back to article Chris Krebs loses Global Entry membership amid Trump feud

Chris Krebs, former CISA director and current political punching bag for the US President, says his Global Entry membership was revoked. The news comes after Trump vowed to strip Krebs of his security clearances as part of his grudge against the cyber luminary, who has repeatedly discredited the President's claims about the …

  1. IGotOut Silver badge

    This is why..

    everyone should boycott visiting the USA (yes I know).

    It's a hostile nation and should be avoided at all costs, along with other authoritarian states such as North Korea, Russia and Iran. Visit Canada, it's a much nicer place...or Cuba, where you'll have less issues with customs.

    1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: This is why..

      I just wish the UK were big enough to grant asylum to all the Americans who need it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This is why..

        I don't think they would be able to fit into our cars....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is why..

      I prefer to boycott/avoid governments and bad humans in general. I don't blame a countries population for the idiots that dictate to them. this includes china, nk, ru, even the us.

    3. DS999 Silver badge

      As a US resident

      I agree.

      If you hurt the US hotel and resort industry where it counts, in their bottom line, they won't be so willing to stand behind Trump. Tax cuts don't do you any good if you are taking a huge profit hit to get them.

      We're already been seeing Canadian citizens canceling travel plans to the US and places that typically cater to them are having real issues, some say they will face bankruptcy if the relationship with Canada isn't repaired (which I can't imagine will happen until Trump is gone, and even then they will never trust us the same for being dumb enough to elect such a profoundly stupid person, twice)

      I hate that this is where we're at, but what the US needs to stop Trump is for the business world to feel a LOT of pain, enough pain that they turn against him and congressional and state republicans who enable him. So rest of the world please bring it on, make it hurt. Quit visiting here, quit buying our products. The free world needs to boycott the US until the orange shitstain is flushed.

  2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Separation of powers

    I thought the US was supposed to have a separation of powers. And yet the president is able to start a criminal investigation into someone by executive order? Is this something that's allowed - or is this just more of Trump over-reaching his constitutional powers?

    I know that past presidents (of both parties) have launched the IRS at their rivals - and tried to nail them as nasty tax evaders (whether true or not didn't really matter).

    The UK is of course weird in this matter. We have an independent public prosecution service, which the government might be able to influence but doesn't control. And then the governments' two law officers, the Attorney General and Solicitor General - who are government ministers but also have to be legally qualified and have this strange role where they're supposed to be both part of the government and also hold it to accound in certain legal matters.

    1. NoCoffee

      Re: Separation of powers

      Think of Executive Orders just a Press Releases....they say whats he wants to happen but need the departments to act on the EO

      1. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

        Re: Separation of powers

        "they say whats he wants to happen but need the departments to act on the EO"

        Not really.

        The President can use EOs under Article 2 of the Constitution to enforce the law or get things done through the Executive Branch, who are required to act on the EO as long as it's supported by actual or implied congressional law.

        Basically meaning that if the EO is - or can be interpreted to be - within the law, the Executive Branch and Federal Government are required to act on it.

    2. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Separation of powers

      The DOJ and FBI, which initiate investigations, are part of the executive branch under the president. They are supposed to be independent, but that's not really codified into law very well so Trump is just blatantly ignoring that. Maybe the MAGA fucknuts cheering him on should think back to the Clinton era, where Bill Clinton merely spoke to his Attorney General for a few minutes on the tarmac as they were traveling on separate planes and Fox News and congressional republicans made that a huge scandal - because they were not supposed to communicate at all. Now Trump talks to his AG all the time and directs who should and should not be investigated.

      Of course an "investigation" is meaningless as far as prosecution - they can't charge him without a grand jury indicting him and Trump doesn't control that process. But who knows maybe his enablers have figured out a way to stack grand juries with a bunch of MAGA morons who will indict anyone Trump tweets against. Let's hope not but I wouldn't put anything past the wanna be fascist.

      1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

        Re: Separation of powers

        DS999,

        Thanks for reminding me about the grand juries. One of those things where they've disappeared in the UK, so it's easy to forget that the US and our systems have diverged significantly over the years, from being very similar - but with King crossed out and President quickly written in. Of course, having a constitution always made the US system completely different anyway, but also means it's evolved less - because it's much harder to change a codified constitution than a system of written precedent and proceedural law.

        We got rid of those (it turns out when I Google it not in the 18th Century, but) in 1933. Although they'd apparently been increasingly irrelevant in the 19th Century due to the system of a hearing before a magistrate to see whether a suspect could be held in custody by the police prior to charging. After that prosecutions were brought by the Attorney General (a government minister but by precedent they were supposed to act impartially - which they mostly did). In practise the police tended to make those decisions in cooperation with prosecuting barristers/lawyers. That allowed the police too much leeway to basically let crims off prosecution in exchange for deals - and allowed some dodgy prosecutions - so we created an independent Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who mean the police are no longer allowed to stop investigating someone without CPS permission, and also can't charge without it either. Although I think the Attorney General can still bring prosecutions, in exceptional circumstances or matters of National Security.

        However, Grand Juries aren't particularly hard to cheat at, so I think your hope in them is misplaced. Seeing as they don't sit in public and the government controls all the evidence they see - it probably isn't hard to get them to allow charges to be pressed. Even if the evidence is so flimsy that the subsequent court case collapses embarrassingly quickly.

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: Separation of powers

          The government controls the evidence they see but if they falsify evidence even though Trump's DOJ would ignore it (or Trump would pardon them) the lawyers involved would lose their license to practice law - something which is still outside of Trump's control.

        2. collinsl Silver badge

          Re: Separation of powers

          who mean the police are no longer allowed to stop investigating someone without CPS permission

          Not the case to my knowledge - the police can still drop a case due to lack of evidence, or even these days due to lack of resources to investigate it if it has a suitably low chance of prosecution.

          Imagine if every bicycle theft case had to be referred to the CPS for permission to stop investigating, their queue of cases would rise to a 100 year wait!

    3. HuBo Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: Separation of powers

      Yeah, as NoCoffee and DS999 note, Incubus Orange tries to force his way through US policy by issuing an overflowing sewer sludge of nonsensical Executive Orders (EOs) ... but each can be challenged. There has been more than 220 lawsuits against those batshit crazy EOs so far, with several (maybe 2/3) successfully blocking some EO, or partially so.

  3. JimmyPage
    Boffin

    I thought the US was supposed to have a separation of powers.

    They do. But the GOP majority congress has abrogated them.

    Without them, civil war is inevitable.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I thought the US was supposed to have a separation of powers.

      We don't have the balls for a civil war actually. I see people turning in their guns sooner than I see a civil war.

      Liberals are still delusionally convinced the police and military will step in to save their asses from violence instead of joining their trumper buddies in dragging them out to be shot and steal from them when the economy fails to work on Trump magic. Nobody on the "left" wants to connect the fact banned weapons still manage to turn up in blue states with the fact that cops can buy whatever they please and sell them on the sly to their buddies, nevermind the porous state borders.

      MAGAts don't actually have the guts to fight as an actual armed, organized opposition to the state once it decides to turn on them, Long Knives-style because unlike the liberals, the state will actually fight back instead of sneer at them. When MAGAts get the first Food Not Bombs police response to their dissent, they'll fall in line and turn in their guns so fast you'll look for the gas leak reading the articles.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I thought the US was supposed to have a separation of powers.

        who are you going to 'civil war against" There is no target. The issue is people don't elect good people, they elect sponsored people. Going to fight Amazon? Pack fund managers,,,,,?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: I thought the US was supposed to have a separation of powers.

          Don't temp me, bro.

  4. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Time to leave Mr Krebbs

    Donald 'Thin Skin' Trump won't stop until you are in Gitmo/Rwanda or somewhere worse.

    He hates people telling the truth. He surrounds himself with useless 'Yes Men' (very few women in Trump's cabinet compared to Biden's) who will never tell him 'Sorry sir, you are wrong'.

    This is evidenced by him saying that his lawyers told him that he won the Garcia case in front of SCOTUS 9-0 when he lost if 9-0. He refused (in a recent interview) to accept that his lawyers were telling him what he wanted to hear rather than the truth.

    The sooner he is confined to Mar-A-Lago for life and a 30ft razor wire fence installed around it to keep him inside the better.

    1. JimmyPage

      him saying that his lawyers told him that he won the Garcia case in front of SCOTUS 9-0

      It gets better than that.

      He has already established a narrative that the Garcia case has been managed by lawyers and he has "just signed" what they told him too. So now they have had their hands dipped in blood.

      1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

        Re: even worse than that

        When Mr Garcia is returned, he has a slam-dunk defamation case against everyone from Trump down. One commentator was talking $500M just from Donald alone. That's probably why they don't want him back.

        Bondi is in deep do-do for publicising the address of his wife and children. All in all, it is one big Cock-up and just what the world has come to expect from Donald 'I know more about everything than anyone who has ever lived' Trump.

        1. Jamesit

          Re: even worse than that

          "All in all, it is one big Cock-up and just what the world has come to expect from Donald 'I know more about everything than anyone who has ever lived' Trump."

          Not a Cock-up, more like a Flamingo-up, sort of like a Cock-up, only much much bigger according to Holly.

        2. Goat Boy

          Re: even worse than that

          "One commentator was talking $500M just from Donald alone."

          Hadn't considered that but it's really made my heart sink for his long-term prospects. I now REALLY hope that clink he's at in El Salvador doesn't have any high-level windows, cos.. y'know

          1. collinsl Silver badge

            Re: even worse than that

            He'll probably be "murdered by an inmate" using a gun when that inmate was handcuffed to the rear with a belly chain kneeling on the floor with a guard holding them down.

            Or he'll be "shot whilst attempting escape" like in Shawshank Redemption.

  5. IglooDame

    Now is the time to USians to step up, if you haven't prior to now.

    I'm going to be looking for the list of signatures on that letter supporting Chris Krebs and using it as my initial list of candidates for future corporate security services - if you're not up to standing firm against the DJT government, then you're not sufficiently trustworthy to support my business.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Now is the time to USians to step up, if you haven't prior to now.

      lol, voting doesn't matter, a letter wont matter. Really NOTHING matters. we are all dust. I'm just watching the world burn till I'm dead. Unless someone is filthy rich, there is no power to make change. and even then, still dust.

  6. Andy Non Silver badge

    Probably only a matter of time

    before those of us on El Reg and elsewhere who make disparaging posts about Trump find ourselves on the US No-fly list. Not that I have any intentions of visiting the US for at least four years.

    1. ICL1900-G3 Silver badge

      Re: Probably only a matter of time

      Suits me.

      Christ, that guy's a cunt... Trump I mean, lest there should be any confusion.

    2. Alien Doctor 1.1

      Re: Probably only a matter of time

      And if you decide to visit Canada make sure you book a direct flight.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Probably only a matter of time

        "And if you decide to visit Canada make sure you book a direct flight."

        It's cheaper to do it that way. The last time I went to the UK, I got a cheap flight to Halifax and paid for my transatlantic fare in Cunukistani Kopeks which was the same number in USD or CAD so the exchange rate was my friend. It was also a good charter company flight so more money saved there on the things US airlines charge extra to provide. Luggage isn't an option for a week or so stay in winter. There were also heaps of gifts for friends/family and a bunch of things coming back with me on the return trip.

    3. Xalran Silver badge

      Re: Probably only a matter of time

      We probably are already on that list.

      Remember, if you even travel to the Land where Nero and his bufoon rules :

      - come in with a burneer phone that's not connected to anything.

      - have a brand new, never booted laptop with you

      - brand new sd cards for your camera.

      - only bring the newspapers given at the plane entrance with you.

      obviously change of cloth and other textile stuff can't incriminate you, unless you love wearing temu/shein stuff.... and even that is far fetched, for now.

  7. ecofeco Silver badge
    Big Brother

    He was done a favor

    He is much safer staying out the USA at this point.

  8. MachDiamond Silver badge

    Too much probing

    To get into the program, they investigate you inside and out (at least that's their claim) and you also give permission for them to keep doing that (likely to the heat death of the universe). I'll wait in the queue, thank you very much.

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Too much probing

      He had a security clearance before it was unjustly taken away. You get at least as much probing to get that. I suppose that, by the time he had already done it for doing security work for the government, it didn't matter so might as well get the benefits. Such things often mean that the government, and especially the military, have trouble finding all the people they want to work there. That goes for most governments, but the US one complains frequently about how they don't have enough people to do the computer work they want.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Too much probing

        "He had a security clearance before it was unjustly taken away. You get at least as much probing to get that."

        Yes, but, that's for a job somewhere with access to sensitive information which is every so slightly different than getting on a plane to go visit your nan. The thing that really concerned me about the program was the permission you gave that allowed them being able to keep probing you indefinitely even if you expired or opted out of the program. That could lead to a search of your personal records without needing a warrant since they have a signed document giving them permission. The wording didn't limit the searching to only being used to qualify for the program. Attorneys like to word things as broadly as they can since it's easier than narrowing the scope down in a way that's not going to get overruled by a judge for the real reason a person is signing something.

  9. AVR Silver badge

    When the process is the punishment

    ...then the US President can write a bill of attainder via executive order. Which is actually prohibited in the US Constitution.

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