Clarity from Chaos

By: Dave Campbell

ZIKA is HERE

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“The first case of locally-acquired Zika virus has arrived in Palm Beach County.

Gov. Rick Scott said Monday the infected person recently traveled to Miami-Dade County, ground zero for an outbreak of Zika acquired through domestic mosquitoes. State health officials are attempting to determine where the unidentified person contracted the virus.

Before Monday’s announcement, the state said that 20 people in Palm Beach County had been infected while traveling outside the United States to countries — mostly in the Caribbean and Latin America — where the virus is widespread.

South Florida has 17 cases of locally-acquired Zika, including at least 14 in a one-square-mile area in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, a popular arts district just north of the city’s downtown. There have also been two confirmed cases in Broward County of non-travel-related Zika.

Scott said Monday that state officials still believe local transmission of Zika remains confined to the Wynwood area. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took the unprecedented step last week of warning pregnant women not to travel to Wynwood. People who have visited Wynwood since June 15 have been advised by the CDC to put off getting pregnant for several weeks.”

Michael’s book:  Devil Inside the Beltway

Michael Daugherty is a government whistle blower by necessity, and CEO of a cancer detection laboratory by trade. A small business owner taking on federal agencies with courage that rivals David meets Goliath, Michael is on a tireless crusade to honor his constitutional rights and the rights of every U.S. citizen. Michael s story of victimization by a cyber-security company linked to federal agencies is not unique that he s telling his story is. In a play-by-play account of questionable government practices, Michael reveals his chilling tale about how our security is not the safety we think it is. His book The Devil inside the Beltway is a must read for anyone who values freedom or takes it for granted.

A Republican

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“Campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination took a nasty turn on Wednesday with billionaire businessman Donald Trump accusing rival Ted Cruz of fraud as the field of candidates narrowed ahead of next week’s New Hampshire primary.

Rand Paul, a U.S. senator from Kentucky with a libertarian philosophy, pulled out of the Republican race. Conservative Rick Santorum also exited the race on Wednesday and endorsed U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

Both Paul and Santorum, a former senator from Pennsylvania, did poorly in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, which were won by Cruz, with Trump and Rubio finishing second and third. The caucuses were the first of the state-by-state nominating contests ahead of the Nov. 8 election to replace Democratic President Barack Obama.

Trump, a real estate mogul and former reality TV star, went on Twitter on Wednesday to accuse the conservative U.S. senator from Texas of stealing his victory in Iowa. Cruz’s team hit back by telling Trump to seek help for addiction to the social media site.

The two men are going head-to-head for voters in New Hampshire, where Cruz’s evangelical Christian credentials will not likely be as helpful as they were in Iowa. Opinion polls show Trump with a roughly 20-point lead in New Hampshire before next Tuesday’s primary.”

http://TheDevilInsideTheBeltway.com

FBI Closes In

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“The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible “intersection” of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News.

This new investigative track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clinton’s personal server.

“The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,” one source said.

Clinton, speaking to the Des Moines Register, on Monday pushed back on the details of a second investigative track. According to reporter Jennifer Jacobs, Clinton said Monday she has heard nothing from the FBI.

“No, there’s nothing like that that is happening,” Clinton said, according to a tweet from Jacobs.

Experts including a former senior FBI agent said the bureau does not have to notify the subject of an investigation.

The development follows press reports over the past year about the potential overlap of State Department and Clinton Foundation work, and questions over whether donors benefited from their contacts inside the administration.

The Clinton Foundation is a public charity, known as a 501(c)(3). It had grants and contributions in excess of $144 million in 2013, the most current available data.

Inside the FBI, pressure is growing to pursue the case.

One intelligence source told Fox News that FBI agents would be “screaming” if a prosecution is not pursued because “many previous public corruption cases have been made and successfully prosecuted with much less evidence than what is emerging in this investigation.”

The FBI is particularly on edge in the wake of how the case of former CIA Director David Petraeus was handled.”

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/01/11/fbis-clinton-probe-expands-to-public-corruption-track.html

Federal Trade Commission Bully

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“The Federal Trade Commission’s data-security enforcement efforts have received a setback—at the hands of the commission’s own in-house judge.

Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell late Friday dismissed a long-running and sometimes bitter case involving LabMD, a former medical testing company the FTC accused of failing to provide reasonable or appropriate cybersecurity protections for patient data.

The FTC’s civil case against LabMD had focused largely on the potential exposure of a 1,718-page company report that contained names, dates of birth, social security numbers and other information about 9,300 patients. Online security firm Tiversa found the document on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network in 2008.

After discovering the file, Tiversa contacted LabMD and sought to sell the company data security services, which the firm declined, according to the judge’s ruling. Tiversa later reported to the FTC that LabMD had exposed sensitive patient information, the ruling said.

LabMD, a Georgia-based firm, went out of business in early 2014. The company’s owner and chief executive, Michael Daugherty, has been an unusually aggressive FTC critic, writing a book about his experiences during the commission’s investigation, entitled “The Devil Inside the Beltway.”

Mr. Daugherty said the FTC probe and lawsuit were costly, burdensome and unfair, contributing to the company’s demise. “Yeah we won, but what did we win? We’re dead,” he said. The FTC, he said, “has way too much lopsided power.”

Corruption in Washington

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“A cyber-security company faked hacks and extorted clients to buy its services, according to an ex-employee. In a federal court this week, Richard Wallace, a former investigator at cyber security company Tiversa, said the company routinely engaged in fraud — and mafia-style shakedowns.

To scare potential clients, Tiversa would typically make up fake data breaches, Wallace said. Then it pressured firms to pay up. “Hire us or face the music,” Wallace said on Tuesday at a federal courtroom in Washington, D.C.. CNNMoney obtained a transcript of the hearing. The results were disastrous for at least one company that stood up to Tiversa and refused to pay.

In 2010, Tiversa scammed LabMD, a cancer testing center in Atlanta, Wallace testified. Wallace said he tapped into LabMD’s computers and pulled the medical records. The cyber-security firm then alerted LabMD it had been hacked. Tiversa offered it emergency “incident response” cyber security services. After the lab refused the offer, Tiversa threatened to tip off federal regulators about the “data breach.”

When LabMD still refused, Tiversa let the Federal Trade Commission know about the “hack.” The FTC went after the lab, giving the company a choice: sign a consent decree (basically a plea deal which means years of audits and a nasty public statement) or fight in court. The CEO of LabMD, Michael Daugherty, chose to fight, because a plea deal would have tarnished his reputation and killed the business anyway, he said.

Daugherty lost that battle in 2014, having run out of steam. The lawsuit killed LabMD, which was forced to fire its 40 employees last year. “We were a small company,” he said. “It’s not like we had millions of dollars to fight this and tons of employees.”

“The fight with the government was psychological warfare,” he told CNNMoney. “There was reputation assassination. There was intimidation. We thought we were extorted. My staff and management team was demoralized. My VP left. My lawyer left.” Daugherty launched a website and wrote a book about the ordeal. Cause of Action, a government watchdog group, picked up his case.”

Michael Daugherty, is a Senior Writer for Cyber Defense Magazine and is a Board Member at Snoopwall the powerhouse cyber-security firm and is author of The Devil Inside the Beltway: The Shocking Expose of the US Government’s Surveillance and Overreach Into Cyber-security, Medicine and Small Business.