Mission Creep Hits Home

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 21:11:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Evan Korth <korth () cs nyu edu>
Subject: Mission Creep Hits Home
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
=
This article from the LA Times regarding the military's domestic
surveillance operations may be of interest to IP'ers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-arkin23nov23,1,4697051.story

Mission Creep Hits Home

SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. . Preoccupied with the war in Iraq and still
traumatized by Sept. 11, 2001, the American public has paid little
attention to some of what is being done inside the United States in the
name of anti-terrorism. Under the banner of "homeland security," the
military and intelligence communities are implementing far-reaching
changes that blur the lines between terrorism and other kinds of crises
and will break down long-established barriers to military action and
surveillance within the U.S.

"We must start thinking differently," says Air Force Gen. Ralph E. "Ed"
Eberhart, the newly installed commander of Northern Command, the
military's homeland security arm. Before 9/11, he says, the military and
intelligence systems were focused on "the away game" and not properly
focused on "the home game." "Home," of course, is the United States.

Eberhart's Colorado-based command is charged with enhancing homeland
security in two ways: by improving the military's capability to defend the
country's borders, coasts and airspace . unquestionably within the
military's long-established mission . and by providing "military
assistance to civil authorities" when authorized by the secretary of
Defense or the president.

That too may sound unexceptionable: The military has long had mechanisms
to respond to a request for help from state governors. New after 9/11 are
more aggressive preparations and the presumption that local government
will not be able to carry the new homeland security load. Being the
military, moreover, contingency planners approach preparing by assuming
the worst. All of this is a major . and potentially dangerous . departure
from past policy.

The U.S. military operates under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which
prohibits the direct use of federal troops "to execute the laws" of the
United States. The courts have interpreted this to mean that the military
is prohibited from any active role in direct civilian law enforcement,
such as search, seizure or arrest of civilians.

"There are abundant reasons for rejecting the further expansion of the
military's domestic role," says Mackubin T. Owens, a professor of strategy
and force planning at the Naval War College. Looking at the issue
historically, Owens wrote in an August 2002 essay in the National Review's
online edition that "the use of soldiers as a posse [places] them in the
uncomfortable position of taking orders from local authorities who had an
interest in the disputes that provoked the unrest in the first place."
Moreover, Owens said, becoming more involved in domestic policing can be
"subtle and subversive . like a lymphoma or termite infestation." Though
we are far from having "tanks rumbling through the streets," he said, the
potential long-term effect of an increasing military role in police and
law enforcement activities is "a military contemptuous of American society
and unresponsive to civilian authorities."

Eberhart says his Northern Command operates scrupulously within the bounds
of the law. "We believe the [Posse Comitatus] Act, as amended, provides
the authority we need to do our job, and no modification is needed at this
time," he told the House Armed Services Committee in March.

Of course, what he knows is that amendments approved by Congress in 1996
for that earlier civilian war, the war on drugs, have already expanded the
military's domestic powers so that Washington can act unilaterally in
dispatching the military without waiting for a state's request for help.
Long before 9/11, Congress authorized the military to assist local law
enforcement officials in domestic "drug interdiction" and during terrorist
incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the
president, after proclaiming a state of emergency, can authorize
additional actions.

Indeed, the military is presently operating under just such an emergency
declaration. Eberhart's command has defined three levels of operations,
each of which triggers a larger set of authorized activities. The levels
are "extraordinary," "emergency" and "temporary." At the "temporary"
level, which covers such things as the Olympic Games or the Super Bowl,
limited assistance can be provided to law enforcement agencies when a
governor requests it, primarily in such areas as logistics, transportation
and communications. During "emergencies," the military can provide similar
support, mostly in response to specific events such as the attacks on the
World Trade Center.

It is only in the case of "extraordinary" domestic operations that the
unique capabilities of the Defense Department are deployed. These include
not just such things as air patrols to shoot down hijacked planes or the
defusing of bombs and other explosives, , but also bringing in
intelligence collectors, special operators and even full combat troops.

Given the absence of terrorist attacks inside the United States since
9/11, it may seem surprising that Northern Command is already working
under the far-reaching authority that goes with "extraordinary
operations." But it is.

"We are not going to be out there spying on people," Eberhart told PBS'
NewsHour in September. But, he said, "We get information from people who
do." Some of that information increasingly comes not from the FBI or those
charged with civilian law enforcement but from a Pentagon organization
established last year, the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). The
seemingly innocuous CIFA was originally given the mission of protecting
the Defense Department and its personnel, as well as "critical
infrastructure," against espionage conducted by terrorists and foreign
intelligence services.

But in August, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expanded CIFA's
mission, charging it with maintaining "a domestic law enforcement database
that includes information related to potential terrorist threats directed
against the Department of Defense." The group's Assessments and Technology
Directorate, which shares offices with the Justice Department's Foreign
Terrorist Tracking Task Force, has already identified 200 foreign
terrorist suspects in the U.S., according to a Defense Department report
to Congress.

This year, the Pentagon inspector general authorized assigning military
special agents to 56 FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force operations at FBI
field offices. These military agents will pursue leads in local
communities of potential threats to the military. Eberhart also plans to
have his own cadre of agents working with local law enforcement. Next
year, he plans to transform Joint Task Force Six, a drug interdiction unit
of 160 military personnel at Ft. Bliss, Texas, into Joint Interagency Task
Force North. The new task force will be given nationwide responsibility
for working with law enforcement agencies.

CIFA, moreover, has been given a domestic "data mining" mission: figuring
out a way to process massive sets of public records, intercepted
communications, credit card accounts, etc., to find "actionable
intelligence." "Homeland defense relies on the sharing of actionable
intelligence among the appropriate federal, state, and local agencies,"
says Lt. Gen. Edward G. Anderson III, Eberhart's deputy.

Another ambitious domestic project is being undertaken by the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which is gathering "geospatial
information" about 133 cities, the borders and seaports. This "urban data
inventory" combines unclassified and classified data (including such
things as the location of emergency services, communications,
transportation and food supplies) with a high-resolution satellite map of
the United States. When the mapping efforts are completed, a national
"spatial data infrastructure" will be created down to the house level.
Intelligence analysts speak of one day being able to identify individual
occupants, as well as their national background and political
affiliations. Though the military is just getting its systems in place,
there can be no other conclusion: Domestic surveillance is back.

It's not that we're heading toward martial law. We're not. But outside the
view of most of the public, the government is daily expanding military
operations into areas of local government and law enforcement that
historically have been off-limits. And it doesn't seem far-fetched to
imagine that those charged with assembling "actionable intelligence" will
slowly start combining databases of known terrorists with seemingly
innocuous lists of contributors to charities or causes, that membership
lists for activist organizations will be folded in, that names and
personal data of anti-globalization protesters will be run through the
"data mine." After all, the mission of Northern Command and other Pentagon
agencies is to identify groups and individuals who could potentially pose
threats to Defense Department and civilian installations.

Given all this, it might be a good time for state and local governments to
ask themselves whether the federal government, through the military, is
slowly eroding their power to manage what . for very good reasons . have
always been considered local responsibilities.

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