A harsh sentence, given that the Government acknowledges there was no evidence the accused forwarded the documents to an individual or rival country.

Excerpted from Deutsche Welle 7.19.2019

A former US contractor who stockpiled secret National Security Agency data at his home has been jailed for nine years. The case is another embarrassment for the NSA after Edward Snowden leaked classified info in 2013.

A former contractor for the National Security Agency (NSA) who stored more than two decades’ worth of classified documents at his home has been sentenced to nine years in prison.

The complaint did not reference that group or allege a link to Martin, and a defense attorney said Martin never intended to betray his country. But the disclosures were the most significant leak since the disclosures made by NSA contractor-turned-fugitive Edward Snowden in 2013 .

US District Judge Richard Bennett acknowledged at sentencing there was no evidence that Harold Martin had intended to forward classified information, but said “people’s lives were potentially in danger.”

NSA General Counsel Glenn Gerstell told the Reuters news agency at the time that the NSA was still assessing damage from the data theft, but said: “I don’t think this is a Edward Snowden-type situation.” Snowden, who has been granted asylum in Russia, said he deliberately exposed the scope of US government surveillance to force changes. The leaks and subsequent arrest are another embarrassment for the US intelligence community.

Martin, whose nine-year jail sentence stems from a plea agreement, apologized saying “my methods were wrong, illegal and highly questionable.”

He admitted guilt to a single count of willful retention of national defense information — after initially denying a strings of charges.

The FBI  arrested a National Security Agency contractor on charges of stealing highly classified information  in 2016.

The Maryland home of 51-year-old Harold Thomas Martin IIIwas raided by FBI agents  after he allegedly admitted to having taken government secrets, authorities said.

“Martin at first denied, and later when confronted with specific documents, admitted he took documents and digital files from his work assignment to his residence and vehicle that he knew were classified,” the Department of Justice affidavit alleged. “Martin stated that he knew what he had done was wrong and that he should not have done it because he knew it was unauthorized.”

The documents did not detail the classified information that the agency says it seized, but the move does correspond to a cyberleak of purported malicious hacking tools used by the NSA to tamper with firewalls, the electronic defenses protecting computer networks, which was pulled off by a group calling itself the “Shadow Brokers.”

https://www.dw.com/en/second-snowden-arrested-over-nsa-secrets/a-35968808

A solid progressive who knows Wall Street and the banking industry. This is a candidate who can build bridges and forge coalitions.  There is no debate thats amongst all the candidates Senator Warren knows the business world, can hold her own and has solid plans to bring fairness to the marketplace.

Excerpted from Politico 7.18.2019

“I think she is going to get the nomination because she’s the smartest, she’s charismatic and she’s the most policy-oriented,” said one former top executive at a large Wall Street bank who, like several interviewed for this story, declined to be quoted on record saying anything nice about Warren. “Wall Street is very good at accommodating itself to reality and if the reality is the party is going to be super-progressive, they may not like Warren but she’s a better form of poison than Bernie.”

 — Elizabeth Warren has another plan — this time to take on Wall Street and reshape the role of finance in the American economy.

And Wall Street isn’t panicking as she climbs in the polls.

People close to Warren note that she has the most extensive record of actually making changes in the financial industry, including helping set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, pressuring Wells Fargo to dump former CEO Tim Sloan and pressing for regulatory changes at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere. And they say she has the deepest Rolodex to staff a potential administration with like-minded officials in senior roles.

Most of them don’t love Warren’s economic and regulatory policies. But they generally understand them and appreciate that the Democratic presidential candidate declared herself a “capitalist to my bones” and believer in free markets, albeit with strong cops on the beat.

Warren released a new plan Thursday to take on private equity firms’ special treatment, roll back Trump-era financial deregulation and reinstall a Depression-era ban on investment banks also serving retail clients. Most of her proposals have drawn heated discussion for years, so her latest plan is not likely to shock the finance world.

Many bankers view Warren — a former Republican who’s made her policies clear for years — as the safer presidential choice if the progressive wing wins out in the Democrats’ internal war. If it comes down to Warren or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an avowed democratic socialist who continues to make personal feuds with bankers a centerpiece of his campaign, many of them would swallow hard and take Warren.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/18/elizabeth-warren-wall-street-economy-1599221

Every Picture Tells a Story. Ongoing Series – 7.18.2019

Yikes!!!!!

Dede Wilsey, Doyen of the Arts and former President of the Fine Arts Museums

 Kimberly Guilfoyle, Governor Newsom’s “Ex”, has certainly taken a political right turn.

And, Donald, Jr.

Poster Posted by SF Examiner reporter Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez on Twitter

https://www.sfexaminer.com/news-columnists/trump-jr-fundraises-for-president-at-nob-hill-party-for-sf-republicans/

Photo – Lee Heidhues

Today I took a tour of the sobering Anne Frank Exhibit on the 6th floor of the Main Branch at the San Francisco Public Library.  The Exhibit is something worth taking the time to study closely. The Frank family hid in a home on the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam from 1942-1944 when they were betrayed and taken off to Nazi extermination camps. 

The Exhibit is on display until August 15.

July 17, 2019

Photos – Lee Heidhues

https://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1038730001

Meanwhile, out there in the Wild West.  Frontier justice wants to run unchecked.  These Boys (and Girls, too) want their toys.

Excerpted from The Guardian 7.16.2019

Needles city council voted to ask state legislature to allow gun owners from other states to carry registered firearms in town.

The small California city has voted to declare itself a “second amendment sanctuary” city, in a rebuke to the state’s strict policies on gun control.

California does not recognize any concealed carry permits from other states, and it is illegal to bring ammunition that is purchased in another state into California.

The city council of Needles voted unanimously last week to ask the state legislature to allow gun owners from other states to carry registered firearms in the town.

City lawmakers argue that the move will make it easier for residents of nearby states – Needles is located near the Arizona and Nevada borders – to shop and use the town’s services. But with a name echoing the “sanctuary city” designation several progressive California cities have taken on to signal protections for undocumented immigrants, the declaration also takes a stand against lawmakers in the state capital, who Needles officials feel do not always represent their views.

“There are a lot of laws that are written in Sacramento that are focused on San Francisco and Los Angeles and the coastal areas. They don’t think about us out here,” said the Needles mayor, Jeff Williams.

“There are other issues that need to be talked about besides protecting illegal immigrants from being deported,” Williams continued. “We need our constitutional rights protected also.”

“It’s in the federal constitution, and California has for years been slowly chipping away at our second amendment rights. I think communities are tired of it.”

Williams argues that these policies are especially harmful to cities like Needles and Lake Tahoe that border states such as Arizona and Nevada.

“Coming into California they need to stop carrying or unload and disarm, so we’re missing out on some commerce in that direction,” Williams said of Arizona residents who are disenchanted by California’s strict gun laws.

At the July city council meeting, several Arizona residents argued California’s gun laws made visits to Needles cumbersome. One Arizona resident presented his options as being forced to choose between being safe or being labeled a criminal.

“Every weekend I have to make that choice. Do I do something to make myself safe or do I have to make the terrible decision of breaking silly California law and becoming a criminal,” he said.

Now that the Needles city council approved the “second amendment sanctuary” resolution, the city of Tehachapi, over 200 miles away is looking to pass similar legislation.

Williams is hoping that other towns like Eureka and Lake Tahoe will follow suit to create a coalition of “second amendment sanctuary” cities that can take their efforts to California legislators.

“I don’t know if it’ll go anywhere but at a certain point you have to make a stand,” Williams said of the potential to have a “carve-out” of looser gun laws for border towns.

The Killer may have been apprehended but that is small comfort to the grieving family, friends and associates of Dr. Eaton

Excerpted from People and Keep Talking Greece 7.15.2019

The body of scientist Suzanne Eaton, who had been missing in Greece for nearly a week, was found on July 8

A local man has confessed to the murder of Suzanne Eaton a week after the missing U.S. scientist’s body was found by authorities in Crete, Greece.

A 27-year-old suspect has been arrested by police for the murder of the US biologist. According to local media, the father of two has confessed the heinous crime that shocked the communities in Crete, Greece and around the globe.

The farmer is married and a father of two, he is from Maleme and lives in Kissamos area together with his family.

According to local flashnews, despite all his attempts to cover the crime by throwing the body of the 60-year-old scientist in an old German bunker, he made a grave mistake that led police to his detention.

Traces of the car he used to transfer the body were found outside the bunker where the body was found.

The traces the car tires left on the soil, other findings in the crime scene as evaluation of mobile phone signals on the day Eaton went missing helped police make the murderer’s profile and limit the circle of suspects.

The suspect’s grave mistake was that while he was inside the bunker disposing Eaton’s body his mobile was turned on, leaving behind digital footprint that was easy for police to detect during investigation.

The perpetrator’s identity was ultimately revealed, police arrested him early Monday afternoon.

In the hands of police is reportedly also a foreign laborer who was working for the 27-year-old farmer. The laborer allegedly helped the murderer to transfer and hide the body in the bunker.

Local police announced on Monday the suspect is currently being detained and that they expect to have more information in the coming day, according to the outlet.

The shocking news comes nearly one week after a spokesperson for the police in Crete said authorities had discovered Eaton’s body approximately 200 feet inside of a cave — a site that was formerly used as a World War II bunker.

Located underneath an air shaft that had been covered with a large wooden pallet, police said they believe Eaton’s body, which was discovered face-down, was dumped inside of the cave after she had been suffocated to death.

The scientist had also suffered minor stab wounds to her body, though officials said they did not appear to have caused her death.

“The only thing we can say is that the [death] resulted from a criminal act,” Greek state coroner Antonis Papadomanolakis told the Associated Press last week.

Eaton, who worked at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany, disappeared while out for a run on the afternoon of July 2, her family said on Search for Suzanne, a Facebook page they set up to find her.

She was attending a conference at the Orthodox Academy of Crete and was somewhat familiar with the area as she had attended conferences there previously.

The 59-year-old scientist was known to run for 30 minutes every day, and the family said that she had done so the previous day at the same time, though details of where she was going remain unknown. Her cell phone and other belongings were left in her hotel room.

https://people.com/crime/man-confesses-murdering-american-scientist-suzanne-eaton-crete-greece/

https://www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2019/07/15/suzanne-eaton-man-arrested-farmer/

Talk about Old School!!! What is this?? 1955? We can’t expect anything else but crude stupidity from this worthless moronic Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.  McCarthyism is alive and well in Trump’s America

Excerpted from CNN 7.15.2019

The Warriors superstar just got burned. Obviously Draymond Green failed to take a course in Middle East Politics prior to his trip to Israel.

Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 7.14.2019

A Palestinian-Syrian chef in Oakland is discontinuing a popular item at her restaurant that is named after Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors

Reem Assil, who has been praised by publications like The Chronicle and Food and Wine, has played a vital role in sparking Oakland’s Fruitvale neighborhood as a food destination. One of her signatures at her Arab bakery, Reem’s California, has been the “Draymond Green,” a seasonal vegetable wrap.

 Assil, a lifelong community activist, has also been outspoken concerning social and political issues both inside and outside of the restaurant world. When her bakery opened in Fruitvale in 2018, it drew the ire of members of the Bay Area’s Jewish community, due to a mural of Rasmea Odeh, a Palestinian woman convicted of terrorism in Israel.

“I’m a small business and it’s not easy taking these kinds of stances,” Assil said. “But I think it’s important we do the right things with our platforms.”

The chef’s decision to stop selling the dish is linked to Green’s 2018 visit to Israel. While there, Green posed for a photo holding a military rifle as though he were a sniper, during a stop at the base of an Israeli Defense Force counter-terrorism unit, the Yamam.

The 2018 photo, as well as an accompanying video of Green taking target practice, exploded across the internet and proved to be fodder for political debates around Palestine and Israel relations, as well as the power of an athlete’s platform when it comes to political commentary.

“Draymond should have done more homework on where he was going,” Assil told The Chronicle on Thursday, the same day she announced via her website she would be pulling the wrap from her menu. “I think it’s important to let him know how those images impact Palestinians, people that are fans of his that want him to understand where these feelings are coming from.”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/food/article/Oakland-bakery-discontinues-signature-Draymond-14092205.php#photo-17559805

A murder on bucolic Crete in the Greek isles.  Dr. Eaton was from Oakland, yet the local Bay Area media has failed to give this crime story the attention it deserves.

The Daily Beast 7.12.2019

The tortured corpse of a 59-year-old American superstar scientist was found wrapped in burlap inside a secret Nazi bunker on the island of Crete, Greece. Police want to know why.

San Francisco will not be part of the abhorrent Gestapo style activity planned for San Francisco by an Administration  run amok as the Incumbent caters to his Base at the expense of the most vulnerable citizens.

San Francisco Examiner  7.12.2019

Mayor London Breed on Friday said San Francisco police and officials will not cooperate with immigration agents after President Donald Trump confirmed raids are planned this weekend to deport undocumented immigrants in several U.S cities, including San Francisco.

“San Francisco stands behind our sanctuary city policy. We have been and will continue to be a sanctuary city,” said Breed.

“We will support and stand by our immigrant community and continue to invest and provide resources to help address a challenging time,” Breed said, speaking at a press conference at City Hall.

Breed said undocumented immigrants have the right to remain silent and to have an attorney, and encouraged residents to call both the Office of Civic Engagement and Immigrant Affairs and the San Francisco Rapid Response Network hotline in the case of a raid.

The threat of raids has prompted several protests from pro-immigrants organizations in San Francisco and around the Bay Area this week, including one in front of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement headquarters on Sansome Street Friday.

Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union have conducted campaigns to inform immigrants of their legal rights in advance of the raids. Nonprofits working with the immigrant community said they have received hundreds of frightened phone calls from undocumented immigrants in the past few weeks.

Joining Breed at the press conference, Assemblymember David Chiu said “Donald Trump has decided to continue to wage his war against our immigrant communities, a war that is immoral, unjust, racist and xenophobic.”

“If you have to come after them, you are going to have to come through all of us,” said Chiu.

“We will get through this,” Breed said.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/the-city/sf-braces-for-immigration-raids/