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The coronavirus may infect NSA whistleblower Reality Winner while she is incarcerated at a womens prison hospital. She has a history of respiratory illness that makes her exceptionally vulnerable. Yet, the United States government contends they have no record of Winner ever submitting a request for relief. Prosecutors further suggesteven if the warden for Federal Medical Center Carswell received a request for release from Winnerthat she did not follow the appropriate process so her appeal should be denied.

Winner pled guilty in 2018 to one count of violating the Espionage Act when she disclosed an NSA report to The Intercept. She believed the report contained evidence that Russian hackers targeted United States voter registration systems during the 2016 election.

She has served more than half of her 63-month sentence, and her attorneys urged a federal court to release her to home confinement to serve the remaining 19 months of her sentence.

But Judge Randal Hall sided with the Justice Department on April 24 and contended the medical prison, where Winner is incarcerated, is presumably better equipped than most to deal with any onset of COVID-19 in its inmates.

Hall refused to grant Winner a hearing to present specific evidence on the risks posed to her health by the coronavirus. In response to the U.S. government, Winners attorneys said [PDF] prosecutors presented no grounds to deny Winners request to treat her motion for compassionate release as the life-and-death matter it (and COVID-19) really is. Winners request for compassionate release presents compelling and extraordinary reasons to justify the relief she seeks, they added. Her good luck thus far is the only thing that separates her from the thousands of inmates in the Bureau of Prisons custody who have contracted COVID-19 on BOPs watch.Her attorneys point out 57 people in BOP custody died and paid the ultimate price for BOPs egregious mishandling. The manner in which the government is bureaucratically seeking to thwart Winners appeal does not bode well for prisoners seeking to invoke the First Step Act to win compassionate release. Prosecutors claim [PDF], Winner alleged, without documentary support, that on April 8, 2020, she submitted a written request to the warden of FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, asking that he petition the Bureau of Prisons for a reduction of her sentence. [Note: Part of this is quoted from Winners appeal, but the government didnt include an end quote.]The government insists it inquired, and the BOP never received any request. Only in her reply brief did Winner attempt to provide evidence showing she actually submitted a request. None of the documents though were Winners actual request or detailed what the basis of the request was. This is important because the date, as well as the content, of the request determines whether the defendant has appropriately exhausted her administrative remedies prior to filing in district court, the government added.As of May 1, according to BOP, seventy percent of the prisoners, who correctional staff choose to test, have tested positive for the coronavirus. Reuters special report, Death Sentence, which documented the hidden coronavirus toll in U.S. jails and prisons, called attention to figures compiled by the U.S. government, which appear to undercount the number of infections dramatically in correctional settings. Still, the government presses on. Because Winner did not include among her reply briefs exhibits a copy of her request to BOP, neither the district court nor this court can ascertain if she (as many inmates do) asked to be placed on home confinement rather than to be compassionately released. To this argument, Winners attorneys note they had Alison Grinter, one of Winners Texas-based attorneys, submit a statement to the appeals court under penalty of perjury that she helped Winner file a request not once, but twice. Realitys BOP correctional counselor Bill Pendergraft provided Reality with the form as emailed to him by Ms. Grinter, and BOP staff-member Mary Gruszka assured Reality that she would hand-deliver the completed form to the warden.

Finally (nearly a month later and after necessitating an appeal), the government acknowledges what Reality knew all alongthat BOP received the request(s) at least as of April 20, 2020. But the government claims it was not reviewed as a request for compassionate release. This is astounding given that the written request cited to the applicable compassionate release statute, Winners attorneys declare.If the BOP is not aware that Reality is seeking compassionate release under the First Step Act, members of the press have had no trouble following along, and the district court, Reality, and the government have all briefed the issue under the compassionate release statute.

The governments response fits in with a culture at the Justice Department under Attorney General Bill Barr, which has resulted in the release of only 1.8 percent of people in BOP custody during the pandemic. On May 26, ProPublica reported the Bureau of Prisons has a secret policy that made it harder for prisoners to qualify for release. A federal judge accused officials at the Elkton Federal Correctional Institution in Ohio the site of a deadly coronavirus outbreak cited by Barr in his order of moving too slowly to release inmates and thumbing their noses' at a directive Barr issued on releasing prisoners into home confinement. The judge instructed the government to expand the class of inmates eligible for home confinement by including inmates not only with minimum-risk scores, but also those said to have a low risk.The same day the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request from the Justice Department to halt the lower courts order. There are 837 medically vulnerable inmates potentially eligible for transfer.Aside from the game being played by the BOP and prosecutors, Winners attorneys suggest one of the reasons the government is able to shiftily claim they never received a request is because the district court did not hold a hearing on evidence relevant to the case. The court could have heard from stakeholders at BOP and FMC Carswell about the BOP response generally and specifically at FMC Carswell, her attorneys assert. Winners legal team could have introduced via subpoenaed documents or testimony Realitys more recent medical records, which are (of course) in the possession, custody, and control of the government. All of this is critical evidence the district court needed in order to actually, appropriately, and effectively exercise its discretion. Unfortunately, Judge Randal Hall was largely uninterested in exercising discretion and deferred to the arguments of prosecutors. He did not verify statements prosecutors made about the BOPs coronavirus response. Billie Winner-Davis, who is Realitys mother, remains deeply concerned about the irreparable damage that is being done to her daughters mental state.

I have heard my daughter tell me, Mom, I am not okay, and as her mother, this tears me apart.

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DOJ Tries To Thwart Reality Winner's Appeal For Release From Prison - Shadowproof

Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of State Security of the Peoples Republic of China (Beijing) Photo: Wikimapia

As Beijing moves to impose a national security law and mainland security agencies prepare to enter Hong Kong in larger numbers, people struggling to understand the peril they may face should read Edward Snowdens new book. Permanent Record, published last year, gives a full picture of the mass surveillance the U.S. has set up of your every email, website browse, social media interaction and phone call. The Chinese Communist Party is hoovering up similar information through its agencies.

First what is coming from our compatriots in Beijing. When needed, relevant national security organs of the Central Peoples Government will set up agencies in (Hong Kong) to fullfil relevant duties to safeguard national security, Chinese official Wang Zhen told the National Peoples Congress. The new law being imposed by Beijing empowers this. Residents can expect to see the Partys tough organisations such as the Ministry for State Security, the main domestic and external intelligence service, operating openly in the city, according to the Financial Times. This ministry, modeled on the Soviet Unions KGB, has been accused of arbitrary arrests and detentions as well as torture. Soon no resident of Hong Kong will be immune from the 3:00 am knock on the door and extraordinary rendition to a mainland court and jail.

Turning to Snowdens book we learn what the intelligence agencies of the USA and doubtlessly the Chinese Community Party are doing right now. For the somewhat less than tech-savvy the book is daunting. To simplify we turn to Pages 224 and 225 to give you an insight into what is being done to you and yours every day.

Imagine you are sitting in front of a computer, about to visit a website. You open a web browser, type in a URL, and hit Enter. The URL is, in effect, a request, and this request goes out in search of its destination server. Somewhere in the midst of its travels, however, before your request gets to that server, it will have to pass through TURBULENCE, one of the NSAs (National Security Agency) most powerful weapons.

Snowden, who worked for the CIA and NSA in several countries, writes that your request passes through black servers stacked one on top of another, together about the size of a four-shelf bookcase. These are installed at private telecommunications buildings throughout allied countries, as well as US embassies and military bases. They contain two critical tools. TURMOIL handles passive collection, copying data coming through. TURBINE is in charge of active collection actively tampering with the users.

You can think of TURMOIL as a guard positioned at an invisible firewall through which Internet traffic must pass, Snowden writes. Seeing your request, it checks its metadata for selectors, or criteria, that mark it as deserving of more scrutiny. These selectors can be whatever NSA (or the Communist Party) chooses, whatever they find suspicious: a particular email address, credit card or phone number; the geographic origin or destination of your Internet activity; or just certain keywords such as democracy or protest.

If TURMOIL flags your traffic as suspicious, it tips it over to TURBINE, which diverts your request to NSAs servers. There, algorithms decide which of the agencys exploits malware programmes to use against you. This choice is based on the type of website youre trying to visit as much as on your computers software and Internet connection. These chosen exploits are sent back to TURBINE, which injects them into the traffic channel and delivers them to whatever website you requested.

Snowden said the end result is, you get the content you want, along with all the surveillance you dont, and it all happens in less than 686 milliseconds. Completely unbeknownst to you.

Once the exploits are in your computer, the NSA can access not just your metadata, but your data as well. Your entire digital life now belongs to them.

Chinas Great Firewall, operated by the Cyberspace Administration of China, is the entity charged with translating the Communist Partys policies into technical specifications. Carrie Lams Government insists it does not affect Hong Kong. Only the naive will believe, given the new security law, the rising number of Party agencies that will set up in Hong Kong and Ms Lam and her ministers prostrate posture before their Party bosses, that this will be true for much longer and likely isnt even now.

Seven years ago, Edward Snowden shocked the world by busting out of the American intelligence establishment, where he worked as a brilliant young systems analyst and administrator. He revealed the USA was secretly pursuing the means to collect and store every phone call, text message, email and internet browse made by everyone on the planet. As Permanent Record explains all your personal data is now stored by American intelligence agencies and they will have it forever. Soon the Communist Party will have similar data that it can potentially use against you, if it doesnt already.

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How intelligence agencies of USA, and doubtlessly China, are hoovering up data that can be used against you - Sai Kung Buzz

Webinar: Defending the US in Cyberspace

Register today for a May 22 webinar powered by RangeForce on Defending the United States in Cyberspace. Gordon Lawson, President of Rangeforce, is driving a discussion with Former Deputy Director of the NSA, Chris Inglis.

MANASSAS, Va., May 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- In a live webinar interview conducted by RangeForce President Gordon Lawson, Chris Inglis, Former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency and member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, will share the Commissions dramatic findings, including the risks to U.S. intellectual property, privacy, critical infrastructure, and the integrity of the American election system. Hosted by HMG Strategy, the free webinar will take place Fri., May 22, 2020, at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT.

Register for Defending the U.S. in Cyberspace here.

Created by the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act and released in March 2020, the Cyberspace Solarium Commission is a bicameral, bipartisan, intergovernmental body charged with developing and articulating a comprehensive strategic approach to defending the United States in cyberspace. The Commissions report covers a broad array of findings, including what is being done to reshape the cyber ecosystem and why liability laws are needed for companies that sell software code with known vulnerabilities.

Mr. Inglis is an advisory board member at RangeForce, a provider of scalable, cloud-based training designed to upskill cyber professionals with access to timely, on-demand content. RangeForce integrates a real-world cyber range and continuous, hands-on learning with the performance-based analytics essential for enterprises to understand and continually improve their cybersecurity and IT teams capabilities.

Webinar attendees will learn from Mr.Ingliss experiences at the NSA as well as his views on topics such as:

Inglis began his career at NSA as a computer scientist within the National Computer Security Center. His NSA assignments included service across information assurance, policy, time-sensitive operations, and signals intelligence organizations. He was promoted to NSAs Senior Executive Service in 1997 and served in a variety of senior leadership assignments culminating in his selection as the NSA Deputy Director. A 1976 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Inglis holds advanced degrees in engineering and computer science from Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and George Washington University. He is also a graduate of the Kellogg Business School Executive Development Program, the USAF Air War College, Air Command and Staff College and Squadron Officers School. Inglis military career included nine years of active service with the U.S. Air Force and twenty-one years with the Air National Guard from which he retired as a Brigadier General in 2006.

Registerto attend Defending the U.S. in Cyberspace at https://hmgstrategy.lpages.co/rangeforce-webinar-registration/.

About RangeForce

RangeForcedelivers the industrys only integrated cybersecurity simulation and skillsanalysis platform that combines a virtual cyber range with hands-on advanced cybersecurity training. Cyber and IT professionals from all industry verticals use RangeForce to qualify their new-hires, train up DevOps, IT, and Security Staff, and run CyberSiege simulations to evaluate team skills. Only RangeForce can accurately show users where expertise gaps exist, fill those gaps with highly-effective simulation-based training, and accurately report on the entire process. To learn more about RangeForce, visit http://www.rangeforce.com.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9113ae84-98f4-4055-8a15-7ba09080513e

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Chris Inglis, Former Deputy Director of the NSA, to Discuss and Field Questions on Cybersecurity Solarium Commission - GlobeNewswire

With these amendments being voted down by margin of 149 on Wednesday of last week the Bill is now likely to go to the House of Lords possibly by the first week of June and then back to the Commons in early July.

NSA Chief Executive Phil Stocker comments: With the Governments manifesto commitment to protect and not compromise on our environmental and animal welfare standard in trade deals, it is highly concerning that they will not cement this in legislation.

The pledge, after all, is one that stands for the term of this Government, however, this commitment needs to be far more permanent than that. This amendment is at the top of the list that NSA, and no doubt a good number of peers within the House of Lords will be keen to examine in more detail as the Bill begins its journey in the Lords, and we are firmly behind calls for a standards commission to take responsibility for standards equivalence decisions.

NSA is also still concerned over the lack of unity over the subject of food and farming and international trade and that decisions could be made without the benefit of the completion of our national food strategy.

Mr Stocker continues: Reading some of the comments made by MPs in the debate on Wednesday it is still clear that there are entirely opposing views on our future relating to food self-sufficiency and security, and international trade.

Of course, there is a balance that has to be struck and exports are a crucial part of our industry that help keep prices up and enable full product utilisation. But it surprises me that so few people in positions of power, even when we are in the depths of huge market disruption, remember that our domestic market is always the one we fall back on in times of concern, whether its brought about by animal disease, human pandemics, or political disagreements, and then they wonder why supply chains struggle to adapt.

One thing we must learn from the recent Covid-19 problems is that food security and resilient supply chains are equal in importance to environmental protection and climate change.

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NSA now looks to the Lords to protect production standards - Farming Life

Written by Jeff Stone May 15, 2020 | CYBERSCOOP

Gen. Paul Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency and head of U.S. Cyber Command, is a busy man.He oversees vast, technical surveillance efforts in the U.S. and abroad, while also commanding a military outfitcharged withlaunching cyberattacks.

Emailing random women from an outpost in Syria is probably not on his to-do list.

So when, Susan, a woman from the New York City area, started receiving correspondence from a Paul Nakasonethis week, she wondered why the self-proclaimed head of U.S. Army Cyber Command wastrying to flirt with her.

I Googled this guy and Im like, Are you kidding me? Susan, who asked to be identified by only her first name, told CyberScoop. And it was very flirtatious, but Im a married woman.

Susan ultimately realized, that, no, she was not talking to the real Paul Nakasone. She and her friend were actually dealing with scammers who were posing as top U.S. military generals in what looked to be the early stages of a romance scam.

Heres how it started: On May 12, a Facebook account under the nameGeorge Lyons commented on a public post Susan made about the musical Hamilton. The George Lyons account was populated with photos of Gen. Stephen Lyons, the current commander of U.S. Transportation Command. Susan saw that the account had also reached out to Susans friend, Cindy. Susan and Cindy started chatting with Lyons on Facebook Messenger, hoping to get the general and his troops to correspond with elderly residents in the health care facility where Susan is employed.

The conversation quickly steered toward Lyons trying to get Susan to send Nakasone an email.

[Lyons] said [Nakasone] was a widow and he needed some company, she told CyberScoop. (On his official biography page, the NSA says the real Nakasone is married and has four children.)

After sharing her email address with Lyons, Susan received an email from a Gmail address from someone claiming to be Nakasone.

The Gmail user masquerading as Nakasone claimed to be in Syria, where he spent his days on patrol and doing some paperwork. He also inundated Susan with religious messages and requests to download Google Hangouts so they could correspond further. When Susan asked the apparent general why he preferred to chaton Hangouts, he responded by blaming rebels and the Taliban for trying to dent my image.

When Susan pressed for evidence that she was talking to the real Nakasone, the account replied by citing his military background.

What is wrong with you.dont you have regard on my reputation, said a message sent Thursday. I also serve as the United States Army Cyber Command [sic]. So I see no reason why you are still saying rubbish Susan.

Meanwhile, Cindy was corresponding with a similar account, claiming to be Stephen Lyons. The emails were of a similar nature: flirtatious messages and requests to download Google Hangouts.

Susan alerted CyberScoop about the Nakasone email address after being unable to contact Facebook about the Lyons account.

The effort appears to be the early stages of an attempted romance scam, in which fraudsters from around the world pose as possible love interests, then request personal data or money from unwitting participants. Often, scammerscreate personas withU.S. military details to generate trust or sympathy in a would-be victim.

More than 19,000 Americans reported such crimes in 2019, resulting in more than $475 million in known losses, according to the FBI. U.S. prosecutors recently charged 10 people from Nigeria with a scheme in which they would ask Americans first for smaller items, like gift cards, then increase the size of their requests as the relationship evolved over email and Google Hangouts. One victim sent $201,000 to a Nigerian suspect before realizing the effort was all a fraud.

In this case, both Cindy and Susan said they were too suspicious to send money or provide any revealing personal information.

In the hopes to scare off the scammer, CyberScoop fed Susan some fodder to mess with the fake Nakasone. We asked her to get the general to clarify his position on Title 10 v. Title 50, a deeply wonkish legal debate over what part of the government has the authority to carry out cyberattacks.

As it turned out, the fake Nakasone knows how to Google for a response. His reply, according to the U.S. military website from which it was lifted, was largely accurate.

Okay let me see, the account said. TITLE 10 is commonly used to refer to day of defeat and to articulate the legal basis for military operations while TITLE 50 is referred solely to activities conducted by the central intelligence agency is at best, inaccurate as the secretary of defense also possesses significant authorities under the TITLE 50.

Both Gmail accounts were still active at press time. When reached by CyberScoop, the person posing as Stephen Lyons respondedwith, I am sending my troops to get you, I will also make a contact for the FBI to get you[.]

The full reach of this campaign, and whether the same fraudsters also posed as other U.S. military personnel, remains unclear.

Facebook removed the George Lyons page almost immediately upon notification from CyberScoop.Google did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.The NSA did not provide comment. In a statement Monday, a U.S. Transportation Command spokesman said the military outfit routinely reviews social media for fake accounts, and reporrts them to companies roughly 15 to 20 times each year.

As to why the women corresponded with the accounts in the first place, Cindy told CyberScoop the laws of attraction come before good cyber-hygiene.

Im single, and my eyes are always open, Cindy said. If I see a good looking guy in uniform, Im probably going to click.

Update, May 18, 1:44pm ET: This story has been updated to include a response from U.S. Transcom.

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Someone is trying to catfish women by pretending to be Paul Nakasone - CyberScoop