Tag: secrecy

Thousands of confidential ethics and juvenile records are published online

A website called judyrecords.com has published thousands of confidential court records from across the nation, including private ethics records in California and juvenile court records from several states, according to reporting by Law360.

The State Bar of California said judyrecords.com apparently obtained nonpublic information on about 260,000 attorney ethics cases as a result of a “previously unknown security vulnerability” in its case management portal. The bar uses Tyler Technologies’ Odyssey system, which was also used by affected court systems that spoke with Law360 about the problem.

Judyrecords.com describes itself as “a 100% free nationwide search engine that lets you instantly search hundreds of millions of United States court cases and lawsuits.”

Law360 said it searched judyrecords.com “and uncovered dockets with detailed information about minors that, in some affected jurisdictions, is normally restricted or confidential. The information included the names of defendants. In several cases, it also listed their birth dates, criminal charges and sentencing information.”

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Biden Administration Urges Court Not to Allow Release of ‘Secret Report’ on Dominion Voting Machines

Top officials at a U.S. federal cybersecurity agency are urging a judge not to authorize at this time the release of a report that analyzes Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Georgia, arguing doing so could assist hackers trying to “undermine election security.”

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was recently provided an unredacted copy of the report, which was prepared by J. Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society.

The report discusses “potential vulnerabilities in Dominion ImageCast X ballot marking devices,” or electronic voting devices, according to the government.

While CISA supports public disclosure of any vulnerabilities and associated mitigation measures with election equipment, allowing the release of the report at this point “increases the risk that malicious actors may be able to exploit any vulnerabilities and threaten election security,” government lawyers said in a Feb. 10 filing in the case.

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Pelosi Congress Claims Sovereign Immunity in Federal Court to Keep Secret January 6 Videos and Emails

Congress exempts itself from the Freedom of Information Act. Judicial Watch, therefore, brought its lawsuit under the common law right of access to public records. In opposing the broad assertion of secrecy, Judicial Watch details Supreme Court and other precedent that upholds the public’s right to know what “their government is up to:”

“In ‘the courts of this country’— including the federal courts—the common law bestows upon the public a right of access to public records and documents” … “the Supreme Court was unequivocal in stating that there is a federal common law right of access ‘to inspect and copy public records and documents.’” … “[T]he general rule is that all three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, are subject to the common law right.” The right of access is “a precious common law right . . . that predates the Constitution itself.”

The Court of Appeals for this circuit has recognized that “openness in government has always been thought crucial to ensuring that the people remain in control of their government….” “Neither our elected nor our appointed representatives may abridge the free flow of information simply to protect their own activities from public scrutiny. An official policy of secrecy must be supported by some legitimate justification that serves the interest of the public office.”

“The Pelosi Congress (and its police department) is telling a federal court it is immune from all transparency under law and is trying to hide every second of its January 6 videos and countless emails,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The hypocrisy is rich, as this is the same Congress that is trying to jail witnesses who, citing privileges, object to providing documents to the Pelosi rump January 6 committee.”

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Tucker Carlson Plays Exclusive Video of Government Contractors, Secret Flights of Illegals

On Wednesday night, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson showed exclusive footage of New York police expressing their frustration over secret flights carrying illegal immigrants from the southern border to towns in their state. Carlson also showed footage of a government contractor being asked the reason for the secrecy and answering, “You know why. Look who’s in charge,” then asserting, “The government is betraying the American people.”

Carlson began, “So we’ve obtained exclusive bodycam footage from the police department in Westchester County, New York. The footage shows 100 apparently illegal immigrants, mostly teenagers, getting off a charter flight in the middle of the night in Westchester. The migrants then get on buses.  Someone on the tape describes how ‘DHS wants this on the low-down.’ In other words, secret, so you won’t know about it, despite the fact that you are a U.S. citizen who’s paying for it. They’re hiding it from you; they’re doing this without your consent, speaking of an attack on democracy.”

“In the footage, Westchester police express their frustration with what’s happening,” Carlson said as he introduced the footage.

The footage showed a policeman saying, “You trying to figure out what this is?” The reporter answers, “Yeah.” The policeman responds, “Good luck with that.” Reporter, “Yeah.” Policeman: “You’re on a secure facility here and we really don’t know anything and we’re in charge of security. So, hence we’re having a problem here.” Another policeman, “We’re hanging out here on the tarmac. I used to pick up basketball teams that had more security than this.”

“Now just to be completely clear, what you just saw is illegal,” Carlson charged. “That’s a crime. That’s why they’re keeping it secret. The U.S. government is not allowed to abet the breaking of federal law. Sorry. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.”

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Apple’s AirTag uncovers a secret German intelligence agency

A researcher has sent one of Apple’s AirTags to a mysterious “federal authority” in Germany to locate its true offices — and to help prove that it’s really part of an intelligence agency.

Apple’s AirTags have already been used for good and for bad in cases involving the tracking of individuals, but now a German researcher has used one in an expose of government secrets.

Activist Lilith Wittmann claims that she has uncovered how Germany’s little-known Federal Telecommunications Service is actually a “camouflage authority” for a secret intelligence agency. Initially she wrote how she “accidentally stumbled upon a federal authority that does not exist.”

Now Wittmann has detailed her subsequent and extremely thorough attempts to prove her suspicion. She has methodically gone through every step of learning what she can of the intelligence agency, including where it is.

Some of the steps she details are no longer possible to reproduce, such as her initial one of simply looking up a list of federal authorities online. Similarly, Wittmann includes transcripts of phone calls with an official whose cell number that she reports then ceased working.

Through calls like that, IP searches, and even driving to official buildings, Wittmann worked to track down the mysterious Bundesservice Telekommunikation, or Federal Telecommunications Service.

She establishes multiple reasons to believe it is part of the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI), and ultimately concludes that there are actually two “camouflage” authorities. Both are allegedly a secret part of an intelligence agency named the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

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The mysterious death of Democratic National Committee worker Seth Rich and the FBI’s battle to keep documents about it secret

A lingering Freedom of Information (FOI) battle involving the FBI continues in the case of Seth Rich.

Rich was a Democratic National Committee (DNC) worker who was attacked and killed on July 10, 2016 by an unknown person or people.

Police implied Rich was the victim in a botched robbery attempt. However, with no suspects in custody or even named, others suggested his death as linked to a leak of controversial DNC emails to WikiLeaks.

The emails were considered harmful to the DNC and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Some theorized that Rich could have been the source of the leak, and then was murdered in retaliation.

One reason the case received a lot of publicity is that US intelligence officials blamed Russia for hacking into the DNC and giving the documents to WikiLeaks. If the document leak were an inside job, instead, it would mean Russia did not play the role intelligence officials claimed, at the same time some top officials were also fabricating links between Russia and Donald Trump, and at the same time an FBI attorney was doctoring documents to improperly obtain a wiretap against a Trump campaign associate as a “Russian spy.”

Speculation about Rich’s death led to lawsuits filed by the Rich family, who called the theories “right-wing conspiracy theories” that compounded their grief. They received some apologies and settlements regarding the claims, which they said they believed to be false.

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