Lacking any direct statement from Mike Zullo, we must resort to inference as to what his “universe-shattering” information was.
Mike Zullo’s de facto spokesperson Carl Gallups Tweeted on November 22, 2013, “BREAKING! BREAKING! BREAKING! ANNOUNCED TODAY – Zullo: We have universe-shattering information PLUS: Arpaio is [‘fully engaged’ and was going to make something happen on this matter very soon.]” This is the month after Zullo and Arpaio met with Tim Blixseth and learned about Dennis Montgomery, and the month when Montgomery went onto the MCSO confidential informant payroll.
Gallups more recently said on his Freedom Friday program May 15, 2015:
And so read the article and please remember this: these CIA documents that are being spoken of in this investigation, this court case, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office didn’t make this stuff up. This stuff was uncovered through investigation, and you remember all this started with the birth certificate investigation. OK. That’s why Zullo some time back was talking about how this thing, why this thing was going deep and dark and why there were some legal loopholes and hurdles they had to jump over and earth shattering information and evidence coming forth. Well you’re starting to wade around the edges of it now. The edges of it. Go read that article. Read between the lines. Hear what I’m saying. Remember what Zullo said. So folks this is what we were trying to tell you a long time ago. This is dark, and it gets deep and it’s gonna get deeper and probably darker, so you’re going to want to pay attention to this. Whatever we can tell you, we will as we move along.
The article he refers to is a report on ABC 15 TV in Arizona about Arpaio and confidential informant Dennis Montgomery.
Mike Zullo downplays what Gallups knows and conclusions that might be drawn, saying to Sharon Rondeau who runs the Post & Email site:
People need to slow down. You don’t have every audiotape or videotape that was ever produced. You do not have the full story in context. The only people who are going to know what transpired as far as this certificate is concerned is going to be me and Montgomery. Nobody else can speak to this, and they shouldn’t.
Nevertheless, we know from emails made public as part of the Melendres v. Arpaio lawsuit that Dennis Montgomery was working on the Birth Certificate for Mike Zullo, and that Zullo’s Cold Case Posse had purchased an expensive video card for Montgomery and paid him $10,000 for something. We also know that Montgomery was excusing delays in delivering the birth certificate information because of something to do with three versions of Adobe software that had to be used.
Most recently, a March 27, 2014, list from MCSO Detective Brian Mackiewicz of demands from the Arpaio team to Dennis Montgomery has appeared in court documents. (March of 2014 was also the month Zullo had talked about for the never-delivered “March reveal” that birthers looked forward to with such great expectations.) Mackiewicz said that this list contained items Montgomery promised to provide pursuant to his “Free Talk Agreement” with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
PX 2922 2014-03-27 List 2 (Mackiewicz List) by Jack Ryan
The list references birth-certificate-related items: “Birth Certificate analysis for fraud,” “prove three different software versions were used on BC,” “provide proof CIA watermarks are contained in BC doc” and “provide other known CIA unrelated docs that contain same watermarks.”
On October 28, 2015, Mackiewicz testified that Montgomery never did provide any of this material. Zullo never revealed his universe-shattering information. Arpaio and his NSA consultants said the Montgomery information that was provided was
‘junk”and a total fraud. Zullo never backed down in his public pronouncements, attributing the delays to “legal hurdles,” and he remained, apparently, a true believer to the end, writing to Dennis Montgomery May 22, 2015:
Dennis I want you to know that I do believe you have what you say and if I ever have to testify that is exactly what I’m going to say.
Look, what is that dark mass rushing across the highway?
Jack Ryan Collections:
So Zullo has some information, per his conversation with Rondeau, which would prove the birth certificate forged, that he did not disclose in response to a subpoena and did not disclose while on the witness stand.
Will he release it before former Pres. Obama opens his library?
Mikey, you tried to make true believers out of everyone. Many of the Birther faithful bought into your nonsense. Even you forgot that you had nothing, but you continued to believe, and the dollars rolled in, for a time. You became the perfect mark for a con. It’s really quite fitting that you got rolled over just like you rolled over the Birther faithful. Not everyone bought into your charade and believed your pitch. Now it’s just a matter of a few more weeks and you’ll know exactly what Judge Snow may have planned for you. Congratulations on an epic fail Mikey.
I have been working on a theory that quotes found on the internet, especially ones with pictures, are always misattributed. So I was disappointed to find that Chesnutt actually did write this, in the The Marrow of Tradition. Hence, maybe not always.
The phrase appeared somewhat earlier in a sermon of CH Spurgeon.
Ah yes, CIA watermarks. Because when I create a forgery, I want to provide proof that I did it.
Btw, this is being typed on my new Surface Pro 4. My old laptop died the last time I downloaded one of Hermie’s PDF screeds.
So I was in a public area on my tablet this past Monday, and this little kid walks up to me and says “Is that a Surface Pro 4?” I had to admit that it was a Surface Pro 3. It’s a sweet machine, and I can only imagine what the 4 must be like.
I have one friend on Facebook whose picture quotes are always spot on. All the rest fit your theory.
This. Pretty much exactly what I was going to say.
Also: for God’s sake, it’s “breach”, not “breech”.
I am typing this on my Pro 3, did try the 4 and if I didn’t have the 3 would snap it up.
It s an incremental upgrade rather than the substantial step change the Pro 3 was so I’m sticking with my 3…….However to feed my geek lust, I’m getting the Surface Book…. i5, 256 with the NVIDIA GPU…woot woot
Number one: The lark.
I’ve been putting off getting a Surface Pro, but I want one. My prehistoric laptop is finally dying, so the idea is percolating again.
So which one do I want?
The Pro 4 is a very nice piece of kit. The pain is that to use it to it’s real potential you NEED the keyboard which is an extra to purchase, pen comes with the tablet.
My view would be the i5 256GB 8GB is the sweet spot of power, storage and processor.
The next one down, the i5 with 128 GB only comes with 4GB of RAM and would start to stutter once you start running Office, a browser and AN Other application
The extended 2 year MS warranty and accidental damage cover (Microsoft Complete) is good value and worth considering.
The Surface Book is very much a laptop with a secondary function as a table which is why I will keep my Pro 3 for those times when I have different needs or portability requirements
Don’t know if you have a HD TV but I use the wireless display adapter for presentations and Netflix regularly
I have the HDMI adapter cable that I occasionally use for presentations. I’ll have to look into the wireless adapter. Sounds useful. I agree with Bovril that you need a keyboard.
I have the 4 GB I5 and it’s find for my use, but I don’t run Office, a browsers and another application actively at the same time.
The only thing to be careful I have found is that if you have VPN software installed then in SOME circumstances the adapter will not connect between the PC and the dongle.
The dongle requires connection to a USB port for power, most HDTV’s nowadays have one or more either for diagnostics or to play media so not usually not an issue.
I usually travel with a USB power cell anyway and if the TV does not have a USB slot for power the cell works for most of what I use it for.
Range is upto about 50 feet, again YMMV.
That’s what I got. My wife is getting the i7 256GB 16GB once it comes in. She routinely has 30-40 windows open.
That’s why all my systems are running Linux Mint with ZFS. Regular snapshots are automatically made to which I can return with just a rollback command. Of course this is not for everybody.
There’s your problem…
A couple suggested corrections/notes:
List 2 – PX 2922 (which was provided to Jack Ryan by WYE), was not a subpoenaed document. PX 2922 was one of 7 documents in a set that was originally marked Ex 2082 – produced by MCSO very early in the case (based on PX numbering).
…As an aside, while this has not been confirmed on the record, I’m relatively sure that PX 2917-2923 were part of the very first set of documents that the monitor reviewed – and the highlighting is from the monitors.
As noted on WYE, List 2 was the list of things Montgomery promised to provide pursuant to his Free Talk Agreement.
…As an aside, I find it interesting that the “CheckList for Elmer” – which is the one created by Zullo – (a) does not contain the same BC information but (b) does contain demands for more information to back up Montgomery’s various other claims.
The Zullo-Montgomery email exchange (PX2972) occurred 1 year and two months later, not five days prior to the Lists. Date of that email is May 22, 2015.
Re: “From documents available, Montgomery never did provide any of this material.”
Yes. And Mackiewicz testified that Montgomery never produced any of the items on List 2:
Thanks for the corrections which not only make the article right, but more solid in its conclusions.
Do you see any logic to the selection of highlighted material? I mean, why would the monitors be interested in the birth certificate items? Why credit card numbers and not social-security numbers? And “embassy codes”?
That’s what I was thinking too.
While I’d like an i7 with gigatons of memory, there is a controller of the purse strings to consider.
Maybe.
I don’t keep up with the identity theft market, but I think credit card numbers are immediately marketable and easy to cause damage with, while SSNs are less so.
The others look like they’d be proof of whether Monty was trying to peddle real stolen classified info. Note that they highlighted hacks via “Hammer”, but not by DOJ. Encryption codes would be something the Feds would want to know about very urgently. Also whether the CIA had some flaw in their document-forging techniques that could be used to unmask agents in dangerous places.
So, maybe (if it’s real) “ongoing and/or future harm” vs “already done, but can be investigated at leisure”?
I don’t know (Ron makes some good points). And… I SHOULD have said I’m relatively sure that PX 2917-2923 were part of the very first set of documents that the monitor reviewed – … and I think the highlighting may be from the monitors.
The bates numbers indicate it was early production. There was some discussion on the record about the highlighting. I’m pretty sure record confirms highlighting on 2072 was monitor and court was doing to check on 2082 (which is a big set, including at least PX 2917-2923).
And as PS/FYI- I’ve added a “Seattle Operation Docs” page, listing all known Seattle Op docs (those admitted as exhibits, those on Zullo Log, and those previously ID’d by plaintiffs but not actually admitted) — organized by date, with links to docs as applicable. Will be adding more links over next couple days.
One frequent identify theft scam involved using another person’s name and SSN to apply for credit, but with a new address so that the credit card would be sent to the scammer’s address. The credit card companies (for the most part) finally wised up and will not approve applications from customers if the address on the application does not match an address which appears on the applicant’s credit history (without further verification of identity, that is). Also credit bureaus now flag addresses which are mail drops (UPS stores, Mailboxes Etc.). It’s not at easy to open up a new account using another person’s SSN as it used to be.
Stolen credit card numbers, on the other hand, can be used (or tried to be used) until either the credit card company or the cardholder catches on that something is amiss. Many retailers are very lax about it.
With intelligence agencies, you never know. Someone might think that leaving a tell-tale sign (think steganography) in a document (so that future agency investigations can distinguish a CIA forgery from a real document or a forgery by someone else) was a good idea (which it is until said tell-tale sign becomes publically known, at which point all such forgeries are “burnt”, i.e. exposed to everyone).
LOL, I haven’t read anything from Hermitian in a while. Where did he land lately?
I note the defense and plaintiffs are still allowed to submit things to the judge. Since Doc and RC were also under investigation by the CCP, maybe they should submit a friends of the court brief outlining all the time A/Z lied? Judge may not read it, but it would be a hoot for us! 😀
What is the deal with the weird font on Zullo’s list? That’s a rhetorical question.
Actually, this happened the last time he showed up here. He was all agog that in the speckled layers there were some speckles that were exactly the same shape. Idiot still hasn’t figured out that jbig2 doesn’t look for text, it looks for shapes. I’ve been limping along on my cell since then, wanted to get the Surface Pro 4 and needed to clear the cash to get a new computer.
He has been hanging out at Amazon. He popped up there at the same time he last posted here. I’ve been quiet since I didn’t have a working keyboard.
I understand that in the USA you aren’t using PIN numbers for credit cards much (luddites 😎 ). In Australia they have done away with signing credit cards completely. You must have a PIN number or you cannot use your card. Except for Online or Phone banking, of course, where there is a check that you actually have the physical card in your possession – sort of.
That just about eliminated fraud against credit cards in Australia.
For all of about 6 months.
That’s about when the banks introduced ‘Pay-Wave’ or ‘Tap-and-Go’ or what ever the particular bank calls it. Now when if you drop your card in the street, the finder can ‘Tap-and-Go’ at every major retail outlet in the country for purchases under $100 until you notice the loss and tell your bank.
About every six months there is an article in the paper, generated by some bank’s PR department, about how successful ‘PayWave’ is and how happy Australians are with the ‘service’. Then you flip the page and the Banking Industry has put in an article about how credit card fraud has gone up again and is costing Australians billions of dollars. Its just stupid.
Only for debit cards here. All the new cards here are smart cards, “chip cards” as most call them, and the infrastructure to support them is being rolled out. That prevents cloning and skimming, and hacking the POS terminals. It doesn’t prevent someone from just using the card when stolen.
I had a credit card skimmed once and the thief racked up maybe 10 grand in online purchases. The credit card company caught on within hours, verified with me that they weren’t legitimate purchases, and I never heard anything more about it.
Saw a hilarious standup routine on Mock The Week recently about that. The comedian mock-bragged about how cool he was ‘cuz he had one of the new cards. Until he went into a store that hadn’t upgraded their terminal, and he freaked out the staff by trying umpteen different ways of tapping and waving before the clerk explained to the apparent newbie that you’re supposed to slide the card 😉
I believe he also used the word “luddite” when he complained “You people expect me to take four whole seconds out of my busy day to punch in a PIN? What sort of Victorian establishment is this?”.
Unfortunately, it’s not just the RFID cards that are at risk: Walmart recently changed their policy so they only intermittently ask for PINs on swiped debit card transactions. One can only hope that they have some code that checks for sudden unusual activity.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/10-damning-audio-clips-from-joe-arpaios-seattle-investigation-7843330
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/11/23/judge-doubts-truth-of-arpaios-testimony.htm
http://kjzz.org/content/224617/judge-questions-truthfulness-sheriff-joe-arpaio%E2%80%99s-testimony
Yeah, in Australia is for all cards. The standard mantra is ‘Check, Savings, or Credit?’ or ‘Which account do you want to use?’ or the like. One card – all accounts (one of each type per card) – no signature.
If you are a foreign visitor, the machines can print out a signature slip for you, but Australians must have a PIN (or in many stores and all major stores PayWave for purchases under the store limit, usually $100).
PayWave cannot be disabled on your card. Lord knows I’ve tried – its like talking to a brick wall. I think the banks are afraid that if customer know its easy to turn it off, everyone will do it. I’m thinking about bringing it up with the Ombudsman.
FWIW, if memory serves the first chipped cards were introduced in France in 1983 as telephone cards.
Credit / debit cards with embedded chips have become common since 1992. There was a long delay because the first manufacturer, Bull, screwed up and all the original chipped cards had to be recalled.
The only place I use my debit card is at a bank ATM.
I found this “answer” to one of my questions courtesy of Mike Zullo in his Nov. 12 testimony:
Q. How did you know that [Dennis Montgomery] had any identification information at all if the information he had given you was worthless?
Zullo: I’m glad you ask. When I was out of this, there were three phone conversations I had with Detective Mackiewicz. He had called me up and he said: Hey, I want to let you know, I did a sampling of the identity information with the Social Security numbers, and they’re 100 percent accurate. Now, I don’t know how large the sampling was.
I had another telephone call from Detective Mackiewicz, and he was working with some — I think it was banking or investment information that Montgomery had given him. And he called me up, he said: Hey, you’re not going to believe this. He goes: I’m going through some of these banking things, and these things are — they’re older. So it’s very difficult to go back with people and ask: Is this your account, or whatnot? He said: I ran across three people in Seattle that invested in a movie production. The movie was called Lord of the Protector, or something like that. And he said: And there’s a couple people in Arizona that had made the same investment. And this is in Dennis’s database.
And I’m like: Well, Brian, what does — you know, what does it really mean? Aside from, okay, he’s got some things, but he doesn’t have it the way he represented it to us.
And then there was another real interesting call. [4457]
Apparently, Detective Mackiewicz had information given to him by Montgomery, and I — I’ve never seen it. I understand that he went to see an executive at Microsoft, that Montgomery had — I’m assuming it’s in a list of other things — provided him this individual’s banking information. And Detective Mackiewicz made an appointment, went to see this executive.
Again, the information was older, but I believe the way it — it ran was the executive told him it’s quite possible that was his account. It was a business account. He said it was quite possible he had that money, and I believe it was over a million dollars.
But then Brian showed him his own password, and that executive got extremely, extremely agitated and told Brian: How did you get this? Nobody could get this. This thing is so encrypted, nobody can get this. How did you get this?
And that was something else that came back that Montgomery said he had, people’s passwords, and here was a very encrypted password where somebody that obviously knows computer stuff working for Microsoft truly believed that that password was impenetrable. And that was in some of the information.
http://tesibria.typepad.com/wye/the-mcso-seattle-operation-testimony-mike-zullo-nov-12-2015.html
Interesting! So Montgomery actually managed to get hold of some real encrypted banking data which he used to bait MSCO with?
Or he did a little social engineering or lucky guessing to get the guy’s password. Or [Insert your choice of jokes about “Microsoft” and “security” here]
The names and SSNs list could have been compiled from the same databases the “Harrison J Bounel” twits misused.
The film investors could have come from a press release or trade paper article.
As some movie character once said: We are not impressed.
There have been many hacking incidents where lists of passwords have been released. There are public web sites that maintain massive lists of passwords so that you can enter a hashed password and get the original.
I hasten to add that I have never used any hacked password lists, or attempted to hack anyone. OK, I hacked the Clemson University mainframe in 1973, but it was a “white hat” hack. That was the last time, I swear. As I taught my children, system administrators have no sense of humor.
When “Hanley Allen Strappman” ‘hacked’ the University of Arizona CDC 6400 back in 1972 (by reading the System Utilities manual that was bolted to the desk in the I/O room and inserting an advertisement for the annual “Mickey Mouse Chocolate and Beer Party” on to the End of Job Log Reports) they hired him as a System Programmer.
Maybe, but even it’s true it doesn’t prove that he hacked anyone. If you know the right people – and I’m sure that Montgomery knows such people – you can buy illegally obtained lists of Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, etc.
According to Six Degrees of Separation, we all are probably just two nodes away from drug dealers, three from people who can procure unregistered guns and false documents, and four from contract killers.
So with the proper conviction and skills, anyone should be able to get in touch with such people if the need arises.
In Montgomery’s case, it’s all part of the con. Of course you’ve got to have *something* that checks out to pass a cursory background check by your mark.
When’s a ruling due on Arpaio’s contempt of court case?
When Judge Snow gets good and ready! But, another week or so is what I’ve been hearing.
Both sides have been given until 4 December to respond in writing to some of Judge Snow’s questions, so no decision will come until after he has had time to review those submissions.
Not in the next week, then.
Maybe week after next.