Slashdot Mirror
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."
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."
Many of the protesters, like my roommate, were paid and had professionals help coordinate their actions, so why would it be illegal for the other side to do the same.
You mean like those "activists" Obama had arrested in Oregon? And that Guantanamo prison that Obama never closed?
It all depends on where you're standing doesn't it?
Reminder - the Standing Rock protests were NOT just some ecologically minded people trying to stop a big corporation. They were a group backed by paid protestors with motives to stopping other energy sources. No-one ever looked into the full extent of who was paying for so many people to be able to camp out in the remote area for so long.
They were a group of money who caused vastly more pollution than they prevented (including to the water supply they were supposedly protecting!), so pretty obviously they were not ACTUALLY there to protect the environment but for other purposes, or at best as tools of groups interested in keeping energy prices high (hello Russia/Saudi Arabia).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
And if this TigerSwan outfit went a little beyond the immediate locale in their investigation, it's probably because the whole "protest" was set up by EarthFirst, which is Soros-funded, and there were a lot of tentacles to pursue. (No, the local tribes had almost nothing to do with the protest, and why had no one protested until the pipeline was almost complete? in fact one tribe didn't even show up when invited to the planning meetings. Probably a lot more interested in the land-use fees about to be paid by the pipeline.)
Funny how the pipeline is visible only as a mowed swath of grass, while the protest left behind a slum village that took a couple million in taxpayer money to clean up.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The energy companies are the target of a organized coalition of devoted leftists whose goal is the destruction of modern technological civilization. One tactic to is create some phony issue such as "water protection" to radicalize clueless sheeple. Their long range goal is a Marxist "paradise."
It is appropriate for the energy companies to gather as much information about the activities of such operatives as possible.