“There’s no silver bullet solution with cyber security, a layered defense is the only viable defense” ― James Scott
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| WHITE HOUSE |
The comptroller general of the Government
Accountability Office said his organization would examine the Trump
administration's decision to eliminate the White House cybersecurity
coordinator position. "I haven't had a chance, since it's a recent
activity, to look into it more," said Gene Dodaro, who said he was
"surprised" and "concerned about" the call. "We plan
to do that in the future, so once we look into it and see how they're planning
to approach it with the elimination of that position, I'll be in a better
position to advise the Congress on what to do." It's not an area the GAO
has paid much attention to, he said. "We've never really evaluated the
cybersecurity coordinator role," Dodaro told the panel. "So I haven't
really examined fully what that position did, what kind of resources they had
available and what their accomplishments were during that period of time."
A GAO spokesman said the exact form of the examination would be determined
after consulting with Congress. [POLITICO's Morning Cybersecurity, July 26,
2018]
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| U.S. AGRICULTURE |
THE DOWNSIDE OF UNPRECEDENTED
AID FOR FARMERS: In Washington, the word unprecedented gets thrown
around a little too often, but as far as anyone can tell, the Trump
administration's $12 billion aid package to blunt the impact of tariffs is just
that — and it could very well backfire, reports Pro Ag's Catherine Boudreau.
History 101: Efforts by past presidents to manipulate
global trade have ended up boosting farmers in other countries at the expense
of U.S. agriculture, no matter how much the federal government spends to buoy
local markets. The Nixon administration in 1973 embargoed exports of soybeans
and cottonseed to shield U.S. meat producers from skyrocketing costs for feed.
And former President Jimmy Carter in 1980 blocked U.S. grain exports to the
Soviet Union to punish the country for its military occupation in Afghanistan.
Economists on fire: These actions were
a "stimulus to U.S. competitors" like Brazil, now a top exporter of
soybeans, which increased agricultural production to meet the demand American
farmers couldn't fill, said Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist at University
of Illinois. "Based on a couple historical episodes, farmers' biggest fear
is this could put the United States in category of an unreliable
supplier," he said. [POLITICO's Morning
Agriculture, July 26, 2018]
HOW FARMS WILL FARE UNDER NEW TAX DEDUCTION: Regulations proposed by the Treasury Department and IRS
on Wednesday detail a new 20 percent deduction for so-called pass-through
entities, which was created by the tax law enacted earlier this year, H.R. 1 (115). It comes with some favorable terms for
the many farms and ranches structured as pass-throughs — such
as partnerships, limited liability companies or sole proprietorships — according
to several tax consultants and accountants.
Businesses made up of more than one entity can be aggregated to
claim the new deduction as long as they have common ownership, and rental
income will qualify. Many producers place their agricultural land in a separate
entity from the farm itself for several reasons, such as liability protection
and succession planning. A senior Treasury official said allowing aggregation
is meant to keep single businesses from reorganizing and to ensure
pass-throughs are subject to an effective tax rate nearly as low as
corporations, which had their rate cut to 21 percent, reports Pro Tax's Aaron Lorenzo.
However, it appears that cash rent or crop-share landlords will
not qualify for the new deduction, known as Section 199A, said Veronica Nigh,
an economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation. "We do have a lot of
absentee landowners out there. They hold on to family farmland, even though
they're not living there, and rent it to someone else," she said. "In
that case, the income wouldn't rise to the level of trades or business. That's
the threshold." [POLITICO's Morning
Agriculture, August 9, 2018]
IOWA FARMERS FOR TRUMP'S TRADE AGENDA: Half
a dozen Iowa farmers said they support President Donald Trump's trade policy of
imposing tariffs on a range of imports from major trading partners, even though
the actions have prompted retaliatory measures on the foods they grow and sell
overseas. During a roundtable on Friday organized by the Republican Party of
Iowa, the producers said they appreciate Trump for fulfilling a campaign
promise to crack down on unfair practices by China. They added that his moves
establish a more equal playing field for U.S. agriculture and other sectors of
the economy.
"I have faith in what the president is doing," Norman
Rozendaal, a dairy farmer in Monroe, Iowa, said. He added that while farmers
may be hurting now, the trading system will more equitable in the long term.
And while he doesn't like the idea of handouts, if the $12 billion aid package being rolled out by the
Trump administration will help keep farmers afloat, "then so be it,"
Rozendaal said.
The farmers who spoke at the roundtable all raise commodities
that USDA said will be eligible for direct payments under its emergency aid,
including soybeans, corn, hogs and dairy.
Their reaction to Trump's trade agenda stands in contrast to
many of the lobbying groups and lawmakers who represent them in Washington,
which have told administration officials to adopt a different strategy than
slapping tariffs on imports to rebalance America's trade accounts. [POLITICO's Morning Agriculture, August 6, 2018]
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| NATIONAL SECURITY Agency NSA |
A RARE LOOK AT NSA WATCHDOG WORK — A
first-ever unclassified semiannual report to Congress from the NSA's inspector general released Wednesday offers a
smorgasbord of details about the watchdog's work to evaluate agency
cybersecurity. One audit found two deficiencies — no full system inventory and
lack of implementing the most recent federal security guidance — that prevented
the agency and the IG from knowing whether the NSA complied with the Federal
Information Security Management Act. Another conclusion from the audit
division's efforts between October and March was that the NSA had missing,
required documents for authorizing every one of its computer systems currently
authorized to operate that the IG examined.
One completed special study found that
the NSA's public internet sites had several problems that jeopardized both
classified data and the privacy of U.S. citizens. A special study listed as
"ongoing" is examining NSA compliance with a Defense Department
training program for protecting U.S. citizens' civil liberties. Among the
significant outstanding recommendations stemming from IG inspections are a
number related to rules and regulations for protecting computer networks,
systems and data. [POLITICO's Morning
Cybersecurity, July 26, 2018]
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| PUTIN / TRUMP |
PunditFact:
Jeanine Pirro and Hugh Hewitt
This week, we looked at
something from Jeanine Pirro's new book, Liars, Leakers and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump
Conspiracy. She said that Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein announced in February that "the Russia collusion investigation
is over." That is not accurate; we rated her statement False.
Over on "Meet the Press," we fact-checked Hugh Hewitt, who espoused a
complicated theory about what the public learned from a congressional hearing
where House members grilled FBI agent Peter Strzok. Hewitt claimed the
hearing confirmed Republican Congressman Jim Jordan’s theory about how the
Justice Department got the Steele dossier. If we did learn something new from
the hearing, that wasn't it. We rated Hewitt's statement False. [Politifact, July 25, 2018]
America just outed itself
“America’s political-sanctions robotics is
an invention that threatens the entire world’s global security. [...] The U.S. has exposed itself as
the one behind the crude and shameless staging of the Skripals’ poisoning.
[...] The ‘Novichok’ operation was set in motion by skilled professionals in
order to launch a series of global sanctions.” — Irina
Yarova, State Duma deputy chairperson and the author of several
infamously draconian laws [The Real Russia. Today.
August 9, 2018]
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| CYBERSECURITY |
RISKY BUSINESS — This
morning, the House Homeland Security Committee's subpanel on cybersecurity will
hold a hearing centered on a May Office of Management and Budget report assessing federal agency cybersecurity
risk. "This subcommittee is concerned that the federal government is not
equipped to determine how threat actors seek to gain access to private
information," subcommittee Chairman John Ratcliffe will say, according to
his prepared opening remarks. "There is an evident lack of strategy in
mitigating risk across federal agencies. Cyber workforce gaps and legacy IT
systems are vulnerabilities in the federal government's cybersecurity posture,
but the efficacy of our basic cybersecurity practices are common
liabilities."
Later today, the Government Accountability Office will
release a report at a House hearing spelling out the federal government's chief
cybersecurity risks and how to fix them. Among the recommendations the GAO will
make in the interim report at the joint Oversight subcommittee hearing is that
the government must implement a more comprehensive cybersecurity strategy;
focus on developing a cybersecurity workforce; better protect critical
infrastructure; shore up weaknesses in federal IT and incident response; and do
more to prevent sensitive personal information from being stolen. Given the
annual rise in attacks, IT subcommittee Chairman Will Hurd will say in prepared
remarks, "It should concern all of us therefore that GAO has concluded in
the interim high-risk report that spurred this hearing, that urgent actions are
needed to address ongoing cybersecurity challenges in the federal
government."
NEW ELECTION SECURITY FUNDING ATTEMPT — Senate
Democrats want to try to force a vote on additional election security funds,
one week after their House compatriots fell short in their own bid. A group led
by the top Democrat on the Appropriations panel, Sen. Patrick Leahy, has
prepared an amendment to allocate $250 million in a fiscal 2019
"minibus" spending bill, H.R. 6147 , the Senate is considering
this week. "If you believe that Russia is fully intent on destabilizing
our democracy yet again in November — as all of our national security and law
enforcement officials do — then this amendment is a necessary step toward
taking action to protect our democracy," Leahy said Tuesday.
SOME ARE ALARMED, SOME ARE ALARMED ABOUT THE ALARMS — A
Wall Street Journal story Monday elaborating on Russian attempts to penetrate
the U.S. electricity grid stirred passions in multiple directions. The story
was "deeply concerning," said Sen. Maggie Hassan. "These reports
reinforce that Russia seems to be positioning itself to carry out crippling
attacks on our country's critical infrastructure that could evade some of our
existing cyber defenses and thereby threaten the safety of our people and the
security of our country," Hassan said. "We need more information from
the Department of Homeland Security on this latest report so that we can harden
our defenses, prevent further cyberattacks, and punish Russia for its continued
shameless attacks on our country." Sen. Angus King tweeted that the report underlined the need
to pass his electricity grid security legislation, S. 79.
But Dragos' Robert Lee, whose company focuses
on cyberattacks against industrial control systems, warned that the story's
contents weren't sufficiently nuanced. "The messaging in the WSJ article
around 'throwing switches' and causing 'blackouts' is misleading on the impact
of the targeting that took place," he said in a statement. "What was
observed is incredibly concerning but images of imminent blackouts are not
representative of what happened which was more akin to reconnaissance into
sensitive networks." He elaborated on Twitter. [POLITICO's Morning Cybersecurity, July 25, 2018]
COMING ATTRACTIONS — DHS will use its
upcoming cybersecurity summit to reassert its leadership role in federal cyber
efforts, a senior department official said in an interview. "We will
launch at least three noteworthy new ideas and initiatives" with 90-day
timelines for producing results, Christopher Krebs, the under secretary of
DHS's cyber wing, the National Protection and Programs Directorate, said on the
inaugural episode of CyberCast , a new
cybersecurity podcast co-hosted by Kiersten Todt and Roger Cressey. One
announcement at the July 31 event in New York will focus on supply chain
security, as part of DHS's effort to reframe how it approaches cyber risk
management. The department will also encourage a greater focus on the security
of industrial control systems. Krebs called these utility control networks
"a space from a risk perspective that needs quite a bit of
attention."
DHS is also pushing a more integrated
public-private approach to cybersecurity than the U.S. has used since the
emergence of technology security issues. In countries like the United Kingdom,
the government plays a large role in protecting private systems, but that
approach has not prevailed in the U.S. because of longstanding concerns about
federal overreach. On CyberCast, Krebs talked about an "integrated
civilian, defense and private sector" strategy for U.S. cybersecurity.
"It has to be a coordinated, integrated approach," he said, "or
we're not going to be successful." [POLITICO's
Morning Cybersecurity, July 26, 2018]
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| CLIMATE CHANGE |
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| PAKISTAN |
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| SWEDEN |
 |
| DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO |
CONGOLESE
POLITICIAN HIRES U.S. LOBBYISTS AHEAD OF ELECTIONS: A limited-liability company
called Pamoja USA has registered as a foreign agent to
promote Félix Tshisekedi's bid for president of the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Tshisekedi is president of the Union for Democracy
and Social Progress, an opposition party. Joseph Kabila, the
DRC's president, said Wednesday that he won't run for reelection after
17 years in power. Elections to replace him are scheduled for Dec. 23.
—
According to a Justice Department filing, Max Karst and Celestin
Kabasele of Pamoja USA will promote Tshisekedi's reform agenda; "solicit
contributions from potential US donors and general public;" "provide
input to Mr. Tshisekedi from consultations with US government officials, NGOs,
and business stakeholders regarding their expectations for reform on such
topics as DRC fair elections, trade, aid, human rights, health, conflict
mineral trade, among others;" and "develop website, social media, TV,
radio, print, and other media informational messaging."
— Karst
told PI that among the key components of the group's messaging will be
emphasizing that the "U.S. can and should play a larger role in the heart
of Africa as a partner with a legitimate reform government." "For now
we are working [part]-time pro bono, by necessity, not choice, as the campaign
has very little resources," he added. He said the group aims to form a
coalition of stakeholders "to help the Congolese people transform their
country and our perception of it." Tshisekedi isn't the only Congolese
opposition politician with U.S. lobbyists: Ballard Partners lobbies
for the Group of Seven, which represents Moise
Katumbi , another opposition leader. [POLITICO
Influence, August 9, 2018]
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| SOUTH AFRICA |
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| NEW ZEALAND |
Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand will ban plastic bags
Vegan Burger Poses 'Existential Threat' to New Zealand
 |
| ANTARCTICA |
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