Domestic Military Intelligence Is Back
Code Name of the Week: Cornerstone
Yesterday, Walter Pincus reported in The Washington Post about the Defense Department's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), certainly one of the more mysterious Pentagon agencies, and one that is at the center of the Defense Department's expanded programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States.
Proposals, Pincus said,"would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage."
Well, CIFA already has these authorities, has its own agents, and collects information on common American citizens under the guise of "sabotage" and "force protection" threats to the military. Since 9/11, functions that were previously intended to protect U.S. forces overseas from terrorism and protecti U.S. secrets from spies have been combined in one super-intelligence function that constitutes the greatest threat to U.S. civil liberties since the domestic spying days of the 1970's.
On May 2, 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz signed a memorandum (large pdf) directing the military to collect and report "non-validated threat information" relating to U.S. military forces, installations or missions. His memorandum followed from the establishment of the Domestic Threat Working Group after 9/11, the intent of which was to create a mechanism to share low-level domestic "threat information" between the military and intelligence agencies.
It is the military's equivalent of the FBI and intelligence community's post 9/11 shift, and Wolfowitz directed the sharing of reports on ambiguous activity. This new reporting mechanism -- called TALON for Threat and Local Observation Notice -- applies to seven reporting categories:
* Non-specific threats
* Surveillance
* Elicitation
* Test of security
* Unusual repetitive activity
* Bomb threats
* Other suspicious activity
According to a classified Standing Joint Force Headquarters-North document on "intelligence sharing" dated July 20, 2005, and obtained exclusively by this washingtonpost.com blogger, collection of intelligence on U.S. persons is allowed by military intelligence units if there is a reason to believe the U.S. person is:
* "Connected to international terrorist activities;
* Connected to international narcotics;
* Connected to foreign intelligence;
* A threat to DoD installations, property, or persons; or,
* The subject of authorized counterintelligence."
In other words, some military gumshoe or over-zealous commander just has to decide that someone is "a threat to" the military.
Under well-worn intelligence oversight rules, military intelligence units are restricted from collecting information concerning "U.S. persons," but the post 9/11 reality is these restrictions are increasingly meaningless.
What is more, the post 9/11 redefinition of "counter-intelligence" opens the way for the military to conduct domestic surveillance. Military law enforcement organizations such as the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), the Army Criminal Investigations Division (CID) and its domestic counter-intelligence brigade, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) have increasing domestic duties that straddle the world between "counter-intelligence" and law enforcement, and are the main sources for TALON reporting to CIFA.
Ever since 1998, when Secretary of Defense William Cohen went crazy building up a cover-your-ass force protection policy, the law enforcement arms have increasingly moved from traditional counter-intelligence missions of going after enemy spies to going after, well, whomever they deem as a "threat" to the military. Overseas, this makes sense, but in the United States, the counter-intelligence/force protection loophole is ripe for abuse.
The "counter-intelligence" function of CIFA itself is couched to encompass "force protection," according to DOD Directive Number 5105.67, "Counterintelligence Field Activity (DoD CIFA)," February 19, 2002. What is more, the directive states that "in carrying out the mission of these elements, the Director of the DoD CIFA may employ law enforcement personnel, in whole or in part, as appropriate, to carry out the DoD CIFA's law enforcement functions?"
CIFA is charged with correlating TALON information with all-source intelligence and providing "fused" products. In this regard, fused products are raw law enforcement and FBI reports relating to suspected domestic terrorism, NSA intercepts, and CIA and military intelligence reports that might bear upon domestic security.
Cornerstone is the new repository for this combined intelligence and TALON threat reporting. It originated in May 2000, when Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre established a requirement to track foreign visitors to DOD installations. Post 9/11, the database came to encompass not intelligence and investigative leads to support foreign visitor tracking, but also "insider threat" information, counter-intelligence, law enforcement support, counter-terrorism, and force protection. Under a new program -- Project Voyager -- the Cornerstone database is being improved to support coordination with local, state and federal law enforcement.
When one looks at the seven TALON reporting categories, it is clear that what is to be collected is broad enough to encompass virtually anything the military feels is a threat. "Non-specific threats" and "other suspicious activity" can be interpreted to include just about anything.
"Elicitation," for instance, is defined in TALON documents as:
"Any attempts to obtain security-related or military-specific information by anyone who does not have the appropriate security clearance and the need-to-know. Elicitation attempts may be made by mail, fax, telephone, by computer, or in person."
Ask questions of a military person about their tour in Iraq, protest about the presence of military recruiters on campus or at the Mall, engage in lawful protest against the Iraq war, and you could find yourself in the Cornerstone database, forever a "suspect." Tomorrow I'll write about how this is really happening.
CIFA not only manages the Cornerstone database, but it also "makes the determination whether to release information about U.S. persons to analysts." In other words, CIFA as both a "counter-intelligence" and law enforcement arm of the Pentagon bridges between two worlds, and is allowed to obtain and store information about American citizens. I hope that there are a lot of lawyers on the staff.
And there's the rub. One can hardly find out who the director of this organization is, let alone how many people work there are what they are really doing.
Tomorrow: What They Are Really Doing.
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/11/domestic_milita.html#more
Military Identity Confusion
In these days of identity theft, one can never be too careful.
So isn't it a little strange that the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) can write a "special report" on "Production and Use of Fraudulent Military Identification Cards" and never even mention this rampant problem?
Or that the 18 year old doofus' in uniform constantly seem to loose their IDs?
Or that in an era when the U.S. military has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who can not legally drink alcohol, false ID's are common?
No, to the Defense Department's new domestic spymasters, "genuine-looking ID cards could be exploited by terrorists to gain entry onto DoD installations."
Yesterday I wrote about domestic intelligence and surveillance being conducted by the military under the guise of "force protection" and "counter-intelligence." It is so hard to put any meat on the bones here, to actually prove that the military increasingly pries into the lives of Americans.
In the overall scheme of things, the fact that some DOD law enforcement entity is monitoring the proliferation of counterfeit identification documents in this digital age is unremarkable. But reading the CIFA "For Official Use Only" June 2005 report (pdf) -- revealed here for the first time and the first ever CIFA report to make it into the public domain -- I'm again struck by the agency's over-reach, by a post 9/11 shift in mentality that not only seeks to catch any anomaly or activity that could signal the next World Trade Center, but also a mindset where government agents lost in a wilderness of mirrors can see common crime or even lawful protest as some dastardly cover for terrorism.
The report is prepared by CIFA West, the Colorado-based affiliate of the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the military's new homeland defense super-command.
In the report on military ID cards, here are the three cases CIFA cites:
* On 26 Jul 05, three individuals were observed in a restaurant in Yukon, OK, using a laptop computer to produce what appeared to be military ID cards (DD Form 2, US Uniformed Services Retiree ID Card and possibly Common Access Cards). The three individuals were also attempting to use a computer program to change the date of birth on other forms of identification as well (NFI).
* On 15 Jun 05, two US Persons (USPERs) were stopped for a traffic violation near Selfridge Air National Guard Base, MI. During the course of the subsequent investigation, multiple items used for counterfeiting military ID cards were seized. The items included 14 sheets of Kodak inkjet photo paper imprinted with the front and back of a DD Form 1173, (Uniformed Service Identification and Privilege Card), four laptop computers, one laminating machine, multiple laminating pouches, one Polaroid camera, and photographs of one of the individuals.
* In Mar 05, a USPER was arrested in KS for passing forged/counterfeit traveler's checks. The USPER was in possession of fraudulent military ID cards, blank ID forms, as well as various cards with his photo with different personal information. IDs with other individuals? names and photos were also saved on his computer. The USPER apparently used his laptop computer and portable printer to produce fraudulent military ID cards and traveler's checks?
Sounds pretty common criminal and innocent to me, but in the world of data miners searching for signs of the next big one, the new mentality is that nothing is innocent, nothing is merely criminal. CIFA reports that
"During the period 1 Jan 05 - 27 Jul 05, a total of 26 suspicious incidents involving the production and use of fraudulent military ID cards were reported in the Cornerstone and AFOSI [Air Force Office of Special Investigations] databases. Of these reports, three revealed the use of computers and/or stolen forms with the intent to produce fraudulent military ID cards. Seven of the reports described the use of fraudulent military documents. The remaining 16 reports dealt with the use of fraudulent drivers? licenses, immigration ID cards, Social Security cards, and other miscellaneous ID cards."
The report writers conclude that "there are no known efforts by foreign entities or adversaries to obtain CAC [common access card] technology" and that "the production and use of fraudulent military ID cards is a small, but significant, portion of a widespread proliferation of counterfeit identification documents."
In other words, there is no real reason to remark upon this non-problem and no sign of terrorism. But in the ways of bureaucracies, CIFA West has to do something, and reports fill quotas and show activities even if it is wasted energy and a seductive mirage.
"Counter-intelligence," according to the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (Joint Pub 1-02, 12 April 2001, as amended Through 31 August 2005), is defined as:
"Information gathered and activities conducted to protect against espionage, other intelligence activities, sabotage, or assassinations conducted by or on behalf of foreign governments or elements thereof, foreign organizations, or foreign persons, or international terrorist activities."
Thanks to MS for pointing out the reach that is required to define CIFA's monitoring of anything that has to do with military security as being a "counter-intelligence" problem. To be counter-intelligence, CIFA must justify its interest in domestic matters as having some link to foreign involvement AND some plausible link to espionage or sabotage.
But as I said yesterday, despite its name, CIFA is also a law enforcement organization, the super "defense criminal investigative" Czar, a new all-seeing, all-knowing entity that is constantly on the lookout for terrorists. The motto on the report's cover -- "Protecting the Homeland" -- is chilling to me because of the confusion with regard to the very definition of counter-intelligence. I'm not saying government lawyers aren't doing their jobs, or that CIFA isn't filled with patriotic and conscientious staffers who want no part of spying on Americans.
The problem is that there is good reason for a wall between law enforcement and intelligence, one that has been increasingly eroded since 9/11, and one that is falling in the military as well. I'm working on an NBC Nightly News piece that is scheduled to air later this week that shows how CIFA and the military "force protectors" are already poking their noses into places they shouldn't be.
A slight correction to yesterday's blog, thanks to BM: The Army's Criminal Investigative Division is actually called the Criminal Investigation Command (CIDC), though it is still commonly referred to as CID. And unlike the Air Force and Navy organizations, which combine counter-intelligence and law enforcement into one organization, in the Army, counter-intelligence is under military intelligence, the 902nd Military Intelligence Brigade in the United States, to be exact.
BM points out that the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission has recommended moving the three service investigative arms to Quantico, VA under a plan to consolidate the military criminal investigative organizations. I'm all for government efficiencies, but this smells like one big domestic military Gestapo.
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2005/11/military_identi.html
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