A network of fake social media accounts impersonated political candidates and journalists to spread messages in support of Iran and against US President Donald Trump around the 2018 congressional elections, cybersecurity firm FireEye said on Tuesday.

The findings show how unidentified, possibly government-backed, groups could manipulate social media platforms to promote stories and other content that can influence the opinions of American voters, the researchers said.

This particular operation was largely focused on promoting “anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes,” according to the report by FireEye.

The campaign was organized through a series of fake personas that created various social media accounts, including on Twitter and Facebook. Most of these accounts were created last year and have since been taken down, the report said.

Spokespersons for Twitter and Facebook confirmed FireEye’s finding that the fake accounts were created on their platforms.

Lee Foster, a researcher with FireEye, said he found some of the fake personas — often masquerading as American journalists — had successfully convinced several US news outlets to publish letters to the editor, guest columns and blog posts.

These writings displayed both progressive and conservative views, the report said, covering topics including the Trump administration’s designation of Iran‘s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

“We’re assessing with low confidence that this network was organized to support Iranian political interests,” said Foster. “However, we’re not at the point where we can say who was doing it or where it’s coming from. The investigation is ongoing.”

Twitter said in a statement that it had “removed this network of 2,800 inauthentic accounts originating in Iran at the beginning of May,” adding that its investigation was ongoing.

Before the 2018 midterms election, the nameless group created Twitter accounts that impersonated both Republican and Democratic congressional candidates. It is unclear if the fake accounts had any effect on their campaigns.

The imposter Twitter accounts often plagiarized messages from the politicians’ legitimate accounts, but also mixed in posts voicing support for policies believe to be favorable to Tehran. Affected politicians included Jineea Butler, a Republican candidate for New York’s 13th District, and Marla Livengood, a Republican candidate for California’s 9th District. Both Livengood and Butler lost in the general election.

Livengood and Butler could not be immediately reached for comment.

Facebook said it had removed 51 Facebook accounts, 36 Pages, seven Groups and three Instagram accounts, connected to the influence operation. Instagram is owned by Facebook.

The activity on Facebook was less expansive and it appeared to be more narrowly focused, said Facebook head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher. The inauthentic Facebook accounts instead often privately messaged high profile figures, including journalists, policy makers and Iranian dissidents, to promote certain issues.

Facebook similarly concluded the activity had originated in Iran, although it’s not clear whether the operation was backed by the Iranian government.

Foster said the research demonstrates how groups will use a variety of different techniques and methods to push an agenda online.

Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

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The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would hear a case that will determine whether the families of Mexican teenagers killed by U.S. Border Patrol agents in cross-border shootings can sue in U.S. courts.

The justices worked on the issue once before. Their renewed involvement follows contradictory lower court decisions in cases from Arizona and Texas.

At issue is whether congressional approval is needed before families can sue on behalf of foreign victims who were injured on foreign soil. The court took the case from Texas, but its outcome will influence the Arizona case.

It will be argued during the term that begins in October.

The Supreme Court previously considered the death of 15-year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Guereca, who was shot and killed in 2010 on the Mexican side of the wide culvert that separates El Paso, Texas, from Juarez.

Border agent Jesus Mesa was patrolling the area when Hernandez and his friends ran up the steep embankment on the U.S. side to touch the tall fence and then raced back to Mexico.

Mesa had said he and other agents were under attack from a rock-throwing gang, but cellphone videos of the altercation indicated that that was not true. Mesa grabbed one of the other youths and then, while holding him, shot at Hernandez, killing him as he peered from behind a bridge piling.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has twice held that the suit cannot go forward.

It was a “tragic event,” Judge Edith Jones wrote, but not one for which the boy’s family can sue Mesa.

Congress hasn’t created “private rights of action against federal officials for injuries to foreign citizens on foreign soil,” Jones wrote. “It is not credible that Congress would favor the judicial invention of those rights.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit went the other way in the Arizona case.

U.S. Border Patrol Agent Lonnie Swartz fired across the border in 2012 and killed 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, who had been walking down a street in Nogales, parallel to the border fence.

Swartz was charged with murder and was acquitted, although the government has indicated it may retry him for manslaughter. In the meantime, the teenager’s mother filed suit against Swartz, and a divided panel of the 9th Circuit said her suit could continue.

“This case involves the unjustifiable and intentional killing of someone who was simply walking down a street in Mexico and who did not direct any activity toward the United States,” wrote Judge Andrew Kleinfeld.

The courts’ disagreement concerns a 1971 Supreme Court decision, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents. The court allowed people to sue over unconstitutional actions by federal officials, even if such suits had not been explicitly authorized by Congress.

But since then, the court has been more likely to restrict the right than expand it. The justices looked at the Hernandez case but did not reach a conclusion in 2017.

The justices said it would be “imprudent” to decide until the 5th Circuit reconsidered the case in light of a separate Supreme Court decision issued about the same time.

In that case, the high court reinforced protections for government officials, who are generally shielded from civil lawsuits when they have acted in good faith in carrying out their duties.

The case accepted Tuesday is Hernandez v. Mesa.

(c) 2019, The Washington Post · Robert Barnes

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Israel is “on the vanguard” when it comes to dealing with legal challenges that arise from warfare, an American official said on Tuesday.

Addressing the 3rd IDF International Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict in Herzliya, Paul C. Ney Jr. — the US Department of Defense’s general counsel — stated that dialogue about the law of war must “be led by states, like Israel and others represented here, that are deeply committed to the rule of law and will adhere in good faith to their legal obligations.”

“A state that has no intention of complying with its obligations will not have the desire that Israel and the United States and others have to ensure that the law is militarily practical and strengthens humanitarian protections,” he added.

“The law of war’s fundamental distinction between privileged military forces and unprivileged combatants is notably under-recognized in current debates,” Ney asserted. “We see this lack of recognition in reports or resolutions that portray the current condition of compliance with the law of war in sweeping, dismal terms. These reports fail to recognize that many states, like Israel and the United States, have extensive, robust programs of law of war implementation and enforcement.”

Referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC), Ney noted, “Unfortunately, I believe that Israel’s experience with the ICC is similar to the US experience. Like the United States, Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute. Like the United States, Israel possesses a robust civil and military justice system. As with the United States, the ICC has ignored the principle of consent to jurisdiction and engaged in an illegitimate effort to review Israeli actions. No matter the ICC’s actions, as Ambassador [John] Bolton has stated, ‘The United States will always stand with our friend and ally, Israel.’”

Ney continued: “It might be politically inconvenient for some, maybe many, to acknowledge that the US military and the IDF care profoundly about the law of war and in fact have strong systems for implementation and enforcement of the law of war. These efforts, which are one of the principal criteria distinguishing lawful combatants from unprivileged combatants, must be recognized in the application of the law of war.”

According to the IDF, more than 150 legal experts from over 20 countries were attending the three-day conference, which opened on Tuesday.

The Algemeiner   (c) 2019 .      Barney Breen-Portnoy

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Police are looking for a Lyft passenger who was caught on camera savagely attacking his driver in the middle of a ride in Queens.

Footage shows the male passenger, who was on the way to Sinai Hospital, punching his driver multiple times before running off.

The driver, who was unhurt, says he is not sure if he’ll ever drive a Lyft again.

Read more at NBC News.

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Special counsel Robert Mueller said Wednesday that he would not testify before Congress on Russian interference.

“I hope and expect this to be the only time that I will speak to you in this manner,” Mueller said in remarks from the Justice Department. “I am making that decision myself — no one has told me whether I can or should testify or speak further about this matter.”

Mueller also said that any testimony he would give publicly would not go beyond what is already laid out in the public version of his 448-page report.

Wednesday’s comments marked Mueller’s first public statements on the investigation, which he concluded earlier this year.

“There has been discussion about an appearance before Congress. Any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report,” Mueller said. “It contains our findings, our analysis, and our reasons for the decisions we made. We chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself.”

“The report is my testimony.”

Read more at The Hill.

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Israeli authorities have scaled Gaza’s authorized fishing zone back to 10 nautical miles on Wednesday morning, COGAT confirmed.

“This decision was taken after the launching of incendiary balloons in the Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory,” a statement read.

This comes less than three days after the zone was extended to 15 miles, its widest zone in years, and further defines a pattern that sees the area shrunk or expended depending on the launches of incendiary balloons from the Gaza Strip.

Read more at i24NEWS.

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Rav Yaakov Loeberbaum of Lisa, author of Chavas Daas, Nesivos Hamishpat, and many other sefarim (1760-1832). A great-grandson of the Chacham Tzvi, Reb Yaakov lost his father before his birth. His relative, Rav Yosef Teumim, raised him. In 1809, he agreed to become the Rav in Lisa (today known as Leszno, Poland), where he enlarged his yeshiva’s enrollment. In 1822, he left Lisa and moved to Kalish, where he wrote many of his sefarim.

Rav Ozer ben Meir Hakohen of Klementov (now Klimontow, Poland), author of Even Ha’Ozer on Shulchan Aruch (1710)

Rav Chaim Hager of Kosov, author of Toras Chaim (1795-1854). Son of Rav Menachem Mendel Hager of Kosov (author of Ahavas Shalom), grandson of Rav Yaakov Kopel, and father of the first Vizhnitzer Rebbe, Rav Menachem Mendel Hager, the Tzemach Tzaddik.

Rav Chaim Chori, Rosh Beis Din in Tunis, author of Motza Chaim(1957). He immigrated to Israel from Jerba in 1955 and settled in Beersheba. Hori died two years later and was buried in the Beersheba cemetery.

Rav Shaul Halevi, Rav of The Hague and author of Binyan Shaul

Today in History – 25 Iyar

· King Edward I of England ordered the cessation of persecution of Jews of Bordeaux, France, 1275.
· 1200 Jews of Toledo, Spain, were killed by army troops, 1355.
· The Pope issued a bill against blood-ritual accusations, 1540.

{Manny Saltiel-Anshe.org/Matzav.com Newscenter}

The New York Times is using an editorial denouncing antisemitism in Europe as an opportunity to take a cheap shot at the Israeli prime minister.

LISTEN:

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The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has mobilized to raise more than 1 million shekels (about $275,000) in emergency assistance for residents of moshav Mevo Modi’im, a small agricultural community west of Jerusalem near the city of Modi’in. The moshav sustained a massive fire on May 23 that destroyed at least 40 out of the community’s 50 homes.

From that, the Fellowship will be providing up to $5,000 in assistance for each family in Mevo Modi’im.

The fire, one of many around Israel that began in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees during a heat wave last week, was large enough to have damaged some 7,940 dunams of land belonging to Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund. Originally assumed to have been caused by faulty electrical wiring, the fire is now being investigated as a possible incident of arson.

Mevo Modi’im was founded by the late Jewish singer and composer Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach.

“Every Sabbath eve, the men of the moshav would come to our house,” said Rabbi Carlebach’s daughter, Dari Carlebach, standing in her father’s old home with the Fellowship’s president, Yael Eckstein, the daughter of its founder, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, by her side. “My father had a special perfume, which everyone said was special, that he would spray each one of them with for the Sabbath. On Sabbath morning, the guys would be in the kitchen eating and drinking coffee, sharing words of Torah. Even at three in the morning, people would stop by the home to consult and speak with my father.”

Unsurprisingly, the moshav’s residents followed in the rabbi’s footsteps. “There’s no one like the people of Mevo Modi’im,” continued Dari Carlebach. “They do not have a lot of money, but their houses are open for guests all the time. Now they need a lot of help. Many are left with nothing but the clothes on their bodies. Their money has been burnt along with all their property.”

Nevertheless, she remains determined that Mevo Modi’im will overcome the destruction.

“My father said that fire can destroy and kill, but one’s internal fire cannot be extinguished. I know that the internal fire has not been ‘burned,’ and that this moshav will once again thrive because the nation of Israel is very strong,” she said. “It is impossible to burn the heart that dwells inside the collective soul of the moshav.”

Yael Eckstein conveyed the Fellowship’s determination to help the moshav rebuild: “The Jewish community immediately turned to us to provide the emergency aid in light of our track record in responding to every other emergency in Israel, including our prior donation of eight firetrucks and basic needs to victims in previous fires.”

She noted the contributions and support of Christian friends of Israel, who provided matching funds, saying “during times like this, one can see who is there to respond immediately—not only from the Jewish community, but from millions of Christians around the world.”

(JNS)

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Jordanian King Abdullah told White House senior adviser and presidential son-in law Jared Kushner on Wednesday that a Palestinian state can only be created along the border lines that existed before the 1967 Six-Day War.

“His Majesty stressed the need for a comprehensive and lasting peace based on a two-state solution, leading to an independent Palestinian state on 4 June 1967 lines with east Jerusalem as its capital,” according to a statement from Abdullah’s palace.

During the Six-Day War, Israel retook Jerusalem’s Western Wall and surrounding areas, in addition to gaining control of the Golan Heights.

U.S. President Donald Trump officially recognized in December 2017 that Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, in addition to relocating the U.S. embassy in Israel there five months later, and last March officially recognized Israel’s control of the Golan Heights.

Kushner’s trip to Jordan occurred a day after visiting Morocco. He is scheduled to travel next to Israel, followed by addressing global officials at the annual Bilderberg Meeting in Montreux, Switzerland, on Saturday. He will then meet with Trump in London during his father-in-law’s state visit.

The administration will begin rolling out its peace proposal, dubbed the “deal of the century,” at a conference in Bahrain scheduled for June 25-26 to promote stimulating the economy in the Palestinian territories.

The Palestinian Authority, China and Russia have announced they will boycott the summit, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have stated otherwise.

The summit will take place as scheduled despite Israel about to head to elections this fall with Yisrael Beiteinu head Avigdor Lieberman rejecting a last-minute offer from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a coalition due to the Israeli leader’s offer to take up an ultra-Orthodox conscription bill and develop it later on.

A Trump administration official told JNS, “We’re not going to get ahead of the Israeli coalition formation process. The economic workshop in Bahrain remains scheduled for June 25 – June 26.”

(JNS)

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Former White House adviser Steve Bannon has described the Trump Organization as a criminal entity and predicted that investigations into the president’s finances will lead to his political downfall, when he is revealed to be “not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag”.

The startling remarks are contained in Siege: Trump Under Fire, the author Michael Wolff’s forthcoming account of the second year of the Trump administration. The book, published on 4 June, is a sequel to Fire and Fury: Trump in the White House, which was a bestseller in 2018.

In a key passage, Bannon is reported as saying he believes investigations of Donald Trump’s financial history will provide proof of the underlying criminality of his company and that he is “not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag.”

Read more at The Guardian.

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Iran will not negotiate with the United States, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday, after President Hassan Rouhani signaled talks with Washington might be possible if sanctions were lifted.

Washington withdrew last year from an international nuclear deal signed with Tehran in 2015, and it is ratcheting up sanctions in efforts to shut down Iran’s economy by ending its international sales of crude oil.

President Trump condemned the accord, signed by his predecessor Barack Obama, as flawed for not being permanent and for not covering Iran’s ballistic missile program and role in conflicts around the Middle East.

Trump said on Monday he was hopeful Iran would come to negotiating table to reach a new deal: “I really believe that Iran would like to make a deal … and I think that’s a possibility to happen.”

Khamenei was quoted as saying on his website: “We said before that we will not negotiate with America, because negotiation has no benefit and carries harm.”

Khamenei said Iran had no problems negotiating with Europeans and other countries, but added, “We will not negotiate over the core values of the revolution. We will not negotiate over our military capabilities.”

Earlier in the day, Rouhani had taken a more positive stance.

In remarks carried by state television, he said: “Whenever they lift the unjust sanctions and fulfill their commitments and return to the negotiations table, which they left themselves, the door is not closed.”

“But our people judge you by your actions, not your words.”

Khamenei has the final say in all major policies under Iran’s dual system, split between the clerical establishment and the government. He is also the head of the armed forces.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Tuesday that Iran saw no prospect of negotiations with the United States.

Last week the Pentagon announced the deployment of 900 additional troops to the Middle East, and extended the deployment of another 600 service members in the region, describing it as an effort to bolster defenses against Iran.

Speaking with reporters en route to Indonesia on Wednesday, acting US Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said the additional troops announced last week would be going to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Without giving details or evidence, Shanahan said that while the Iranian posture had changed recently, the threat remained.

He added that sending military assets into the region, such as deploying bombers, Patriot missiles and accelerating the movement of an aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, had helped deter attacks against Americans in Iraq.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton also said on Wednesday naval mines “almost certainly from Iran” were used to attack oil tankers off the United Arab Emirates this month, and warned Tehran against conducting new operations.

Mousavi dismissed Bolton’s remarks as a “ludicrous claim.”

Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

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The people of Israel blame both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Liberman for the repeat election that will take place on September 17, but they will reward both their parties with more seats, a Panels Research poll taken on Thursday for The Jerusalem Post found.

The poll found that two-thirds of Israelis are upset by the decision to disperse the Knesset just a month after it was sworn in. When asked who is to blame for the do-over, 46% said Liberman, 35% Netanyahu, 12% said United Torah Judaism and Shas, and 7% said they did not know.

If the election was held now, Yisrael Beitenu would increase from its current five seats to nine, the poll found, which would make it the third largest party after Likud and Blue and White. The Likud would gain two seats from 35 to 37 – but if, as expected, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked runs with the party, it would win 41 seats.

Read more at JPOST.

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The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust welcomed Nobuki Sugihara for an evening in conversation with journalist Ann Curry on May 22, 2019. Sugihara’s father, Chiune Sugihara, was a Japanese diplomat serving in Lithuania when it became clear that he could – at great risk to himself and his family – grant life-saving transit visas to desperate Jews trying to flee Nazi-occupied Europe during several frantic weeks in 1940. Of the 6,000 Jews he helped rescue, he said, “They were human beings and they needed help.”

In front of an overflowing audience, Nobuki recounted his father’s extraordinary story and met with 170 “Sugihara visa” survivors and their descendants, who are alive thanks to his selfless acts.

“An Evening with Nobuki Sugihara” was held in conjunction with the Museum’s current exhibition, Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. The exhibition was produced in partnership with the international exhibition firm Musealia and the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland. It includes more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs, on view for the first time in the North America, including hundreds of personal items—such as suitcases, eyeglasses, and shoes—that belonged to survivors and victims of Auschwitz. An original transit visa issued by Chiune Sugihara is on display.

Among those who attended the talk was Nathan Lewin, 83, who was only four years old when Chiune Sugihara issued a transit visa to his family. His family was permitted safe transit through Russia. Mr. Lewin brought the aged and yellowed visa that allowed his family to escape the Holocaust to show to Mr. Sugihara.

During their conversation, Ann Curry described the disgrace Chiune Sugihara faced by disobeying orders that were given to him by the Japanese government. She asked Mr. Sugihara, “So the question is why? Why does a human being risk so much?”

“In 1969, I asked my father, ‘why did you decide to issue the visas?’ I thought he would say something great.  He just said ‘I pitied them. I knew the situation, how dangerous it was in Europe.’ But he hoped two or three people would succeed to get through those dark days, those terrible days. He never thought 100 people or 200 people would make it. Surprisingly, it’s tens of thousands. Some people say it is 250,000 with their descendants.”

Jack Kliger, President & CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, said, “It’s our great honor tonight to celebrate the legacy of Chiune Sugihara with his son. In the Museum’s new exhibition Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. we have on display the transit visa issued for the Goldin family by Sugihara in 1940. It’s in an extraordinary section of the exhibition that highlights Sugihara’s bravery, and his decisive response to the desperation of thousands.”

{Matzav.com}

Some of the biggest names in tech – Google, Apple, Microsoft and WhatsApp, among them – have joined human rights groups and security researchers in condemning a British intelligence proposal that would allow law enforcement to spy on encrypted messages.

In a nine-page open letter, the coalition told Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters that its “ghost proposal” posed a serious threat to cybersecurity and personal privacy. The idea, as outlined last fall in a series of essays from two top intelligence officials, would allow investigators to covertly join group chats and calls. The authors of the essays – Ian Levy, the technical director of the national cybersecurity center, and Crispin Robinson, head of code-breaking for the GCHQ – said their plan paralleled contemporary wiretapping practices and wouldn’t violate the sanctity of encryption.

Levy and Robinson emphasized that the proposal was “hypothetical” and meant to start a dialogue around how law enforcement could gain access to encrypted communications.

But the 47 companies and groups behind the letter contend the plan would “create digital security risks by undermining authentication systems, by introducing potential unintentional vulnerabilities and by creating new risks of abuse or misuse of system.”

“Users would no longer be able to trust that they know who is on the other end of their communications, thereby posing threats to fundamental human rights, including privacy and free expression,” the letter continued.

The proposal would require messaging apps and other encryption service providers to alter software to grant access to the”ghosts,” because end-to-end encryption obscures message content from the service that hosts it, the letter writers said. Apps like WhatsApp also would have to mislead users by keeping them from knowing when someone uninvited was present on a chat or call.

“If users cannot trust that they know who is on the other end of their communications, it will not matter that their conversations are protected by strong encryption while in transit,” the authors wrote in a blog post accompanying the letter.

Government access to encryption has been hotly debated for years, with law enforcement insisting it is a vital tool against criminals, and privacy advocates and tech companies arguing it would violate trust and transparency efforts and open the possibility of abuse.

“All the proposals that I’ve seen for how to address this raise a lot of concerns about giving law enforcement too-broad access and opening that backdoor to bad actors and all sorts of other issues,” said Lorrie Cranor, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, who signed the open letter to GCHQ. “It’s a case where it’s hard to have your cake and eat it, too.”

Apple, which signed the letter, made headlines in 2015 for refusing to give the FBI access to the iPhone of Syed Farook after he and his wife carried out a terrorist attack that left 14 people dead and nearly two dozen injured in San Bernardino, Calif.

“The U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook wrote in an open letter during the company’s clash with the FBI. “They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.”

In December, the Australian Parliament passed a controversial bill requiring tech companies to grant governments access to encrypted communications, calling it a necessary measure to prevent criminal and terrorist activity. The bill’s opponents said it compromised Australians’ security and set a dangerous precedent, one that could ripple around the globe if other nations follow suit.

Despite the letter’s critiques, Levy said he welcomed the response to his proposal, stressing it was a “starting point for discussion.”

“We will continue to engage with interested parties and look forward to having an open discussion to reach the best solutions possible,” Levy told CNBC via email.

 (c) 2019, The Washington Post · Taylor Telford  

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