The Sit Room

 

Special Access Programs

Former CIA chief of staff Larry Pfeiffer at The Bulwark:

According to the indictment against Trump, eight of the TOP SECRET documents may have had information about or derived from so-called Special Access Programs (SAPs). The sensitivity of these documents was so great that prosecutors were obliged to redact even the codewords on the documents. The implication is that even publicly acknowledging the codenames of these projects, without discussing their operations at all, was deemed a great security risk.

...

SAPs have three protection levels—acknowledged, unacknowledged, and waived. Acknowledged SAPs are ones whose existence is openly recognized and whose purpose may be identified publicly. Details of acknowledged SAPs remain classified and access protected by designated codewords. Presidential travel activities are often cited as examples—everyone knows the president travels, and often it’s public long in advance that the president will be in a certain place at a certain time: a U.N. meeting, a party convention, a State of the Union address, etc. What’s secret are the details of how the president will get to and from the events and how the Secret Service will protect him. Funding for acknowledged SAPs is generally unclassified.

Unacknowledged SAPs are those whose existence and purpose require greater protection. All information is classified, and funding is classified, unacknowledged, and not directly linked to the program. Under extremely limited circumstances, the normal reporting requirements of an unacknowledged SAP can be “waived” by the Secretary of Defense. Congressional oversight in those cases would be limited to oral notifications to the chair, ranking members, and staff directors of the respective appropriations and armed services committees.

To recap, of the 31 documents former President Trump is being charged with inappropriately storing at his resort hotel, eight may have contained information about or derived from our government’s most sensitive activities. In the wrong hands, the exposure of that information could risk the lives of U.S. and allied military and intelligence personnel, and foreign intelligence sources and their families—not to mention American civilians.

Jack Smith Statement

Special Counsel Jack Smith Delivers Statement
Washington, DC ~
Friday, June 9, 2023

Good afternoon. Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida, and I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.

The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk.

Adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice. And our nation’s commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. Applying those laws. Collecting facts. That’s what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The prosecutors in my office are among the most talented and experienced in the Department of Justice. They have investigated this case hewing to the highest ethical standards. And they will continue to do so as this case proceeds.

It’s very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. To that end, my office will seek a speedy trial in this matter. Consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused. We very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida.

In conclusion. I would like to thank the dedicated public servants of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with whom my office is conducting this investigation and who worked tirelessly every day upholding the rule of law in our country. I’m deeply proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. Thank you very much.

Russian Active Measures in the United States

Asha Rangappa at Just Security:

Last month, a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Florida returned a superseding indictment charging three Russian nationals and four U.S. citizens with a conspiracy to conduct a malign influence campaign in the United States. The activities described in the indictment are significant in a number of respects. In particular, they represent a blending of old and new tactics in Russia’s active measures campaign in the United States. On the one hand, Russia’s targets here harken back to the tried-and-true active measures playbook of the KGB; at the same time, the focus on local election interference as a means to lay the groundwork for interference on a larger scale demonstrates that Russia is learning how to exploit new American political vulnerabilities.

The indictment alleges that the U.S. citizens, who were affiliated with three U.S. political groups – the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement (the APSP) located in Florida, the Black Hammer Organization in Georgia, and an unnamed political organization in California – engaged in a conspiracy to act as unregistered foreign agents of a Kremlin-funded group called the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR). The goals of the conspiracy, which spanned from 2014 to 2022, were to sow discord in the United States and further Russia’s narratives concerning the war in Ukraine. AGMR was run by a Moscow resident charged in the indictment, who was directed and supervised by two Moscow-based intelligence officers also named in the indictment. The indictment alleges that these three Russian nationals also funded and directed the political campaign of an unnamed candidate in a local election in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2019, as a precursor to broader election interference in 2020.

...

There is more in the indictment which I have not covered here, including Russian defendants funding a demonstration in support of the secession of California from the United States, organizing a protest against a(n unnamed) media company which had restricted posts supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and directing Black Hammer to hold a rally in front of an Atlanta-based media company in honor of Russian Victory Day in 2022. The Russian defendants also enlisted APSP’s assistance and cover in protesting Russia’s partial ban from the 2016 Olympic games in Rio. In fact, the sheer breadth of activities undertaken by the relatively few defendants in this one complaint and in this one setting suggests that this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of Russia’s ongoing operations in the United States.

Chinese Influence Ops

Many posts have discussed the political influence of China.

 Danielle Pletka at Foreign Policy:

Everyone recalls, of course, the infamous Chinese spy balloon that collected critical military intelligence as it drifted across the United States, to the consternation of the Biden administration. Chinese cyberattacks have also been responsible for some of the most intrusive breaches of U.S. government websites, including a hack into the personnel files of millions of government employees in the Office of Personnel Management.

Yet even these well-publicized incidents are only the tip of the iceberg. Many of China’s spying and influence operations are much more pervasive, stealthy, and insidious than commonly understood. While there is a growing recognition that apps such as TikTok are potential Chinese government tools of influence and espionage—with the ability to track keystrokes, use your phone as a surveillance device, and collect biometric data including faceprints and voiceprints—there’s less awareness of the other tools at the regime’s disposal. Beijing is also establishing cultural associations, dominating Chinese language instruction programs, buying private secondary education institutions, purchasing land near military installations, taking over Chinese community organizations, and eating up local Chinese-language media.

Classified

 Tom Nichols at The Atlantic:

Some documents, such as war plans or technical specifications about weapons systems, have obvious intelligence value. Most classified materials, however, just aren’t all that sexy at first glance. They’re not likely to look anything like the “Non-Official Cover” list of spies from Mission Impossible; they’re not nuclear codes; they’re not pictures of foreign leaders in flagrante. That type of information exists, of course, but such materials typically have a short shelf life. (Codes and plans, for example, change regularly.) This is why spy agencies, including ours, try to develop assets who can deliver a stream of information over time.

Nonetheless, there are plenty of things you can lug in a box that would be deeply dangerous to U.S. national security.

Technical and scientific documents, for instance, are almost always highly valuable. Enemy engineers can figure out a lot from technical secrets, including how to close gaps with the United States in weapons development, which in turn can create direct threats to U.S. military forces.

There are also other, less obvious threats to security than “here’s where our tanks are parked and here’s how accurate our missiles are.” This is why you often hear the phrase sources and methods when discussing classified information: One of the greatest risks is that an adversary will learn how we’ve discovered their secrets. If a classified document provides the Reese’s Pieces that would help a foreign intelligence organization backtrack and reconstruct how we know what we know, we could lose the sources—technological and human—that provided the material, which is a much deeper long-term problem. On occasion, revealing such sources can result in embarrassment or a minor scandal, perhaps involving a diplomat or some other friendly source in a foreign nation. Sometimes the consequences are much worse.

Secrets

In the past few hours many of us have watched the discussion regarding classified documents & their appropriate storage.

Since like most senior officers I had some experience in this area, I thought it would be helpful to provide some BASIC info.

So, this new 🧵is born! 1/21

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

CLASSIFIED is the lowest classification level. It's information that might "damage or disclose" an element of national security.

Classified document may address particulars about a weapon system (e.g., max range of a missile) or #'s of soldiers deployed. 3/ pic.twitter.com/Z85H7VqFIS

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

Executive Order 13526 say:

"TOP SECRET classification [is] applied to information, the unauthorized disclosure of which reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the National Security that the original classification authority is able to identify" 5/ pic.twitter.com/tg0BGZZLGI

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

For the highest security clearances, people come to your door - and the door of those you list on your form, and your bosses, your teachers, your friends - and ask a lot of questions. There's also a criminal background check.

The investigation can take months to complete. 7/ pic.twitter.com/P8wAcCeWxd

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

Now, there are add-ons, which we're hearing about now. I'll address two:

SAPs or Special Access Programs.
-SCI or Sensitive Compartmented Information
9/

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

There are onerous access & security requirements, with only those who have a need to know gaining access. These programs are closely guarded with extreme measures of security, to include use of code words.

Even mentioning those code words to those not read on is a violation.11/

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

SCI is classified information that comes from sensitive intelligence sources (people or systems), methods, or analytical processes.

SCI is handled within formal access control systems established by the @ODNIgov .

Often, those with TOP SECRET Clearance also have TS-SCI. 13/ pic.twitter.com/DRb2VR5B6f

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

You'll often hear the word "SCIF" (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility).

That's a secure place where sensitive information can be viewed & discussed to prevent surveillance or spying.

SCIFs are permanent or temporary & usually require special locks and/or guards. 15/ pic.twitter.com/541nPMmMTw

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

There are other network, too, (e.g., NATO secret), but I won't get into those.

(BTW, on my desk in Iraq, in a SCIF facility I had a regular computer & three other classified systems...and way too many emails to read late at night when I returned to the headquarters). 17/

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

What does a classified document look like? Here's a sanitized one, with markings.

Red marks at top, each paragraph classified, each page numbered with the classification on top.

Note the "classification" and "declassification" block on the lower left. A bit on that...19/ pic.twitter.com/xpRQozyX4p

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

The reason the classifier also declassifies is a "process" must notify all others who are involved with the information...or who may be endangered by its release.

Yes, technically, @potus can order declassification...but other people have to know & the date must be noted!!! 21/

— Mark Hertling (@MarkHertling) August 12, 2022

Blade

NDTV:

Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by the US forces in a drone strike in Afghanistan capital Kabul. Announcing his death in a televised address, US President Joe Biden said no civilian casualties were reported in the operation that was conducted over the weekend.

A senior official in the Biden administration was quoted as saying by news agency AFP that Zawahiri was on the balcony of a house in Kabul when he was targeted with two Hellfire missiles, an hour after sunrise on July 31.

According to the official's account, Mr Biden gave his green light for the strike on July 25 - as he was recovering in isolation from Covid-19.

However, pictures from the Kabul home where Zawahiri was living showed no signs of an explosion, pointing to the use again by the US of the macabre Hellfire R9X.

Also called the "ninja bomb," the missile has become the US weapon of choice for killing leaders of extremist groups while avoiding civilian casualties.

The missile is fired from a Predator drone. It has no warhead, but deploys six blades which fly in at high speed, crush and slice the targeted person.

This is the reason why it's called the "flying ginsu", after the 1980 TV commercial for Japanese kitchen knives that would cut cleanly through aluminum cans and remain perfectly sharp.

Some pictures posted online show the impact of these missiles. One of these old photos on Twitter claims to show a car destroyed by Hellfire R9X in Idlib, Syria.

Pentagon and CIA - the two agencies which undertake targeted assassinations - have never acknowledged the use of the Hellfire R9X missile.

Secession

The Texas GOP has adopted a platform calling for a public vote on secession.

Moscow must be happy.

Upon request by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), NewKnowledge reviewed an expansive data set of social media posts and metadata provided toSSCI by Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet, plus a set of related data from additional platforms.The data sets were provided by the three primary platforms to serve as evidence for aninvestigation into the Internet Research Agency (IRA) influence operations. 

 The Internet Research Agency has been implicated in the promotion of secessionist and insurrectionist movements in several countries; there is no sowing of division quite so pronounced as attempting to create a literal territorial split. In Europe, this took the form of involvement in Brexit and Catalonian independence efforts. In the United States, it was #Texit and #Calexit, as well as active support for the Bundy ranch and Malheur Reserve standoffs.

The vote in favor of Brexit, which happened on June 23, 2016, was subsequently used by the IRA to promote its Texas Secession initiatives. Brexit narratives were shared on the Instagram account @rebeltexas as a justification for #Texit, as well as on @_americafirst_and @mericanfury to encourage American isolationism and a retreat from involvement in global affairs. The Facebook Page Heart of Texas posted about secession with some regularity, and coordinated real-world pro-secession demonstrations across the state using Facebook Events. 

FDR on Disinformation and Foreign Influence

The invasion of Ukraine summons echoes of the invasion of France.

Fireside Chat, May 26, 1940:

There are many among us who in the past closed their eyes to events abroad –because they believed in utter good faith what some of their fellow Americans told them — that what was taking place in Europe was none of our business; that no matter what happened over there, the United States could always pursue its peaceful and unique course in the world.

There are many among us who closed their eyes, from lack of interest or lack of knowledge; honestly and sincerely thinking that the many hundreds of miles of salt water made the American Hemisphere so remote that the people of North and Central and South America could go on living in the midst of their vast resources without reference to, or danger from, other Continents of the world.
…
And, finally, there are a few among us who have deliberately and consciously closed their eyes because they were determined to be opposed to their government, its foreign policy and every other policy, to be partisan, and to believe that anything that the Government did was wholly wrong.

To those who have closed their eyes for any of these many reasons, to those who would not admit the possibility of the approaching storm — to all of them the past two weeks have meant the shattering of many illusions.

…

The Fifth Column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery. Spies, saboteurs and traitors are the actors in this new strategy. With all of these we must and will deal vigorously.

But there is an added technique for weakening a nation at its very roots, for disrupting the entire pattern of life of a people. And it is important that we understand it. The method is simple. It is, first, discord, a dissemination of discord. A group –not too large — a group that may be sectional or racial or political — is encouraged to exploit (their) its prejudices through false slogans and emotional appeals. The aim of those who deliberately egg on these groups is to create confusion of counsel, public indecision, political paralysis and eventually, a state of panic. Sound national policies come to be viewed with a new and unreasoning skepticism, not through the wholesome (political) debates of honest and free men, but through the clever schemes of foreign agents.

As a result of these new techniques, armament programs may be dangerously delayed. Singleness of national purpose may be undermined. Men can lose confidence in each other, and therefore lose confidence in the efficacy of their own united action. Faith and courage can yield to doubt and fear. The unity of the state (is) can be so sapped that its strength is destroyed.

All this is no idle dream. It has happened time after time, in nation after nation, (during) here in the last two years. Fortunately, American men and women are not easy dupes. Campaigns of group hatred or class struggle have never made much headway among us, and are not making headway now. But new forces are being unleashed, deliberately planned propaganda to divide and weaken us in the face of danger as other nations have been weakened before.

These dividing forces (are) I do not hesitate to call undiluted poison. They must not be allowed to spread in the New World as they have in the Old. Our moral, (and) our mental defenses must be raised up as never before against those who would cast a smoke-screen across our vision.

Treasury Goes After Russia

A Thursday release from the Treasury Department:

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took sweeping action against 16 entities and 16 individuals who attempted to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election at the direction of the leadership of the Russian Government.

This announcement follows the Intelligence Community’s (IC) “Assessment of Foreign Threats to the 2020 U.S. Federal Elections.” The IC assessment addresses the intentions and efforts of key foreign actors, including Russia, to influence or interfere with the U.S. elections and undermine public confidence in the election process. Russia employed a system of government officials, disinformation outlets, and companies to covertly influence U.S. voters and spread misinformation about U.S. political candidates and U.S. election processes and institutions.

...

Today’s actions highlight how multiple Russian officials, proxies, and intelligence agencies coordinated to interfere with recent U.S. elections. Private and public sector corruption facilitated by President Vladimir Putin has enriched his network of confidants, who used their illicit business connections to advance Russia’s campaign to undermine the 2020 U.S. presidential election—and to give Russia plausible deniability in its disinformation activities. Members of this network include First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration of Russia Alexei Gromov (Gromov), previously designated as a government official pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13661. Gromov leads the Kremlin’s use of its media apparatus that sought to exacerbate tensions in the United States by discrediting the 2020 U.S. election process. As a result, Treasury is designating Gromov pursuant to E.O. 13848 for having attempted to interfere in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

TREASURY TARGETS DISINFORMATION OUTLETS CONTROLLED BY RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES

Russian Intelligence Services, namely the Federal Security Service (FSB), the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), play critical roles in propagating Russian disinformation online. The FSB, GRU, and SVR operate a network of websites that obscure their Russian origin to appeal to Western audiences. Outlets operated by Russian Intelligence Services focus on divisive issues in the United States, denigrate U.S. political candidates, and disseminate false and misleading information. The GRU and FSB were first designated in 2016.

The FSB directly operates disinformation outlets. SouthFront is an online disinformation site registered in Russia that receives taskings from the FSB. It attempts to appeal to military enthusiasts, veterans, and conspiracy theorists, all while going to great lengths to hide its connections to Russian intelligence. In the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, SouthFront sought to promote perceptions of voter fraud by publishing content alleging that such activity took place during the 2020 U.S. presidential election cycle.

NewsFront is a Crimea-based disinformation and propaganda outlet that worked with FSB officers to coordinate a narrative that undermined the credibility of a news website advocating for human rights. Part of NewsFront’s plan was to utilize Alexander Malkevich, who is also being re-designated in today’s action, to further disseminate disinformation. NewsFront was also used to distribute false information about the COVID-19 vaccine, which further demonstrates the irresponsible and reckless conduct of Russian disinformation sites.

The Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) is an online journal registered in Russia that is directed by the SVR and closely affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. SCF is controlled by the SVR’s Directorate MS (Active Measures) and created false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning U.S. officials involved in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. It publishes conspiracy theorists, giving them a broader platform to spread disinformation, while trying to obscure the Russian origins of the journal so that readers may be more likely to trust the sourcing.

The GRU operates InfoRos. InfoRos calls itself a news agency but is primarily run by the GRU’s 72nd Main Intelligence Information Center (GRITs). GRITs is a unit within Russia’s Information Operations Troops, which is identified as Russia’s military force for conducting cyber espionage, influence, and offensive cyber operations. InfoRos operates under two organizations, “InfoRos, OOO” and “IA InfoRos.” InfoRos used a network of websites, including nominally independent websites, to spread false conspiracy narratives and disinformation promoted by GRU officials. Denis Tyurin (Tyurin) held a leadership role in InfoRos and had previously served in the GRU.

...
TREASURY TARGETS KNOWN RUSSIAN AGENT KONSTANTIN KILIMNIK

Konstantin Kilimnik (Kilimnik) is a Russian and Ukrainian political consultant and known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign, Kilimnik provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy. Additionally, Kilimnik sought to promote the narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In 2018, Kilimnik was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice regarding unregistered lobbying work. Kilimnik has also sought to assist designated former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. At Yanukovych’s direction, Kilimnik sought to institute a plan that would return Yanukovych to power in Ukraine.

Kilimnik was designated pursuant to E.O. 13848 for having engaged in foreign interference in the U.S. 2020 presidential election. Kilimnik was also designated pursuant to E.O. 13660 for acting for or on behalf of Yanukovych. Yanukovych, who is currently hiding in exile in Russia, was designated in 2014 pursuant to E.O. 13660 for his role in violating Ukrainian sovereignty.

...
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence election interference report can be found on its website.

View more information on the persons designated today.

Bellingcat: Open Source Investigative Journalism

Russia, as Mitt Romney said eight years ago, is our most important geopolitical adversary.

From The Dispatch:

Bellingcat is a website that focuses on open-source investigative journalism, and its work has become invaluable in the years since it was founded in 2014. Yesterday, investigators for the site published a recorded conversation in which a member of Russia’s FSB poison squad admitted his role in the attempted murder of opposition leader Alexey Navalny. “The inadvertent confession was made during a phone call with a person who the officer believed was a high-ranking security official,” the post reads. “In fact, the FSB officer did not recognize the voice of the person to whom he was reporting details of the failed mission: Alexey Navalny himself.”

Russian Hack

At NYT, David E. Sanger, Nicole Perlroth and Eric Schmitt report on the Russian intelligence hack. Administration officials acknowledged that the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and parts of the Defense Department had been compromised. 

Investigators were struggling to determine the extent to which the military, intelligence community and nuclear laboratories were affected by the highly sophisticated attack.

United States officials did not detect the attack until recent weeks, and then only when a private cybersecurity firm, FireEye, alerted American intelligence that the hackers had evaded layers of defenses.

It was evident that the Treasury and Commerce Departments, the first agencies reported to be breached, were only part of a far larger operation whose sophistication stunned even experts who have been following a quarter-century of Russian hacks on the Pentagon and American civilian agencies.

About 18,000 private and government users downloaded a Russian tainted software update — a Trojan horse of sorts — that gave its hackers a foothold into victims’ systems, according to SolarWinds, the company whose software was compromised.

...

 Analysts said it was hard to know which was worse: that the federal government was blindsided again by Russian intelligence agencies, or that when it was evident what was happening, White House officials said nothing.

Covert Chinese Influence

Many posts have discussed the efforts of China to influence American politics.

 Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian and Zach Dorfman at Axios:

A suspected Chinese intelligence operative developed extensive ties with local and national politicians, including a U.S. congressman, in what U.S. officials believe was a political intelligence operation run by China’s main civilian spy agency between 2011 and 2015, Axios found in a yearlong investigation.
...

The woman at the center of the operation, a Chinese national named Fang Fang or Christine Fang, targeted up-and-coming local politicians in the Bay Area and across the country who had the potential to make it big on the national stage.

• Through campaign fundraising, extensive networking, personal charisma, and romantic or sexual relationships with at least two Midwestern mayors, Fang was able to gain proximity to political power, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and one former elected official.
• Even though U.S. officials do not believe Fang received or passed on classified information, the case "was a big deal, because there were some really, really sensitive people that were caught up" in the intelligence network, a current senior U.S. intelligence official said.
• Private but unclassified information about government officials — such as their habits, preferences, schedules, social networks, and even rumors about them — is a form of political intelligence. Collecting such information is a key part of what foreign intelligence agencies do.

...

What happened: Amid a widening counterintelligence probe, federal investigators became so alarmed by Fang's behavior and activities that around 2015 they alerted [Rep. Eric] Swalwell to their concerns — giving him what is known as a defensive briefing.

• Swalwell immediately cut off all ties to Fang, according to a current U.S. intelligence official, and he has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
• Fang left the country unexpectedly in mid-2015 amid the investigation. She did not respond to multiple attempts by Axios to reach her by email and Facebook.

Between the lines: The case demonstrates China’s strategy of cultivating relationships that may take years or even decades to bear fruit. The Chinese Communist Party knows that today’s mayors and city council members are tomorrow’s governors and members of Congress.

Russian Efforts to Divide Americans

Craig Timberg and  Isaac Stanley-Becker at WP:

Four years after Russian operatives used social media in a bid to exacerbate racial divisions in the United States and suppress Black voter turnout, such tactics have spread across a wide range of deceptive online campaigns operated from numerous nations — including from within the United States itself.

The potency and persistence of the racial playbook was highlighted this week when Twitter deleted an account featuring a profile photo of a young Black man claiming to be a former Black Lives Matter protester who switched his allegiance to the Republican Party.

The account, @WentDemtoRep, offered an online testimonial Sunday — the eve of a Republican convention featuring prominent African Americans challenging allegations of racism against President Trump — and was retweeted 22,000 times. Disinformation researcher Marc Owen Jones, of Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, found the tweet had 39,000 likes just 19 hours after it was posted.

On June 18, Jeff Seldin reported at VOA:

Russia appears to be intensifying its focus on police enforcement issues in the United States, using popular reactions to protests that have gripped the nation as part of a larger propaganda campaign to divide Americans ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

The death of African American George Floyd in police custody and the ensuing U.S. protests have for weeks dominated media coverage from Russian state-sponsored outlets like RT and Sputnik.

Only now, it seems that Russia, through the English-language RT in particular, is reaching out to U.S. police officers and union officials, in what some U.S. officials and lawmakers say is an effort to further inflame tensions.

...
Law enforcement officers and organizations who spoke with VOA about their interactions with RT described being caught off guard.

“We had no idea about the ties they have,” a representative for lawofficer.com, a website catering to law enforcement officers, told VOA about being approached by the Russian television news channel. “They actually told us they were out of Britain.”

RT contacted lawofficer.com seeking permission to republish an essay by Tulsa, Oklahoma Police Major Travis Yates about the frustration he and many of his police colleagues have been feeling as a result of the protests of police practices, titled, “America, We Are Leaving.”

RT also booked Yates for an on-air interview through its London bureau.

“If I had any idea whatsoever, I obviously never would have done it,” Yates told VOA when asked if he knew about RT’s Russian connection.

Since Yates’ essay was first published, it has been shared thousands of times on social media and even helped get him an appearance on Fox News’
"Tucker Carlson Tonight."

Public Opinion of Russian Interference

Hannah Hartig at Pew:

As the 2020 presidential campaign ramps up, a growing share of Americans say it is likely that Russia or other foreign governments will attempt to influence the November election. At the same time, confidence in the federal government to prevent election interference by foreign governments has declined.

Three-quarters of U.S. adults say it is very or somewhat likely that Russia or other foreign governments will attempt to influence the presidential election, including 44% who say it is very likely, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted July 27-Aug. 2.

These views have changed little since January. But Americans are now more likely to expect foreign election interference than they were in October 2018 – shortly before that fall’s midterms – when 67% expected it. And the share who say such efforts are very likely is 12 percentage points higher now than two years ago.

Blinking Red

Micah Zenko at Foreign Policy:

Chapter 8 of the 9/11 Commission Report was titled, “The System Was Blinking Red.” The quote came from former CIA Director George Tenet, who was characterizing the summer of 2001, when the intelligence community’s multiple reporting streams indicated an imminent aviation terrorist attack inside the United States. Despite the warnings and frenzied efforts of some counterterrorism officials, the 9/11 Commission determined “We see little evidence that the progress of the plot was disturbed by any government action. … Time ran out.”

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD WORLDWIDE THREAT ASSESSMENT of the US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, January 29, 2019

We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support. Although the international community has made tenuous improvements to global health security, these gains may be inadequate to address the challenge of what we anticipate will be more frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases because of rapid unplanned urbanization, prolonged humanitarian crises, human incursion into previously unsettled land, expansion of international travel and trade, and regional climate change

Michael Shear and colleagues at NYT:

Early on, the dozen federal officials charged with defending America against the coronavirus gathered day after day in the White House Situation Room, consumed by crises. They grappled with how to evacuate the United States consulate in Wuhan, China, ban Chinese travelers and extract Americans from the Diamond Princess and other cruise ships.

The members of the coronavirus task force typically devoted only five or 10 minutes, often at the end of contentious meetings, to talk about testing, several participants recalled. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, its leaders assured the others, had developed a diagnostic model that would be rolled out quickly as a first step.

But as the deadly virus spread from China with ferocity across the United States between late January and early March, large-scale testing of people who might have been infected did not happen — because of technical flaws, regulatory hurdles, business-as-usual bureaucracies and lack of leadership at multiple levels, according to interviews with more than 50 current and former public health officials, administration officials, senior scientists and company executives.

The result was a lost month, when the world’s richest country — armed with some of the most highly trained scientists and infectious disease specialists — squandered its best chance of containing the virus’s spread. Instead, Americans were left largely blind to the scale of a looming public health catastrophe.

Saudi Arabia Spies on Twitter

A November 7, 2019 release from the Justice Department:

Ali Alzabarah, Ahmad Abouammo, and Ahmed Almutairi, aka Ahmed Aljbreen, were charged for their respective roles in accessing private information in the accounts of certain Twitter users and providing that information to officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Abouammo was arrested in Seattle, Washington, on Nov. 5, 2019. All three defendants are charged with acting as illegal agents of a foreign government; and Abouammo also is charged with destroying, altering, or falsifying records in a federal investigation.

“Acting in the United States under the direction and control of Saudi officials, the defendants are alleged to have obtained private, identifying information about users of Twitter who were critical of the Saudi government,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers. “Two of the defendants – Alzabarah and Abouammo – are former Twitter employees who violated their terms of employment to access this information in exchange for money and other benefits. Aside from being criminal, their conduct was contrary to the free speech principles on which this country was founded.”

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Alzabarah, 35, of Saudi Arabia, and Abouammo, 41, of Seattle, Washington, were Twitter employees. According to the complaint, between November of 2014 and May of 2015, Almutairi, 30, of Saudi Arabia, and foreign officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia convinced Abouammo and Alzabarah to use their employee credentials to gain access without authorization to certain nonpublic information about the individuals behind certain Twitter accounts. Specifically, representatives of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Royal Family sought the private information of Twitter users who had been critical of the regime. Such private user information included their email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, and dates of birth. This information could have been used to identify and locate the Twitter users who published these posts. The complaint alleges that Abouammo was compensated for his illicit conduct, including through the provision of a luxury watch and cash. Almutairi is alleged to have arranged meetings, acted as a go-between, and facilitated communications between the Saudi government and the other defendants.

The complaint also contains allegations regarding the reaction of Alzabarah upon being confronted by Twitter about his violations of Twitter policy. According to the complaint, when Alzabarah was confronted by Twitter’s management about accessing users’ information, he sought assistance from Almutairi and others to flee the United States. Alzabarah left the country the next day and submitted his resignation from Twitter by email while en route. Shortly after his return to Saudi Arabia, Alzabarah obtained employment through which he continued to work on behalf the Kingdom. With respect to Abouammo, the complaint alleges FBI agents confronted him in October 2018 about his activities on behalf of officials of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In response, Abouammo allegedly lied to the agents and provided them with a falsified invoice in an effort to obstruct the investigation.

Russian Disinformation

Freelon, Deen; Lokot, Tetyana (2020). Russian Twitter disinformation campaigns reach across the American political spectrum. The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) Misinformation Review. https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-003

Summary:

• The IRA is a private company sponsored by the Russian government, which distributes Kremlin-friendly disinformation on social media under false identities (see DiResta et al., 2018; Howard, Ganesh, Liotsiou, Kelly, & Francois, 2018). 
• The IRA engaged with several distinct communities of authentic users—primarily conservatives, progressives, and Black people—which exhibited only minimal overlap on Twitter.
• Authentic users primarily engaged with IRA accounts that shared their own ideological and/or racial identities.
• Racist stereotyping, racial grievances, the scapegoating of political opponents, and outright false statements were four of the most common appeals found among the most replied-to IRA tweets.
• We conducted a network analysis of 2,057,747 authentic replies to IRA tweets over nine years, generated ideology ratings for a random sample of authentic users, and qualitatively analyzed some of the most replied-to IRA tweets.
• State-sponsored disinformation agents have demonstrated success in infiltrating distinct online communities. Political content attracts far more engagement than non-political content and appears crafted to exploit intergroup distrust and enmity.  
• Collaboration between different political groups and communities might be successful in detecting IRA campaigns more effectively.

"Payload Content" on YouTube

At Lawfare, Lisa Kaplan reports on TheSoul, a mysterious social media operation that seems to be emulating the "payload content" strategy of the Internet Research Agency.

Most of TheSoul’s videos are clickbait with instructions for do-it-yourself projects, and TheSoul’s channels range in success. Some are less active than others. Of the 35 channels I examined, nine have stopped posting in the past year, and a handful (5-Minute Workouts, Health Is Wealth, Health Digest, Dark Side and Zodiac Maniac) have not posted new content in the past 11 months. You’re Gorgeous, The Story Behind and Stickman have all stopped posting new content within the past six months. However, the most popular channels—Bright Side and 5-Minute Crafts—appear to be active and growing. From August 2019 to December 2019, according to examinations of the data in both periods, Bright Side gained nearly 3.5 million subscribers and 1 billion views, and 5-Minute Crafts gained more than 3 million subscribers and 1.5 billion views.

The vast majority of the company’s content is apolitical—and that is certainly the way the company portrays itself. A spokesperson for TheSoul Publishing commented that “[w]e are very proud of our highly popular videos enjoyed by millions around the world. From do-it-yourself craft to charming animation to riddle and puzzle videos, TheSoul Publishing showcases a portfolio of lighthearted content watched across major social platforms.”

But here’s the thing: TheSoul Publishing also posts history videos with a strong political tinge. Many of these videos are overtly pro-Russian. One video posted on Feb. 17, 2019, on the channel Smart Banana, which typically posts listicles and history videos, claims that Ukraine is part of Russia. The video opens:

Mr. Banana wants to know what you think about when you hear the word Russia. Do you think of a bear with a bottle of vodka and a balalaika in his paw, or maybe you think about President Putin and the Red Square in Moscow. Let’s have a look at the history of the biggest country in the world.

At one point, the video gives a heavily sanitized version of Josef Stalin’s time in power and, bizarrely, suggests that Alaska was given to the United States by Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev:

The second leader after Lenin’s death was Josef Stalin. He started to recover the country after the revolution. Josef reformed the country. He took the wealth from rich people and the property from the middle class and united all of these people with poor ones in the collective farm and the collective property. Russian Robin Hood—bang! Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in June of 1941. It was the beginning of the second World War. Russia was not ready for any wars at the moment, so Hitler hoped to conquer Russia in four months. As naive as Napoleon. The USSR joined the allies. The Soviet Union militaries came to Berlin and beat it. The facism of Hitler was defeated on the second of May 1945 during four years of war, the Soviet Union officially lost twenty-seven million people. Many cities were destroyed. Recovery from the war was very difficult for both people and the country. By 1960, the Soviet Union succeeded, in 1957 the rent of Alaska was over and the country’s leader at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, gifted Alaska to the USA. That’s when Alaska became the 49th state of the US.