Patriot Act Coauthor Michael Chertoff Touts More Election Security as
Federal ID System Looms
Calls to overhaul the legacy bureaucratic systems of the U.S. with
cutting-edge AI-driven mass tracking and surveillance technologies are
intensifying at the top echelons of the National Security state with all
eyes on the 2020 election.
by Raul Diego
September 11th, 2020
By Raul Diego
Keeping in line with the trend of governance consolidation taking place
among current and former members of the American political establishment,
such as the recent lovefest between ex-president George W. Bush and liberal
elites, Michael Chertoff, once Bush's DHS Secretary and coauthor of the
Patriot Act along with two of his DHS peers sat down at an event hosted by
the Atlantic Council on Wednesday to call for a "stepped-up response to
election threats."
Janet Napolitano and Jeh Johnson, both former DHS secretaries under Obama,
joined Chertoff in endorsing the findings and recommendations of a report
published by the host's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, titled
"Future DHS Project." The study was sponsored by the Science Applications
International Corporation (SAIC), a military intelligence contractor with
close ties to Michael Chertoff's D.C.-based security advisory firm, the
Chertoff Group, and Century Link; a defense telecommunications contractor,
which was just awarded a disputed $1.6 Billion contract to manage core
network and access services for the DoD.
The trio of former DHS heads warned that "Russia, China and Iran are
actively interfering in the 2020 U.S. elections," as outlined in an
assessment issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
(ODNI) in August, which reportedly contains "detailed evidence" of the
alleged interference. Janet Napolitano, who last June stepped down as
President of the University of California where she was directly implicated
in the creation of a $175 million secret slush fund, said that the
intelligence on Russian interference was "quite clear" and urged Trump to
ramp up international sanctions and "deterrence."
Chertoff, for his part, dismissed the president's ability to do anything
about the purported Russian interference because of "credibility issues" and
instead called for state and municipal authorities across the country to
implement voting security measures themselves, such as new "options for
voters to cast ballots."
A Federal ID to save us all
At a Virtual Collaboration Event that was taking place simultaneously and
organized by the FedID, "the U.S. Government's annual identity conference
since 1995," Gay Gilbert of the Department of Labor's Office of Unemployment
Insurance (OUI) delivered her remarks about the "perfect storm" for a
federal ID system.
Gilbert, a 10-year veteran of the OUI, is in charge of processing
unemployment insurance claims, which skyrocketed as a result of the
Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act from an average
200,000 claims per week to over six million a week, referred to the bill as
an "amazing magnet for fraudsters." According to Gilbert, "billions of
dollars [are] walking out the door under these programs due to identity
theft," adding that other agencies are going through the same thing.
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.
MintPress News | Raul Diego | Aug 26
The severe strain imposed by pandemic-response legislation and a stalled
economy on U.S. bureaucratic institutions is opening the door for private
sector companies like SAIC and Century Link, to undertake the massive
overhaul of its 'legacy' systems to integrate emerging cloud-based,
AI-powered governance and security structures.
Michael Mosier, deputy director and digital innovation officer at the
Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FCEN) of the U.S. Treasury Department,
stated that due to the "billions of compromised credentials" swimming
through cyberspace, there is "a very high likelihood that a lot of users in
the U.S. financial system have had some sort of information about themselves
compromised at some point."
The solution to these problems, they assert, is a new federal identity
management system underpinned by a federal digital ID, which Benji
Hutchinson, vice president of NEC Corp., believes is a trend that began in
the aftermath of 9-11, that is now reaching critical velocity as a result of
"pandemic things."
The cost of chaos
A federal ID system comes hand in hand with a federal police force, which is
now in the offing as calls to "defund the police" are dovetailing perfectly
with efforts to implement an AI-driven mass surveillance apparatus by people
like former Google and Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt, who heads the National
Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence NSCIA and who also, along
with other Silicon Valley billionaires, funds organizations like the
"bipartisan" New America, which looks to confront "the challenges caused by
rapid technological and social change and seizing the opportunities those
changes create."
As Defense Bill Divides Senate, the Pentagon Shows a Crack in the Armor
The post 9-11 reality of the Department of Homeland Security may be coming
to an end, but what lies ahead for the national security state?
MintPress News | Raul Diego | Aug 17
Among those opportunities, apparently, is the 2020 U.S. presidential
election, which another "bipartisan" organization, "convened" by New America
senior fellow Rosa Brooks, called the Transition Integrity Project (TIP),
has been "war-gaming" the election since its inception. As Whitney Webb
reports, TIP produced several "scenarios" in their table-top exercises about
what would take place should there be a contested election or a Trump
victory. In all outcomes, chaos ensues and a number of unconstitutional
measures are taken by the "Never Trumper" networks in both parties to
guarantee a Biden presidency.
The "perfect storm" Gilbert talked about could very well spill over into the
streets of America as election-day nears and the pandemic-induced coma, that
afflicts the American economy will, no doubt, leave the most vulnerable
among us in a precarious situation with only the power to accept what is
offered by the ever-encroaching tentacles of the burgeoning technocratic
state composed of members of the 'uniparty'.
Betting on all horses
Pandemic things also figured in Chad Wolff's "State of the Homeland" address
at DHS headquarters on this same, eventful day. The acting head of DHS
praised Donald Trump's "decisive and rapid action" over the nation's
COVID-19 response, which "led to our federal government to pursue a
whole-of-America response."
Political rhetoric aside, Wolf echoed the same "concerns" presented by his
predecessors at the Atlantic Council's event in regards to the challenges
presented by "new aggressive tactics" targeting the United States "through
cyber and economic means." Wolff bolstered the role of the Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in "guarding against nation-state
actors' cyber-enabled espionage and malicious influence activity aimed at
all levels of government and industry" and its funding of the Election
Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC); a cyber
threat monitoring initiative operated by the Center for Internet Security,
which "deploys and monitors intrusion detection systems on election
infrastructure across all 50 states," according to Wolff.
Among other resources, EI-ISAC offers Google and Alphabet's "suite of free
tools" called Protect Your Election for "candidates, campaigns, publishers,
journalists, NGOs, and election monitoring sites to help protect against
digital attacks and provide reliable election information."
Former Google and Alphabet CEO, Eric Schmidt now chairs the U.S. Department
of Defense's Defense Innovation Advisory Board, in addition to his
chairmanship of the NSCAI, is leading the charge to implement an AI-driven
mass surveillance system, motivated by a desire to maintain U.S.
technological hegemony in the 21st century. Like Gilbert and NEC's
Hutchinson, Schmidt has found that the coronavirus crisis has removed many
of the "obstacles" preventing its implementation.
Indeed, Schmidt is well-positioned to take advantage. The Trump
administration has suffered from a "failure of direction, a failure of
leadership at pretty much every level of our government," Schmidt declared
last week on a podcast. A data analytics company he backed and where he is
also a board member, was hired by the Biden campaign back in April 2019.
Civis Analytics is comprised of a "group of engineers and statisticians,"
led by Obama's 2012 campaign analytics chief, Dan Wagner, who were "credited
with producing Obama's surprising 5 million-vote margin of victory,"
according to Bloomberg.
Feature photo | Michael Chertoff, former secretary of the Department of
Homeland Security, is recognized during a ribbon cutting ceremony for the
Department of Homeland Security's St. Elizabeths Campus Center Building in
Washington, June 21, 2019. Susan Walsh | AP
