DOD LOOKS TO 'LONG-RANGE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PLAN'

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

Right:  An Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refueling aircraft from the 909th Air Refueling Squadron refuels an Air Force E-8C Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft Jan. 29, 2013. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Tyler Prince.  

DoD Seeks Novel Ideas to Shape its Technological Future
By Cheryl Pellerin
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2015 – The Defense Department is seeking novel ideas to shape its future, and officials are looking to industry, small business, academia, start-ups, the public –- anyone, really –- to boost its ability to prevail against adversaries whose access to technology grows daily.

The program, called the Long-Range Research and Development Plan, or LRRDP, began with an Oct. 29 memo by DoD acquisition chief Frank Kendall.
The memo said the LRRDP will identify high-payoff enabling technology investments that could help shape future U.S. materiel investments and the trajectory of future competition for technical superiority. The plan will focus on technology that can be moved into development programs within the next five years.

Full and Immediate Support

“This effort is of the highest priority and requires full and immediate support from across the department,” Kendall wrote.

On Jan. 28, the department published a request for information, seeking to identify current and emerging technologies or projections of technology-enabled concepts that “could provide significant military advantage to the United States and its partners and allies in the 2030 timeframe.”

During a recent media roundtable here, LRRDP program lead Stephen P. Welby, deputy assistant secretary of defense for systems engineering, said the RFI deadline has twice been extended, and that more than 300 responses have come in.

“We have gotten some very talented folks replying to the RFI,” Welby said. Ideas are coming from small businesses, from traditional defense sources, and “some from surprising places we hadn't thought might respond,” Kendall said. “And that's exactly what we're hoping to get from this,” he added.

Defense Innovation Initiative

The LRRDP is part of the larger Defense Innovation Initiative, an effort to harness the brightest minds and cutting-edge technology to accelerate the way the department innovates and operates.

Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work is managing and integrating the initiative’s five technology areas, one of which is the LRRDP. In a summer meeting, Welby said, Work “introduced and drew out a historical analogy to where we are today.”

In 1973, the nation was moving out of the Vietnam War, where the military had been focused on counterinsurgency. Budgets were declining. And the Soviets, among other things, gradually had begun to build up their strategic nuclear forces, Work said during a January speech.

In the summer of 1973, with the dangers of nuclear escalation growing, what would later become the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, launched the first LRRDP program to give the president and the joint force better tools for responding to a Warsaw Pact attack, the deputy secretary said.

The group recommended going after conventional weapons with near-zero miss capability -- “a very simple idea that had profound implications throughout the entire defense program,” he added.

In 1977, the DoD leadership directed DARPA to integrate all of the promising military technologies into a system of systems for deep attack. The program, Assault Breaker, called for aircraft with light-area-sensor cueing and surface-to-surface ballistic missiles that could dispense a blanket of anti-armor submunitions.
Picking a Competitive Advantag
e

Assault Breaker demonstrated its capabilities in 1982 at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and Work said the Soviets were watching.

“The implications of that single demonstration … really caused them to pause,” he added.

Ultimately, Assault Breaker led to development of the Air Force’s 17 E-8 Joint Surveillance Target and Attack Radar System, or JSTARS, aircraft, its air-to-ground BLU-108 sensor-fuzed weapon with terminally guided submunitions, and the long-range, surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile System called ATACMS.

“We had picked a competitive advantage that we knew our adversary, the Soviets, could not duplicate and therefore injected uncertainty in their minds, changing their war-fighting calculus,” Work explained.

The joint force took over Assault Breaker, the deputy secretary said, “and we continued to build [the advanced capability] even in an era of declining budgets, starting in 1985.”

Demonstrating the Capability

U.S. forces demonstrated the capability, including that of the E-8C JSTARS side-looking airborne radar system with moving target indication, to the rest of the world in 1990 and 1991. This was during Operation Desert Storm, Work said, “when the Iraqi heavy formations built on the Soviet model were virtually reduced to an array of targets.”

Forty-two years after the plan’s inception, the second iteration of LRRDP is still accepting idea submissions, Welby said, noting that the LRRDP program page at the department’s Innovation Marketplace website features a conspicuously placed green box that says, “Share your ideas.”

Submissions should focus on technology-enabled capabilities that could to enter formal development in the next five to 10 years, the RFI says, offering military advantage during the 2025 to 2030 timeframe.

The LRRDP is looking for relatively mature technologies that can be applied in novel ways for a new kind of system capability, emerging technologies that can quickly be turned to new military capabilities, or technologies for nondefense applications that can offer new military capabilities.

Technology Priorities

Five technology priority areas include space, undersea technology, air dominance and strike, air and missile defense, and other technology-driven concepts.

When program officials find an idea interesting, one of five teams will be sent to speak with the submitting person or company, Welby said, adding that in mid-summer, the best ideas will be shared with Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
“The customer for this is the leadership of the department,” he said, “to help them think through the future and think differently about what the world's going to look like.”

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO UN POWER'S REMARKS ON 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF VOTING RIGHTS ACT

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
February 25, 2015
AS DELIVERED

Good afternoon and welcome. I am thrilled to see several of my colleagues from Croatia, Afghanistan, and France. This is an American issue that we are here to discuss, but with broad international ramifications, which is why, I’m delighted as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN to be able to share with you a few reflections and then introduce the panel, which is spectacular.

I also want to give a shout-out to a group of school-kids from Brooklyn, whom I had a chance to meet with, it is called the School for Global Citizenship, and their interests in voting rights issues, but their commitment also to extend human rights assistance internationally and so they are the next generation that can take this forward [inaudible].

The Mission – and this room within the Mission – was designed with a vision to host events like this one, with friends from around the diplomatic community and civil society. Coming together today to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act seems like a perfect use of this space and this ideal. After all, it was a people’s movement that finally moved American legislators to guarantee African-Americans the right to vote.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a seminal piece of legislation. It undid a more-than-90 year-old legal apparatus which stopped many African-Americans from voting – and it paved the way for greater participation and inclusion of African-Americans in this country’s process, to the great benefit of everyone. The story of the act – and its enactment – provides lessons to those of us working at the United Nations. We may be diplomats, but we should seize the spirit of this people’s movement to reinvigorate our work to defend human rights and dignity around the world.

And the spirit shines brightly in two of the civil rights leaders I’m honored to introduce here today. Wade Henderson is the president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund. He is known to many of you and is known all around the world, and is a tremendous leader on all human rights issues. Sherrilyn Ifill is an author and voting rights litigator and I think her contribution, particularly in light of some worrying contemporary events is going to be extremely valuable, along with Wade’s. To lead our discussion, we are fortunate to have the deputy editor on the Op-Ed/Sunday Review desk at The New York Times, Sewell Chan. Sewell is the guy everybody is extra nice to when they want to get their op-eds placed in The New York Times so they can influence public discourse, so everybody be nice to Sewell, especially you young people who I look forward to futures of opinion assertion.

In 2015 it may seem very strange that a federal Voting Rights Act was necessary in 1965. In the aftermath of the American Civil War in 1865, the U.S. Constitution was amended to abolish slavery and to extend the vote to all American citizens, regardless of race. 1865. And yet, the promise of political inclusion was denied through the creation of an entire system of state and local laws, primarily in the American South, where I went to high school, that effectively kept Blacks from voting and participating in one of the core activities of democratic citizenship.

Today, it is breathtaking to see the blatantly arbitrary ways African-Americans were excluded. Take the literacy test, which didn’t just assess whether a potential voter could read but rather set a standard that was always shifting according to the whims of the local registrar. Obscure civics and legal questions, math and logic puzzles – these were unexpected and rapid-fire tests given to African-Americans, creating an almost insurmountable challenge.

One test from Louisiana asked potential voters to “write the word ‘noise’ backwards and place a dot over what would be its second letter should it have been written forward.” Take poll taxes, which imposed an exorbitant fee on voters. Working class and poor voters simply couldn’t pay. Couldn’t pay to vote. Add to this the hostile registrars, the limited hours that excluded the working class, the police harassment of voters waiting in line, and the widespread public intimidation of African-Americans who dared register to vote. It is no wonder, then, that in Dallas County, Alabama, where Selma was located, more than half of the county’s residents were Black, but only 1% were registered before the law’s enactment.

Of course, while these injustices mainly affected African-Americans, America as a whole suffered. The entire democratic system is diminished when citizens cannot exercise their right to vote. As Reverend C.T. Vivian from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference said to law enforcement officials in Selma, Alabama, “This is not a local problem; you can’t keep anyone in the United States from voting without hurting the rights of all other citizens.”

Many Americans in the 1960s realized this. They lamented the unfilled promise of equality under the U.S. Constitution and, when change finally came, it was because of the people who demanded it. Change was forged by a network of brave activists, local leaders from groups like the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Dallas County Voters League. Their non-violent demonstrations, which culminated in the Selma-to-Montgomery March, shrewdly harnessed the power of media to tell the story of citizens redeeming their dignity and God-given rights in the face of a vicious system that beat men, women, and children and used dogs and tear gas to brutalize them. The power of their narrative jolted a nation, and it mobilized an even greater coalition, which in August 1965 finally got the House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and ultimately, the President of the United States, to enact the legislation.

The impact of the law was swift and almost immediately changed the parameters of political participation in the South. By 1969, the percentage of Blacks registered to vote had risen from 6 percent to around 60 percent, and 12,000 African-Americans were elected to public office. In this way, the Voting Rights Act moved the story of equality in the United States forward.

Now as we today mark National African-American History Month, American society is more equal and in many ways more inclusive than it was in 1965. But our work is clearly not finished, and there are Americans for whom the equality the law is supposed to provide is out of reach in practice. We continue to fight for them. And on the 50th anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery and the passage of the Voting Rights Act, we have to come together and defend this right, especially in the wake of the July 2013 mistaken Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 4 of this landmark civil rights law.

Now this is the very part of the law, and the panelists will discuss this, I am sure, the very part of the law that requires those parts of the country that have a history of voter suppression to run their practices through the federal government, for there to be a federal check on local practices to make sure that people really have the right to vote and that there is equality in this regard. This law, the Voting Rights Act that we are celebrating today is, as President Obama has said, a cornerstone of our democracy. Since the decision in July 2013, I want to underscore that Congress has done nothing to re-designate those counties and states that might require the kind of scrutiny that we know has been needed up until this point and what we are seeing is that states that used to need the pre-clearance of the federal government are taking advantage of the Supreme Court decision and they have passed new laws that are likely to make it harder for minorities or for people who are poor or disabled, to vote, through for example, requiring government-issued photo IDs to vote.

In this day and age, in the age of Apple computers and iPads, how is it that you could be making it harder and not easier to vote? It makes no sense, unless something else is going on. And so we need to join together, take advantage of this anniversary, take advantage of our learning of the history and our remembering of just how far we’ve come to come together, to rally, to press the Congress as President Obama did in his State of the Union address, to step in now and to make it very clear that we are not out of the woods that making equality real in 2015 is going to require that all of us be a part of the solution and looking to see what is actually happening in places that have a history of voter suppression and to ensure that there is mitigation that there is a federal check is a critical component of this.

So, we have real experts, not diplomats pretending to be experts, on the Voting Rights Act, who are here, we are honored that you are with us and thrilled that we have a crowd worthy of this discussion. And with that, Sewell and our wonderful panelists together. Thank you.

$17.9 MILLION IN EQUIPMENT AID EXPEDITED TO IRAQ

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Pentagon Expedites $17.9 Million in Equipment to Aid Iraqis
By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24, 2015 – The Defense Department has expedited $17.9 million in equipment and supplies –- some which have already been delivered –- to the Iraqi government, Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters today.

Warren provided a general update on equipment and supplies authorized for delivery to the Iraqis.

“This was a $17.9 million [Foreign Military Sales Program] case,” he said. “It was an expedited delivery, which took 22 days from the time of signature -- a letter of authorization -- until delivery. This is less than a quarter of the time it normally takes to execute these types of deliveries.”
Equipment and Supplies

Warren provided dates and quantities of supplies and equipment authorized, noting some have been delivered while the rest is slated for delivery.
On Feb. 15, he said, 232 Hellfire missiles were delivered, adding to the 1,572 Hellfires delivered in 2014, and 250 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles were delivered to the Iraqi government Jan. 4.

Along with that, Warren said, thousands of Kevlar helmets and body armor were delivered Jan. 22.

In addition, he said, 200 Harris vehicle-mounted radios will be shipped next month to equip those 250 MRAPs, noting the MRAPs were excess U.S. vehicles.
Additional deliveries are expected to happen this week, Warren said. “We expect 10,000 M-16 rifles, along with 10,000 M-68 close-combat optical red-dot sights [and] 23,000 magazines to be delivered,” he added.

ISIL on the Defensive

The department’s latest announcement comes on the heels of U.S. Central Command indicating the coalition military campaign is succeeding in putting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on the defensive.

While there have been setbacks, a Centcom official said Feb. 19, the coalition military campaign has succeeded in putting ISIL on the defensive, with the terrorist group losing territory in Iraq as well as the ability to govern and adequately regenerate forces.

“There is no organization in the world that can suffer those kinds of casualties and not have a tremendous impact on their ability to achieve their long-term aims,” the official said.

The Centcom official also said Iraqi forces have retaken at least 700 square kilometers of territory, but cautioned that the military campaign against ISIL will take time to defeat the terrorists.

SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS ON FY 2016 BUDGET TO HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
02/25/2015 12:42 PM EST
Advancing U.S. Interests in a Troubled World: The FY 2016 Foreign Affairs Budget
Testimony
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Testimony Before the House Foreign Affairs Committee
Washington, DC
February 25, 2015

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Engel, Ranking Member, all the members of this committee. To respect your time, I will try to summarize my comments. Mr. Chairman, I hope I can do it in five minutes. There’s a lot to talk about. And your questions will, needless to say, elicit an enormous amount of dialogue, which I really welcome. I can’t think of a moment where more is happening, more challenges exist, there’s more transformation taking place, some of it with great turmoil, a lot of it with enormous opportunity that doesn’t get daily discussion, but all of it with big choices for you, for us – you representing the American people, all of us in positions of major responsibility at this important time.

We rose to the occasion, obviously, and we’d like to extol it. We all talk about it. I did, certainly, as a senator. I do as Secretary of State. And that is the extraordinary contribution of the Greatest Generation and what they did to help us, and our leaders did, Republican and Democrat alike, who put us on a course to win the battle against tyranny and dictatorship and to win the battle for democracy and human rights and freedom for a lot of people. And no country on the face of this planet has expended as much blood, put as many people on the line, lost as much of our human treasure to offer other people an opportunity to embrace their future, not tell them what it has to be. It’s really a remarkable story.

And now we find ourselves at a moment where we have to make some similar kinds of choices, frankly. I don’t want to overblow it; I’m not trying to. But this is a big moment of transformation where there are literally hundreds of millions of people emerging on this planet, young people. Count the numbers of countries where the population is 65 percent under the age of 30, 60 percent 30 and under, 50 percent under the age of 21. I mean, it’s all over the place. And if they live in a place where there’s bad governance or corruption or tyranny, in this world where everybody knows how to be in touch with everybody else all the time, you have a clash of aspirations, a clash of possibilities and opportunities.

And to some degree, that’s what we’re seeing today. That certainly was the beginning of the Arab Spring, which is now being infused with a sectarianism and confusions of religious overtones and other things that make it much more complicated than anything that has preceded this. By the way, the Cold War was simple compared to this: bipolar, pretty straightforward conversations. Yeah, we had to make big commitments, but it wasn’t half as complicated in a context of dealing country to country and with tribes, with culture, with a lot of old history, and it’s a very different set of choices. In addition, that’s complicated by the fact that many other countries today are growing in their economic power, growing in their own sense of independence, and not as willing to just take at face value what a larger G7 or G20 country tells them or what some particular alliance dictates. So that’s what we’re facing.

And I heard the Chairman say we shouldn’t compromise the day-to-day operations of the Department, but let me say to you the day-to-day operations of the Department are not confined to making an embassy secure. We need to do that, but if that’s all we do, folks, we’re in trouble. We’re not going to be able to protect ourselves adequately against these challenges that we’re faced-- that we’ll talk about today.

In the United States, we get 1 percent of the entire budget of the United States of America. Everything we do abroad within the State Department and USAID is within that 1 percent – everything. All the businesses we try to help to marry to economic opportunities in a country, all the visas, the consulate work, the diplomacy, the coordination of DHS, FBI, ATF. I mean, all the efforts that we have to engage in to work with other countries’ intelligence organizations, so forth, to help do the diplomacy around that is less than 1 percent.

I guarantee you more than 50 percent of the history of this era is going to be written out of that 1 percent and the issues we confront in that 1 percent. And I ask you to think about that as you contemplate the budgets. Because we’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul and we’ve been stripping away our ability to help a country deal with those kids who may be ripe for becoming part of ISIL. We’ve been diminishing our capacity to be able to have the kind of impact we ought to be having in this more complicated world.

Now, I’m not going to go into all of the detail because I promised I’d summarize. But I believe the United States is leading extraordinarily on the basis of that 1 percent. We have led on ISIL, putting together a coalition for the first time in history that has five Arab nations engaged in military activity in another Arab country in the region against – Sunni against Sunni. I don’t want to turn this into that sectarian, but it’s an important part of what is happening. We are – we helped to lead in the effort to transition in Iraq a government that we could work with. Part of the problem in Iraq was the sectarianism that the former prime minister had embraced, which was dividing his nation and creating a military that was incompetent, and we saw that in the context of Mosul. So we wanted to make sure that we had a government that really represented people and was going to reform and move in a different direction. And we worked at it and we got it. We have it today. Is it perfect? No. But is it moving in the right direction? You bet it is.

In Afghanistan, we rescued a flawed election, brought together the parties, were able to negotiate to get a unified unity government, which has both of the presidential candidates working together to hold Afghanistan and define its future and create a – and negotiate a BSA that defines our future going forward, and give Afghanistan a chance to make good on the sacrifices of 14 years of our troops and our contributions and so forth.

On Ebola – we led that fight. President Obama made a brave decision to send 4,000 young American troops there in order to set up the structure so we had a capacity to be able to try to deal with it. One million deaths were predicted by last Christmas at the time that we did that. And not all the answers were there for questions that were real. But the President sent those people in, we have made the difference, and now there’s a huge reduction in the cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and we’re getting – not finished, but we’re getting to a place where you’re not seeing it on the nightly news every day and people aren’t living in fear here that they’re about to be infected.

On AIDS, we’re facing the first AIDS-free generation in history because of the work that we have done.

On the Ukraine, we’ve held together Europe and the United States in unity to put in place sanctions. The ruble is down 50 percent. There’s been $151 billion of capital flight from Russia. There’s been a very significant impact on day-to-day life, on food product availability. The economy is predicted in Russia to go into recession this year. And we are poised yet to do another round, potentially, depending on what happens with Minsk in these next few days.

On Iran, we’ve taken the risk of sitting down, of trying to figure out is there a diplomatic path to solve this problem. I can’t sit here today and tell you I know the answer to that, but I can tell you it’s worth trying before you go to more extreme measures that may result in asking young Americans yet again to put themselves in harm’s way.

We are pursuing the two most significant trade agreements of recent memory, the TPP in Asia Pacific and the TTIP in Europe, both of which represent about 40 percent of GDP of the world in order to have a race to the top, not a race to the bottom. And if we can achieve that, we will be achieving a major new structure with respect to trade rules on a global basis.

In Africa, we held the African Leaders Summit, an historic summit with more than 40 African leaders coming to Washington, out of which has come a series of events that will help, we hope, to meet our obligation to help transform Africa.

And finally, on climate – there are other things incidentally, I’m just skimming the surface of some of the most important – I know not everybody here is a believer in taking steps to deal with climate. I regret that. But the science keeps coming in stronger and stronger and stronger. On the front page of today’s newspapers are stories about an Alaskan village that’ll have to be given up because of what is happening with climate change. It is – there’s evidence of it everywhere in the world. And we cut a deal with China, improbable as that was a year ago – the biggest opponent of our efforts has now stood up and joined us because they see the problem and they need to respond to it. And so they’ve agreed to a target for lowering their reliance on fossil fuel and a target for alternative and renewable energy by a certain period of time, and we’ve set targets. And that’s encouraged other countries to start to come forward and try to take part in this effort.

So I will adamantly put forward the way in which this Administration is leading. I know not everybody agrees with every choice. Are there places where we need to do more? Yes, and we’ll talk about those, I’m sure, today. But we need to work together.

And I’ll end by saying that historically, that 1 percent has produced more than its monetary value precisely because your predecessors were willing to let foreign policy debate and fight become bipartisan, let politics stop at the water’s edge, and find what is in the common interest of our country. That’s what brings me here today. That’s why I’m so privileged to serve as Secretary of State at this difficult time, because I believe America is helping to define our way through some very difficult choices. And frankly – and last thing, this is counterintuitive but it’s true: Our citizens, our world today is actually, despite ISIL, despite the visible killings that you see and how horrific they are, we are actually living in a period of less daily threat to Americans and to people in the world than normally— less deaths, less violent deaths today than through the last century. And so even the concept of state war has changed in many people’s minds, and we’re seeing now more asymmetrical kinds of struggles.

So I would say to you that I see encouragement when I travel the world. I see people wanting to grow their economies. I see vast new numbers of middle-class people who are traveling. I see unbelievable embrace of new technologies. I see more democracy in places where it was non-existent or troubled – big changes in Sri Lanka and other countries. We can run the list. But I hope you will sense that it is not all doom and gloom that we are looking at. Tough issues? Yes. But enormous opportunities for transformation if we will do our job and continue to be steady and put on the table the resources necessary to take advantage of this moment of transformation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SECRETARY KERRY'S OPENING REMARKS BEFORE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN OPERATIONS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
FY2016 U.S. Department of State Budget Hearing
Testimony
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Opening Remarks Before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Foreign Operations
Washington, DC
February 24, 2015

Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you very, very much. It’s really a pleasure to be here with you today and with all my former colleagues and several of my non-former. But I deeply appreciate the opportunity to testify. And I welcome your chairmanship, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Leahy’s continued efforts on this committee. I have always found this committee has worked very hard to be bipartisan or apolitical and find the important middle ground for America, and I appreciate those efforts.

To respect your time, I’m going to summarize. The heart of my message, Mr. Chairman, is really pretty straightforward, and you spoke to it in your own opening. We do an awful lot on very little, and the simple reality is that America is leading all around the world. I’m not going to go through all the places where we are literally taking the lead and making things happen, whether it’s pushing back in parts of Asia against potentially aggressive behavior; or it’s Ebola, the coalition to deal with that; the ISIL coalition; Syria; Ukraine, Europe, sanctions; the effort to negotiate with Iran. I can run a long list.

The bottom line I want to make to all of you is we’re a great country, and we need to behave like a great country. And when it comes to the issue of sequestration, it’s kind of a public admission that the Congress is unwilling to or unable to make choices. Our job is to make choices, all of us. And the simple fact is we cannot lead, we cannot do what we need to do in the world, on the cheap. As this committee knows well, the funds that we devote to the entire range of foreign policy programming – everything from our counterterrorism to nonproliferation initiatives, to helping businesspeople and travelers be able to open doors, get their visas, move through rapidly, do business in various countries, all of which creates jobs here at home, may I add – all of that amounts to less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

And yet I make – it’s not an exaggeration to say that that 1 percent probably has an impact on 50 percent or more of the history that will be written about this era. So I invite members of this committee to work with me and my colleagues to shape that history in ways that will advance our nation’s interests and uphold the values that our citizens represent. And that is really what a budget is – it is a statement of your priorities and of your values.

Now, one place to begin is with our efforts to mobilize countries everywhere to counter violent terrorism. Last week here in Washington, but every day around the globe, literally, we are preparing and acting to confront this challenge, and it goes well beyond ISIL or Daesh, although Daesh obviously is a central part of it.

Since September, we’ve put together a coalition of more than 60 countries with 5 Arab nations joining us in the efforts in Syria today. We’ve launched some 2,500 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. And whenever we have combined our air support with able partners on the ground, the terrorists have literally been routed. We’ve helped the Iraqis to take back territory. Approximately 30 percent of the territory that had been gained by ISIL has now been restored to Iraqi hands, and we are training the Iraqis and preparing for the moment where they can do more. Thousands of ISIL-Daesh leaders have been taken off the battlefield. We’re undertaking a global effort to restrict their revenues, curb the recruitment of foreign fighters. And we’re engaged in a round-the-clock campaign to rebut the terrorist messaging on social media and on other outlets.

Now, we are in the early stages of what is going to be a multi-year effort, but the momentum that ISIL had built up last fall, last summer, has dissipated. A key supply line has been completely severed. ISIL militants can no longer maneuver out in the open the way they did before. Convoys can’t move and they can’t talk to each other the way they used to.

Throughout, the coalition has been working closely with Iraq. And obviously – we’ve said from day one: President Obama made the right choice in saying that he was going to calibrate the early bombing in order to try to make certain that we had a government transition in Iraq that gave us a government we could work with. And frankly, with pretty effective diplomacy on the ground – with our ambassador, our assistant secretary, the Vice President, others – we were able to help the Iraqis themselves to make that transition. And now we have an inclusive government backed by professional security forces that are enjoying the full support of its people.

So we’re looking to you for the resources to help us be able to continue to bring Sunni tribal leaders more fully into this process. It’s also important that Iraqis speak against Daesh with one voice. And it’s vital that Americans and the rest of our partners do so as well. The leaders of Daesh have to understand that they’re not going to divide us and they’re not going to beat us. Earlier this month, the President transmitted to Congress a draft Authorization for Use of Military Force. It reflects our views, but frankly, it profited greatly from the testimony that I gave the Foreign Relations Committee last December and the discussions we had on the Hill.

Mr. Chairman, bringing people together and finding answers to these tough challenges is what we do in our country, I think pretty darn well. And if we get caught trying to make a difference in many of these places, then we’re living up to what the world expects from us.

In Europe, we’ve been supporting Ukraine. We can go into that in some greater detail. I won’t tie it all up now except to say that we’re working also on the bilateral economic reforms necessary and through the IMF. And while the situation in the east obviously still remains very tricky, very tenuous, even grim, the ultimate outcome is undecided and Ukrainians are coming together to rebuild their own democracy. And Europe is standing firm, and Russia is paying a very significant price.

We are focused, obviously, on Iran. The President has made clear – I want to – I can’t state this more firmly: The policy is Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. And anybody running around right now jumping in to say, “Well, we don’t like the deal,” or this or that, doesn’t know what the deal is. There is no deal yet. And I caution people to wait and see what these negotiations produce. Since 2013, we have been testing whether or not we can achieve that goal diplomatically. I don’t know yet. But it’s the most effective way to solve a problem, and we will prove that over the course of these next weeks and months. The P5+1 talks have made inroads since the Joint Plan of Action. We’ve halted the progress of Tehran’s nuclear program, we’ve gained unprecedented insight into it, and we expect to know soon whether or not Iran is willing to put together an acceptable and verifiable plan.

As you know, in December, President Obama announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba. Last month, Assistant Secretary of State Jacobson went to the island for historic meetings with the government. The next meeting will take place here on Friday. We’ll exclusively be talking about the road to the diplomatic process.

But she conveyed the message echoed by many of you that America’s support for democratic reforms, human rights, internet freedom, and the release of political prisoners is unequivocal. And the change that we are making, we believe, actually assists the United States to be able to promote the democracy and the rights that we want for the people of Cuba. It will also make it harder for those who want to close the door to blame America for what is happening there, and we believe, in the end, can help create accountability for the hardships that those folks live under.

So Mr. Chairman, much has happened since my last budget testimony. For example, in the wake of a fractious election, we have helped Afghanistan’s new unity government to come together to build on the past economic and social progress and take full responsibility for the security of its citizens. I was intimately involved in both negotiating the BSA and this transition. And I can tell you there is a very different process of governance now taking hold in Kabul in Afghanistan.

In addition, we led a successful international effort that eliminated Syria’s declared stockpile of chemical weapons, placing those weapons beyond the reach of both government forces and terrorists. And I ask you just to stop and think: If we hadn’t done that – there were many people saying all you have to do is drop a bomb or two. Well, a bomb or two would not have gotten the weapons out. Diplomacy got the weapons out. And thank God they’re out, because if they weren’t, ISIS, which controls a significant portion of Syria, would have access to them.

So we’ve been modernizing our alliances in the Asia Pacific, maintaining our steadfast support for the denuclearized Korean Peninsula, we’re pursuing ambitious trade agreements in Europe and Asia, and last August, as you know, President Obama hosted an historic summit with African leaders. Especially we’re moving forward in the areas of food security, youth leadership, and the economic participation of women. We’ve supported peace operations by the UN and African Union to save civilian lives. And our former colleague Russ Feingold did an outstanding job of serving as a special envoy to the Great Lakes region and helping to negotiate an end to the violence with M23 and a process for the disarmament which we are now working on enforcing.

We have PEPFAR, which you mentioned, Mr. Chairman. With congressional support, we’ve been able to further reduce HIV infections, create an AIDS-free generation; that’s what we’re on the cusp of. And there are many other challenges, obviously, on that continent. We’ve also been leading on the environment, on the oceans and marine sanctuaries, promoting democracy and good governance, supporting human rights and religious liberty.

And I’d just close by saying to you, Mr. Chairman, Dean Acheson served as Secretary of State in 1949-1953 in the shadow of World War II. And he wrote that the problems that bedevil American foreign policy are not like headaches that can be cured by taking an aspirin and getting a good night’s sleep. He wrote, “All our lives, the danger, the uncertainty, the need for alertness, for effort, for discipline, will be upon us.”

It is true today, never more so in many ways. Those words remind us that we long ago entered an era of ever-present danger. And the test of our leadership has never been to completely be able to eliminate those risks because that’s just probably not possible. The test has been whether we can manage them decisively over time in ways that reduce the peril and strengthen the forces of democracy, humanity, justice, law, human rights. And that is precisely the task that confronts us today, and I believe that once again, the United States of America is answering that call.

And I want to express our gratitude to the young men and women in uniform around the world who bear an enormous amount of this burden of helping us to do that; also to the average Americans who contribute to civil society; the work of our development professionals who put themselves at risk; to journalists who have lost lives covering these challenges; and also to you, the members of Congress who travel, who learn about these countries, who set the international gold standard, frankly, for meeting with our partners overseas and thinking constantly about how we best harness our resources to address the world’s problem.

So like Secretary Acheson, we’ve had our share of headaches, and this is an explosive moment in the world. But the transition that’s taking place is really a emergence, really, of people from a kind of darkness, a recognition that we’re living in a new modern global world where everybody’s in touch with everybody all of the time, that raises the possibilities and also raises the stakes. And it obviously pushes back against culture, against learning, against people’s beliefs. So we’re in an era of uncertainty, but I’ll tell you this: One thing remains absolutely sure. This Administration, the United States, I’m convinced this Congress, are absolutely prepared to answer the call.

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I’d be delighted to answer any questions.

SEC CHARGES GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER WITH VIOLATING FOREIGN CORRUPT PRACTICES ACT

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
02/24/2015 11:15 AM EST

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) when its subsidiaries paid bribes to land tire sales in Kenya and Angola.
Goodyear agreed to pay more than $16 million to settle the SEC’s charges.    

According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding, Goodyear failed to prevent or detect more than $3.2 million in bribes during a four-year period due to inadequate FCPA compliance controls at its subsidiaries in sub-Saharan Africa.  Bribes were generally paid in cash to employees of private companies or government-owned entities as well as other local authorities such as police or city council officials.  The improper payments were falsely recorded as legitimate business expenses in the books and records of the subsidiaries, which were consolidated into Goodyear’s books and records.

“Public companies must keep accurate accounting records, and Goodyear’s lax compliance controls enabled a routine of corrupt payments by African subsidiaries that were hidden in their books,” said Scott W. Friestad, Associate Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division.  “This settlement ensures that Goodyear must forfeit all of the illicit profits from business obtained through bribes to foreign officials as well as employees at commercial companies in Angola and Kenya.”

The SEC’s order finds that Goodyear’s subsidiary in Kenya bribed employees of the Kenya Ports Authority, Armed Forces Canteen Organization, Nzoia Sugar Company, Kenyan Air Force, Ministry of Roads, Ministry of State for Defense, East African Portland Cement Co., and Telkom Kenya Ltd.  Goodyear’s subsidiary in Angola bribed employees of the Catoca Diamond Mine, which is owned by a consortium of mining interests including Angola’s national mining company Endiama E.P. and Russian mining company ALROSA.  Others bribed in Angola worked at UNICARGAS, Engevia Construction and Public Works, Electric Company of Luanda, National Service of Alfadega, and Sonangol.

The SEC’s order finds that Goodyear violated the books and records and internal control provisions of the federal securities laws: Sections 13(b)(2)(A) and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  Goodyear neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings.  The settlement reflects the company’s self-reporting, prompt remedial acts, and significant cooperation with the SEC’s investigation.  Goodyear must pay disgorgement of $14,122,525 – which comprises the company’s illicit profits in Kenya and Angola – plus prejudgment interest of $2,105,540.  Goodyear also must report its FCPA remediation efforts to the SEC for a three-year period.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Devon A. Brown and Brian T. Fitzsimons, and the case was supervised by Brian O. Quinn.  The SEC thanks the Department of Justice’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio.

NSC SPOKESPERSON'S REMARKS ON ISIL ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE
February 25, 2015
Statement by NSC Spokesperson Bernadette Meehan on Recent ISIL Attacks

The United States strongly condemns ISIL’s recent attacks on Assyrian Christian villages in northeastern Syria, including the burning of homes and churches, the displacement of thousands, and the abduction of a large number of Syrian Christian civilians, among them women, children, and the elderly.

This is but the latest round of atrocities perpetrated by ISIL against the innocent people of the region.  Along with the targeting of minority and religious groups, in recent days ISIL reportedly took captive over 100 Iraqi Sunni tribespeople, including children, near the city of Tikrit.  ISIL has also caged and paraded Kurdish Iraqi prisoners, displaying its trademark brutality and disregard for human dignity.

The international community stands united and undeterred in its resolve to bring an end to ISIL’s depravity.  ISIL seeks to control people through fear and oppression, but ultimately ISIL and all that it represents will fail due to the collective strength, determination, and unity of all those who stand against it.  Along with our coalition partners, and on behalf of all those persecuted by this terrorist organization, the United States will continue to lead the fight to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL.  

2/24/15: WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING

NO CHARGES FILED FOLLOWING FEDERAL INVESTIGATION OF TRAVON MARTIN CASE

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Federal Officials Close Investigation Into Death of Trayvon Martin

The Justice Department announced today that the independent federal investigation found insufficient evidence to pursue federal criminal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida.  Prosecutors from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, officials from the FBI, and the Justice Department’s Community Relations Service met today with Martin’s family and their representatives to inform them of the findings of the investigation and the decision.

“The death of Trayvon Martin was a devastating tragedy.  It shook an entire community, drew the attention of millions across the nation, and sparked a painful but necessary dialogue throughout the country,” said Attorney General Eric Holder.  “Though a comprehensive investigation found that the high standard for a federal hate crime prosecution cannot be met under the circumstances here, this young man’s premature death necessitates that we continue the dialogue and be unafraid of confronting the issues and tensions his passing brought to the surface.  We, as a nation, must take concrete steps to ensure that such incidents do not occur in the future.”

Following the shooting, a team of some of the department’s most experienced civil rights prosecutors and FBI agents conducted a comprehensive, independent investigation of the events of Feb. 26, 2012.  The federal investigation was opened and conducted separately from the state of Florida’s investigation of the shooting under local laws.  Once the state initiated the second-degree murder prosecution, federal investigators began monitoring the state’s case and halted active investigation in order not to interfere with the state’s trial.  Federal investigators provided reports of interviews and other evidence they obtained to the state’s prosecution team.

Shortly after Zimmerman’s acquittal in state court on July 13, 2013, federal investigators resumed active investigation.  Federal investigators reviewed all of the material and evidence generated by the state of Florida in connection with its investigation and prosecution of Zimmerman, including witness statements, crime scene evidence, cell phone data, ballistics reports, reconstruction analysis, medical and autopsy reports, depositions, and the trial record.  Federal investigators also independently conducted 75 witness interviews and obtained and reviewed the contents of relevant electronic devices.  The investigation included an examination of police reports and additional evidence that was generated related to encounters Zimmerman has had with law enforcement in Florida since the state trial acquittal.  In addition, federal authorities retained an independent biomechanical expert who assessed Zimmerman’s descriptions of the struggle and the shooting.                      

The federal investigation sought to determine whether the evidence of the events that led to Martin’s death were sufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman’s actions violated the federal criminal civil rights statutes, specifically Section 3631 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code or Section 249 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, as well as other relevant federal criminal statutes.  Section 3631 criminalizes willfully using force or threat of force to interfere with a person’s federally protected housing rights on account of that person’s race or color.  Section 249 criminalizes willfully causing bodily injury to a person because of that person’s actual or perceived race.  Courts define “willfully” to require proof that a defendant knew his acts were unlawful, and committed those acts in open defiance of the law.  It is one of the highest standards of intent imposed by law.

The federal investigation examined whether Zimmerman violated civil rights statutes at any point during his interaction with Martin, from their initial encounter through the fatal shooting.  This included investigating whether there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman violated Section 3631 by approaching Martin in a threatening manner before the fatal shooting because of Martin’s race and because he was using the residential neighborhood.  Investigators also looked at whether there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman violated Section 3631 or Section 249, by using force against Martin either during their struggle or when shooting Martin, because of Martin’s race.  

“Although the department has determined that this matter cannot be prosecuted federally, it is important to remember that this incident resulted in the tragic loss of a teenager’s life,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta of the Civil Rights Division.  “Our decision not to pursue federal charges does not condone the shooting that resulted in the death of Trayvon Martin and is based solely on the high legal standard applicable to these cases.”

After a thorough and independent investigation into the facts surrounding the shooting, federal investigators determined that there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt a violation of these statutes.  Accordingly, the investigation into this incident has been closed.  This decision is limited strictly to the department’s inability to meet the high legal standard required to prosecute the case under the federal civil rights statutes; it does not reflect an assessment of any other aspect of the shooting.

The Justice Department is committed to investigations of allegations of bias-motivated violence and will continue to devote the resources required to ensure that allegations of civil rights violations are fully and completely investigated.  The department aggressively prosecutes criminal civil rights violations whenever there is sufficient evidence to do so.

PRESIDENT OBAMA MEETS WITH THE AMIR OF QATAR

NASA VIDEO: U.S. SPACE STATION CREW MEMBERS BEGIN SPACEWALK TRILOGY TO PREPARE FOR FOR COMMERCIAL VEHICLES

REMARKS ON UKRAINE BY AMBASSADOR PRESSMAN

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Ambassador David Pressman
Alternate Representative to the UN for Special Political Affairs
New York, NY
February 24, 2015
AS DELIVERED

Thank you, Mr. President. I would like to welcome the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Minister Dacic, to the Security Council and thank you for your briefing on OSCE activities under Serbia’s leadership. The partnership between the OSCE and the United Nations is critically important and we welcome the opportunity to hear about the OSCE's priorities.

Mr. President, the OSCE has taken on a very difficult and very important set of responsibilities in Ukraine, and we strongly endorse the Chairman-in-Office’s continued focus on brokering peace in Ukraine and serving as an impartial observer to the September 2014 agreements and February 2015 implementation package signed in Minsk. Of course, OSCE engagement and focus cannot alone turn commitments on the many papers that have been signed in Minsk into tangible realities on the ground, though the OSCE can uniquely shed light on those who undermine the path to peace. So it should come as no surprise that – in addition to repeated attacks on Ukrainian positions well past the agreed line of contact, repeated failure to withdraw foreign fighters and military equipment, and repeated failure to pull back heavy weaponry – Russian-backed separatists have also repeatedly frustrated the access of OSCE observers to the very places they have pledged to ensure such access.

This must end. It is imperative that OSCE observers be allowed to operate safely and be granted unfettered access to all areas in order to effectively monitor the terms of the ceasefire and the subsequent withdrawal of heavy weaponry, foreign troops, and mercenaries in accordance with the Minsk agreements and Security Council Resolution 2202, which we just adopted last week.

Under the terms of the Minsk Memorandum, OSCE observers are supposed to be allowed to monitor and verify the ceasefire, monitor and verify security zones in the border regions of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Under the terms of the Minsk Protocol, OSCE observers are supposed to be allowed to monitor the ceasefire, monitor the withdrawal of heavy weapons, and monitor the withdrawal of all foreign militarized formations, military equipment, militants and mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine. Under the terms of the Minsk Implementation Package, OSCE observers are supposed to facilitate the withdrawal of heavy weapons and monitor and verify the ceasefire regime and withdrawal of heavy weapons, from day one.

And, yet, six months after the signing of the Minsk Memorandum and Protocol and almost two weeks after the signing of the Minsk Implementation Package, OSCE observers have yet to receive full access from the separatists to all areas to monitor and verify the ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons and foreign fighters, or security along the border.

Even today, after laying ruthless and deadly siege to the city of Debaltseve last week, approximately 30 to 40 kilometers beyond lines established by the September Minsk Agreements, separatists have yet to allow the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission unrestricted and unfettered access to that city to observe the situation on the ground. So if we are serious about improving cooperation between regional organizations and the United Nations, let’s start with this: Let’s recognize that the work of the OSCE is critical to making the agreed ceasefire and any effort at de-escalation stick, as agreed by all 57 OSCE participating States. And let’s take whatever action is necessary to ensure that all actors uphold their commitment to provide unfettered access to the OSCE in eastern Ukraine, and that all parties respect the neutrality of its mission and its monitors.

Protecting their access is important because the reports of the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine have been a key source for timely and impartial information on the situation in the Donbas area, and notably, on incidents like the downing of the MH17 plane; the appearance of weapons, troops, and support flowing from Russia into Ukraine; and the shelling of civilian targets in eastern Ukraine.

Mr. Chairman, we commend the OSCE’s efforts thus far and encourage your continued dedication to monitoring the ceasefire and ensuring all commitments made in Minsk are upheld, despite the very difficult conditions in which the mission works. You have the full backing of the United States and with the adoption of Resolution 2202, the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council to implement the Minsk Agreements.

Mr. President, the United States strongly endorses the Chairman-in-Office’s focus on bolstering OSCE field missions and independent institutions, like the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the High Commissioner for National Minorities, and the Representative on Freedom of the Media. The OSCE’s field missions contribute to our collective respect for human rights, and the institutionalization of rule of law.

We also welcome the passage by the OSCE Ministerial Council in December of 2014 of two decisions on Countering the Phenomenon of Foreign Fighters and Countering Kidnapping for Ransom. We support your efforts as Chairperson-in-Office to encourage implementation of these important decisions and to continue the work of OSCE field missions in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Balkans on counterterrorism issues, including countering violent extremism. We welcome more OSCE awareness-raising and capacity building efforts, which promote a multi-dimensional approach to countering violent extremism, and we encourage collaboration amongst stakeholders, particularly in the areas of youth/civil society, gender, community-policing, and human rights compliant approaches to addressing terrorism and violent extremism. We also thank the Chairman-in-Office for planning to host a regional “expert-level” summit in June to follow-up on all of these efforts.

Mr. President, lastly but importantly, in recent months, we have seen what should be an alarming display of anti-Semitism in Europe. From the shootings at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, to the horrific anti-Semitic attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, to the recent wide scale desecration of a Jewish cemetery. Just as anti-Semitism in Europe is rising, so too, must our will to combat it and defeat it. For any organization that has a role in the maintenance of security and peace, it must also confront the kind of hate that undermines both – and anti-Semitism, as history has shown time and time again, is certainly that. As such, it is all the more important that the OSCE has undertaken the important work that it has to address anti-Semitism and intolerance, including its Declaration to Enhance Efforts to Combat Anti-Semitism adopted at the Basel Ministerial as a follow-up to the commemoration in November of the 10th anniversary of the OSCE Anti-Semitism Conference in Berlin. And yet, despite all that has been unfolding across Europe, at this 10-year anniversary meeting of the historic inaugural session, a third fewer countries showed up at the 2014 conference.

Of course, meetings and declarations will never alone crush hate, but they are important to focus our collective efforts, galvanize our collective will, and force our collective action.

Mr. Chair, the United States urges you to continue the OSCE’s critical work on this issue and we encourage OSCE participating States to help uphold the commitments enshrined in the Declaration.

The United States, as an active member of the OSCE, remains fully committed to the important work of the organization. A strong OSCE is a good partner for the United Nations, and it is a good partner in our cause of championing fairness, security, justice, and peace.

Thank you, Mr. President.

DEFENSE SECRETARY CARTER MAKES REMARKS TO TROOPS AT CAMP ARIFJAN, KUWAIT

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

Right:  U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter holds a press conference after meeting with senior commanders attending a regional security conference on Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, Feb. 23, 2015. During the meeting, Carter and other defense leaders discussed strategies for dealing with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, and other regional threats to partner and ally nations. DoD photo by Glenn Fawcett.  

Defeating ISIL Takes Diplomatic, Military Effort, Carter Says
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2015 – Dealing a lasting defeat to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant will require “a combined diplomatic and military effort,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters today at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, after he concluded a conference there with ambassadors and senior U.S. and regional military leaders.

Earlier in the day during a troop talk at Camp Arifjan, Carter said he convened the conference to “begin to make my own assessment of the campaign to counter ISIL.”

Carter thanked the conference participants, noting that “many traveled a significant distance on short notice to be here, and I sincerely appreciate it.”
Wide-ranging Discussion

He added, “We had an incisive, candid, wide-ranging discussion.”

There were no briefings during the conference, said Carter, noting it featured participants’ sharing “of experience and ideas and expertise, and it made me very proud of the American team here in this region working on this problem of ISIL.”

Conference participants reflected on the “seriousness and the complexity of the threat posed by ISIL, especially in an interconnected and networked world,” the secretary said.

“Lasting defeat of this brutal group can and will be accomplished,” he said. “But I learned some things that we'll need to guide our effort to do so.
“First, doing so, that is achieving the lasting defeat of ISIL, will require a combined diplomatic and military effort,” Carter continued. “That was abundantly confirmed by our discussion, and was affirmed or rather affirms the bringing together of this unique grouping of political and military leaders.”

Second, although he’s cognizant “of the great strength of the coalition the United States has assembled and leads in this struggle,” Carter said there’s a need “to leverage further the individual contributions of each.”

Third, he added, while the center of gravity of the anti-ISIL campaign is in Iraq and Syria, “it has ramifications in other regions of the world that need to be taken into account also in our approach.”

Fourth, ISIL's “use of social media will be pressing us to be more creative in combating it in the information dimension as well as the physical dimension,” Carter said.

The secretary also said that discussion among conference participants indicated to him that ISIL “is hardly invincible.”

Anti-ISIL Efforts ‘Having Some Important Impacts’

Coalition anti-ISIL efforts to date “have already been having some important impacts,” Carter said.

He added, “Our global coalition is up to the task, and so is American leadership, which has shone through -- throughout the course of this campaign.”

Carter described today’s conference as “very productive and very valuable, and you should expect to see more consultations like this by me in the future, convening senior leaders from across our government and sometimes experts from outside of it to ensure that our nation's defense is as dynamic as the challenges before it.”

At the conclusion of his remarks, Carter took questions from the press. One reporter asked him about the importance of a political-military balance in the fight against ISIL.

Political-Military Dimensions ‘Closely Interconnected’

Carter acknowledged that the anti-ISIL campaign in Syria does have both political and military dimensions.

“They're closely interconnected,” the secretary said. “We had an opportunity to review today the train and equip effort that is beginning in Syria, but I need to remind you and very much in the spirit of your question that -- and as the discussion certainly indicated there, our campaign in Syria, like our campaign in Iraq, has an important political dimension to it. And we discussed that also: they're both important, they're both essential, both the political and the military dimension.”

Another reporter asked Carter if there would be any fundamental changes to the anti-ISIL strategy.

The secretary replied that the coalition recognizes the need to employ a combined political and military effort against ISIL.

“I think that's crucial, and I think that's understood by all, and it's reflected in what we're trying to do,” Carter explained. “I think that we have clearly in focus the idea that this can't be a purely American thing, that it truly is a coalition effort and needs to be a coalition effort to succeed. I think it was clear to us that we can't neatly partition it geographically, that it has global evocations.”

Conference participants’ discussions “reinforced the idea of the need to stitch all of the different aspects of this together, and that the leaders that I met with today are to a remarkable degree doing that,” Carter said.

‘Working Closely Together’

He added, “And this bringing them together was a further effort to work across geographies and work across functions to make sure that we are in fact all working closely together. And to a large extent, these folks have been doing that already. But I think today's meeting reinforced that and gave them yet [another] opportunity to do that, and me to do that with them.”

Carter was also asked about his confidence level of building an anti-ISIL force. The secretary responded that providing good military training to people from other lands is a core skill of the U.S. military.

“It's become a skill of many of our coalition partners, knowing how to train others, how to work with and through others, how to enable and use U.S. capabilities to enable the capabilities of others and to make sure that –… we conduct all these activities in a way that's consistent with American values,” the secretary said. “We're good at all that. We've been doing that in many contexts for quite awhile.”

Providing training is “one of the key lessons that we learned in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Carter said. “It's one of the key skills we honed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I don't think there's any military that does it better.”

TWO MEN RECEIVE 25-YEAR PRISON SENTENCE FOR PROVIDING MATERIAL SUPPORT TO TERRORISTS

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Monday, February 23, 2015
Two Men Who Provided Material Support to Terrorists and Plotted to Kill American Targets in Afghanistan Receive 25-Year Prison Terms

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, U.S Attorney Stephanie Yonekura of the Central District of California and Assistant Director in Charge David Bowdich of the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office announced today that two men with ties to the Inland Empire region of California were each sentenced today to 300 months in federal prison for participating in plots to provide material support to terrorists and to kill American personnel.

The two men sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips are Sohiel Omar Kabir, 37, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Afghanistan and who until late 2011, resided in Pomona, California; and Ralph Deleon, 26, of Ontario, a lawful permanent resident and citizen of the Philippines.

Last summer, Kabir and Deleon were convicted by a federal jury for their role in a plot to travel overseas to fight against U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere.  Specifically, the jury convicted Kabir and Deleon of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder United States military and government personnel.  The jury also found Kabir guilty of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, namely Al-Qa’ida, and conspiring to receive military-type training from Al-Qa’ida.  In addition, the jury convicted defendant Deleon of conspiring to murder, maim, or kindap overseas.        

Two other defendants who were indicted in the case in 2012 – Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales and Arifeen David Gojali – previously pleaded guilty and are scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Phillips on March 16, 2015.

“This case demonstrates the need for vigilance and swift action to counter the false allure of violent extremism,” said U.S. Attorney Yonekura.  “When confronted with young Americans who succumbed to the empty promises of violent extremism and sought to assist a terrorist group in killing American soldiers abroad, law enforcement acted swiftly to eliminate the threat.”

“The defendants betrayed the citizens of the United States by supporting terror and conspiring to murder military members serving overseas” said Assistant Director in Charge Bowdich.  “The lengthy prison sentences handed to Mr. Kabir and Mr. DeLeon should send a clear message to those who support terror groups that the FBI and our partners are committed to preventing deadly plots hatched either at home or abroad targeting the United States.”

The evidence presented during last year’s trial showed Kabir introduced Deleon and Santana to radical Islamic ideology in 2010.  Kabir left the United States in the final days of 2011, arriving in Afghanistan in July 2012.  While in Afghanistan, Kabir continued to communicate with Deleon and others, encouraging them to join him in Afghanistan. Kabir told the group that he had contacts with terrorist organizations and that, when they arrived, he and the group would join “the Students” – referring to the Taliban – and later “the Professors” – referring to Al-Qa’ida.

Deleon, Kabir, and others involved in the plot were heavily influenced by the doctrine of now-deceased Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula spokesman Anwar Al-Awlaki and other advocates of violent jihad, whose teachings they frequently invoked during their planning and preparation in this case.

In September 2012, Deleon recruited Gojali to join the plot to travel overseas to engage in violent jihad.  As part of their planning and preparation, Deleon led Santana and Gojali in training activities in southern California, including participating in paintball activities and traveling to firearms ranges to fire AK-47s and other assault weapons, which they expected to use in future fighting.

The men made plans to rejoin Kabir, who had relocated to Kabul, Afghanistan.  In effort to avoid detection by law enforcement, Deleon and the others planned to cross the border into Mexico by land and from there to travel to the Middle East by air.  In November 2012, Deleon purchased airline tickets for the group.  On Nov. 16, 2012, the FBI arrested Deleon, Santana, and Gojali as they departed a Chino apartment in a car driven by one of Deleon’s associates intending to drive to Mexico.  Kabir was taken into custody by American military personnel in Afghanistan.

The investigation into this terrorism scheme was conducted by the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Riverside, California.  The Riverside JTTF is comprised of members from the following agencies: Riverside County Sheriff’s Office; Riverside Police Department; San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department; Beaumont Police Department; Ontario Police Department; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations; the U.S. Attorney’s Office; and the FBI.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Allen W. Chiu, Christopher D. Grigg and Susan J. DeWitt of the Central District of California, and Trial Attorneys Annamartine Salick and Josh Parecki of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

2 DOCTORS AND SPOUSES TO PAY $1.3 MILLION TO SETTLE ALLEGATIONS OF HEALTH CARE FRAUD

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Monday, February 23, 2015

Two Florida Couples Agree to Pay $1.13 Million to Resolve Allegations that They Accepted Kickbacks in Exchange for Home Health Care Referrals
Two South Florida medical doctors and their wives have agreed to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act when their wives accepted sham marketer salaries in exchange for their husbands’ referrals to a home health care company called A Plus Home Health Care Inc., the Justice Department announced today.  Under the settlements, Dr. Alan and Lynn Buhler will pay to the United States $1.047 million and Dr. Craig and Cynthia Prokos will pay $90,000.  Dr. Buhler practices in Plantation, Florida, and Dr. Prokos practices in Jupiter, Florida.

“Kickbacks can corrupt the judgment of physicians and cause them to make decisions for their own financial benefit rather than for the benefit of their patients,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Joyce R. Branda of the Justice Department’s Civil Division.  “We will not tolerate these conflicts of interest where Medicare patients and dollars are concerned.”

“The settlement announced today is another example of the Justice Department’s unrelenting efforts to hold accountable those who engage in kickback schemes,” said U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida.  “Health care providers should generate business by offering their patients superior care.  Financial relationships that put profits over patients undermine the quality and care given to patients and ultimately, the integrity of our public health care program upon which millions of Americans depend.”

The United States alleged that, beginning in 2006, A Plus and its owner, Tracy Nemerofsky, engaged in a scheme to increase Medicare referrals in the heavily saturated home health care market in South Florida.  Specifically, the United States alleged that A Plus paid spouses of referring physicians for sham marketing positions in order to induce patient referrals.  Among the spouses allegedly paid by A Plus as part of this scheme were Lynn Buhler and Cynthia Prokos.  The United States alleged that the spouses were required to perform few, if any, of the job duties they were allegedly hired for and instead, the spouses’ salaries were intended as an inducement for the husband physicians to refer their Medicare patients to A Plus.  The United States also alleged that Alan Buhler received medical director payments as part of A Plus’s scheme to obtain his referrals and he attempted to hide those payments from the United States.

The United States previously settled with A Plus, Tracy Nemerofsky and five other couples that allegedly accepted payments from A Plus.

The settlements announced today resolve allegations that were brought by William Guthrie, a former director of development at A Plus, under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act, which permit private parties to sue on behalf of the United States for the submission of false claims and to receive a share of any recovery.  On Jan. 6, Judge William P. Dimitrouleas dismissed Mr. Guthrie’s suit without prejudice to the United States’ right to proceed.  The lawsuit was captioned U.S. ex rel. Guthrie v. A Plus Home Health Care, Inc., 12 CV 60629 (S.D. Fla.).

“Being a physician in the Medicare program is a privilege, not a right,” said Special Agent in Charge Derrick L. Jackson of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG).  “Physicians who engage in such in-your-face kickback schemes to refer Medicare patients to certain home health companies in exchange for money will be held accountable for their behavior.  Our agency will continue to crack down on kickbacks, which undermine impartial medical judgment, corrode the public’s trust in the health care system and waste scarce Medicare funding.”

These settlements illustrate the government’s emphasis on combating health care fraud and mark another achievement for the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) initiative, which was announced in May 2009 by the Attorney General and the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  The partnership between the two departments has focused efforts to reduce and prevent Medicare and Medicaid financial fraud through enhanced cooperation.  One of the most powerful tools in this effort is the False Claims Act.  Since January 2009, the Justice Department has recovered a total of more than $23.7 billion through False Claims Act cases, with more than $15.2 billion of that amount recovered in cases involving fraud against federal health care programs.

The investigation of this matter reflects a coordinated effort among the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, HHS-OIG and the FBI.

The claims resolved by the settlements are allegations only and there has been no determination of liability.

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT OBAMA TO AARP

FROM:  THE WHITE HOUSE
February 23, 2015
Remarks by the President at the AARP
AARP
Washington, D.C.
**Please see below for a correction, marked with an asterisk.
2:05 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you.  (Applause.)  It is great to be back here -- not just to pick up my AARP card.  (Laughter.)  I want to thank Jo Ann and everybody at AARP for the work you do every single day on behalf of seniors.  I am especially grateful to all of you for the work you're doing to help us prepare for the White House Conference on Aging, which will be coming up later this year and will cover a whole host of issues, including protecting one of the most critical components of middle-class life, and that's a secure and dignified retirement.  And that’s what we're here to talk about today.

I want to thank some other people who care passionately about this issue:  My energetic, tireless Secretary of Labor, Tom Perez.  (Applause.)  A couple of outstanding Senators, Cory Booker from New Jersey -- (applause) -- and Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts.  (Applause.)  And Congressmen John Delaney is here -- proud of the work he is doing.  (Applause.)

So six years after the financial crisis that shook a lot of people’s faith in a secure retirement, the good news is our economy is steadily growing and creating new jobs.  Last year was the best year for job growth since the 1990s.  And all told, over the past five years, the private sector has created nearly *2 12 million new jobs.  And since I took office, the stock market has more than doubled, which means that 401ks for millions of families have been replenished.

America is poised -- as long as Washington doesn’t screw it up, as long as we keep the progress going with policies that help and don't hinder the middle class, no stalemates, no standoffs, no self-inflicted wounds or manufactured crisis -- if we stay away from those things, then the projections are that the economy can do very well again this year.

But we're going to have to choose whether we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well, or whether we build an economy where everybody who works hard can get ahead, and have some semblance of security in this ever-changing world?

Because while we’ve come a long way, we’ve got a lot more work to do to make sure that the recovery reaches every single American out there and not just those at the top.  That’s what I've been calling middle-class economics -- the idea that this country does best when everybody does their fair share, and everybody gets a fair shot and everybody is playing by the same set of rules.

And that last part -- everybody playing by the same set of rules -- is why we passed historic Wall Street reform that put in place smarter, tougher, common-sense rules of the road to protect consumers and to end taxpayer-funded bailouts.  And by the way, I know that there have been times where folks questioned whether or not Wall Street reform works.  If you look at how the banking system has responded, if you look at what’s happened on Wall Street, when you look at how the markets gauge what we've done, reform has been meaningful.  It has been effective.

That's why we passed a Credit Card Bill of Rights that gives consumers a simpler credit card bill -- no more hidden fees, no more shifting deadlines, no more sudden changes of terms, or “any time, any reason” rate hikes.  It’s why we created a new consumer watchdog agency that protects hardworking Americans from everything from predatory mortgage practices to payday loans that can destroy people’s finances.  And I want to thank our outstanding CFPB Director Rich Cordray and his team -- (applause) -- they are working day in, day out to protect working families, and when families are taken advantage of, they’ve been working hard to get them their hard-earned money back.

Today, we’re going to build on these consumer protections for the middle class by taking a new action to protect hardworking families’ retirement security.  Because, in America, after a lifetime of hard work, you should be able to retire with dignity and a sense of security.

And in today’s economy, that's gotten tougher.  Most workers don’t have a traditional pension.  A Social Security check often isn't enough on its own.  And while the stock market is doing well right now, that doesn't help folks who don't have retirement accounts.  As a consequence, too few Americans at or near retirement have saved enough to have peace of mind.

So, in addition to keeping Social Security strong -- and we will keep it strong as long as I am President.  That is going to be a priority for me.  (Applause.)  In addition to keeping Social Security strong, I’ve proposed ways to make it easy and automatic for workers to save for retirement through their employer, including offering tax incentives to small businesses that offer retirement plans.  And these proposals, it's estimated, would expand workplace savings opportunities to 30 million more workers.  We’ve also proposed paying for them by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy.

At the same time, we’ve got to make sure that Americans who are doing the responsible thing by preparing for retirement are getting a fair share of the returns on those savings.  That's what I want to focus on today.  If you are working hard, if you're putting away money, if you're sacrificing that new car or that vacation so that you can build a nest egg for later, you should have the peace of mind of knowing that the advice you’re getting for investing those dollars is sound, that your investments are protected, that you're not being taken advantage of.

And the challenge we've got is right now, there are no uniform rules of the road that require retirement advisors to act in the best interests of their clients -- and that’s hurting millions of working and middle-class families.  There are a lot of very fine financial advisors out there, but there are also financial advisors who receive backdoor payments or hidden fees for steering people into bad retirement investments that have high fees and low returns.  So what happens is these payments, these inducements incentivize the broker to make recommendations that generate the best returns for them, but not necessarily the best returns for you.

They might persuade investors, individuals with savings, to roll over their existing savings out of a low-fee plan and into a high-cost plan.  They might even recommend investments with worse returns simply because they get paid to recommend those products. And one study by professors at Harvard and MIT had researchers send people to pose as middle-class investors seeking investment advice from advisors.  In 284 client visits, advisors recommended higher-fee funds about half the time.  The lowest-fee funds were recommended only 21 times.

So think about what that means.  You’ve done the right thing.  You’ve worked hard.  You’ve saved what you could.  You're responsibly trying to prepare for retirement, but because of bad advice, because of skewed incentives, because of lack of protection, you could end up in a situation where you lose some of your hard-earned money simply because your advisor isn’t required to put your interests first.  And the truth is most people don’t even realize that’s happening.
 
We read a story in the paper about Merlin and Elaine Toffel, a retired couple from near my hometown of Chicago -- Lindenhurst, Illinois.  They had worked their whole lives so they could rest easy in their golden years.  They got bad advice to invest in expensive annuities that made it hard for them to access their money.  Suddenly, they were short on cash -- which is exactly what they had tried to avoid by saving and acting responsibly all those years.  They were taken advantage of by an advisor of an institution where they had been longtime clients and it was an institution they trusted.  And Merlin now lives in a nursing home and he and Elaine aren’t here today.  As they get older, their children are trying to help them get all this sorted out.  And that's just one family.  They’re not alone.

On average, conflicts of interest in retirement advice results in annual losses of 1 percentage point for affected persons.  I know 1 percent may not sound like a lot, but the whole concept of compounding interest -- it adds up.  It can cut your savings by more than a quarter over the course of 35 years  -- cut your savings by more than 25 percent.  So, instead of $10,000 in savings growing to more than $38,000, it will grow to just over $27,500.  That's a big spread.  And all told, bad advice that results from conflicts of interest costs middle-class and working families about $17 billion a year -- $17 billion every year.

So you can put a number on how this affects us.  But it affects something else.  It offends our basic values of honesty and fair play.  The values that say, in America, responsibility is rewarded and not exploited.

I want to emphasize once again, there are a whole lot of financial advisors out there who do put their clients’ interests first.  There are a lot of hardworking men and women in this field and got into this field to help people.  They’re folks like financial advisor Sheryl Garrett, from Arkansas, who says, “The role” -- is Sheryl here?  There she is.  Sheryl, stand up just so we know where you are.  (Applause.)  We're proud of Sheryl.  So I'm quoting you, Sheryl.  Sheryl says, “The role of a financial advisor is one of the most important jobs.  But there is a segment of the industry today that operates like the gunslingers of the Wild West.  We don’t have the rules and regulations to protect those who we’re supposed to be serving.”

Couldn't have said it better myself, which is why I quoted you.  (Laughter.)  Sheryl is right.  The rules governing retirement investments were written 40 years ago, at a time when most workers with a retirement plan had traditional pensions, and IRAs were brand new, and 401ks didn’t even exist.  So it's not surprising that the rules that existed 40 years ago haven't caught up to the realities of most families today.  Now, outdated regulations, legal loopholes, fine print -- all that stuff today makes it harder for savers to know who they can trust.  Financial advisors absolutely deserve fair compensation for helping people save for retirement and helping people figure out how to manage their investments.  But they shouldn’t be able to take advantage of their clients.  The system makes it harder, in fact, for those financial advisors like Sheryl who are trying to do the right thing, because if she’s making really good advice but somebody who is competing with her is selling snake oil, she’s losing business.  And ultimately, those clients are going to lose money.
So, today, I’m calling on the Department of Labor to update the rules and requirements that retirement advisors put the best interests of their clients above their own financial interests.  It's a very simple principle:  You want to give financial advice, you’ve got to put your client’s interests first.  You can't have a conflict of interest.

And this is especially important for middle-class families, who can't afford to lose even a penny of the hard-earned savings that they’ve put away.  These folks aren’t asking for any special help or special consideration.  They just want to be treated with fairness and respect.  And that’s what this new rule would do.  And for outstanding advisors out there, it levels the playing field so that they can do what they know is the right thing to do -- putting their clients first.

Now, here’s one last element of it I've got to emphasize.  Just because we put forward a new rule doesn’t mean that it becomes law.  There are a lot of financial advisors who support these basic safeguards to prevent abuse, but there are also some special interests that are going to fight it with everything they’ve got, saying that these costs will skyrocket or services are going to be lost.

But it turns out that we can actually look at the evidence.  These industry doomsday predictions have not come true in other countries that have taken even more aggressive action on this issue than we're proposing.  And if your business model rests on taking advantage, bilking hardworking Americans out of their retirement money, then you shouldn’t be in business. (Applause.) That's pretty straightforward.

So we welcome different perspectives and ideas on how to move forward.  That's what the comment period for the rule is all about.  What I won’t accept is the notion that there’s nothing we can do to make sure that hardworking, responsible Americans who scrimp and save somehow end up losing some of those savings to less than scrupulous practices.  We should be able to make sure that folks are treated fairly, and give every possible assistance we can so that they can retire with security and dignity.

So we’re going to keep on pushing for this rule.  It’s the right thing to do for our workers.  It’s the right thing to do for our country.  We are thrilled that AARP is supporting this, but AARP is not alone.  We've got all kinds of organizations that are stepping up -- consumer advocates, civil rights organizations, labor organizations.  We've got a great coalition of people who understand that the strength of our economy rests on whether hardworking families can feel more secure, knowing that if they do the right thing, they can get ahead.  And that’s what I’m going to keep fighting for -- an economy where not only everybody is sharing in America’s success, but they’re also contributing to America’s success.  This is a important component in that basic promise that makes America the greatest country on Earth.

So thank you so much, everybody.  God bless you.  God bless America.  (Applause.)

END
2:28 P.M. EST

MAN CHARGED WITH FRAUD RELATED TO A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR CLAIM TO DEEPWATER HORIZON SPILL COMPENSATION FUND

FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Monday, February 23, 2015
North Carolina Man Charged for Making $2.3 Million Fraudulent Claim to Deepwater Horizon Spill Compensation Fund

A North Carolina resident was arrested today for allegedly making a fraudulent claim on the fund set up to compensate victims of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Michael R. Rosella, 45, of Wilmington, North Carolina, was arrested in connection with an indictment returned last week and unsealed following his arrest.  The indictment by a grand jury in the District of Columbia charges Rosella with one count of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering.

According to allegations in the indictment, Rosella, who lived in the District of Columbia in 2010, submitted a claim for compensation in the amount of $2.3 million to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), the entity that formerly handled claims for persons and businesses injured by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  Rosella allegedly submitted the claim on behalf of a fictitious entity called the Bayou Barataria Sportsmen’s Resort, which Rosella allegedly represented to have been a successful hotel and sport fishing business in Louisiana immediately before the spill, and to have suffered lost profits due to the spill’s impact on the Gulf of Mexico.  The documents submitted by Rosella allegedly included false affidavits of the Resort’s “owners,” federal tax filings, state sales tax records, financial statements, and invoices.

The charges contained in an indictment are merely accusations, and a defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

The case is being investigated by the U.S. Secret Service and is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Gary A. Winters of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.

U.S. ASSISTANT AG CALDWELL ANNOUNCES REWARD FOR LEADER OF MALWARE CYBER-GANG

 FROM:  U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell Announces Reward for Cyber Fugitive at Washington Foreign Press Center
Washington, DCUnited States ~ Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Good afternoon, thank you all for joining us.

Today, we are announcing a reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Evgeniy Bogachev, an alleged leader of a tightly knit gang of cyber criminals based in Russia and Ukraine who were responsible for the development and operation of both the Gameover Zeus and Cryptolocker malware.

Gameover Zeus was one of the most sophisticated and damaging botnets ever encountered, infecting between 500,000 and one million computers worldwide, and causing more than $100 million in financial losses to businesses and consumers in the United States alone.

On top of that, the Cryptolocker ransomware infected more than 250,000 computers worldwide, and targeted companies big and small, as well as individuals.

In May and June 2014, we were able to wrest control of the Gameover Zeus botnet from the criminals and take Cryptolocker offline.  This was thanks to an unprecedented action orchestrated by law enforcement and private sector partners in 10 different countries.

Today, due to the work of the FBI and its partners, Gameover Zeus has been neutralized and is out of the criminals’ hands and Cryptolocker remains non-operational.  

But one significant part of the puzzle remains incomplete, as Bogachev remains at large.  Although we were able to significantly disrupt the Gameover Zeus and Cryptolocker criminal enterprise, we have not yet brought Bogachev himself to justice.

We must not allow international borders to shield criminals from the law.  As more nations join the fight against international cybercrime, the number of countries once perceived as sanctuaries is shrinking, and will continue to shrink.  

In the case of Bogachev, the same international coalition that brought down his botnet is now chasing him.

We appreciate the State Department shining the light on this important case again today.  This reward will reinvigorate the efforts to find Bogachev and encourage others to join the hunt.

I am confident that Bogachev will one day be caught and brought to face justice in the United States.