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DHS Head Demands That Social Media Firms Censor “Extremist Propaganda” – Like Advocating for Constitutional Liberty

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The acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke has called on Silicon Valley to remove extremist content, Reuters reported.

The United States and Britain are set to push social media firms to deal with the problem at a G7 meeting of interior ministers this week, Duke told reporters in London where she had been meeting British Home Secretary (interior minister), Amber Rudd.

“There has been a shift and for us somewhat with the Charlottesville incident,” she said. “There are a lot of social pressures and they want do business so they really have to balance between keeping their user agreements and giving law enforcement what they need.”

But that’s not all; the Trump administration is also trying to go after encryption technology.

“We would like to have the ability to get encrypted data with the right legal processes,” Duke said.

It’s an argument that has persisted since the Obama administration – should the government have backdoor access to encrypted chat apps despite being in a violation of civil liberties?

Duke said there’s been a change in the behavior of tech companies since a rally organized by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August turned deadly when a counter-protester was killed after a man drove his car into the crowd deliberately killing a woman Heather Heyer.

“The fact they are meeting with us at G7 is a positive sign. I think they’re seeing the evidence of it being real and not just hyperbole,” Duke said.

Now the tech companies themselves are going to be meeting with G7 leaders to handle this problem of “extremist content.” But does that define just ISIS videos, or is the definition broader? She actually answered that question, and so has Google and its subsidiary YouTube who have begun a crackdown on content on the video platform and search engine.

“The number of foreign fighters we have returning is declining,” she said. “The number of home-grown violent extremists, most of them inspired by terrorist organizations, is increasing.”

Notice how she didn’t state ISIS, she said the broad definition “terrorist organizations.”

Google and YouTube have even begun targeting “conspiracy theories” and websites spreading “conspiracy theory as factual information without basis.”

Obama’s DHS didn’t hesitate to call those who believe in conspiracy theories potential right-wing terrorists, stating the following points might make someone a terrorist in a study by the University of Maryland, which was funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security.

Americans who “are fiercely nationalistic, as opposed to universal and international in orientation”
Americans considering themselves “anti-global”
Americans who are “suspicious of centralized federal authority”
Americans who are “reverent of individual liberty (especially their right to own guns and be free of taxes)”
Americans exhibiting a belief in “conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty and a belief that one’s personal and/or national way of life is under attack”

Specifically listing Americans who love liberty as terrorists, noting two subgroups of “right-wing extremism” were identified as “gun rights” and “tax protest,” according to PJ Media.

After all, according to U.K. think tank Demos, literature from more than 50 extremist groups includes “conspiracy theories.”

So how will Trump’s administration compare to his predecessor? It has almost been a year since President Donald Trump took office and we seem to be losing more and more of our rights day by day. I guess in the eyes of the DHS I am a terrorist and so are you if you just read this article. (For more from the author of “DHS Head Demands That Social Media Firms Censor “Extremist Propaganda” – Like Advocating for Constitutional Liberty” please click HERE)

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DHS Secretary Just Warned of ‘Severe Threat’ of New 9/11-Style Attack by ISIS and Al-Qaeda

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Islamic State and Al-Qaeda terrorists are plotting to take down a plane and carry out a devastating explosion on the same scale of 9/11 according to the United States Security Chief.

“The terrorist organizations, be it ISIS or Al-Qaeda or others, want to have the big explosion like they did on 9/11. They want to take down aircraft, the intelligence is clear on that,” the acting US secretary of homeland security, Elaine Duke said during a visit to the UK, as cited by the Telegraph.

The attack on September 11, 2001, was the deadliest attack in US history and has been surrounded by controversy since which makes this tying it in with this warning of new attacks particularly worrisome.

“The threat is still severe,” said Duke on Wednesday in London following her meeting with Home Secretary Amber Rudd, where the officials discussed terrorist content online.

According to Duke, the terrorists are just using these recent smaller attacks to keep their members “engaged.”

“In the interim, they need to keep their finances flowing and they need to keep their visibility high and they need to keep their members engaged, so they are using small plots and they are happy to have small plots,” Duke said.

Duke warned that at the same time, however, smaller plots can be followed with major ones.

“Creating terror is their goal. A bladed weapon attack causes terror and continues to disrupt the world, but that does not mean they have given up on a major aviation plot,” she said.

What makes this warning particularly ominous is that, according to reports, just one day before the US security chief’s warnings, Andrew Parker, director general MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, said that Britain was under unprecedented threat from Islamist terrorists.

Naturally, this new series of threats comes with a price. To protect you from these attacks, social media companies will have to better cooperate with authorities to help them spy on you.

“We will continue to push as far as we can go. I think that we have the cooperation of those companies and we just need to work on that,” she said. Social media firms joining a meeting of G7 interior ministers to discuss the issue this week “is a positive sign,” she said.

“We would like to have the ability to get encrypted data with the right legal processes,” said Ms. Duke.

The surveillance state has capitalized on the recent tragic attacks in the United Kingdom and used them to push for less privacy and more oversight of your online activities.

After the series of jihadi attacks, British Prime Minister Theresa May called on “allied democratic governments” to “regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremism and terrorism planning.”

The United States is now using Charlottesville as their reason for demanding access to your social media data.

As the Telegraph notes:

Ms. Duke said the US and Britain would push social media firms at a meeting of G7 interior ministers this week to do more to tackle online militant material.

She said there had already been a change in the attitude of tech companies since a rally organized by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August turned deadly when a counter-protester was killed by a car driven into a crowd.

Sadly, however, no amount of online spying would’ve prevented a psychopath from driving his car into a crowd.

“There has been a shift and for us somewhat with the Charlottesville incident,” she said. “There are a lot of social pressures and they want do business so they really have to balance between keeping their user agreements and giving law enforcement what they need.

“The fact they are meeting with us at G7 is a positive sign. I think they’re seeing the evidence of it being real and not just hyperbole.”

Hopefully, for the sake of innocent people, this new threat of a 9/11-style attack is just that, hyperbole.

As TFTP has noted on several occasions, the government needs you to constantly fear an attack, as the FBI has stated it is their mission “to keep fear alive.”

David Steele, a 20-year Marine Corps intelligence officer, the second-highest-ranking civilian in the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence, and former CIA clandestine services case officer, had this to say about these most unscrupulous operations:

Most terrorists are false flag terrorists, or are created by our own security services. In the United States, every single terrorist incident we have had has been a false flag, or has been an informant pushed on by the FBI. In fact, we now have citizens taking out restraining orders against FBI informants that are trying to incite terrorism. We’ve become a lunatic asylum.

Indeed, we’ve become a lunatic asylum.

(For more from the author of “DHS Secretary Just Warned of ‘Severe Threat’ of New 9/11-Style Attack by ISIS and Al-Qaeda” please click HERE)

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DHS Was Wrong About Russia Targeting State Election Systems — Here’s the Whole Story…

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. . .The DHS notified 21 states including California and Wisconsin that Russian-linked individuals had tried to target either voter registration files or public election sites. The DHS is now claiming that these hackers targeted the California Department of Technology and the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

“The work of our intelligence agencies is critical in defending against cyber threats. I remain committed to a partnership with DHS and other intelligence agencies, however, elections officials and the American public expect and deserve timely and accurate information,” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said in a statement Wednesday.

Mark Thomsen, chairman of Wisconsin’s Elections Commission, said Tuesday, “Either they were right on Friday and this is a cover up, or they were wrong on Friday and we deserve an apology.”

DHS spokesman Scott McConnell was rather unapologetic in a Tuesday statement to The Daily Caller.

“While we defer to each state whether to disclose the circumstance surrounding their networks, it’s important to point out that discussions of specific IP addresses do not provide a complete picture of potential targeting activity. The Department stands by its assessment that Internet-connected networks in 21 states were the target of Russian government cyber actors seeking vulnerabilities and access to U.S. election infrastructure,” McConnell told TheDC. (Read more from “DHS Was Wrong About Russia Targeting State Election Systems — Here’s the Whole Story…” HERE)

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Sheriff David Clarke Says He’s Accepted DHS Job

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Sheriff David Clarke of Milwaukee County, Wis., said Wednesday he has accepted a job in the Department of Homeland Security.

Clarke told conservative radio host Vicki McKenna during an interview on 1130 WISN that he will leave his post as sheriff to serve as a deputy secretary of Homeland Security.

“I’m both honored and humbled to be appointed to this position by Secretary Kelly, working for the Trump administration,” he said during the radio show.

Clarke said he will leave his position as sheriff in June to work in the Office of Partnership and Programs as a liaison with state, local and tribal law enforcement.

While the DHS did not confirm Clarke’s reported role, it did note the position in question does not require Senate confirmation. (Read more from “Sheriff David Clarke Says He’s Accepted DHS Job” HERE)

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Another Obama DHS Screw Up: 20,000 Green Cards Handed out Like Candy

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In the latest instance of the Obama administration’s neglect and indifference toward America’s immigration problem, around 20,000 green cards have been wrongly distributed or contained false information, according to the latest DHS inspector general report.

“[T]he problem was far worse than originally thought,” reads a press release accompanying the 43-page report from the office of the inspector general about the flawed U.S. Customs and Immigrations Services system. The DHS report highlights that at least 19,000 green cards were issued with either incorrect information or sent in duplicate, while the USCIS also received over 200,000 complaints that cards had either been sent to the wrong address or not received at all.

Furthermore, the OIG report found that over 2,400 immigrants who had only been cleared for two-year conditional residence status were inadvertently issued cards that don’t expire for 10 years.

“It appears that thousands of Green Cards have simply gone missing. In the wrong hands, Green Cards may enable terrorists, criminals, and undocumented aliens to remain in the United States,” states Inspector General John Roth in the release. “It is vital that USCIS ensure better tools and procedures are in place to mitigate such risks.”

This comes just a few weeks after the OIG revealed that the DHS had erroneously granted citizenship to at least 1,800 individuals. Almost half of those wrongly permitted to stay indefinitely (858) were from “special interest countries” (countries prone to producing a disproportionate amount of terrorists) and already slated for deportation.

As Daniel Horowitz explained elsewhere at Conservative Review in September:

Remember, many immigrants who would be eligible for citizenship initially came here before the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service was rolled into DHS. They are a part of the 148,000 fingerprint records that were never transferred over into DHS databases, compromising the ability of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to monitor which aliens were ordered deported when approving applications for citizenship.

So long as those finger print records have not been digitized, I.G. Roth says in a separate report regarding the earlier incident, U.S. Customs and Immigration Services “risks making naturalization decision without complete information and, as a result, naturalizing more individuals who may be ineligible for citizenship or who may be trying to obtain U.S. citizenship fraudulently.”

What both of these incidents point to is how the sovereignty of the American people, expressed in our congressionally passed immigration laws, is being skirted and undermined by a federal government agency that has created a de-facto pathway to citizenship for thousands of people, either by malice or sheer negligence.

Compare that with the Department of Justice’s recent decision to prosecute Sherriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., for simply enforcing federal immigration law with too much zeal in violating an injunction that requires the federal government to address state inquiries on an individual’s immigration status.

The nature of the case is unprecedented, according to the Arizona Republic:

Legal experts say the judge and attorneys have little historical guidance moving forward with the case.

“As rare as it is to have a federal judge refer the head of a law-enforcement agency for prosecution, it is even rarer that the Department of Justice would pick up that gauntlet and move forward with the charge,” said Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona. “It’s unheard of.”

This is the absurdity of the Obama administration and its immigration system, folks. Thanks to one department in the administration, Sheriff Arpaio could face up to six months in jail for following the will of the American people — manifest in federal law — while another federal agency subverts that will via negligence with seemingly no consequence whatsoever.

But there is hope from all of this madness: It’ll all be over in January … hopefully. (For more from the author of “Another Obama DHS Screw Up: 20,000 Green Cards Handed out Like Candy” please click HERE)

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DHS Election Takeover? Agency Itself Was Hacked

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As the Department of Homeland Security contemplates taking possibly unconstitutional power over the U.S. election system due to the threat of hackers, citizens should consider the fact that the agency itself was the victim of a major cyber intrusion that stole sensitive personal information of thousands of its employees, contends a former DHS officer.

That, combined with a politically correct approach to the Islamic-jihad threat that allows dangerous people to enter the country should be enough reason to reject the plan suggested by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, contends Philip Haney, the co-author with WND News Editor Art Moore of the expose “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad.”

Johnson said last week that DHS is considering whether or not it should declare the U.S. election system a “critical infrastructure” due to potential cyber threats.

The fear, Haney points out, is that the DHS could overrule powers given to local and state governments to mange their own elections under Article 1, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, not to mention the powers afforded states in the 10th Amendment.

“They certainly don’t have an exemplary record in safeguarding our borders,” Haney told WND. “What gives us confidence they will safeguard our electoral process?” (Read more from “DHS Election Takeover? Agency Itself Was Hacked” HERE)

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Hundreds of DHS Badges, Guns, Cell Phones Lost or Stolen Since 2012

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Photo Credit: Reuters Hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to Department of Homeland Security employees have been lost or stolen in recent years — raising serious security concerns about the potential damage these missing items could do in the wrong hands.

Inventory reports, obtained by the news site Complete Colorado and shared with FoxNews.com, show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen over the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015.

The majority of the credentials belonged to employees of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), while others belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees.

The lost or stolen guns also mostly belonged to CBP employees, though others were cited as belonging to TSA and ICE workers. The agencies all fall under DHS.

The missing badges and guns suggest a shocking lack of security from federal law enforcement officers and represent a significant security risk, experts say. (Read more from “Hundreds of DHS Badges, Guns, Cell Phones Lost or Stolen Since 2012” HERE)

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DHS Says Sweep of Illegals Has Begun

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Moving to belatedly counter another surge of illegal immigrants from Central America, the Department of Homeland Security has launched a series of raids to kick out some of the arrivals, Secretary Jeh Johnson said Monday, defending his move to enraged immigrant rights activists who say the Obama administration is being inhumane.

All told, 121 people were rounded up — a tiny fraction of the more than 110,000 Central American family members that sneaked into the country over the past year and a half, putting strains on the immigration system and on schools and authorities who have to educate and police the newcomers.

Mr. Johnson, who thought he had ended the surge in 2014 only to be stunned by another wave beginning last spring, said in a statement that enforcing the law in this case is the best way to send a message that the U.S. is serious about defending its borders.

He said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement focused the first round of raids on Georgia, Texas and North Carolina. Those they have caught are being prepared for flights back to their home countries.

“I know there are many who loudly condemn our enforcement efforts as far too harsh, while there will be others who say these actions don’t go far enough. I also recognize the reality of the pain that deportations do in fact cause,” he said. “But, we must enforce the law consistent with our priorities. At all times, we endeavor to do this consistent with American values, and basic principles of decency, fairness, and humanity.” (Read more from “DHS Says Sweep of Illegals Has Begun” HERE)

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Terminal Confusion? DHS Push Could Make Some IDs Invalid for Flying

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Millions of air travelers across the U.S. are potentially at risk of finding themselves grounded in the new year thanks to a post-9/11 law that took a decade to finally come into effect.

The REAL ID Act, originally passed in 2005, was meant to tighten standards for government-issued IDs like driver’s licenses — to boot, it banned federal agencies from accepting any IDs that don’t meet the bar.

That means the TSA technically shouldn’t accept driver’s licenses from certain states, once the law is in full effect. While Washington let the rules slide for years, the Department of Homeland Security could start to enforce them in 2016 and is pushing states to comply.

And that has the potential to cause confusion, not to mention headaches at the airport — as many states are still not in full compliance, and different states are operating on different timetables . . .

DHS is enforcing the legislation in stages. Currently, it is only requiring the enhanced IDs for access to federal facilities. Some states have extensions, but those are set to expire next year — in January, June and October, depending on the state. (Read more from “Terminal Confusion? DHS Push Could Make Some IDs Invalid for Flying” HERE)

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72 DHS Employees on Terrorist Watch List

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At least 72 employees at the Department of Homeland Security are listed on the U.S. terrorist watch list, according to a Democratic lawmaker.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D., Mass.) disclosed that a congressional investigation recently found that at least 72 people working at DHS also “were on the terrorist watch list.”

“Back in August, we did an investigation—the inspector general did—of the Department of Homeland Security, and they had 72 individuals that were on the terrorist watch list that were actually working at the Department of Homeland Security,” Lynch told Boston Public Radio . . .

Lynch referred to a recent report that found the Transportation Security Administration, which is overseen by DHS, failed to stop 95 percent of those who attempted to bring restricted items past airport security.

“We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports. They had a 95 percent failure rate,” Lynch said. “We had folks—this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.” (Read more from “72 DHS Employees on Terrorist Watch List” HERE)

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