Marc Fisher
✔
@mffisher
Post Exclusive: A doorbell-camera company owned by Amazon founder and Post owner Jeff Bezos has secretly cut deals with 400 police departments to feed video from people's front doors to cops who request it, creating "a wholly new surveillance network." https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/28/doorbell-camera-firm-ring-has-partnered-with-police-forces-extending-surveillance-reach/

The doorbell-camera company Ring has quietly forged video-sharing partnerships with more than 400 police forces across the United States, granting them access to homeowners’ camera footage and a powerful role in what the company calls America’s “new neighborhood watch.”
The partnerships let police automatically request the video recorded by homeowners’ cameras within a specific time and area, helping officers see footage from the company’s millions of Internet-connected cameras installed nationwide, the company said. Officers don’t receive ongoing or live-video access, and homeowners can decline the requests, which Ring sends via email thanking them for “making your neighborhood a safer place.”
The number of police deals, which has not previously been reported, will likely fuel broader questions about privacy, surveillance and the expanding reach of tech giants and local police. The rapid growth of the program, which launched last spring, surprised some civil-liberties advocates, who believed fewer than 300 agencies had signed on.

Susanne Craig
@susannecraig
Deutsche Bank has all but confirmed the bank is in possession of tax returns for President Trump and some of his immediate family. Names are redacted in the letter the bank just filed in response to Monday's court order, but it's clear who they are referring to. 👉

One Twitter user Robyn Pennacchia retweeted a conversation about someone selling a separate piece of Alexo Athletica clothing online who quizzed the buyer about the materials used.

The response was: 'It's 95 percent polyester and 5 percent spandex. Made in China though.'

This left many unhappy, with user MurDogg wrote: 'Having a hard time finding where these clothes are made. Looking on the website and can't find "made in USA" anywhere.'

Another added: 'Why is it made in China though? You guys must hate America or this would have been manufactured in MURICAAAAAAA!'

Speaking at Tuesday's meeting of the National Space Council, Vice President Mike Pence and Pentagon officials announced that the newest branch of the military would be established Aug. 29.

The Space Force is being created out of what's now the U.S. Space Command, a division of the Air Force. Air Force general John Raymond has been tapped and confirmed by the Senate as its first leader.

"The United States Space Force will ensure that our nation is prepared to defend our people, defend our interests, and to defend our values in the vast expanse of space and here on Earth with the technologies that will support our common defense for the vast reaches of outer space," Pence said.

In October 2017, Curt Weldon joined the board of advisors for Monarch Air Group, which had just completed its first contract with the Justice Department’s Witness Security Division.

Monarch Air is a known Russian mob front. This is such an open secret that a Conspiracy Theory website made up a story about how Monarch Air worked with the FSB to transport 370 Spetznetz troops to the United States to protect the Trump inauguration.

It was actually somewhat believable given the presence of a South Florida biker gang literally named after the Spetznetz with ties to Trump properties.

Why would the Trump Administrations Department of Justice allow a company that operates as a front for the Russian mob anywhere near the sacred halls of Witness Protection, not once, but twice? What was going on in June 2017 and January 2018 that warranted these contracts?

A trove of Treasury Department emails released to the non-profit organization Democracy Forward and provided exclusively to The Hollywood Reporter this week paint a picture of a close, friendly bond between the Trump administration agency and two news organizations, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.

...

On April. 25, 2017, Fox Business Network host David Asman appeared to advise then-Treasury Department spokesman Tony Sayegh (a former Fox News contributor) on how the administration should pursue a key policy goal: achieving a major tax cut. After sharing a quote from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Asman wrote in the email, "Take the BIG TAX CUTS NOW ... a long-term deal with small cuts is useless. NOTHING IS PERMANENT IN WASHINGTON. Big tax cuts now give the economy the push it needs."

After Sayegh thanked Asman for "these thoughts," the Fox Business host congratulated him on his recent Trump administration appointment. "How exciting!" he wrote. "This is a great chapter of your life, Tony. Congrats!" ("Thanks David!" Sayegh responded. "Miss all of you up there."

Four days later, Asman wrote to Sayegh to tell him that a significant block of a Fox Business show would focus on the administration's tax policies. "You'll like it," Asman told him. "Awesome David," Sayegh wrote back. "You're the man."