FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Attorney General Holder Addresses Department Employees at Departure Ceremony
Washington, DCUnited States ~ Friday, April 24, 2015
Remarks as delivered
Thank you, thank you. Please take your seats.
A couple of business items. My portrait hangs on the fifth floor of the Justice Department. And something that has not been mentioned but something that I really pressed Simmie Knox – the artist of the portrait – my kid’s names are hidden in the portrait. And if you look at the button of my jacket and the wings of the eagle you’ll find the three of them. And that’s the lore I want to have come out about this portrait. Find the names of the Holder children – okay?
The other thing, Lee Loftus asked me to check to make sure that you all know that you’re on annual leave. But in my final act as Attorney General – screw it!
This has been a great six years. Being at the Justice Department has been – I said the last six years but the reality is that I’ve been at this department since 1976, off and on. I started as a line lawyer in the public integrity section in the Criminal Division and it’s going to be hard for me to walk away from the people who I love and the people who represent this institution that I love so much – but it is time. It is time to make a transition. Change is a good thing and I am confident in the work in which you have done that we have laid the foundation for even better things over the course of the next couple of years.
I think that as we look back at these past six years, what I want you all to understand is that you have done truly historic, historic and big things – no matter where you look. From the basic stuff, this department was restored, it’s restored – it’s restored to what it always was and certainly was when I got here and what it must always be. Free from politicization, focused on the mission and making sure that justice is done – without any kind of interference from political outsiders.
We have expressed faith in the greatest court system in the world and brought the toughest national security cases into that system and with unbelievable results. The notion that we’re still having a debate about whether or not cases ought to be brought in the Article 3 system or in military tribunals is over. It’s dead. And that’s because, again, of the great work that the prosecutors in various districts have performed in putting together wonderful cases and then successfully trying those cases.
We have had an impact on the environment and people who – and companies that would have spoiled our environment. Historic, historic wins in that regard as well. You look at the financial recoveries that um – related to the mortgage crisis, and the huge amounts of money that we put – that we recovered. And then I think what’s important – and Tony West is here, and I think he deserves some special thanks for that, for what was done with that money. To try to get it to the people who suffered the most. The thought was never to simply take that money and put it into the United States Treasury, but to come up with ways in which we could try to get people back into their homes, or to somehow reduce the debt-load that they were dealing with.
Our Antitrust Division lives again – lives again, and has had a tremendous impact in our country, and in the positive things that they’ve done for the American consumer. We announced – or we’ve heard, I guess, today that a merger that I think would have been extremely anti-competitive and would have not been in the best interests of the American consumer, has been abandoned. That is because of the great work of the men and women in the Antitrust Division.
Our Tax Division, overseas accounts dealing with our allies in Europe, bringing money back and disallowing the practice that for too long had gone on where people had squirreled away, hidden money that they needed to actually pay taxes for and be held – be accountable for. Historic stuff, that, as well.
Indian Country – you think about the tough history that exists between the United States and our Native people, we have put on track, I think, the ability to right some really serious historical wrongs. We’ve done, I think, a great deal, much work remains to be done. But this Justice Department was committed to addressing those problems in as frank a way as is possible.
Criminal Justice Reform – if you look at all the statistics, you’ll see the incarceration rate goes like this, and then goes up. And then goes up in about 1974, late seventies, something like that. And we are a nation that incarcerates too many people for too long and for no good law enforcement reason. It is time—it is time to change the approaches we have been using these past 30 - 40 years, and through the great work of the people of this department we are starting to reverse that trend. Again, work remains to be done, but we are on our way.
Civil Rights—the LGBT community is something that I tried to focus on. I think that is the civil rights issue of our time. This whole question of same sex marriage will be resolved by the court over, I guess, the next couple of months. Hopefully that decision will go in a way that I think is consistent with who we say we are as a people, but I also think that is really just a sign; it’s an indication, one part of the fight for overall LGBT equality. And I think that the work that you all have done in the regard is going to be an integral part of the legacy of this department.
And then, you know, the thing that I think in some ways animates me, angers me, is this whole notion of protecting the right to vote. We celebrated this year the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Voting Rights Act. We went to—I went to Selma to commemorate Bloody Sunday. John Lewis was here earlier. This nation fought a civil war, endured slavery by another name, dealt with legalized segregation. A civil rights movement in the mid and early sixties transformed this nation. And the notion that we would somehow go back and put in place things that make it difficult—more difficult for our fellow citizens to vote is simply inconsistent with all that’s good about this country, and something that I was bound and determined to fight. And our Civil Rights Division has done a superb job in crafting law suits based on a Voting Rights Act that was wrongly gutted by the Supreme Court, and I suspect that we will see successes from those efforts that have—those cases that have been filed. But that, that of all things, simply cannot be allowed to happen. The right to vote must be protected.
I want to thank my family, my lovely wife, for the sacrifices they’ve made — over the years not only to allow me to be Attorney General but to be the Deputy Attorney General, to be U.S. Attorney here in Washington, D.C. Honey, you’ve been the rock in the family. And you’ve allowed me the opportunity to do the things that that really animated me and allowed me to work with all of these great people.
I also want to say something about the folks you see standing here—my detail. These are people—men and women—who literally sacrifice their well-being in terms of their interactions with their families. They travel with me. They miss weekends. They work long and hard hours. And they are prepared to do ultimate kinds of things. And I could not do this job without them. Now they will not smile because they don’t do that. I see Marcus is smiling a little bit there. Bart’s also smiling.
And then I just want to thank all of you. All of you. You are what make this institution. You know we have a great building and it is something that is historic in its nature. But it is only kept great by the dedicated, the perseverance, the commitment that all of you show on a daily basis. And I hope that you all will understand that the job…there is not a routine job in the United States Department of Justice. Given the great power that we are entrusted with, the responsibilities that we have, I don’t want you all to ever think that it’s just Tuesday and I’m going to get through the day. That’s not who we are at the United States Department of Justice. It’s not who you all are. And I think that has certainly been shown in the way in which you have conducted yourselves and the way in which you all have accomplished so much over the last six years.
I said earlier that when we celebrated Robert Kennedy’s 50th anniversary of his swearing-in in 2011, people said that that was the golden age for the United States Department of Justice. Well, I think that 50 years from now, 50 years from now and maybe even sooner than that, people are going to look back at the work that you all did and say that this was another golden age. That’s how good you all are. That’s how good you all are. That’s how dedicated, committed and wonderful you all have been. With a focus on justice. With a focus on helping those who cannot help themselves. You have distinguished yourselves.
There’s a long line of excellence in the United States Department of Justice, but every now and again – at an appropriate time – a group comes along that is worthy of special recognition. And you all are in fact one of those groups. I am proud of you. I am proud of you. I am going to miss you. I am going to miss this building. I am going to miss this institution. But more than anything I am going to miss you all. This building is always going to be home, and you all will always be my family. Wherever I am and whatever I am doing, I will be rooting for you from the sidelines.
Now I want to do something here. We have these bands that I’ve been wearing for the last whatever number of whatevers. I think I can officially take this off now. I think we can officially say now that Eric Holder is free. But it is not necessarily something that I want. I don’t ever want to be free of this great institution. I don’t want to ever be free of the relationships that I have forged with so many of you. I don’t want to ever be free of the notion that I am a member of the United States Department of Justice. This is something that has meant the world to me. It has helped define me as an individual, as a lawyer and as a man.
And for that reason, although, I got rid of those bands. I’m free in one sense that really not as consequential as the way in which I will never be free, nor want to be free of the United States Department of Justice, or free from all of you.
Thank you for your support over the past six years. I look forward to all that you going to do all with the great new leadership of a wonderful new Attorney General who will be sworn in on Monday, and I expect you will do great things over the course of these next two years, but beyond that. With those of you who are career employees, I expect that you will do great things as long as you are part of the Justice Department. There will be some of you who will be here 20 years from now, 30 years from now and I expect that your biographies will be littered with wonderful things.
But again, thank you all so much. I’m going to miss you and as I said in a previous speech, this is my third going away, but I promise that this is the last one. But I’ll end it this way, I love you all madly. Thank you.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS ON THE EARTHQUAKE IN NAPAL
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
The Earthquake in Nepal
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
April 25, 2015
I join the people of the United States in expressing our deepest condolences to all of those affected by today's earthquake in Nepal, including the families of those who died in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh.
We are working closely with the government of Nepal to provide assistance and support. Ambassador Bodde has issued a disaster declaration in order to immediately release an initial $1 million for humanitarian assistance. USAID is preparing to deploy a Disaster Assistance Response Team and is activating an Urban Search and Rescue Team to accompany disaster experts and assist with assessments of the situation.
To the people in Nepal and the region affected by this tragedy we send our heartfelt sympathies. The United States stands with you during this difficult time.
The Earthquake in Nepal
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
April 25, 2015
I join the people of the United States in expressing our deepest condolences to all of those affected by today's earthquake in Nepal, including the families of those who died in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh.
We are working closely with the government of Nepal to provide assistance and support. Ambassador Bodde has issued a disaster declaration in order to immediately release an initial $1 million for humanitarian assistance. USAID is preparing to deploy a Disaster Assistance Response Team and is activating an Urban Search and Rescue Team to accompany disaster experts and assist with assessments of the situation.
To the people in Nepal and the region affected by this tragedy we send our heartfelt sympathies. The United States stands with you during this difficult time.
TOM MALINOWSKI ON REMARKS IN MEXICO CITY ON ACCESS TO JUSTICE
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Public Safety and Access to Justice
Remarks
Tom Malinowski
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Open Government Partnership Steering Committee Ministerial
Mexico City, Mexico
April 23, 2015
As prepared for delivery
Thank you all for having me here. This is a timely gathering. Public safety and access to justice are high priority issues in the minds of many civil society representatives in the United States and, I should say, in the minds of American citizens generally. It is no secret that the conduct of law enforcement has been a headline issue for us this last year. In the United States, we believe that an informed and engaged civil society is essential to ensuring that government faithfully discharges its duties to protect its citizens, to guarantee human rights, and to hold itself and its officials accountable for their actions. We know that we’re not perfect. But we are committed to improvement and to upholding institutions that allow us to address our shortcomings. In this spirit, we’re looking forward to sharing ideas and best practices so that we can all build, or restore, trust between people and their government.
Because in countries where citizens lack trust and confidence in their government, where they do not feel enfranchised in decisions affecting their lives, there are a range of costs. Some can be drawn to violent extremism, others to gangs and crime. Corruption is more likely to increase; police and judicial power more likely to be abused. Basic services are distributed unjustly. Innovation and entrepreneurship are stifled as elites focus their power on maintaining a status quo that enables their unjust enrichment. In such societies, the state may seem like it’s growing stronger at the expense of civil society, but in fact institutions that lose the trust of their people often turn out to be hollow. They are strong until the day they are not; they create turmoil and instability that affects their neighbors and the world.
OGP points the way to an alternative, to creating a space where government and civil society can work together – to build trust and to ensure transparent, accountable, citizen-enabled and innovation-powered governance. Last September, President Obama challenged us to support civil society at home and abroad. The strength and success of nations depends, the President has said, on allowing citizens to solve problems without government interference, and on robust engagement between governments and civil society to advance shared goals.
One of OGP’s grand challenges, around which participants are encouraged to develop commitments, is “Promoting Safer Communities.” This is the most undersubscribed of OGP’s grand challenges, yet it is one of the most critical challenges facing countries in every corner of the world, in part because civilian insecurity can express itself in so many different ways—in gang violence and organized crime, in violent extremism, or officials who are complicit in corruption and human rights violations. Across a range of countries and communities, the security and justice sectors may be simply inadequate in creating secure conditions, guaranteeing access to justice, and protecting against human rights abuses. This creates space for crime and extremism to flourish and limits the potential for individual opportunity and economic growth. And ultimately, the persistence of these conditions can undermine the stability of the political system itself.
There is growing interest among civil society organizations in increasing OGP’s focus on this challenge area, and related issues such as access to justice and the promotion and protection of human rights. Transparency International’s new initiative on Safer Communities in Latin America is one example of how civil society and governments can work toward common goals – and I hope Cecilia will be able to share some of the ideas of this groundbreaking effort. With such examples in mind, we are hoping to start a discussion to explore how OGP can help advance the community security challenge.
In my country, events of the past year have called us to take a fresh look at questions of public safety, access to justice, and the need to strengthen police-community relations. In Ferguson, Missouri, public demonstrations and civil society interventions drew the nation’s attention to the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown and to concerns about the practices of the Ferguson Police Department. In addition to opening civil and criminal investigations, our Department of Justice sent mediators to create a dialogue between police, city officials, and residents to reduce tension in the community. In addition, DOJ is involved in a voluntary, independent, and objective assessment of the St. Louis County Police Department, looking at training, use of force, handling of mass demonstrations, and other areas where reform may be needed.
As President Obama has said, “[t]he fact is, in too many parts of (the United States), a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color.” At the President’s request, the Attorney General convened roundtable discussions among law enforcement, elected officials, and community members in six cities in December 2014 and January 2015. The President also appointed a Task Force on 21st Century Policing, made up of governmental and civil society members, which engaged a wide range of state, local, and tribal officials; subject matter experts; and community and faith leaders to develop a series of recommendations on how to strengthen public trust and foster strong relationships between local law enforcement and the communities they protect.
As we continue to strive for what our founding fathers termed “a more perfect union,” we encourage you both to make suggestions to us on what has worked for you in addressing such challenges and to consider what in this example may work in your country contexts.
We also want to hear your thoughts on how this set of issues manifests in different regions and countries. How, in your experience, do open government initiatives strengthen public safety and access to justice? Are there ways for OGP to encourage more countries to commit to improvements in this area? And if we consider access to justice and promotion and protection of human rights core parts of the open government agenda, should we build more robust evaluations into the IRM assessment? Finally, we need to come out of this session with more than great thoughts. We invite your specific recommendations on how OGP can empower citizens to play a role in ensuring accountability in the security and justice sectors.
It’s a lot to think about so with that, I’d like to turn to Cecilia for her remarks before we open up the floor for discussion.
Public Safety and Access to Justice
Remarks
Tom Malinowski
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
Open Government Partnership Steering Committee Ministerial
Mexico City, Mexico
April 23, 2015
As prepared for delivery
Thank you all for having me here. This is a timely gathering. Public safety and access to justice are high priority issues in the minds of many civil society representatives in the United States and, I should say, in the minds of American citizens generally. It is no secret that the conduct of law enforcement has been a headline issue for us this last year. In the United States, we believe that an informed and engaged civil society is essential to ensuring that government faithfully discharges its duties to protect its citizens, to guarantee human rights, and to hold itself and its officials accountable for their actions. We know that we’re not perfect. But we are committed to improvement and to upholding institutions that allow us to address our shortcomings. In this spirit, we’re looking forward to sharing ideas and best practices so that we can all build, or restore, trust between people and their government.
Because in countries where citizens lack trust and confidence in their government, where they do not feel enfranchised in decisions affecting their lives, there are a range of costs. Some can be drawn to violent extremism, others to gangs and crime. Corruption is more likely to increase; police and judicial power more likely to be abused. Basic services are distributed unjustly. Innovation and entrepreneurship are stifled as elites focus their power on maintaining a status quo that enables their unjust enrichment. In such societies, the state may seem like it’s growing stronger at the expense of civil society, but in fact institutions that lose the trust of their people often turn out to be hollow. They are strong until the day they are not; they create turmoil and instability that affects their neighbors and the world.
OGP points the way to an alternative, to creating a space where government and civil society can work together – to build trust and to ensure transparent, accountable, citizen-enabled and innovation-powered governance. Last September, President Obama challenged us to support civil society at home and abroad. The strength and success of nations depends, the President has said, on allowing citizens to solve problems without government interference, and on robust engagement between governments and civil society to advance shared goals.
One of OGP’s grand challenges, around which participants are encouraged to develop commitments, is “Promoting Safer Communities.” This is the most undersubscribed of OGP’s grand challenges, yet it is one of the most critical challenges facing countries in every corner of the world, in part because civilian insecurity can express itself in so many different ways—in gang violence and organized crime, in violent extremism, or officials who are complicit in corruption and human rights violations. Across a range of countries and communities, the security and justice sectors may be simply inadequate in creating secure conditions, guaranteeing access to justice, and protecting against human rights abuses. This creates space for crime and extremism to flourish and limits the potential for individual opportunity and economic growth. And ultimately, the persistence of these conditions can undermine the stability of the political system itself.
There is growing interest among civil society organizations in increasing OGP’s focus on this challenge area, and related issues such as access to justice and the promotion and protection of human rights. Transparency International’s new initiative on Safer Communities in Latin America is one example of how civil society and governments can work toward common goals – and I hope Cecilia will be able to share some of the ideas of this groundbreaking effort. With such examples in mind, we are hoping to start a discussion to explore how OGP can help advance the community security challenge.
In my country, events of the past year have called us to take a fresh look at questions of public safety, access to justice, and the need to strengthen police-community relations. In Ferguson, Missouri, public demonstrations and civil society interventions drew the nation’s attention to the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown and to concerns about the practices of the Ferguson Police Department. In addition to opening civil and criminal investigations, our Department of Justice sent mediators to create a dialogue between police, city officials, and residents to reduce tension in the community. In addition, DOJ is involved in a voluntary, independent, and objective assessment of the St. Louis County Police Department, looking at training, use of force, handling of mass demonstrations, and other areas where reform may be needed.
As President Obama has said, “[t]he fact is, in too many parts of (the United States), a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color.” At the President’s request, the Attorney General convened roundtable discussions among law enforcement, elected officials, and community members in six cities in December 2014 and January 2015. The President also appointed a Task Force on 21st Century Policing, made up of governmental and civil society members, which engaged a wide range of state, local, and tribal officials; subject matter experts; and community and faith leaders to develop a series of recommendations on how to strengthen public trust and foster strong relationships between local law enforcement and the communities they protect.
As we continue to strive for what our founding fathers termed “a more perfect union,” we encourage you both to make suggestions to us on what has worked for you in addressing such challenges and to consider what in this example may work in your country contexts.
We also want to hear your thoughts on how this set of issues manifests in different regions and countries. How, in your experience, do open government initiatives strengthen public safety and access to justice? Are there ways for OGP to encourage more countries to commit to improvements in this area? And if we consider access to justice and promotion and protection of human rights core parts of the open government agenda, should we build more robust evaluations into the IRM assessment? Finally, we need to come out of this session with more than great thoughts. We invite your specific recommendations on how OGP can empower citizens to play a role in ensuring accountability in the security and justice sectors.
It’s a lot to think about so with that, I’d like to turn to Cecilia for her remarks before we open up the floor for discussion.
WORKER EXPLOITATION CONFERENCE ADDRESSES FORCED LABOR
FROM: U.S. LABOR DEPARTMENT
Worker Exploitation Conference Seeks Solutions
Dialogues on federal, state and local strategies to prevent and mitigate forced labor and exploitative labor practices were convened by the Labor Department, the International Labour Organization, Humanity United and the Burkle Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. The first of two conferences was held in Washington, D.C., on April 22. It featured conversations with Laura Fortman, deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division; and Mark Mittelhauser, Eric Biel and Marcia Eugenio of the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. Discussions examined strategies for prevention, protection and remedy, as well as existing and potential partnerships to address forced labor and labor exploitation. The ILO estimates that nearly 21 million people are trapped in forced labor or conditions akin to modern-day slavery, which generates $150 billion in illegal profits annually.
Worker Exploitation Conference Seeks Solutions
Dialogues on federal, state and local strategies to prevent and mitigate forced labor and exploitative labor practices were convened by the Labor Department, the International Labour Organization, Humanity United and the Burkle Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. The first of two conferences was held in Washington, D.C., on April 22. It featured conversations with Laura Fortman, deputy administrator of the Wage and Hour Division; and Mark Mittelhauser, Eric Biel and Marcia Eugenio of the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. Discussions examined strategies for prevention, protection and remedy, as well as existing and potential partnerships to address forced labor and labor exploitation. The ILO estimates that nearly 21 million people are trapped in forced labor or conditions akin to modern-day slavery, which generates $150 billion in illegal profits annually.
AMBASSADOR POWER'S REMARKS ON CRISIS IN DEIR EZ-ZOUR
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
April 24, 2015
AS DELIVERED
Thank you, Minister Judeh, for dedicating today’s meeting to a crisis that so urgently demands the world’s attention. And thank you to our briefers – Under Secretary-General Amos, High Commissioner Guterres, Executive Director Cousin, and Special Envoy Jolie – for your appropriately stark, firm, and extremely moving briefings.
The United States would also like to recognize the dedicated humanitarian workers serving in UN agencies and other organizations who are putting their lives on the line to get assistance to people in the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. People like the two Syrian Arab Red Crescent workers who were killed on April 3rd while retrieving bodies of the deceased and preparing shelters for the displaced in Idlib. And people who are constantly looking for ways around seemingly endless obstacles to delivering vital aid, like WHO staffers who took advantage of a six-hour ceasefire last month in Aleppo to deliver medical supplies across lines. They reached 5,000 people – using pull-carts.
In Deir ez-Zour, approximately 228,000 residents are caught between ISIL, which has circled the city and systematically cut off humanitarian access, and regime forces, which prevent people from leaving. On April 13th, a one-year-old reportedly starved to death, and NGOs are receiving reports of young girls trading sexual acts for bread. While the ICRC was able to reach Deir ez-Zour with three airlifts in recent days – the first aid deliveries to the besieged city in nearly a year – residents of all ages remain on the brink of starvation.
Ghastly as it is, the situation in Deir ez-Zour is not an outlier. We are all well aware of the ongoing crisis in Yarmouk, where many thousands of Palestinians are still trapped and cut off from vital assistance. In Yarmouk, it is regime forces that are doing the blockading, as they have for more than two years. And since moving into Yarmouk weeks ago, ISIL and other armed groups have only exacerbated the suffering of residents by further limiting their movements.
As several of the briefers noted, the UN estimates that 440,000 civilians in Syria are living in besieged areas where most aid cannot get in and most people cannot get out. Only four percent of people living in besieged areas received food deliveries last month. Four percent. Health assistance reached less than one-third of one percent – 0.3 percent – of civilians living in besieged areas.
Siege is just one tactic used to prevent vital humanitarian aid from reaching people in need. According to the UN’s most recent report, nine WHO requests to deliver health assistance to locations in Aleppo, Daraa, Idlib and other governorates have gone unanswered by the regime. While life-saving medical supplies sit in warehouses, people die on operating tables; in crowded, ill-equipped field hospitals; and even in their homes – all from wounds and illnesses that would be treated with adequate resources. Meanwhile, nineteen requests for interagency convoys, which aim to reach the hardest-hit areas, are pending approval by the regime. Many have been stuck in limbo for months, exacerbating suffering and even causing death by bureaucratic delay. What possible excuse is there to not respond to a UN request? There is no excuse.
These tactics demonstrate the immense gap between the demands of this Council and the actions on the ground by parties in this conflict, particularly the Assad regime. Security Council resolutions 2165 and 2191 direct all Syrian parties to enable the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance by the UN and their implementing partners, yet the regime and ISIL are deliberately blocking such aid. And rather than fulfill their obligation to protect civilians, each – ISIL and the regime – deliberately targets civilians to advance their aims. We are past the point of highlighting or lamenting this enduring gap; we must come together to close it. The survival of millions of Syrians demands it – not to mention the credibility of this Council’s word. Our resolutions are currently being ridiculed by the Syrian regime. In the immediate term, aid must be allowed to reach besieged areas, and people must be allowed to leave besieged areas. Imagine being trapped – just imagine being a parent and being trapped.
International monitoring is crucial to ensuring that civilians leaving such areas are not arbitrarily detained, separated from their families, or harmed in any way – as happened in February 2014, when hundreds of people disappeared as they passed through government-controlled areas while leaving the besieged city of Homs.
Syria’s neighbors have shown remarkable generosity in helping those trapped in Syria as well as those who have managed to escape. Of the nearly four million people who have fled Syria, Turkey has taken in a staggering 1.7 million refugees. One in every four people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee. And this unprecedented influx has demanded countries take robust measures to accommodate the new populations. In Jordan, for example, where the population of some northern cities has doubled since the arrival of more than 620,000 Syrian refugees, the government worked with development and humanitarian groups to come up with a comprehensive plan to respond to refugees’ diverse needs – from health and education, to security and drinking water.
While Syria’s neighbors have already welcomed unprecedented numbers of refugees, we strongly urge these countries to keep their borders open and ease restrictions that prevent the most vulnerable from reaching refuge. If the international community is going to ask more of Syria’s neighbors, who have already done so much, we cannot allow them to shoulder the impact of sheltering millions of refugees alone. And that is why, in addition to the $556 million that the U.S. has provided Jordan to support refugee programs and host communities since the start of the Syrian conflict, we announced our intention in February to increase annual bilateral assistance from $660 million to $1 billion over the next three years, given the extraordinary needs generated by this crisis and the extraordinary generosity of Syria’s neighbors.
In addition to helping Syria’s neighbors, all countries, including the United States, must welcome displaced Syrians in greater numbers. As the recent catastrophes involving refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean demonstrate – many of the victims of which have been Syrians – people are willing to take tremendous risks to escape their country’s brutal violence. Just this week, Turkey’s coast guard rescued thirty Syrians aboard a sinking boat trying to reach Greece.
The disparity between what the international community is providing and what the Syrian people need is growing. At the end of last month, the Secretary-General convened a conference, together with the government of Kuwait, to raise funds toward the $8.4 billion that the UN needs to respond to the crisis. Only $3.6 billion has been pledged toward that goal. It is critically important that all countries, including members of this Council, make more substantive contributions. And it’s important that those countries that have pledged actually deliver promptly. The United States announced a new $507 million pledge in Kuwait last month, which brought our total contributions to Syria since the crisis began to $3.2 billion.
Today, in response to the devastating crisis in Yarmouk, we are announcing an additional $6 million in aid to UNRWA, to provide urgent assistance, both for the many thousands still trapped in Yarmouk and for other Palestinians and Syrians receiving a lifeline from the agency.
But even as we seek to fill these gaps, we must not lose sight of the foundational reason that Syria’s population needs humanitarian assistance, and that is the Assad regime. A regime that continues to torture, gas, barrel-bomb, and starve its own people. A regime whose brutality fed the rise of ISIL and other violent extremist groups in Syria. A regime that, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, killed an average of five children per day last month alone.
Let us be clear, ISIL could disappear tomorrow and the regime would still block UN convoys, ignore UN appeals and UN Security Council resolutions, torture detainees in its prisons, and use barrel bombs and chlorine chemical weapons to attack civilians. Partnering with a regime like this would not help us defeat violent extremist groups – it would only strengthen their appeal. The only viable political solution to this crisis is one without Assad in power; a political push at the highest levels, and a sincere and united effort to secure a political transition, is urgently needed and, of course, long overdue.
Let me conclude. National Geographic recently organized a photography camp in Jordan for teenage refugees from Syria. Twenty kids, ages 13 to 15, spent a week using cameras and words to tell their stories. A slideshow of some of their photos is online and I urge you all to look at it. A common thread cuts across the testimonies of the young Syrians: they want to go home. One participant, fourteen year-old Abdullah, fled to Jordan from Daraa three years ago. For an assignment to take a self-portrait, he took one with his face covered – a way, he said, to make himself anonymous. Speaking about his future, Abdullah said: “I hope to become an engineer and rebuild Syria, house by house, and build the biggest hospitals, the biggest mosques, the biggest schools, build bakeries, and rebuild our home…Insha’Allah, we will rebuild Syria the best we can. We are going to make Syria the most beautiful country and restore the life in it.”
Abdullah and so many young people from his generation are waiting to go home and rebuild. Who would deny them that opportunity? And who better than Syria’s young to motivate and unite us, the members of this Security Council, to work relentlessly to enforce our own resolutions so as to mitigate the suffering of the Syrian people and to find a political solution to this devastating conflict.
Thank you.
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
April 24, 2015
AS DELIVERED
Thank you, Minister Judeh, for dedicating today’s meeting to a crisis that so urgently demands the world’s attention. And thank you to our briefers – Under Secretary-General Amos, High Commissioner Guterres, Executive Director Cousin, and Special Envoy Jolie – for your appropriately stark, firm, and extremely moving briefings.
The United States would also like to recognize the dedicated humanitarian workers serving in UN agencies and other organizations who are putting their lives on the line to get assistance to people in the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. People like the two Syrian Arab Red Crescent workers who were killed on April 3rd while retrieving bodies of the deceased and preparing shelters for the displaced in Idlib. And people who are constantly looking for ways around seemingly endless obstacles to delivering vital aid, like WHO staffers who took advantage of a six-hour ceasefire last month in Aleppo to deliver medical supplies across lines. They reached 5,000 people – using pull-carts.
In Deir ez-Zour, approximately 228,000 residents are caught between ISIL, which has circled the city and systematically cut off humanitarian access, and regime forces, which prevent people from leaving. On April 13th, a one-year-old reportedly starved to death, and NGOs are receiving reports of young girls trading sexual acts for bread. While the ICRC was able to reach Deir ez-Zour with three airlifts in recent days – the first aid deliveries to the besieged city in nearly a year – residents of all ages remain on the brink of starvation.
Ghastly as it is, the situation in Deir ez-Zour is not an outlier. We are all well aware of the ongoing crisis in Yarmouk, where many thousands of Palestinians are still trapped and cut off from vital assistance. In Yarmouk, it is regime forces that are doing the blockading, as they have for more than two years. And since moving into Yarmouk weeks ago, ISIL and other armed groups have only exacerbated the suffering of residents by further limiting their movements.
As several of the briefers noted, the UN estimates that 440,000 civilians in Syria are living in besieged areas where most aid cannot get in and most people cannot get out. Only four percent of people living in besieged areas received food deliveries last month. Four percent. Health assistance reached less than one-third of one percent – 0.3 percent – of civilians living in besieged areas.
Siege is just one tactic used to prevent vital humanitarian aid from reaching people in need. According to the UN’s most recent report, nine WHO requests to deliver health assistance to locations in Aleppo, Daraa, Idlib and other governorates have gone unanswered by the regime. While life-saving medical supplies sit in warehouses, people die on operating tables; in crowded, ill-equipped field hospitals; and even in their homes – all from wounds and illnesses that would be treated with adequate resources. Meanwhile, nineteen requests for interagency convoys, which aim to reach the hardest-hit areas, are pending approval by the regime. Many have been stuck in limbo for months, exacerbating suffering and even causing death by bureaucratic delay. What possible excuse is there to not respond to a UN request? There is no excuse.
These tactics demonstrate the immense gap between the demands of this Council and the actions on the ground by parties in this conflict, particularly the Assad regime. Security Council resolutions 2165 and 2191 direct all Syrian parties to enable the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance by the UN and their implementing partners, yet the regime and ISIL are deliberately blocking such aid. And rather than fulfill their obligation to protect civilians, each – ISIL and the regime – deliberately targets civilians to advance their aims. We are past the point of highlighting or lamenting this enduring gap; we must come together to close it. The survival of millions of Syrians demands it – not to mention the credibility of this Council’s word. Our resolutions are currently being ridiculed by the Syrian regime. In the immediate term, aid must be allowed to reach besieged areas, and people must be allowed to leave besieged areas. Imagine being trapped – just imagine being a parent and being trapped.
International monitoring is crucial to ensuring that civilians leaving such areas are not arbitrarily detained, separated from their families, or harmed in any way – as happened in February 2014, when hundreds of people disappeared as they passed through government-controlled areas while leaving the besieged city of Homs.
Syria’s neighbors have shown remarkable generosity in helping those trapped in Syria as well as those who have managed to escape. Of the nearly four million people who have fled Syria, Turkey has taken in a staggering 1.7 million refugees. One in every four people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee. And this unprecedented influx has demanded countries take robust measures to accommodate the new populations. In Jordan, for example, where the population of some northern cities has doubled since the arrival of more than 620,000 Syrian refugees, the government worked with development and humanitarian groups to come up with a comprehensive plan to respond to refugees’ diverse needs – from health and education, to security and drinking water.
While Syria’s neighbors have already welcomed unprecedented numbers of refugees, we strongly urge these countries to keep their borders open and ease restrictions that prevent the most vulnerable from reaching refuge. If the international community is going to ask more of Syria’s neighbors, who have already done so much, we cannot allow them to shoulder the impact of sheltering millions of refugees alone. And that is why, in addition to the $556 million that the U.S. has provided Jordan to support refugee programs and host communities since the start of the Syrian conflict, we announced our intention in February to increase annual bilateral assistance from $660 million to $1 billion over the next three years, given the extraordinary needs generated by this crisis and the extraordinary generosity of Syria’s neighbors.
In addition to helping Syria’s neighbors, all countries, including the United States, must welcome displaced Syrians in greater numbers. As the recent catastrophes involving refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean demonstrate – many of the victims of which have been Syrians – people are willing to take tremendous risks to escape their country’s brutal violence. Just this week, Turkey’s coast guard rescued thirty Syrians aboard a sinking boat trying to reach Greece.
The disparity between what the international community is providing and what the Syrian people need is growing. At the end of last month, the Secretary-General convened a conference, together with the government of Kuwait, to raise funds toward the $8.4 billion that the UN needs to respond to the crisis. Only $3.6 billion has been pledged toward that goal. It is critically important that all countries, including members of this Council, make more substantive contributions. And it’s important that those countries that have pledged actually deliver promptly. The United States announced a new $507 million pledge in Kuwait last month, which brought our total contributions to Syria since the crisis began to $3.2 billion.
Today, in response to the devastating crisis in Yarmouk, we are announcing an additional $6 million in aid to UNRWA, to provide urgent assistance, both for the many thousands still trapped in Yarmouk and for other Palestinians and Syrians receiving a lifeline from the agency.
But even as we seek to fill these gaps, we must not lose sight of the foundational reason that Syria’s population needs humanitarian assistance, and that is the Assad regime. A regime that continues to torture, gas, barrel-bomb, and starve its own people. A regime whose brutality fed the rise of ISIL and other violent extremist groups in Syria. A regime that, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, killed an average of five children per day last month alone.
Let us be clear, ISIL could disappear tomorrow and the regime would still block UN convoys, ignore UN appeals and UN Security Council resolutions, torture detainees in its prisons, and use barrel bombs and chlorine chemical weapons to attack civilians. Partnering with a regime like this would not help us defeat violent extremist groups – it would only strengthen their appeal. The only viable political solution to this crisis is one without Assad in power; a political push at the highest levels, and a sincere and united effort to secure a political transition, is urgently needed and, of course, long overdue.
Let me conclude. National Geographic recently organized a photography camp in Jordan for teenage refugees from Syria. Twenty kids, ages 13 to 15, spent a week using cameras and words to tell their stories. A slideshow of some of their photos is online and I urge you all to look at it. A common thread cuts across the testimonies of the young Syrians: they want to go home. One participant, fourteen year-old Abdullah, fled to Jordan from Daraa three years ago. For an assignment to take a self-portrait, he took one with his face covered – a way, he said, to make himself anonymous. Speaking about his future, Abdullah said: “I hope to become an engineer and rebuild Syria, house by house, and build the biggest hospitals, the biggest mosques, the biggest schools, build bakeries, and rebuild our home…Insha’Allah, we will rebuild Syria the best we can. We are going to make Syria the most beautiful country and restore the life in it.”
Abdullah and so many young people from his generation are waiting to go home and rebuild. Who would deny them that opportunity? And who better than Syria’s young to motivate and unite us, the members of this Security Council, to work relentlessly to enforce our own resolutions so as to mitigate the suffering of the Syrian people and to find a political solution to this devastating conflict.
Thank you.
THEORETICAL PHYSICIST LISA RANDALL
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
After the lecture: Extra dimensions, interacting dark matter, and the power of uncertainty
A conversation with theoretical physicist Lisa Randall
In her most recent book, physicist Lisa Randall--Harvard professor, libretto composer, Lego figurine, star in the world of theoretical physics--writes that the universe repeatedly reveals itself to be cleverer than we are. This is not a submission to the mysteries of the universe; rather, it's a recognition that the more we discover about the fundamental nuts and bolts of this world, the more questions we have.
Randall works to uncover those fundamental nuts and bolts. She studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology, and her research has advanced our understanding of supersymmetry, models of extra dimensions, dark matter and more. She's made a career out of sharing these discoveries--what they are, how we know them and why they matter--with the public.
Randall is the author of three books and has appeared in dozens of media outlets--from Charlie Rose and The New York Times to The Colbert Report and Vogue. We sat down with Randall after her lecture "New ideas about dark matter" as part of the National Science Foundation's Distinguished Lecture Series in Math and Physical Sciences.
I liked doing math. And I liked understanding how things work. I took a physics class in high school, and I didn't really know for sure that I would be doing it [long term], but I kept going. I enjoyed it. I like that you got answers. I kind of liked that it was challenging.
I think it's important to explain these theories are evolving and what it means for the world. Uncertainty in science isn't actually a bad thing. It actually drives you forward. You can have a lot of certainty even with uncertainty at the edges.
Sometimes it's a question not just of saying 'I'm going to figure this out,' but just with being smart enough to recognize something interesting when it happens. When we found this warped geometry we hadn't been looking for it, it just was a solution. Then we realized what kind of implications it could have. Both in terms of solving the hierarchy problem and explaining particle masses, but also in terms of having an infinite extra dimension.
There's usually a moment when you realize it. Then there are a lot of moments when you think you're wrong and you go back.
I think there's just a lot of ideas about creativity that people don't fully appreciate for scientists. I think there's a lot of ideas about right and wrong that people don't fully appreciate, and how science advances.
I'd just written a book where you try so hard to do everything in a liner order. I'd just written Warped Passages and it was kind of nice the idea of just introducing ideas without having to explain them. And just have different voices. You sort of realize the richness of operas and just expressing ideas and just getting people familiar with something. You have music, you have art, you have words. It's very exciting.
I don't think anyone should just set themselves up to be a role model. I think every person is different, and certainly there's a few enough women that we're all different. But it is true that one of the small advantages you have as a woman is that you are doing something important beyond your work, which is just establishing that women can be out there doing these things. And it is definitely true that when I wrote my book I thought it's good to have someone out there in the public eye, so that people know there are women physicists. And in terms of the response, I can say that--both negative and positive--people do not realize there are women out there sometimes. So it was really important. But it also means you have to put up with a lot of distracting comments and questions sometimes that you wouldn't otherwise.
-- Jessica Arriens,
Investigators
Lisa Randall
Related Institutions/Organizations
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
After the lecture: Extra dimensions, interacting dark matter, and the power of uncertainty
A conversation with theoretical physicist Lisa Randall
In her most recent book, physicist Lisa Randall--Harvard professor, libretto composer, Lego figurine, star in the world of theoretical physics--writes that the universe repeatedly reveals itself to be cleverer than we are. This is not a submission to the mysteries of the universe; rather, it's a recognition that the more we discover about the fundamental nuts and bolts of this world, the more questions we have.
Randall works to uncover those fundamental nuts and bolts. She studies theoretical particle physics and cosmology, and her research has advanced our understanding of supersymmetry, models of extra dimensions, dark matter and more. She's made a career out of sharing these discoveries--what they are, how we know them and why they matter--with the public.
Randall is the author of three books and has appeared in dozens of media outlets--from Charlie Rose and The New York Times to The Colbert Report and Vogue. We sat down with Randall after her lecture "New ideas about dark matter" as part of the National Science Foundation's Distinguished Lecture Series in Math and Physical Sciences.
I liked doing math. And I liked understanding how things work. I took a physics class in high school, and I didn't really know for sure that I would be doing it [long term], but I kept going. I enjoyed it. I like that you got answers. I kind of liked that it was challenging.
I think it's important to explain these theories are evolving and what it means for the world. Uncertainty in science isn't actually a bad thing. It actually drives you forward. You can have a lot of certainty even with uncertainty at the edges.
Sometimes it's a question not just of saying 'I'm going to figure this out,' but just with being smart enough to recognize something interesting when it happens. When we found this warped geometry we hadn't been looking for it, it just was a solution. Then we realized what kind of implications it could have. Both in terms of solving the hierarchy problem and explaining particle masses, but also in terms of having an infinite extra dimension.
There's usually a moment when you realize it. Then there are a lot of moments when you think you're wrong and you go back.
I think there's just a lot of ideas about creativity that people don't fully appreciate for scientists. I think there's a lot of ideas about right and wrong that people don't fully appreciate, and how science advances.
I'd just written a book where you try so hard to do everything in a liner order. I'd just written Warped Passages and it was kind of nice the idea of just introducing ideas without having to explain them. And just have different voices. You sort of realize the richness of operas and just expressing ideas and just getting people familiar with something. You have music, you have art, you have words. It's very exciting.
I don't think anyone should just set themselves up to be a role model. I think every person is different, and certainly there's a few enough women that we're all different. But it is true that one of the small advantages you have as a woman is that you are doing something important beyond your work, which is just establishing that women can be out there doing these things. And it is definitely true that when I wrote my book I thought it's good to have someone out there in the public eye, so that people know there are women physicists. And in terms of the response, I can say that--both negative and positive--people do not realize there are women out there sometimes. So it was really important. But it also means you have to put up with a lot of distracting comments and questions sometimes that you wouldn't otherwise.
-- Jessica Arriens,
Investigators
Lisa Randall
Related Institutions/Organizations
Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
STATEMENT ON ANNIVERSARY OF RANZA PLAZA BUILDING COLLAPSE IN BANGLADESH
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Joint Statement on the Second Anniversary of the Rana Plaza Disaster in Bangladesh
WASHINGTON — The text of the following statement was released by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry; High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini; U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez; EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen; U.S. Trade Representative Michael B. G. Froman; EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström; U.S. Agency for International Development Acting Administrator Alfonso E. Lenhardt; and EU Commissioner in charge of International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica.
"Today we mark the passage of two years since the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that claimed over 1,100 lives and injured many more. We join the people of Bangladesh in mourning those who lost their lives and remain mindful of the difficult struggle for those who survived.
In the aftermath of the Rana Plaza collapse, the European Union, the United States and the International Labor Organization (ILO) joined with Bangladesh to undertake a series of significant commitments to foster respect for fundamental labor rights and ensure worker safety and health in the garment sector. The Partners announced the Sustainability Compact for Bangladesh — a statement of principles and commitments designed to bring about a lasting transformation in the sector.
"Today, on the commemoration of the Rana Plaza collapse, we take note of the progress that has been made, but also the urgent work that remains.
"Over the past two years, the government of Bangladesh has amended its Labor Law to strengthen certain aspects of freedom of association, collective bargaining and occupational health and safety; recruited and begun training a significant number of new factory inspectors; started fire and structural safety assessments and begun posting online factory safety information; established a hotline to report labor concerns; and since January 2013, registered approximately 300 new trade unions. Similarly, we applaud the completion by the two private sector initiatives, the Accord and the Alliance, of their efforts to assess the structural and fire safety of over 2,000 RMG factories, the related closure of over 30 factories that posed the greatest risk of catastrophic failure, and remedial actions taken so far.
"However, significant work remains to be done under the Sustainability Compact to realize its goals. In particular, we encourage and support the Government of Bangladesh's efforts to continue reforming its labor laws, in close consultations with the ILO, complete the safety inspections of all RMG factories and continue to register unions in a timely and transparent way. We urge the government to issue — without further delays — the implementing rules for Bangladesh Labor Act, consistent with international labor standards. Similarly, we call upon the Government of Bangladesh to enact legislation on economic processing zones that ensures workers inside the zones enjoy rights commensurate with those outside the zones.
"Also of pressing concern, the government should respond swiftly to cases of unfair labor practices, violence, and harassment against trade unions and workers' representatives. We note that advances in health, safety, and labor rights will remain fragile and impermanent if workers are unable to exercise those rights and organize to represent their interests and concerns.
"Our commitment to Bangladesh is strong and enduring. The European Union and the United States, in close cooperation with the ILO, will remain closely engaged with the Government of Bangladesh in the spirit of partnership to continue our work together to ensure that economic growth and sustainable development go hand-in-hand with workers' safety and rights."
Joint Statement on the Second Anniversary of the Rana Plaza Disaster in Bangladesh
WASHINGTON — The text of the following statement was released by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry; High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini; U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez; EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility Marianne Thyssen; U.S. Trade Representative Michael B. G. Froman; EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström; U.S. Agency for International Development Acting Administrator Alfonso E. Lenhardt; and EU Commissioner in charge of International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica.
"Today we mark the passage of two years since the tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, that claimed over 1,100 lives and injured many more. We join the people of Bangladesh in mourning those who lost their lives and remain mindful of the difficult struggle for those who survived.
In the aftermath of the Rana Plaza collapse, the European Union, the United States and the International Labor Organization (ILO) joined with Bangladesh to undertake a series of significant commitments to foster respect for fundamental labor rights and ensure worker safety and health in the garment sector. The Partners announced the Sustainability Compact for Bangladesh — a statement of principles and commitments designed to bring about a lasting transformation in the sector.
"Today, on the commemoration of the Rana Plaza collapse, we take note of the progress that has been made, but also the urgent work that remains.
"Over the past two years, the government of Bangladesh has amended its Labor Law to strengthen certain aspects of freedom of association, collective bargaining and occupational health and safety; recruited and begun training a significant number of new factory inspectors; started fire and structural safety assessments and begun posting online factory safety information; established a hotline to report labor concerns; and since January 2013, registered approximately 300 new trade unions. Similarly, we applaud the completion by the two private sector initiatives, the Accord and the Alliance, of their efforts to assess the structural and fire safety of over 2,000 RMG factories, the related closure of over 30 factories that posed the greatest risk of catastrophic failure, and remedial actions taken so far.
"However, significant work remains to be done under the Sustainability Compact to realize its goals. In particular, we encourage and support the Government of Bangladesh's efforts to continue reforming its labor laws, in close consultations with the ILO, complete the safety inspections of all RMG factories and continue to register unions in a timely and transparent way. We urge the government to issue — without further delays — the implementing rules for Bangladesh Labor Act, consistent with international labor standards. Similarly, we call upon the Government of Bangladesh to enact legislation on economic processing zones that ensures workers inside the zones enjoy rights commensurate with those outside the zones.
"Also of pressing concern, the government should respond swiftly to cases of unfair labor practices, violence, and harassment against trade unions and workers' representatives. We note that advances in health, safety, and labor rights will remain fragile and impermanent if workers are unable to exercise those rights and organize to represent their interests and concerns.
"Our commitment to Bangladesh is strong and enduring. The European Union and the United States, in close cooperation with the ILO, will remain closely engaged with the Government of Bangladesh in the spirit of partnership to continue our work together to ensure that economic growth and sustainable development go hand-in-hand with workers' safety and rights."
Saturday, April 25, 2015
SEC BRINGS CHARGES IN PONZI SCHEME INVOLVING FARM LOANS
FROM: U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 23246 / April 24, 2015
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Veros Partners, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 15-cv-000659-JMS-MJD (S.D.Ind., filed April 22, 2015)
SEC Halts Fraudulent Farm Loan Scheme by Indianapolis Investment Adviser
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against an Indianapolis investment adviser, its president, two associates and several affiliated companies for engaging in two fraudulent farm loan offerings, in which they made ponzi scheme payments to investors in other offerings and paid themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed fees. The SEC obtained a temporary restraining order and emergency asset freeze to halt the scheme.
According to the SEC's complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, in 2013 and 2014, Veros Partners, Inc., its president, Matthew D. Haab, and two associates, attorney Jeffrey B. Risinger and Tobin J. Senefeld, fraudulently raised at least $15 million from at least 80 investors, most of whom were Veros advisory clients. The investors were informed that their funds would be used to make short-term operating loans to farmers, but instead, significant portions of the loans were to cover the farmers' unpaid debt on loans from prior offerings. According to the SEC's complaint, Haab, Risinger and Senefeld used money from the two offerings to pay millions of dollars to investors in prior farm loan offerings and to pay themselves over $800,000 in undisclosed "success" and "interest rate spread" fees.
In addition to Veros, Haab, Risinger, and Senefeld, the SEC charged Veros Farm Loan Holding LLC and FarmGrowCap LLC, the issuers of the offerings, and PinCap LLC. The SEC also charged registered broker-dealer Pin Financial LLC as a relief defendant.
The Honorable Jane Magnus-Stinson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana issued an asset freeze order against the defendants as well as a temporary restraining order prohibiting them from soliciting, accepting or depositing any monies from any actual or prospective investors, and in the case of Veros, any investors in private securities offerings. Judge Magnus-Stinson also ordered that a receiver be appointed. A preliminary injunction hearing has been scheduled for May 1, 2015.
The SEC's complaint charges the defendants with violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5, and also charges Veros and Haab with violating Sections 206(1), 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act, and Veros with violating Section 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and Rule 206(4)-2. The SEC's complaint seeks permanent injunctions and disgorgement against all defendants and a financial penalty. The SEC's complaint names Pin Financial for the purposes of recovering proceeds it received from the fraud.
The SEC's investigation, which is continuing, has been conducted by Nicholas Eichenseer, Doressia Hutton, and Craig McShane and supervised by Kathryn Pyszka of the Chicago Regional Office. The litigation will be supervised by Robert Moye.
Litigation Release No. 23246 / April 24, 2015
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Veros Partners, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 15-cv-000659-JMS-MJD (S.D.Ind., filed April 22, 2015)
SEC Halts Fraudulent Farm Loan Scheme by Indianapolis Investment Adviser
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against an Indianapolis investment adviser, its president, two associates and several affiliated companies for engaging in two fraudulent farm loan offerings, in which they made ponzi scheme payments to investors in other offerings and paid themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in undisclosed fees. The SEC obtained a temporary restraining order and emergency asset freeze to halt the scheme.
According to the SEC's complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, in 2013 and 2014, Veros Partners, Inc., its president, Matthew D. Haab, and two associates, attorney Jeffrey B. Risinger and Tobin J. Senefeld, fraudulently raised at least $15 million from at least 80 investors, most of whom were Veros advisory clients. The investors were informed that their funds would be used to make short-term operating loans to farmers, but instead, significant portions of the loans were to cover the farmers' unpaid debt on loans from prior offerings. According to the SEC's complaint, Haab, Risinger and Senefeld used money from the two offerings to pay millions of dollars to investors in prior farm loan offerings and to pay themselves over $800,000 in undisclosed "success" and "interest rate spread" fees.
In addition to Veros, Haab, Risinger, and Senefeld, the SEC charged Veros Farm Loan Holding LLC and FarmGrowCap LLC, the issuers of the offerings, and PinCap LLC. The SEC also charged registered broker-dealer Pin Financial LLC as a relief defendant.
The Honorable Jane Magnus-Stinson of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana issued an asset freeze order against the defendants as well as a temporary restraining order prohibiting them from soliciting, accepting or depositing any monies from any actual or prospective investors, and in the case of Veros, any investors in private securities offerings. Judge Magnus-Stinson also ordered that a receiver be appointed. A preliminary injunction hearing has been scheduled for May 1, 2015.
The SEC's complaint charges the defendants with violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5, and also charges Veros and Haab with violating Sections 206(1), 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act, and Veros with violating Section 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and Rule 206(4)-2. The SEC's complaint seeks permanent injunctions and disgorgement against all defendants and a financial penalty. The SEC's complaint names Pin Financial for the purposes of recovering proceeds it received from the fraud.
The SEC's investigation, which is continuing, has been conducted by Nicholas Eichenseer, Doressia Hutton, and Craig McShane and supervised by Kathryn Pyszka of the Chicago Regional Office. The litigation will be supervised by Robert Moye.
U.S. SAYS IT IS "DISTURBED" BY SENTENCE BY AZERBAIJANI COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER INTIGAM ALIYEV
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Conviction of Azerbaijani Human Rights Lawyer Intigam Aliyev
Press Statement
Marie Harf
Acting Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
April 23, 2015
We are disturbed by the April 22 decision of an Azerbaijani court to sentence human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev to seven and a half years in prison, and a subsequent three-year ban from holding public office, on questionable charges.
One of the country’s most well-known human rights lawyers and head of the Legal Education Society, Aliyev worked extensively to promote the rule of law in Azerbaijan and defend peaceful activists. He submitted hundreds of cases to the European Court of Human Rights, winning a number of them.
We urge the Government of Azerbaijan to release Aliyev and others incarcerated in connection with exercising their fundamental freedoms. We also urge the government to afford all Azerbaijani citizens the rights guaranteed in the international agreements to which Azerbaijan has committed.
Conviction of Azerbaijani Human Rights Lawyer Intigam Aliyev
Press Statement
Marie Harf
Acting Department Spokesperson, Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
April 23, 2015
We are disturbed by the April 22 decision of an Azerbaijani court to sentence human rights lawyer Intigam Aliyev to seven and a half years in prison, and a subsequent three-year ban from holding public office, on questionable charges.
One of the country’s most well-known human rights lawyers and head of the Legal Education Society, Aliyev worked extensively to promote the rule of law in Azerbaijan and defend peaceful activists. He submitted hundreds of cases to the European Court of Human Rights, winning a number of them.
We urge the Government of Azerbaijan to release Aliyev and others incarcerated in connection with exercising their fundamental freedoms. We also urge the government to afford all Azerbaijani citizens the rights guaranteed in the international agreements to which Azerbaijan has committed.
FTC, TECH COMPANY SETTLE CHARGES RELATED TO MISLEADING CONSUMERS OVER OPT "OUT CHOICES"
FROM: U.S. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
Retail Tracking Firm Settles FTC Charges it Misled Consumers About Opt Out Choices
Company Falsely Promised an In-Store Opt Out, Agency Alleges
Nomi Technologies, a company whose technology allows retailers to track consumers’ movements through their stores, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misled consumers with promises that it would provide an in-store mechanism for consumers to opt out of tracking and that consumers would be informed when locations were using Nomi’s tracking services.
The FTC’s complaint against Nomi states that beginning in late 2012, the company’s privacy policy promised that Nomi would provide an opt-out mechanism at stores using its services. This promise implied that consumers would be informed when stores were using Nomi’s tracking technology. The complaint alleges that these promises were not true because no in-store opt-out mechanism was available, and consumers were not informed when the tracking was taking place.
The complaint alleges that Nomi collected information on about nine million mobile devices within the first nine months of 2013. The complaint is the FTC’s first against a retail tracking company.
“It’s vital that companies keep their privacy promises to consumers when working with emerging technologies, just as it is in any other context,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “If you tell a consumer that they will have choices about their privacy, you should make sure all of those choices are actually available to them.”
Nomi, according to the complaint, places sensors in its clients’ stores that collect the MAC addresses of consumers’ mobile devices as the devices search for WiFi networks. MAC addresses are unique 12-digit identifiers that are assigned to individual mobile devices. Although Nomi “hashes” the MAC addresses prior to storing them, the hashing process still results in an identifier that is unique to a consumer’s mobile device and can be tracked over time.
The complaint alleges that Nomi tracked consumers both inside and outside their clients’ stores, tracking the MAC address, device type, date and time the device was observed, and signal strength of consumers’ devices. In reports to clients, Nomi provided aggregated information on how many consumers passed by the store instead of entering, how long consumers stayed in the store, the types of devices used by consumers, how many repeat customers enter a store in a given period and how many customers had visited another location in a particular chain of stores.
The company’s privacy policy said that it “pledged to… always allow consumers to opt out of Nomi’s service on its website, as well as at any retailer using Nomi’s technology.” While the company did provide an opt-out on its website, the complaint alleges that no such option was available at retailers using the service, and that consumers were not informed of the tracking taking place in the stores at all.
Under the terms of the settlement with the FTC, Nomi will be prohibited from misrepresenting consumers’ options for controlling whether information is collected, used, disclosed or shared about them or their computers or other devices, as well as the extent to which consumers will be notified about information practices.
Retail Tracking Firm Settles FTC Charges it Misled Consumers About Opt Out Choices
Company Falsely Promised an In-Store Opt Out, Agency Alleges
Nomi Technologies, a company whose technology allows retailers to track consumers’ movements through their stores, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misled consumers with promises that it would provide an in-store mechanism for consumers to opt out of tracking and that consumers would be informed when locations were using Nomi’s tracking services.
The FTC’s complaint against Nomi states that beginning in late 2012, the company’s privacy policy promised that Nomi would provide an opt-out mechanism at stores using its services. This promise implied that consumers would be informed when stores were using Nomi’s tracking technology. The complaint alleges that these promises were not true because no in-store opt-out mechanism was available, and consumers were not informed when the tracking was taking place.
The complaint alleges that Nomi collected information on about nine million mobile devices within the first nine months of 2013. The complaint is the FTC’s first against a retail tracking company.
“It’s vital that companies keep their privacy promises to consumers when working with emerging technologies, just as it is in any other context,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “If you tell a consumer that they will have choices about their privacy, you should make sure all of those choices are actually available to them.”
Nomi, according to the complaint, places sensors in its clients’ stores that collect the MAC addresses of consumers’ mobile devices as the devices search for WiFi networks. MAC addresses are unique 12-digit identifiers that are assigned to individual mobile devices. Although Nomi “hashes” the MAC addresses prior to storing them, the hashing process still results in an identifier that is unique to a consumer’s mobile device and can be tracked over time.
The complaint alleges that Nomi tracked consumers both inside and outside their clients’ stores, tracking the MAC address, device type, date and time the device was observed, and signal strength of consumers’ devices. In reports to clients, Nomi provided aggregated information on how many consumers passed by the store instead of entering, how long consumers stayed in the store, the types of devices used by consumers, how many repeat customers enter a store in a given period and how many customers had visited another location in a particular chain of stores.
The company’s privacy policy said that it “pledged to… always allow consumers to opt out of Nomi’s service on its website, as well as at any retailer using Nomi’s technology.” While the company did provide an opt-out on its website, the complaint alleges that no such option was available at retailers using the service, and that consumers were not informed of the tracking taking place in the stores at all.
Under the terms of the settlement with the FTC, Nomi will be prohibited from misrepresenting consumers’ options for controlling whether information is collected, used, disclosed or shared about them or their computers or other devices, as well as the extent to which consumers will be notified about information practices.
U.S.-LATVIAN DEFENSE OFFICIALS MEET TO DISCUSS PRIORITIES
FROM: U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Deputy Secretary, Latvian Defense Minister Discuss Priorities
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, April 23, 2015 – During a 30-minute meeting at the Pentagon today, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work and Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis talked about defense priorities and ongoing measures demonstrating U.S. and allied commitment to the Baltic region, Defense Department officials reported.
In a statement summarizing the meeting, officials said Work and Vejonis discussed the importance of clear NATO unity against Russian aggression, continued presence of U.S. forces in the region, and ways to work together to better support NATO deterrence measures.
“Work applauded the steps taken by Latvia to increase readiness and procure new systems that address vulnerabilities and increase capability,” the statement said. Work also lauded Vejonis's commitment to raise Latvia’s defense spending to 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product and to increase manning in the Latvian armed forces by 2,000 personnel by 2018, officials added.
Continued Leadership, Record of Commitment
The deputy secretary also thanked the minister for his continued leadership and Latvia's record of commitment in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Balkans, the statement said.
Work stressed that the United States will continue to work with the Baltic States to support regional cooperation, interoperability with allies, and long-term defense modernization, officials said.
In addition to meetings in Washington, Vejonis visited Fort Stewart, Georgia, to meet with leadership of the 3rd Infantry Division, which has a company of soldiers deployed to Latvia under Operation Atlantic Resolve.
This was Work's first meeting with the defense minister, officials said.
Deputy Secretary, Latvian Defense Minister Discuss Priorities
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, April 23, 2015 – During a 30-minute meeting at the Pentagon today, Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work and Latvian Defense Minister Raimonds Vejonis talked about defense priorities and ongoing measures demonstrating U.S. and allied commitment to the Baltic region, Defense Department officials reported.
In a statement summarizing the meeting, officials said Work and Vejonis discussed the importance of clear NATO unity against Russian aggression, continued presence of U.S. forces in the region, and ways to work together to better support NATO deterrence measures.
“Work applauded the steps taken by Latvia to increase readiness and procure new systems that address vulnerabilities and increase capability,” the statement said. Work also lauded Vejonis's commitment to raise Latvia’s defense spending to 2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product and to increase manning in the Latvian armed forces by 2,000 personnel by 2018, officials added.
Continued Leadership, Record of Commitment
The deputy secretary also thanked the minister for his continued leadership and Latvia's record of commitment in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Balkans, the statement said.
Work stressed that the United States will continue to work with the Baltic States to support regional cooperation, interoperability with allies, and long-term defense modernization, officials said.
In addition to meetings in Washington, Vejonis visited Fort Stewart, Georgia, to meet with leadership of the 3rd Infantry Division, which has a company of soldiers deployed to Latvia under Operation Atlantic Resolve.
This was Work's first meeting with the defense minister, officials said.
COURT BARS COMPANY FROM BULLYING ELDERLY TO PAY FOR MEDICAL ALERT DEVICES
FROM: U.S. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION
Court Bars Brooklyn Company from Using Threats and Intimidation to Coerce Elderly Consumers into Paying for Unwanted Medical Alert Devices
Court Orders Defendants to Pay $3.4 Million in “Unjust Gains”
At the Federal Trade Commission’s request, a U.S. district court has prohibited Jason Abraham, a repeat offender, and his company, Brooklyn-based Instant Response Systems (IRS) from calling elderly consumers and bullying and tricking them into paying for unordered medical alert devices. The court also imposed a $3.4 million judgment against the defendants for their misconduct, which may be used to provide refunds to defrauded consumers.
“Instant Response Systems lied to older people to get them to pay for medical alert systems they didn’t order and didn’t want,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Their high-pressure, deceptive phone pitches were illegal, and they violated the do not call rules to boot.”
According to the FTC’s complaint, filed in March 2013, telemarketers for IRS called elderly consumers – many of whom are in poor health and rely on others for help with their finances – and pressured them into buying a medical alert service consisting of a pendant that supposedly would allow them to get help during emergencies. In many cases, IRS falsely claimed during sales calls that consumers had bought the service previously and owed the company hundreds of dollars.
The company shipped fake invoices and unordered medical alert pendants to consumers without their consent, repeatedly threatened them with legal action to coerce them into paying, and subjected them to repeated verbal abuse. The FTC also charged the defendants with illegally calling consumers whose phone numbers are on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry.
The court order issued with the summary judgment announced today imposes both conduct and monetary provisions against Abraham. First, it bars him from violating the FTC Act and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule by making any false and misleading statements to induce consumers to make payments, using threats or intimidation to coerce payment, and from calling consumers whose phone numbers are on the DNC Registry. It also bars him from violating the FTC’s Unordered Merchandise Statute. Finally, the court ordered Abraham to pay a judgment of $3,432,462, the amount of the “unjust gains” he received through the scheme.
In its ruling, the court stated, “There is no genuine dispute that [the] defendants, in letters and phone calls, made material misrepresentations that consumers ordered medical alert services and owed IRS money when, in fact, they did not.” The court also found that Abraham “knowingly made misrepresentations to hundreds of consumers over a five-year period, all while subject to a permanent injunction issued in 2003 . . . which prohibited him from such conduct.”
The summary judgment resolves the FTC’s charges against Jason Abraham. Last year, the court entered a default judgment against Abraham’s company, Instant Response Systems, LLC that resolved the FTC’s charges against the company and orders injunctive and monetary relief similar to the summary judgment order against Abraham.
The FTC appreciates the assistance of the New York State Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, in this case.
Court Bars Brooklyn Company from Using Threats and Intimidation to Coerce Elderly Consumers into Paying for Unwanted Medical Alert Devices
Court Orders Defendants to Pay $3.4 Million in “Unjust Gains”
At the Federal Trade Commission’s request, a U.S. district court has prohibited Jason Abraham, a repeat offender, and his company, Brooklyn-based Instant Response Systems (IRS) from calling elderly consumers and bullying and tricking them into paying for unordered medical alert devices. The court also imposed a $3.4 million judgment against the defendants for their misconduct, which may be used to provide refunds to defrauded consumers.
“Instant Response Systems lied to older people to get them to pay for medical alert systems they didn’t order and didn’t want,” said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Their high-pressure, deceptive phone pitches were illegal, and they violated the do not call rules to boot.”
According to the FTC’s complaint, filed in March 2013, telemarketers for IRS called elderly consumers – many of whom are in poor health and rely on others for help with their finances – and pressured them into buying a medical alert service consisting of a pendant that supposedly would allow them to get help during emergencies. In many cases, IRS falsely claimed during sales calls that consumers had bought the service previously and owed the company hundreds of dollars.
The company shipped fake invoices and unordered medical alert pendants to consumers without their consent, repeatedly threatened them with legal action to coerce them into paying, and subjected them to repeated verbal abuse. The FTC also charged the defendants with illegally calling consumers whose phone numbers are on the National Do Not Call (DNC) Registry.
The court order issued with the summary judgment announced today imposes both conduct and monetary provisions against Abraham. First, it bars him from violating the FTC Act and the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule by making any false and misleading statements to induce consumers to make payments, using threats or intimidation to coerce payment, and from calling consumers whose phone numbers are on the DNC Registry. It also bars him from violating the FTC’s Unordered Merchandise Statute. Finally, the court ordered Abraham to pay a judgment of $3,432,462, the amount of the “unjust gains” he received through the scheme.
In its ruling, the court stated, “There is no genuine dispute that [the] defendants, in letters and phone calls, made material misrepresentations that consumers ordered medical alert services and owed IRS money when, in fact, they did not.” The court also found that Abraham “knowingly made misrepresentations to hundreds of consumers over a five-year period, all while subject to a permanent injunction issued in 2003 . . . which prohibited him from such conduct.”
The summary judgment resolves the FTC’s charges against Jason Abraham. Last year, the court entered a default judgment against Abraham’s company, Instant Response Systems, LLC that resolved the FTC’s charges against the company and orders injunctive and monetary relief similar to the summary judgment order against Abraham.
The FTC appreciates the assistance of the New York State Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, in this case.
Friday, April 24, 2015
U.S. CONGRATULATES PEOPLE OF TANZANIA ON TANZANIA'S UNION DAY
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
On the Occasion of the United Republic of Tanzania's Union Day
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
April 24, 2015
On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I congratulate the people of Tanzania as you celebrate the 51st anniversary of the union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
Deep bonds of friendship unite the people of the United States and the people of Tanzania. The first class of Peace Corps volunteers traveled to your country to build roads connecting your cities. And soon after, President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Julius Nyerere shook hands in Washington, where both men reaffirmed our commitment to equality and opportunity for all our citizens.
Today, Tanzania is a model in the region of good governance, democratic ideals, and individual freedoms. We remain committed to working with you to build on your achievements in health care, access to electricity, gender equality, and in safeguarding Tanzania’s rich natural heritage for generations to come.
As Tanzanians celebrate Union Day at home and abroad, I wish you peace and prosperity in the year ahead.
On the Occasion of the United Republic of Tanzania's Union Day
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
April 24, 2015
On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I congratulate the people of Tanzania as you celebrate the 51st anniversary of the union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
Deep bonds of friendship unite the people of the United States and the people of Tanzania. The first class of Peace Corps volunteers traveled to your country to build roads connecting your cities. And soon after, President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Julius Nyerere shook hands in Washington, where both men reaffirmed our commitment to equality and opportunity for all our citizens.
Today, Tanzania is a model in the region of good governance, democratic ideals, and individual freedoms. We remain committed to working with you to build on your achievements in health care, access to electricity, gender equality, and in safeguarding Tanzania’s rich natural heritage for generations to come.
As Tanzanians celebrate Union Day at home and abroad, I wish you peace and prosperity in the year ahead.
DOD SECRETARY CARTER'S SEARCH FOR TECH PARTNERS
Right: Defense Secretary Ash Carter holds up a copy of his doctoral thesis as he delivers a lecture titled "Rewiring the Pentagon: Charting a New Path on Innovation and Cybersecurity," at Stanford University in Stanford, California, April 23, 2015. The lecture highlighted the Pentagon's new cyber strategy and innovation initiatives.
Carter Seeks Tech-sector Partnerships for Innovation
By Cheryl Pellerin
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, April 23, 2015 – Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced new partnership initiatives today on the first day of a two-day visit to California’s Silicon Valley to learn from experts who run some of the highest-tech companies in one of the nation’s innovation hotspots.
At Stanford University, where he recently served as a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Carter delivered the annual Drell Lecture, titled “Rewiring the Pentagon: Charting a New Path on Innovation and Cybersecurity.”
The lecture, sponsored by the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, is named for Dr. Sidney Drell, a theoretical physicist and arms-control expert who cofounded the center.
When Carter became defense secretary, he told the audience, one of his top commitments was to the future -- to stay ahead of a changing world, to remain competitive, to attract new generations to the mission of serving the country, and to stay abreast of technology.
Commercially Driven Technology
To begin leveraging commercially driven technology, he said, the Defense Department wants “to partner with businesses on everything from autonomy to robotics to biomedical engineering and 3-D printing; power, energy, propulsion to distributed systems, data science [and] the Internet of things.”
Over the years, Carter said, products developed in Silicon Valley and across the tech community have enabled transformation, progress, opportunity and prosperity across all economic and social sectors, including national defense.
“It’s made many things easier, cheaper and safer,” he added.
“But in recent years it’s become clear that these same advances and technologies also present a degree of risk to the businesses, governments, militaries and individual[s] who rely on them every day … making it easier, cheaper and safer to threaten them,” the secretary said.
The same technologies DoD uses to target cruise missiles and jam enemy air defenses can be used against U.S. and allied forces, and they’re available to the highest bidders, he noted, asking, “How do we mitigate the risk that comes with technology while simultaneously unleashing its promise and potential?”
The answer, he said, is partnership.
Investments by DoD and government agencies have historically played a role in helping to spur ground-up technological innovation in Silicon Valley and on the Stanford campus, Carter said. Vint Cerf, father of the Internet, did that work and more while he was a Stanford assistant professor and a researcher at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the secretary said.
DoD-funded Innovation
The Global Positioning System began as a defense-driven project, work on Google’s search algorithm was funded by a National Science Foundation grant, and most technologies used throughout Silicon Valley can be traced back to government or DoD research and expenditures, Carter said. “Developers of multitouch [interaction] worked together through a fellowship funded by the National Science Foundation and the CIA,” he added.
“iOS’s Siri grew out of … decades of DARPA-driven research on artificial intelligence and voice recognition, [and] a specific DARPA project funded through [SRI International, formerly the Stanford Research Institute] to help develop a virtual assistant for military personnel,” the secretary said. “And Google’s self-driving cars grew out of a DARPA Grand Challenge.”
DoD, other federal agencies and tech companies helped to ignite the spark, Carter said, but Silicon Valley companies nurtured the flame and created unimaginable applications.
But the Defense Department still makes up half of federal research and development -- about $72 billion this year, he said. And $12 billion in R&D funds support breakthrough science and technology research at universities, companies and DoD labs across the tech community.
For example, he said, several Stanford scientists have worked with DARPA, and over the past three years, DARPA has partnered with nearly 50 different public- and private-sector research entities in Silicon Valley.
“These relationships are really valuable to us,” Carter added, “and I intend to continue to nurture them.”
Disaster-response Robots
In June, the results of such partnerships will come together during the DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals in Pomona, California.
At the competition, work on smaller sensors, pattern-recognition technology, big-data analysis and autonomous systems with human decision support will fuel a competition of 25 robots from around the world. Each human-robot team will try to navigate a simulated disaster area so that during future disasters such technology may be ready to help without putting people at risk.
But to stay competitive and stay ahead of threats, DoD must do even more, Carter said, “and that starts with our people, who are our most important asset both in Silicon Valley and in the military.”
Who they are and where they are affects the department’s ability to innovate, the secretary said, and that’s the rationale behind some initial steps he’s taking starting today to help the department attract new people with talent and expertise “and who want to contribute to the Force of the Future, even if only for a time or a project.”
In one such effort, the department is establishing a DoD branch of the U.S. Digital Service, an outgrowth of the tech team that helped to rescue healthcare.gov, the secretary said.
The team will help to solve some of DoD’s most intractable IT and data problems, Carter said, noting that “we have our very first team … already in the Pentagon working on transferring electronic health records from DoD to the [Department of Veterans Affairs].”
U.S. Digital Service
Another initiative Carter announced today takes advantage of the elements that make Silicon Valley “a nexus for innovation” -- an experimental Silicon Valley partnership called the Defense Innovation Unit-X, or DIUX. The unit will scout emerging and breakthrough technologies and build direct relationships to DoD.
This is “first-of-a-kind [partnership] for us, staffed by some of our best active-duty and military personnel, plus key people from the reserves who live here, who are some our best technical talent,” Carter said.
Building New Relationships
The team will strengthen existing relationships and build new ones while functioning as a local interface node for the rest of the department, the secretary said. Down the road, he added, “they can help startups find new work to do with DoD.”
Next, Carter said, the department will open a door in the other direction, from our best government technologies to industry and then back.
An existing program called Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows sends about 15 DoD people a year out to commercial companies such as Oracle, Cisco, FedEx and others, he said.
“Right now we don’t effectively harness what they’ve learned when they come back, … so we’re going to try expanding that fellows program into a two-year gig -– one year in a company and one year in a part of DoD with comparable business practices,” the secretary said. “That way, we have a better chance to bring the private sector’s best practices back into the department.”
To invest in the most promising emerging technologies, Carter said, the department needs the creativity and innovation that comes from startups and small businesses.
“This is particularly important, because startups are the leading edge of commercial innovation,” he said, “and right now, DoD researchers don’t have enough promising ways to transition technologies that they come up with to application. I want to fix that too.”
Borrowing on the success of an intelligence community partnership with the independent nonprofit startup-backer In-Q-Tel, Carter said the department has proposed and In-Q-Tel has accepted a pilot project to provide innovative solutions to DoD’s most challenging problems.
The department will make a small investment with In-Q-Tel to leverage the nonprofit’s proven relationships and apply its approach to DoD, he added.
The Best Partners
“As secretary of defense, my mission is to make sure our military can defend our country … and we’re at our best when we have the best partners,” Carter said. “Knowing how we’ve worked together in the past and how critical your work is to our country, strengthening this partnership is very important to me.
“We have a unique opportunity to build bridges and rebuild bridges [in the commercial tech sector] and renew trust,” he continued. “That’s why I’m visiting some other companies here this afternoon and meeting with a group of tech leaders tomorrow. I want to learn how in the years to come a new level of partnership can lead to great things. That’s what’s possible through partnership.”
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