MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
*
THE U. S. CHAMBER of COMMERCE, ENEMY No. 1 OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, HAS ALWAYS PUSHED FOR OPEN BORDERS, HORDES MORE ILLEGALS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.
THE CHAMBER’S MOTTO IS CORPORATE PROFITS CAN NEVER, EVER, EVER BE HIGH ENOUGH! IF THEY’RE NOT HIGH ENOUGH, THEN LEGALS MUST PAY BAILOUTS! AND WAGES CAN NEVER BE LOW ENOUGH! IF WAGES APPROXIMATE LIVING WAGES, THEN HORDES MORE ILLEGALS MUST BE ALLOWED TO POUR OVER OUR BORDERS.
*
BANK of AMERICA IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST GLOBAL BANKSTER CRIME WAVES IN HISTORY… AND NOT EVEN ONE HAS GONE TO PRISON! THIS BANK HAS PAID OUT $30 BILLION IN BONUSES IN 2010! AFTER FEEDING OFF AMERICAN PAID BAILOUTS ON THE FORECLOSURE DEBACLE THAT HAS ONLY BEGUN!
*
Hacked e-mails reveal plans for dirty-tricks campaign against U.S. Chamber foes
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 15, 2011; 12:36 AM
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 15, 2011; 12:36 AM
A feud between a security contracting firm and a group of guerrilla computer hackers has spilled over onto K Street, as stolen e-mails reveal plans for a dirty-tricks-style campaign against critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The tale began this month when a global hackers collective known as Anonymous broke into the computers of HBGary Federal, a California security firm, and dumped tens of thousands of internal company e-mails onto the Internet.
The move was in retaliation for assertions by HBGary Federal chief executive Aaron Barr that he had identified leaders of the hackers' group, which has actively supported the efforts of anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks to obtain and disclose classified documents.
The e-mails revealed, among other things, a series of often-dubious counterintelligence proposals aimed at enemies of Bank of America and the chamber. The proposals included distributing fake documents and launching cyber-attacks.
The chamber has adamantly denied any knowledge of the "abhorrent" proposals, including some contained in a sample blueprint outlined for Hunton & Williams, a law and lobbying firm that works for the chamber. The business group said in a statement Monday that the proposal "was not requested by the Chamber, it was not delivered to the Chamber and it was never discussed with anyone at the Chamber."
Two other security firms named in the e-mails, Berico Technologies and Palantir Technologies, also have issued statements distancing themselves from the plans. HBGary Federal and Hunton & Williams declined to comment.
The hacked e-mails suggest that the three security firms worked with Hunton & Williams in hopes of landing a $2 million contract to assist the chamber. Some of the e-mails, which were highlighted by the liberal Web site ThinkProgress on Monday, seem to suggest that the chamber had been apprised of the efforts. The chamber denied any such knowledge.
On Nov. 16, for example, Barr suggests in an e-mail to Berico that his company had spoken "directly" to the chamber despite the lack of a signed contract.
Other e-mails describe Hunton & Williams lawyer Bob Quackenboss as the "key client contact operationally" with the chamber and make references to a demonstration session that had "sold the Chamber in the first place."
On Dec. 1, a Palantir engineer summarized a meeting with Hunton & Williams, saying the law firm "was looking forward to briefing the results to the Chamber to get them to pony up the cash for Phase II." The proposed meeting was set to take place this past Monday, according to the e-mail.
"While many questions remain in the unfolding ChamberLeaks controversy, what's clear is that this multitude of emails clearly contradicts the Chamber's claim that they were 'not aware of these proposals until HBGary's e-mails leaked,' " ThinkProgress reporter Scott Keyes wrote in a blog post.
One Nov. 29 e-mail contains presentations and memos outlining how a potential counterintelligence program against chamber critics might work. The documents are written under the logo of Team Themis, which was the joint project name adopted by the three technology firms.
Several of the documents focus on ChamberWatch, a union-backed organization that criticizes the business lobby and many of its members. The documents include personal details about activists who work for the group and suggestions for targeting its reputation, including planting fake documents, tying the organization to radical activists or creating "fake insider personas" on social media.
ChamberWatch, one memo said, is "vulnerable to information operations that could embarrass the organization and those associated with it."
Christy Setzer, a ChamberWatch spokeswoman, said that "even if the chamber was not aware of these specific proposals, they were clearly aware of the work that was being done."
The chamber disagreed and singled out ThinkProgress for allegedly organizing a "smear campaign" similar to unproven allegations last year that the business group used foreign money in its domestic political activities.
"The leaked e-mails appear to show that HBGary was willing to propose questionable actions in an attempt to drum up business, but the Chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary's e-mails leaked," the chamber's statement said.
Palantir chief executive Alex Karp, a self-described progressive, said in a statement Monday that the Silicon Valley software firm had severed ties with HBGary Federal and placed on leave an engineer involved in the project pending a review.
"Palantir does not make software that has the capability to carry out the offensive tactics proposed by HBGary," Karp said. "Palantir never has and never will condone the sort of activities recommended by HBGary."
Berico's co-founders, Guy Filippelli and Nick Hallam, said in a statement Friday that they also had severed ties with HBGary Federal and had launched an internal investigation into the affair.
"Our leadership does not condone or support any effort that proactively targets American firms, organizations or individuals," the executives said, adding that such proposals "run counter to our organization's values."
*
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, June 16, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Tonight, we’ll have all the latest on the devastating floods in the Midwest and all the day’s news from the campaign trail. The massive corporate mouthpiece the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is holding a “North American Forum” to lay out its “shared vision” for the United States, Canada and Mexico – which is to say a borderless, pro-business super-state in which U.S. sovereignty will be dissolved. Undercover investigators have found incredibly lax security and enforcement at U.S. border crossings, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. This report comes on the heels of a separate report by U.C. San Diego that shows tougher border security efforts aren’t deterring illegal entries to the United States.
*
latimes.com
Government contractors targeted Chamber of Commerce's critics
Three data security firms submitted a plan to the Chamber of Commerce's law firm to monitor and discredit the chamber's critics, e-mails show. A proposal to help Bank of America was also requested.
By Tom Hamburger and Matea Gold, Washington BureauFebruary 15, 2011
Reporting from Washington
Employees of the firms compiled short dossiers on a few activists that included photographs, references to their families and charts of their relationships with other liberal and labor leaders.
A review of the correspondence, dating from late October through last week, suggested that the surveillance and intelligence gathering had begun only on a superficial basis in anticipation of a coming meeting with chamber officials.
The proposals were received by Hunton & Williams, a law firm that represents the chamber.
The firm, which also represents Bank of America, solicited a separate proposal from the security firms to help the bank deal with a threat by WikiLeaks, the international hacker organization, to release some of the bank's internal data.
Chamber officials as well as a spokesman for Bank of America said they knew nothing of the surveillance proposals until the e-mails were released Friday by Anonymous, a group that is sympathetic to WikiLeaks.
"No money, for any purpose, was paid to any of those three private security firms by the chamber, or by anyone on behalf of the chamber, including Hunton & Williams," the chamber said in a statement.
Hunton & Williams did not respond to requests for comment.
But in some of the e-mails, employees of the security firms and lawyers at Hunton & Williams refer to contacts they had made with the chamber about the proposed intelligence gathering.
The revelations in the e-mails triggered anxiety among some of those who were targeted.
"We are appalled at the allegations that have come to light in these e-mails," said Inga Skippings, communications director of the Service Employees International Union, some of whose allies were the subject of the intelligence gathering project. "The chamber should immediately come clean about its involvement with Hunton & Williams and the private security firms that allegedly planned these underhanded tactics."
ThinkProgress, an arm of the liberal Center for American Progress and a consistent critic of the chamber, first reported on the e-mails on its blog last week.
In a statement, the chamber accused its critics of "perpetrating a smear campaign by trying to create the illusion of a connection" between it and the security firms.
Officials for two of the security firms, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies, confirmed the authenticity of the e-mails sent by their employees but said top executives had no previous knowledge of them.
A spokeswoman for the third company, HBGary Federal, said executives could not address the details of the proposed work for Hunton & Williams, citing a nondisclosure agreement covering all parties.
Copies of the e-mails were provided to the Los Angeles Times by the labor and activist groups.
The correspondence shows that starting last fall, Hutton & Williams lawyers discussed with the security companies a project to be pitched to the chamber.
The three security firms, all of which are government contractors with secret clearances, proposed coming together as "Team Themis," apparently named after a Greek goddess of law and order, to monitor and possibly disrupt chamber opponents.
"Who better to develop a corporate information reconnaissance capability than companies that have been market leaders within the [Defense Department] and Intelligence Community," the companies wrote in a pitch to Hunton & Williams.
At one point, those working on the project estimated it could be worth $2 million.
A Team Themis report e-mailed to two Hunton & Williams attorneys in December by a Berico Technologies analyst suggested planting a "false document" in hopes it would be publicly released by anti-chamber groups. The plan also called for creating "two fake insider personas" inside the activist organizations that could then be used to discredit the groups.
Other sample reports included mock dossiers of activists, some with false information about their marital state and address but with actual photographs of them.
There is no evidence that the firms carried out those plans or used secret data to compile their dossiers.
Palo Alto-based Palantir Technologies and Arlington, Va.-based Berico Technologies have moved swiftly to distance themselves from the tactics described in the e-mails, severing their relationship with Sacramento-based HBGary Federal and saying that company proposed the aggressive tactics.
Alex Karp, chief executive of Palantir Technologies, a data integration software company, said in a statement Monday that it "never has and never will condone the sort of activities recommended by HBGary."
The company said it had placed on leave Matthew Steckman, a 26-year-old engineer who was the point person on the project, and apologized to those listed as targets in the campaign.
Guy Filippelli, chief executive of Berico Technologies, said he believed that his company was assisting development of a proposal to help the Chamber of Commerce and its members use public information to identify security and information threats.
"The initial prospective was actually pretty exciting for us, of being able to leverage our data analysis experience in the government space and do some things in the private sector," Filippelli said. "Our senior leadership was not aware at all of any nefarious tactics."
He said Berico Technologies failed to vet HBGary Federal before teaming up with it. In the course of the project, two junior analysts became aware of the tactics proposed by HBGary Federal but did not tell their superiors, he said.
Filippelli acknowledged that he did not monitor the proposal closely enough as it developed.
"I take full responsibility for those errors," he said. "Some of the things I saw in the e-mail trail were reprehensible. I just felt disappointed in the fact that we hadn't installed the right confidence in our people to come to us and say, 'This doesn't look right.' "
*
Chamber of Commerce Says It Supports Path 'To Legitimacy' for 12 Million Illegal Aliens
Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011 that illegal aliens should be gain 'legitimacy' in the United States through 'comprehensive immigration reform' law. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
(CNSNews.com) - U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tom Donohue, noting that 27 million Americans are unemployed, underemployed, or have given up on finding a job, said his organization supports a "way" "to legitimacy" for the estimated 12 to 14 million illegal aliens who are working in the United States.
“Unemployment had exceeded 9 percent for 20 consecutive months,” Donohue said in his annual State of American Business address at the Chamber’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. “Some 27 million Americans are either unemployed, underemployed or have give up looking for work.”
“In fact,” Donohue said, “we must create 1.2 million jobs a year just to absorb the new entrants into our workforce.”
Later in his remarks, Donohue said the Chamber would continue its efforts in support of comprehensive immigration reform, which some conservative critics consider to be a form of amnesty.
“Almost all of us are sons, daughters, or descendents of immigrants,” Donohue said. “The Chamber will continue to pursue comprehensive immigration reform.” He also cited the "urgent" need to improve visa processing, oppose attempts to gut temporary worker programs, and increase the number of foreign worker visas.
At a press conference following his speech, Donohue was asked by CNSNews.com if comprehensive immigration reform included a so-called pathway to citizenship.
“We think the most important parts of comprehensive immigration reform would be, first of all, a way for the, shall we say 12 million here, to legitimacy so that they can easily participate in society, pay their taxes, drive cars and that sort of thing,” Donohue said. “Second we need a guest worker program,” he said. “People could easily come back and forth for work and some of that would be seasonally, for crops and for recreation organizations and so on.
“And third, we definitely need a way to deal with high-end, talented folks that are needed in this economy. Donohue called it "amazing" that after years of training in America, professionals such as Ph.Ds in chemical engineering are now finding it hard to stay here.
Donohue said citizenship for illegal aliens should not be the top priority. “I don’t think the citizenship thing is necessary right now,” said Donohue, adding that protecting the U.S. border was also important. “I think we ought to pick the four or five things that everybody needs and let’s get it done.”
Donohue also said that the United States should keep the promise it made to Mexico 15 years ago to allow “safe, carefully inspected” Mexican trucks to transport goods into the U.S., as called for in the North American Free Trade Agreement. Labor unions strongly oppose the plan.
Donohue said the U.S. economy is “in better shape than we found ourselves last year,” and he noted “a new tone coming out of the White House.”
One indication of warming relations between the White House and the Chamber, which represents 3 million mostly small businesses, includes a scheduled address by President Barack Obama at the group’s headquarters on Feb. 7.
Among the areas Donohue said the Chamber would concentrate on in 2011:
-- restraint and reform of the regulatory process, including stopping the EPA from enacting regulations to limit greenhouse gases – a task that should be left to Congress, he said.
--Expanding American trade, rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and developing U.S. energy resources, and reducing the federal debt and deficit also made the top four on Donohue’s to-do list.
Donohue concluded his remarks with his trademark line-in-the-sand approach while expressing optimism that the Chamber can “work together” with the Obama administration and Congress in the coming year.
“Our approach in Washington will be to call them as we see them,” Donohue said. ‘We’ll continue to have our differences with the White House on some issues but we’ll work together on other issues."
“We’ll support the new House leadership on many occasions, and we’ll work with Democratic legislators as well, but no one should expect the Chamber to march in lock step with anyone,” Donohue said.
“We have a clear mission and agenda of our own,” he said. “It’s to continue to win important policy victories for our members and the American business community. It’s to support, protect, and advance the free enterprise system that made this country great. And it’s to help create good jobs and promising opportunities for all the people of our country so that they can achieve the American dream."
*
Effort to Curb Illegal Workers' Hiring Blocked
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 11, 2007; 2:04 PM
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 11, 2007; 2:04 PM
A federal judge barred the Bush administration yesterday from launching a planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, warning of its potentially "staggering" impact on law-abiding workers and companies.
In a firm rebuke of the White House, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction against the president's plan to press employers to fire as many as 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers, starting this fall.
President Bush made the effort the centerpiece of a re-energized enforcement drive against illegal immigration in August after the Senate rejected his proposal to overhaul immigration laws. But the court ruling -- sought by major American labor, business and farm organizations -- highlighted the chasm that the issue has opened between the Republican Party and its traditional business allies.
The case also called attention to the gulf between Washington rhetoric about the need to curtail illegal immigration and the economic reality that many U.S. employers rely on illegal labor, as well as to the government's inability for nearly three decades to develop adequate tools for identifying undocumented workers.
In a 22-page ruling, Breyer said the plaintiffs -- an unusual coalition that included the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- had raised serious questions about the legality of the administration's plan to mail Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers.
"There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule's implementation will be severe," Breyer wrote, resulting in "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers."
The government letters are intended to warn employers for the first time that they must resolve questions about their employees' identities or fire them within 90 days. If they do not, employers could face "stiff penalties," including fines and even criminal prosecution, for violating a federal law that bars knowingly employing illegal workers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said when he announced the plan Aug. 10.
The plaintiffs convinced the judge that the Social Security Administration database includes so many errors -- incorporated in the records of about 9.5 million people in 2003 alone -- that its use in firings would unfairly discriminate against tens of thousands of legal workers, including native-born and naturalized U.S. citizens, and cause major workforce disruptions that would burden companies.
"The government's proposal to disseminate no-match letters affecting more than eight million workers will, under the mandated time line, result in the termination of employment to lawfully employed workers," the judge wrote. "Moreover the threat of criminal prosecution . . . reflects a major change in DHS policy."
Breyer also said that the government may have ignored a 1980 law, the Regulatory Flexibility Act, that requires it to weigh the cost of imposing new regulations that would significantly burden small-business owners. Randel K. Johnson, a vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, said the ruling shows that "the government cannot do anything it wants simply in the name of enforcement. They've got to be careful about building their record and complying with the law."
In a statement, AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said: "This is a significant step towards overturning this unlawful rule, which would give employers an even stronger way to keep workers from freely forming unions. . . . More than 70% of SSA discrepancies refer to U.S. citizens."
Chertoff expressed disappointment with the decision and said the administration will continue to aggressively enforce immigration laws while considering an appeal, which plaintiffs' attorneys said could take at least nine months.
"Today's ruling is yet another reminder of why we need Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform," Chertoff said. "The American people have been loud and clear about their desire to see our nation's immigration laws enforced."
Several analysts said the Bush administration's plan appeared to be designed to push business interests back into the debate by demonstrating that the failure of legislative reform efforts would carry costs, and to reassure conservative lawmakers who oppose illegal immigration that the White House is able and willing to crack down on offenders.
Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and now a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said the ruling "shows how ineffective the current laws are."
"It reinforces the opinion that many of us hold that until you have a better legal framework -- which requires new legislation -- we're stuck very much with the status quo," Meissner said.
In a statement, Rep. Brian P. Bilbray (R-Calif.), an opponent of Bush's approach who won election to the House last year on the issue, criticized the court. "What part of 'illegal' does Judge Breyer not understand?" he said. "At a time when the federal government is finally trying to enforce current immigration law, we cannot have activist judges stand in the way of doing what is right."
The scope of the problem is uncontested. A three-year government audit ending in 2001 found "widespread" misuse of Social Security numbers by illegal immigrants, who often present fake or fraudulent documents to obtain jobs. Overall, 7.2 million illegal immigrants account for at least 10 percent of low-skilled U.S. workers and 5 percent of the total U.S. workforce, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of 2005 census data.
Illegal immigrants make up even greater portions of workers in specific industries, including 24 percent in farming, 17 percent in cleaning, 14 percent in construction and 12 percent in food preparation. But the government's record in developing tools to screen such workers is spotty, largely because of successful efforts by employers, labor unions and civil rights groups to water them down.
A government program to verify the validity of new hires' Social Security numbers, proposed in concept in 1981 and launched in 1996, remains voluntary and covers only about 23,000 of 8 million U.S. employers. It is also hampered by a high false-alarm rate and the limited ability to detect identity theft involving stolen or fraudulent numbers. Between June 2004 and May 2006, it erroneously rejected 11 percent of foreign-born U.S. citizens and 1.3 percent of authorized foreign-born noncitizens, according to a report provided to Congress.
In protest, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) signed legislation in August that bars companies in his state from participating in the program until it is 99 percent accurate.
The federal government has mailed Social Security no-match letters to employers since 1994, but such notices were generally silent about workers' immigration status and employers did not face liability. In June 2006, the Department of Homeland Security proposed using the letters to combat immigration fraud involving existing employees, and it finalized its plans this summer. The AFL-CIO and the ACLU filed suit to halt the Sept. 4 start of the mailings, and they were joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the trade associations for the agriculture, restaurant and construction industries.
On Aug. 31, U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney issued a temporary restraining order pending an Oct. 1 hearing before Breyer, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 and is the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer.
MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment