Leaked 'Standing Rock' Documents Reveal Invasive Counterterrorism Measures (theintercept.com)

An anonymous reader writes: "A shadowy international mercenary and security firm known as TigerSwan targeted the movement opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline with military-style counterterrorism measures," reports The Intercept, decrying "the fusion of public and private intelligence operations." Saying the private firm started as a war-on-terror contractor for the U.S. military and State Department, the site details "sweeping and invasive" surveillance of protesters, citing over 100 documents leaked by one of the firm's contractors.

The documents show TigerSwan even havested information about the protesters from social media, and "provide extensive evidence of aerial surveillance and radio eavesdropping, as well as infiltration of camps and activist circles... The leaked materials not only highlight TigerSwan's militaristic approach to protecting its client's interests but also the company's profit-driven imperative to portray the nonviolent water protector movement as unpredictable and menacing enough to justify the continued need for extraordinary security measures... Internal TigerSwan communications describe the movement as 'an ideologically driven insurgency with a strong religious component' and compare the anti-pipeline water protectors to jihadist fighters."
The Intercept reports that recently "the company's role has expanded to include the surveillance of activist networks marginally related to the pipeline, with TigerSwan agents monitoring 'anti-Trump' protests from Chicago to Washington, D.C., as well as warning its client of growing dissent around other pipelines across the country." They also report that TigerSwan "has operated without a license in North Dakota for the entirety of the pipeline security operation."

Comments

Re: Priorities

[JaredOfEuropa]

That sounds a lot like what we call "public insubordination" around here, nothing terrible. Don't get me wrong, I don't know anything about the rights and wrongs around this particular pipeline, but in case of local protests against infrastructural projects I almost invariably find myself opposed to the protestors after weighing the pros and cons. Not a fan of tree-huggers... especially "professional" ones. But it sure sounds like whatever TigerSwan got up to is a real concern for any liberty-minded citizen, even if what they did turns out to be technically legal, and even if they happen to be on the right side of this issue.

Oil companies have lots of money

[Applehu Akbar]

I wish the builders of other infrastructure could afford a counter protest force like this one. We could get that telescope built on Maunakea, get some new-generation nuclear plants started if we wished to get serious about carbon, and California could finally finish its bullet train.

Stop virtue signalling

[AHuxley]

When people protested in East Germany, people who risked at lot by using a television camera did not get caught.

Dont use your own equipment. If your wealthy enough to be able to afford to protest all day, buy an older weather sealed dslr camera and lens. No need for in camera wifi. Use the card to get your files to a computer of editing and upload later.
Ensure the serial number in the camera is not linked to your name with every file uploaded or created.
Take some images and video of the protest. Remove any camera serial numbers in the files, edit, add a voice over and your groups logo and branding, compress, then upload it using some existing network and on a computer that won't be used later.
Do not take a "computer" thats "fast" or "sealed against the weather" from protest to protest. Dont use wifi or networking from your computer like device.
Sneaker net your video file to a final separate, cheap device just for fast networking.

All MAC and any other unique details about all networks will be collected on.
Think about what device connects to that final network to send a file to the world. A random strangers offer of a free network, computer help could be an undercover contractor or police wanting to get more direct access to your hardware and software, OS.
Protect your devices and equipment from digital tracking and "new" best friends or "smart" friendly strangers with free offers of help.
Police and contractors can be anyone, thats why they are doing undercover work in protests. Some are past protesters who had to make a deal with the police to stay free. They have to collect it all and work very hard at making new friends.
While a protester might have been taking years of French or arts at some liberal university, police and contractors learned how to become "protesters" over the years.
The undercover officers offers will be for device access to help with "media" or "editing"

Every face at a protest will be stored for facial recognition. Any and all networks or networked devices will be collected on.
Read up on what the NSA, GCHQ, CIA and other 5 eye nations do when they "collect it all".
The same ability is now on the open market at a low cost for a city, state or contractor. Dont trust any hardware, software or OS thats been near a protest after a protest.
Anyone could have added code, altered the device, accessed the OS or collected its network details.
Ensure the only collection a city or federal gov or its contractors can do is facial recognition. Keep your hardware and software way from their networks.
A streaming cell phone is great for recoding an event and not having data erased on site but it comes with the cost of collection and device or OS alteration.
Dont bring malware pushed down a network home after a protest. If your security aware, use dedicated devices as bait and see if any devices are altered. Study bait hardware later under Tempest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... conditions but don't allow your own deices to get altered to test for such gov/police/contractor pushed malware.

The final thing to consider is the new stranger in your group. Get them talking about their past and get their image and see what different free and other image search products find online.
City or state contractors might not have the skills to remove all past images or their story will not mach a few traces found online.
Federal and contractors working undercover have the ability to rewrite online social media so their undercover "story" will mach perfectly to any and all online data sets that can be searched for.
If your protest group has some international funding, take the image to any of the big national private detective groups in the USA.
Their social media databases are long term, static, always updating and do not get altered like the online consumer networks.
They can rewind most accounts to creation and see ho

Re:Priorities

[dwillden]

It's legal because TigerSwan was not operating on behalf of the government. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights restrict the actions of the government and of private companies and individuals acting on behalf of the government.

TigerSwan was acting on behalf of the Pipeline company, which having invested large sums and built nearly the entire pipeline before this even became an issue, had a right to try to protect their operations and investment from protestors trying to damage their operations and equipment. TigerSwan broke no laws in their collection of information about potential threats to their employer's equipment, personnel and operations.

Such a security company would of course be in contact with police agencies. I would be more concerned had they been operating without such contacts. The fact that they are passing information about what they are observing and their actions, indicates that they were concerned about not stepping across the line into illegal actions.

If someone can point to documents showing where the government agencies (local, state or federal) tasked them to collect such information then we have crossed into illegal actions. But all this "report" states is that they coordinated with law enforcement which means they provided information about what they were doing and seeing. Unless tasked to collect the information (thus making them an agent of the government) they are free to collect any information they so choose (as long as the collection method is not illegal but this article gave no indication of such).

Disagreeing with the pipeline does not make the pipeline company, or it's security company lawbreakers. Before you claim illegal or unconstitutional activities, you must know what qualifies as such.