Gov. Doug Ducey has secured the funding necessary to launch Arizona’s new Cyber Command Center, and during a ceremony at the Arizona Department of Public Safety’s Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC) on Monday he equated cybersecurity with homeland security.
“Our society is becoming increasingly interconnected through technology, and cybersecurity has become one of the most important issues facing Arizona,” Ducey said Monday. “This new command center will be critical in protecting Arizonans and ensuring our cyber infrastructure remains safe and secure.”
According to the governor, the state has spent nearly $15 million in the last year to address cyber threats and implement best practices. The results are impressive, with the Arizona Department of Homeland Security detecting and alerting on about 68 million threats and protected state websites from over 800,000 attacks in September.
The new Cyber Command Center will be Arizona’s headquarters for coordinating statewide cybersecurity operations, and will serve as a central location for cybersecurity professionals and local, state and federal agencies to prevent and respond to cyberattacks. Several programs will be run out of the command center, including the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center, a joint effort created in 2004 among DPS, AZ DHS, the FBI, and other agencies to support Arizona’s homeland security efforts.
Ducey has been successful the last few years in securing funding to address cybersecurity threats which impact not only state agencies, but also local governments, the private sector, educational institutions, and citizens.
In Fiscal Year 2020, the governor secured legislative approval to add $2.9 million to the Arizona Department of Administration’s Statewide Information Security and Privacy Office. The money was earmarked to enhance the operations of the office and purchase additional cybersecurity controls to combat cyberthreats on state IT assets, according to Ducey’s office.
He has also tapped $9 million in FY2020 and FY2022 to improve the Department of Education’s school finance system which distributes billions in state and federal funding to Arizona’s public schools. In addition, nearly $500,000 of funding will be available to the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs (DEMA) in FY2022 to establish a cyber task force to perform cybersecurity prevention and response activities on behalf of the state, according to the governor’s office.
That is on top of a one-time $300,000 credit to the National Guard Cyber Response Revolving Fund to allow the National Guard to engage in cyberattack prevention, response, and support activities for the state and other public entities.
Arizona is not the only state making cybersecurity a priority, and public records show many of the projects across the country are being paid for by federal funds under the CARES Act.
According to the Center for Digital Government, the CARES Act provided more than $150 billion in March 2020 to state and local governments to address cybersecurity issues brought about by IT budget constraints, modernization issues, and new challenges such as remote work and distance learning. In December, Congress later extended the deadline for utilizing the funding after some states complained of not being able to get projects quickly operational due to time and staff constraints.
“This extension is critical because our research indicates state, local and county governments still have billions of federal dollars left to spend,” according to a briefing by the Center for Digital Government, a national research and advisory institute on information technology policies and best practices in state and local government. “Doing so will increase their resilience, streamline constituents’ access to critical services, and safeguard critical government systems and all the valuable public data they collect.”
In North Carolina, $4.5 million of CARES funding was allocated to create a shared cybersecurity infrastructure for its Department of Public Instruction. The project also facilitates district cybersecurity monitoring and support,, which according to the briefing “has become even more essential as the schools in the state experience a surge in ransomware attacks.”
Meanwhile, the briefing notes Oklahoma has used its federal aid for a secondary data center with higher availability and advanced disaster recovery capabilities. State officials call the investment “critical” to ensuring the capability to deliver core public services in an emergency.
Idaho, Montana, and Texas are examples of other western states utilizing CARES funds for cybersecurity projects.
While COVID-19 damaged much of the state’s tourism for most of 2020, the Arizona State Parks and Trails still managed to pump $272 million into the state and local economies during Fiscal Year 2020, according to a report released last week by Gov. Doug Ducey’s office.
“Arizona’s state parks are second to none! In addition to their unbeatable views, recreational activities and family-friendly opportunities, they have a significant impact on our state economy,” Ducey tweeted on Sept. 30.
The 82-page report about the economic contributions and impacts of the state’s 21 parks, 10 historic parks, and 3 natural areas covers Oct. 1, 2019 through Sept. 30, 2020. The data comes from the Arizona State Parks and Trails in collaboration with the Regional Economic Analysis Program at the University of Arizona and the Hospitality Research & Resource Center at Northern Arizona University.
The economic contribution of spending by nearly 3,000,000 visitors in and around Arizona’s 34 state park properties was $449 million, including multiplier effects. Of that, $272 million was counted toward Arizona’s gross state product, supporting 4,173 jobs statewide.
Included in the report are details about how Arizona State Parks impacts the 13 counties home to at least one state park. Yavapai County has seven state parks -the most in Arizona- while Pinal and Santa Cruz each have four. Greenlee and Maricopa are the only counties with none.
According to the report, most state parks stayed open during the pandemic, but temporary closures were implemented at Kartchner Caverns and the 10 historic state parks as a safety precaution. The closures caused visits at those locations to plummet 50 percent from FY2019, but combined visitors to the other state parks resulted in a net one percent increase compared to 2019.
Lake Havasu State Park in Mohave County counted the most visits at 533,757 in FY2020. In fact, the report found the top five most visited parks accounted for 53 percent of the total statewide total.
Visitor counts at Kartchner Caverns State Park and the Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park, the two state parks in Cochise County, took especially harsh hits during FY2020 due to mandated temporary closures. The parks saw a combined 161,010 visitors, down significantly from the nearly 220,000 visitors the year before.
When averaged out, the visitor count across the system declined 7.6 percent. The majority of the visits occurred in the first six months of the fiscal year before COVID-19 shutdowns occurred across the United States.
As part of the state’s post-pandemic recovery efforts, Ducey has focused on promoting the benefits of Arizona’s park system for its relatively safe and inexpensive outdoor options.
The report released by the governor’s office also highlighted the growth in popularity of Arizona State Parks from FY2014 when 2,310,349 visitors were counted, to 2,971,844 visitors in FY2020. And the spending by non-local visitors during that same period increased by 20 percent.
Several changes were made to park operations over those years. For instance, Lyman Lakes State Park in Apache County went from seasonally hours to being opened year-round, and Oracle State Park in Pinal County went from weekends-only hours to being opened seven days a week.
In July, Ducey announced $20 million in American Rescue Plan federal funding was being earmarked for capital improvements at various parks. Another $5 million will be spent with the State Parks Heritage Fund for new open space development, restoration or renovation projects, historic preservation, and outdoor education program.
The facts prove the Southwest border of the United States is not secure, despite what a Texas Congresswoman said Wednesday, according to Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels, who is asking for more Arizona National Guard deployment to the border.
On Thursday, Dannels told KFYI’s James T. Harris that comments by U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) of the southwest border being both sovereign and secure is “100 percent not true,” as is her comment that the situation at the border is simply being “subjected to biased and unfair narratives for political purposes.”
Dannels noted there were 1,473,000 million encounters reported at the southwest border from Oct. 1, 2020 through Aug. 31, 2021, up 325 percent from the same period last year. Those who turned themselves in or were captured came from 164 countries, with 63 percent identified as citizens of somewhere other than Mexico, he added.
The sheriff also said 183,000 border crossers were taken into custody during that period in the Tucson Sector which includes 80 miles of border Cochise County shares with Mexico. He added that an estimated 115,000 “getaways” were reported, of which 85 percent appeared to be adult males traveling without family.
There have also been 162 migrants deaths along the 372-mile Arizona / Mexico border, all of which must be treated as an assumed homicide by the local sheriffs.
Those, says Dannels, are only a few of the “politically neutral” statistics which easily show the Biden Administration is not providing Americans a sovereign and secure border as Rep. Jackson Lee claims.
“Show me a stat that says we’re doing something well and I’ll sit back and apologize, but I’m not seeing it, I’m not experiencing it,” he told Harris.
Dannels said the reality is that drug smugglers and human traffickers are invading the United States, exploiting not only the southwest border but all communities across the country. And the Cartels are using border crossers to move a huge increase of drugs in as well.
To counter the lack of attention by President Joe Biden to the border, Dannels recently asked Gov. Doug Ducey and Major Gen. Kerry Muehlenbeck of the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs for more National Guard members at the border. In addition, Cochise County recently secured state funding for equipment and resources to address the local impact of the uncontrolled border.
In April, Ducey ordered several Arizona National Guard members to the border to assist county sheriffs with administrative and maintenance activities. This frees up more deputies to respond to calls and investigate crimes related to the border crisis.
The governor announced a one-year extension to the deployment, which was welcomed by Dannels, whose county is home to several sections of uncompleted border wall as well as the Douglas Port of Entry across from Agua Prieta, Sonora. What is needed now, said Dannels, is for a collective message directed at the White House.
“President Biden owns this, he’s the messenger on this,” said Dannels. “The blame game is over now, he’s been in office for 10 months. It’s time to accept responsibility and secure this border.”
The Arizona Supreme Court will not decide until at least Friday afternoon whether to allow Attorney General Mark Brnovich to bypass the normal appeal process with his challenge to Monday’s ruling by a Maricopa County judge who found dozens of new laws or amendments to existing laws unconstitutional.
Until then, the status quo remains in place, according to Justice Ann Scott Timmer, who signed an order Wednesday denying the attorney general’s emergency motion to stay the Sept. 27 ruling by Judge Katherine Cooper. The decision to deny the requested stay was made after Timmer conferred with five other justices, she noted in the order.
Among other things, Cooper’s ruling means school districts and charter schools can mandate mask wearing, state universities cannot require COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition of in-person attendance, and teachers cannot be sued for organizing walkouts, based on the judge’s finding that all or part of four budget reconciliation bills (BRBs) signed by Gov. Doug Ducey violate the Arizona Constitution.
According to Cooper, the constitution requires the title of each legislative bill to properly identify a single subject matter, so unrelated provisions are not combined into one bill. But the attorney general calls Cooper’s ruling “legally erroneous” and argues the four BRBs are constitutional.
“Each of the provisions contained therein relate directly or indirectly to the subject of the title. And each of the provisions contained in SB 1819 are germane to the subject contained in its title—state budget procedures,” the State argues in the petition for transfer to case from the Arizona Court of Appeals and directly to the Supreme Court.
Such a transfer is warranted due to the impact of Cooper’s ruling which nullified 58 provisions of state law slated to take effect Wednesday, according to the petition.
“The trial court’s ruling carries significant implications for the operation of state government and the State will continue to suffer harm if the trial court’s ruling is not swiftly overturned, allowing the challenged provisions to immediately go into effect,” the petition states. “Extraordinary circumstances exist here and warrant immediate Supreme Court review.”
The court of appeals has set deadlines for briefing in its court just in case the Supreme Court denies the transfer. However, legal observers told AZ Free News that bypassing the court of appeals would be in the interest of judicial economy, as whoever loses there will immediately petition for review to the Supreme Court.
Timmer gave the various plaintiffs until 5 p.m. Thursday to respond to the State’s petition to transfer the appeal out of the Arizona Court of Appeals. The State’s attorneys then have until 3 p.m. Friday to file an optional reply.
The attorney general’s petition also proposes a series of deadlines for filing additional briefings if the justices grant the transfer. Those deadlines would keep the new laws and amendments on the sidelines until at least Oct. 18.
Effected by Cooper’s title / single subject ruling are Sections 12, 21, and 50 of HB2898 (K-12 Education), Sections 12 and 13 of SB1824 (Healthcare), and Section 2 of SB1825 (Higher Education). She also ruled the entire 55 pages of SB1819, the Budget Procedures bill, void due to the same violation.
Public outcry as well as pushback from banks and financial institutions of all sizes could force the Biden Administration to reconsider its proposal which would grant the Internal Revenue Service access to millions of daily transactions into or out of personal and business financial accounts.
The proposal would mandate the reporting of every deposit and withdrawal above $600, which is drastically lower than the current “above $10,000” threshold for mandated reporting under the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970. Banks and other financial institutions are also already required to report any cash deposits and withdrawals which seem “suspicious.”
But according to President Joe Biden, a much lower threshold is necessary to ensure “the super-wealthy” cannot hide income from the IRS.
Most of the criticism of Biden’s “anything above $600” proposal centers around the right of privacy expected by law-abiding Americans. That concern was expressed in a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen from more than 140 Republicans in Congress, who also highlighted the burdensome compliance costs such a regulation would place on banks and financial institutions.
Among those signing the Sept. 13 letter were Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs, Debbie Lesko, and David Schweikert. The letter notes no evidence has been put forth by the White House or the IRS that the proposed threshold change “would substantially aid the IRS’s efforts to close the tax gap beyond the information already at the IRS’s disposal.”
In recent years, various IRS Commissioners have complained about understaffing and understaffing at the agency. The letter from the members of Congress also noted concerns that known issues with the IRS’ beleaguered IT system would make the personal, financial data of millions of Americans vulnerable to attack.
“Considering the IRS experiences 1.4 billion cyberattacks annually and has experienced multiple data breaches, we should not give this agency additional sensitive data to manage,” according to the members’ letter.
That letter was bolstered by one sent to Pelosi Sept. 17 by a coalition of banking, financial, and other impacted companies including the American Bankers Association, the Credit Union National Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association, and the National Association of REALTORS.
“This proposal would create significant operational and reputational challenges for financial institutions, increase tax preparation costs for individuals and small businesses, and create serious financial privacy concerns,” the letter stated. “While the stated goal of this vast data collection is to uncover tax dodging by the wealthy, this proposal is not remotely targeted to that purpose or that population.”
Last week the Democrat who chairs the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee admitted there is no longer support among his party for cutting the reporting threshold to $600.
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass) said the threshold should probably be lowered from $10,000, but the $600 proposal does not have the needed votes. Neal has not said what new threshold amount is still being considered by the White House.
According to the banking and financial industry, a fight is expected for any change that directly impacts the average citizen without a valid reason.
“The American people feel strongly about their right to privacy and it is not reasonable to undermine their financial privacy without a clearly articulated purpose,” the Sept. 17 industry letter states.
