MotionCenter.info | Carmel Hamlet: September 2011

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Microsoft Office 2007 and Enterprise 2007 Wanted

Attention A.I.U. and C.T.U. College Students

Group Speeddog Results Marketing, L.L.C.
is willing to purchase your Microsoft 2007 Office and Communicator

Payment up to $20 per copy via Paypal. Original software only with codes.
Payment depends on condition of software when received.

Send to:
Group Speeddog Results Marketing, L.L.C.
3840 East Robinson Road 3
Amherst, New York 14228

DO NOT SEND PIRATED SOFTWARE
DO USE TRACKING and Include your Paypal Email with shipment.

Limited Time Offer.

Microsoft Office 2007 and Enterprise 2007 Wanted

Saturday, September 24, 2011

CBP Officers Seize $182,000 in Cocaine at Brownsville, Texas Entry

Brownsville, TX – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Veteran’s International Bridge yesterday discovered cocaine valued at approximately $182,400 concealed within a Chevrolet Van driven by a U.S. citizen.

CBP officers at the Veteran’s International Bridge encountered a beige and silver Chevrolet, Chevy Van being driven into the U.S. by a lone female. The driver, identified as a 21-year-old female U.S. citizen who resides in Brownsville, Texas was referred to secondary for further inspection where CBP officers discovered two packages hidden within the Chevrolet. The two packages contain approximately 2.59 kilograms (5.7 pounds) of alleged cocaine.

The alleged cocaine from this seizure has an estimated street value of approximately $182,400. CBP officers turned the woman over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents for further investigation. CBP officers seized the narcotics and the vehicle.

Michael Freeman, CBP port director, Brownsville, called this an outstanding seizure and arrest. “Keeping these dangerous narcotics from entering our country and reaching our communities is of paramount importance to CBP. I congratulate our officers and I applaud their hard work and dedication,” Freeman said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is the unified border agency within the Department of Homeland Security charged with the management, control and protection of our nation's borders at and between the official ports of entry. CBP is charged with keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the country while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws

CBP Officers Seize $182,000 in Cocaine at Brownsville, Texas Entry

DOD Identifies Army Casualties

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 816-11
September 23, 2011

Darlington, Wis

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

They died Sep. 21, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered when insurgents attacked their unit with small arms fire. They were assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 34th Armor Regiment, 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.

Killed were:

Spc. Jakob J. Roelli, 24, of .

; and

Spc. Robert E. Dyas, 21, of Nampa, Idaho

DOD Identifies Army Casualties

IMMEDIATE RELEASE

No. 816-11
September 23, 2011

Darlington, Wis

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Killed were:

Spc. Jakob J. Roelli, 24, of .

; and

Spc. Robert E. Dyas, 21, of Nampa, Idaho

CBP Shuts Down Electronics Counterfeiting Conspiracy

Washington—A Chantilly, Va., woman, Chun-yu Zhao, recently received a 60-month prison sentence and heavy financial penalties for masterminding a conspiracy to import counterfeit computer networking equipment. U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel using solid detective work and meticulous financial analysis were able to detect and bring Zhao to justice.

click for hi-res

An open computer board following CBP inspection.

Phony labels helped CBP uncover a conspiracy to import counterfeit computer networking equipment.

"Besides cheating legitimate businesses, putting counterfeit electronics in sensitive computer networks, aircraft, and vehicles can threaten public safety and even undermine national security," said CBP Commissioner Alan D. Bersin. “This case is a prime example of the way CBP protects the public from unfair and unsafe imports.”

CBP officers intercepted computer networking products that were believed to be counterfeit. CBP’s National Targeting and Analysis Group, or NTAG, in California, pieced together common elements in hundreds of unrelated shipments that ultimately identified the Zhao operation.

The smoking gun in this case was a shipment of bogus Cisco Systems labels that the NTAG identified and referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. These phony labels indicated Zhao’s knowledge and intent to import and sell counterfeit goods. It also allowed the government to get a search warrant and to carry out a controlled delivery that caught Zhao with the counterfeit goods red-handed.

To untangle enormous volumes of evidence, CBP regulatory audit personnel assisted case agents in connecting the dots to reveal all the accounts, assets, and entities involved. They deciphered handwritten documents to uncover and explain all the parts of the financial big picture.

CBP works cooperatively with intellectual property rights owners like Cisco Systems to stop imports of counterfeit goods while minimizing any disruption to the flow of legitimate merchandise.

Protecting intellectual property rights and promoting import safety are major CBP priorities. In the past several years, CBP has been involved in more than 700 seizures of counterfeit computer networking equipment. These seizures played a critical role in most of the more than 30 felony convictions in counterfeit computer networking cases by federal prosecutors in the last five years.

“This case illustrates how well government agencies are assisting each other in sharing information and expertise,” said Bersin. “There could not be a successful prosecution like the Zhao case without extensive multi-agency cooperation and collaboration.”

If you have knowledge of a violation of U.S. trade laws, please file an e-Allegation on CBP.gov. ( E-Allegations )

Founder of Ninjavideo pleads guilty to criminal copyright conspiracy

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

WASHINGTON - A North Carolina man pleaded guilty today for his role in founding a website that provided millions of users with the ability to illegally download copyright-protected movies and television programs. This investigation is being conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in conjunction with the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center).

Matthew David Howard Smith, 23, of Raleigh, N.C., pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga in the Eastern District of Virginia to conspiracy and criminal copyright infringement. At sentencing, scheduled for Dec. 16, 2011, Smith faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison on each count.

The guilty plea was announced by ICE Director John Morton; Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department's Criminal Division; and U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia.

According to the court documents, Smith was one of the founders of NinjaVideo, which operated from February 2008 until it was shut down by law enforcement in June 2010. He admitted that he designed many of the operational elements of the website that enabled millions of visitors to illegally download infringing copies of movies and television programs in high-quality formats. Many of the movies offered on the website were still playing in theaters, while others had not yet been released. While visitors to the website were permitted to download infringing content for free, they were also invited to make donations, which provided them access to private forum boards that contained a wider range of infringing material. A premium member obtained the rights to request specific infringing content, which the NinjaVideo administrators would then locate and add to the website.

Smith admitted that he made agreements with online advertising entities to generate income for the website, and he and his co-conspirators collected more than $500,000 during the website's two-and-a-half years of operation.

On Sept. 9, 2011, Smith was indicted along with four other alleged co-conspirators associated with NinjaVideo. The remaining defendants are scheduled for a jury trial on Feb. 6, 2012.

The investigation was conducted by ICE HSI in conjunction with the IPR Center. The ICE HSI-led IPR Center is one of the U.S. government's key weapons in the fight against criminal counterfeiting and piracy. As a task force, the IPR Center uses the expertise of its 19 member agencies to share information, develop initiatives, coordinate enforcement actions, and conduct investigations related to IP theft. Through this strategic interagency partnership, the IPR Center protects the public's health and safety, the U.S. economy and the war fighters.

NinjaVideo was seized during the first phase of "Operation In Our Sites," a sustained law enforcement initiative to protect consumers by targeting counterfeiting and piracy over the Internet.

To report IP theft or to learn more about the IPR Center, visit www.IPRCenter.gov.

This case is part of efforts being undertaken by the Department of Justice Task Force on Intellectual Property (IP Task Force) to stop the theft of intellectual property. Attorney General Eric Holder created the IP Task Force to combat the growing number of domestic and international intellectual property crimes, protect the health and safety of American consumers, and safeguard the nation's economic security against those who seek to profit illegally from American creativity, innovation and hard work. The IP Task Force seeks to strengthen intellectual property rights protection through heightened criminal and civil enforcement, greater coordination among federal, state and local law enforcement partners, and increased focus on international enforcement efforts, including reinforcing relationships with key foreign partners and U.S. industry leaders.

The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Glenn Alexander of the Criminal Division's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jay V. Prabhu and Lindsay A. Kelly.

Founder of Ninjavideo pleads guilty to criminal copyright conspiracy

On Sept. 9, 2011, Smith was indicted along with four other alleged co-conspirators associated with NinjaVideo. The remaining defendants are scheduled for a jury trial on Feb. 6, 2012.

NinjaVideo was seized during the first phase of "Operation In Our Sites," a sustained law enforcement initiative to protect consumers by targeting counterfeiting and piracy over the Internet.

To report IP theft or to learn more about the IPR Center, visit www.IPRCenter.gov.

ICE and US attorney return stolen paintings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

NEW YORK, NY

Paintings were stolen by the Nazis in 1944 – recovered following ICE HSI investigation

NEW YORK — Nearly seven decades after they were stolen by the Nazis, the Julian Falat paintings "The Hunt" and "Off to the Hunt" are back in the hands of their rightful owner, the people of Poland. At a ceremony today at the Polish Consulate in New York, U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, returned the paintings to Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.

The oil on panel paintings returned today were stolen from the Polish National Museum in Warsaw, Poland, by the Nazis during World War II.

"We are deeply gratified to be able to return these cherished paintings that were taken from the people of Poland so long ago," said ICE HSI Executive Associate Director James Dinkins. "Through our investigations into illicitly trafficked cultural property, we take every opportunity to track down objects stolen during World War II."

"Those paintings are two magnificent and very important pieces of art," said Bogdan Zdrojewski, minister of culture and national heritage, Republic of Poland. "If you think about all the Falat paintings, these two are definitely the most interesting and most valuable ones."

"No one can ever provide just compensation to the victims of the Nazis' atrocities, but it is very gratifying for our office to play a role in returning the art that they looted during World War II to its rightful owners," said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, Southern District of New York. "After 60 years, these national treasures will finally be returned to the Polish Government – a repatriation that would not have been possible without their help."

According to a complaint filed on Dec. 15, 2010, in Manhattan federal court, in August 1944, the German S.S. ObersturmbannfÃ¼hrer Benne Von Arent took over the Polish National Museum and confiscated the most valuable items in the museum's possession, including "The Hunt" and "Off to the Hunt." Many of those treasures are still missing and have not been returned to the rightful owners. In 2006, the Polish government enlisted the assistance of ICE HSI and INTERPOL when it was notified that these two national treasure paintings were being offered for sale at two New York auction houses.

After ICE HSI conducted an investigation into the paintings, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York filed a civil complaint against the two paintings seeking their forfeitures on several bases, including that the paintings constitute stolen property imported into the United States in violation of law.

Falat was born in 1853 in Tuliglowy, Poland, and is well known for his hunting and landscape paintings. In November 1901, his "Off to the Hunt" painting was first publicly displayed at the Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts in Warsaw. It was subsequently sold to a private individual who later returned the painting to the society as a gift in 1904. In December 1939, "Off to the Hunt" was transferred from the society to the premises of the Polish National Museum which was used by the Nazis during World War II as a German depository of Polish national treasures.

"Off to the Hunt" was last documented at the museum. Sometime during World War II, "Off to the Hunt" was removed from the museum by the Nazis without its frame. It had been missing until 2006 when the Polish government became aware that it was being offered for sale at an auction house in New York.

The Falat painting entitled "The Hunt" was bequeathed on June 6, 1914 by its first owner, Ludwik Norblin, to the society. During World War II, "The Hunt" was also moved to the Polish National Museum. "The Hunt" was stolen by the Nazis during World War II and remained missing until 2006 when the Polish government became aware that the painting was being offered for sale at a different auction house in New York.

ICE HSI plays a leading role in criminal investigations that involve the illicit importation and distribution of cultural property, as well as the illegal trafficking of artwork. The agency specializes in recovering works that have been reported lost or stolen. The ICE HSI Office of International Affairs, through its 70 attaché offices in 47 countries, works closely with foreign governments to conduct joint investigations, when possible.

ICE HSI specially trained investigators and foreign attachés partner with governments, agencies and experts to protect cultural antiquities. They also train investigators from other nations and agencies on how to find and authenticate cultural property, and how to best enforce the law to recover these items when they emerge in the marketplace.

Those involved in the illicit trafficking of cultural property, art and antiquities can face prison terms of up to 20 years, fines and possible restitution to purchasers of the items.

Since 2007, ICE HSI has repatriated more than 2,500 items to more than 22 countries including paintings from France, Germany and Austria; an 18th century manuscript from Italy; and a bookmark belonging to Hitler as well as cultural artifacts from Iraq including Babylonian, Sumerian and neo-Assyrian items.

Learn more about ICE HSI cultural property, art and antiquities investigations.

ICE and US attorney return stolen paintings

SEPTEMBER 22, 2011

NEW YORK, NY

Paintings were stolen by the Nazis in 1944 – recovered following ICE HSI investigation

The oil on panel paintings returned today were stolen from the Polish National Museum in Warsaw, Poland, by the Nazis during World War II.

Those involved in the illicit trafficking of cultural property, art and antiquities can face prison terms of up to 20 years, fines and possible restitution to purchasers of the items.

Learn more about ICE HSI cultural property, art and antiquities investigations.

Testimony by Secretary Panetta Before the Senate Armed Services Committee

   Chairman Levin, Senator McCain, members of this committee, it is an honor to for me to appear before you for the first time as Secretary of Defense and to represent the men and women of the Department and our armed forces.
   I want to thank you on their behalf for your dedication and for your support, particularly in a time of war, and for your determination to join me in doing everything possible to ensure that they succeed in their mission of protecting America and keeping us safe.
   When I testified before this committee as the nominee for the Secretary of Defense, I pledged that I would treat Congress as a full partner. And in the months since, I’ve had the opportunity to consult with you, many of you, on all of the challenges that the Department faces, and I will continue to do so. It’s important to have your guidance and your consult as we deal with the challenges facing our department.
   Before turning to the pressing issues of the challenges of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I would like to briefly address the challenge of the defense budget, which relates to, obviously, everything we do.
   As you know, the department has been undergoing a strategy-driven process to prepare to implement the more than $450 billion in savings that will be required over the next 10 years as a result of the debt ceiling agreement. While this review is ongoing and no specific decisions have been made at this point, I’m determined to make these decisions strategically, looking at the needs that our Defense Department has to face not just now, but in the future, so that we can maintain the most dominant military in the world, a force that is agile, ready, capable and adaptable.
   These reductions will require hard decisions, and those decisions will force us to take on greater risk in our mission of protecting this country. My goal is to try to make those risks acceptable, but that is a reality. The guidelines that I will be putting in place as we move forward on these decisions are the following:
   First of all, I want to maintain the best military in the world. Secondly, I do not want to hollow out the force. Every time we have gone through these reductions in the past, the danger has always been that we’ve hollowed out the force. I am not going to do that.
   Thirdly, it requires a balanced approach in order to achieve the significant reductions that I’m required to do. So I am going to look at all areas. I’m going to look at efficiencies, reducing overhead, duplication -- there are opportunities -- try to achieve savings -- additional savings in those areas. Procurement, looking at the whole process of tightening up on our contracting, creating greater competition with regards to our procurement area.
   I’m also going to look at the compensation area. The fact is that in some of those areas, the costs have increased by 80 percent. Health care alone in the military costs some $52 (billion), $53 billion.
   But I have to do it in a way that does not jeopardize the volunteer force, and to that extent, I’ve got to maintain faith with those that have gone deployment after deployment, put their lives on the line. We cannot undermine the commitments we have made to them. Nevertheless, we do have to look at reforms in these areas.
   And lastly, as I said, we do have to maintain faith with those that are out there fighting every day.
   We are going to have to look at how we turn a corner. We have -- we have gone through a decade of war in which the defense budget has more than doubled, and now we have to look at a decade where we have to prevent war but be able to fight wars and win wars, if we have to, recognizing we have less resources. That’s the challenge that we face as we confront this budget issue.
   The department is taking on its share of our country’s efforts to achieve fiscal discipline, and we will. And I want to caution strongly against further cuts to defense as we go through that, particularly with the mechanism that’s been built into the agreement called sequester. This mechanism would force defense cuts that in my view would do catastrophic damage to our military and its ability to protect the country.
   I know you share my concern about the process of sequester. It is kind of a blind formula that makes cuts all across the board and guarantees that we will hollow out the force. Working with this committee and others in Congress, I’m confident that we can meet our national security responsibilities and do our part to help this country get its fiscal house in order but at the same time maintain a strong national defense. We do not have to make a choice between fiscal security and national security.
   Even as the department grapples with the budget, our most immediate challenges are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My submitted statement goes into more details on the progress we are making and the challenges that remain to achieving our strategic objectives, but let me just briefly address both of these efforts.
   I’ll begin with Iraq, where our focus has been on ending the war in a responsible way that allows Iraq to become a secure, sovereign, stable, self-reliant nation and a positive force for stability in that region. Today fewer than 50,000 U.S. forces remain in Iraq, and based on the November 2008 security agreement reached with the Iraqi government under the last administration, we are planning to draw down our combat troops in Iraq by the end of the year.
   Still, as you know, last month the Iraqi political leadership indicated publicly that they are interested in an ongoing training relationship with the United States in a post-2011 period. As a result, General Austin and Ambassador Jeffrey have been in the process of negotiating with Iraqi leaders as to what their needs are and how we can address that.
   We are seriously considering this request, and I want to make clear that no final decisions have been made. We’ll continue to consult extensively with the Iraqis but we will also consult with the Congress before such decisions are made as to what a post-2011 training presence will look like.
   I want to be clear that obviously any future security relationship in Iraq will be different from the one that we’ve had since 2003. The United States wants a normal, productive relationship and a close strategic partnership with a sovereign Iraq and with other countries -- similar, frankly, to the partnerships we have with other countries in the region and around the world. This kind of security assistance would be a means of furthering our strategic partnership with Iraq that looks to the kind of future role that can best address their security needs.
   But there’s no question that challenges remain there. They have to stand up a consul for higher policies. They have to develop a resolution to the Kirkuk situation and dispute.
   They have to pass a hydrocarbons law. They have to promote security efforts to deal with Iranian-supported Shia extremist groups that have been attacking their forces as well as ours. They have to have security efforts to go after the remnants of al-Qaida which still remain in Iraq. And they have to work at a political process that builds a safer and stronger Iraq for the future.
   As we’ve moved decisively since 2009 to end the war in Iraq, we have also turned our attention, our focus and our resources to Afghanistan and the effort to build a stable and secure country there that does not provide a safe haven to al-Qaida or to its extremist affiliates. Because of the hard work and the sacrifices of Afghan and coalition forces, we’ve established conditions that are putting Afghans on the path to assume lead responsibility for security nationwide by the end of 2014.
   The insurgency has been turned back in much of the country, including its heartland in the south, and the Afghan National Security Forces are increasingly strong and capable. And as the Chairman pointed out, we have made significant progress with regards to our primary mission of disrupting, dismantling and ultimately defeating al-Qaida, particularly with the operations that took down bin Laden and that continue to take down key leadership of al-Qaida and their affiliates.
   This undeniable progress has allowed us to begin transitioning to Afghan security control. We’ve done that in seven areas of the country since July. As this transition commenced, we began implementing a gradual and responsible drawdown that is essential to the success of that transition process and lasting security and stability in Afghanistan. And General Allen, who has briefed me just this week again, is in the process of laying out those plans that will provide a responsible transition that will not undermine the security of Afghanistan.
   While my overall assessment is that our effort in Afghanistan is headed in the right direction, I think we also have to be clear-eyed about the challenges that remain.
   First, as the Taliban lost control of territory last year, they shifted away from large attacks on our forces to greater reliance on headline-grabbing attacks. In recent weeks, we’ve seen a spate of such high-profile attacks, including the attempt to attack the United States embassy and NATO headquarters in Kabul last week and the assassination of former President Rabbani, the chairman of the High Peace Council, this -- just this last Tuesday. At this time of loss, we have conveyed our condolences to the family of Professor Rabbani and the Afghan people. But we are concerned that these attacks, because of the loss of life and because they represent an effort to disrupt the process we have made, must be confronted and cannot be allowed to continue.
   Overall, we judge this change in tactics to be a result in a shift in momentum in our favor, and a sign of weakness of the insurgency. While overall violence in Afghanistan is trending down, and down substantially in areas where we concentrated the surge, we must be more effective in stopping these attacks and limiting the ability of insurgents to create perceptions of decreasing security. We are working with our Afghan counterparts to discuss with them how we can provide better protection against these attacks, but the bottom line is that we can’t let these sporadic attacks deter us from the progress that we’ve made.
   The second challenge is the difficult campaign we have ahead of us in the east, where the topography, the cultural geography and the continuing presence of safe havens in Pakistan give the insurgents advantages they have lost elsewhere in the country. We cannot allow terrorists to have safe havens from which they launch attacks and kill our forces. We cannot allow that to happen. And we have to bring pressure on the Pakistanis to do their part to confront that issue.
   The third key challenge is that we must not underestimate the difficult tasks the Afghans still face in developing governance that can meet the minimum needs of the Afghan people and help them take and sustain control of their country.
   I believe we’re capable of meeting these challenges if we keep our efforts focused and maintain our dedication to the fight. We have some tough -- we’ve had some tough days in this campaign, and undoubtedly there are more tough days that lie ahead.
   This is a heavy burden that I feel personally now as secretary of defense every time I write a condolence letter. Since taking this office, I’ve been to Dover to receive the remains of those who were killed in the Chinook helicopter crash last month. I’ve been to Arlington, and I’ve been to Bethesda. And in spending time with the families of those who’ve died or have been seriously wounded in the service of this country, there isn’t a family member who hasn’t come up to me and said if you really care about what happened to my loved one, you will carry on the mission that they gave their life for or were seriously wounded for. We owe it to those who’ve paid this price to continue the hard work of doing this right and protecting our country.
   I’d also like to close by recognizing the man sitting next to me, Mike Mullen. He has worked tirelessly and successfully to advocate effective operations -- for effective operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. And the strategy that is now bearing fruit owes much of its success to his vision and his determination. I know that all of you and that all of America join me in thanking him for his decades of dedicated service and his extraordinary work on behalf of our country and our men and women in uniform. Mike has set a standard for responsibilities and performance of chairman that will forever be his legacy, and I am deeply grateful for his service and for his friendship.
   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.