Tag Archives: FBI

FBI director says investigators unable to unlock San Bernardino shooter’s phone content

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – FBI Director James Comey said on Tuesday that federal investigators have still been unable to access the contents of a cellphone belonging to one of the killers in the Dec. 2 shootings in San Bernardino, California, due to encryption technology.

Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that the phenomenon of communications “going dark” due to more sophisticated technology and wider use of encryption is “overwhelmingly affecting” law enforcement operations, including investigations into murder, car accidents, drug trafficking and the proliferation of child pornography.

“We still have one of those killer’s phones that we have not been able to open,” Comey said in reference to the San Bernardino attack.

Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, launched the Islamic State-inspired attack with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 29, at a social services agency in the California city, leaving 14 dead.

Comey and other federal officials have long warned that powerful encryption poses a challenge for criminal and national security investigators, though the FBI director added Tuesday that “overwhelmingly this is a problem that local law enforcement sees.”

Technology experts and privacy advocates counter that so-called “back door” access provided to authorities would expose data to malicious actors and undermine the overall security of the Internet.

A study from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard released last month citing some current and former intelligence officials concluded that fears about encryption are overstated in part because new technologies have given investigators unprecedented means to track suspects.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to provide a declassified response to the Berkman study within 60 days. Clapper agreed to the request.

The White House last year abandoned a push for legislation that would mandate U.S. technology firms to allow investigators a way to overcome encryption protections, amid rigorous private sector opposition. But the issue has found renewed life after the shootings in San Bernardino and Paris.

Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the intelligence panel, have said they would like to pursue encryption legislation, though neither has introduced a bill yet.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz and Mark Hosenball; editing by Sandra Maler and G Crosse)

Milwaukee man arrested for machine gun possession allegedly planned mass shooting

Authorities foiled a 23-year-old Milwaukee man’s alleged plans to commit a deadly mass shooting at a Masonic temple in the city, prosecutors announced Tuesday afternoon.

Samy Mohamed Hamzeh was charged with possessing machine guns and a silencer, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin said in a news release.

Prosecutors said that law enforcement had been investigating Hamzeh since September, and that he had been communicating with two confidential sources since October.

Prosecutors allege Hamzeh toured the temple with those sources on January 19, and later discussed plans to use machine guns and silencers to kill dozens of people there. Hamzeh allegedly told the sources the event “will be known all over the world” and jihadists “will be proud of us.”

Prosecutors allege Hamzeh had been planning to travel to Jordan and attack Israeli soldiers and citizens in the West Bank, but ditched those plans and shifted his focus to the United States.

He was arrested after allegedly purchasing two automatic weapons and a silencer from undercover FBI agents on Monday, according to the news release.

In a statement, Robert J. Shields, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Milwaukee office, said the arrest thwarted “an attack that could have resulted in significant injury and/or loss of life.”

An FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force was involved in the investigation.

The news release includes several comments that Hamzeh allegedly told the sources during their recorded conversations, in which he explained his goals and strategies for the attack.

He allegedly said that one of the three of them needed to guard the temple’s main door and “spray anyone he finds” while others went upstairs to “spray everyone” in a meeting.

“We will shoot them, kill them and get out,” he allegedly said, according to the release. “We will walk and walk, after a while, we will be covered as if it is cold, and we’ll take the covers off and dump them in a corner and keep on walking, as if nothing happened, as if everything is normal. But one has to stand on the door, because if no one stood at the door, people will be going in and out, if people came in from outside and found out what is going on, everything is busted.”

Hamzeh also allegedly told the sources that “we will eliminate everyone,” prosecutors said.

“Thirty is excellent,” Hamzeh allegedly commented to the sources. “If I got out, after killing thirty people, I will be happy 100%. … 100% happy, because these 30 will terrify the world.”

U.S. violent crime rate rose in first half of 2015, FBI reports

The United States experienced a rise in the number of violent crimes during the first half of 2015, according to new statistics released by the FBI on Tuesday.

The bureau published its Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report, which looks at crime in the United States in six-month windows. The most recent report, which covers the first six months of 2015, indicates that violent crime increased 1.7 percent when compared to the same six-month stretch of 2014.

Violent crimes include murders, rapes, non-negligent manslaughter, robberies and aggravated assaults, the bureau said in a news release. Each individual type of crime also increased from the totals reported in the first six months of 2014.

However, the FBI said property crimes like burglaries, larcenies and vehicle thefts, dipped 4.2 percent when compared to totals from the first half of 2014.

The preliminary data paints a partial picture of crime in the United States, but not a full one.

The Uniform Crime Reporting Program, from which the new statistics were compiled, relies on approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country to voluntarily submit data to the FBI. The bureau said about 13,000 of those agencies submitted comparable data for the first halves of 2014 and 2015.

The FBI also didn’t release the number of crimes committed, only percent changes.

The statistics showed murder rose 6.2 percent, aggravated assaults went up 2.3 percent and there were 0.3 percent more robberies. The FBI has two different types of data for rape, as it changed the definition of the offense in 2013. The so-called “legacy definition” saw a 9.6 increase, the bureau said. The “revised definition,” which is broader and based on penetration, increased 1.1 percent.

Murders went up in cities of all sizes, including 17 percent in those with fewer than 10,000 people — despite just a 1.5 percent rise in violent crimes there.

When it comes to property crimes, the bureau said nationwide burglary rates fell 9.8 percent and larcenies dropped 3.2 percent, but motor vehicle thefts rose 1 percent.

The West was the only region in which violent crime and property crime increased, the bureau said, posting respective rises of 5.6 and 2.4 percent. The Northeast, meanwhile, was the only region to see declines in both categories, with an 8 percent drop in property crime and a 3.2 percent drop in violent offenses.

Data from the other two regions – the South and Midwest – mirrored national trends, with violent crime posting slight increases and property crimes declining.

The South saw a 1.6 percent increase in violent crime and a 6.4 percent drop in property crimes, according to the bureau, while the Midwest witnessed a 7 percent drop in property crimes and a 1.4 percent rise in violent crimes.

The FBI’s two most recent full-year crime reports, covering 2014 and 2013, both showed national declines in property and violent crimes from the previous year.

The FBI is expected to release its full report on 2015 crime data later this year.

Pennsylvania Man Charged With Providing Material Support to Islamic State

A 19-year-old Pennsylvania man was charged with conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State, prosecutors announced on Thursday afternoon.

Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz, of Harrisburg, is accused of using at least 57 different Twitter accounts for a variety of pro-Islamic State purposes, including advocating violence against the United States and spreading propaganda, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.

Federal prosecutors allege that Aziz posted the names and addresses of 100 members of the United States military and calls for violence against them. Aziz is also accused of helping people who were looking to travel overseas to join Islamic State fighters, in once case allegedly acting as an intermediary between someone in Turkey and “several well-known” Islamic State members. Prosecutors allege that Aziz shared maps and telephone numbers between the ISIS supporters.

Prosecutors announced they searched a backpack in Aziz’s closet and discovered “five loaded M4-style high-capacity magazines,” as well as a modified kitchen knife and a balaclava mask.

“The charges in this case focus on Aziz’s efforts to assist persons seeking to travel to and fight for the Islamic State,” U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith said in a news release announcing the charges.

Aziz was scheduled to appear in court later Thursday.

In a separate case, the Department of Justice also said Thursday that an upstate New York man pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State.

Mufid A. Elfgeeh, of Rochester, allegedly recruited two people in 2013 and 2014 and tried to send them to Syria to join ISIS. However, prosecutors said those recruits were cooperating with the FBI. Elgeeh was also accused of sending $600 to someone in Yemen to help them join ISIS.

Elgeeh was arrested in May 2014, making him one of the first Islamic State recruiters arrested in the United States, U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. said in a news release. The 31-year-old Elgeeh faces a maximum of 30 years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced in March.

FBI: Chattanooga Shooter Motivated By Terrorist Propaganda

The man who killed five people in shootings this summer in Chattanooga, Tennessee, was inspired by foreign terrorist propaganda, FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday.

Comey made the comments while speaking at a news conference in New York.

“We have concluded that the Chattanooga killer was inspired by a foreign terrorist organization’s propaganda,” Comey told reporters, though he added the source of the propaganda couldn’t be determined and stopped short of mentioning a specific group.

“There’s competing foreign terrorist poison out there,” Comey said at the news conference. “But, to my mind, there’s no doubt that the Chattanooga killer was inspired and motivated by foreign terrorist organization propaganda. We’ve investigated it from the beginning as a terrorist case.”

Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez opened fire at two military locations on July 16.

The Kuwait native and naturalized U.S. citizen first fired upon a recruiting center, then drove seven miles to a Naval reserve facility and opened fire again. The 24-year-old killed four Marines and a sailor, all of them located at the reserve, before he was killed in a shootout with police.

In a televised address to the nation from the Oval Office on Dec. 6, President Barack Obama called the Chattanooga shooting an act of terrorism. But authorities had offered little public detail about why they believed it was terrorism-related until Comey’s comments Wednesday.

Terrorist groups often use social media to spread propaganda and communicate, and federal lawmakers have proposed new bills to combat that in the wake of the Dec. 2 mass shooting that killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California. Obama has also called that an act of terrorism.

Maryland Man Charged With Receiving Funds from ISIS to Carry Out U.S. Attack

A 30-year-old Maryland man is accused of receiving close to $9,000 from the Islamic State to fund a terrorist attack in the United States, according to the Department of Justice.

FBI officials arrested Mohamed Yousef Elshinawy on Friday at his home in Edgewood, the Department of Justice said Monday in a news release. The charges against him include providing material support to the Islamic State, as well as lying to the FBI and hiding facts.

“According to the allegations in the complaint, Mohamed Elshinawy received money he believed was provided by ISIL in order to conduct an attack on U.S. soil,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin said in a statement, using an acronym for the Islamic State.

Prosecutors accused Elshinawy of receiving at least $8,700 from people he knew he had ties to the Islamic State between March and June of this year. Prosecutors said Elshinawy claimed that he wasn’t going to carry out an attack and that he was just trying to scam money from the group.

But the Department of Justice alleges that Elshinawy mentioned pledging allegiance to the Islamic State in two separate electronic communications with his childhood friend and brother. In one instance, Elshinawy is accused of telling his brother he wanted to die as a martyr for ISIS. He’s also accused of using social media and prepaid phones to speak directly to ISIS operatives.

“The affidavit alleges that Mr. Elshinawy initially told the FBI that he was defrauding the terrorists, but further investigation showed that Mr. Elshinawy was supporting the terrorists and misleading the FBI,” U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rothstein said in the news release.

Prosecutors said they first became aware of Elshinawy in June after noticing a suspicious money transfer from Egypt. The FBI interviewed Elshinawy about two weeks later, and said Elshinawy admitted he had received $4,000 from an Islamic State operative for “operational purposes.”

The investigation found additional money had been sent to Elshinawy, according to prosecutors.

Earlier this month, George Washington University’s Program on Extremism published a report that found that 56 individuals had been charged with Islamic State-related activities in the United States this year. That was the most terror-related arrests in any single year since 2001.

U.S. Officials Fear ISIS Has Passport Printing Machine

United States officials fear people with ties to the Islamic State might have traveled to the United States using fraudulent Syrian passports, including some the terrorist organization printed itself, according to a recent Homeland Security Intelligence report obtained by ABC News.

The intelligence report, ABC News reported, says that ISIS has theoretically had the ability to print fake passports for more than 17 months, following their capture of the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor. The group could have theoretically gained access to the city’s passport office, the report indicated, and its “boxes of blank passports” and at least one passport printing machine. The Islamic State’s longstanding capital is the Syrian city of Raqqa, home to another passport office.

“Since more than 17 months [have] passed since Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour fell to ISIS, it is possible that individuals from Syria with passports ‘issued’ in these ISIS controlled cities or who had passport blanks, may have traveled to the U.S.,” ABC News quoted the report as saying.

While not specifically mentioning the report, FBI Director James Comey testified before Capitol Hill lawmakers on Wednesday and mentioned concerns about ISIS forging travel documents.

“The intelligence community is concerned that they have the ability, the capability, to manufacture fraudulent passports, which is a concern in any setting,” Comey told lawmakers.

It’s been widely reported that at least one of the men who carried out last month’s terrorist attacks in Paris had a fake Syrian passport. ISIS has claimed responsibility for those attacks.

16 Weapons Stolen from Central Massachusetts Army Reserve Center

An Army Reserve Center located in Worcester, Massachusetts reported that 16 weapons were stolen over the weekend.

Local police are cooperating with federal and state authorities to find out how the break-in happened as well as search for the man who stole the weapons, according to CNN. The theft occurred sometime between Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 1 a.m., according to City Manager Edward Augustus.

The FBI identified the weapons that were stolen: ten 9mm M-11 pistols and six 5.56 M-4 rifles. And while the FBI says there is no indication that the theft of tied to any sort of terrorism, it’s still a concern to officials.

“I’m especially concerned about it — separate and apart from anything that has to do with terrorism — I’m just concerned by the fact that some really high caliber weapons were stolen from a military facility in the first place,” Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker told reporters Monday.

The Worcester City Manager told the Washington Post that precautions were being taken. Additional police officers would be stationed throughout the city until further notice.

CBS Boston reported that surveillance footage caught a little bit of the man and his car. Police are looking for a light-skinned man who is about 5’7” to 5’10” tall and has a stocky build. At the time of the theft, he was wearing a white t-shirt and a dark vest. The man’s car was a newer model, dark colored BMW hatchback with sport rims.

Anyone who may have information regarding the theft can send an anonymous text to 274637, or you can call the Worcester Police Department at (508) 799-8651.

German Radio Station Reports that German Intelligence Spied on Various Foreign Groups

Rbb-Inforadio, a public radio station in Germany, reported Wednesday that Germany’s foreign intelligence agency (BND) spied on U.S. arms companies, the FBI, the U.N. Children’s Fund, and the French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.

Fox News reports that the station claimed that the BND also spied on the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the World Health Organization, and even a German diplomat. Last weekend, the same radio station reported that the BND was targeting email addresses and phone numbers of officials in Britain, France, the United States, Switzerland, Greece, the Vatican, other European countries, and even international aid groups like the Red Cross.

These allegations are very serious, especially in Germany. Two years ago, German officials reacted very angrily after finding out that the United States had been eavesdropping on German targets, including Chancellor Angela Merkel. At the time, Merkel stated that “spying among friends, that’s just wrong.”

The radio station did provide a source for these allegations, and the German spy agency did not comment on the situation. Although, an investigation is underway.

“The facts behind these various press reports will be comprehensively investigated and of course the chancellery is involved in this investigation,” government spokeswoman, Christiane Wirtz, told Fox News. She also stated that Parliament’s intelligence oversight committees would be informed of the situation.

ISIS Trying to Hack American Power Grid

On Wednesday American energy firms held a meeting about national security concerns where U.S. law officials announced that ISIS has been trying to hack the power grid.

“ISIL is beginning to perpetrate cyber attacks,” Caitlin Durkovich, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection at the Department of Homeland Security, told company executives.

Investigators didn’t reveal any details or provide any evidence to support the claims, but they did say that all attempts have been unsuccessful. They added that the terrorists lacked the right hacking technology to invade the computer systems and shut off or blow up the machines.

“Strong intent. Thankfully, low capability,” said John Riggi, a section chief at the FBI’s cyber division. “But the concern is that they’ll buy that capability.”

With hacking software available on the black markets, the FBI is now worried that ISIS and other terrorist organizations could get their hands on the right hacking software to attack power companies and grids. This would disrupt power to several U.S. homes and businesses. And the threat isn’t just ISIS; the FBI is also worried about domestic terrorists and hate groups getting their hands on the hacking technology.

U.S. officials also stated that the greatest threat to our power grid is other countries. Last year, they found malware on industrial control systems at energy companies that were traced back to the Russian government.

However, an organization taking down the entire nationwide grid – or even a section of the grid – is extremely unlikely as each grid isn’t uniform and connected like most people believe. The random patterns of the grid keep the machines and software from communicating and coordinating. It would take a large and expensive team of highly trained technical specialists to understand the layout and then hack it. Even if the team was successful, in a worst case scenario they would take out power for a small section of a major city. An entirely different cyberattack would be needed to shut down a different grid at a different plant.

The last infamous attack on a power grid was in 2013 when a sniper shot at a California energy grid substation. The attack was only for 19 minutes, but caused $15 million in damage. The Department of Homeland Security recently released a report that the attacker was likely an inside job. However, no other details were given.