Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Iranian men charged with threatening US voters in ’20 election
WASHINGTON —Two suspected Iranian computer hackers have been charged in a broad campaign of election interference aimed at intimidating American voters during last year’s presidential race and undermining confidence that the results of the contest could be trusted.
The activities, prosecutors say, exploited not only computer vulnerabilities but also existing social divisions to sow discord and confusion among voters.
The Iranian cyber campaign included bogus emails that targeted Democratic and Republican voters with different messages, the distribution of a fabricated video that purported to show acts of election fraud and an unsuccessful effort the day after the election to gain access to an American media company’s network.
The overall effort attracted publicity in the run-up to the November 2020 election, when law enforcement and intelligence officials held an unusual evening news conference to accuse Iran of orchestrating an email campaign aimed at intimidating Democratic voters in battleground states so they would vote for Trump.
The indictment makes clear that even as much of the public concern about foreign interference in last year’s election centered on Russian efforts to disparage Donald Trump’s challenger, Joe Biden, Iranian hackers were engaged in a wide-ranging influence campaign of their own. U.S. intelligence officials said in a March assessment that Iran’s efforts were aimed at harming Trump’s reelection bid, and probably authorized by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but that there was no evidence that Tehran or any other foreign actor had done anything to change the vote totals.
The indictment, filed in federal court in Manhattan and unsealed Thursday, accuses Iranian nationals Seyyed Mohammad Hosein Musa Kazemi and Sajjad Kashian of helping carry out the scheme. The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against the men, some of their colleagues and the company they worked for.
The defendants, described in the indictment as experienced hackers who worked as contractors for a cybersecurity firm, are not in custody and are believed to be in Iran still.
But officials hope at minimum that the indictment and accompanying sanctions will restrict their ability to travel. Each faces a broad array of charges, including voter intimidation, transmission of interstate threats and computer crimes.
Belarus crisis: Hundreds of Iraqis returned home Thursday from Belarus after abandoning their hopes of reaching the European Union — a repatriation that came after tensions at Poland’s eastern border, where thousands of migrants became stuck in a cold and soggy forest.
Many others still in Belarus have moved into a heated warehouse not far from the border, emptying out a makeshift camp, Belarusian state-run media reported.
But the Polish Defense Ministry posted video showing a few hundred people and their tents still near an official crossing point.
It was not clear if the two countries were talking about two different sites on their border, but it was typical of the dueling narratives that have marked the crisis. Germany virus outbreak: Germany approved new measures Thursday to rein in record coronavirus infections as Chancellor Angela Merkel called the pandemic situation in the country “very serious” and said it was “high time” to contain the spread of the virus.
Merkel held a videoconference Thursday with Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Germany’s 16 state governors to coordinate the country’s response to a surge in coronavirus cases.
Merkel said participants in the meeting had agreed that tightening of measures against the virus would in the future be linked to the number of hospital admissions of COVID-19 patients per 100,000 people over a seven-day period. The states are also considering mandatory vaccinations for some professional groups such as medical staff and nursing home employees.
The new measures include requirements for employees to prove they are vaccinated, recently recovered from COVID-19 or have tested negative for the virus in order to access communal workplaces; a similar rule will apply to public transport. The measures need to be approved by Germany’s upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, which could happen Friday.
Justice Department grant:
The Justice Department said Thursday that it’s giving $139 million to police departments across the U.S. as part of a grant program that would bring on more than 1,000 new officers.
The grant funding comes through the Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services and will be awarded to 183 law enforcement agencies across the country and in U.S. territories.
The funding is meant to help police departments reduce crime and to encourage community policing.
The Justice Department said it received nearly 600 applications from police departments in nearly every state and U.S. territory. The grant requires that the money be used to hire additional officers, other than those who would normally be hired using a police department’s operating budget.
South China Sea: Chinese coast guard ships blocked and sprayed a powerful stream of water at two Philippine boats carrying supplies to troops at a disputed South China Sea shoal, prompting Manila to order Beijing’s ships to back off and warn that its supply vessels are covered by a mutual defense treaty with the United States, Manila’s top diplomat said Thursday.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said no one was hurt in the incident Tuesday, but the two supply ships had to abort their mission to provide food to Filipino forces occupying Second Thomas Shoal, which lies off western Palawan province in the Philippines’ internationally recognized exclusive economic zone.
Locsin said in a tweet that the three Chinese coast guard ships’ actions were illegal and urged them “to take heed and back off.”
Ethiopia detainees: The United Nations announced Thursday that six U.N. staff members detained by the Ethiopian government were released and that all of the more than 70 detained truck drivers waiting to deliver aid to war-torn Tigray have also been freed.
But five U.N. staff members and one dependent remain in custody in the capital Addis Ababa and the U.N. is pressing for their release as well, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The detentions were the government’s latest slap at the United Nations after the recent expulsion of seven U.N. staffers, including several senior officials working in Tigray, as tensions continue over what the U.N. has called a “de facto humanitarian blockade” on the Tigray region.