Cyber Command Gets New Surveillance Powers Under Guise of Battling Election
Meddling
US Cyber Command and the Pentagon are availing themselves of the Russian
meddling narratives and added a few others to justify the creation of a
cyberwar army with international and domestic capabilities via the National
Guard.
by Raul Diego
August 26th, 2020
By Raul Diego
China doesn't want Trump to win in November, according to William Evanina,
Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC).
Russia, on the other hand, is "using a range of measures" to undermine Joe
Biden's candidacy. The intelligence official also accuses China of
"expanding its influence" ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, but
only to "deflect and counter criticism" as opposed to a direct attack on the
incumbent.
As the election nears, calls for bolstering cybersecurity efforts from the
U.S. military establishment and other quarters are intensifying. Former head
of the NSA, Mike Rogers, leaned into the Russian meddling narrative in a
recent interview with NPR to justify increased surveillance and more
proactive approaches to the ostensible "threat" posed by social media memes
and hashtags to the American electoral process. In early February, the top
three cyber chiefs pitched a social media hashtag of their own,
#Protect2020, which has been posted enthusiastically by FBI twitter
accounts, but few others.
Rogers' successor at the NSA, Gen. Paul Nakasone revealed in a Foreign
Affairs article published Tuesday, that he had received authorization to
carry out operations against Russian "interference" in the 2018 U.S. midterm
elections and had sent "an undisclosed number of defensive cyber-operators"
to countries bordering American adversaries for the purposes of defending
against foreign meddling.
Microsoft's ElectionGuard a Trojan Horse for a Military-Industrial Takeover
of US Elections
Microsoft's ElectionGuard promises to "protect" American elections from
interference, but election experts warn it could do just the opposite
MintPress News | Whitney Webb | Jul 26, 2019
Domestically, the potential targeting of American citizens as foreign actors
or agents was moved forward by Bill Barr's Justice Department in June, in
response to the Minneapolis riots, Barr released a statement naming "Antifa
and other similar groups" as possible targets of its 56 regional FBI Joint
Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) offices. In the same statement the top
prosecutor invoked the National Guard, which would be "deployed on the
streets to reestablish law and order" if necessary.
Now, the National Guard has been taken under the wing of U.S. Cyber Command,
which will coordinate a new DHS program called the Election Security Group;
a "partnership between federal, state and local government and private
sector entities", that among other things, directs state and local
governments to "disburse funds for the procurement of updated voting
equipment" and "administer statewide voter registration databases."
Hunt forward, look backwards
Mission "hunt forward" was first described in the DoD Cyber Strategy for
2018, which called for countermeasures against the "persistent campaigns" of
enemy nations like China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The 2018 operation
included "partner" nations Montenegro, Ukraine and (North) Macedonia where
U.S. cybersec troops went to work to "find [hacking tools on networks]".
The information is passed on to the newly established Election Security
Group - a "partnership between federal, state and local government and
private sector entities" - that assesses the data to determine if a threat
exists and communicates it to DHS, FBI and, notably, to the National Guard,
which allows the Pentagon "to potentially look at something that may be
occurring in the United States", according to Army Brig. Gen. William
Hartman, Cybercom's election security lead.
Cybercom is located at Fort Meade, Maryland and "directs, synchronizes, and
coordinates cyberspace planning and operations in defense of the U.S. and
its interests". Created in 2010, the military agency was elevated by the
Trump administration in 2017 on then-Defense Secretary James Mattis'
recommendation to promote Cybercom to a "Unified Combatant Command",
responsible for cyberspace operations, instead of a sub-unified command
under USSTRATCOM.
From Russiagate with love
The Russiagate narrative was established early on in the 2016 presidential
election and U.S. intelligence agencies have been sounding the alarm bells
for a repeat of supposed Russian interference in the 2020 election since
then. As November approaches, U.S. officials are ramping up the rhetoric
pointing to potential cyberattacks and election interference from their
enemies.
DARPA Launches Project CHARIOT in Bid to Shield Big Tech Profits
DARPA announces a new type of cryptography to protect the Big Tech firm
profits from the dawn of quantum computers and allow backdoor access into 3
trillion internet-connected devices. , DARPA, encryption, Internet of
Things, Project Chariot, quantum computing,
MintPress News | Raul Diego | Aug 18
Nakasone asserts that the "Chinese government uses cyber capabilities to
steal sensitive data, intellectual property, and personal data from the U.S.
government", while Russia uses "cyberspace for espionage and theft and to
disrupt U.S. infrastructure while attempting to erode confidence in the
nation's democratic processes." Iran, North Korea, and other non-aligned
nations all have their particular bone to pick with the United States,
according to the NSA chief, and it is the responsibility of Cyber Command to
thwart all of these threats.
As part of the election security strategies, an information exchange program
(IEP) called Cyber 9-Line was established to monitor domestic cases of
potential election interference through the National Guard, which will
coordinate with its National Guard Cyber Protection Team, Cybercom and the
FBI "enabling the defense of elections" by tracking down cases of election
meddling and interference by "foreign actors" in the United States. Cyber
9-Line works in partnership with the Joint Cyber Command and Control program
(JCC2) office, "which aims to provide commanders with enhanced situational
awareness and to assist in battle management as it relates to cyber."
