How Dumb US Intelligence Is

[Rokcet Scientist]

Paradox:

Wikileaks and Anonymous Join Forces To Reveal How Dumb Our Intelligence Is
Wednesday, Feb 29, 2012

The most recent bombshell of confidential documents dropped by infamous watchdog organization Wikileaks is already looking to have an enormous impact on our understanding of government security practices. Specifically, intimate details on the long-suspected fact that the U.S. has been paying a whole lot of money to have private corporations spy on citizens, activists and other groups and individuals on their ever-expanding, McCarthy-style shitlist. But perhaps more importantly, the docs demonstrate something very interesting about the nature of U.S. government intelligence: They haven’t really got much of it.

U.S. government intelligence contractor Stratfor is the first of the red-handed entities being outed in this newest batch of docs, which were delivered to Wikileaks care of the equally infamous hacking collective Anonymous. They show that the company, at the behest of U.S. intelligence agencies, had been conspiring a program of clandestine dragnet surveillance targeting private citizens and organizations based on political beliefs and allegiances, among other things. But what’s even more ludicrous is that the government is getting a bum deal — a look at the recently revealed “intel” reveals that a lot of it is just pure hogwash, and Stratfor very likely knows it.

In one example, emails reveal that Stratfor had been tracking the political performance art collective The Yes Men, a group famous for impersonating politicians and corporate representatives in order to showcase the absurdity and corruption present within powerful institutions. But “tracking” in this case merely involved selling the government a list of public appearances planned by the group’s members.

See also: A Timeline Detailing Anonymous and Wikileaks’ Growing Relationship

Jamal Ghosn, associate editor at the Lebanese publication Al Akhbar, a Wikileaks media partner, also reported that Stratfor employees focused on activities in that region were simply using Google Translate on their articles as a way to glean intel for the United States. Not exactly “intelligence” on either count, but very much akin to paying untold amounts for an office temp to frequently type things into a search engine. Remember to file your taxes this month, folks!

Government waste and mismanagement in the intelligence community shouldn’t be such a shocking revelation, however. At last year’s Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, former senior official of the U.S. National Security Agency, Thomas Drake warned us about the U.S. government’s ham-fisted and ineffectual intelligence-gathering programs like Trailblazer, a billion dollar effort that in the end, he says, “delivered nothing but a few PowerPoint slides.”

Meanwhile, domestic surveillance in the United States continues to expand. A Washington Post investigative series and book from last year, Top Secret America explores some of the more outward-facing evidence of much of what groups like Wikileaks and Anonymous are now beginning to confirm — an enormous network of private intelligence contractors taking from America’s indebted coffers to keep botched and inconclusive tabs on its citizenry.

Drake calls the staggering and secretive buildup of this shadow surveillance state “fundamentally anathema to our form of government.” He’s not wrong. What we may now be witnessing is the intelligence equivalent of post-9/11 military buildup in the last decade. But no matter how big and bloated they get, there’s still no guarantee that the government’s intelligence toadies will ever be able to manage the overwhelming flood of data that seems to increase exponentially in volume with every passing moment — that’s a job for a computer, if only they could get smarter.

Article: http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/2/29/wi...ligence-is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...gtPE_X_GhQ

[The Grand Nudger]

All information is useful, even if it is not intelligent.

Perhaps Stratfor is a false flag, and the real nitty gritty is another level down...lol. The notion that intelligence is somehow both pervasive and incompetent has to give one way or the other. Either they are capable of surveilling the lot of us, or they are incapable of carrying out the simplest of operations. Which is it today?

[Rokcet Scientist]

Either they are capable of surveilling the lot of us, or they are incapable of carrying out the simplest of operations. Which is it today?

Wish it were so easy: it is not either/or. It is both!
With disastrous fascistic consequences.

[The Grand Nudger]

I bet you couldn't keep your thumb on me for two miles if I didn't want you too. It does take a pretty high level of competence to carry out something like that. Surveillance itself is an operation.

I do agree though, in a way, our technological ability often exceeds our operational competency...lol. It's never the drone that hits the wrong target. Drones perform flawlessly in that regard, it's the kid pressing the button that keeps fucking it up.

[Rokcet Scientist]

I bet you couldn't keep your thumb on me for two miles if I didn't want you too.

Easy! If you don't know you are under surveillance.

Even I can do it: I could simply attach a smartphone with a tracking app to the inside of your car bumper/fender. It can sit there for years without you ever knowing about it and track you comfortably 24/7 on any internet-connected big screen map with 10 feet accuracy.

When last did you check the inside of your bumper/fender...?

[The Grand Nudger]

When did I last drive...lol? I am actually a little bit paranoid, so I don't have a bank account, I use a po box, I don't look up, always pay in cash....etc...lol.
(is a hermit)

[Rokcet Scientist]

When did I last drive...lol? I am actually a little bit paranoid, so I don't have a bank account, I use a po box, I don't look up, always pay in cash....etc...lol.
(is a hermit)

Posting here, now, is enough to track you. Unless you apply proxies, or, better, stuff like http://torproject.org for anonymous browsing.

And if you have a mobile phone (and who hasn't?) you can be, and are de facto, as we speak, tracked 24/7. As long as you have it switched on.
And what's the point of a mobile phone that is not switched on?

If you have a mobile phone 'they' can tell you exactly where you were on 23 April 2011 at 3.15 PM. While you can't!

[The Grand Nudger]

<-Doesn't have a mobile phone. Lived at 4 addresses in the last 4 years (across 3 states), rarely fills out a change of address, nothings in my name...also, I can run for a really, really, really long time.

It's harder than your imagining (or we would be better at it..and not so "dumb"). Coming from someone who does display paranoid tendencies...breathe a little easier, they're not watching as closely as you might think. Mostly because they don't give a shit, hooah?

[Rokcet Scientist]

<-Doesn't have a mobile phone. Lived at 4 addresses in the last 4 years (across 3 states), rarely fills out a change of address, nothings in my name...also, I can run for a really, really, really long time.

It's harder than your imagining (or we would be better at it..and not so "dumb"). Coming from someone who does display paranoid tendencies...breathe a little easier, they're not watching as closely as you might think.

You're posting here aren't you!

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, here, let me share a little anecdote with you, because I don't seem to be communicating very well.

When I was in the service, I spent most of my time at checkpoints. Random checkpoints, that we moved all of the time. We had a board we carried everywhere we went with a couple hundred people on it. Their photo IDs were physically pinned to the board. Out of those "persons of interest" we ended up actually finding a grand total of 0 over the course of two years. This, despite constant overhead flights by helicopter, satellite imagery, patrols on the ground, my checkpoints, random searches in private dwellings at o-dark-thirty, knowledge of where they were born, where they (supposedly) lived, their family, their friends...complete control of every road and path, and people sitting in well concealed holes in the middle of the wilderness surrounding the entire area.....which was, at best, 90 square miles.

We wanted these people, there was no oversight, no one advocating for them, no whistleblowers when we misbehaved, we had every tool at our disposal. Why didn't we find them?

so......

(forgot to mention we also had a vast network of informants)