Washington’s Comey show: It’s a party

WASHINGTON—Politics-obsessed Americans gathered at bars and restaurants on Thursday with an excitement normally reserved for the Super Bowl or the World Series, ordering “FBI sandwiches” and morning shots of Russian vodka as James Comey testified about his dealings with President Donald Trump.

Shaw’s Tavern in Washington opened early and attracted a line of customers seeking to watch the former FBI director’s congressional appearance.

A special menu was offered for the occasion, with the sandwiches, the vodka and “Covfefe coffee” — a coffee with whipped cream and cinnamon, with a name derived from a recent tweet by the president.

“This is massive,” said Dani Robillard, 42, of San Francisco, who lined up outside. She said she was in town to officiate a wedding and wanted to watch the hearing with people. Like others in line, she said she did not support Trump.

“I thought it was a place where I could come and watch with a bunch of liberals,” said Heather Dade, 44.

The crowd grew quiet when the hearing began but some applauded when Comey said Trump’s administration had spread “lies, plain and simple” and “defamed” him and the FBI.

J.C. Fulse, 39, who lives in Washington, said Comey was doing a “great job,” adding “he’s much more credible than our president.”

It was standing room only at the Brooklyn coffeehouse, Building on Bond, which started showing the hearing beginning at 9 a.m.

Marjorie Sweeney, a freelance writer who lives nearby, had high hopes for Comey’s ability to take down Trump.

The crowd inside the bar applauded as the hearing ended, but many in the liberal crowd conceded there was no game-changing moment.

Sweeney said Comey’s remarks “make it very clear that there has been a major, major effort on Trump’s part to cover things up.”

One Washington bar that did nothing special was in the lobby of Trump’s hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol.

Of the four TVs at the bar, three were tuned to Fox News coverage of the hearing, while the fourth showed French Open tennis. The TVs were muted, with quiet jazz playing over the lobby’s sound system. That meant anyone who wanted to follow Comey’s remarks had to read the captions.

Plenty of velvet and leather seats were available at the bar, and at one point, there were as many reporters (four) as ordinary people having a drink and watching the hearing.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

A look at FBI Comey’s decisions in the Clinton email case

WASHINGTON — The FBI’s announcement that it recently came upon new emails possibly pertinent to the Hillary Clinton email investigation raised more questions than answers.

FBI Director James Comey said in a letter to Congress on Friday that the bureau had discovered the emails while pursuing an unrelated case and would review whether they were classified.

The announcement, vague in details, immediately drew both criticism and praise to Comey himself. Some questions and answers:

Where did the emails come from? 


A: The emails emerged during a separate criminal sexting investigation into former Rep. Anthony Weiner, estranged husband of Huma Abedin, one of Clinton’s closest aides, a U.S. official with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation and discussed the matter on condition of anonymity.

Federal authorities are investigating communications between Weiner, a New York Democrat, and a 15-year-old girl.

It was not clear from Comey who sent or received the emails or what they were about.

Why is this coming out so close to the election?

A: Apparently because the emails were found very recently. In his letter to Congress, Comey said he had been briefed only Thursday by investigators.

Releasing the letter opened Comey to partisan criticism that he was dropping a significant development too close to an election. But keeping it under wraps until after Nov. 8 would surely have led to criticism that he was sitting on major news until after the election.

Comey has said there are no easy decisions on timing in the case. In an internal email sent Friday to FBI employees, he said he was trying to strike a balance between keeping Congress and the public informed and not creating a misleading impression, given that the emails’ significance is not yet known.

“In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood,” he wrote.

Upon learning of Comey’s intention to send lawmakers the letter, Justice Department officials conveyed disapproval and advised the FBI against it, according to a government official familiar with the conversations who was not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Department leaders were concerned that the letter would be inconsistent with department policy meant to avoid the appearance of prosecutorial interference or meddling in elections, the official said.

Is the disclosure standard for the FBI?

A: No, but neither was the Clinton email investigation.

In a nod to the extraordinary nature of an election-year probe into a presidential candidate, Comey promised extraordinary transparency as he announced the investigation’s conclusion in July.

“I am going to include more detail about our process than I ordinarily would, because I think the American people deserve those details in a case of intense public interest,” Comey said at the unusual news conference where he announced the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton.

Since then, the FBI has periodically released investigative files — that is, summaries of witnesses who were interviewed. Those materials aren’t typically public.

Comey, a former Republican who is not registered with a political party, has served in government under both Democratic and Republican administrations and speaks repeatedly about the need for the FBI to be accountable to the public.

His letter Friday seemed in keeping with a statement he made to Congress last month, that although the FBI had concluded its investigation, “we would certainly look at any new and substantial information” that emerged.



But why was the letter so vague?

A: For one thing, the FBI avoids publicly discussing ongoing criminal investigations, or even confirming it has one open.

It also appears the FBI isn’t sure what it has. Comey said the FBI cannot yet assess whether the material is significant, or how long it would take to complete the additional work.

Nevertheless, the letter’s vagueness was immediately seized upon by critics as unacceptable and leaving the public in the dark.

What happens now? Does this increase the likelihood that someone could be changed?

A: The FBI will review the emails to see if they were classified and were improperly handled.

It’s impossible to say if anyone is in greater jeopardy than before.

The FBI announced in July that scores of emails from Clinton’s server contained information that was classified at the time it was sent or received. So, new emails determined as classified might do nothing to change the legal risk for anyone who sent them.

Comey said in July that the FBI had found no evidence of intentional or willful mishandling of classified information, of efforts to obstruct justice or of the deliberate exposure of government secrets. Those were elements that Comey suggested were needed to make a criminal case.

Nothing in the letter appears to change that standard. TVJ

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

FBI investigates whether shooter was club patron

ORLANDO, Florida – An official says the FBI is investigating reports that the Orlando massacre shooter had been a regular at the gay nightclub he attacked and had used gay dating apps.

The U.S. official had been briefed on the investigation into 29-year-old gunman Omar Mateen. The official was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday.

The comments follow reports and comments from patrons at the Orlando club Pulse that Mateen was a regular there and tried to pick up men. Previously, his Afghan-immigrant father had suggested Mateen may have acted out of anti-gay hatred, and said his son got angry recently about seeing two men kiss.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Amazon confirms encryption change

NEW YORK — Amazon has removed the ability to encrypt locally stored data on its Fire tablets, saying that customers weren’t using the service.

The change comes as Apple squares off against the FBI over access to an encrypted iPhone. Apple says giving the government access would make all other iPhones more vulnerable to hacks.

Amazon made the switch when it introduced its new Fire OS 5 in September 2015 with new Fire tablets. But it was brought to light this week as older versions of the tablets get operating system updates.

Encryption helps protect user data by scrambling it and only allowing access with a password.

Amazon removed some features, including encryption, from Fire OS 5 that “we found customers weren’t using,” said Amazon spokeswoman Robin Handaly.

source: technology.inquirer.net

NY judge: US cannot make Apple provide iPhone data

NEW YORK — The US Justice Department cannot force Apple to provide the FBI with access to locked iPhone data in a routine Brooklyn drug case, a federal judge ruled Monday.

US Magistrate Judge James Orenstein’s written decision gives support to the company’s position in its fight against a California judge’s order that it create specialized software to help the FBI hack into an iPhone linked to the San Bernardino terrorism investigation.

Apple on Thursday formally objected to the order in a brief filed with the court, accusing the federal government of seeking “dangerous power” through the courts and of trampling on the company’s constitutional rights.

The San Bernardino County-owned iPhone 5C was used by Syed Farook, who was a health inspector. He and his wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people during a Dec. 2 attack at a county holiday party that was at least partly inspired by the Islamic State group. The couple died later in a gun battle with police.

Apple’s opposition to the government’s tactics has evoked a national debate over digital privacy rights and national security.

Orenstein concluded that Apple is not obligated to assist government investigators against its will and noted that Congress has not adopted legislation that would achieve the result sought by the government. Orenstein’s ruling — while not considered binding or precedent setting for the California case — will likely still have influence on the arguments put forth before Judge Sheri Pym at a hearing next month. The New York case is far less onerous or invasive for Apple and its technology; the extraction technique exists for that older operating system, and it’s been used before to assist investigators.

In California, Pym ordered investigators to create specialized software — which since late 2014 doesn’t exist for newer phones — to help the FBI bypass security protocols to test random passcode combinations in rapid sequence.

Orenstein said he was offering no opinion on whether in the instance of this case or others, “the government’s legitimate interest in ensuring that no door is too strong to resist lawful entry should prevail against the equally legitimate societal interests arrayed against it here.”

He said the interests at stake go beyond expectations of privacy and include the commercial interest in conducting business free of potentially harmful government intrusion and the “far more fundamental and universal interest … in shielding sensitive electronically stored data from the myriad harms, great and small, that unauthorized access and misuse can cause.”

“How best to balance those interests is a matter of critical importance to our society, and the need for an answer becomes more pressing daily, as the tide of technological advance flows ever farther past the boundaries of what seemed possible even a few decades ago,” Orenstein wrote. “But that debate must happen today, and it must take place among legislators who are equipped to consider the technological and cultural realities of a world their predecessors could not begin to conceive.”

The Justice Department said in a statement that it’s disappointed in the ruling and plans to appeal in coming days. It said Apple had previously agreed many times prior to assist the government and “only changed course when the government’s application for assistance was made public by the court.”

A senior Apple executive said the company policy has been to produce information to the government when there is a lawful order to do so, but that in New York the judge never issued the order, and instead asked attorneys to file briefs addressing the constitutionality of the request for Apple to bypass its security protocols under the 1789 All Writs Act. The executive spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a pending legal matter.

Orenstein invited Apple in October to challenge the government’s use of the catchall law to compel it to help law enforcement recover iPhone data in criminal cases, noting that another law on the books already covered the issue.

The Cupertino, California-based computer maker did, saying in court papers that extracting information from an iPhone “could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand.”

It followed up by declining to cooperate in a dozen more instances in four states involving government requests to aid criminal probes by retrieving data from individual iPhones.

In ruling, Orenstein wrote: “I believe Apple has the better argument” because the other law covering wiretaps for telecom companies “explicitly absolves a company like Apple of any responsibility to provide the assistance the government seeks here.”

Federal prosecutors say Apple has stopped short of challenging court orders judicially, except in the cases before Orenstein and the California jurist who ruled about the San Bernardino shooter’s phone.

“Ultimately, the question to be answered in this matter, and in others like it across the country, is not whether the government should be able to force Apple to help it unlock a specific device; it is instead whether the All Writs Act resolves that issue and many others like it yet to come,” Orenstein wrote. “For the reasons set forth above, I conclude that it does not.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

New York governor orders more July Fourth security after alert

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday ordered heightened security measures across the state over the U.S. July Fourth holiday weekend in response to a call for vigilance by the federal government.

"We are keenly aware that New York State remains a top target for terrorists," Cuomo said in a statement.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have issued an alert calling for local authorities and the public to remain vigilant for possible threats following recent calls for violence by Islamic State militants.

In New York City, the nation's largest municipal police force assigned about 7,000 officers and nearly all its counterterrorism personnel to handle security around Independence Day events.

Cuomo expanded the stepped-up security measures to include the entire state in a directive to the New York Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

"In response to the warning by the federal government, New York State is taking steps to increase monitoring and communication with our local, state, and federal emergency management and law enforcement partners through the holiday weekend," Cuomo said.

The state's homeland security department also will increase the staff on Saturday at its 24-hour Emergency Operations Center and the New York State Watch Center, which monitors events across the state.

Last week, terror attacks in Tunisia, Kuwait and France prompted U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to issue a statement calling for increased vigilance over the patriotic holiday in the United States.

The French attack was on a U.S.-owned gas company.

Separately, State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement that diplomatic posts had been reminded to carry out routine security reviews several weeks before the holiday.

The reminder is "done before all major holidays, and is not indicative of any specific security threat," he said.

In Washington, nine security checkpoints will be set up to screen the tens of thousands of visitors expected for fireworks and festivities on the National Mall. Coolers, backpacks and packages are subject to inspection, and about 18,000 feet of chain link fencing will be installed, the National Park Service said.

The U.S. capital was jolted on Thursday by the false report of a gunman at the Navy Yard military base that triggered a massive security response.  — Reuters