It's been one of those days. I started writing this post hours ago and never finished it....
As I am sure many of you have already heard, the FBI has managed to hack the cell phones of the San Bernadino terrorists 'all by itself' and has dropped the lawsuit it had filed against Apple, the manufacturer of the iPhone. But they didn't exactly do it all by themselves. They were helped by an Israeli startup called Cellebrite.
The Israeli mobile forensics firm Cellebrite helped the FBI hack into the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, NBC reports, citing industry sources.
The
firm has been rumored to be behind the FBI’s newfound ability to access
the device, thanks to a previous and unconfirmed report from an Israeli
newspaper.
Neither Cellebrite nor the Department of Justice has confirmed the reports.
The
FBI has routinely contracted Cellebrite over the last five years. The
company, which publicly boasts of its ability to hack into Apple
devices, has received over $2 million in purchase orders from the agency
since 2012.
The Justice Department on Monday withdrew
its case against Apple, telling a federal court it was able to unlock
the device without the tech giant's help.
The FBI has hired Israeli startup Cellebrite to unlock the San Bernadino terrorists' iPhones that Apple refuses to unlock.
That's according to a story filed by Reuters this morning, based on a report in Wednesday's copy of Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
If the software company succeeds then the FBI will no longer need the
help of Apple, the report claimed, citing unnamed industry sources.
According to its website,
Cellebrite offers "mobile forensics solutions" which "give access to
and unlock the intelligence of mobile data sources to extend
investigative capabilities, accelerate investigations, unify
investigative teams and produce solid evidence".
Apple and the U.S. government have been embroiled in a heated public
battle that started when a court ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock
the iPhone 5c of terrorist Syed Farook. Unlocking the iPhone would
require Apple to build a new version of iOS that bypasses iPhone
passcode restrictions and provides the FBI with a way to enter passcodes
electronically, something Apple has staunchly refused to do.
On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department convinced
the court overseeing its ongoing battle with Apple to postpone a
hearing scheduled to take place March 22. The DoJ said new leads had
been discovered that could provide it with a way to unlock the iPhone 5c
used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook without involving Apple.
'Most pro-Israel administration evah' refused to assist Israel in locating body of missing IDF soldier
I'm sure that many of you recall the incident from this past summer in which the body of IDF soldier Oron Shaul was snatched from a burnt out APC in Gaza City's Shujaiyya neighborhood. It now turns out that the IDF requested assistance from the FBI in finding Oron's body and was turned down. Why the FBI? Because Hammas hacked into Shaul's Facebook page and Facebook's servers are located in the United States. The IDF hoped that it could find out where Hamas was located using the IP address from which Hamas was posting to the Facebook page. Walla.com (via Israel Hayom) explains.
On July 22, as international
news reports carried Hamas' claim of Shaul's capture, the IDF really had
no idea whatsoever what happened to the Israeli soldier. The only
statement made by the IDF at that point was that Shaul was missing in
action. Even two days later, the IDF still did not know if Shaul had
been kidnapped by Hamas or whether he was dead.
Kidnapping an Israeli soldier is one of the
highest priorities for Hamas, since Israel has in the past proven
willing to trade large numbers of imprisoned terrorists to get back just
one soldier, as happened in the case of Gilad Schalit. The news of
Hamas' alleged kidnapping triggered wild celebrations in Gaza.
The IDF and Israeli intelligence agencies
initiated a massive man hunt for Shaul, but to no avail. "We simply did
not know whether he was alive or not," an Israeli military official told
me, "or whether Hamas had killed him or whether Hamas had simply
kidnapped his body. But we had immediately set up a dragnet around the
entire area to encircle the terrorists and prevent them from leaving the
general area. We knew we did not have much time."
The dragnet proved porous, as Hamas terrorists
had many ways of escaping especially through the network of underground
tunnels they had built.
But in hacking Shaul's Facebook page, Hamas
may have inadvertently given away the location of the terrorists who had
Shaul or his body. That's because whenever a Facebook account is
accessed, Facebook's servers would automatically keep a record of the
Internet Protocol address where the account was accessed. IP addresses
are leased, which then can provide a geographic location of the IP
address where the Facebook account was hacked. In addition, there was
also a remote possibility that Shaul had been carrying his cell phone
although Israeli soldiers are not supposed to take their cell phones
into battle. But if he had done so, then it was also theoretically be
possible that Hamas had hacked into the mobile Facebook application on
Shaul's phone. If the Israelis could obtain the Facebook server data as
soon as possible, they thought they might have had a chance to find the
whereabouts of the Hamas terrorists who took Shaul.
Israel made an urgent appeal to the FBI for
help in trying to determine the remote source or information that would
be stored on Facebook servers indicating the location where Shaul's page
had been hacked. Upon receiving the request from Israel in Washington
on July 21, the FBI immediately issued a "preservation letter" to
Facebook ordering them to preserve all data saved on their server
pertaining to the Shaul's account.
At 4:25 p.m. on July 21, the FBI contacted a
United States Attorney's Office in a nearby district to initiate the
legal process to get a court order to serve Facebook for server
information on the account belonging to Israeli soldier Oron Shaul.
"Due to HAMAS status as a Designated Terrorist
Organization (DTO), there is a great effort to locate those who
kidnapped and/or killed ORON," read an FBI email to the U.S. Attorney's
Office, "HAMAS is already using the kidnapping as propaganda, which is
material support to a DTO."
In the email, the FBI noted there was unusual
activity on Shaul's Facebook account after the time of his kidnapping
and said it needed more information from Facebook that it could only
obtain with a court order to be able to fully determine what "HAMAS was
doing with Oron's Facebook account and possibly his phone." Was the U.S.
Attorney's Office in a position, the FBI wanted to know, to immediately
obtain a court order for the FBI to deliver to Facebook?
Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Attorney's Office
thought it was near ready to be able to immediately obtain a court
order. But before it could obtain such an order, it needed specific
information on Shaul's Facebook account that it could present to the
judge.
...
But the next day, July 22, the
U.S. Attorney's Office received a startling response from the FBI:
"Thank You for your effort, input and assistance. I regret to inform you
we have been denied approval to move forward with legal process. We
were told by our management we need a MLAT [Mutual Legal Assistance
Treaty] in order to continue to assist our partner with the request in
question." Those words put an immediate halt to the Israeli request.
An MLAT is a standardized legal agreement
between the United States and other countries that spells out the legal
and diplomatic protocols in processing requests for legal information
pertaining to court cases in either the United States or in another
country. MLATs go through various bureaucratic channels, usually take
weeks to process and would generally be used for non-pressing legal
matters in which the United States or another country was carrying out a
legal process such as a prosecution involving a citizen of another
country.
Prosecutors familiar with their use say that
an MLAT would definitely not be used in an urgent life-or-death
intelligence or counter-terrorist incident, especially with a close ally
such as Israel. "In a pressing court matter, there is no way the USG
would invoke an MLAT with a close ally," said a veteran prosecutor who
has worked on international counter-terrorism cases.
Law enforcement officials knowledgeable about
this incident say both prosecutors and FBI were shocked at the sudden
turn of events. "This sudden reversal was devastating," said one law
enforcement official who was intimately familiar with this incident.
"For those working this case, they felt this decision was tantamount to a
death sentence. Nothing less."
And thus, the FBI was never able to supply
Israel with any information on Shaul's Facebook account that might have
led to the location of the soldier or his remains that had been seized
by Hamas.
This is truly a sad story. A story that has remained hidden from view for more than six years has come out. Robert Levinson, who disappeared from the Island of Kish, off the coast of Iran, in 2007, was not on a private trip to Iran as has previously been claimed. He was working for the CIA.
In many ways, the story that emerges from Mr. Levinson’s files and
dozens of interviews is that of an unusual spy, an aging but still
passionate investigator searching for a way to keep his hand in the
game. It is also the story of officials in a relatively obscure C.I.A.
office looking to push the boundaries between the agency’s analytical
side and its covert operations. An agency inquiry concluded that those
analysts had encouraged him to take risks and then misrepresented his
activities after he went missing.
To his family and friends, the government Mr. Levinson served for
decades abandoned him for a time, initially making little attempt to
find him or acknowledge why he went to Iran.
They started their own search, and a cast of unlikely figures was drawn
into the hunt, many seeing it as an opportunity to get something for
themselves. They included an infamous weapons dealer, Sarkis
Soghanalian, and one of Russia’s most powerful businessmen, Oleg
Deripaska.
In late 2010, when his family received the tape of Mr. Levinson, they
saw a man they barely recognized. He was gaunt. His shirt was
threadbare. He was seated in a makeshift prison cell.
“I need the help of the United States government to answer the requests
of the group that has held me,” he said, as music played in the
background. “Please help me get home. Thirty-three years of service to
the United States deserves something.”
In Israel, we would have gone to the other extreme and released 1,000 terrorists for him. But the fact that the CIA and FBI both tried to pawn the case off on each other for at least the first year is despicable.
Not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Muslims
The FBI has published a list of Most Wanted Terrorists (to which Bill Ayres' friend Joanne Chesimard was added on Thursday). There are 32 names on the list. The two prominently placed at the top of the list are the only non-Muslims.
Interesting that with all of the obfuscation about domestic terrorism
and Christian terrorism and Jewish and Lutheran and Episcopalian and
Amish terrorism, 30 of 31 on the list are Muslim.
It's easy to stand in front of a malleable press corps and claim that
terrorism is not the exclusive domain of Islam, but when it comes to
actual facts, they haven't arrived at manufacturing charges....yet.
I'm amazed that the FBI actually published this list as is. Is Eric Holder on vacation or out playing golf with President Hussein Obama?
Gee, ya think? Boston 'misunderstanders of Islam' may not have acted alone
Key Washington lawmakers suspect that the 'misunderstanders of Islam' who murdered four people and wounded nearly 200 at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 may not have acted alone. Gee, ya think?
``There are still persons of interest in the United States that the
FBI would like to have conversations with,’’ said Representative Mike
Rogers, a Republican from Michigan and chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, speaking on ABC’s ``This Week.’’
Many questions remain about suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s 2012
six-month visit to the Russian state of Dagestan, and whether he
received some sort of training from Islamist radicals while there,
Rogers added.
``There was outside affirmation of their intent to commit an act of jihad,’’ he said.
``The Russians need to step up to the plate here and provide us with
information,’’ Rogers said. ``I think they have information that is
would be helpful and they haven’t provided.’’
The last time I checked, the Russians aren't responsible for the security of Americans. The Obama administration is responsible. As it happens, the Russians did provide timely information warning about the Tsarnaev's in 2011, but the Obama administration - and specifically its politically correct FBI - chose to ignore it. Perhaps if the Russians had seen that the information they provided was taken seriously, they would have provided more.
I really like Mike Rogers, but I think he's dead wrong on this. No one is responsible for the security of the Untied States other than the government of the United States - just like every other country in the world. Woe to the American people the day that their government puts their security in the hands of the Russians.
Another Republican, Homeland Security Committee chairman Mike McCaul
of Texas, said some officials in the Obama administration have suggested
prematurely that the brothers acted alone.
He cited the type of device used in the attack — shrapnel-packed
pressure-cooker bombs. Although instructions on how to build such bombs
can be found on the Internet, he said they also indicated a level of
sophistication and training.
“There could be a wider conspiracy,” said McCaul, on “Fox News
Sunday.” “What I found astounding is that right out of the box, U.S.
officials anonymously are saying there’s no foreign connection to this
case, when in fact, the FBI just began their investigation in this
case.”
Yes, but that's what the Obama administration does every time a Muslim commits an act of terror, and that's why after four and half years that Hussein Obama and his cadre of Islamophiles came to power, Americans' security is more precarious than it has been at any time at least since 9/11.
McCaul also said he thinks the suspects’ mother played ‘‘a very strong
role’’ in her sons’ radicalization process and that if she were to
return to the United States from Russia, she’d be held for questioning.
And that's probably why she said over the weekend that she's not coming. By the way, her husband has now said that he's not coming either. Anyone surprised?
Speaking on CNN’s ``State of the Union,’’ Utah Representative Jason
Chaffetz asserted that the United States needs to heighten its scrutiny
of immigrants as they travel.
“People that are coming here and claiming asylum, and then taking
trips back to the region, that should probably raise some red flags,” he
said.
The United States needs to heighten its scrutiny of immigrants period. It also needs to heighten its scrutiny of anyone who arrives in the US from a Muslim country instead of making 'our friends the Saudis' trusted travelers.
Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois and member of
the House Intelligence Committee, said the FBI had information that
both Tamerlan and his mother were becoming radicalized. The Associated
Press reported Saturday that the Russians had intercepted communications
included discussion of jihad.
``The FBI thought it had more to do with internal Russian politics,
and not a threat to the United States of America,’’ Schakowsky said.
'Internal Russian politics'? Really? Why would she have told them to go to 'Palestine'? If they had moved to the US, why would 'internal Russian politics' matter anymore?
Breaking: Russians say they secretly recorded conversation between Boston terrorist and his mother
Russian authorities secretly recorded a 2011 conversation between one of the Boston Marathon terror suspects and his mother.
U.S. officials say
Russian authorities secretly recorded a conversation in 2011 in which
one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his
mother.
Officials say a second call was
recorded between the suspects' mother and a man under FBI investigation
living in southern Russia.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing case.
They say the Russians shared this intelligence with the U.S. in the past few days.
Note what's unsaid here. It doesn't say that the family under discussion is the Tsarnaev's, but I'd bet that it was. And it doesn't say which son. People will assume that it was Tamerlan, the oldest son who was killed in a shootout with police. But was it?
Oh and by the way, the boys' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva has decided not to travel to the United States. I wonder why....
The CIA added Boston Marathon terrorist Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother Zubeidat to the terror watch list in 2011.
Previously U.S. officials have said
only that the FBI investigated Tamerlan. But in March 2011, the Russians
asked the FBI to look into Tsarnaev and his mother because of concerns
they were religious militants who planned to travel back to Russia, the
official said.
The FBI found nothing to link either
person to terrorism, and the FBI closed the investigations in June 2011.
Then, the Russians in the fall sent the same warning to the CIA. The
CIA asked the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center to add the mother’s
and son’s names to its huge, classified database of people known to be
terrorists and those who are suspected of having terror ties, called the
Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE.
Being in that database does not mean
the U.S. government has evidence that links someone to terrorism. About a
year ago, there were some 745,000 names in the database. Intelligence
analysts add names and partial names to TIDE when terror-related
intelligence is shared with them.
Tsarnaeva said it would not surprise her if she was listed in a U.S. terror database.
“It’s all lies and hypocrisy,” she
told the AP from Dagestan. “I’m sick and tired of all this nonsense that
they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular
person, and I’ve never been mixed up in any criminal intentions,
especially any linked to terrorism.”
Note the politically correct third paragraph. Political correctness is behind the failure to take proper precautions in the Tsarnaev case. This is from Breitbart.com's Big Peace.
Of particular concern is that around the same time the FBI was informed
about Tsarnaev, the Obama administration’s policies handling terrorism
relating in any way to Islamic extremists changed.
PJ Media’s Patrick Poole noted in May, 2012 that the FBI training manual's counter-terrorism lexicon made no mention of terrorism in regards to al Qaeda, Hamas, jihad, Islam, or the Muslim Brotherhood.
“The fact is religion has been expunged from counterterrorism training,”
said counterterrorism specialist with the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies Sebastian Gorka to the Washington Times. He added, “The FBI can’t talk about Islam and they can’t talk about jihad.”
In October of 2011, an organization called “Muslim Advocates,” a group
composed of fifty-seven Muslim advocacy groups from across the country,
signed and sent a letter to high level Obama administration officials.
They urged the administration to enact a widespread purge within law
enforcement departments and agencies of any materials that could be
deemed biased or discriminatory against Muslims.
The letter was sent to then-Counterterrorism and Deputy National
Security Advisor (now CIA Director) John Brennan, as well as Attorney
General Eric Holder, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Secretary
of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller,
National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and Deputy National Security
Advisor Denis McDonough.
The Boston Marathon terror attack and the news that members of the Tsarnaev family were marked as potential terrorists ought to raise a huge red warning flag for the United States. Either the US must kill its political correctness or the political correctness will kill it.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
