Not News Worthy?
#1
While your handlers have you loons doing the circle jerk over some fake news daily President Trump crisis your handlers have created some real security issues for our country and world with their love of moslems and hate for the world. We know this must be fake because Rachel didn't tell you otherwise.

http://www.bizpacreview.com/2017/03/14/h...ved-458847

House Dems’ hacking suspects ‘had access to EVERYTHING’ … every email dozens of congressmen sent and received

[Image: DCNF-2-1-1.jpg]Luke Rosiak, DCNF

Congressional IT staffers who are the subject of a criminal investigation into misusing their positions had full access to members’ “correspondence, emails, confidential files,” and there was almost no tracking of what they did, a former House technology worker said.

[img=320x0]http://www.bizpacreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ss-wasserman.jpg[/img]

Imran Awan bullied central IT to bend the rules for him so there wouldn’t be a paper trail about the unusually high permissions he was requesting. And their actions were not logged, so members have no way of knowing what information they may have taken, the central IT employee said.

Awan ran technology for multiple House Democrats, and soon four of his relatives–including brothers Abid and Jamal–appeared on the payroll of dozens of other members, collecting $4 million in taxpayer funds since 2010.

U.S. Capitol Police named him and his relatives as subjects of a criminal probe on Feb. 2 and banned them from the complex’s computer networks. But members of Congress for whom they worked have downplayed their access or publicly ignored the issue.

“They had access to EVERYTHING. Correspondence, emails, confidential files – if it was stored on the Member system, they had access to it,” the former House Information Resources (HIR) technology worker with first-hand knowledge of Imran’s privileges told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Technology employees who work for members must initially get authority from HIR, a component of the House’s Chief Administrative Officer, which maintains campus-wide technology systems.

“There were some things – like access to the House email system that were totally controlled by the technicians at HIR. In order for certain permissions to be granted, a form was required to ensure that there was a paper trail for the requested changes. Imran was constantly complaining that he had to go through this process and trying to get people to process his access requests without the proper forms. Some of the permissions he wanted would give him total access to the Members’ stuff.”

“IT staff at HIR can be tracked for every keystroke they make,” the worker said. But by comparison, “when these guys were granted access to the Member’s computer systems there is no oversight or tracking of what they may be doing on the Member’s system. For example they could make a copy of anything on the Member’s computer system to a thumb drive or have it sent to a private server they had set up and no one would know.”

That raises questions about why members are so quick to brush off the seriousness of the investigation.

Hilarie Chambers, chief of staff for Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, told TheDCNF “After being notified by the House Administration Committee, [Abid] was removed from our payroll. We are confident that everything in our office is secure.”

Multiple House IT workers said it is impossible for members’ offices to make that judgment, and that Capitol Police–who are running an investigation that involves cybercrimes and current and potential international fugitives, despite their primary duties being providing physical security–aren’t capable of determining what actually occurred either.

The Capitol Police web page listing their authority, scope of work and expertise does not mention the word “computers.”

A Fairfax County, Va. police report shows that the brothers’ stepmother called the police on them in January, and a relative said Imran has been out of the country attempting to access assets stored in Pakistan in his deceased father’s name. The relative said they forced her to sign power of attorney documents against her will.

After naming them as suspects in a criminal investigation, the Capitol Police have not taken their passports or arrested them. The brothers previously took a $100,000 loan from a fugitive from U.S. authorities, Dr. Ali Al-Attar, who has fled to Iraq and been linked to Hezbollah.

Imran ran technology for Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz–who resigned as head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) after a disastrous email hack she blamed on Russians–and had the password to an iPad used for DNC business.

Politico described the investigation this way: “Five House staffers are accused of stealing equipment from members’ offices without their knowledge and committing serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT network.”

But it later said Hill staffers were downplaying the information security component, writing, “Sources close to the House investigation said the former staffers, while able to view some member data, did not have access to any classified information.”

That description rankled multiple House IT workers, who told TheDCNF those semantics misleadingly made it seem like they didn’t have access to extremely sensitive information.

“Classified” is a terminology used by spy agencies and other executive branch agencies, not generally Congress, with the exception of the intelligence committee. The full email correspondence and hard drives of members of Congress are nonetheless sensitive, extremely private and likely to contain privileged information of the utmost import.

And an email need not deal with national security to open that member to blackmail or extortion. All a rogue IT staffer would need to do was threaten to release emails that were politically embarrassing.

The central IT staffer said any suggestion that the brothers’ access didn’t span the full gamut of congressional intrigue was silly because they were the ones giving out permissions.

“When a new Member begins, they guide them on everything from which computer system to purchase to which constituent management system to go with and all other related hardware purchases. Then they install everything and set up all the accounts AND grant all the required permissions and restrictions,” the staffer said.

“In effect, they are given administrative control of the Members’ computer operations. They then set up a remote access so they can connect from wherever they are and have full access to everything on the Member’s system.”

Numerous members of Congress who employed the suspects wouldn’t say whether they’ve been fired or what steps they’ve taken to examine whether their information is safe.

Spokesmen for Diana Degette, Frederica Wilson, Jackie Speier, Julia Brownley, Karen Bass, Pete Aguilar, and Ted Lieu all ignored requests or refused to say.

The central IT worker said they are ignoring the problem in the hopes that it will go away, but that their apathy speaks to the problem.
“Unfortunately, as the recent election has shown, security of computer systems on the Hill is not really taken seriously.”
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#2
http://www.bizpacreview.com/2017/03/10/h...ash-457373

House staffers in security probe allegedly kept stepmom in ‘captivity’ to access offshore cash

[Image: DCNF-2-1-1.jpg]Luke Rosiak, DCNF

Congressional staffers allegedly held their stepmother in “captivity” with violent threats in a plan to use her to access money stashed away in the Middle East. The staffers are suspected of using their positions to enrich themselves.

[img=320x0]http://www.bizpacreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/ss-wasserman.jpg[/img]Days before U.S. Capitol Police told House members three Pakistani brothers who ran their computer networks may have stolen congressional data, their stepmother called Fairfax County, Virginia police to say the Democratic staffers were keeping her from her husband’s deathbed.



A relative described the woman’s life as being completely controlled by the brothers for months while they schemed to take their father’s life insurance.

The brothers — who as IT professionals for Congress could read House members’ emails — allegedly used wiretapping devices on their own stepmother and threatened to abduct loved ones in Pakistan if she didn’t give them access to money stowed away in that country.

On Feb. 2, House officials bannedImran, Abid and Jamal Awan from the House of Representatives network as part of a Capitol Police criminal investigation into House computer security. But longtime employers including Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Gregory Meeks have stood by them. Meeks, of New York, said although they had access to his data, he’d “seen no evidence that they were doing anything that was nefarious” like steal or hack and were being unfairly picked on for being Muslim.

But a Fairfax police report obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group says that separately from that investigation, on Thursday, January 5 at 2 p.m., “Samani Galani called [police] after her stepchildren were denying her access to her husband of 8 years, Muhammad Shah, who is currently hospitalized,” and police responded to the Springfield home she shared with him.

“I made contact with her stepson, Abid, who responded to location and was obviously upset with the situation. He stated he has full power of attorney over his father and produced an unsigned, undated document as proof,” officers wrote. “He refused to disclose his father’s location.”

The father died days later, with his children denying him a final moment with his loved one, and the body was taken to Pakistan, where the family has significant assets. Galani was shocked to learn that his death certificate listed him as divorced, according to a relative of Galani’s. The relative spoke only on condition of anonymity.

“They kept their stepmother in sort of illegal captivity from October 16, 2016, to February 2,” the relative said, telling her they were in charge of her life and said she was not allowed to speak to anyone. The fact that she did not speak English made it easy for them to take advantage of her.

As Shah laid hospitalized, “they would not let the father communicate with the wife, they would say he’d be meeting her when they said so.”

The brothers bugged her house with hidden listening devices and told her “her movements were under constant surveillance and conversations within the house and over the telephone were being listened to. They would repeat what she had told people to prove that they were really listening.”

“This happened in the United States of America, can you believe it?” the relative asked.

Galani obtained a secret cell phone and stood in the yard to communicate with relatives, who encouraged her to call the police, the relative said.

After she did, Abid “threatened her very severely, made her fearful, they told her they are going to abduct or kidnap her family back in Pakistan, and she had to apologize.”

Imran then tried “to manipulate her. She said to him ‘if you say you are my son then why are you keeping my phone conversations listened to?’ So he said he would remove the devices. He came into the house and she saw him remove a couple,” including under the kitchen counter.

But as soon as Shah passed away, and they came into the house and “whatever documents were there they stole, a couple laptops which were their father’s property, and left for Pakistan.”

Then Imran called and demanded that Galani give him power of attorney–this time a Pakistani version–for assets in his father’s name there, instructing Jamal to take her to the Pakistani embassy in Washington, the relative said.  “He sent a couple of people to pressure her.”

Galani learned from a life insurance executive that “a few days before the father’s death, the beneficiary was changed and Abid became the beneficiary,” the relative said. On top of that, the Springfield house where she lived would go to Abid.

Galani fled from the brothers and has filed a second police complaint with Fairfax County over insurance fraud and other abuses.

Abid did not return a request for comment from TheDCNF.

The relative is coming forward because members of Congress have attempted to downplay the brothers’ potential crimes and limited the investigation to the Capitol Police, who lack the ability to investigate cyberbreaches and international crimes and despite naming the brothers as suspects, have not even arrested them. “I am fighting to protect the country. These are very bad people.”

Politico reported that Imran and his wife, Hina Alvi, are personal friends with Wasserman Schultz, who presided over the Democratic National Committee when it was subject to an email hack that she angrily blamed on Russians. She has refused to fire Imran even though he is banned from the House network, and has circumvented the ban by having him serve as an “adviser.”

Imran began working for her in 2005 and soon after, his two brothers and two of their wives all appeared on the Congressional payroll, collecting more than $4 million from Congress.

The brothers had numerous additional sources of income, all of which seemed to disappear. While they were supposedly working for the House, the brothers were running a car dealership full-time that didn’t pay its vendors, and after one–Rao Abbas–threatened to sue them, he began receiving a paycheck from Rep. Theodore Deutch, who like Wasserman Schultz represents Florida.
While they were working for House members including members of the homeland security and foreign affairs committees, the dealership took and never repaid a $100,000 loan from Dr. Ali Al-Attar, who is a fugitive from U.S. authorities and has been linked to Hezbollah.

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#3
Wonder how they passed a background check.

So it wasn't the Russians, it was the Pakistanis.
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#4
(03-15-2017, 07:09 PM)chuck white Wrote: Wonder how they passed a background check.

So it wasn't the Russians, it was the Pakistanis.

How can you doubt anything by a "journalist" from the DAILY CALLER?  Smiling
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#5
Still trying to figure out what a "news foundation" is.
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#6
(03-16-2017, 05:15 PM)Cuzz Wrote: Still trying to figure out what a "news foundation" is.

Don't. Will only give you a headache.  Wink
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#7
(03-16-2017, 06:38 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(03-16-2017, 05:15 PM)Cuzz Wrote: Still trying to figure out what a "news foundation" is.

Don't. Will only give you a headache.  Wink

It doesn't mean anything. It's a money making come on.

"Foundation" isn't a legal term so it can be used any way you want. It does make it sound like a non-profit though so it's good for money harvesting.
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