90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, February 14, 2020

US says it can prove Huawei has backdoor access to mobile-phone networks

US hasn't made evidence public but reportedly shared it with UK and Germany.

US officials say they have evidence that Huawei has backdoor access to mobile-phone networks around the world, according to a Wall Street Journal article published today.

"We have evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world," US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien told the Journal.

The United States has long claimed that Huawei can secretly access networks through the networking gear it sells to telcos, but the goverment previously argued that it doesn't need to show any proof. US officials still are not providing such evidence publicly but have begun sharing their intelligence with other countries, the Journal report said.

The Journal wrote:

The US kept the intelligence highly classified until late last year, when American officials provided details to allies including the UK and Germany, according to officials from the three countries. That was a tactical turnabout by the US, which in the past had argued that it didn't need to produce hard evidence of the threat it says Huawei poses to nations' security.

The US has been sharing this evidence at the same time the Trump administration tries to convince allies to get Huawei gear out of their networks.

US officials said they have been aware of Huawei's backdoor access "since observing it in 2009 in early 4G equipment," the Journal wrote. However, the US officials quoted by the Journal "declined to say whether the US has observed Huawei using this access."

Backdoors designed for law enforcement

Telecom-equipment makers who sell products to carriers "are required by law to build into their hardware ways for authorities to access the networks for lawful purposes," but they "are also required to build equipment in such a way that the manufacturer can't get access without the consent of...

Democrats Have To Lie To Get Elected....

Now Congressional Democrats Think They Can Get Bill Barr

The attorney general is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on March 31. Let’s hope he can put an end to this partisan witch hunt before the Democrats lead the country into another time consuming, expensive, and baseless investigation.

After their impeachment fiasco miserably failed, Democrats wasted no time creating another alleged “impeachable” offense. This time, the alleged indiscretion involved Roger Stone, the president’s comments regarding his proposed sentence, and Attorney General Bill Barr’s decision to overrule his prosecutors and reduce Stone’s sentence. This effort, like the last one, should also fail.

Stone was convicted of witness tampering and lying to Congress in November. These crimes (often called “process crimes”) occurred during the investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Federal prosecutors recommended that Stone serve a prison sentence of seven to nine years.

President Trump did not take kindly to this recommendation, calling it “terrible and unfair.” Shortly thereafter, the Justice Department announced that the recommended sentence was “shocking” and that it planned to amend its recommendation to the court and ask for a shorter sentence. That led all four prosecutors to withdraw from the case. The president subsequently congratulated Barr for the decision to seek a lighter sentence.

As the Daily Caller reported, a Justice Department source indicated that the decision to revise Stone’s recommended sentence was made before Trump published his tweets. Moreover, a senior Justice Department official told Fox News, “The department finds seven to nine years extreme, excessive and grossly disproportionate. The sentencing recommendation was not what had been briefed to the Department.”

Naturally, some on the Left called for Barr’s immediate resignation or possible impeachment. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) indicated that Barr had “no choice” but to resign. Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted:

Jenna Jameson Wisdom...And Thank You Leftists!

40 Sex discrimination suits against accused sexist pig Mike Bloomberg

Bloomberg has one donor — himself — and with his own money, he has managed to surge to third place in several 2020 polls this week. He also bought his way onto the primary debate stage. Nancy Pelosi sees him as a positive.

His background isn’t glorious. He made a lot of his money off Red China, which he praises often, and he thinks it’s okay to throw black kids up against a wall to frisk them. What is getting little attention, however, is his sexist pig past, which he has always denied having.

The work environment he has set up over the years is described as deeply sexist, even as he claims to be Progressive fighting for minorities and women.

Mike Bloomberg’s stories of misogyny and sexism appear in lawsuits and journalistic accounts. He doesn’t physically abuse women; he’s more insidious than that, concentrating on disparaging comments and demeaning jokes.

“In December 2015, employees at Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun-control organization funded by Bloomberg, arrived at work to find a holiday gift on their desks from their employer: the former mayor’s 1997 autobiography, Bloomberg by Bloomberg. Flipping through the book, staffers found themselves uncomfortably reading their billionaire founder’s boasts about keeping “a girlfriend in every city” and other womanizing exploits as a Wall Street up-and-comer,” far-left GQ reported.

There are some 40 sex discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits brought against him and his organizations by 64 women over the past several decades.

SOME OF THE STORIES

Sekiko Garrison didn’t meet his criteria for respectful treatment.

Sekiko Sakai Garrison, a former sales representative at Bloomberg LP, alleged in a 1997 lawsuit that when then-CEO Mike Bloomberg found out she was pregnant, he told her, “Kill it!” He also said, “Great! Number 16!” There were 16 women on maternity leave at the time.

When Bloomberg saw her engagement ring, he commented, “What is the guy dumb and blind? What the hell is he marrying you for?”

He once pointed to another female employee and told Garrison, “If you looked like that, I’d do you in a second.” Bloomberg denied having said most of those things, but reportedly left Garrison a voicemail saying that if he did make the comments, he “didn’t mean it.”

Bloomberg reportedly did concede that he had said of Garrison and other women, “I’d do her.” In making the concession, however, he insisted that he had believed that...

The most commonly stolen book at the San Francisco Public Library may surprise you

In liberal San Francisco, you might think sticky fingers at the public library would pull Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" off the shelves.

Nope.

The books that mostly commonly go missing — and are assumed to be stolen — at the San Francisco Public Library are written by a conservative radio host who was among the first to endorse Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

"The one author our head of collections has to check regularly and purchase new copies of are books by Michael Savage," library spokesperson Kate Patterson wrote in an email. "We check once a year to see if all the copies are gone and reorder. We have moved to e-book for most of them, so we can ensure copies are around. The main title that disappears quickly is 'Liberalism Is A Mental Disorder.'"

Released in April 2005, 'Liberalism is a Mental Disorder' was on the New York Times best-seller list for three weeks and "attacks the insanities and inanities of extreme leftist thought."

The SF Public Library hasn't tracked exactly how many of this particular title or all of Savage's books have been lost, but "we have found that his political titles go missing more often," Patterson said. The cost of Savage's stolen books to the library is unknown as the system collects only general numbers on missing titles. The library's overall collection budget in the last fiscal year was $15.87 million and the cost of replacing items, including damaged copies of adult fiction and nonfiction, was approximately $79,350.

Among its 28 branches, the San Francisco library makes 2.75 million items on its shelves available for the public to check out. In general, the subject genres that most commonly go missing are "paranormal" and "conspiracy theories." San Francisco isn't alone in this. In Susan Orlean's new book "The Library Book," it's revealed titles by...

The data speaks for itself.

A new survey of more than 8,000 people has found that those who identify with left-wing political beliefs are more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Ann Coulter’s “liberalism is a mental disorder” catchphrase has become something of a clichéd meme, but the data appears to support it.

Carried out by Slate Star Codex, the online survey collected a wealth of data from respondents about their education, demographic, lifestyle and political views.

The results show that people who occupy the farther left end of the political spectrum are more likely to have been “formally diagnosed with depression, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.”

In addition, the results show that the highest percentage of respondents (38%) who admit being diagnosed with forms of mental illness also identify politically as Marxists.

In comparison, just 12.1% of conservatives say they have been diagnosed with a mental disorder.

While the survey is by no means scientific, it does give an insight into how disturbed people are more likely to be attracted to fringe leftist beliefs, which in a lifestyle sense usually encourage degeneracy and a lack of...