Day 619.1 Awan Spy Ring's iPhone Thefts At Capitol Eludes Capitol Top Cop Irving

I forgot Yvette Clark was on the Ethics Committee.

Interesting, because she knows stuff.

DEM CHIEF OF STAFF TRIED TO EXPOSE SUSPECTED THEFT RING ON CAPITOL HILL, WAS MET WITH RESISTANCE

• A top aide to Democrat Rep. Yvette Clarke told Capitol Hill investigators she believed the New York congresswoman’s chief of staff, Shelley Davis, was working with IT aide Abid Awan to steal equipment from the congressional office.
• Clarke “wrote off” one-tenth of her annual budget after $120,000 in equipment could not be located.
• She did not mention it publicly and waited to fire Abid until House officials approached her about it months later. Davis no longer works there, but has not been arrested.

Rep. Yvette Clarke’s deputy chief of staff came into the office on a Saturday in December 2015 and caught the New York Democrat’s part-time IT aide, Abid Awan, rummaging through the congresswoman’s work area with new iPods and other equipment strewn around the room, according to a House document and interviews with Hill staff.

Wendy Anderson told Abid to get out of the office, the document said. She told Capitol Hill investigators that she soon suspected Clarke’s chief of staff, Shelley Davis, was working with Abid on a theft scheme, multiple House staffers with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Caller News Foundation. They also said that Anderson pushed for Abid’s firing.

But Clarke did not fire Abid until six months after the congresswoman formally acknowledged that $120,000 in equipment was missing, records show — not until after House investigators independently announced a review that would potentially catch financial discrepancies. Even then, Anderson told investigators she believed another top staffer in Clarke’s office was subverting their efforts, a House staffer with knowledge of the investigation said.

Four months later, Anderson took a job with another congressional office. Clarke’s office declined to say under what terms she left.

Abid — known in the office as Omar — and his brothers, fellow IT workers Imran Awan and Jamal Awan, are suspected of making “unauthorized access” to congressional servers during the 2016 election and of running a theft scheme, according to the House Inspector General (IG). Together, the family had access to all the emails and files of 1 in 5 House Democrats.

Members like Clarke have refused to discuss the case. The New York congresswoman, meanwhile, has described Donald Trump’s presidency as the product of an “illegally hacked, illegitimate election.”

House Chief Administrative Officer Phil Kiko testified in a public hearing in April that “the House IG discovered evidence of procurement fraud and irregularities [and] numerous violations of House security policies” by the Awans. The alleged procurement fraud included submitting suspicious invoices to bill equipment to House offices.

Each invoice requires sign-offs from chiefs of staff or congressmen. House office budgets are tight enough that unnecessary purchases would be hard to miss, three chiefs of staff told TheDCNF.

A Feb. 3, 2017 letter from Kiko and the House’s top law enforcement officer, Sergeant-At-Arms Paul Irving, to the Committee on House Administration — kept secret by the House, but obtained by TheDCNF — quotes from notes on an interview with Anderson:

Coming in on a Saturday and finding Omar in the office with equipment everywhere. She stated, ‘it looked like Christmas with Apple TV’s, iPods, etc. scattered around the room.’ She stated that Omar told her ‘these items were not her office’s equipment but they belonged to another office.’ She told him to get them out of her member’s office.

One House staffer who said Anderson confided in them told TheDCNF of the views she expressed: “She knew it was obviously stolen … What business case would they have had for iPods? … He’s a shared employee, basically a contractor. Why would he be camped out … in her personal office?”

“Wendy was actually a truth-sayer, she wanted the right things to happen, enforce rules, and Yvette Clarke did not,” the staffer continued.

Anderson was promoted to chief of staff soon after she encountered Abid in Clarke’s office near Christmas 2015. Her predecessor, Davis, departed the payroll on Feb. 11, 2016.

Once Anderson became responsible for the office’s finances, she found that Clarke’s office had for years been ordering abnormal quantities of equipment, much with seemingly dubious business value, she later told House investigators, according to multiple congressional officials with knowledge of the probe who spoke with TheDCNF. After some investigating, Anderson told investigators she believed Davis was working with Abid to steal taxpayer funds, the officials said.

“She thought that Shelley and Omar had too tight of a relationship,” one said. “She’d been going through old email and could see that it basically smacked of Omar was ordering stuff for Shelley and there was no business reason.” Anderson gave House officials copies of those emails, the source said.

“She said to Abid, ‘I want to do an inventory of the office,’ and he couldn’t come up with $120,000 [in equipment], so he said, ‘Oh I don’t know, people lost it,” the source said.

The sum amounted to one-tenth of the office’s entire annual budget.

A lawyer for Abid’s brother Imran, Aaron Marr Page, later addressed the situation in Clarke’s office: “An outgoing chief of staff who — I don’t remember the guy’s name off the top of my head, but I think there was potentially some issues there… There may be cases on Capitol Hill of other people — certainly not Imran — who are enriching themselves who are taking devices.”

Davis answered a phone call from TheDCNF on his cell phone, but hung up after hearing Abid’s name and then apparently blocked TheDCNF’s phone number.

Clarke’s office wrote off the $120,000 of missing equipment in February 2016. A write-off is an accounting practice used to remove financial errors from the books without actually correcting the problem.

Under House rules, if a Congress member can’t account for office funds, he or she may be personally liable.

By April 2016, Chief Administrative Officer Kiko independently noticed financial anomalies in multiple congressional offices that employed Abid. He told the Administration committee, and by September the committee’s top Democratic staffer, Jamie Fleet, told employing offices that authorities would be auditing financial records connected to the Awan family, a committee source told TheDCNF.

It was only then that Clarke’s office told the committee of the circumstances surrounding the missing equipment, and House authorities began working with Clarke’s office to investigate the Awans’ activities.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong told TheDCNF the Capitol Police “requested that the shared employees be allowed to continue to use their IT credentials until [February 2017] because they didn’t want to tip off the employees.”

But Anderson soon concluded that the investigation was compromised because another high-level staffer based in New York was feeding information about authorities’ activities to Abid, a House staffer Anderson spoke with in detail about the situation told TheDCNF.

“Her district office chief, a female, was actively going against Wendy,” the staffer said. “She was good friends with Omar and was feeding him information. Clarke would tell this person and the woman was backdooring stuff to Omar. She was undermining the investigation.” Anderson told that to House investigators as well, the staffer said.

TheDCNF laid out Anderson’s allegations in this story — including that she presented evidence that Davis was involved in a fraud scheme, that Clarke declined to fire Abid for months despite Anderson’s urging, and that the office for years ordered abnormal quantities of equipment that was not present in the office — to Clarke’s spokeswoman, Christine Bennett. Bennett addressed only one, involving the suggestion that District Director Anita Taylor tampered with the investigation: “Anita Taylor vehemently denies the accusations made against her,” she said.

Clarke is up for re-election in her Brooklyn district’s primary on June 26. She is also a member of the House Committee on Ethics.

Investigators eventually interviewed Abid about the missing equipment. He blamed Clarke staffers for some and claimed the office never received others, according to a House IG presentation dated Sept. 20, 2016 that also says:

75 pieces of equipment with a purchase price of $118,416 were recently written off the House inventory for a member because one of the subjects could not produce them

• Shared employee stated that the items were never received, shouldn’t have been inventoried, or the staff lost the equipment
• However, equipment could not be on inventory or have asset tag unless it had arrived in office and EIN [Equipment Identification Number, a form that must be signed for a piece of equipment to be paid for] had been signed
• Missing equipment includes laptops, iPads, TVs, video conferencing equipment, and computers

Clarke gave Abid the passwords to many of her personal and professional web accounts — including those for her personal credit cards — and the Democrat’s staff were concerned that he would retaliate, according to a House staffer Anderson spoke with about the situation in detail. In the days before he was finally fired on Sept. 19, 2016, a carefully-orchestrated operation took place in which House security personnel changed Clarke’s passwords and the lock on a storage locker she used, the staffer said.

“That night, after they told him that he was fired, Wendy went to the office late at night and Clarke’s office door was a little open and she felt like someone was on the other side of the door. She ran out of the office frightened,” the staffer told TheDCNF.

Even then, Clarke repeatedly spoke about her former part-time computer guy, saying she felt she needed to undo the firing, Anderson told that staffer.

Anderson continued to express concern about what she viewed as Capitol Hill crimes that seemed to be resulting in little action. Soon after, she moved to a different office — that of newly-elected Florida Rep. Val Demings.

After Abid was fired by Clarke, Abid was hired by new congressmen in early 2017, payroll records show: Democrats Stephanie Murphy and Darren Soto of Florida, and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. In February 2017, his family was banned from the network.

The Department of Justice has not charged Davis or Abid with any crime. TheDCNF has no way of corroborating whether what Anderson told investigators is true. However, the voluminous evidence the House IG possessed, combined with the lack of charges, has led some Republicans to allege a cover-up.

“The FBI has had the opportunity to have those invoices presented to them, and each time they have instructed, ‘Don’t bring any of those documents,'” Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said on the House floor, quoting what the FBI told him about the case. “They continue to report … ‘We’ve still found no evidence’ … Why? Because they’ve instructed, ‘We don’t want to see those documents.'”

A senior Republican congressional official with direct knowledge of the probe previously told TheDCNF, “The only reason you’re not seeing charges is because the Democrats who employed him are not cooperating.”

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 152.1 The Blackberry 20 Revisited - Awan Contra

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Public Service Has An Ethics Committee Obligation To Clean Up The Messes It Makes

First it comes out that U.S. Representative Patrick Meehan of the House Ethics Committee settled his own misconduct case.

It was not even 2 hours later House Speaker Paul Ryan removes him from his committee assignment.

What is interesting is that Meehan went through the advice of House Counsel.

Hmmmm....

The House Office of Compliance refuses to be compliant in releasing any information on its operations to House Ethics.

Hmmmm.....

"Hey, I am just here to serve.  You should try it."

Ok, I have an idea.

How about we get House Oversight Committee to hold hearings on the entire operations of House Ethics Committee, considering that its membership has been dwindling in the last few days and  the fact that the majority of its members have engaged in questionable activities with sizeable conflicts of interests, very worthy of public scrutiny of the DOJ.

As a matter of fact, now that I am on the subject of House Ethics, I would be entirely pleasured if I could be in attendance for a House Oversight Committee hearing on the activities of House Ethics over the past 10 years.

We could invite the House Office of Compliance, and, oh, what the heck, let's subpoena House Judiciary, too!

I can walk around serving coffee, tea, or shots of tequilla, which may be a needed staple in these Oversight Committee hearings, when we find out what, exactly, these "Legal Geniuses" (trademark pending) have been doing...or not doing....like ignoring to complaints filed by a U.S. citizen, year after year after year about fraud.

We can even invite the former U.S. Department of Treasury Secretary, Jack Lew, too!

Oh, what fun we shall have!

Or, we can just refer the matter to DOJ, like Ethics has already done in other investigations it has launched.

But hey, what do I know?

I know Perkins Coie still sucks.

#perkinscoiesucks

GOP Congressman Removed From Ethics Committee After Report He Used Taxpayer Funds to Settle Misconduct Complaint

House Speaker Paul Ryan removed Rep. Patrick Meehan from the House Ethics Committee on Saturday following a news report that the Pennsylvania Republican used thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to settle a sexual misconduct complaint against him by a former aide.

Rep. Patrick Meehan is seen in his official portrait for the 112th Congress.

Ryan told Meehan he must repay whatever taxpayer funds were used to settle the case and, although he has denied the allegations, be investigated by the Ethics Committee, Ryan spokesperson AshLee Strong said in a statement Saturday.

The New York Times first reported Meehan’s settlement.

“Speaker Ryan takes the allegations against Mr. Meehan very seriously,” Strong’s statement read. “The speaker is committed to rooting out sexual misconduct in the House and providing victims the resources they need.”

The statement added that the House is set to pass major bipartisan reform to the way the House handles claims of sexual harassment,” and the speaker will apply these new standards to the allegations made against Mr. Meehan.”

The former aide accused Meehan of making unwanted romantic advances toward her, and when she didn’t reciprocate, he grew hostile, according to the Times, which cited people familiar with her time in the office.

The former aide initiated a complaint with Congress’ Office of Compliance, began working from home and ultimately left her job, the Times reported. She later reached a confidential settlement paid from Meehan’s congressional office fund.

Meehan’s spokesman, John Elizandro, issued a statement saying the congressman denies the allegations.

“Throughout his career, he has always treated his colleagues, male and female, with the utmost respect and professionalism,” the statement read.

“In this case, the employee, represented by counsel, made certain assertions of inappropriate behavior, which were investigated,” Elizandro said. “With respect to resolving any allegation made against the office, Congressman Meehan would only act with advice of House Counsel and consistent with House Ethics Committee guidance. Every step of the process was handled ethically and appropriately. At Congressman Meehan’s request, the congressional attorneys handling the case have asked the complainant’s counsel to release all parties from the confidentiality requirements of the agreement to ensure a full and open airing of all the facts. The congressman is hopeful that they will agree to this request for full transparency.

“Rep. Meehan believes there must be real reform to the process for resolving complaints so that those who are truly wronged are given a fair forum to be heard and vindicated, and those accused are provided with an ability to respond to baseless accusations,” Elizandro’s statement continued. “The public to whom elected officials are answerable must be provided with a true sense of the facts and circumstances involved.”

Alexis Ronickher, who represented Meehan’s accuser, said in a statement that Meehan has asked her client to waive confidentiality “so he can deny well-grounded allegations knowing full well that his former staffer prizes her privacy above all else. Mr. Meehan demanded confidentiality to resolve the matter, presumably so that the public would never know that he entered into a settlement of a serious sexual harassment claim.”

“Now that it has become public — due to no fault of my client’s — he has flouted his legal obligations and is speaking publicly,” Ronickher said. “We will not allow our client to be victimized twice by this man. If he further violates the confidentiality strictures he insisted upon and he agreed to, he will leave our client no choice but to seek legal recourse on her behalf.”

The latest allegations against a sitting member of Congress surfaced the same week that a bipartisan group of House lawmakers unveiled a long-awaited plan aimed at tackling the way workplace complaints — including sexual harassment — are handled on Capitol Hill and holding lawmakers personally liable for settlements.

Under the current process, settlements reached after parties go through the Office of Compliance’s system are paid out through a US Treasury fund. However, the settlement between Meehan and his former aide was paid out of his office fund, not the Office of Compliance, according to the Times.

Sexual harassment and accusations of inappropriate behavior led to the departures of three lawmakers in recent months: Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat; Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican; and Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat.

Franken, who left Congress earlier this month, has said that some of the allegations against him were “simply not true.”

Conyers settled a wrongful dismissal complaint in 2015 after allegedly sexually harassing a staffer.

Conyers denied wrongdoing in that case, but acknowledged that there had been a financial settlement to that complaint, before he announced his retirement.

Franks has denied ever having “physically intimidated, coerced, or had, or attempted to have any sexual contact with any member” of his congressional staff.

Several other lawmakers have abandoned re-election bids in light of accusations of harassment or misconduct, including Nevada Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen and Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold.

The House Ethics Committee launched investigations into Franks, Conyers, Farenthold and Kihuen.

Both Farenthold and Kihuen remain under investigation by the committee.

Kihuen has repeatedly denied allegations that he sexually harassed a female campaign staffer. Farenthold has denied engaging in regular verbal abuse of his staff.

A former local prosecutor, Meehan has been a vocal supporter of domestic violence victims. He is also a member of a bipartisan congressional task force to end sexual violence and has sponsored legislation requiring reporting of sexual violence.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

U.S. House Committee On Ethics Statement of the Chairwoman Susan Brooks & Ranking Member Ted Deutch Regarding Representative John Conyers, Jr. 11-22-2017

STATEMENT OF THE CHAIRWOMAN AND RANKING MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE ON ETHICS REGARDING REPRESENTATIVE JOHN CONYERS, JR.

Pursuant to Committee Rule 7(g), the Chairwoman and Ranking Member of the Committee on Ethics (Committee) determined to release the following statement:

The Committee is aware of public allegations that Representative John Conyers, Jr. may have engaged in sexual harassment of members of his staff, discriminated against certain staff on the basis of age, and used official resources for impermissible personal purposes. The Committee Rule 18(a), has begun an investigation and will gather additional information regarding these allegations.

The Committee notes that the mere fact that it is investigating these allegation, and publicly disclosing its review, does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred, or reflect any judgment on behalf of the Committee.

In order to comply with Committee Rule 7 regarding confidentiality, out of fairness to all respondents, and to assure the integrity of its work, the Committee will refrain from making further public statements on this matter pending completion of its review.

U.S. House Committee On Ethics Statement of the Chairwoman Susan Brooks & Ranking Member Ted Deutch Regardi... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

‘Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost which is so deemed
Not by our feeling but by others’ seeing.
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own;
I may be straight, they they themselves be bevel.
By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown,
Unless this general evil they maintain:
All men are bad, and in their badness reign.

The Bard, , Sonnet 121

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Day 304 - Imran Replaces 150 Blackberries With iPhone and iPads in Feb 2016 Before Election

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Another Congressional Chief Of Staff Busted In Espionage-Blackmail-IT Fraud

Boy, I bet it just really sucks when you are a Chief of Staff and get busted using your Congressional Member's Expense Account to purchase computer equipment, sneak it out the parking garage, to sell out the trunk of your vehicle, to IT foreign nationals who dope routers and set up thin clients to be strategically placed in Congressional offices, who are currently under federal indictment for banking fraud and espionage, to have them sell it back to your Congressional Member using the same account, when you are blinded by greed for a few shiny pennies to realize these same people you have been dealing with for years have massive dirt on you stealing from your Congressional Member's campaign funds by submitting false claims into FEC records, during work hours, and manipulating your Member's congressional voting record by providing false advise in order to sell the vote, change the vote, or flat out manipulate the congressional record for personal inurement.

Oups, j'ai dit une bêtise...

Democrat’s Office Approved $120k Write-off Linked To Awan Brothers

A chief of staff of Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke quietly agreed in early 2016 to sign away a $120,000 missing electronics problem on behalf of two former IT aides now suspected of stealing equipment from Congress, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Clarke’s chief of staff at the time effectively dismissed the loss and prevented it from coming up in future audits by signing a form removing the missing equipment from a House-wide tracking system after one of the Awan brothers alerted the office the equipment was gone. The Pakistani-born brothers are now at the center of an FBI investigation over their IT work with dozens of Congressional offices.

A senior House official with knowledge of the situation provided TheDCNF with new details about how exactly the brothers are suspected to have stolen the equipment and possibly data from Congress, raising questions about the members or staffers who were signing the checks on equipment purchases.

The $120,000 figure amounts to about a tenth of the office’s annual budget, or enough to hire four legislative assistants to handle the concerns of constituents in her New York district. Yet when one of the brothers alerted the office to the massive loss, the chief of staff signed a form that quietly reconciled the missing equipment in the office budget, the official told TheDCNF. Abid Awan remained employed by the office for months after the loss of the equipment was flagged.

The brothers are also suspected of orchestrating a different long-running fraud scheme that involved working with an employee of CDW Government Inc., one of the Hill’s largest technology providers, to alter invoices so that members’ offices could purchase items in a way that avoided triggering tracking by central House-wide administrators.

Separately, the brothers are suspected to have orchestrated a long-running fraud scheme in which the office would purchase equipment in a way that avoided tracking by central House-wide administrators. They’re suspected of working with an employee of CDW Government Inc. — one of the Hill’s largest technology providers — to alter invoices in order to avoid tracking. The result would be that no one outside the office would notice if the equipment disappeared, and investigators think the goal of the scheme was to remove and sell the equipment outside of Congress.

CDW spokeswoman Kelly Caraher told TheDCNF its cooperating with investigators, and has assurance from prosecutors its employees are not targets of the investigation. “CDW and its employees have cooperated fully with investigators and will continue to do so,” Caraher said. “The prosecutors directing this investigation have informed CDW and its coworkers that they are not subjects or targets of the investigation.”

Those fraud schemes are two major parts of the criminal case being built against Imran Awan, his wife Hina Alvi, his two brothers Abid and Jamal, and potentially others into their Capitol Hill IT work. Their work as IT aides gave them full access to all emails and files of dozens of members of Congress, and the law enforcement probe also includes a cybersecurity component.

According to the official who talked to TheDCNF, Clarke’s chief of staff did not alert authorities to the huge sum of missing money when it was brought to the attention of the office around February of 2016. A request to sign away that much lost equipment would have been “way outside any realm of normalcy,” the official said, but the office did not bring it to the attention of authorities until months later when House administrators told the office they were reviewing finances connected to the Awans.

The administrators informed the office that September they were independently looking into discrepancies surrounding the Awans, including a review of finances connected to the brothers in all the congressional offices that employed them. The House administrators asked Clarke’s chief of staff, LaDavia Drane, whether she had noticed any anomalies, and at that time she alerted them to the $120,000 write-off, the official told TheDCNF.

Drane took over for Shelley Davis as Clarke’s chief of staff in February, the same month one of the Awan brothers requested the massive write-off for the lost equipment. It’s not clear whether it was Davis or Drane who signed off on the form, but Drane knew it occurred since she notified House authorities of the write-off when they asked.

Salary records show Abid’s employment with Clarke ended in September, some six months after the discrepancy was acknowledged in the write-off and the same month Clarke’s office learned of the impending financial review. Since assuming office in 2007, the New York Democrat’s IT has been handled by, at various times, Imran, Hina, and most recently Abid.

Imran and his wife Hina were indicted this month for ancillary crimes relating to frantically gathering money to wire to Pakistan and attempting to leave the country, after learning that investigators were looking at the other behaviors. They began liquidating assets in earnest not long after that September call to their employers, real estate records show.

The current charges serve to keep Imran in the country by taking his passport, while the main case is built in earnest. Hina is already in Pakistan with some of the proceeds and could become a fugitive if she misses her arraignment.

The missing equipment tied to Clarke’s office included many iPhones and iPads, the official told TheDCNF. At $800 each, the written-off sum would be enough for 150 items in an office that, according to payroll records, only has 16 employees.

The equipment would have been billed under former chief of staff Davis, who led Clarke’s office from 2010 to February 11, 2016, at which point Drane took over. The request for the write-off came from the Awans around the time of that staffing change. Drane and the office’s spokeswoman, Christine L. Bennett, refused to tell TheDCNF which chief signed the form, and why they did not fire Abid at the time or alert authorities.

Members can be personally liable for money or equipment that is lost from their taxpayer-funded office. But the write-off process exists through the House Chief Administrative Officer to square the books in cases of minor, unintentional discrepancies, such as a years-old Blackberry being misplaced.

Clarke’s chief called a House help desk to inquire about the write-off process and was told the forms are submitted routinely, but did not convey the highly unusual scale of the dollar figure, the official said.

The missing $120,000 covers only Clarke’s office. Imran and his relatives worked for more than 40 current House members when they were banned from the House network in February, and have together worked for dozens more in past years. Not all of the offices’ books have been audited for similar patterns.

In addition to the apparent write-off scheme, the family is suspected of funneling money from other congressional offices using the invoicing scheme that authorities believe involved cooperation from within CDW Government Inc.

Equipment purchased by members’ offices is normally tracked closely by central House-wide administrators, but House rules allow micropurchases under $500 to be treated more informally. In offices where the Awans worked, CDW invoices routinely showed high-priced items falsely billed at just under that cutoff point, the official told TheDCNF. The low figure on the high-priced equipment would keep it off the tracking radar of central House authorities. The difference in the actual price was then made up by inflating the cost of a service plan, and the equipment was shipped to Imran’s house, the source said.

A member or high-level staffer with financial responsibility in the office would still have to sign a voucher for each such purchase, however, raising the question of how the office wouldn’t have noticed equipment was being purchased that never actually materialized at the office, and in quantities an office might not plausibly need.

Missing money involving write-offs, like the $120,000 written off by Clarke’s office, would be a concern for authorities in addition to equipment that disappeared following the service-plan maneuvering. The suspected write-off scheme aimed at removing items from tracking inventories, while the suspected service-plan maneuvering aimed at keeping the items from being added to the inventories in the first place.

Davis, Clarke’s prior longtime chief of staff, avoided calls from TheDCNF after learning of the story.

Davis previously worked for Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and for Rev. Jesse Jackson’s nonprofit. Public records indicate Davis had money problems. He faced eviction from a Northeast Washington, D.C., apartment in 2011, according to D.C. court records.

Despite earning $160,000 a year on Capitol Hill, Abid simultaneously ran a car dealership in Virginia and filed for bankruptcy in 2010 to discharge hundreds of thousands in debts. Court records show the dealership took $100,000 from an Iranian who also served as a politician in Iraq and who is wanted by the Department of Justice. Abid’s business partner testified that the dealership’s financial books were inscrutable.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

ENCRYPTION WORKING GROUP RELEASES YEAR-END REPORT

The report contains key observations and opportunities for progress

Washington, D.C. –Members of the bipartisan encryption working group – established in March 2016 by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) – today released a year-end report laying out key observations and next steps.

For nearly a year, the Encryption Working Group has held numerous meetings with a variety of federal, state, and local government entities, former government officials, private industry and trade associations, civil society organizations, consultants and legal experts, academia, and cryptographers. These meetings have produced critical information, culminating in a year-end report that lays out four key observations and identifies several areas for future discussion next Congress.

The report concludes:

“Encryption is inexorably tied to our national interests. It is a safeguard for our personal secrets and economic prosperity. It helps to prevent crime and protect national security. The widespread use of encryption technologies also complicates the missions of the law enforcement and intelligence communities. As described in this report, those complications cannot be ignored. This is the reality of modern society. We must strive to find common ground in our collective responsibility: to prevent crime, protect national security, and provide the best possible conditions for peace and prosperity.

“That is why this can no longer be an isolated or binary debate. There is no ‘us versus them,’ or ‘pro-encryption versus law enforcement.’ This conversation implicates everyone and everything that depends on connected technologies—including our law enforcement and intelligence communities. This is a complex challenge that will take time, patience, and cooperation to resolve.  The potential consequences of inaction—or overreaction—are too important to allow historical or ideological perspectives to stand in the way of progress.”

Below are key observations of the report.

1.      Any measure that weakens encryption works against the national interest.

2.      Encryption technology is a global technology that is widely and increasingly available around the world.

3.      The variety of stakeholders, technologies, and other factors create different and divergent challenges with respect to encryption and the “going dark” phenomenon, and therefore there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the encryption challenge.

4.      Congress should foster cooperation between the law enforcement community and technology companies.

Based on these observations, the report has identified several areas for future discussion by the committees next Congress, such as exploring opportunities to help law enforcement agencies navigate the process of accessing information from private companies; examining options to improve law enforcement’s ability to leverage metadata; reviewing the circumstances, resources and legal framework necessary to help law enforcement agencies exploit existing flaws in digital products; considering the implications of alternative legal strategies such as compelling individual consumers to decrypt their devices, and the role of encryption in fostering greater data security and privacy.

The members of the working group issuing the report are House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.), and Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Suzan DelBene (D-WA), Bill Johnson (R-OH), and Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY).

House Judiciary & Energy and Commerce Committees Encryption Working Group Year-End Report December 20, 2016... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©