Subject: Re: From Barrett
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 6/20/11, 18:06
To: Michael Hastings <mhastings@gmail.com>

Okay, I'm tired of waiting for al-Jazeera to run this, so I'm withdrawing the piece and would like to submit it to Rolling Stone as per your offer the other day. Here's the intro you suggested I write up; let m

Sir-

This is Barrett Brown; I'm a journalist and activist who has spent several months doing research on the 70,000 HBGary e-mails that were acquired by Anonymous in early February, having served as a sort of de facto spokesperson for the collective until "retiring" to run my own small group about a month ago. My work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Guardian, al-Jazeera, HuffPo, True/Slant, Skeptical Inquirer, Skeptic, American Atheist, The Onion, McSweeney's, and a variety of other outlets. I'd like to see if you'd be interested in an article I've written on a classified program by which some facet of the U.S. military is conducting what would appear to be an advanced surveillance operation by which to monitor the Arab world via social network analysis, natural language processing, custom social networks/mobile phone apps, and other capabilities. The program, Romas/COIN, has been overseen by Northrop Grumman and various partner companies until sometime this year; it's scheduled to be replaced within another year by a new program called Odyssey. My information comes from having analyzed hundreds of e-mails to and from former HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr, who along with executives from another contractor TASC was integral to organizing an effort by which those firms assembled an array of other companies - including Apple and Google - for the purpose of winning a re-compete for the program.

The piece is below; I'd be happy to revise it a bit if necessary. Please take a look and let me know if this interests you.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown




For at least two years, the U.S. has been conducting a secretive and immensely sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining against the Arab world, allowing the intelligence community to monitor the habits, conversations, and activity of millions of individuals at once. And with an upgrade scheduled for later this year, the top contender to win the federal contract and thus take over the program is a team of about a dozen companies which were brought together in large part by Aaron Barr - the same disgraced CEO who resigned from his own firm earlier this year after he was discovered to have planned a full-scale information war against political activists at the behest of corporate clients. The new revelation provides for a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a wider context. Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being produced by an industry that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless funded by the American public – and which in some cases are used against that very same public. Their products are developed on demand for an intelligence community that is not subject to Congressional oversight and which has been repeatedly shown to have misused its existing powers in ways that violate U.S. law as well as American ideals. And with expanded intelligence capabilities by which to monitor Arab populations in ways that would have previously been impossible, those same intelligence agencies now have improved means by which to provide information on dissidents to those regional dictators viewed by the U.S. as strategic allies.


The nature and extent of the operation, which was known as Romas/COIN and which is scheduled for replacement sometime this year by a similar program known as Odyssey, may be determined in part by a close reading of hundreds of e-mails among the 70,000 that were stolen in February from the contracting firm HBGary Federal and its parent company HBGary. Other details may be gleaned by an examination of the various other firms and individuals that are discussed as being potential partners.


Of course, there are many in the U.S. that would prefer that such details not be revealed at all; such people tend to cite the amorphous and much-abused concept of “national security” as sufficient reason for the citizenry to stand idly by as an ever-expanding coalition of government agencies and semi-private corporations gain greater influence over U.S. foreign policy. That the last decade of foreign policy as practiced by such individuals has been an absolute disaster even by the admission of many of those who put it into place will not phase those who nonetheless believe that the citizenry should be prevented from knowing what is being done in its name and with its tax dollars.


To the extent that the actions of a government are divorced from the informed consent of those who pay for such actions, such a government is illegitimate. To the extent that power is concentrated in the hands of small groups of men who wield such power behind the scenes and without being accountable to the citizenry, there is no assurance that such power will be used in a manner that is compatible with the actual interests of that citizenry, or populations elsewhere. The known history of the U.S. intelligence community is comprised in large part of murder, assassinations, disinformation, the topping of democratic governments, the abuse of the rights of U.S. citizens, and a great number of other things that cannot even be defended on “national security” grounds insomuch as that many such actions have quite correctly turned entire populations against the U.S. government. This is not only my opinion, but also the opinion of countless individuals who once served in the intelligence community and have since come to criticize it and even unveil many of its secrets in an effort to alert the citizenry to what has been unleashed against the world in the name of “security.”


Likewise, I will here provide as much information as I can on Romas/COIN and its upcoming replacement.


***


Although the relatively well-known military contractor Northrop Grumman had long held the contract for Romas/COIN, such contracts are subject to regular recompetes by which other companies, or several working in tandem, can apply to take over. In early February, HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr wrote the following e-mail to Al Pisani, an executive at the much larger federal contractor TASC, a company which until recently had been owned by Northrop and which was now looking to compete with it for lucrative contracts:


"I met with [Mantech CEO] Bob Frisbie the other day to catch up. He is looking to expand a capability in IO related to the COIN re-compete but more for DoD. He told me he has a few acquisitions in the works that will increase his capability in this area. So just a thought that it might be worth a phone call to see if there is any synergy and strength between TASC and ManTech in this area. I think forming a team and response to compete against SAIC will be tough but doable." IO in this context stands for “information operations,” while COIN itself, as noted in an NDA attached to one of the e-mails, stands for “counter intelligence. SAIC is a larger intelligence contractor that was expected to pursue the recompete as well.


Pisani agreed to the idea, and in conjunction with Barr and fellow TASC exec John Lovegrove, the growing party spent much of the next year working to create a partnership of firms capable of providing the “client” - a U.S. agency that is never specified in the hundreds of e-mails that follow – with capabilities that would outmatch those being provided by Northrop, SAIC, or other competitors.


Several e-mails in particular provide a great deal of material by which to determine the scope and intent of Romas/COIN. One that Barr wrote to his own e-mail account, likely for the purpose of adding to other documents later, is entitled “Notes on COIN.” It begins with a list of entries for various facets of the program, all of which are blank and were presumably filled out later: “ISP, Operations, Language/Culture, Media Development, Marketing and Advertising, Security, MOE.” Afterwards, another list consists of the following: “Capabilities, Mobile Development, Challenges, MOE, Infrastructure, Security.” Finally, a list of the following websites is composed, many of which represent various small companies that provide niche marketing services pursuant to mobile phones.


More helpful is a later e-mail from Lovegrove to Barr and some of his colleagues at TASC in which he announces the following:


Our team consists of:


- TASC (PMO, creative services)

- HB Gary (Strategy, planning, PMO)

- Akamai (infrastructure)

- Archimedes Global (Specialized linguistics, strategy, planning)

- Acclaim Technical Services (specialized linguistics)

- Mission Essential Personnel (linguistic services)

- Cipher (strategy, planning operations)

- PointAbout (rapid mobile application development, list of strategic

partners)

- Google (strategy, mobile application and platform development - long

list of strategic partners)

- Apple (mobile and desktop platform, application assistance -long list

of strategic partners)


We are trying to schedule an interview with ATT plus some other small app developers.


From these and dozens of other clues and references, the following may be determined about the nature of Romas/COIN:


  1. Mobile phone software and applications constitute a major component of the program.

  2. There's discussion of bringing in a “gaming developer,” apparently at the behest of Barr, who mentions that the team could make good use of “a social gaming company maybe like zynga, gameloft, etc.” Lovegrove elsewhere notes: “I know a couple of small gaming companies at MIT that might fit the bill.”

  3. Apple and Google were active team partners, and AT&T may have been as well. The latter is known to have provided the NSA free reign over customer communications (and was in turn protected by a bill granting them retroactive immunity from lawsuits). Google itself is the only company to have received a “Hostile to Privacy” rating from Privacy International. Apple is currently being investigated by Congress after the iPhone was revealed to compile user location data in a way that differs from other mobile phones; the company has claimed this to have been a “bug.”

  4. The program makes use of several providers of “linguistic services.” At one point, the team discusses hiring a military-trained Arabic linguist. Elsewhere, Barr writes: “I feel confident I can get you a ringer for Farsi if they are still interested in Farsi (we need to find that out). These linguists are not only going to be developing new content but also meeting with folks, so they have to have native or near native proficiency and have to have the cultural relevance as well.”

  5. Alterion and SocialEyez are listed as “businesses to contact.” The former specializes in “social media monitoring tools.” The latter uses “sophisticated natural language processing methodology” in order to “process tens of millions of multi-lingual conversations daily” while also employing “researchers and media analysts on the ground;” its website also notes that “Millions of people around the globe are now networked as never before - exchanging information and ideas, forming opinions, and speaking their minds about everything from politics to products.”

  6. At one point, TASC exec Chris Clair asks Aaron and others, “Can we name COIN Saif? Saif is the sword an Arab executioner uses when they decapitate criminals. I can think of a few cool brands for this.”

  7. A diagram attached to one of Barr's e-mails to the group (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/pmo.png/) depicts Magpii as interacting in some unspecified manner with “Foreign Mobile” and “Foreign Web.” Magpii is a project of Barr's own creation which stands for “Magnify Personal Identifying Information,” involves social networking, and is designed for the purpose of storing personal information on users. Although details are difficult to determine from references in Barr's e-mails, he discusses the project almost exclusively with members of military intelligence to which he was pitching the idea.

  8. There are sporadic references such things as “semantic analysis,” “Latent Semantic Indexing,” “specialized linguistics,” and OPS, a programming language designed for solving problems using expert systems.

  9. Barr asks the team's partner at Apple, Andy Kemp (whose signature lists him as being from the company's Homeland Defense/National Programs division), to provide him “a contact at Pixar/Disney.”


Altogether, then, a successful bid for the relevant contract was seen to require the combined capabilities of perhaps a dozen firms – capabilities whereby millions of conversations can be monitored and automatically analyzed, whereby a wide range of personal data can be obtained and stored in secret, and whereby some unknown degree of information can be released to a given population through a variety of means and without any hint that the actual source is U.S. military intelligence. All this is merely in addition to whichever additional capabilities are not evident from the limited description available, with the program as a whole presumably being operated in conjunction with other surveillance and propaganda assets controlled by the U.S. and its partners.


Whatever the exact nature and scope of COIN, the firms that had been assembled for the purpose by Barr and TASC never got a chance to bid on the program's recompete. In late September, Lovegrove noted to Barr and others that he'd spoken to the “CO [contracting officer] for COIN.” “The current procurement approach is cancelled [sic], she cited changed requirements,” he reported. “They will be coming out with some documents in a month or two, most likely an updated RFI [request for information]. There will be a procurement following soon after. We are on the list to receive all information." On January 18th of next year, Lovegrove provided an update: “I just spoke to the group chief on the contracts side (Doug K). COIN has been replaced by a procurement called Odyssey. He says that it is in the formative stages and that something should be released this year. The contracting officer is Kim R. He believes that Jason is the COTR [contracting officer's technical representative].” Another clue is provided in the ensuing discussion when a TASC executive asks, “Does Odyssey combine the Technology and Content pieces of the work?”


The unexpected change-up didn't seem to phase the corporate partnership, which was still a top contender to compete for the upcoming Odyssey procurement. Later e-mails indicate a meeting between key members of the group and the contracting officer for Odyssey at a location noted as “HQ,” apparently for a briefing on requirements for the new program, on February 3rd of 2011. But two days after that meeting, the servers of HBGary and HBGary Federal were hacked by a small team of Anonymous operatives in retaliation for Barr's boasts to Financial Times that he had identified the movement's “leadership;” 70,000 e-mails were thereafter released onto the internet. Barr resigned a few weeks later.


Along with clues as to the nature of COIN and its scheduled replacement, a close study of the HBGary e-mails also provide reasons to be concerned with the fact that such things are being developed and deployed in the way that they are. In addition to being the driving force behind the COIN recompete, Barr was also at the center of a series of conspiracies by which his own company and two others hired out their collective capabilities for use by corporations that sought to destroy their political enemies by clandestine and dishonest means, some of which appear to be illegal. None of the companies involved have been investigated; a proposed Congressional inquiry was denied by the committee chair, noting that it was the Justice Department's decision as to whether to investigate, even though it was the Justice Department itself that made the initial introductions. Those in the intelligence contracting industry who believe themselves above the law are entirely correct.


That such firms will continue to target the public with advanced information warfare capabilities on behalf of major corporations is by itself an extraordinary danger to mankind as a whole, particularly insomuch as that such capabilities are becoming more effective while remaining largely unknown outside of the intelligence industry. But a far greater danger is posed by the practice of arming small and unaccountable groups of state and military personnel with a set of tools by which to achieve better and better “situational awareness” on entire populations while also being able to manipulate the information flow in such a way as to deceive those same populations. The idea that such power can be wielded without being misused is contradicted by even a brief review of history.


History also demonstrates that the state will claim such powers as a necessity in fighting some considerable threat; the U.S. has defended its recent expansion of powers by claiming they will only be deployed to fight terrorism and will never be used against Ameerican civilians. This is cold comfort for those in the Arab world who are aware of the long history of U.S. material support for regimes they find convenient, including those of Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and the House of Saud. Nor should Americans be comforted by such promises from a government that has no way of ensuring that they will be kept; it was just a few months ago that a U.S. general in Afghanistan ordered a military intelligence unit to use pysops on visiting senators in an effort to secure increased funding for the war; only a few days prior, CENTCOM spokesmen were confidently telling the public that such other psychological capabilities as persona management would never be used on Americans as that would be illegal. The fact is that such laws have been routinely broken by the military and intelligence community, who are now been joined in this practice by segments of the federal contracting industry.


It is inevitable, then, that such capabilities as form the backbone of Romas/COIN and its replacement Odyssey will be deployed against a growing segment of the world's population. The powerful institutions that wield them will grow all the more powerful as they are provided better and better methods by which to monitor, deceive, and manipulate. The informed electorate upon which liberty depends will be increasingly misinformed. No tactical advantage conferred by the use of these programs can outweigh the damage that will be done to mankind in the process of creating them.



On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 9:06 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
They told me they're running it soon, along with the three-part series, so hopefully they'll finally do so. In the meantime, I'd really like to write for more pubs on the general subject - I've got tons of info on the industry beyond what I'll be running with al-Jaz. Any idea who might be interested?


On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 2:00 PM, Michael Hastings <mhastings@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks dude. The R.S. website would probably be the place for
it--possible for you to write up a paragraph "pitch" kind of thing
that I can forward to them along with the story? Just something saying
what the US military was up to, where the data mining took place, and
what it means etc.

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 1:00 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
> Congrats man. You in Vermont? al-Jazeera gave in on those changes but then I
> had to make a few more tweaks - including changes directly contradictory to
> the ones this radio goober was asking for - and now I'm still waiting to
> hear back from them. It's been the most ridiculous editorial process ever.
> If they don't end up running it, you think Rolling Stone would be
> interested? I want to get this program revealed in a way that will ensure
> attention, and even though I "retired" from Anon a few weeks back, editors
> still consider me a subject rather than a writer like I used to be.
>
> On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Michael Hastings <mhastings@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hey dude--apologies for the delay. just got married and returned from
>> central america. did you find a home for it? i think it's great stuff.
>> don't get me started on editors. let's catch up soon if you have a
>> moment.
>>
>> On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 5:25 PM, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > I wrote this piece for al-Jazeera and it was set to go up on the site
>> > yesterday but then some other editor jumped in and asked me to rewrite
>> > it,
>> > "humanize" it, make it more "punchy," and do "at least four solid
>> > interviews," so I cancelled the three-part series I was supposed to do.
>> > I
>> > want to try to find a home for it, otherwise I'll just publish it myself
>> > on
>> > Daily Kos or some shit. Any ideas? Basically, I'm revealing the nature
>> > of a
>> > massive and unprecedented espionage program that targets the Arab world,
>> > and
>> > which I'm presenting after having pieced together details from a couple
>> > hundred leaked e-mails. I want to get this out soon without some other
>> > incompetent fucking editor trying to "humanize" the fucking thing. Let
>> > me
>> > know if know of anyone who might take it.
>> >
>> > ***
>> >
>> > For at least two years, the U.S. military has been conducting a
>> > sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and “data mining” across the
>> > Arab world. And were it not for a scandal that led to his downfall, the
>> > ongoing operation may very well have been reorganized and even updated
>> > further by a collection of intelligence contractors assembled in large
>> > part
>> > by Aaron Barr – one of the major players in a conspiracy by which he and
>> > two
>> > other contractors sought to engage in unethical and potentially illegal
>> > attacks on a series of domestic targets on behalf of institutions like
>> > Bank
>> > of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
>> >
>> > The nature and extent of the intelligence project, which was known as
>> > Romas/COIN and which is scheduled for replacement this year by a similar
>> > program known as Odyssey, may be determined in part by a close reading
>> > of
>> > hundreds of e-mails among the 70,000 that were stolen from Barr's
>> > federal
>> > contracting firm, HBGary Federal, as well as its parent company, HBGary.
>> > Other details may be gleaned by an examination of the various other
>> > firms
>> > and individuals that are referred to either as being among those who
>> > joined
>> > forces in order to win the contract from its current holder or merely
>> > noted
>> > in e-mail conversations as potential partners in the effort by virtue of
>> > possessing particular skills or capabilities.
>> >
>> > Compiling the numerous details with additional research and knowledge of
>> > the
>> > industry results in a disturbing picture, particularly when viewed in a
>> > wider context. Unprecedented surveillance capabilities are being
>> > produced by
>> > an industry that works in secret on applications that are nonetheless
>> > funded
>> > by the public. Their products are developed on demand for an
>> > intelligence
>> > community that is not subject to Congressional oversight and which has
>> > been
>> > repeatedly revealed as having misused its existing powers in ways that
>> > violate U.S. law and American ideals.
>> >
>> > Although the relatively well-known military contractor Northrop Grumman
>> > had
>> > long held the contract for Romas/COIN, such contracts are subject to
>> > regular
>> > recompetes by which other companies, or several working in tandem, can
>> > apply
>> > to take over. In early February, Aaron Barr - CEO of the
>> > increasingly-respected intelligence contracting firm HBGary Federal –
>> > wrote
>> > the following e-mail to Al Pisani, an executive at the much larger
>> > federal
>> > contractor TASC.
>> >
>> > "I met with [Mantech CEO] Bob Frisbie the other day to catch up. He is
>> > looking to expand a capability in IO related to the COIN re-compete but
>> > more
>> > for DoD. He told me he has a few acquisitions in the works that will
>> > increase his capability in this area. So just a thought that it might be
>> > worth a phone call to see if there is any synergy and strength between
>> > TASC
>> > and ManTech in this area. I think forming a team and response to compete
>> > against SAIC will be tough but doable." IO in this context stands for
>> > “information operations,” while COIN itself, as noted in an NDA attached
>> > to
>> > one of the e-mails, stands for “counter intelligence. SAIC is a larger
>> > intelligence contractor that was expected to pursue the recompete as
>> > well.
>> >
>> > Pisani agreed to the idea, and in conjunction with Barr and fellow TASC
>> > exec
>> > John Lovegrove, the growing party spent much of the next year working to
>> > create a partnership of firms capable of providing the “client” - a U.S.
>> > agency that is never specified in the hundreds of e-mails that follow –
>> > with
>> > capabilities that would outmatch those being provided by Northrop, SAIC,
>> > or
>> > other competitors.
>> >
>> > Several e-mails in particular provide a great deal of material by which
>> > to
>> > determine the scope and intent of Romas/COIN. One that Barr wrote to his
>> > own
>> > e-mail account, likely for the purpose of adding to other documents
>> > later,
>> > is entitled “Notes on COIN.” It begins with a list of entries for
>> > various
>> > facets of the program, all of which are blank and were presumably filled
>> > out
>> > later: “ISP, Operations, Language/Culture, Media Development, Marketing
>> > and
>> > Advertising, Security, MOE.” Afterwards, another list consists of the
>> > following: “Capabilities, Mobile Development, Challenges, MOE,
>> > Infrastructure, Security.” Finally, a list of the following websites is
>> > composed, many of which represent various small companies that provide
>> > niche
>> > marketing services pursuant to mobile phones.
>> >
>> > More helpful is a later e-mail from Lovegrove to Barr and some of his
>> > colleagues at TASC in which he announces the following:
>> >
>> > Our team consists of:
>> >
>> > - TASC (PMO, creative services)
>> >
>> > - HB Gary (Strategy, planning, PMO)
>> >
>> > - Akamai (infrastructure)
>> >
>> > - Archimedes Global (Specialized linguistics, strategy, planning)
>> >
>> > - Acclaim Technical Services (specialized linguistics)
>> >
>> > - Mission Essential Personnel (linguistic services)
>> >
>> > - Cipher (strategy, planning operations)
>> >
>> > - PointAbout (rapid mobile application development, list of strategic
>> >
>> > partners)
>> >
>> > - Google (strategy, mobile application and platform development - long
>> >
>> > list of strategic partners)
>> >
>> > - Apple (mobile and desktop platform, application assistance -long list
>> >
>> > of strategic partners)
>> >
>> > We are trying to schedule an interview with ATT plus some other small
>> > app
>> > developers.
>> >
>> > From these and dozens of other clues and references, the following may
>> > be
>> > determined about the nature of Romas/COIN:
>> >
>> > Mobile phone software and applications constitute a major component of
>> > the
>> > program.
>> >
>> > There's discussion of bringing in a “gaming developer,” apparently at
>> > the
>> > behest of Barr, who mentions that the team could make good use of “a
>> > social
>> > gaming company maybe like zynga, gameloft, etc.” Lovegrove elsewhere
>> > notes:
>> > “I know a couple of small gaming companies at MIT that might fit the
>> > bill.”
>> >
>> > Apple and Google were active team partners, and AT&T may have been as
>> > well.
>> > The latter is known to have provided the NSA free reign over customer
>> > communications (and was in turn protected by a bill granting them
>> > retroactive immunity from lawsuits). Google itself is the only company
>> > to
>> > have received a “Hostile to Privacy” rating from Privacy International.
>> > Apple is currently being investigated by Congress after the iPhone was
>> > revealed to compile user location data in a way that differs from other
>> > mobile phones; the company has claimed this to have been a “bug.”
>> >
>> > The program makes use of several providers of “linguistic services.” At
>> > one
>> > point, the team discusses hiring a military-trained Arabic linguist.
>> > Elsewhere, Barr writes: “I feel confident I can get you a ringer for
>> > Farsi
>> > if they are still interested in Farsi (we need to find that out). These
>> > linguists are not only going to be developing new content but also
>> > meeting
>> > with folks, so they have to have native or near native proficiency and
>> > have
>> > to have the cultural relevance as well.”
>> >
>> > Alterion and SocialEyez are listed as “businesses to contact.” The
>> > former
>> > specializes in “social media monitoring tools.” The latter uses
>> > “sophisticated natural language processing methodology” in order to
>> > “process
>> > tens of millions of multi-lingual conversations daily” while also
>> > employing
>> > “researchers and media analysts on the ground;” its website also notes
>> > that
>> > “Millions of people around the globe are now networked as never before -
>> > exchanging information and ideas, forming opinions, and speaking their
>> > minds
>> > about everything from politics to products.”
>> >
>> > At one point, TASC exec Chris Clair asks Aaron and others, “Can we name
>> > COIN
>> > Saif? Saif is the sword an Arab executioner uses when they decapitate
>> > criminals. I can think of a few cool brands for this.”
>> >
>> > A diagram attached to one of Barr's e-mails to the group
>> > (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/7/pmo.png/) depicts Magpii as
>> > interacting in some unspecified manner with “Foreign Mobile” and
>> > “Foreign
>> > Web.” Magpii is a project of Barr's own creation which stands for
>> > “Magnify
>> > Personal Identifying Information,” involves social networking, and is
>> > designed for the purpose of storing personal information on users.
>> > Although
>> > details are difficult to determine from references in Barr's e-mails, he
>> > discusses the project almost exclusively with members of military
>> > intelligence to which he was pitching the idea.
>> >
>> > There are sporadic references such things as “semantic analysis,”
>> > “Latent
>> > Semantic Indexing,” “specialized linguistics,” and OPS, a programming
>> > language designed for solving problems using expert systems.
>> >
>> > Barr asks the team's partner at Apple, Andy Kemp (whose signature lists
>> > him
>> > as being from the company's Homeland Defense/National Programs
>> > division), to
>> > provide him “a contact at Pixar/Disney.”
>> >
>> > Altogether, then, a successful bid for the relevant contract was seen to
>> > require the combined capabilities of perhaps a dozen firms –
>> > capabilities
>> > whereby millions of conversations can be monitored and automatically
>> > analyzed, whereby a wide range of personal data can be obtained and
>> > stored
>> > in secret, and whereby some unknown degree of information can be
>> > released to
>> > a given population through a variety of means and without any hint that
>> > the
>> > actual source is U.S. military intelligence. All this is merely in
>> > addition
>> > to whichever additional capabilities are not evident from the limited
>> > description available, with the program as a whole presumably being
>> > operated
>> > in conjunction with other surveillance and propaganda assets controlled
>> > by
>> > the U.S. and its partners.
>> >
>> > Whatever the exact nature and scope of COIN, the firms that had been
>> > assembled for the purpose by Barr and TASC never got a chance to bid on
>> > the
>> > program's recompete. In late September, Lovegrove noted to Barr and
>> > others
>> > that he'd spoken to the “CO [contracting officer] for COIN.” “The
>> > current
>> > procurement approach is cancelled [sic], she cited changed
>> > requirements,” he
>> > reported. “They will be coming out with some documents in a month or
>> > two,
>> > most likely an updated RFI [request for information]. There will be a
>> > procurement following soon after. We are on the list to receive all
>> > information." On January 18th of next year, Lovegrove provided an
>> > update: “I
>> > just spoke to the group chief on the contracts side (Doug K). COIN has
>> > been
>> > replaced by a procurement called Odyssey. He says that it is in the
>> > formative stages and that something should be released this year. The
>> > contracting officer is Kim R. He believes that Jason is the COTR
>> > [contracting officer's technical representative].” Another clue is
>> > provided
>> > in the ensuing discussion when a TASC executive asks, “Does Odyssey
>> > combine
>> > the Technology and Content pieces of the work?”
>> >
>> > The unexpected change-up didn't seem to phase the corporate partnership,
>> > which was still a top contender to compete for the upcoming Odyssey
>> > procurement. Later e-mails indicate a meeting between key members of the
>> > group and the contracting officer for Odyssey at a location noted as
>> > “HQ,”
>> > apparently for a briefing on requirements for the new program, on
>> > February
>> > 3rd of 2011. But two days after that meeting, the servers of HBGary and
>> > HBGary Federal were hacked by a small team of Anonymous operatives in
>> > retaliation Barr's boasts to Financial Times that he had identified the
>> > movement's “leadership;” 70,000 e-mails were thereafter released onto
>> > the
>> > internet. Barr resigned a few weeks later.
>> >
>> > Along with clues as to the nature of COIN and its scheduled replacement,
>> > a
>> > close study of the HBGary e-mails also provide reasons to be concerned
>> > with
>> > the fact that such things are being developed and deployed in the way
>> > that
>> > they are. In addition to being the driving force behind the COIN
>> > recompete,
>> > Barr was also at the center of a series of conspiracies by which his own
>> > company and two others hired out their collective capabilities for use
>> > by
>> > corporations that sought to destroy their political enemies by
>> > clandestine
>> > and dishonest means, some of which appear to be illegal. None of the
>> > companies involved have been investigated; a proposed Congressional
>> > inquiry
>> > was denied by the committee chair, noting that it was the Justice
>> > Department's decision as to whether to investigate, even though it was
>> > the
>> > Justice Department itself that made the initial introductions. Those in
>> > the
>> > intelligence contracting industry who believe themselves above the law
>> > are
>> > entirely correct.
>> >
>> > That such firms will continue to target the public with advanced
>> > information
>> > warfare capabilities on behalf of major corporations is by itself an
>> > extraordinary danger to mankind as a whole, particularly insomuch as
>> > that
>> > such capabilities are becoming more effective while remaining largely
>> > unknown outside of the intelligence industry. But a far greater danger
>> > is
>> > posed by the practice of arming small and unaccountable groups of state
>> > and
>> > military personnel with a set of tools by which to achieve better and
>> > better
>> > “situational awareness” on entire populations while also being able to
>> > manipulate the information flow in such a way as to deceive those same
>> > populations. The idea that such power can be wielded without being
>> > misused
>> > is contradicted by even a brief review of history.
>> >
>> > History also demonstrates that the state will claim such powers as a
>> > necessity in fighting some considerable threat; the U.S. has defended
>> > its
>> > recent expansion of powers by claiming they will only be deployed to
>> > fight
>> > terrorism and will never be used against American civilians. This is
>> > cold
>> > comfort for those in the Arab world who are aware of the long history of
>> > U.S. material support for regimes they find convenient, including those
>> > of
>> > Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, and the House of Saud. Nor should
>> > Americans
>> > be comforted by such promises from a government that has no way of
>> > ensuring
>> > that they will be kept; it was just a few months ago that a U.S. general
>> > in
>> > Afghanistan ordered a military intelligence unit to use pysops on
>> > visiting
>> > senators in an effort to secure increased funding for the war; only a
>> > few
>> > days prior, CENTCOM spokesmen were confidently telling the public that
>> > such
>> > other psychological capabilities as persona management would never be
>> > used
>> > on Americans as that would be illegal. The fact is that such laws have
>> > been
>> > routinely broken by the military and intelligence community in the past
>> > and
>> > that they have now been joined in this practice by segments of the
>> > federal
>> > contracting industry.
>> >
>> > It is inevitable, then, that such capabilities as form the backbone of
>> > Romas/COIN and its replacement Odyssey will be deployed against a
>> > growing
>> > segment of the world's population for a variety of reasons. The powerful
>> > institutions that wield them will grow all the more powerful as they are
>> > provided better and better methods by which to monitor, deceive, and
>> > manipulate. The informed electorate upon which liberty depends will be
>> > increasingly misinformed. No tactical advantage conferred by the use of
>> > these programs can outweigh the damage that will be done to mankind in
>> > the
>> > process of creating them.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Regards,
>> >
>> > Barrett Brown
>> > 512-560-2302
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Michael Hastings
>> Rolling Stone
>> mhastings@gmail.com
>> International Mobile: +1-212-945-8073
>
>
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Barrett Brown
> 512-560-2302
>



--
Michael Hastings
Rolling Stone
mhastings@gmail.com
International Mobile: +1-212-945-8073



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302



--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302