RUTHFULLY YOURS

Three days after James Comey’s soliloquy absolving Hillary Clinton of criminal misuse of classified information, the big winner is—James Comey. Washington’s elite are hailing the FBI director as a modern King Solomon for avoiding a political crisis while telling the truth.

Forgive us if we don’t join the beatification. Now that we’ve had more time to digest Mr. Comey’s legal reasoning, and after his appearance on Capitol Hill Thursday, his actions are all the more troubling and set a dangerous precedent. He often poses as the deliverer of “hard truths,” and the hard truth is that he has helped himself politically but not the cause of equal treatment under the law.

Mr. Comey criticized Mrs. Clinton’s “extremely careless” handling of classified materials and found “evidence of potential violations” of the law but then recommended no charges. He conceded that his job is not to decide on criminal prosecutions, but he then contradicted himself by declaring that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”

Mr. Comey’s public pronouncement that he would not recommend charges is highly unusual, and not a credit to the FBI. The bureau and its director are not the last word in the U.S. justice system. Their time-honored role is to uncover the facts, build a case, and leave the decision on prosecution to Main Justice.

Law-enforcement officials are also not supposed to talk beyond the “four corners” of an indictment, much less about an ongoing investigations except when disclosing information necessary to protect public safety. Their evidence and theories are meant to be adjudicated in adversarial courts, which is in part why Mr. Comey ought to have presented his findings and recommendation privately.

Regular order was even more important given President Obama’s multiple media interviews in which he effectively exonerated Mrs. Clinton, and Bill Clinton’s meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch on an airport tarmac last week. Mr. Comey justified violating Justice Department norms because of “intense public interest.” But if he really believed that such a politically charged case required a public presentation of the facts, then he should have simply presented the facts and not editorialized about the merits. CONTINUE AT SITE

In 2009 Congress passed the Service Dogs for Veterans Act, or SDVA, with bipartisan sponsorship as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

SDVA included a $5 million appropriation for the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct a comprehensive study to determine the efficacy of dogs in easing post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans.

Seven years after the Service Dogs for Veterans Act was passed, where do things stand? You may not be surprised to learn that the VA bungled its task.

“The implementation of the study,” Richard Weinmeyer wrote in the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics last year, “has been hampered by numerous setbacks.” Three service-dog providers were recruited, but two had dropped out by 2012, the journal reported, and “the entire project was suspended from January to June 2012 after a child was bitten by one of the study dogs.” Then the study was halted again amid the VA’s worries that a hospital in the study was endangering the dogs’ health. A revamped project was launched in 2014, but progress appears scant.

I wondered how such a well-intentioned effort could have gone so wrong for so long. For instance, how were the service-dog providers selected? I filed a Freedom of Information Act request late last year—and have yet to receive anything other than promises that information would be forthcoming. CONTINUE AT SITE

When President Obama in 2013 named James Comey to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the president must have sensed that he had picked someone who could be trusted to have his back, even if Mr. Comey had served in the George W. Bush administration. This week, Mr. Obama’s bet paid off when the G-man let Hillary Clinton skate.

Not that Mr. Comey had an explicit understanding with the White House. It’s just that Mr. Obama and his savvy political team must have known from the start that Mr. Comey was no John Adams.

Not the Adams of Founding Father fame, but John Adams when he was a younger man, who in 1770 agreed to defend British soldiers accused of massacring Boston colonists. The legal task was so unpopular, so dangerous, that nobody else would do it. Yet Adams believed that the law trumped politics, and that the men deserved a fair trial. In taking the case, he risked both his economic and political future. He took it anyway.
Mr. Obama announced Mr. Comey’s appointment by praising his “fierce independence and deep integrity.” And the press drooled over several episodes in his history that had given the former Justice Department official a reputation as tough and impartial. What this missed was that Mr. Comey had risen through the ranks precisely by being the opposite of tough. Washington rewards officials who are best at currying public favor, best at surviving, best at creating unfounded legends. And Mr. Comey had been steadily rising in Washington a long time. CONTINUE AT SITE

DALLAS—Eleven police officers were shot by at least two snipers here Thursday night during a protest over police brutality, leaving five officers dead and wounding six, throwing the city into chaos and turning parts of downtown into a massive crime scene by Friday morning.

Dallas Police Chief David Brown said the snipers had opened fire on officers from “elevated positions” during the protests. A civilian was also wounded.

By early morning Friday, three suspects were in custody, including a woman. A fourth was hunkered down in a city garage, exchanging gunfire with police.

The suspect told police negotiators that “the end is coming,” and that bombs have been placed around the garage and downtown with the aim of killing more law-enforcement personnel, Chief Brown said, adding that he had asked his staff for a plan to end the standoff.

Police are working on the assumption that all four may have been involved in the attack. It appeared the suspects had knowledge of the protest route, allowing them to take up “triangulated” positions above the march and target officers.

Police were still searching for other suspects over night, just hours before thousand of workers would fill offices, restaurants and shops in the downtown.

“We still don’t have a complete comfort level that we have all the suspects,” Chief Brown said, adding a search of the area was continuing.

Police and city officials said that large areas of downtown would be closed Friday as police continued their investigation.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings told Dallas residents to check with a city website and their employers to see if they would have access to their workplaces. Parts of the city are “an active crime scene,” Mayor Rawlings said, “and we are asking you to stay away from that area.” CONTINUE AT SITE

This administration has consistently acted in ways that show utter contempt for the Constitution and the Rule of Law as well as the separation of powers. In so doing, this administration has created an environment of mistrust by the citizens of the United States that go to the very heart of our Democratic Republic.

Our nation’s immigration laws are among its most fundamental because they were enacted to protect national security and the lives and livelihoods of Americans. Politicians from both political parties have found every excuse imaginable, and indeed, some excuses that defy logic and reason to explain why our immigration laws cannot, will not or must not be enforced.

The Obama administration has done the most damage to the immigration system, making a mockery of our immigration laws and sending a clear and dangerous message to people from around the world- in the United States violations of our laws will not only be tolerated but rewarded. The sheer statistics are staggering and provide irrefutable evidence of the level of anarchy created by this administration.

The consequences of the failures of our immigration laws have repeatedly enabled terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves as they went about their deadly preparations to launch deadly terror attacks inside the United States.

Criminal aliens ply their “trades” with impunity in towns and cities across our nation that cost thousands of innocent people their lives.

Those who advocate for the effective enforcement of our immigration laws are not “Anti-Immigrant” but are “Pro-Enforcement.” To be “Pro-Enforcement” is taking a “Pro-Immigrant” position because under our current immigration laws our nation admits more lawful immigrants than all of the other countries on this planet. Our current immigration laws are utterly blind as to race, religion and ethnicity and must finally be effectively enforced!

Tactics of intimidation and deceptive use of language are the stock and trade of the open borders anarchists. Anyone who would dare suggest that our government must exercise caution in admitting aliens into the United States to protect the safety and security of America and Americans are quickly branded “racist” and “nativist.” Their objective is to shut down debate and discourse- the hallmarks of true democracies.

Charles (Chuck) Brooks serves as the Vice President for Government Relations & Marketing for Sutherland Global Services. Chuck is Chairman of CompTIA’s New and Emerging Technology Committee, as a Fellow oat The National Cybersecurity Institute, and serves on Boards to several prominent public and private companies and organizations. Chuck has extensive service in Senior Executive Management, Marketing, Government Relations, and Business Development and worked in those capacities for three large public corporations.In government, he served at the Department of Homeland Security as the first Director of Legislative Affairs for the Science & Technology Directorate.
“Digitalization is the cause of large-scale and sweeping transformations across multiple aspects of business, providing unparalleled opportunities for value creation and capture, as well as being a source of major risk.”* –
Scientific advancement of modern times in high technologies that results in the state-of-the-art engineering technologies, the speed of technological changes all over the globe and in space, are a magnet for ‘white’ and ‘black’ players – ‘Lords of Order’ and ‘Lords of Chaos’- that aim to generate ‘cyber tornados’, ‘cyber thunder-storms’. ‘Cyber–attacks can range from installing spyware on a PC to attempts to destroy the infrastructure of entire nations’, to cause great harm with unprecedented consequences. These ‘players’ have names. Many hide behind the masks. –
We are being showered with reports of escalating impacts and costs that are measured in the billions. –

Cybersecurity. Pushing the frontiers: Prevention and protection strategies in cyber security. What do we need to know about prevention of cyber-attacks and protection of critical infrastructure?

With these and a few more questions I am proud and honoured to again be gifted with time and wisdom of Mr. Chuck Brooks – one of the world’s known experts, the industry guru, your future reference for the most competent and comprehensive quest and analysis on cyber security.

To Chuck Brooks: What do we need to know about prevention of cyber-attacks and protection of critical infrastructure?

Director Comey’s explanation is now clear, though he did not lay it out in his report earlier this week: The statute criminalizing gross negligence in mishandling classified information is invalid because it does not require proof of intent to improperly transmit classified information to places it is not supposed to be or to people not authorized to have it.

The director claims that the statute has only been used once since its enactment in 1917, and therefore its invocation as written in Mrs. Clinton’s case would be suspect. He implies that the only way to save the statute is for the Justice Department to do what prosecutors routinely tell judges that they are not permitted to do: rewrite the statute – in this instance, to add a higher mens rea proof requirement.

With due respect, this argument is very unconvincing, for at least two reasons:

1. It is implausible to claim, as Director Comey does, that a criminal statute is implicitly invalid if the mens rea (state of mind) element merely requires proof of gross negligence rather than intent to cause harm. Let’s consider the causing of death, a consequence similarly grave to compromising our national security by mishandling classified information. I believe every state in our country criminalizes the negligent causing of death. Here, for example, is what judges in Connecticut instruct juries in every such case:

For you to find the defendant guilty of this charge, the state must prove the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:

Element 1 – Cause of death
The first element is that the defendant caused the death of . This means that the defendant’s conduct was the proximate cause of the decedent’s death. You must find proven beyond a reasonable doubt that died as a result of the actions of the defendant.

Element 2 – Criminal negligence
The second element is that the defendant was criminally negligent in causing the death.

Conclusion
In summary, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that 1) the defendant caused the death of , and 2) the defendant was criminally negligent when (he/she) caused the death.

Notice: there is absolutely no requirement that the prosecutor prove that the defendant intended to do harm or cause death. It is merely required that the prosecutor prove that the defendant acted negligently and that this negligence caused death.

It would be shocking were a high official to suggest that such prosecutions are constitutionally suspect. They happen all the time, and have from time immemorial.

2. It would be contradictory to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt of both (a) the intentional causing of harm, and (b) the causing harm by gross negligence. We know in our everyday lives that we do not intend the harm we cause when we act negligently. The driver who texts behind the wheel never intends the harm that comes to the passengers when the highly likely accident happens. If Director Comey is correct, though, that would mean that Congress is powerless to criminalize the extremely careless mishandling of classified information by high public officials despite the catastrophic damage it can do to the United States.

After masterfully marshaling facts that showed Hillary Clinton was grossly negligent in mishandling the nation’s defense secrets – i.e., after demonstrating that she was patently indictable for a felony violation of federal law – Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey recommended against prosecution. His rationale is even more difficult to justify on close examination than it appeared at first blush.

Director Comey contends that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a case due to the former Secretary of State’s purportedly benign intent. In point of fact, her intent – besides being very far from benign – is largely irrelevant: the criminal statute at issue, Section 793(f) of the federal penal code, merely requires proof that the defendant was grossly negligent – or, as Comey put it “extremely careless.” But more importantly, a reasonable prosecutor considering charges would not myopically obsess over Clinton’s state of mind. Far more weighty in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion would be two factors Comey did not cite at all in his presentation: (a) Congress’s purpose in criminalizing the grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, and (b) the harm actually done to the United States which, viewed from the perspective of the intelligence community underwritten by 50 billion American taxpayer dollars annually, was surely immense.

Let’s dispense with the matter of Mrs. Clinton’s intent – a side issue that Director Comey magnified into the dispositive issue. Unlike most criminal statutes, the felony of grossly negligent mishandling of classified information does not call for prosecutors to prove that a defendant intended the harm done. It merely requires proof of gross negligence – which is no different from what Comey compellingly demonstrated was Clinton’s “extreme carelessness” in mishandling national defense secrets.

Consider an analogy: a car passenger tragically dies because the driver is texting behind the wheel. There is no need in the negligent homicide case to prove (and indeed, no possibility of proving) that the driver intended to cause harm to the passenger. The driver is guilty because she purposely engaged in the reckless conduct – texting while driving – that risked the grave and easily foreseeable danger.

Similarly, Mrs. Clinton’s may not have intended to cause harm. In fact, let’s for argument’s sake concede Comey’s premise that she did not intend to make classified information vulnerable to hostile hackers when she purposely caused its transfer from the government’s secure server system to her own woefully non-secure system. Still, the felony statute at issue does not call for proof that she intended the harm done to the United States. Prosecutors need only prove what Comey so ably outlined: Clinton purposely engaged in the reckless behavior – the installation and use of an impermissible and amateurishly non-secure, non-government server system – that made harm to the United States virtually inevitable.

Still, I want to move beyond the lawyerly parsing of mens rea to a more curious aspect of Director Comey’s reasoning. The director implausibly claimed that no reasonable prosecutor would charge Clinton based on the facts uncovered by the FBI. This, as he acknowledged, was not his call to make – prosecutorial discretion is ultimately exercised by the Justice Department lawyers, not the FBI. Yet, as a highly accomplished former prosecutor, Comey offered what he intimated was an exhaustive list of factors any “reasonable” prosecutor would weigh; then, upon weighing them, he determined that they decisively militated against indictment. CONTINUE AT SITE