Category Archives: Cyber War

Obama and Kerry Have Vertigo Over this Iran Deal

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Both Barack Obama and John Kerry are suffering from all the symptoms of vertigo, the spinning of lies, the dizziness of power and the imbalance of a lopsided deal with Iran over the nuclear program.

On September 8, 2015, Former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke at the American Enterprise Institute on the notable terror history and chilling consequences of an Iran deal.

Let us examine some facts with regard to Iran and how the negotiation table was a long flawed dialogue from the start.

During the uprising and war in Yemen last March, the Houthis, an Iranian terror proxy took at least 4 Americans hostage. The State Department chose to keep this a secret during the Iranian talks. It is rumored that 1 hostage has been released, while the conditions of the remaining hostages is unknown. Couple this basis with the 4 Americans jailed in Iran. Yet, no efforts have been forthcoming to ensure Iran releases any of them.

Jeddah, Sana’a and Riyadh, Asharq Al-Awsat—The Iranian embassy in Yemen’s capital Sana’a is offering financial, strategic, and military advisory support to the Houthi rebels in country, Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin said on Sunday.  

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Yassin said Iran’s embassy in Sana’a had become a “Houthi operations room” and that Iranian intelligence and military experts at the embassy were helping the Houthis plan attacks against government loyalists and forces from the Saudi-led coalition targeting the group.  

He added that the embassy is “equipped with resources not even the Yemeni government is in possession of” and that it was also being used to distribute financial support to the Houthi militias currently stationed in different parts of the country.  

The Shi’ite Houthis, backed by Iran and Yemen’s ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, occupied Sana’a in September 2014. They then launched a coup the following February deposing Yemen’s internationally recognized President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and his government.  

Yemeni government loyalist forces and a coalition of Arab counties led by Saudi Arabia are currently engaged in a ground and air offensive against the Houthis, seeking to reinstate Hadi and the government.  

On Sunday coalition warplanes bombed several targets in the capital, according to eyewitnesses speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat.  

They said over 15 individual strikes were carried out, including several targeting the headquarters of Yemen’s Special Security Forces, who are loyal to ex-president Saleh. The sources said most of the HQ’s compound has now been destroyed following the air raids.  

The coalition has announced a plan to retake Sana’a with the aid of government loyalists on the ground, known as the Popular Resistance, to follow gains made in the country’s south which have seen the southern port city of Aden and almost all southern provinces liberated from Houthi control.  

The coalition is now closing in on the Houthis in Sana’a and also in the group’s northern stronghold of Saada. The group last month declared a state of emergency in both areas.  

Local sources told Asharq Al-Awsat on Sunday the Houthis now have a plan in place in anticipation of the impending attack on the capital.  

They said the Houthis plan to “spread a wave of chaos” prior to the entry into the capital of coalition forces and those from the Popular Resistance, which will include assassinations of any figures they deem may cooperate with the latter against them—such as political activists and university professors.  

Meanwhile, on Sunday Saudi hospitals received 852 Yemenis injured as a result of the conflict, in a joint initiative between the King Salman Center for Relief and Humanitarian Works and the Ministry of Health.  

This comes as the King Salman Center on Saturday launched the second phase of a joint humanitarian relief project with the United Nations, delivering aid worth some 22 million US dollars to help Yemenis caught up in the conflict.  

In May Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Bin Abdulaziz increased Saudi Arabia’s aid commitment to Yemen to over half a billion dollars.

 

Meanwhile, ask any sailor deployed in the region about the daily confrontations with Iran.

Iranian warships confront U.S. Navy on ‘daily basis’

U.S. naval forces operating in and around the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane, are “routinely approached by Iranian warships and aircraft” on a “nearly daily basis,” according to a Pentagon official familiar with operations in the region.

During these interactions between U.S. and Iranian forces, American aircraft and ships are routinely photographed by the Iranians for intelligence purposes, according to the official, who said that most confrontations between the sides are “conducted in a safe and professional manner.”

The disclosure of these daily run-ins comes following the release of footage by the Iranian military purporting to show a reconnaissance mission over a U.S. aircraft carrier station in the Strait of Hormuz. More here from JihadWatch.

Then comes the Iranian Parchin nuclear plant which has been a historical military dimension location going back as far as the Nazi regime that used it for the production of chemical weapons. Today, Iran has declared this location will never be subject to any inspections. Related information on Parchin and images taken from space, click here.

Iran says its construction work at the Parchin military facility, southeast of Tehran, is normal and it will not allow any inspection of the “conventional” site, Press TV reports.  

“Parchin is a conventional military site. The construction there is normal and even it was indeed confirmed by some officials from the United States that Parchin site and the activities there are something normal and it doesn’t have any relevance to the IAEA work,” Iran’s Ambassador to IAEA Reza Najafi said.  

“Of course, this is a military site and Iran will not let any inspector go there,” he added.  

​Najafi’s remarks came after IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano repeated his claims about construction work at Iran’s Parchin military site whose inspection some world powers demand.  

“These activities could undermine the capability of the IAEA on verification but as we do not have inspectors there and by way of observing through satellite imagery, we do not have further insight of these recent activities,” the IAEA chief said.  

 

He added that “much work needs to be done” to finish the probe, but reiterated that the investigations will be complete by mid-December, as agreed in a roadmap between Iran and the IAEA.   

On July 14, Iran and the IAEA signed a roadmap for “the clarification of past and present issues” regarding Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna, Austria.  

Iran provided some additional information on Parchin by August 15, further proving that it was complying with the mutual agreement with the UN agency.  

On August 27, the US Department of State acknowledged that Iran’s Parchin site is a “conventional” military facility. “I think it’s important to remember that when you’re talking about a site like Parchin, you’re talking about a conventional military site, not a nuclear site,” US State Department spokesman John Kirby said.  

“So there wouldn’t be any IAEA or other restrictions on new construction at that site were they to occur,” he added.  

Kirby’s remarks mark a deviation from past claims in the US about Parchin. Iran has repeatedly denied Western allegations about nuclear activity at the site. The comments came after the IAEA voiced reservation about the construction of “a small extension to an existing building” at Parchin.  

“Since (our) previous report (in May), at a particular location at the Parchin site, the agency has continued to observe, through satellite imagery, the presence of vehicles, equipment, and probable construction materials. In addition, a small extension to an existing building appears to have been constructed,” the IAEA report said.  

Following the report, Tehran criticized the agency’s statement about Parchin, saying construction work on the site “does not concern” the nuclear agency.

 

 

Congress: Islamist Terror Threat Matrix

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U.S. Terror Matrix

 

 

 

The full House of Representatives 8 page report is here.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The jihadist threat in the U.S. homeland is high and has escalated dramatically this year. There have been more U.S.-based jihadist terror cases in 2015 than in any full year since 9/11. The number of U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown violent jihadists has gone from 38 in July 2010 to 124 today—more than a three-fold increase in just five years.

• ISIS is fueling the Islamist terror wildfire across the globe at unprecedented speed. As of the end of August, the group has inspired or directed 57 terror attack plots against Western targets, including 15 in the United States. A recent train attack in France would have been a mass-casualty attack had it not been for an alert group of Americans. There have now been nearly twice as many ISIS-linked attack plots against the West this year (37) as there were in all of 2014 (20).

• Islamist terrorists are intent on killing American law enforcement and military personnel, in addition to innocent civilians. Radicals are increasingly targeting men and women in uniform here in the United States. In August, ISIS supporters released another “hit list” of American government personnel, including service members. Since early 2014, the majority of Islamist terror plots on U.S. soil have featured plans to kill police or U.S. service members.

• ISIS has largely maintained its terror safe havens in Syria and Iraq while expanding globally more than a year after the U.S. and its allies launched operations against it. Al Qaeda affiliates from Syria to Yemen have also carved out sanctuary and seized additional terrain. ISIS retained control over its major strongholds in Syria and Iraq while undertaking disruption attacks and offensives in key territory; ISIS-affiliated militants have simultaneously consolidated control in Libya. Foreign fighters continue to swell the ranks of Islamist extremist groups looking to recruit foot soldiers and activate followers to launch attacks in their home countries.

HOMEGROWN ISLAMIST EXTREMISM

The jihadist threat in the U.S. homeland is high and has escalated dramatically this year.

By the numbers

• Since September 11, 2001, there have been 124 U.S. terrorist cases involving homegrown violent jihadists. Over 80 percent of these cases—which include plotted attacks and attempts to join foreign terrorist organizations—have occurred or been disrupted since 2009.1

 

• Authorities have arrested or charged at least 52 individuals in the United States this year – 67 since 2014 – in ISIS-related cases. The cases involve individuals: plotting attacks; attempting to travel to join ISIS overseas; sending money, equipment and weapons to terrorists; falsifying statements to federal authorities; and failing to report a felony.2

• FBI Director James Comey has said authorities have hundreds of open investigations of potential ISIS-inspired extremists that cover all 56 of the bureau’s field offices in all 50 states. He stated there may be hundreds or thousands of Americans who are taking in recruitment propaganda over social media applications: “It’s like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying ‘kill, kill, kill.”

Recent Developments

• August 24: Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal, 42, was arrested in Avondale, Arizona, for helping a 24-year-old New York City resident travel to Syria to receive military training from ISIS. El Gammal was an avid ISIS supporter online and engaged the recruit through social media before in-person meetings. El Gammal and the recruit communicated with an unnamed co-conspirator based in Turkey.

TERROR PLOTS AGAINST THE WEST

ISIS is fueling the Islamist terror wildfire across the globe at unprecedented speed.

By the numbers

• Since early 2014, there have been 57 planned or executed ISIS-linked terror plots against Western targets, including 15 inside in the United States.3

• There have been nearly twice as many ISIS-linked plots against Western targets in the first seven months of this year (37) than in all of 2014 (20).4

Recent Developments

• August 21: A 25-year-old Moroccan national, Ayoub El Khazzani, attacked passengers on a train in Thalys, France, before a group led by three Americans, including two service members on vacation, subdued him. Khazzani was armed with an arsenal of weapons and 270 rounds of ammunition. He watched a jihadist propaganda video before attempting to launch his attack. He had lived in and attended a radical mosque in Spain before relocating to France. He had also lived in Belgium and traveled from Germany to Turkey in early May before returning to Europe in June. This trip was reportedly part of a plot to fight with ISIS in Syria.

• August 13: ISIS’s “hacking division” released information regarding 1,400 American government personnel, including service members, and encouraged supporters to track down and attack them. The list included names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers. ISIS operative and hacker Junaid Hussain had been central to similar plots targeting servicemembers; Hussain was eliminated in an August 24th drone strike in Syria.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS

Undeterred by airstrikes, foreign fighters continue to pour into the conflict zone in Syria and Iraq, bolstering ISIS and representing a potential threat to their home countries—including America—upon return.

By the numbers

• More than 25,000 fighters from 100 countries have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join extremists—the largest convergence of Islamist terrorists in world history. U.S. estimates reportedly put its current manpower at 20,000-30,000 members. “We’ve seen no meaningful degradation in their numbers” since last August, according to a defense official.

• Approximately 4,500 Western fighters have traveled to Syria and Iraq.5 Europol recently assessed that the high-end estimate of EU citizens who left to fight in Syria may have been as high as 5,000 at the beginning of this year.

• An estimated 550 Western women have traveled to the conflict zone.

Read the whole report here.

 

 

Soros and China vs. M1A1’s and F-35’s: Irregular Warfare

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A kinder, gentler weapon, software, economic terrorism and exploiting weakness. What the U.S. military knows and what government leaders know but find difficult to defeat, IRREGULAR WARFARE.

The main protagonist in this section of the history book will not be a statesman or a military strategist; rather, it will be George Soros. Of course, Soros does not have an exclusive monopoly on using the financial weapon for fighting wars. Before Soros, Helmut Kohl used the deutsche mark to breach the Berlin Wall–a wall that no one had ever been able to knock down using artillery shells [see Endnote 13]. After Soros began his activities, Li Denghui [Li Teng-hui 2621 4098 6540] used the financial crisis in Southeast Asia to devalue the New Taiwan dollar, so as to launch an attack on the Hong Kong dollar and Hong Kong stocks, especially the “red-chip stocks.” [Translator’s note: “red-chip stocks” refers to stocks of companies listed on the Hong Kong stock market but controlled by mainland interests.] In addition, we have yet to mention the crowd of large and small speculators who have come en masse to this huge dinner party for money gluttons, including Morgan Stanley and Moody’s, which are famous for the credit rating reports that they issue, and which point out promising targets of attack for the benefit of the big fish in the financial world [see Endnote 14]. These two companies are typical of those entities that participate indirectly in the great feast and reap the benefits.

Soros pours out all his bitterness in his book, The Crisis of Global Capitalism. On the basis of a ghastly account of his investments in 1998, Soros analyzes the lessons to be learned from this economic crisis.

When it comes to the axiom, Know Thy Enemy, China has made an art of this objective. China does so by any means possible with notable success.

In 1999, China used analysts to understand their adversaries such that the primary mission was to achieve a wide set of competitive edges, all under the ethos of ‘Unrestricted Warfare’.

Going beyond the common air or ground war operations, there are countless other methods to gain advantage or defeat others in a competitive world.

A 200 page essay published in 1999 came to the attention of U.S. military leaders. It is a compelling read and germane to conflicts today and well into the future.

Unrestricted Warfare  by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui 

Qiao Liang is a Chinese Air Force Major in the People’s Liberation Army and co-authored a book titled  ‘Unrestricted Warfare’. The scope of the book is China’s Master Plan to Destroy America.

Meanwhile, if you can stand more, there is Russia. The two countries are using the very same software warfare tactical playbook and it too has not gone unnoticed.

EU sets up unit to counter Russia’s disinformation campaigns

Janes: The EU announced on 27 August that it is forming a small “rapid response” team of officials within the European External Action Service (EEAS) to deal with Russian propaganda.

To be launched on 1 September, the team will monitor Moscow’s propaganda manoeuvres and advise EU and national authorities and their media campaigns accordingly, said EU officials.

The move comes in response to a request in March by EU leaders to Federica Mogherini, the EU’s chief of foreign and security policy, to mount a response to “Russia’s ongoing disinformation campaign”.

The team will be comprised of 8-10 Russian-speaking officials from Sweden, the UK and other countries within the EEAS, the EU’s foreign policy wing.

***

The Cyber War: As tension between the United States, Russia and China continues to escalate, reports of cyber warfare between the nations has become increasingly prominent. Modern warfare can be waged in numerous ways, and it seems that this virtual form of conflict will be an increasing theme as the 21st century develops.

 

The cyber warfare between the United States, Russia and China is part of an overall epoch-defining conflict between the three nations. This is largely based on economic disagreement and rivalry, but has also spilled over into military and territorial disputes as well. Although this war has remained physically peaceful thus far, the potential for future conflict between the three nations remains significant. And with the likes of Edward Snowden revealing the extent of government snooping, we can expect more reports of governmental cyber attacks in the future.

 

Hillary Server-Gate Operative Pleas 5th?

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From this blog in an earlier post, I mentioned Brain Pagliano and he is in the news again today. Wait for it…..he is fending off a subpoena and will likely plea the Constitutional protection of the 5th Amendment. Will Hillary take down the White House?

Staffer who worked on Clinton’s private e-mail server faces subpoena

Washington Post: A former State Department staffer who worked on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail server this week tried to fend off a subpoena to testify before Congress, saying he would assert his constitutional right not to answer questions to avoid incriminating himself.

The move by Bryan Pagliano, who had worked on Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign before setting up the server in her New York home in 2009, came in a Monday letter from his lawyer to the House panel investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The letter cited the ongoing FBI inquiry into the security of Clinton’s e-mail system, and it quoted a Supreme Court ruling in which justices described the Fifth Amendment as protecting “innocent men . . . who otherwise might be ensnared by ambiguous circumstances.’ ”

The FBI is investigating whether Clinton’s system — in which she exclusively used private e-mail for her work as secretary of state — may have jeopardized sensitive national security information.

Thousands of e-mails that have been released by the State Department as part of a public records lawsuit show Clinton herself writing at least six e-mails containing information that has since been deemed classified. Large portions of those e-mails were redacted before their release, on the argument that their publication could harm national security.

“While we understand that Mr. Pagliano’s response to this subpoena may be controversial in the current political environment, we hope that the members of the Select Committee will respect our client’s right to invoke the protections of the Constitution,” his attorney, Mark MacDougall, wrote.

Two other Senate committees also have contacted Pagliano in the past week, according to a copy of the letter, which was obtained by The Washington Post. The requests came from the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Homeland Security Committee, according to people familiar with the requests.

The Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed Wednesday that it sought to ask Pagliano about his work for Clinton.

“In response to questions . . . Mr. Pagliano’s legal counsel told the committee yesterday that he would plead the Fifth to any and all questions if he were compelled to testify,” a spokesperson for committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House Benghazi committee, had subpoenaed the computer staffer Aug. 11 and ordered that he appear for questioning before the committee Sept. 10. Gowdy also demanded that Pagliano provide documents related to the servers or systems controlled or owned by Clinton from 2009 to 2013.

Pagliano, who worked in the State Department’s information-technology department from May 2009 until February 2013, left the agency when Clinton departed as secretary. He now works for a technology contractor that provides some services to the State Department.

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), complained yesterday that Gowdy unilaterally issued the subpoena. He said the subpoena of a low-level aide is one of several signs that Gowdy is using the committee for the political purpose of trying to smear a Democratic presidential candidate.

“Although multiple legal experts agree there is no evidence of criminal activity, it is certainly understandable that this witness’s attorneys advised him to assert his Fifth Amendment rights, especially given the onslaught of wild and unsubstantiated accusations by Republican presidential candidates, members of Congress and others based on false leaks about the investigation,” Cummings said. “Their insatiable desire to derail Secretary Clinton’s presidential campaign at all costs has real consequences for any serious congressional effort.”

MacDougall declined to comment late Wednesday evening.

Will Hillary Clinton’s Emails Burn the White House?

DailyBeast: Counterintelligence specialists suspect that the former Secretary of State wasn’t the only member of the Obama administration emailing secrets around.
Hillary Clinton’s email problems are already causing headaches for her presidential campaign. But within American counterintelligence circles, there’s a mounting sense that the former Secretary of State may not be the only Obama administration official in trouble. This is a scandal that has the potential to spread to the White House, as well.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation can be expected to be tight-lipped, especially because this highly sensitive case is being handled by counterintelligence experts from Bureau headquarters a few blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, not by the FBI’s Washington Field Office. That will ensure this investigation gets the needed “big picture” view, since even senior FBI agents at any given field office may only have a partial look at complex counterintelligence cases.

And this most certainly is a counterintelligence matter. There’s a widely held belief among American counterspies that foreign intelligence agencies had to be reading the emails on Hillary’s private server, particularly since it was wholly unencrypted for months. “I’d fire my staff if they weren’t getting all this,” explained one veteran Department of Defense counterintelligence official, adding: “I’d hate to be the guy in Moscow or Beijing right now who had to explain why they didn’t have all of Hillary’s email.” Given the widespread hacking that has plagued the State Department, the Pentagon, and even the White House during Obama’s presidency, senior counterintelligence officials are assuming the worst about what the Russians and Chinese know.

EmailGate has barely touched the White House directly, although it’s clear that some senior administration officials beyond the State Department were aware of Hillary’s unorthodox email and server habits, given how widely some of the emails from Clinton and her staff were forwarded around the Beltway. Obama’s inner circle may not be off-limits to the FBI for long, however, particularly since the slipshod security practices of certain senior White House officials have been a topic of discussions in the Intelligence Community for years.

Hillary Clinton was far from the only senior Obama appointee to play fast and loose with classified materials, according to Intelligence Community insiders. While most counterspies agree that Hillary’s practices—especially using her own server and having her staffers place classified information into unclassified emails, in violation of Federal law—were especially egregious, any broad-brush investigation into security matters are likely to turn up other suspects, they maintain.

“The whole administration is filled with people who can’t shoot straight when it comes to classified,” an Intelligence Community official explained to me this week. Three U.S. officials suggested that Susan Rice, the National Security Adviser, might be at particular risk if a classified information probe goes wide. But it should be noted that Rice has made all sorts of enemies on the security establishment for her prickly demeanor, use of coarse language, and  strategic missteps.

However, Clinton should take no comfort from the fact that others may be in trouble with the FBI too. Just how many of her “unclassified” emails were actually classified is a matter of dispute that will take months for the FBI to resolve with assistance from the State Department and Intelligence Community. The current figure bandied about, that something like 300 of the emails scanned to date by investigators contained information that should have been marked as classified, is somewhat notional at this point, not least because the Intelligence Community has yet to weigh in on most of them.

Spy agencies typically take a harder line on classification than the State Department does, including a tendency to retroactively mark as classified mundane things—for instance press reports that comment on security matters can be deemed secret—that other, less secrecy-prone agencies might not. That said, there’s little doubt that our intelligence agencies fear that the compromise engendered by Hillary’s email slipshod practices was significant.

Although it will be months before intelligence agencies have reviewed all Clinton emails, counterintelligence officials expect that the true number of classified emails on Hillary’s servers is at least many hundreds and perhaps thousands, based on the samplings seen to date.

Excuses that most of the classified emails examined to date are considered Confidential, which is the lowest level, cut no ice with many insiders. Although the compromise of information at that level is less damaging than the loss of Secret—or worse Top Secret—information, it is still a crime that’s taken seriously by counterintelligence professionals. Most of the classified that Hillary and her staff seem to have compromised dealt with diplomatic discussions, which is a grave indiscretion as far as diplomats worldwide are concerned.

“Of course they knew what they were doing, it’s a clear as day from the emails,” opined one senior official who is close to the investigation. “I’m a Democrat and this makes me sick. They were fully aware of what they were up to, and the Bureau knows it.” That Hillary and her staff at Foggy Bottom were wittingly involved in a scheme to place classified information into ostensibly unclassified emails to reside on Clinton’s personal, private server is the belief of every investigator and counterintelligence official I’ve spoken with recently, and all were at pains to maintain that this misconduct was felonious.

It’s clear that many people inside the State Department had to be aware, at least to some degree, of what Clinton and her inner staff were engaged in. How far that knowledge went is a key question that the FBI is examining. The name Patrick Kennedy pops up frequently. A controversial character, Kennedy is the State Department’s undersecretary for management (hence his Foggy Bottom nickname “M”). A longtime Clinton protégé, Kennedy is believed by many to be the key to this case, since his sign-off likely would have been needed for some of Clinton’s unorthodox arrangements.

 

The Words you Use can Be a Cause for Investigation

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On the knife’s edge, Americans are threatened by some entity every day. It is the work of government to keep the homeland safe and the methods or tactics used can infringe on our protected rights.

Wonder what words are used in Hillary’s emails….

When it comes to words, the Department of Homeland Security has a list and they have systems to cultivate interactions on the internet where social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and YouTube are the top three locations where you are being watched. Have you ever posted something to Facebook and it was removed?

This is not a new circumstance, but often we need to be reminded.

Dept. of Homeland Security Forced to Release List of Keywords Used to Monitor Social Networking Sites

Forbes: If you are thinking about tweeting about clouds, pork, exercise or even Mexico, think again. Doing so may result in a closer look by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

In a story appearing earlier today on the U.K’s Daily Mail website, it was reported that the DHS has been forced to release a list of keywords and phrases it uses to monitor various social networking sites. The list provides a glimpse into what DHS describes as “signs of terrorist or other threats against the U.S.”

The list was posted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center who filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act, before suing to obtain the release of the documents. The documents were part of the department’s 2011 ’Analyst’s Desktop Binder‘ used by workers at their National Operations Center which instructs workers to identify ‘media reports that reflect adversely on DHS and response activities’.

The information sheds new light on how government analysts are instructed to patrol the internet searching for domestic and external threats. The Daily Mail’s article noted the Electronic Privacy Information Center wrote a letter to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counter-terrorism and Intelligence, describing it’s choice of words as ‘broad, vague and ambiguous’.

What wasn’t disclosed is how the agency actually gains access to the various search engines and social networks to monitor the specified keywords. My guess is the DHS has a “special arrangement” with companies like Google GOOG -1.94%, Facebook FB -1.12%, Microsoft MSFT +0.00%, Yahoo and Twitter to gain secure direct API access. This type of access would allow it to use distributed cloud technologies to monitor the daily flow of social media and search activity in something close to real time.

I would love to learn more about the technologies used to accomplish this type of social / web monitoring. The applications for monitoring trends and social statics are fascinating when applied to other industry sectors. Given the extent of the monitoring, I’m sure this post itself is now coming up on the DHS radar, so please feel free to leave a comment with any insights.

2014:

(Update 1: Reading through the Desktop Binder, I discovered the DHS Twitter account is @dhsnocmmc1 and DHS appears to be using tweetdeck to monitor the various keywords. See Page 38 – Also interesting to note they seem to be using a Mac Mini as a server, and no password vaults. All Passwords appear to be shared in a plain text word document.)

(Update 2: On page 37, DHS instructs analysts to accept invalid SSL certificates forever without verification. Although invalid SSL warnings often appear in benign situations, they can also signal a man-in-the-middle attack. Not a good practice for the security conscious. Thanks to @obraon twitter for the tip.)

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For the full DHS document, click here.