In the 24 hour news world we live in, you might have missed that a group called Real Facts NC has sued the McCrory administration over access to public records. The records involve travel activity, including flights taken by the Governor.
WBTV has been covering this story and has become one of the plaintiffs. Here are there two articles to catch readers up to speed:
According to records at the NC Secretary of State, the actual mailing address of Real Facts NC is PO Box 806 Raleigh, NC 27602. This is the same address that displays on the Real Facts NC website, which a WHOIS reveals was registered to Eli Kaplan, a Washington D.C. based Democrat political strategist.
The primary address listed is 1101 Haynes Street, Suite 205 Raleigh, NC 27604. That address belongs to Willis Johnson & Nelson LLPC and to the Capital Law Group.
According to the NC Secretary of State, the original incorporation address for Real Facts NC was 434 Fayetteville St., Suite 2500, Raleigh NC. That’s the address for the Bailey and Dixon Law firm.
The North Carolina Secretary of State lists Michael Weisel as the contact for NC Citizens Protecting Our Schools.
Weisel is also the registered agent for both Progress NC and Progress NC Action. The NC Secretary of State showed the registration status for both Progress NC and Progress NC Action as “expired” when this article was written.
The Secretary of State lists Weisel as the registered agent for at least sixteen different organizations or groups.
A Liberty Speaks Exclusive: The Jester Effect and #iAWACS
“The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious.“ -John Scully
Hypothetically these scenarios are occurring right now:
A protest has gone from peaceful assembly to a full riot.
A major storm is bearing down on an city.
A breaking news story is trending on Twitter.
A shooting has occurred and the suspect is at large but authorities do not have a description.
Credible Intel reports say a terrorist attack may be imminent, however, the target and means of the attack are not known.
Protests, riots, natural disasters, terror attacks, shootings and breaking news can occur with little or no warning. The response by law enforcement, emergency services deployment and news coverage is mostly reactive in nature. Information coming in and going out on social media can be unreliable, which adds to the chaos and can hinder reaction times.
However, people are using Twitter to document what they are hearing and seeing in real time as these events occur; images, video, and statements are being posted publicly for the world to see. In some cases, conversations are taking place and posted before an incident occurs.
So, how can Twitter be utilized in a cohesive and specific manner to track these events, coordinate emergency responses, and get information out to the public? Can we sort through the reactive chaos, oceans of hashtags, or perhaps even prevent an incident from occurring at all?
That dichotomy entered the mind of an individual you many have heard of. After years of using a very reactive approach of hacking jihadist websites to disrupt their activities, one of Time Magazine’s Top 30 Most Influential individuals on the Internet has a new mission that has nothing to do with hacking.
Cyber Warrior JΞSTΞR ✪ ΔCTUAL has created a very proactive web application called internet-AWACS or #iAWACS. The title uses a play on words using the acronym for Airborne Warning and Control System. It’s specifically tailored to Twitter and eventually can be tailored for individual needs and scenarios. According to Jester, it’s ‘Signal Intelligence for Social Media’.
Jester agreed to answer some questions about the project. When asked what the catalyst and motivation was behind the development of #iAWACS he explained:
“Original concept came after the Boston Bombing. I remember how authorities called upon anyone on social media to help them with images, videos, and more. I thought to myself there’s gotta be an easier way to focus the internet directly onto specific, areas, events, or demographics in near real-time.”
What he came up with is an “out of the box” solution to that very scenario, as well as the ones listed at the top of this article.
Now, because I’m not technically inclined, my understanding of the workings behind the project is limited. However, I personally have used #iAWACS and from a blogger perspective it has been extremely useful.
FIREHOSE – Mesmerizing and totally unfiltered node that allows you to watch the world go by as it captures & returns all Geo-tagged tweets and images, and builds a heat map in real time – THIS IS BIG DATA.
DRONEBAIT – This node listens out just for Jihadi chatter and propaganda imagery on social media. Where possible it will plot course location on the map
ACTIVESHOOTER – This node has its ears on for early warning signs of an active shooter situation anywhere in the world, if the unthinkable occurs you’ll hear it here first.
TRENDINGUSA – This node monitors current trending topics, phrases, hashtags across the United States.
MAJOR INCIDENT – This node activates in the event of a National Security incident, Natural disaster and other events. Also contains relevant local LIVE emergency responder audio feed.
DEMO NODE – Demonstration Node showing some real time capabilities, visualizations, and live local audio feed that can be delivered during a real world event. (Current DEMO NODE is listening for tweets mentioning NYPD, LIVE NYPD AUDIO & NYC Airspace Monitoring.)
Each node captures public tweets/images and current sentiment on a positive/negative scale.
DRONEBAIT, ACTIVESHOOTER, MAJOR INCIDENT, and TRENDINGUSA also allow the user to access a 3D flyby of tweets, tag cloud and airspace of area in question.
Radio Transmissions of EMS, Police, and other local authorities are showcased in the ACTIVESHOOTER and MAJOR INCIDENT nodes.
The #iAWACS application can also run a Deep Dive Profiling of any public Twitter account. The results are derived from the IBM Watson Personality Insight Service and the “Big Five Factor Model of Personality” which uses linguistic analytics to infer the personality traits by analyzing a users public tweets.
Along with traits, the Deep Dive tracks times of activity and Geo-location when available. I took a test drive using my Twitter handle. The results are quite accurate.
Though #iAWACS is a still a work in progress, it’s already proven a useful tool. It’s captured several Active Shooter incidents, tracked the last two hurricanes to hit the US, has monitored and tracked multiple protests and riots across the country, and several terrorist attacks around the globe.
However, it is the DRONEBAIT node that has truly produced some interesting results. Two weeks before the September 17 bombings in New York and New Jersey, an uptick in Jihadi chatter was caught on the DRONEBAIT node.
#iAWACS DRONEBAIT Node: Last 7 days of ISIS location mentions & attack methods. New York is second only to Syria >> https://t.co/d6h4Q9Afc9
Looking at the graphic you can see New York was the 2nd highest in mentions next to Syria. Notice what method of attack was the highest? If you guessed bomb, you’re right.
This isn’t the first time increased Jihadi chatter had been captured on #iAWACS prior to a terrorist attack. Days before the attacks in Brussels another uptick was noted.
Another uptick in Jihadi chatter right now on DRONEBAIT iAWACS node >> https://t.co/aPKNIeXbH0 (Last one was 4 days ago b4 recent attacks)
Long has the concern been that Jihadists are radicalizing and coordinating on Twitter before a terrorist attack occurs.
Intel agencies like CIA, DNI as well as University research groups and local Law Enforcement have been exploring ways Social Media can be utilized to predict, track and monitor civil unrest, terrorist activity, hate crimes, and the prevention of these events. They’re searching for a “Pre-Crime” solution similar to the one in Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report that uses 3 individuals gifted with precognition called “Pre-Cogs”.
Lancaster University did a research paper titled ‘Mining pro-ISIS radicalization signals from social media users‘ that tackles the very subject regarding the identification of individuals on Twitter who may be sympathetic to ISIS.
Here is an excerpt from that article:
The research provides evidence that shows when users begin either sharing tweets from known pro-ISIS accounts, or using extremist language – such as anti-western or pro-ISIS statements – they quickly display a large change in the language they use, tweeting new words and terms, and indicating a clear shift in online behavior.
Millions of dollars in federal funding and grants have gone into these projects, specifically the ones dealing with terror activity and radicalization. A few things that set Jester’s #iAWACS apart from these other projects:
It has the ability to capture keywords and conversations from public Twitter accounts that are leaning towards radicalization and exhibiting a sympathetic nature towards ISIS, Al Qaeda and others terror groups in real-time.
It’s functional right now and reporters, Law Enforcement, Intel groups and the general public all can access it.
Imagine if #iAWACS was around prior to the Boston Marathon bombing?
After the attack, Jester did his own research and found tweets that suggested coordination, planning, and discussion prior to the attack in Boston on the Twitter timelines of the individuals involved. All the tweets were public, out there for the world to see.
This begs the questions – What if the technology to capture those tweets would have been implemented back then? And would we might have been better equipped to possibly prevent the attack in the first place?
These questions were also posed by the Washington Post after the killing of 5 police officers in Dallas, Texas during a July 7th protest.
In that Washington Postarticle, the notion arises of whether “rumblings” of unrest on Twitter at these protests could be seen and tracked as possible precursors of future shootings.
Jester had the following to say about another set of protests that included the Black Panther Party in Baton Rouge on July 15th following the police shooting of Alton Sterling:
“I’m looking for any indication they are coordinating skirmishes. … I guess I’m expecting trouble in that location, so [I] have it trained on Baton Rouge preemptively,”
That statement by Jester became tragically prophetic when Gavin Long shot and killed 3 Baton Rouge police officers on July 17th and #iAWACS tracked it all as it unfolded in real time.
The Washington Post isn’t the only one to take notice of #iAWACS.
Darren Desmond, a former Operations Director in Cyber Threat Intelligence, Stilgherrian, a freelance journalist who covers the politics of the Internet, Cyber crime and security, and Chief Information Security Officer for the United States Navy John Lamme Sr. have all weighed in on the application and the reviews are very positive.
Now that #iAWACS is granting Jester serious recognition, I asked if the evolution and shedding of the “Hacker” side of Jester’s persona was “part and parcel” to the creation of the project and what’s next in its development?
He replied, “I guess I’m known by most for ‘Tango Down’ – those days served their purpose at the time but have now passed. I’m more about creating instead of destroying these days.”
“The idea there was to make it difficult for the recruiters of homegrown radical Islam to operate on their own servers and to funnel them into a smaller space.” continued Jester, ” Smaller spaces are easier to watch.”
“#iAWACS, in particular the DRONEBAIT node is an extension of that strategy. We have them where we want them, now we need a way to monitor them. #iAWACS is one solution to that problem.” said Jester.
To get a great feel for what #iAWACS is capable of, check out theDEMO NODE.It captures all public tweets & images mentioning NYPD & NYC, has live audio of NYPD dispatch, Airspace Monitoring, 3D Flyover visualization, Tag cloud and Deep Dive Profiling access.
You can also view a video of #iAWACS in action when Hurricane Matthew was bearing down on the east coast of Florida.
Regarding the next step for the application, Jester replied that, “I want to develop the profiling side some more, it currently looks at a users pattern of life, psychological traits, and locations where possible. I want to expand on that with force-directed connections charts based on who a user interacts with the most.”
Personally, I look forward to that next phase of the project.
In closing, Twitter can be a useful tool combined with #iAWACS in dealing with all the scenarios I first listed.
Intel agencies, law enforcement, journalists and the public can all use it to cut through the internet chaos, see what’s stirring in the timelines, and make sense of the millions of 140 character posts thrown out into the wild of Twitter every day.
“We monitor many frequencies. We listen always. Came a voice, out of the babel of tongues, speaking to us. It played us a mighty dub.” ― William Gibson
SalesForce.com’s CEO, Marc Benioff has been a vocal opponent to North Carolina’s House Bill 2 (HB2). In the last year, Benioff and other CEO’s have engaged in Social Justice activism on a scale not seen before. This activism includes, but is not limited to, attempts at economically blackmailing North Carolina.
An article at the Wall Street Journal details Benioff’s attack on the state and Benioff’s use of a “corporate bully pulpit”. Of note in the Wall Street Journal article was the mention of North Carolina’s Attorney General Roy Cooper, colluding with Benioff and other CEO’s in their attacks on the state:
“North Carolina’s Democratic Attorney General Roy Cooper called Salesforce to discuss the law, which had drawn lawsuits against the state. Mr. Cooper “looked to Salesforce because he wanted them to know that this is not who North Carolina is, and that we are fighting against this discriminatory law,” says Megan Jacobs, deputy campaign manager for Mr. Cooper, who is challenging Gov. McCrory for the governorship.
Mr. Cooper on March 29 refused to defend the state law, saying in a news conference that it “will set North Carolina’s economy back.” Salesforce had little presence in North Carolina, so Mr. Benioff turned to Mr. Moynihan, CEO of Charlotte-based Bank of America, the state’s biggest employer. Mr. Moynihan then weighed in against the law. “I respect Marc,” Mr. Moynihan says, “but it was our headquarters, and we did it for our teammates.” In an early-April business meeting with Salesforce customer Deutsche Bank AG, which has a 900-person North Carolina office, Mr. Benioff discussed the law with its co-chief executive, John Cryan.”
But not all of the shareholders are thrilled. The article says that, “At Salesforce’s annual shareholder meeting last year, an investor criticized Mr. Benioff’s public posture as polarizing and time-consuming.”
Some attending the latest SalesForce.com conference might agree.
At the SalesForce.com Dreamforce conference in San Francisco earlier this month, conference attendees were given badges like any other conference. They also were given pronoun buttons.
A reader from the California area sent me a photo of these pronoun buttons.
The text on the card to which the button was attached reads:
“To ease introductions, we are offering attendees the option to self-identify by choosing a pronoun sticker and button for their lanyard. The button is completely optional – pin it on your lanyard if you want to, don’t worry if you don’t.”
The sticker with the pronouns had a selection of She/Her, He/Him, They/Them and Ask me.
The text on the card continued:
“In addition to men’s and women’s restrooms, we also have all gender restrooms at Dreamforce, giving all of our Trailblazers a place to take a break from their trail. Gender neutral restrooms are located in Moscone Wet, 2nd floor, net to room 2024.”
Here is the button and the materials it came with:
A GOP office in Orange county, North Carolina was firebombed sometime Saturday night or early Sunday morning. On the side of the building, “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” was written in spray paint.
The building at 347 Ja-Max Drive was hit with graffiti and “flammable material” was thrown through a window starting a fire inside, police said in an email.
Graffiti that said “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” was spray painted in black paint on the side of a building next to the Republican headquarters, according to police.
That graffiti, which was also at 353 Ja-Max Drive, included a swastika and was discovered before 9 a.m. by a nearby business owner, officials said.
“The flammable substance appears to have ignited inside the building, burned some furniture and damaged the building’s interior before going out,” police said. “The substance was… in a bottle thrown through one of the building’s front windows.”
The NC GOP’s Executive Director, Dallas Woodhouse, issued the following statement:
“Whether you are Republican, Democrat, or Independent, all Americans should be outraged by this hate-filled and violent attack against our democracy. Whether the bomb was meant to kill, destroy property, or intimidate voters, everyone in this country should be free to express their political viewpoints without fear for their own safety. We will be requesting additional security at all Republican Party offices and events between now and Election Day to ensure the safety of our activists, volunteers, and supporters. We will not be deterred by this hate crime.”
Luckily, no one was injured.
Know something about this? REPORT IT.
Contact Investigator Jon Purvis by email or by phone: 919-732-9381, ext. 37.
One of the tentacles created by Dodd-Frank was sliced into this week. By tentacle, I mean the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
A three judge panel in the District of Columbia’s Court of Appeals ruled that the CFPB’s leadership structure was unconstitutional. Right now, the CFPB is headed up by a single man, Richard Cordray.
The first line of the ruling says that, “This is a case about executive power and individual liberty.” While this is a win, don’t get too excited though. Read on.
In an article at Conservative review , Hans von Spakovsky notes that the court recognized most agencies had boards or commissioners who act as a check and balance on one another. The CFPB has no such oversight.
I’ve written about the CFPB once before when they were moving into the College Accreditation arena and looking at, “unlawful acts and practices in connection with accrediting for-profit colleges.” The lack of oversight and invasion of the privacy of every day Americans by the CFPB in that article was clear.
In Hans von Spakovsky write up, he summarizes the heart of the problems with the CFPB’s powers:
The CFPB is a creature of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010, which may rank with Obamacare as one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress (see here and here for analyses of these fatally flawed statutory schemes). It created a regulatory nightmare, giving the CFPB unprecedented power over the consumer financial market with almost no accountability to anyone. Instead of being reliant on appropriations by Congress, the CFPB has a budget fixed as a certain percentage of the Federal Reserve’s appropriations. This arrangement effectively makes it unaccountable to Congress and to the rest of the Executive Branch, including the president.
In a nutshell, the way CFPB’s funding is structured makes them unaccountable to Congress or anyone else for that matter.
von Spakovsky goes on to explain that the court found that the single-director structure “represents a gross departure from settled historical practice”. von Spakovsky summarized some of the points made, underscoring that the way the CPFB operates right now is akin to a dictatorship:
In fact, he has more “unilateral authority than any other officer in any of the three branches of the U.S. Government, other than the President.” He has “enormous power over American business, American consumers, and the overall U.S. economy…covering everything from home finance to student loans to credit cards to banking practices.” He “alone decides what rules to issue; how to enforce, when to enforce, and against whom to enforce the law; and what sanctions and penalties to impose on violators of the law.”
So what did the court actually do? They decide to allow CFPB to continue operating with a minor change — Cordray has to report to the President now. Dodd-Frank remains intact.
It is likely that Senator Elizabeth Warren is not very happy, since she had proposed the creation of the CFPB in 2008. The CFPB is a monstrous agency that oversees every aspect of every portion of financial services and products in our country.
Here’s von Spakovsky’s illustration of what’s wrong with the court’s solution:
In the current administration, this change will have no effect in limiting the arbitrary and capricious actions of Richard Cordray and the unreasonable and unjustified regulatory burden the CFPB is imposing on our financial markets. President Obama has exhibited exactly the same type of unilateral behavior in abusing his executive power (see, for example, here, here, and here). More generally, as a practical matter, it appears unlikely that any president would closely supervise a highly specialized agency such as the CFPB (let alone seriously consider dismissing its director), given the many high-level responsibilities and political considerations presidents face.
This limited solution leaves the CFPB and the Dodd-Frank law in place. Thus, the abusive agency and a burdensome law will continue to hobble our economy and hurt consumers. Very recently, for example, the CFPB has proposed economically irrational new rules (see here and here) that threaten to destroy the payday and “high cost installment” lending industry, which offers many low income consumers the only source of debt finance available to them.
In other words, they’ve just given the reins of a vastly overreaching and unaccountable department to the Executive branch, who has arguably been equally vastly overreaching and unaccountable .
As we get near our launch date, we want to share with you a sample of what is coming. We want to be your new ‘go-to site’ for news and investigative journalism. We are building something big here. We will expose what the traditional media knows, but often leaves out of the story. We will bring a renewed focus & credibility to mass media. We will focus on stories that matter to Americans. Please share this with your friends and stay tuned for the official launch coming soon!
Who is Real Facts NC?
LL1885 
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