The West better rethink cyber security for the military. It is a mess and the million-billionaires don't care.

The problem with foreign nationals that become citizens, is their family. If they work in any form of military apparatus, the family can be threatened. It then erodes the loyalty to the USA or in his case Australia and all sorts of problems become more real than anyone ever estimated.

In the USA Constitution, the President had to be a native born citizen. I think they knew what they were doing when it comes to securing a country.

4 April 2018

By Alex Joske, Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker and Angus Grigg

The Defence Department (click here) is reviewing business dealings between one of its senior scientists and the Chinese government’s missile development agency amid ongoing concerns about Beijing’s effort to recruit western scientists and officials.

In a separate development, Fairfax Media can also reveal that Australia's peak scientific research agency, the CSIRO, spent tens of millions of dollars upgrading its cyber-security and information systems after a data breach linked to an employee who was a Chinese national. The man disappeared after the apparent breach in November 2013.

The Defence Department senior scientist, who has a security clearance that gives him access to classified information, was in early 2016 appointed director of a small NSW firm which specialises in non-military uses of big data analytics.

Later that year, the firm signed a partnership with a subsidiary of CASIC, the Chinese government’s largest missile manufacturer, to buy heat sensors that would gather data for use in the agricultural sector....

I am looking forward to the UK doing something no other country is prepared to do and that is diluting some of the political news monopoly of Rupert Murdoch.

4 April 2018
By Paul Sandle

Even if Fox's proposals (click here) satisfy Britain's government and competition regulator, however, it may still need to raise its recommended offer for Sky after US cable group Comcast Corp said it intended to make a higher counter-bid.

Sky shares rose 2.1 per cent to £13.25, the biggest gain on Britain's FTSE-100 index and above both Fox's bid and Comcast's proposed offer, signalling investors expect any suitor will have to pay more.

Money-losing Sky News is the last regulatory hurdle in 87-year-old Murdoch's long campaign to buy Sky, which has grown from its UK beginnings to become Europe's biggest pay-TV group.

"We look forward to concluding this acquisition - finally - in a timely and expeditious manner," Fox Senior Vice President Gerson Zweifach said, adding the proposed solutions addressed all concerns about the transaction.

Fox agreed in December 2016 to buy the 61 per cent of Sky it does not already own, but the deal has been repeatedly delayed by the British government and regulators, allowing Comcast to gate crash the deal in February....           

He was sentenced 30 days in jail.

February 20, 2018
By Spenser S. Hsu and Rosalind S. Helderman

The Dutch son-in-law of one of Russia’s wealthiest men (click here) pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Washington to making false statements in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election....

Part of the risk in doing business in foreign countries is the changing business climate within that country. Places like Europe are far safer and more stable than doing business in other countries, including BRIC countries. With President Donald Trump sidling up to President Vladimir Putin on a regular basis, he is preventing his investments from leaving his portfolio. Putin can take Trump's assets if he wants to and short of going to the WTO in a legal action, there is nothing Trump can do.

He never truly divested his company. He is too worried about the USA having a friendship with Russia. It is about his company and his family's interest in same.

When Putin stated if Clinton were elected there would be nuclear war, but, not with Trump; he believed Trump would never fire a shot at Russia. It is obvious where that statement came from; it was blackmail. Putin has Trump blackmailed with his Russian investments.

February 21, 2018
By Brennan Weiss

A 2008 quote from President Donald Trump's eldest son (click here) about his family's assets resurfaced on Sunday in a New York Times op-ed article.

"In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets," Donald Trump Jr. said at a New York real-estate conference that year. "Say, in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo, and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."

Trump Jr.'s comment has taken on new meaning amid the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.

The op-ed article, by Thomas Friedman, tears into Trump and his response to Russia's election interference....

So sorry to hear this occurred.

April 3, 2018

Police (click here) have responded to multiple 911 calls at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, California. Multiple victims have been taken to the hospital following the shooting, CBS San Francisco reported. About 1,700 people work in the building, according to ABC News.

Vadim Lavrusik, a product manager at the company, tweeted that there is an active shooter on campus. The San Bruno Police Department instructed people to stay away from 901 Cherry Avenue, where the company is located. Multiple 911 calls have been received from inside the building, according to a report from local news station KRON.

In a Twitter thread, YouTube product manager Todd Sherman said that employees first thought there had been an earthquake....

...As one of the most-visited services on the web, YouTube is under constant scrutiny for its policy decisions over content moderation, monetization, and other issues. The doors to its headquarters are typically locked, and visitors have to be buzzed in by someone at the front desk....

I would be surprised if the Joint Chiefs comply with the border guard on the American side.

The US military, by constitutional law, cannot operate within the borders of the USA. I do think there was a small deployment of US military to New Orleans after Katrina hit, but, one of the first things General Honore ordered getting out of his helicopter was to put all guns down. He stated these people were Americans and would not be harmed by the US military.

Normally, in circumstances that need armed detachment or larger authority, the state's National Guard is deployed. Katrina was an emergency and people were stranded and dying. There was no way in or no way out and the USA military had the capacity to end the suffering early.

April 3, 2018

By Jennifer Epstein and Justin Sink

President Donald Trump (click here) said he plans to deploy the U.S. military to guard the border with Mexico and has told Mexican leaders he would abandon Nafta without assurances of help on securing the boundary.

"We are going to do some things, I’ve been talking to General Mattis, we’re going to be doing things militarily until we can have a wall and proper security," Trump said Tuesday during a meeting with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. "We’re going to be guarding our border with the military."

Trump has previously suggested that he could use money allocated for the U.S. military to construct the border wall for which he has so far been unable to secure congressional funding. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to say how Trump would re-direct the funding, which likely would require additional congressional approval.

The Defense Department has in the past helped the Department of Homeland Security with border security measures, and George W. Bush and Barack Obama both deployed National Guard troops to the border during their presidency to bolster security....

The problem with the Trump plan is that it is unilateral and does not assist Mexico with it's national security. Mexico has to be a full partner for any border guard to succeed. I know the USA military will not be killing children at the border.

Mexico's national security should be a high priority for the US Congress and seek any and all methods that will defeat the drug cartels and the armed encampments in towns and cities across Mexico. The US military does have intelligence about the drug cartel operations and there were military sent to Belize at one point as well as Mexico when the cartels were not suppressed by any Mexican operation. I know Secretary Gates deployed some troops to Mexico for those reasons.

I think the country has to see what the Joint Chiefs say about all this and there may even be constitutional complaints to the Supreme Court to prevent the US military to operation inside the borders of the USA. It is a very bad precedent and General Honore's model of a disarmed military with a mission of compassion really is the only acceptable place for the US military in modern America.