Category Archives: ethics

Another IRS Assault

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This time on private enterprise and a private economy company that’s nominally outside the scope of the government economy.

US tax officials sued Facebook Inc to force the company to hand over documents related a transfer of assets to Ireland in 2010, part of a yearslong investigation into whether some of those assets were undervalued “by billions of dollars.”

Because, of course, John Koskinen and his IRS minions know better how to value a private enterprise than does the private enterprise.

Alternatively, Koskinen has reason to believe the company has falsified its valuations, which raises the question: what’s your probable cause, Mr Koskinen?

State Department Insecurity

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Regardless of what one might think about the FBI’s decision to let ex-Secretary of State and Democratic Party Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton escape prosecution over her handling of State Department emails on her unsecured personal email server, you’d think the hoo-raw over the matter for all this time at least would prompt State to take seriously Department handling of emails.

You’d think wrong.

State’s Inspector General has issued a report that, in its totality, shows that the State Department just doesn’t care about national secrets, to the point of not even troubling itself to shut down unused email accounts.  This despite repeated “suggestions” that they do just that.

The report, titled Management Assistance Report: Inactive Accounts Within the Department of State’s Active Directory, has this in its opening paragraphs.

Acting on behalf of the Office of Inspector General (OIG), Office of Audits, Williams, Adley & Company-DC, LLP (Williams Adley), an independent public accounting firm, evaluated whether the Department disabled inactive AD user accounts in accordance with its internal policies.  …  The Department’s AD account policy states that Department officials should disable inactive user accounts after 90 or more days.

Nope.

Of the 40,794 domestic AD accounts tested for this audit, Williams Adley found 2,601 (6.4%) had not been disabled after 90 days of inactivity. Of the 2,601 inactive accounts, 1,932 (74%) accounts were inactive for more than 1 year….

This has been an ongoing passive-aggressive resistance problem [SBU means “Sensitive but Unclassified;” its line-out in the original means the indicated paragraph has been completely declassified so the public can see it].

(SBU) OIG reported a similar deficiency in its FY 2015 Federal Information Security Management Act audit report.

And

(SBU) In its 2014 report on AD, OIG stated that the deficiencies it identified with AD Rights Management primarily occurred because IRM had not established a governance structure or strategy to ensure that AD Rights Management was implemented and managed consistently.

The report concludes with these two tidbits tied back to an earlier recommendation [Emphasis within the paragraphs added by me.]

Recommendation 1: (SBU) OIG recommends that the Bureau of Information Resource Management amend the “Program Management Plan for PIV Login to OpenNet Deployment” to address the identification and removal process of mailbox, service, and terminated user accounts.

Management Response (April 2016): (SBU) IRM non-concurs with this recommendation. The Program Management Plan for PIV Login was created to deploy and implement PIV domestically and overseas. Now that IRM has completed that goal, the plan has been completed and does not lend itself to amendment.

In other words, State considers complying—to set out instructions for complete removal of these accounts—to be too much like work.

Recommendation 2: (SBU) OIG recommends that the Bureau of Information Resource Management implement the new guidance from the “Program Management Plan for PIV Login to OpenNet Deployment,” once amended in response to Recommendation 1 of this report.

Management Response (April 2016): (SBU) IRM non-concurs with this recommendation. The Program Management Plan for PIV Login was created to deploy and implement PIV domestically and overseas. Now that IRM has completed that goal, the plan has been completed and does not lend itself to amendment.

Again, that’s just too much like work.

The State Department needs a complete housecleaning, including a complete turnover of non-Foreign Service personnel.

Elections have consequences.

Clinton, Comey, and the Law

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Jacob Gershman wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal Law Blog,

[FBI Director] Comey also referenced a more obscure provision of the Espionage Act that has little to do with intent or state of mind, but rather makes it a crime to disclose classified information through “gross negligence.”

That provision of the Espionage Act, the primary law governing the handling of classified information, could require at least proof that the offender knew the classified information disclosed could harm the United States or benefit a foreign power if it got into the wrong hands.

But the crime of “gross negligence” in the Espionage Act doesn’t appear to require proof of any intentional mishandling of documents….

But what behavior would rise to the level of gross negligence that is a felony under the Espionage Act?

Perhaps the setup, maintenance, and use of an unsecured email on which State Department official business was, by design, conducted.

Perhaps the receipt and relay of emails containing Top Secret Special Access information without sequestering those emails and pointing out the failures to State’s security facility.

Perhaps the receipt and relay of emails with classification markings in them without sequestering those emails and….

Perhaps receipt and relay of 1,000+ emails originating as classified because of their content without sequestering….

Those sorts of behaviors also would seem to aggregate to the guilty knowledge that is intent.  Yet Comey said of some of the cases the FBI had previously prosecuted that they involved

…some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice.

And then he said

We do not see those things here.

Unfortunately, Admiral Nelson-like, Comey put his spyglass to his bad eye, albeit with a far different purpose.  And chose not even to recommend a gross negligence prosecution, apparently because his bad eye didn’t reveal any of that to him, either.

His decision to not see is made manifest with his own words in that same statement:

This is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions.

Lawless Democrats

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This time, in the Senate.  The Senate tried to consider a bill that would have, among other things, denied Federal funds for sanctuary cities—cities that openly and blatantly not only accept illegal aliens but actively interfere with Federal actions taken to deal with them.

Sanctuary cities like San Francisco, where an illegal alien was protected from Federal action and who repaid the city’s forbearance by murdering a young woman.  Sanctuary cities like Alexandria, VA, where illegal aliens connected to the M-13 drug cartel murdered two young men.  Sanctuary cities like Los Angeles whose protected illegal alien murdered a high school boy in an LA suburb.  The list goes on.

But Senate Democrats ran screaming for the hills, blocking a cloture vote on that bill: these Democrats were afraid to allow the bill to be debated on the Senate floor, in public and in front of their own constituents.

No, these Democrats want to keep those funds coming, want to reward cities that flout the law and allow illegal aliens—including the small but violent minority of them—to roam free.

Democrats vs Democracy

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The Democrats assaulted democracy in Wisconsin and Indiana, saying by deed, “No democracy for you until we get our way.”

Now they’re taking their assault to the nation.  No democracy for us until they get their way.  And then it’ll be their version only.  Recall the Democrats’ assault on democracy as they tried to shut down the Congress of the United States because they couldn’t get their way on gun control.  They’re threatening to block our democracy more permanently unless they get their way.  When Congress reconvenes,

Democrats plan to pick up with their particular firearms attack precisely where they left off in late June with an unprecedented sit-in on the House floor.  From a memo from the Congressional Black Caucus leadership [emphasis added]:

Rep Robin Kelly (D, IL) would like CBC members to be present for Floor activities on gun violence when the House returns to session on Tuesday, July 5, 2016. The plan is to be as disruptive to (House) Speaker (Paul) Ryan (R, WI) as possible next week.

This is part and parcel with the FBI’s decision to whitewash Democratic Party Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, obeying his instructions from Attorney General Loretta Lynch and President Barack Obama (D).

Elections have consequences.