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Tuesday, October 1, 2013

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Antideficiency Act Background

The Antideficiency Act prohibits federal employees from

making or authorizing an expenditure from, or creating or authorizing an obligation under, any appropriation or fund in excess of the amount available in the appropriation or fund unless authorized by law. 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(A).
involving the government in any obligation to pay money before funds have been appropriated for that purpose, unless otherwise allowed by law. 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(B).
accepting voluntary services for the United States, or employing personal services not authorized by law, except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property. 31 U.S.C. § 1342.
making obligations or expenditures in excess of an apportionment or reapportionment, or in excess of the amount permitted by agency regulations. 31 U.S.C. § 1517(a).

Federal employees who violate the Antideficiency Act are subject to two types of sanctions: administrative and penal. Employees may be subject to appropriate administrative discipline including, when circumstances warrant, suspension from duty without pay or removal from office. In addition, employees may also be subject to fines, imprisonment, or both.

Reporting Requirements

Once it is determined that there has been a violation of 31 U.S.C. §§ 1341(a), 1342, or 1517(a), the agency head "shall report immediately to the President and Congress all relevant facts and a statement of actions taken." 31 U.S.C. §§ 1351, 1517(b). The reports are to be signed by the agency head. The report to the President is to be forwarded through the Director of OMB. In addition, the heads of executive branch agencies and the Mayor of the District of Columbia shall also transmit "[a] copy of each report . . . to the Comptroller General on the same date the report is transmitted to the President and Congress." 31 U.S.C. §§ 1351, 1517(b), as amended by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-447, div. G, title II, § 1401, 118 Stat. 2809, 3192 (Dec. 8, 2004).
OMB has issued further instructions on preparing the reports, which may be found in OMB Circular No. A-11, Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget, § 145 (June 21, 2005). The report is to include all pertinent facts and a statement of all actions taken to address and correct the Antideficiency Act violation (such as administrative discipline imposed, referral to the Justice Department where appropriate, and new safeguards imposed). An agency also should include a request for a supplemental or deficiency appropriation when needed.
What if GAO uncovers a violation but the agency thinks GAO is wrong? The agency must still make the required reports, and must include an explanation of its disagreement.

Additional Information

For more information on the Antideficiency Act purpose, history, and requirements see Chapter 6, Availability of Appropriations: Amount

Principles of Federal Appropriations Law: Third Edition, Volume II: GAO-06-382SP, February 1, 2006; Summary (HTML) Full Report (PDF, 727 pages)

AllenWest ” We just witnessed the despicable failure of American stewardship by Harry Reid and the Senate”

@AllenWest ” We just witnessed the despicable failure of American stewardship by Harry Reid and the Senate”

Posted by allenwestrepublic on October 1, 2013

by Allen West via Facebook
In Washington DC there are three things that must be balanced: politics, policy, and procedure. We just witnessed the despicable failure of American stewardship by Harry Reid and the Senate liberal progressives in killing the House legislation that leveled the playing field for hardworking middle income American families. Instead, led by the egomaniacal, arrogant Barack Obama, Democrats have proven themselves hypocritical elitists who seek to abuse the American people in the political game of “blame checkers” to attain power. I think if Assad, Putin, or Rouhani were House Speaker there would have been more communication. The House GOP is focused on good policy, as Obamacare is an abysmal partisan piece of garbage. The House GOP should now follow regular order procedure and pass prioritized federal government spending bills. America, let us promise to never again elect as President any charismatic, community organizing liars who play lots of golf.
aw shutdown

143-year-old law puts fear in officials during shutdown

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Published: Tuesday, 1 Oct 2013 | 3:34 PM ET

By: Steve Liesman | CNBC Senior Economics Reporter

Getty Images

A sign marks a closed corridor at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Administration officials now live in fear of a 19th-century law that could get them fired, penalized or even imprisoned if they make the wrong choices while the government is shut down.
The law is the Antideficiency Act, passed by Congress in 1870 (and amended several times), which prohibits the government from incurring any monetary obligation for which the Congress has not appropriated funds.
In shutting down the government, most memos cite the law as the reason. The Government Accountability Office says employees who violate the Antideficiency Act may be subject to disciplinary action, suspension and even "fines, imprisonment, or both."

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CNBC has learned that in several executive branch departments, high-level staff members review individual decisions about what government activities to allow for fear of running afoul of the Antideficiency Act. One White House official said he has advised his employees not to check their email or cellphones. Under the act, even volunteering for government service is expressly prohibited.
In a memo to his department employees today, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew cited the law as the reason for reduced staffing.
"For the duration of this impasse, as required by the Antideficiency Act and directed by OMB, the Department will be required to operate with only the minimal staffing level necessary to execute only certain legally exempted activities," Lew wrote.
The only exemptions to the shutdown concern "emergencies involving the safety of human life or the protection of property," according to government documents. That has meant airports and the Postal Service are open, Social Security checks get paid and federal prisons and courts will operate as normal as do most national security functions including the military and the Central Intelligence Agency. But national parks and museums are closed along with big parts of the departments of Education and Commerce
Congress passed the law as part of a struggle—dating back to the nation's founding—for control over the power of the purse. Some presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, would incur obligations for which Congress had to appropriate funds after the fact.
What is ironic is that Congress in shutting down the government has to at least to some extent given up the power of the purse to the executive branch. Under the broad guidelines of what constitutes an emergency or threat to life or property, OMB now more or less decides what gets funded and what doesn't. But that latitude is limited by the fear of officials that, sometime after the event, a given decision is found to have been in violation of the Antideficiency Act.
—By CNBC's Steve Liesman. Follow him on Twitter: @steveliesman

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood filling pro-Western military’s ranks with Islamists

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Who will blink first in the government shutdown standoff?

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated government recently allowed members of the Brotherhood and hardline jihadists to join Egypt's military academy for the first time as part of what U.S. officials say is a covert effort to impose Islamist rule in the key Middle East state.
According to U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports, the government of President Mohamed Morsi is covertly taking steps to take control over the pro-Western military and the police forces as part of a campaign to solidify Islamist control.
Egypt for decades had banned the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamist groups from both the military and police academies after Islamic terrorists in the military assassinated Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat in 1981.
The Egyptian military also for decades has maintained close ties to the U.S. military. Analysts in the U.S. intelligence community and the military are viewing the introduction of Islamists into the national military academy, disclosed last week, with concern.
Muslim Brotherhood members and hardline Salafi groups are regarded as dedicated first to jihad, or holy war, and other Islamist principles rather than to the country.
"Any opening of the Egyptian military to Islamist elements would be a big and complicated change," said one U.S. official. "It's not clear how it would be managed or how well the rank and file would absorb it."
Disclosure that the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamists are now being admitted to the military academy was made public March 19 in Egyptian news reports.
The head of the military academy, Ismat Murad, told reporters the new batch of Islamist students included the nephew of Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials said intelligence agencies are investigating reports that Morsi recently concluded a secret agreement with the Palestinian terror group Hamas, another disturbing sign the Egyptian government is shifting away from its former pro-Western stance and toward radical Islam.
There are concerns the agreement involves collusion between the Muslim Brotherhood and a plan to settle Palestinians in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.
Hamas militants in recent days have attacked Egyptian troops engaged in demolishing tunnels from the Sinai into Israel. Hamas has asked the Egyptian government to halt the tunnel demolition. The tunnels are a major source of covert support into Gaza.
Morsi was elected president last year. His Freedom and Justice Party was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood, an anti-democratic Islamic political movement whose motto states, "Jihad is our way." The group claims to be nonviolent but has spawned numerous Islamic terror organizations including al Qaeda.
Under Morsi, the Egyptian government has appointed hardline Islamists as presidential advisers and assistants, including members of the Salafist Al-Nour Party.
In addition to the military academy, Cairo also is taking steps to Islamicize the police forces.
According to recent reports, the Muslim Brotherhood is planning to restructure the Egyptian Interior Ministry. The restructuring is said to include plans to place Brotherhood members in key ministry positions.
On the secret agreement with Hamas, Egyptian daily Al-Watan published documents in early February purportedly exposing a secret agreement between the government and Hamas. One document stated that Hamas' military wing was sending militants to Egypt to defend the current regime from supporters of the ousted Mubarak government.
A second document was written by a Qatari foreign affairs official granting Hamas $250 million to support Morsi.
The Morsi administration has agreed to several construction deals in Gaza, along with security and intelligence-sharing agreements with Hamas.
Morsi also has sought closer ties to Iran, whose President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Cairo in February. Intelligence officials said the two intelligence services also are collaborating.
Many Persian Gulf states are worried about the threat to their regimes posed by the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, with the exception of Qatar emerging as a connection point for Brotherhood's expansion efforts.
In Saudi Arabia, several Islamist Saudi clerics are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood transformation in Egypt, putting them at odds with Riyadh's opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood government there.
There are concerns that Egypt will create religious police along the lines of Saudi Arabia's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, as the Sharia-law enforcement police are called.
Thousands of police in Egypt went on strike to protest the Muslim Brotherhood Islamist efforts earlier this month. Riots broke out March 22 between pro- and anti-Muslim Brotherhood protesters. The police went back to work after the government said it would bring in contractors, raising fears of further Islamicization.
The Brotherhood announced it planned to form vigilante groups to prevent attacks on Islamists.
An Egyptian military adviser went public with concerns about Muslim Brotherhood activities in Egypt on March 11. Maj. Gen. Abd-al-Munim Katu, an adviser to the Egyptian Armed Forces Morale Affairs Department, told the Dubai news outlet Al Bayan Online that the military is resisting Morsi's Islamicization efforts.
Specifically, Katu said the Muslim Brotherhood was pressuring Egypt's Defense Minister Abdul-Fattah Al-Sisi to ignore the Sinai tunneling into Gaza.
"I think that the current situation in Egypt is alarming and confused, in general," Katu said.
Asked if Morsi will complete his term as president, Tatu said: "The vision is blurry. Indicators suggest that he may not be able to complete his term. The people have legitimate demands, but the Muslim Brothers are busy seizing control of the joints of the state. The gap between the two parties is widening."
The Obama administration, whose religious outreach advisers include several Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers, is not directly challenging the far-reaching campaign of Islamicization being carried out by the Morsi government in Egypt.
Instead the administration adopted conciliatory policies toward the current government in Egypt. The administration hopes to continue working with Egypt's government but has not pressured Cairo into making needed democratic reforms, U.S. officials said.
Secretary of State John Kerry visited Cairo March 4 and mentioned U.S. hopes for democratic reform. He also announced the release of $250 million in U.S. aid out of $1 billion promised by President Barack Obama after Egypt's revolution overthrew long-time ally Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak last year.
Kerry said he urged Morsi to initiate "homegrown reforms."
Pro-democracy protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square carried banners during the visit that read "Kerry, member of the Brotherhood," and "Kerry, you are not welcome here."
Analysts have compared Obama's policy toward Egypt to those of President Jimmy Carter who in the late 1970s tacitly supported Iran's exiled radical cleric Ayatollah Khomeini. Carter eventually abandoned the Shah of Iran, a longtime U.S. ally, and paved the way for 1978 revolution that brought the current hardline Islamist state in Tehran into power, a regime that is now on the verge of developing nuclear weapons for its large ballistic missile force.
Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy, said Obama's foreign policy has been accurately described as "Jimmy Carter's policies on steroids."
"What's happening in Egypt today with the Muslim Brotherhood takeover and the ascendancy of Islamist throughout the Middle East and North Africa, makes Jimmy Carter's debacle in Iran pale by comparison," Gaffney said.
• Bill Gertz is the senior editor of the Washington Free Beacon.

About the Author

Bill Gertz
Follow @BillGertz

Bill Gertz is a national security columnist for The Washington Times and senior editor at The Washington Free Beacon (www.freebeacon.com). He has been with The Times since 1985.
He is the author of six books, four of them national best-sellers. His latest book, “The Failure Factory,” on government bureaucracy and national security, was published in September 2008.
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U.S. Intelligence Says Muslim Brotherhood and Hardline Jihadists Allowed To Join Egyptian Military Academy

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Print This Post U.S. media is reporting that the U.S. intelligence reports indicate that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood government has recently permitted Muslim Brotherhood members and “hardline jihadists” to join Egypt’s military academy for the first time. According to a Washington Post report, U.S. intelligence agencies are also investigating reports that Egyptian President Morsi has concluded a secret agreement with Hamas:

Friday, March 29, 2013 Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated government recently allowed members of the Brotherhood and hardline jihadists to join Egypt’s military academy for the first time as part of what U.S. officials say is a covert effort to impose Islamist rule in the key Middle East state. According to U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports, the government of President Mohamed Morsi is covertly taking steps to take control over the pro-Western military and the police forces as part of a campaign to solidify Islamist control. Egypt for decades had banned the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamist groups from both the military and police academies after Islamic terrorists in the military assassinated Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat in 1981. The Egyptian military also for decades has maintained close ties to the U.S. military. Analysts in the U.S. intelligence community and the military are viewing the introduction of Islamists into the national military academy, disclosed last week, with concern. Muslim Brotherhood members and hardline Salafi groups are regarded as dedicated first to jihad, or holy war, and other Islamist principles rather than to the country. ’Any opening of the Egyptian military to Islamist elements would be a big and complicated change,’ said one U.S. official. ‘It’s not clear how it would be managed or how well the rank and file would absorb it.’ Disclosure that the Muslim Brotherhood and other radical Islamists are now being admitted to the military academy was made public March 19 in Egyptian news reports. The head of the military academy, Ismat Murad, told reporters the new batch of Islamist students included the nephew of Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader. Meanwhile, U.S. officials said intelligence agencies are investigating reports that Morsi recently concluded a secret agreement with the Palestinian terror group Hamas, another disturbing sign the Egyptian government is shifting away from its former pro-Western stance and toward radical Islam. There are concerns the agreement involves collusion between the Muslim Brotherhood and a plan to settle Palestinians in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

NSA uses metadata to plot complex graphs of US citizens’ social connections for foreign intelligence

анб сша слежка шпион Агентство национальной безопасности

The US National Security Agency has been exploiting US citizens' personal information drawn from its large collection of metadata to create complex graphs of social connections for foreign intelligence purposes, the latest Snowden leaks have revealed.

Documents obtained by the New York Times from the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden say that the practice has been going on since November 2010, after restrictions prohibiting the agency from working with US citizens’ data were “lifted” by NSA officials.

The NSA was then authorized to conduct “large-scale graph analysis on very large sets of communications metadata without having to check foreignness” of the e-mail addresses, phone numbers or any other identifiers, the documents reportedly said.

The policy shift was intended to help the agency “discover and track” connections between intelligence targets overseas and people in the US, a January 2011 NSA memorandum, cited in the documents, explained.

According to the report, the agency has been allowed to “enrich” their communications data with materials obtained from public, commercial and other sources while preparing the graphs. Such sources reportedly include Facebook profiles, bank codes, insurance information, passenger manifests, voter registration rolls and GPS location information, as well as property records and unspecified tax data.

The sophisticated graphs provide agents with direct and indirect “contact chains” between an unspecified number of Americans and people or organizations overseas that are of foreign intelligence interest, the report says.

Not only do they identify a list of possible associates but also note their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information, it adds.

The documents provided no information on the results of the NSA surveillance. According to the NYT, the agency’s officials declined to say how many Americans have been caught up in the effort.

The NSA has denied it abuses its practice of vast data collection, which includes the private information of US citizens, with the agency’s spokeswoman saying that “all of the NSA’s work has a foreign intelligence purpose” and that “all data queries must include a foreign intelligence justification”.

In justifying the warrantless analysis of metadata on US soil, the spokeswoman referred to a 1979 Supreme Court ruling saying that Americans could have no expectation of privacy concerning what telephone numbers they called.

When asked whether the NSA collects Americans’ locations based on cell phone signals data, the agency’s director Keith B. Alexander told a Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday that the agency was not doing so under the Patriot Act but added that a fuller response would be classified.

While the agents are said to be allowed to analyze the metadata but not the contents of the calls or e-mails, experts argue that this information alone is enough to produce a portrait of a person based on his contacts, as well as to pick up some sensitive details of an individuals's private life.

“Metadata can be very revealing. Knowing things like the number someone just dialed or the location of the person’s cellphone is going to allow to assemble a picture of what someone is up to. It’s the digital equivalent of tailing a suspect,” Orin S. Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University, told the NYT.

The leaked documents, which are said to provide a rare window into what the NSA actually does with the information it gathers, and how it unlocks “as many secrets about individuals as possible,” are the latest revelations obtained via former CIA employee and NSA contractor, Edward Snowden.

In the U.S., Snowden is wanted on espionage charges for leaking classified documents that focused on massive electronic surveillance by the US government and its foreign allies which collaborated with the NSA.

Snowden was granted temporary asylum in Russia on August 1 after being stuck in the transit zone at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport for more than a month. He is now staying in an undisclosed location, with reports that he has done a little travel and already speaks some Russian.

Voice of Russia, RT
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_09_29/NSA-uses-metadata-to-create-complex-graphs-of-US-citizens-social-connections-for-foreign-intelligence-purposes-5302/

Israel: German Islamists helped in Kenya attack

Israel: German Islamists helped in Kenya attack

Published: 30 Sep 2013 10:35 CET | Print version

German Islamists are suspected of being involved in the Kenya shopping centre siege, according to Israeli intelligence service Mossad.

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Intelligence services in Germany are not, Focus news magazine reported, ruling out claims from Mossad that German convert Andreas 'Ahmed Khaled' Müller, among others, were involved in planning the Nairobi mall attack in which 72 people died.

Mossad believes that Müller had connections with the Somalian Al-Shabaab militant group behind the Westgate siege.

President of the federal office for defence Hans-Georg Maaßen told Focus that while Germany was not currently at direct risk, there was sentiment building against the west in Somalia and neighbouring countries.

He added that the BKA was concerned that German charities based over in west Africa could find themselves “the focus of Al-Shabaab.”

As for German-based Islamists, the BKA was “keeping a close eye on the extremist Somali scene,” said Maaßen. Suspected supporters or followers of Al-Shabaab were, he added, “under observation by the intelligence services.”

The Local/jcw

0 comments

White House petition calls for GOP to be branded ‘terrorist organization’

As the last hope of avoiding a government shutdown is fading away, the Republican's critics have produced a petition on the White House’s platform intended to blast the Republican approach to the imminent congressional standoff over Obamacare and government spending.

The petition filed over the weekend to the White House’s “We the People” platform features a response from J.D. of North Wales, Pa, to recent reports that the House Republicans might only be open to increasing the debt limit, if Democrats nod to a one-year delay of President Barack Obama's health care law, along with other highly divisive demands.

"Designate the Republican party a terrorist organization for repeatedly threatening the full faith & credit of the U.S.A. ... since repeatedly threatening to default on the full faith and credit of the United States over and over again every time you don't get what you want is essentially economic terrorism," the petition says, describing what the October shutdown is going to look like.

Another petition made a similar call, that is, to “arrest and prosecute the House GOP for treason".

Though there hasn’t been a lot of active signing of the petitions, no more than a few hundred signatures out of 100,000 are required to incite a response from the White House, still these documents are evidence of the tone being used to criticize the hardline Republican approach to the ceaseless debate over funding the government and avoiding an impending shutdown.

House Republicans have included anti-Obamacare riders several times in their versions of a short-term bill, keeping the government open past midnight on Tuesday. Though the Democratic-dominated Senate has agreed on the Republican spending levels in the bills, it was very clear that the anti-Obamacare measure is not going to make it through. On Monday, the Senate declined a bill which would have annulled the medical device tax and delayed for one year implementation of the Affordable Care Act to fund the government.

The Republicans though, headed by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), have said they wouldn't be willing to "risk the full faith and credit of the federal government," but Democrats have said that their repeated refusal to provide a "clean bill" without an anti-Obamacare measure is evidence they might be.

Voice of Russia, Huffington Post

US Congress, US Republican Party, US Democratic party, US government shutdown, US government shutdown: Congress deliberates, Politics

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Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/2013_10_01/White-House-petition-urges-to-designate-GOP-a-terrorist-organization-8137/

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143-year-old law puts fear in officials during shutdown

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Latest Stories

NSA uses metadata to plot complex graphs of US citizens’ social connections for foreign intelligence

The US National Security Agency has been exploiting US citizens' personal information drawn from its large collection of metadata to create complex graphs of social connections for foreign intelligence purposes, the latest Snowden leaks have revealed.

Israel: German Islamists helped in Kenya attack

White House petition calls for GOP to be branded ‘terrorist organization’

As the last hope of avoiding a government shutdown is fading away, the Republican's critics have produced a petition on the White House’s platform intended to blast the Republican approach to the imminent congressional standoff over Obamacare and government spending.

Duplication &
Cost Savings:

Fiscal Outlook
and the Debt: