When the chair Gen. Mark Miley As Gen. Mark Miley enters his deliberate retirement this 12 months, one of many perks will embrace a private safety element to guard him from hazard — together with “embarrassment.”
The U.S. Military’s Protection Providers Battalion, the Pentagon’s lesser-known Secret Service equal, is chargeable for guarding prime army brass. The part protects present and former senior army officers from “assassination, kidnapping, damage or humiliation.” Military data.
The safety service’s mandate contains monitoring social media for direct, oblique and veiled threats and figuring out “adverse sentiment” in relation to its wards. Military procurement doc Written on September 1, 2022 and reviewed by The Intercept. The enlargement of the Guard Service Battalion has not been beforehand reported.
The nation’s nationwide safety equipment is paying extra consideration to social media—particularly on the subject of disinformation. Varied nationwide safety companies have spent current years establishing places of work across the federal authorities to fight the so-called risk.
“The flexibility to precise opinions, criticize, make assumptions, or kind worth judgments—particularly within the case of public officers—is a necessary a part of a democratic society.”
“There will be professional causes to infringe on an individual’s privateness by searching for, amassing and analyzing publicly accessible info, significantly in relation to severe crime and terrorist threats,” Ilia Syatitsa, program director at Privateness Worldwide, advised The Intercept. “Nonetheless, the ‘constructive or adverse expression of a high-risk particular person’ can’t be thought of ample grounds for surveillance to the extent that authorities companies can pinpoint the person’s precise location.” The flexibility to precise opinions, criticize, make assumptions, or kind worth judgments—particularly on the subject of public officers—is a necessary a part of a democratic society.
Protection lists have sparked controversy prior to now over questions on their value and necessity. Secretary of Training Betty DeVos through the Trump administration’s afternoon safety element It’s saved Value over $24 million. Trump’s Environmental Safety Company Administrator Scott Pruitt Payments Extra Than $3.5 Million For His Protection Record – Bills It was determined Not verified by EPA Inspector Normal. And the guard discovered The EPA didn’t hassle to “assess any of those potential dangers to Pruitt.”
Francis Seybold, a spokesman for the Military’s Prison Investigation Division, stated the intercept was a net web page Relating to the workplace designated because the Subject Workplace of Government Safety and Particular Investigations. Seibold didn’t reply to substantive questions on social media surveillance by the protection unit.
Procurement Doc – Printed by Decreased kind A web based clearinghouse for presidency contracts, nevertheless, was reviewed with out revisions by The Intercept — which begins by describing the army’s want to “handle on-line threats” and figuring out “constructive or adverse sentiment” about senior Pentagon officers.
“That is an ongoing PSIFO/PIB” – Protection Providers Subject Workplace/Protection Intelligence Department – “requirement for senior Division of Protection (DOD) officers to supply international protection companies, ample safety to stop on-line threats (direct, oblique, and fraudulent), fraudulent Figuring out accounts and figuring out constructive or adverse sentiments, particularly for our high-risk staff,” the doc says.
The doc describes the software program it makes use of to discover a “dependable social media threat mitigation service.” “PSIFO/PIB wants an open supply web-based instrument with superior capabilities to gather publicly accessible information,” the doc states. The toolkit “supplies anonymity and safety for conducting analysis on publicly accessible information by filtering and anonymizing consumer agent strings utilizing a wide range of exit factors globally.”
The military had deliberate. These instruments should not solely used to determine on-line “threats”, but additionally point out their precise location by combining numerous monitoring strategies and information sources.
The doc cited the army’s capacity to go looking public tweets and Twitter customers with out restriction, in addition to entry to Twitter’s “firehose,” which supplies evaluation of 4Chan, Reddit, YouTube and Vkontakte, the favored Fb hack in Russia. Web chat boards equivalent to Discord and Telegram are additionally explored for the needs of “counter-terrorism and identification of extremism and extremism,” though it’s not clear what precisely these phrases imply right here.
The Military’s new toolkit goes past social media monitoring offered by personal contractors like Dataminer, which helps police and army companies scour social media timelines and chat rooms for numerous key phrases to search out perceived threats. As a substitute, Military Protecting Service battalion investigators mix social media information with a wide range of public and personal info, all accessible by means of a “common search selector.”
These information sources embrace “entry to signal-rich conversations from unlawful risk actor communities and hourly conversations in risk actor channels,” public analysis, CCTV feeds, radio stations, information shops, private data, hacked information, net cameras and — maybe most invasively — mobile phone location. Knowledge.
The doc mentions the usage of “geo-fencing” information, a controversial follow through which an investigator attracts a form on a digital map to focus surveillance on a particular location. Whereas app-based smartphone monitoring is a robust type of surveillance, it is unclear precisely how this information is used to choose up malicious social media posts, or what relevance different classes of information might need, equivalent to radio stations or educational analysis.
The Military wants not solely spy software program, but additionally instruments to cover the Military’s Web presence whereas monitoring the Internet.
The Military’s procurement doc not solely seeks to spy software program, but additionally reveals instruments that can be utilized to disguise the Military’s Web presence whereas monitoring the Internet. The contract says the Military makes use of “misattribution”: deceptive others about who’s behind the keyboard. In keeping with the doc, the Military does this by spoofing net browser info and routing Military Web visitors by means of servers in international cities, obfuscating its geographic location.
In keeping with the doc, “SEWP Options, LLC is the one supplier that permits USACID to tunnel to particular nations/cities, equivalent to Moscow, Russia or Beijing, China, and exit on the host nation’s Web area.
The info used Within the toolkit, all of it falls beneath “PAI,” or publicly accessible info, a misnomer that describes private info that is not solely accessible without cost to the general public, but additionally commercially acquired and purchased and offered by a constellation of shadowy spy organizations and information brokers. Location information collected from smartphone apps and offered by the unregulated cell advert trade seems to be accessible to virtually anybody — together with the army — in an easy and unaccountable phone-owning public motion, each within the U.S. and overseas.
Not assigned not too long ago Report The Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence particulars the spectacular and invasive surveillance efforts the US authorities has undertaken by buying information collected by the personal sector. In its offers with personal entities, the federal government waived due course of legal guidelines, permitting federal companies to gather mobile information on tens of millions of People with out warrants or judicial evaluation.
Though the procurement doc doesn’t identify a particular product, it does point out that the contract was awarded to SEWP Options, LLC. SEWP is a federal provider of software program that has repeatedly offered to the Division of Protection associated to the Military mission. Marketed beneath the spectacular Berber Hunter Toolkit, this suite is a group of cross-organizational surveillance instruments introduced collectively by main federal software program supplier ECS Federal. ECS and three different federal contractors personal SEWP, which resells Berber Hunter.
ECS sells a PAI instrument equipment beneath the model identify Argos, the place the three fundamental options listed on the ECS web site are highlighted within the Military contract doc. It is unclear if Argos is a rebrand or a brand new providing of the Berber Hunter assortment. (Neither ECS nor SEWP responded to a request for remark.)
The job specs and contract paperwork present the tough define included in Berber Hunter. In keeping with a job description, the suite contains software program developed by Babel Road, a controversial dealer of non-public information and placement information, together with so-called open-source information instruments offered by Ecosec and Sign Labs. Final 12 months Echosec was reportedly acquired by Flashpoint Intel, an intelligence contractor. He boasted Works to thwart objections and infiltrate personal chat rooms.
A 2022 FBI procurement memo that mentions the bureau’s use of flashpoint units, a procurement doc reviewed by The Intercept, is just like what the army stated about “radical” chat room surveillance.
“In reference to extremist platforms, Flashpoint has maintained doubtlessly divisive people on these platforms for years,” the FBI memo stated. “By means of these folks, Flashpoint took over the contents of those platforms.” The memo stated the FBI “doesn’t need to announce that they need to accumulate the sort of info.”
In keeping with a Protection Providers Battalion doc, the Military doesn’t need to publicize its curiosity in in depth information assortment. A duplicate of the redacted contract doc, whereas public, is marked CUI, for “non-controlled info,” and FEDCON, for federal staff and contractors solely.
“Uncontrolled information sources can result in abuses just like these seen in different covert surveillance operations,” stated Syatisa of Privateness Worldwide. “The systematic assortment, storage and evaluation of data posted on-line by legislation enforcement and authorities companies constitutes a severe interference with the precise to respect for personal life.”
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