Winter writes: "Part of California's Inland Empire has become home to a
cottage industry of counterterrorism training in recent years aimed at
teaching people how to spot would-be terrorists before they attack. By all
accounts, those trainings failed to help anyone spot the married couple who
shot and killed 14 people and injured 22 others in San Bernardino on
December 2."
Crime scene. (photo: Mike Blake/Reuters/Landov)
Prior to San Bernardino Attack, Many Were Trained to Spot Terrorists; None
Did
By Jana Winter, The Intercept
01 January 16
In mid-November, just weeks before the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S.
soil since 9/11, the Joint Regional Intelligence Center and the sheriffs'
departments of San Bernardino and Riverside counties held the First Annual
Inland Terrorism Liaison Officer Conference in Fontana, California. The
two-day event - for law enforcement, public officials, and select members of
the private sector - included sessions like "Policing Violent Extremism" and
"Preventing Lone Wolf Attacks."
In fact, this part of California's Inland Empire has become home to a
cottage industry of counterterrorism training in recent years aimed at
teaching people how to spot would-be terrorists before they attack. By all
accounts, those trainings failed to help anyone spot Syed Rizwan Farook and
Tashfeen Malik, the married couple who shot and killed 14 people and injured
22 others at a meeting of San Bernardino County Health Department employees
on December 2.
Many of the trainings, which focus on helping attendees identify "behavioral
indicators" of potential terrorists, were held at the Ben Clark Training
Center in Riverside, California, less than 25 miles from where the attacks
took place.
These behavioral indicators have become central to the U.S. counterterrorism
prevention strategy, yet critics say they don't work. "Quite simply, they
rely on generalized correlations found in selectively chosen terrorists
without using control groups to see how often the correlated behaviors
identified occur in the non-terrorist population," Michael German, a former
FBI agent who is currently a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New
York University School of Law, told The Intercept.
The trainings are based on flawed theories that just don't stand up to
empirical scrutiny, according to German. "The FBI, [National
Counter-Terrorism Center], and [Department of Homeland Security] promote
these theories despite the fact they have been refuted in numerous academic
studies over the past 20 years," he said.
Yet the behavior indicator training business appears to be booming in
California, where the training sessions are sponsored by an alphabet soup of
counterterrorism organizations that have sprung up in recent years,
including the Joint Regional Intelligence Center; the Los Angeles chapter of
InfraGard, a partnership between the FBI and private sector; and the state
fusion center.
The Joint Regional Intelligence Center, in turn, has produced dozens of
Official Use Only intelligence bulletins focusing on behavior indicators.
One intelligence bulletin, from March 2015, identified potential indicators
of radicalization including "history of mental instability/illness";
"employment/financial problems"; and "marital/family problems."
Southern California's enthusiasm for terrorist spotting dates back to 2002,
when it was home to the first Terrorism Liaison Officer program, the
controversial initiative that enlists and credentials community members and
private sector industry representatives to report any potentially suspicious
behavior. The program was first launched out of the Los Angeles chapter of
InfraGard - which covers seven nearby counties including Riverside and San
Bernardino where the attacks occurred and the perpetrators lived; the
program has since been rolled out nationwide.
The Los Angeles chapter of InfraGard has also been a major beneficiary of
federally funded grant money for counterterrorism training. In 2013 the Los
Angeles County Board of Supervisors doubled the funding of its
multimillion-dollar sole source contract with InfraGard to $2,530,000 and
extended it through 2018.
One of the companies hired by InfraGard to conduct counterterrorism training
is CT Watch, headed by Roque "Rocky" Wicker, who also holds an executive
leadership position with the Los Angeles InfraGard chapter. Employees of CT
Watch have taught seminars, such as "Threat of ISIS and radicalization in
the homeland."
"The indicators work," Wicker told The Intercept in an interview. "Behavior
indicators work. You just need to train the right people."
If Wicker is right, then the dozens of trainings held in California over the
past year failed to train the right people to spot San Bernardino shooter
Farook, who was a state employee and would have interacted with other state
officials on a daily basis, or his friend Enrique Marquez, who was indicted
Wednesday on charges related to his role in plotting with Farook to carry
out attacks in 2011 and 2012.
In the months leading up to the attacks, law enforcement sources say
terrorism trainings had increased in response to threats specific to
California. For example, a recent issue of Dabiq, the Islamic State's
magazine, had listed potential central California targets.
Recent training sessions held in Riverside include "How to assess the threat
posed by a potential lone wolf attacker," "The Stealth Jihad in the United
States," and "Behavior threat assessment: preventing the Active Shooter,"
which took place on October 22, just weeks before the San Bernardino
shootings. The last one was designed "to equip law enforcement and security
stakeholders with the skills and tools necessary to identify potentially
violent individuals, assess the risk they pose of engaging in violence,
proactively manage the risk and prevent violent attacks - including active
shooter events."
There were also three separate "Tactical Response to School & Community
Violence" active shooter trainings in November, the most recent of which was
held on December 2, the same day as the terrorist attack. Participants in
the training were among the first to arrive at the scene of the San
Bernardino shootings.
As for why behavioral indicator spotting failed to identify the San
Bernardino shooters, one problem is simply that that the indicators are
overly broad. A local law enforcement official involved in the vetting of
suspicious activity reports in the Riverside area told The Intercept that
prior to the attack, they'd received hundreds of suspicious activity
reports, "most of which turn out to be bullshit. We run them down of course,
but mostly, it's a lot of nothing."
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Crime scene. (photo: Mike Blake/Reuters/Landov)
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/31/prior-to-san-bernardino-attack-many-were
-trained-to-spot-terrorists-none-did/https://theintercept.com/2015/12/31/pri
or-to-san-bernardino-attack-many-were-trained-to-spot-terrorists-none-did/
Prior to San Bernardino Attack, Many Were Trained to Spot Terrorists; None
Did
By Jana Winter, The Intercept
01 January 16
n mid-November, just weeks before the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S.
soil since 9/11, the Joint Regional Intelligence Center and the sheriffs'
departments of San Bernardino and Riverside counties held the First Annual
Inland Terrorism Liaison Officer Conference in Fontana, California. The
two-day event - for law enforcement, public officials, and select members of
the private sector - included sessions like "Policing Violent Extremism" and
"Preventing Lone Wolf Attacks."
In fact, this part of California's Inland Empire has become home to a
cottage industry of counterterrorism training in recent years aimed at
teaching people how to spot would-be terrorists before they attack. By all
accounts, those trainings failed to help anyone spot Syed Rizwan Farook and
Tashfeen Malik, the married couple who shot and killed 14 people and injured
22 others at a meeting of San Bernardino County Health Department employees
on December 2.
Many of the trainings, which focus on helping attendees identify "behavioral
indicators" of potential terrorists, were held at the Ben Clark Training
Center in Riverside, California, less than 25 miles from where the attacks
took place.
These behavioral indicators have become central to the U.S. counterterrorism
prevention strategy, yet critics say they don't work. "Quite simply, they
rely on generalized correlations found in selectively chosen terrorists
without using control groups to see how often the correlated behaviors
identified occur in the non-terrorist population," Michael German, a former
FBI agent who is currently a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New
York University School of Law, told The Intercept.
The trainings are based on flawed theories that just don't stand up to
empirical scrutiny, according to German. "The FBI, [National
Counter-Terrorism Center], and [Department of Homeland Security] promote
these theories despite the fact they have been refuted in numerous academic
studies over the past 20 years," he said.
Yet the behavior indicator training business appears to be booming in
California, where the training sessions are sponsored by an alphabet soup of
counterterrorism organizations that have sprung up in recent years,
including the Joint Regional Intelligence Center; the Los Angeles chapter of
InfraGard, a partnership between the FBI and private sector; and the state
fusion center.
The Joint Regional Intelligence Center, in turn, has produced dozens of
Official Use Only intelligence bulletins focusing on behavior indicators.
One intelligence bulletin, from March 2015, identified potential indicators
of radicalization including "history of mental instability/illness";
"employment/financial problems"; and "marital/family problems."
Southern California's enthusiasm for terrorist spotting dates back to 2002,
when it was home to the first Terrorism Liaison Officer program, the
controversial initiative that enlists and credentials community members and
private sector industry representatives to report any potentially suspicious
behavior. The program was first launched out of the Los Angeles chapter of
InfraGard - which covers seven nearby counties including Riverside and San
Bernardino where the attacks occurred and the perpetrators lived; the
program has since been rolled out nationwide.
The Los Angeles chapter of InfraGard has also been a major beneficiary of
federally funded grant money for counterterrorism training. In 2013 the Los
Angeles County Board of Supervisors doubled the funding of its
multimillion-dollar sole source contract with InfraGard to $2,530,000 and
extended it through 2018.
One of the companies hired by InfraGard to conduct counterterrorism training
is CT Watch, headed by Roque "Rocky" Wicker, who also holds an executive
leadership position with the Los Angeles InfraGard chapter. Employees of CT
Watch have taught seminars, such as "Threat of ISIS and radicalization in
the homeland."
"The indicators work," Wicker told The Intercept in an interview. "Behavior
indicators work. You just need to train the right people."
If Wicker is right, then the dozens of trainings held in California over the
past year failed to train the right people to spot San Bernardino shooter
Farook, who was a state employee and would have interacted with other state
officials on a daily basis, or his friend Enrique Marquez, who was indicted
Wednesday on charges related to his role in plotting with Farook to carry
out attacks in 2011 and 2012.
In the months leading up to the attacks, law enforcement sources say
terrorism trainings had increased in response to threats specific to
California. For example, a recent issue of Dabiq, the Islamic State's
magazine, had listed potential central California targets.
Recent training sessions held in Riverside include "How to assess the threat
posed by a potential lone wolf attacker," "The Stealth Jihad in the United
States," and "Behavior threat assessment: preventing the Active Shooter,"
which took place on October 22, just weeks before the San Bernardino
shootings. The last one was designed "to equip law enforcement and security
stakeholders with the skills and tools necessary to identify potentially
violent individuals, assess the risk they pose of engaging in violence,
proactively manage the risk and prevent violent attacks - including active
shooter events."
There were also three separate "Tactical Response to School & Community
Violence" active shooter trainings in November, the most recent of which was
held on December 2, the same day as the terrorist attack. Participants in
the training were among the first to arrive at the scene of the San
Bernardino shootings.
As for why behavioral indicator spotting failed to identify the San
Bernardino shooters, one problem is simply that that the indicators are
overly broad. A local law enforcement official involved in the vetting of
suspicious activity reports in the Riverside area told The Intercept that
prior to the attack, they'd received hundreds of suspicious activity
reports, "most of which turn out to be bullshit. We run them down of course,
but mostly, it's a lot of nothing."
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
