance, why did Chairman Chuck Grassley allow a document dump on the nominee the night before the hearings began? . . .

Kavanaugh has misled Americans in trying to boost President Trump’s image, Franken charged. At the White House ceremony in which he announced Kavanaugh as his next Supreme Court nominee to replace retiring Anthony Kennedy, Kavanaugh praised Trump’s diligence in making his pick, saying, “no president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.”

Kavanaugh should be disqualified for his “lie” and such “nonsensical praise,” Franken writes.

This was extremely untrue. President Barack Obama, for example, had taken a month or close to it to pick both Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Trump had taken just 12 days to make his pick. And, of course, he made that pick from a list of 25 names presented to him by the right-wing Federalist Society.

If judgment matters, and if we want judges who make their judgments based on a full and fair understanding of the facts, a big, fat, easily debunked lie like Kavanaugh’s should have been instantly disqualifying. Instead, it became just the first example of how Kavanaugh’s selection to the Supreme Court represents a perfect illustration of what the conservative movement has been doing to the judicial system for decades.

(Read more from “Former Senator Explains What Should ‘Disqualify’ Kavanaugh” HERE)

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Just Blew It: Nike Favorability Drops by Double-Digits

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Well, in their infinite wisdom, Nike decided to make former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick the face of their Just Do It campaign. The ad has been released. The tagline is “Believe in something, even if it means sacrificing everything. #JustDoIt.” Kaepernick is a source of controversy, a vehicle for the left wing social justice activism that struck the NFL two years ago when he started to take a knee during the national anthem. There were a multitude of reasons but race relations and police brutality seem to be the top issues for why he and other players started this nonsense. No doubt the cause is worth a discussion. I totally disagree with their take, but it’s worthy of a discussion. All that good will went out the window as soon as you start trashing the flag. Kaepernick’s anti-police stance also drew a backlash. These players see their side getting attention. Everyone else sees them trashing the flag, our veterans, and those who have died in service to the country. It’s unpatriotic. It’s not appropriate—and the NFL knows it. When President Trump torched the players for kneeling, he won a solid cultural victory.

So, with Nike becoming more or less a hipster brand, they put this left wing activist as the face of their new campaign. How did it fare? It cost them billions as market shares tanked upon its announcement. It cost them billions, though it’s not going to sink the company. It did, however, cause the net favorability of Nike to drop by double-digits and no boosts were registered within key demographics for the brand. That’s, uh, not good. Quite a hefty loss for trying to keep Kaepernick relevant Morning Consult has the numbers:

Nike’s Favorability Drops by Double Digits: Before the announcement, Nike had a net +69 favorable impression among consumers; it has now declined 34 points to +35 favorable.

No Boost Among Key Demos: Among younger generations, Nike users, African Americans, and other key demographics, Nike’s favorability declined rather than improved.

Purchasing Consideration Also Down: Before the announcement, 49 percent of Americans said they were absolutely certain or very likely to buy Nike products. That figure is down to 39 percent now.

(Read more from “Just Blew It: Nike Favorability Drops by Double-Digits” HERE)

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Stanford Study Finds Conservative Professors Shunned by Law Schools

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A researcher at Stanford University has confirmed what many have suspected for some time: conservative law professors are being discriminated against at the nation’s most elite law schools.

The study was recently published by James C. Phillips, a non-resident Fellow with the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School. The findings seem to indicate that conservative-leaning law professors are facing discrimination at top-tier law schools in ways distinct from their liberal counterparts.

Titled “Testing a Beckerian-Arrowian Model of Political Orientation Discrimination on the U.S. Law Professor Labor Market: Measuring the ‘Rank Gap’, 2001-2010”, Phillips’ research concludes that “conservative and libertarian law professors are underrepresented in top-tier legal academia, whether compared to the American population overall, those who graduate from law school, or elite lawyers who look like most law professors.”

Phillips went on to add that the core issue is most likely “not discrimination against conservatives and libertarians so much as discrimination against anyone who is not liberal.”

The study demonstrates that, when looking at the hiring practices of law schools between the years of 2001 and 2010, the three categories of professors labeled “conservative/libertarian”, “liberal”, and “unknown” appear to be unevenly distributed. (Read more from “Stanford Study Finds Conservative Professors Shunned by Law Schools” HERE)

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Twitter’s Latest (And Final) Punishment for Alex Jones

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After weeks of controversy, Twitter officially banned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his InfoWars site from its platform. The social media company tweeted out the decision from its Twitter Safety account Thursday afternoon, stating that it permanently suspended Alex Jones and InfoWars after both accounts posted tweets and videos that violated the company’s abusive-behavior policy. Previous violations also contributed to the decision to ban both accounts.

Both accounts show “account suspended” messages, so the tweets and videos that violated Twitter’s policy are no longer available. However, according to a report by The Daily Beast, Twitter confirmed that one of the videos that violated its policy was an InfoWars video posted to Jones’ Twitter account. It showed Jones verbally attacking CNN reporter Oliver Darcy, saying, among other things, “Those are the eyes of a rat.”

Last month, Twitter gave Jones a small punishment for his inflammatory behavior on the platform—a one-week suspension that prevented Jones from tweeting or retweeting from his personal account. That came after users flagged a video that Jones posted to Twitter in which he encouraged his supporters to ready their weapons against the media and other groups.

Twitter’s first punishment was minor compared to the repercussions that Jones and InfoWars faced from other tech companies just days before. YouTube, Facebook, Apple, Spotify, and others had removed content made by Jones and InfoWars from their respective platforms. Facebook followed up by suspending Jones for 30 days, while YouTube terminated his account after it found Jones violated the company’s Community Guidelines. (Read more from “Twitter’s Latest (And Final) Punishment for Alex Jones” HERE)

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