DOJ: Member of “The Dark Overlord” Hacking Group Extradited From United Kingdom to Face Charges in St. Louis

The Dark Overlord allegedly released 911 legal documents.

Defendant Conspired to Steal Sensitive Personally Identifying Information from Victim Companies and Release those Records on Criminal Marketplaces unless Victims Paid Bitcoin Ransoms

A United Kingdom national appeared today in federal court on charges of aggravated identity theft, threatening to damage a protected computer, and conspiring to commit those and other computer fraud offenses, related to his role in a computer hacking collective known as “The Dark Overlord,” which targeted victims in the St. Louis, Missouri, area beginning in 2016. 

Nathan Wyatt, 39, was extradited from the United Kingdom to the Eastern District of Missouri and arraigned on Dec. 18 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Shirley Padmore Mensah.  He pleaded not guilty and was detained pending further proceedings.

A federal grand jury indicted Wyatt on Nov. 8, 2017.  According to court records, beginning in 2016, Wyatt was a member of The Dark Overlord, a hacking group that was responsible for remotely accessing the computer networks of multiple U.S. companies without authorization, obtaining sensitive records and information from those companies, and then threatening to release the companies’ stolen data unless the companies paid a ransom in bitcoin.  Victims in the Eastern District of Missouri included healthcare providers, accounting firms, and others. Among other things, Wyatt is alleged to have participated in the conspiracy by creating email and phone accounts that he used to send threatening and extortionate emails and text messages to certain victims, including victims in the Eastern District of Missouri.  

“Today’s extradition shows that the hackers hiding behind The Dark Overlord moniker will be held accountable for their alleged extortion of American companies,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.  “We are thankful for the close cooperation of our partners in the United Kingdom in ensuring that the defendant will face justice in U.S. court.”

“Cyber criminals who harm victims in the Eastern District of Missouri cannot hide behind international borders to evade justice,” said U.S. Attorney Jeffrey B. Jensen of the Eastern District of Missouri.  “Today’s case demonstrates the United States’ commitment to unmasking criminal hackers and bringing them to justice, no matter where they may be located.”

“Cyber hackers may no longer use territorial borders to shield themselves from accountability,” said Special Agent in Charge Richard Quinn of the FBI’s St. Louis Field Office. “This case is another example of how the FBI successfully works with international law enforcement partners to bring alleged perpetrators to justice.”

The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s St. Louis Field Office.  The FBI’s Atlanta Field Office also provided support.  The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs coordinated the extradition of Wyatt. The department thanks law enforcement and international cooperation authorities in the United Kingdom for their substantial assistance in the investigation.

Senior Counsel Laura-Kate Bernstein of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gwendolyn Carroll and Matthew Drake of the Eastern District of Missouri are prosecuting the case.

The details contained in the charging document are allegations.  The defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

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Michigan Attorney General Raids Detroit IT For Stealin' Children, Land & Votes

Today, is a great day, but tomorrow, and everyday forward shall be glorious.

I cannot wait to see those Detroit Land Bank Authority emails.

You do know there is an international, federal, state, county and local conjugal collaborative.

I bet SIGTARP is ready for the Grand Jury to vote.

#maytheheavensfall

Oups ! J'ai dit une bêtise !

Michigan AG's office executes search warrant on IT department for Detroit City Hall

DETROIT (WXYZ) — The Michigan Attorney General's office executed a search warrant on the Informational Technology Department that services Detroit City Hall on Friday.

A spokesperson for the AG's office only said that the office conducted a search on the city's IT department "due to an ongoing investigation."

While the department serves City Hall, it is physically located at the Public Safety Headquarters about a mile away.

In July, the AG said she was looking into deleted emails that center on Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a woman he is connected to and a program she runs that received support from city grants.

Report: Duggan chief of staff ordered Make Your Date e-mails deleted, Mayor gave preferential treatment to program

Duggan says staff who ordered e-mail deletions had 'best of intentions,' won't be punished

The Michigan Attorney General's Office said they received two complaints in early July, one from a current city employee and one from a former employee, that alleged they had been directed to delete the emails

Last month, the Detroit Office of Inspector General released a report that found Duggan gave preferential treatment to the program, and that his chief of staff, Alexis Wiley, ordered those emails deleted.

After the report came out about the emails, the city released all 211 pages of emails from late 2017 and 2018 that were deleted.

The OIG report was released on Oct. 21after a months-long investigation by the OIG into questions involving the Make Your Date (MYD) program, run in conjunction with Wayne State University, and its connection to support from the city of Detroit. The investigation started in April and according to the OIG, the office reviewed more than 400,000 pages of documents, interviewed about a dozen people and researched best practices.

New controversy in Detroit City Hall; deleted email 'to hide the facts'
Duggan’s office sought donation for Make Your Date, Bloomfield Hills non-profit says
According to the report, the most "egregious" conduct was that Alexis Wiley ordered certain Office of Development and Grants employees to delete emails relating to MYD.

"Ms. Wiley abused her authority by ordering ODG staff to delete emails related to MYD," the report states.

The report said those emails pertained to Make Your Date, and that Chief Development Officer Ryan Friedrichs and Deputy Chief Development Officer Sirene Abou-Chakra issued the directive to subordinates.

"The deletion of emails only serves to undermine the public’s trust in an open and transparent government. Therefore, the OIG finds such conduct as abuse of authority," the report states.

In an interview on Oct. 21, Duggan pushed back on the Inspector General's findings.

"They were trying to keep two junior staff people from being dragged into the media circus," Duggan said by phone. He said that Wiley's intentions were good, it "made something look wrong when there was nothing to hide."

According to the OIG, Duggan didn't violate city policies, procedures or laws by giving preferential treatment to MYD, and it wasn't an abuse of power, but "such treatment was not best practice or good governance."

The report said that the city choosing to partner with MYD was done in a manner that "lacked fairness, openness and transparency," and that "ODG staff successfully assisted MYD in raising grant funds, in direct contradiction to the initial public statements made by the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, Alexis Wiley."

Wiley said "[n]o city funds were ever provided to Make Your Date nonprofit and no private money was ever raised for it," according to the report, but the OIG found that the statements were largely false and ODG staff worked with both WSU and MYD on fundraising efforts.

Duggan said most Detroit residents would applaud his efforts to combat infant mortality.

"What we did was take a critical problem in the deaths of babies in this community and partner with the finest research institution in America in a very effective way," Duggan said. "I totally dispute that that was preferential treatment. In my mind, we partnered with the best and got a good result."

The OIG's report also said that both Friedrichs and Abou-Chakra abused their authority. Friedrichs did so by "being complicity" in relaying the order from Wiley to delete emails, and Abou-Chakra by "reiterating the same order."

Both Duggan and Wiley also used their personal emails to conduct city business, according to the report.

"The OIG finds this practice extremely problematic. All City of Detroit public servants, including elected officials, are given a City email address. This is what should be used to conduct City business. When any public servant uses a personal email account to conduct City business, anyone seeking information from that account is at the mercy of that individual to produce the emails on their own. This is in contrast to City email which can be accessed by to recover the emails with or without the public servant’s knowledge," the report said.

In a response, the lawyer representing all four sent a letter to the OIG that said, in part:

"This letter serves as the joint response, on behalf of Mayor Duggan, Alexis Wiley, Ryan Friedrichs, and Sirene Abou-Chakra, to the OIG’s draft findings in case number 19-0013 INV. The draft report concludes, among other things, that (1) the Mayor provided “preferential treatment” to Make Your Date; (2) the City failed to follow its procurement processes with respect to Make Your Date; (3) Ms. Wiley made misleading statements to the media; and (4) Ms. Wiley, Mr. Friedrichs, and Ms. Abou-Chakra “abused their authority” in relation to a directive given to junior staff members to delete emails. For the reasons outlined below, we respectfully request that all of those draft findings be revised and reversed. The draft findings are not supported by facts or applicable legal standards. The draft findings, moreover, threaten to impose severe, unwarranted damage to the reputation of several public servants—and further threaten to stymie effective governance in the City of Detroit."
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The Tale of Maria Butina Begins - Gerrymandering In The United States

Maria Butina shall be memorialized in the annals of history as Goddess... just as soon as she tells her tales of Michigan and how they have been stealin' the children, land and votes.

What they did to her, they do to children, but much worse, because no one cares.

Russiagate’s first survivor: The harsh education of Maria Butina 

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Maria Butina Speaks Upon The U.S. Justice System - No Money, No Justice - The American Way of Chattels

Maria Butina discusses, first hand, how jacked up the United States justice system is.

She covers the lack of due process, solitary confinement, immigration, gender equality, and why 90% of the people in the U.S. take pleas.

No money, no justice - The American Way of Chattels

Russia Exposes Why U.S. Hides Human Rights Violations

FUN FACT! EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED TO HER HAPPENS TO CHILDREN IN FOSTER CARE AND INCARCERATED JUVENILES IN THE UNITED STATES

Ministry of Foreign Affair... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Maria Butina Is Deported But Paul Whelan Is Not

No one speaks upon Michigan.

This is not an exchange.

This is due process.

#FreeMariaButina

Russian agent Butina released from U.S. prison, deported

Mariia Butina

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina was released from a Florida prison on Friday after serving most of her 18-month sentence for conspiring to influence U.S. conservative activists and infiltrate a powerful gun rights group, and taken into custody by immigration officials to be deported to her native country.

Convicted Russian agent Maria Butina is accompanied by federal agents after her release from a Florida prison, during her transfer onto a jet bound for Moscow at Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, U.S. October 25, 2019. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Handout via REUTERS.
Butina, 31, had been scheduled for release from the low-security prison in Tallahassee in early November, but a change in federal law moved up her release date based on credit for good behavior, her attorney Robert Driscoll said.

A prison official confirmed she was released on Friday morning and taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities.

She left Miami International Airport on a direct flight to Moscow at about 6 p.m. (2200 GMT), ICE said in a statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously expressed “outrage” over Butina’s prison sentence and said she did not carry out any orders from Russian security services.


Butina, a former graduate student at American University in Washington who publicly advocated for gun rights, pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiring to act as a foreign agent and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

The Siberia native admitted to conspiring with a Russian official and two Americans to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, a group closely aligned with U.S. conservatives and Republican politicians including President Donald Trump, and create unofficial lines of communication to try to shape Washington’s policy toward Moscow.

Her 18-month sentence included nine months she spent incarcerated after her July 2018 arrest.

Butina’s case was separate from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, which detailed numerous contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Her activities occurred during the same period as the contacts investigated by Mueller.


RUSSIAN OFFICIAL
The Russian official with whom Butina conspired was later identified as Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s central bank. He was never charged in the case, but was hit with sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department.

One of the two Americans referenced in her case was conservative political activist Paul Erickson, her boyfriend. Erickson was not charged for his links to Butina, but was indicted on unrelated wire fraud and money laundering charges in South Dakota. The case against Erickson is still pending.

In addition, Overstock.com (OSTK.O) Chief Executive Officer Patrick Byrne resigned in August after confirming a report by Fox News contributor Sara Carter that he also had an intimate relationship with Butina.

Federal prosecutors have said Butina did not engage in “traditional” spy craft, but worked behind the scenes to make inroads in conservative political circles and promote friendlier U.S.-Russian relations. She arranged dinners in Washington and New York and attended events to meet prominent politicians.

Butina in 2015 appeared at a Trump campaign event and asked him a question about whether he wanted better relations with Russia. Trump responded by telling Butina that he would “get along very nicely with Putin.”

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs last year accused the United States of forcing Butina to make a false confession to “absolutely ridiculous charges” of being a Russian agent.

Slideshow (2 Images)
“It’s not clear what she was convicted of or what crime she committed,” Putin said in April. “I think it’s a prime example of ‘saving face.’ They arrested her and put the girl in jail. But there was nothing on her, so in order not to look totally stupid they gave her, fixed her up, with an 18-month sentence to show that she was guilty of something.”

Asked whether Washington now expects Russia to release a former U.S. Marine named Paul Whelan currently being held on accusations of espionage, a State Department spokesperson said, “We continue to urge the Russian government to ensure a fair trial, including a fair and public hearing without undue delay, in accordance with its international legal obligations.”

A Russian court on Thursday ordered Whelan, detained in 2018, held in custody until Dec. 29.

Whelan, who holds American, British, Canadian and Irish passports, has denied the espionage allegations.

Paul Whelan: Russia spy suspect 'more Mr Bean than James Bond'

Media caption'My human rights are being violated and my life threatened'
Ten months after his arrest on espionage charges in Moscow, ex-US marine Paul Whelan has said he is more like naive, fictional buffoon Mr Bean than suave spy James Bond.

Russia says he was caught red-handed with state secrets on electronic files.

A judge extended his pre-trial detention until 29 December.

As the judge delivered his ruling, Mr Whelan defied orders to keep quiet, reading a statement from a cage guarded by an FSB officer in a balaclava.

"Russia says it caught James Bond on a spy mission. In reality, they abducted Mr Bean on holiday," Mr Whelan told the court.

A regular visitor to Russia, who made many friends over the years, Paul Whelan was detained at the Metropol hotel in December. He says he was getting ready for a wedding when an old friend turned up unexpectedly. Moments later, security officers burst in and arrested him for receiving state secrets.

Mr Whelan claims the flash drive they found was planted by the friend: an FSB officer he believes betrayed him.

His lawyers, who are now working their way through several thousand pages of the case files - including surveillance material - say they've still seen nothing to prove his guilt.

He has become increasingly defiant at his court appearances, a rare few hours out of his prison cell every three months.

Media captionRussia spy case: Is Paul Whelan a hostage of Russia or a spy?
This time he told the BBC the case against him was "a joke".

"This is just a hostage situation," he said in court.

The American, who also holds British, Irish and Canadian passports, suspects he's a victim of plummeting relations between Russia and the West. Some have speculated that Moscow wants to swap him for a Russian prisoner abroad, though the Foreign Ministry here denies that.

Its spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, insists he was caught red-handed. "We have the facts," she said last week.

At his latest hearing, the ex-Marine requested the prosecutor and judge be replaced for their failure to investigate his claims of ill treatment and a lack of objectivity.

Mr Whelan was guarded in the defendants' cage by a balaclava-clad FSB officer
When the judge refused, as neither are official grounds for recusal, Mr Whelan displayed mock incredulity.

"So if the prosecutor were my sister that would be illegal, but human rights violations are fine?'" he asked.

"What do you think, Alexei? Shall we go for it?" he then joked to the chief investigator, wondering whether to request his removal too.

"It's your right," the FSB officer replied in English, with a smile.

But this high-profile case is a serious matter.

Mr Whelan claimed today he had been assaulted by prison staff. His lawyer, Vladimir Zherebenkov, said later that a guard had been disciplined following a dispute over the American "jumping and singing" during his daily exercise hour.

More serious still, the espionage charge he's facing carries a 20-year prison sentence.

Paul Whelan - innocent wedding guest or spy?
Former US marine alleges set-up in Russia spy case
Ex-marine calls Russia spy case 'political kidnap'
The investigation is now complete and his legal team say there is "lots in their favour" in the files they've been handed: none of his other Russian friends have said he claimed to be a spy or tried to recruit them.

But the lawyers say Mr Whelan is going through the papers himself in such detail, his trial is now unlikely to start before Spring.

Mr Whelan's family insist he was only visiting Russia to attend a friend's wedding
'I said to him, maybe we should get it over and done with this year? Get you home sooner,' Mr Zherebenkov recalled. 'But he wants to read everything, very carefully.'

The team have talked before of possible "misunderstandings" between Mr Whelan and his FSB "friend". They've hinted at jokes, maybe lost in translation. His family confirm that he's well known for his "banter", as displayed recently in court.

That may explain Mr Whelan likening himself to the hapless, but harmless, Mr Bean. It's hard to judge as the case is secret, including details on what data he allegedly sought, who for and how.

But Paul Wheel argues there's nothing to hide. So as he was led out of court in handcuffs, he attempted to break the blackout by flinging a copy of the latest court ruling at me down the corridor. It was scooped up by a Western diplomat. Only, the information it reveals is classified.

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World Bank Day 3: How To Maximize Revenues Through Child Welfare Trust Funds & The Relationship Of Social Impact Bonds

The World Bank has always been an interesting creature to me, so, for me to give you the highlights in pithy points of reality, we are up to Day 3.

Any wagers on what clever revenue maximization schemes these "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) are conjuring up for Day 4?

Of course, I could have looked at the agenda, but that would be no fun.

I am going to go out there and put Day 5 to be about something like organ harvesting.

These Psychobabies are sick puppies!

Have a great day.

World Bank Fiscal Year Annual Meeting - Day 1 - How To Profit Off "The Poors" In The Quantum Renaissance

Day 2: How to save "The Poors" in bloodless warzones with Public Private Partnerships.

Day 3: How to maximize revenues through child welfare trust funds, Social Impact Bonds.

You people thought I spoke in jest when I said these people use predictive modeling crap to come up with revenue maximization schemes after they complete stealin' the children, land and votes. These are your new, Public Private Partnerships that are privately taking over our U.S. government because we are really, really dumb and greedy by allowing children to grow up in poverty. These are the people who come up with the fantastic innovations to help "The Poors" that they intentionally made poor by stealin'. Thank you for allow me to vent

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World Bank Fiscal Year Annual Meeting - Day 1 - How To Profit Off "The Poors" In The Quantum Renaissance

World Bank Leadership meets to plot and scheme to make mo' $$$ off the changing times of "The Poors".

Someone had to do it.

Join us LIVE for the 2019 World Bank/IMF Annual meetings - October 16th-18th - this year’s Annual Meetings external program of events will focus on groundbreaking research and innovations that can create transformative benefits for the poor.  The program of open events is around the broad theme of Building Strong, Inclusive Economies and Achieving Successful Country Outcomes.

To open the Annual Meetings to audiences around the World, we will live stream key events and interviews with exciting development experts. This year’s live stream will be daily continuous coverage  starting on Wednesday October 14th through Friday October 16th.  The popular, flagship Global Voices interview series will be interspersed through the programming with a total of about 15 live interviews during the week of the Meetings.  Stay tuned for the Annual Meet

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DOJ: South Korean National and Hundreds of Others Charged Worldwide in the Takedown of the Largest Darknet Child Pornography Website, Which was Funded by Bitcoin

Typically, the perpetrators were once the victims.

It is generational.

Praise the lord for there is much more to learn what is done to children in the name of the tax exempt god.

Dozens of Minor Victims Who Were Being Actively Abused by the Users of the Site Rescued

Jong Woo Son, 23, a South Korean national, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia for his operation of Welcome To Video, the largest child sexual exploitation market by volume of content.  The nine-count indictment was unsealed today along with a parallel civil forfeiture action.  Son has also been charged and convicted in South Korea and is currently in custody serving his sentence in South Korea.  An additional 337 site users residing in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington State and Washington, D.C. as well as the United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Czech Republic, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Brazil and Australia have been arrested and charged.   

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu for the District of Columbia, Chief Don Fort of IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) and Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa Erichs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), made the announcement.

“Darknet sites that profit from the sexual exploitation of children are among the most vile and reprehensible forms of criminal behavior,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.  “This Administration will not allow child predators to use lawless online spaces as a shield.  Today’s announcement demonstrates that the Department of Justice remains firmly committed to working closely with our partners in South Korea and around the world to rescue child victims and bring to justice the perpetrators of these abhorrent crimes.”

“Children around the world are safer because of the actions taken by U.S. and foreign law enforcement to prosecute this case and recover funds for victims,” said U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu.  “We will continue to pursue such criminals on and off the darknet in the United States and abroad, to ensure they receive the punishment their terrible crimes deserve.”

“Through the sophisticated tracing of bitcoin transactions, IRS-CI special agents were able to determine the location of the Darknet server, identify the administrator of the website and ultimately track down the website server’s physical location in South Korea,” said IRS-CI Chief Don Fort.  “This largescale criminal enterprise that endangered the safety of children around the world is no more.  Regardless of the illicit scheme, and whether the proceeds are virtual or tangible, we will continue to work with our federal and international partners to track down these disgusting organizations and bring them to justice.”

“Children are our most vulnerable population, and crimes such as these are unthinkable,” said HSI Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa Erichs.  “Sadly, advances in technology have enabled child predators to hide behind the dark web and cryptocurrency to further their criminal activity.  However, today’s indictment sends a strong message to criminals that no matter how sophisticated the technology or how widespread the network, child exploitation will not be tolerated in the United States. Our entire justice system will stop at nothing to prevent these heinous crimes, safeguard our children, and bring justice to all.”

According to the indictment, on March 5, 2018, agents from the IRS-CI, HSI, National Crime Agency in the United Kingdom, and Korean National Police in South Korea arrested Son and seized the server that he used to operate a Darknet market that exclusively advertised child sexual exploitation videos available for download by members of the site.  The operation resulted in the seizure of approximately eight terabytes of child sexual exploitation videos, which is one of the largest seizures of its kind.  The images, which are currently being analyzed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), contained over 250,000 unique videos, and 45 percent of the videos currently analyzed contain new images that have not been previously known to exist.

Welcome To Video offered these videos for sale using the cryptocurrency bitcoin.  Typically, sites of this kind give users a forum to trade in these depictions.  This Darknet website is among the first of its kind to monetize child exploitation videos using bitcoin.  In fact, the site itself boasted over one million downloads of child exploitation videos by users.  Each user received a unique bitcoin address when the user created an account on the website.  An analysis of the server revealed that the website had more than one million bitcoin addresses, signifying that the website had capacity for at least one million users. 

The agencies have shared data from the seized server with law enforcement around the world to assist in identifying and prosecuting customers of the site.  This has resulted in leads sent to 38 countries and yielded arrests of 337 subjects around the world.  The operation has resulted in searches of residences and businesses of approximately 92 individuals in the United States.  Notably, the operation is responsible for the rescue of at least 23 minor victims residing in the United States, Spain and the United Kingdom, who were being actively abused by the users of the site.

In the Washington, D.C.-metropolitan area, the operation has led to the execution of five search warrants and eight arrests of individuals who both conspired with the administrator of the site and were themselves, users of the website.  Two users of the Darknet market committed suicide subsequent to the execution of search warrants.

Amongst the sites users charged are:

• Charles Wunderlich, 34, of Hot Springs, California, was charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute child pornography;
   
• Brian James LaPrath, 34, of San Diego, California, was arrested in the District of Columbia, for international money laundering; and was sentenced to serve 18 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release;
   
• Ernest Wagner, 70, of Federal Way, Washington, was arrested and charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute child pornography;
   
• Vincent Galarzo, 28, of Glendale, New York, was arrested and charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute child pornography;
   
• Michael Ezeagbor, 22, of Pflugerville, Texas, was arrested and charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute child pornography;
   
• Nicholas Stengel, 45, of Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography and money laundering and was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release;
   
• Eryk Mark Chamberlin, 25, of Worcester, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to possession  of child pornography and is pending sentencing;
   
• Jairo Flores, 30, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in the District of Massachusetts to receipt and possession of child pornography and was sentenced to serve five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release;
   
• Billy Penaloza, 29, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in the District of Massachusetts to possession and receipt of child pornography. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 22, 2019;
   
• Michael Armstrong, 35, of Randolph, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in the District of Massachusetts, to receipt and possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to serve five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release.  Restitution will be determined at a future date;
   
• Al Ramadhanu Soedomo, 28, of Lynn, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced in the District of Massachusetts (Boston), to serve 12 months and one day followed by five years of supervised release;
   
• Phillip Sungmin Hong, 24, of Sharon, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in the District of Massachusetts (Boston), to receipt and possession of child pornography and is pending sentencing;
   
• Eliseo Arteaga Jr., 28, of Mesquite, Texas, pleaded guilty in the Northern District of Texas to possession of prepubescent child pornography. He is pending sentencing;
   
• Richard Nikolai Gratkowski, 40, of San Antonio, Texas, a former HSI special agent, was arrested in the Western District of Texas.  Gratkowski pleaded guilty to the indictment charging one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of access with intent to view child pornography.  Gratkowski was sentenced to serve 70 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $35,000 in restitution to seven victims and a $10,000 assessment;
   
• Paul Casey Whipple, 35, of Hondo, Texas, a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, was arrested in the Western District of Texas, on charges of sexual exploitation of children/minors, production, distribution, and possession of child pornography.  Whipple remains in custody awaiting trial in San Antonio;
   
• Michael Lawson, 36, of Midland, Georgia, was arrested in the Middle District of Georgia on charges of attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography.  He was sentenced to serve 121 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release following his plea to a superseding information charging him with one count of receipt of child pornography;
   
• Kevin Christopher Eagan, 39, of Brookhaven, Georgia, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in the Northern District of Georgia;
   
• Casey Santioius Head, 37, of Griffin, Georgia, was indicted in the Northern District of Georgia for distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography;
   
• Andrew C. Chu, 28, of Garwood, New Jersey, was arrested and charged with receipt of child pornography. Those charges remain pending;
   
• Nader Hamdi Ahmed, 29 of Jersey City, New Jersey, was arrested in the District of New Jersey, for sexual exploitation or other abuse of children.  Ahmed pleaded guilty to an information charging him with one count of distribution of child pornography.  He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 1, 2019;
   
• Jeffrey Lee Harris, 32, of Pickens, South Carolina, pleaded guilty in the District of South Carolina for producing, distributing, and possessing child pornography;
   
• Laine Ormand Clark Jr., 27, of Conway, South Carolina, was arrested and charged in U.S. District Court in South Carolina Division for sexual possession of child pornography;
   
• Jack R. Dove III, 38, of Lakeland, Florida, was arrested in the Middle District of Florida for knowingly receiving and possessing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct;
   
• Michael Matthew White, 39, of Miami Beach, Florida, was arrested in the Southern District of Florida for coercion and enticement;
   
• Nikolas Bennion Bradshaw, 24, of Bountiful, Utah, was arrested in the State of Utah, and charged with five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, and was sentenced to time served with 91 days in jail followed by probation;
   
• Michael Don Gibbs, 37, of Holladay, Utah, was charged in the District of Utah with receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography;
   
• Ammar Atef H. Alahdali, 22, of Arlington, Virginia, pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia to receipt of child pornography and was sentenced to serve five years in prison and ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution;
   
• Mark Lindsay Rohrer, 38, of West Hartford, Connecticut, pleaded guilty in the District of Connecticut to receipt of child pornography and was sentenced to serve 60 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release;
   
• Eugene Edward Jung, 47, of San Francisco, California, was indicted in the Northern District of California on possession of child pornography and receipt of child pornography;
   
• James Daosaeng, 25, of Springdale, Arkansas, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced in the Western District of Arkansas (Fayetteville) to serve 97 months in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release;
   
• Alex Daniel Paxton, 30, of Columbus, Ohio, was arrested and indicted in Franklin County Ohio Court of Common Pleas for pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor;
   
• Don Edward Pannell, 32, of Harvey, Louisiana, pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Louisiana for receipt of child pornography. He is pending sentencing;
   
• Ryan Thomas Carver, 29, of Huntsville, Alabama, was arrested and charged under Alabama State Law.  He was charged federally in the Northern District of Alabama with possession of child pornography. His case is pending in Huntsville, Alabama;
   
• Andrew Buckley, 28, of the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty to 10 offences in the UK of possession and distribution of indecent images of children, possession of extreme and prohibited images and possession of a class A drug.  He was sentenced to serve 40 months in prison for the distribution of indecent images and possession of class A drugs. Buckley is also subject to an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order;
   
• Kyle Fox, 26, of the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty to 22 counts including rape, sexual assault, and sharing indecent images, and was sentenced to serve 22 years in prison; and
   
• Mohammed Almaker, 26, of Fort Collins, Colorado, was arrested in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), charged with KSA Law involving the endangerment of children.  He is awaiting judicial proceedings in furtherance of criminal charges.
   

A forfeiture complaint was also unsealed today.  The complaint alleges that law enforcement was able to trace payments of bitcoin to the Darknet site by following the flow of funds on the blockchain.  The virtual currency accounts identified in the complaint were allegedly used by 24 individuals in five countries to fund the website and promote the exploitation of children.  The forfeiture complaint seeks to recover these funds and, ultimately through the restoration process, return the illicit funds to victims of the crime.

The charges in the indictment are merely allegations, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. 

The international investigations were led by the IRS-CI, HSI and the NCA.  The Korean National Police of the Republic of Korea, the National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom and the German Federal Criminal Police (the Bundeskriminalamt), provided assistance and coordinated with their parallel investigations.  The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs of the Criminal Division provided significant assistance.   

The cases are being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Zia M. Faruqui, Lindsay Suttenberg, and Youli Lee, Paralegal Specialists Brian Rickers and Diane Brashears, Legal Assistant Jessica McCormick, and Records Examiner Chad Byron of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney C. Alden Pelker of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section.  Additional assistance has been provided by Deputy Chief Keith Becker and Trial Attorney James E. Burke IV of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and former U.S. Attorney’s Office Paralegal Specialists Toni Anne Donato and Ty Eaton. 

Attachment(s): 

Download Son Indictment

Download Graphic of Seizure Page

Download Screen Shot of Webpage

Download Complaint for Forfeiture

pic.twitter.com/NkUQcHjPlP

— U.S. Attorney DC (@USAO_DC) October 16, 2019

South Korean National and Hundreds of Others Charged Worldwide in the Takedown of the Largest Darknet Child... by Beverly Tran on Scribd Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Biogenetic Legal Library Of Corporate Parental Rights - The Acquisition Of Asset Forfeiture Of Tiny Human Chattels - Courtesy Of The Detroit Land Bank Authority & Hillary Clinton's Campaign

The University of San Diego is back at it, but this time they are doing the library database, Predictive Modeling Crap, AI datascraping, all from your handheld device.

That is correct, Hillary Clinton is getting ready to raise campaign funds, or a legal defense, for her 2020 Presidential Campaign.

Yes, through the act of miracles by and through her "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) the reengineering of child welfare is just about ready to go full blown AI.

Yes, you can procure and purvey tiny humans right from your phone though one tap adoptions.

I can see the emerging markets in trafficking tiny humans, designer CRISPR babies, on demand organ transfers, lab rat populations, well, just about anything in the biogenetic administrative world of intellectual property.

You do not need large populations anymore for human lab rats, so why not adoption, you know, Save the Children.

What better service to market to the tiny human lab rat industries than have the go to repository for bioethics.

See, you cannot own any DNA or RNA, but you surely can own protein strands, which you can then patent and safely tuck away all those encrypted keys for those bitcoin children's trusts, who have probably yet to be created, in your super secret vaults, all for the purposes of stealin'.

Yup.

Think of all those zygotes and embryos, just abandoned in some cryogenic christian pro life lab, waiting to be adopted by some foreign corporation for perinatal and neonatal biogenetic studies.

Embryo donation is a radical mutation affecting the conception of individuals. In some cases, embryo donation may be the only solution available to remedy the problem of infertility, enabling the accomplishment of parent-born offspring without a genetic link. According to French law, the embryo is not a “simple” element of the human body, but a “potential person.”

Where does one go for legal citation of parental rights, acquisition of goods?

To your android phone, of course!

Data from Adoption - University of San Diego Libraries

But wait, it gets better!

Michigan is the first state to initiate the maximization of revenues from a fetus.

Yes, that is correct, you can file for a tax credit for the fetus, which, by the way this bill is introduced, I would most definitely say this was specifically written for corporate parents, who may just so happen to be foreign corporations.

Here is the Michigan Fetal Death Reporting Form.....for a facility, which is a commercial way of identifying the corporate parent.

As seen on the form, there is even opportunity for Medicaid Fraud in Child Welfare.

A fetal death indicates that the corporate parent is "salvaging the soul" of the child, for financial leveraging purposes, only, of course, to be listed in the manifest of some UCC lien, to be pirated off to a foreign land in the children's trust of the Public Private Partnership, across the seas of maritime law, under some form of allodial title of nobility.

Good thing Hillary is building her new privatized law libraries for trafficking tiny humans because she has a campaign to run in Detroit!

SENATE BILL NO. 393

August 20, 2019, Introduced by Senator BARRETT and referred to the Committee on Finance.

A bill to amend 1967 PA 281, entitled

"Income tax act of 1967,"

by amending section 8 (MCL 206.8), as amended by 2018 PA 38.

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN ENACT:

Sec. 8. (1) "Department" means the revenue division of the department of treasury.

(2) "Dependent" means a dependent any of the following:

(a) A qualifying child as defined in section 152 of the internal revenue code.

(b) A qualifying relative as defined in section 152 of the internal revenue code.

(c) A fetus that has, as determined by a physician, completed at least 12 weeks of gestation as of the last day of the tax year, and that has been under the care and observation of a physician since at least 12 weeks of gestation. As used in this subdivision:

(i) "Fetus" means an individual organism of the species Homo sapiens at any time before complete delivery from a pregnant woman.

(ii) "Physician" means an individual licensed to engage in the practice of medicine or the practice of osteopathic medicine and surgery under article 15 of the public health code, 1978 PA 368, MCL 333.16101 to 333.18838.

(3) "Employee" means an employee as defined in section 3401(c) of the internal revenue code. Any person from whom an employer is required to withhold for federal income tax purposes shall prima facie be deemed an employee.

(4) "Employer" means an employer as defined in section 3401(d) of the internal revenue code. Any person required to withhold for federal income tax purposes shall prima facie be deemed an employer.

Enacting section 1. This amendatory act is effective for tax years beginning on and after January 1, 2019.

https://www.genomenon.com/nih-grant-micropublications-genomic-interpretation/

Genomenon Wins NIH Grant to Develop Micropublications for Genomic InterpretationGrant to Automate Variant Interpretation and Create Platform for Sharing Micropublications Across the Genomics Community

Genomenon, Inc., the leading genomic search engine company, announced today that it was awarded a grant by the National Institutes of Health. The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, awarded by the National Human Genome Research Institute*, will fund Genomenon’s further innovation in automating aspects of genomic interpretation from the research literature, and the creation of a platform for producing and sharing “micropublications” across the genomics community.

Micropublications are designed to rapidly place research findings and reviews in the public domain. Curated genomic variant interpretation can be made more efficient if findings and reviews can be rapidly published and shared across the research and clinical community. The grant funds Genomenon’s work to automatically organize the information relevant to genomic classification, along with conclusive content from scientific references, publish the findings, and share the information in a public format.

Importantly, the aim is to allow users to modify and keep up to date the micropublication as new research is published in the field so the findings are always up to date.

“This grant allows us to build on the work from our last successful NIH funding to increase the automation of variant interpretation and allow users to rapidly share their findings across the scientific community.” said Genomenon’s Co-founder and CSO, Dr. Mark Kiel. “This automated micropublication platform will help accelerate the sharing of knowledge as more and more genomic research is being published every year.

* Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R43HG010446. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

About Genomenon

Genomenon connects patient DNA with the billions of dollars spent on research to help doctors diagnose and cure cancer patients and babies with rare diseases.

Our flagship product, the Mastermind Genomic Search Engine is used by hundreds of genetic labs worldwide to accelerate diagnosis, increase diagnostic yield and assure repeatability in reporting genetic testing results.

We license our Mastermind Curated Genomic Datasets to pharmaceutical and bio-pharma companies to inform precision medicine development, deliver genomic biomarkers for clinical trial target selection, and support CDx regulatory submissions with empirical evidence.

For more information, contact us.

Genomic is in the investment portfolio of Invest Detroit, courtesy of the Detroit Land Bank Authority "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending).

https://web.archive.org/web/20190701232844/https://investdetroit.com/

https://beverlytran.blogspot.com/search?q=duggan+infant+mortality

Modern day human trafficking is just so much fun!

Have a great day!

#perkinscoiesucks

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Cocktails & Popcorn: Will The U.S. Treasury Take Over The FEC?

"Only in Hamtramck.", said the FEC

The FEC was not structured as a weight based voting agency was so they both sides could agree to stealin'.

There is no swing vote.

There is no challenge to the vote because it is an administrative process which means they can pick and choose who gets due process.

I filed for an advisory opinion on the use of a foreign national symbol in a local election.

The FEC waited until long after that election to render the response of, "the election is over and you did not phrase the question properly."

Then, it must be taken into consideration that the FEC was run by #perkinscoiesucks.

So, now you know why the FEC was structured as an authority and does absolutely nothing.

Here, I can prove the FEC is a vehicle of stealin'.

I did not even get to the cryptocurrency, child welfare or fake identities issues.

I say the U.S. Treasury is on this.

Federal Election Commission is now out of commission — that's downright scary

Republican Matthew S. Petersen announced his resignation from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) this week. Ho hum news this is not. What it means is that the government agency charged with overseeing compliance with the federal campaign finance laws has been gutted. It now lacks the ability to meaningfully function in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.

There are two primary takeaways here. The first is that this is not unwelcome news for conservatives — such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — who believe that government oversight of federal campaigns is bad in general. McConnell led the years-long charge to kill the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), a feat that was largely accomplished by the Supreme Court with its 2009 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That case overruled on First Amendment grounds the statutory bans on soft or “issue-ad” money spent by corporations and unions close to presidential primaries and general elections.

With the FEC now out of commission, there is no longer a cop on the block to enforce the remaining rules-of-the-game aimed at enhancing fair and free elections in the United States. If no cop is around to pull over speed-demon drivers, the speed limits become meaningless. Translation? It’s the Wild West in federal-campaign-land, and individual voters are the ones who will suffer for it.

The second takeaway is that, once again, Congress is to blame for this travesty.

The reason Congress is to blame has to do with the way that the FEC is structured. Congress — not the Constitution — creates federal agencies by statute. Those statutes also give agencies their job descriptions. Because Congress lacks the political will and expertise to do lawmaking across-the-board, it gives agencies the power to make laws for it. This handoff of the legislative baton occurs by statute. When agencies make laws pursuant to their statutory power, we call those laws “regulations.”

That the FEC can’t make laws anymore isn’t the problem. The problem is with enforcement. The technical job of the executive branch is to execute — or enforce — the law. The president is the ultimate federal cop-on-the-block in this regard. He enforces laws through the attorney general and his various cabinet-level appointees — “secretaries” of large federal departments. The president has the constitutional authority to appoint and, by implication, fire those folks at will. That way, they remain accountable to the electorate. If the voters don’t like what an agency is doing, they can replace the agencies’ boss, the president.

In the 1930s, Congress thought it was a good idea to create some agencies that are quasi-insulated from the president. These are colloquially known as “independent agencies.” These agencies tend to have the word “commission” in their titles (think Federal Communications Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission, and so on).

Independent agencies are headed by panels rather than single individuals. The panels are usually comprised of a statutorily-mandated number of commissioners from each side of the political aisle, that is, a set number of Democrats and a set number of Republicans. Unlike with Department heads, incoming presidents generally can’t appoint all of the commissioners at once. They instead serve five to seven-year staggered terms, so that only certain seats come up during a certain president’s term. Independent agencies also make decisions by majority vote, and the statute creating them usually requires a quorum to conduct business.

Here’s the kicker: The president cannot fire these people at will. They can only be fired “for cause” — and the statute creating the commission normally sets forth the conditions that must exist before the president can fire a commissioner.

This is precisely the model that led to the independent counsel law undergirding Kenneth W. Starr’s investigation of former President Clinton. Even though the president couldn’t fire that top law enforcement official (unlike, say a federal prosecutor or FBI agent), the Supreme Court has consistently upheld the constitutionality of statutory constraints on the president’s power to hire and fire executive branch officials that head independent agencies, including folks like Starr.

The notion behind independent agencies is, well, independence from the political process. If law enforcement officials are structurally immune from political influence, the theory goes, they will make better decisions for the overall public good. If they are instead subject to the political and ideological whims of their White House boss, they will execute their power in biased ways that could hurt the broader public.

The FEC was created by statute in 1974. It has six members — three from each political party — who are each supposed to serve a six-year term. Every two years, two seats come up for reappointment. A quorum of four is required for the FEC to act. With Petersen’s resignation, the FEC is down to three commissioners, which means it’s effectively out of business.

President Trump has shown no interest in changing that dynamic. By refusing to put more watchdogs on the campaign finance beat, the presidency has managed to shred the laws themselves.

Some might argue that this is not a big deal, because the FEC has long been notoriously feckless. It deadlocks 3-3 on purely political grounds anyway. If it enforces the laws against anyone, it targets the bit players — while the big fish swim away.

Still, the FEC managed to fine the 2008 Obama campaign $375,000 for violating laws requiring that it report certain information to the FEC. Broadly speaking, such laws are aimed at ensuring that the public is informed as to who is paying a campaign’s bill, so that voters can cast ballots accordingly.

Let’s not forget, too, the first part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report detailing Russia’s systematic efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election — and his warning to Congress that those efforts are ongoing for the 2020 race. Even at its peak capacity, the FEC is hardly empowered to take on Putin’s democracy-crushing machinery. That’s Congress’s job — especially with a Putin-apologist in the White House. But Congress is not doing much on that front, either. Again, we have McConnell largely to thank for that roadblock.

If we are going to salvage a legitimate democracy for America, November 2020 is becoming increasingly urgent by the day. For now, one thing’s for sure: The FEC won’t be saving the day.


Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Build The Wall: Trafficking Of Souls Has Gone AI - Schengen Information System, European Union, Vatican, Bitcoin & Children's Trust Funds

Walls are no longer brick and mortar.

Walls are AI.

The U.S. has no AI border wall.

The U.S. likes to traffic tiny human and their souls over the border for lots and lots of money.

But do not just ask Chuck & Nancy because it is personal inurement of office and how politicians fund their campaigns, which would be an issue of self incrimination.

We would not want Chuck & Nancy to incriminate themselves but we could ask Betsy DeVos, a subject matter expert on trafficking the souls of tiny humans.

And that is why we are going to have a Constitutional Crisis because we would like to know who is in our country and the purveyors of tiny humans do not want to stop salvaging all the souls, which includes our intellectual property.

Trump is championing the end of stealin' the children, the land and the votes.

European–Vatican relations

QUESTION*: What does the Vatican and European Union have in common?

ANSWER: A Bitcoin Wall

According to Wikipedia:
Holy See–European Union relations is the relationship between the European Union (EU) and the Holy See (or Vatican City).   This is framed by the Holy See's geography (within an EU state capital) while being unable to join.

According to Wikipedia:

The Schengen Information System (SIS) is a governmental database maintained by the European Commission. The SIS is used by 31 European countries to find information about individuals and entities for the purposes of national security, border control and law enforcement. A second technical version of this system, SIS II, went live on 9 April 2013.^{Schengen Information System}

What is the Schengen Information System (SIS)?

The Schengen Information System (SIS) is the most widely used and largest information sharing system for security and border management in Europe. SIS enables competent national authorities, such as the police and border guards, to enter and consult alerts on persons or objects. An SIS alert does not only contain information about a particular person or object but also instructions for the authorities on what to do when the person or object has been found. Specialised national SIRENE Bureaux located in each Member State serve as single points of contact for the exchange of supplementary information and coordination of activities related to SIS alerts. At the end of 2017, SIS contained approximately 76.5 million records, it was accessed 5.2 billion times and secured 243 818 hits (when a search leads to an alert and the authorities confirm it).

What is the purpose of the SIS?

The main purpose of SIS is to make Europe safer. The system assists the competent authorities in Europe to preserve internal security in the absence of internal border checks. The scope of SIS is defined in three legal instruments:

1. Regulation (EC) No 1987/2006 (Border control cooperation):
   SIS enables border guards and visa issuing and migration authorities to enter and consult alerts on third-country nationals for the purpose of refusing their entry into or stay in the Schengen area.
2. Council Decision 2007/533/JHA (Law enforcement cooperation):
   SIS supports police and judicial cooperation by allowing competent authorities to create and consult alerts on missing persons and on persons or objects related to criminal offences.
3. Regulation (EC) No 1986/2006 (Cooperation on vehicle registration)
   Vehicle registration services may consult SIS in order to check the legal status of the vehicles presented to them for registration. They only have access to SIS alerts on vehicles, registration certificates and number plates.

How will SIS be in the future?

The changes proposed in 2016 by the European Commission will strengthen significantly the system.

In June 2018, the co-legislators reached political agreement on the new SIS package. The new functionalities in SIS will be implemented in different stages, with a requirement for the work to be completed by 2021.

The changes will entail enhancements in the following areas:

• Biometrics: SIS will contain palm prints, fingerprints, facial images and DNA concerning, for example, missing persons to confirm their identity.
• Counter-terrorism: More information will be shared on persons and objects involved in terrorism-related activities, allowing the authorities of the Member States to better pursue and prevent serious crimes and terrorism.
• Vulnerable persons: Competent authorities will have the possibility of entering preventive alerts in the system to protect certain categories of vulnerable persons (missing persons, children at risk of abduction or potential victims of trafficking in human beings or gender-based violence).
• Irregular migration: Return decisions and entry bans will be part of the information shared in the system to enhance their effective enforcement.
• Enhanced access for EU Agencies: Europol will now have access to all alert categories in the SIS while the European Border and Coast Guard Agency operational teams will be able to access SIS for the purpose of carrying out their tasks in the hotspots.

Moreover, the introduction since March 2018 of an AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System) in SIS, and the resulting possibility of making searches using fingerprints, makes it even more difficult for criminals to move unnoticed across Europe.

In which countries is SIS in operation?

SIS is in operation in 30 European countries, including 26 EU Member States (only Ireland and Cyprus are not yet connected to SIS) and 4 Schengen Associated Countries (Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland).

EU Member States with special arrangements:

• Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia are not yet part of the area without internal border checks (the 'Schengen area'). However, since August 2018, Bulgaria and Romania started using fully SIS. A Council Decision is still required for the lifting of checks at the internal borders of these two Member States. In the case of Croatia, there are still some restrictions regarding its use of Schengen-wide SIS alerts for the purposes of refusing entry into or stay in the Schengen area. Those restrictions will be lifted as soon as Croatia has become a part of the area without internal border checks.
• The United Kingdom operates SIS but, as it has chosen not to join the Schengen area, it cannot issue or access Schengen-wide alerts for refusing entry and stay into the Schengen area.
• Ireland and Cyprus are not yet connected to SIS. Ireland is carrying out preparatory activities to connect to SIS, but, as is the case for the UK, it will not be able to issue or access Schengen-wide alerts for refusing entry or stay. Cyprus has a temporary derogation from joining the Schengen area and is not yet connected to SIS.

EU Votes to Create a Gigantic Biometrics Database

The European Union has moved forward with its plans to create a gigantic biometrics database, despite facing criticism for putting privacy rights at stake through it.

Last week, the European Parliament has adopted a legislation that will enable EU information systems to exchange records through the Common Identity Repository (CIR), which is set to gather data for over 150 million individuals. The move has been taken as a further attempt to simplify the jobs of EU border and law enforcement officers.

According to a press release by the European Parliament, the new system will facilitate the tasks of border guards, migration officers, police officers and judicial authorities by providing them with more systematic and faster access to various EU security and border-control information systems.

“The systems covered by the new rules would include the Schengen Information System, Eurodac,the Visa Information System (VIS) and three new systems: the European Criminal Records System for Third Country Nationals (ECRIS-TCN), the Entry/Exit System (EES) and the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS),” the press release reads.

The EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos asserted that the Security Union is steadily taking shape with a whole range of tools, actions and rules being put in place to protect all EU citizens.

Whereas, the Commissioner for the Security Union Julian King said that the new adoptions mark another important milestone in the work of the EU towards an effective and genuine Security Union.

“Interoperability will help those working in the frontline to keep EU citizens safe – ensuring police and border guards have efficient access to the information they need, including to fight identity fraud, enables them to do their jobs properly,” he said a day after the Parliament had adopted the legislation.

EU Criticized for Putting Privacy Rights at Stake

Watchdog and non-profit organizations have long criticized the move for establishing such a system.

Non-profit organization Statewatch published a report last year titled “Interoperability morphs into the creation of a Big Brother centralized EU state database including all existing and future Justice and Home Affairs databases.”

According to the report the notion that these plans are simply bringing together existing data and biometrics, and so there is nothing to be afraid of, is untrue.

“If there has been one clear lesson since 11 September 2001 it is that function creep is the name of the game. From the late 1970s onwards each new stage of the technological revolution has been justified on the grounds that there is nothing new, it is just making life easier for law enforcement and border control agencies to get access to the information they need to do their job more efficiently. Whereas the reality is that at each stage databases become ever more intrusive as security demands cumulatively diminish freedoms and rights,” the report concludes among others.

*I had to spell out "QUESTION" because there are humans who like to worship a random letter of the alphabet.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©