Tag: dhs

DHS ‘Intelligence Experts Group’ Classified Military Service, Religion, & Trump-Support As Indicators Of Domestic Extremism & Terrorism

A now disbanded group in Joe Biden’s Department Homeland Security (DHS) classified Trump supporters, members of the military, and people with religious views as persons likely to commit “domestic violent extremist” attacks, newly released internal files show.

DHS announced the formation of the “Homeland Intelligence Experts Group” in September 2023 to “provide advice and perspectives on intelligence and national security efforts” to the Department, but according to America First Legal, “it was a completely partisan group designed to provide top cover for the Department’s radical agenda

AFL and former Ambassador Richard Grenell filed a lawsuit against the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group soon after the group was announced, and spurred Republican members of Congress to take action against it.

AFL alleged that the group comprised of partisan actors violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act for various reasons – including its lack of balance, the Biden Administration’s inappropriate influence over it, and its lack of public notice and participation, among other things.

To avoid further litigation and scrutiny, the Biden regime agreed in May to disband the illegal group and provide its records to AFL. However, the group may have been active for a year before it was pressured to shut down.

“By the time the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group was announced in September 2023, the group had already been meeting for as long as four months,” AFL reported.

Members of the deep state cabal included former Obama intelligence officials and Russia collusion hoaxers John Brennan and James Clapper—both signatories of the infamous “Letter of 51,” which mislead the American public on the veracity of the Hunter Biden laptop story ahead of the 2020 election.

Also included in the unit were former Obama official Francis Taylor,  Asha George, Rajesh De, Caryn Wagner, and Elisa Massimino, all of whom contributed exclusively to Democrat candidates for political office.

During a meeting in September on “Collection Posture and Associated Challenges,” the partisan group discussed ways to get around the Constitutional limits to their domestic intelligence gathering goals.

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The Disinformation Governance Board Couldn’t Clearly Define “Disinformation”

A deposition given by the former head of the former Disinformation Governance Board in April 2023 to the US House Committee on the Judiciary has revealed that the parent agency of the short-lived censorship entity, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), wasn’t even sure how to define “disinformation.”

No “good definition” of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation – collectively referred to as MDM – was anywhere in sight, even though DHS decided it needed a whole new entity, the Disinformation Board, to deal with it.

That is what transpired from Nina Jankowicz’s deposition, leading to the inevitable question of whether “countering disinformation” was ever supposed to be the Board’s task – or if setting it up was yet another example of mis/disinformation being used to cover up political bias and censorship.

After all, this kind of accusation was what eventually, and quickly, discredited and brought the Board down.

In turn, the tone of Jankowicz’s deposition reads like herself trying to discredit DHS for the way it handled the whole operation and treated her personally.

Even though the entity existed for three months before it was dissolved, and “disinformation” was in its very name, it never got around to settle on a “good definition” of what it was supposedly there to fight.

Jankowicz told the Committee that during her time at the helm of the Board, they did not “develop any protocols supporting the identification of MDM.”

When asked by Committee Chairman Jim Jordan to define “disinformation,” she said:

“Well, it’s interesting that you bring that up, Congressman, because there’s kind of a, I would say – not necessarily a difference of opinion within DHS of what constitutes disinformation, but CISA has one definition, and one of the things that occurred to me while I was at DHS is that different entities were dealing with different definitions. So that was one of the things that I had hoped to work on.”

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DHS Announces New Intelligence Advisory Board

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is setting up a new intelligence advisory board just weeks after it was forced to shut down a similar group due to concerns of political bias among its members.

The DHS announced the creation of the Homeland Intelligence Advisory Board on Friday. The board will comprise up to 40 members appointed by the Under Secretary of DHS. The new board could include 19 members from the controversial Homeland Intelligence Experts Group, which the agency had committed to shut down earlier this month. The Board plans to meet at least once every quarter and will be used as a source of ideas as well as a “critical assessment of our intelligence activities,” the DHS said.

“The Board will provide information and advice to the Under Secretary and the DHS Counterterrorism Coordinator on homeland intelligence activities and issues, including those around operational adherence to the principles of privacy and civil liberties.”

The Experts Group was set up by the DHS in September last year for stated purposes of offering advice on national security and intelligence. However, legal advocacy America First Legal (AFL) sued the DHS and Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, arguing that the group violated provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).

Section 5 of FACA requires that an advisory committee be “fairly balanced in terms of the points of view.” It also mandates there be provisions to ensure that “the advice and recommendations of the advisory committee will not be inappropriately influenced by the appointing authority or by any special interest.”

The lawsuit noted that the members of the Experts Group were “political allies of the Biden Administration. Most members have applauded the Administration’s decisions and fervidly condemned former President Trump’s America First approach to foreign policy.”

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Biden’s migrant crisis will cost taxpayers $451 BILLION a year: Staggering Republican report lays out how much is spent on healthcare and accommodation – as they target Mayorkas for impeachment

Taxpayers have to front nearly half a trillion dollars each year because the Biden administration is not stopping migrants at the southern border, Republicans said in a report on Monday.

The cost of providing education, healthcare, law enforcement and other expenditure resulting from millions of extra migrants adds up to as much as $451 billion a year, says the House study. 

The 49-page report comes as House Republicans push to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for allegedly failing to constrain the record numbers of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border.

‘Every day, millions of American taxpayer dollars are spent on costs directly associated with illegal immigration and the unprecedented crisis at the Southwest border sparked by … Mayorkas’ policies,’ says the report.

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Biden’s DHS Will Start Issuing ID Cards to Migrants Crossing Border This Summer

President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reportedly starting a pilot program to provide migrants, released into the United States and placed into deportation proceedings, with identification (ID) cards.

Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw reported that DHS officials have confirmed the agency will begin implementing the Secure Docket Card program this summer, offering photo IDs to about 10,000 migrants who cross the United States-Mexico border and are subsequently released into the U.S. interior.

“[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] confirmed to Fox News Digital this week the pilot program is expected to commence this summer with the distribution of approximately 10,000 cards,” Shaw reportd. “While the agency stressed that plans are ‘pre-decisional’ and still subject to change, it is expected the cards will be issued in three or four locations in the U.S.”

A spokesperson with DHS told Shaw the “specifics” of the photo IDs “are under development” but stressed that they “will not be an official form of federal identification.”

In December of last year, after remaining quiet on the pilot program, ICE officials confirmed its development in a year-end report:

[The Office of Immigration Program Evaluation] is leading the ICE Secure Docket Card project, which offers a uniform, durable card provided to noncitizens upon release, and facilitates reliable access to commonly lost or damaged immigration-related paperwork. [Emphasis added]

As far back as August 2022, when Biden’s DHS first began developing the pilot program, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee started sounding the alarm.

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Mayorkas Pressed to Explain Terror-Listed Illegal Immigrants Released Into US

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is facing renewed pressure to explain the circumstances of inadmissible aliens on the terrorist watchlist being released into the United States rather than being held in custody until deportation.

A group of Homeland Security Republicans expressed serious concern in an April 3 letter to Mr. Mayorkas about unanswered questions regarding DHS’s current practices in processing and releasing known or suspected terrorists into the United States.

“We are now facing a consistent stream of cases highlighted in the news of aliens allegedly on the terrorists watchlist either being apprehended at the border or discovered in the interior,” they wrote.

Their concern comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data show that there’s been a whopping 3,000-plus percent increase (comparing former President Donald Trump’s term and that of President Joe Biden’s so far) in the number of people on the FBI’s terror watchlist caught trying to enter the country illegally.

The lawmakers—including House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence Chairman August Pfluger (R-Texas)—expressed particular concern about the number of terrorist gotaways.

The number of terrorist gotaways could be alarmingly high if it tracks with the 3,000-plus percent rise in the number of apprehended illegal immigrants on the terror watchlist between the Trump and Biden presidencies.

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Looks Like Payback: DHS Targets Texas, Florida with Secret Migrant Flights

The Biden administration is secretly using migrant flights to dump illegal aliens into the United States. It turns out that most of them are being flown into Florida and Texas. 

Hmm. Is it a coincidence that two red states that are being vigilant in securing their borders are receiving 90% of the migrant flights? I don’t think so. 

The Center for Immigration Studies analyzed available public information on U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) website. It’s difficult to know the full picture since the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) refuses to publicly identify the dozens of international airports it has approved for direct flights from abroad for some inadmissible aliens.

At least 386,000 migrants, as of February, have been allowed to fly into the U.S. airports as part of President Biden’s admissions program launched in October 2022. The rationale for the program is to reduce the number of illegal border crossings. They are flown in and then released on parole. 

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) analysis of available public information shows the airports that might account for being used for landings from abroad, though not necessarily the final destinations. Early evidence shows that a majority of the flights carrying inadmissible aliens likely land at international airports in Florida. 

Florida is the top landing and U.S. customs processing zone for the direct-flights parole-and-release program. The total through February was nearly 326,000 aliens since the program began. Other regions being used in the program are Houston, New York, northern and southern California, and Washington, D.C. Florida is the heaviest hit. 

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Biden administration fails to file paperwork, causes 200K migrant deportation cases to be tossed: ‘Serious concerns’

Immigration judges dismissed deportation cases against some 200,000 migrants under President Biden because the Department of Homeland Security failed to file the required paperwork before their court dates, according to a new report. 

The DHS’s failure to file thousands of notices to appear before scheduled hearing dates left courts without jurisdiction to handle deportation cases and rule on asylum claims, according to a report released Wednesday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

“These large numbers of dismissals and what then happens raise serious concerns,” the TRAC report, which includes data through February 2024, states.

The nonpartisan research organization called it “troubling” that there was an “almost total lack of transparency on where and why these DHS failures occurred.” 

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PENTAGON UAP REPORT SAYS NO EVIDENCE U.S. HAS COLLECTED EXOTIC TECHNOLOGY, KEPT PROGRAMS HIDDEN FROM CONGRESS

A historical report issued by the Pentagon’s office tasked with the investigation of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), commonly referred to as UFOs, says it found no evidence that sightings of mysterious aerial objects represent extraterrestrial technology, or that secret programs related to the recovery of crashed exotic vehicles have been hidden from Congress.

Released on Friday, the report is the first installment in a two-volume series produced by the Defense Department’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) and explores the history of the U.S. government’s involvement in investigations of UAP under a requirement established in the fiscal year (FY) 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“To date, AARO has not discovered any empirical evidence that any sighting of a UAP represented off-world technology or the existence a classified program that had not been properly reported to Congress,” the report said.

Citing investigations that revealed most sightings to result from the “misidentification of ordinary objects and phenomena,” the report acknowledged that “many UAP reports remain unsolved,” though adding that better data could lead to the resolution of some of the currently unresolved cases.

In advance of the report’s release, Tim Phillips, acting director of AARO on assignment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), provided a briefing to a limited number of reporters on Wednesday, where he discussed the new report and revealed details about a new system called “Gremlin” designed to acquire real-time data on UAP. The Debrief did not participate in Wednesday’s media briefing.

Following the release of the report, Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said in an email to The Debrief that “AARO reviewed all official USG investigatory efforts since 1945, researched classified and unclassified archives, conducted dozens of interviews and site visits, and partnered with the Intelligence Community and DoD officials responsible for special access program oversight.”

“AARO created a secure process in partnership with the highest-level security officials within the DoD, IC, and other organizations to research and investigate these claims,” Gough said. “AARO was granted full, unrestricted access by all organizations.”

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THE FEDS ARE COMING FOR “EXTREMIST” GAMERS

GAMING COMPANIES ARE coordinating with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to root out so-called domestic violent extremist content, according to a new government report. Noting that mechanisms have been established with social media companies to police extremism, the report recommends that the national security agencies establish new and similar processes with the vast gaming industry.

The exact nature of the cooperation between federal agencies and video game companies, which has not been previously reported, is detailed in a new Government Accountability Office report. The report draws on interviews conducted with five gaming and social media companies including Roblox, an online gaming platform; Discord, a social media app commonly used by gamers; Reddit; as well as a game publisher and social media company that asked the GAO to remain anonymous.

The Intercept reached out to the companies identified in the GAO report for comment, but none responded on the record at time of publication.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have mechanisms to share and receive domestic violent extremism threat-related information with social media and gaming companies,” the GAO says. The report reveals that the DHS intelligence office meets with gaming companies and that the companies can use these meetings to “share information with I&A [DHS’s intelligence office] about online activities promoting domestic violent extremism,” or even simply “activities that violate the companies’ terms of service.” Through its 56 field offices and hundreds of resident agencies subordinate field offices, the FBI receives tips from gaming companies of potential law-breaking and extremist views for further investigation. The FBI also conducts briefings to gaming companies on purported threats.

The GAO warns that FBI and DHS lack an overarching strategy to bring its work with gaming companies in line with broader agency missions. “Without a strategy or goals, the agencies may not be fully aware of how effective their communications are with companies, or how effective their information-sharing mechanisms serve the agencies’ overall missions,” the GAO says. The report ends with a recommendation that both agencies develop such a strategy — a recommendation that DHS concurred with, providing an estimated completion date of June 28 this year. 

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