NSA Expands, Centralizes Domestic Spying
Washingtonpost.com blog 1-30-06 William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security Code Name(s) of the Week: DIAZ, Emergejust, Freedom, Highpoint, PASSGEAR, Viceroy The National Security Agency is in the process of building a new warning hub and data warehouse in the Denver area, realigning much of its workforce from Ft. Meade, Maryland to Colorado. The Denver <http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3431085> Post reported last week that NSA was moving some of its operations to the Denver suburb of Aurora. On the surface, the NSA move seems to be a management and cost cutting measure, part of a post-9/11 decentralization. "This strategy better aligns support to national decision makers and combatant commanders," an NSA spokesman told the Denver paper. In truth, NSA is aligning its growing domestic eavesdropping operations -- what the administration calls "terrorist warning" in its current PR campaign -- with military homeland defense organizations, as well as the CIA's new domestic operations Colorado. Translation: Hey Congress, Colorado is now the American epicenter for national domestic spying. In May, Dana Priest reported <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/05/AR200505050 1860.html> here in The Washington Post that the CIA was planning to shift much of its domestic operations to Aurora, Colorado. The move of the CIA's National Resources Division was then described as being undertaken "for operational reasons." The Division is responsible for exploiting the knowledge of U.S. citizens and foreigners in the United States who might have unique information about foreign countries and terrorist activities. The functions extend from engaging Iraqi or Iranian Americans in covert operations to develop information and networks in their home countries to recruiting foreign students and visitors to be American spies. Aurora is already a reconnaissance satellite downlink and analytic center focusing on domestic warning. The NSA and CIA join U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) in Colorado. NORTHCOM is post 9/11 the U.S. military command responsible for homeland defense. The new NSA operation is located at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, at a facility commonly known as the Aerospace Data Facility. According to Government <http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=28630&printerfriendlyVers=1 &> Executive Magazine -- thanks DP -- "NSA is building a massive data storage facility in Colorado, which will be able to hold the electronic equivalent of the Library of Congress every two days." This new NSA data warehouse is the hub of "data mining" and analysis development, allowing the eavesdropping agency to develop and make better use of the unbelievabytes of data it collects but does not exploit. Part of the move to Denver, Government Executive reported, was to expand NSA's base of contractors able to support its increasingly complex intelligence extraction mission. Contracting documents from 2004 and 2005 obtained by this reporter identify numerous Top Secret and compartmented computing and signals intelligence projects being run by prime contractors Lockheed Martin; Northrop Grumman Mission Systems; and Raytheon on behalf of NSA in Colorado to building the domestic warning hub and data warehouse. The projects have the code names DIAZ, Emergejust, Freedom, Highpoint, PASSGEAR, and Viceroy. Ironically, the only federal agency seemingly absent from the domestic intelligence trifecta is the Department of Homeland Security, perpetually out to lunch. Note: A free copy of my book Code Names <http://www.codenames.org/> to any reader who can tell me -- in English -- what any of these programs actually do. By William M. Arkin | January 30, 2006; 08:30 AM ET | Category: Code <http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/code_name_of_the_week/index.ht ml> Name of the Week , Intelligence <http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/intelligence/index.html> Previous: Bombing <http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/01/bombing_is_in_t.html> is in the Air | Main <http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/> Index ----<SNIP> Summary descriptions from Raytheon's "2004 Annual Report" [ http://library.corporate-ir.net/library/84/841/84193/items/155916/2004ar.pdf ] listed at Raytheon's Investor Relations [ http://investor.raytheon.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84193 <http://investor.raytheon.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=84193&p=irol-irhome> &p=irol-irhome ]: Subsection: "Intelligence and Information Systems (IIS)" p. 23, PASSGEAR, Emergejust, Highpoint National Systems - National Systems provides systems and operational support for high-performance signals intelligence and multi-INT mission/resource management and execution, signal processing and analysis; information management and knowledge discovery; and operations, maintenance and engineering support. Customers include the National Security Agency (NSA), a proprietary customer, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects agency (DARPA). Contracts include: PROCON, integrated operations support, PASSGEAR, involving processing, exploitation and dissemination systems; Emergejust, a cryptologic solutions program; and Highpoint in mission signals management. p. 24, Freedom "Strategic Imaging Systems (SIS) - SIS provides automated intelligence systems, information management and automated releasability dissemination systems; architecture design, development and integration, ground systems engineering support, operations/management, advanced data processing technology and algorithms; multi-level security architecture and accreditation. Customers include the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Air and Space Intelligence Center, Space Imaging, LLC, and various classified and proprietary governmental customers. SIS contracts include Freedom, involving life-cycle support for a large data processing center for a proprietary customer, and the MIND, which provides common ground services for a proprietary customer." Posted by: reticulant | Jan 30, 2006 6:20:39 PM | Permalink <http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/01/nsa_expands_its.html#c 13473216> Steve, your comments are absolutely germaine as regards the way Congress is looking at the whole FISA issue, and the way pundits keep misusing the term "wiretap." I think of wiretap as a circuit-based (or maybe Carnivore IP-flow-monitoring) tool used by law enforcement. You want something specific done, you seek FISA approval. NSA conducts global, always-on SIGINT. There ain't a magical force field that shuts everything down inside the US borders. There are bases like Buckley, Medina, Yakima, Ft. Huachuca that have carried on at least some ongoing broadband traffic analysis since 1978. I've always interpreted NSA promises of FISA compliance to mean, "we monitor everything globally, but we don't store or analyze anything domestically without permission." Bush's bypass-FISA orders at the very least allowed traffic analysis, and maybe deep packet inspection, without any warrants. But this is far different from "wiretap." Steve Aftergood at FAS and many other NGO analysts see this as a techno-dweeby issue that has little relevance to policy, but I see it as directly influencing policy. If members of Congress don't grasp the fundamental differences between wiretaps and SIGINT, the relevant questions about FISA won't be asked. Posted by: Loring Wirbel | Jan 30, 2006 6:08:32 PM | Permalink <http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/01/nsa_expands_its.html#c 13472843> Bush and the NSA: It's What We Don't Know That Matters Most The capability of the technologies to monitor Americans is much greater than the capability to limit those very technologies. That is why oversight and checks and balances are absolutely essential. As just one example of many: The NSA employs the most talented and sophisticated electronic and computer hackers on the planet. That's their job. The recently discovered WMF security flaw existed on the overwhelming majority of computers on the planet. The flaw is related to common picture files such as .jpg files. It is very reasonable to believe that the NSA or other intelligence agencies had this exploit at their disposal at any point in time since such files have been common. The only thing keeping the NSA from spying on average Americans by way of the this WMF exploit are the external constraints from outside the agency (eg, law and oversight). How do we know that the Bush administration has not authorized secret surveillance using exploits such as something like this? We would never know unless someone leaked that fact. Who is checking on what we don't yet know about? I thought Congress was supposed to help do that. Who is keeping such abuse of executive power in check? The technology and methods to intrude are extremely powerful ... most Americans have no real clue. If executive power is being abused, we really do have much to be concerned about. Posted by: Steve | Jan 30, 2006 5:49:39 PM | Permalink <http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/01/nsa_expands_its.html#c 13472253> As a Colorado native, I would emphasize that not all intel operations are centered at Buckley, though that base is becoming one of the largest employers in the Denver area (when the outsourced operations in the nearby CentreTech corporate park are included). There's obviously the Colorado Springs bases like Peterson and Schriever, but there's also something fishy going on in the corporate world. Corporate Office Properties Trust Inc., which operates as a real-estate "proprietary" for NSA and NRO, has begun buying up several properties in Colorado Springs. They don't buy for the prime contractors, they buy for the technical intelligence agencies, period. So the NRO/NSA/DoD functional-commands web is extending throughout the state of Colorado http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/01/nsa_expands_its.html#mo [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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