Washington DC 16 APL 2023
These are the second and third order consequences that so far have not received much thoughtful comment.
Insider threat detection
Changed insider threat profile
Nothing appears to have been done about those who hate the government, in the government
Double standard
Baghdad Blowback
Insider Threat Detection
"In Tech We Trust" is the solution for all things national security. The DOD is responsible for millions of people and things - some of which go “bang”. Scanning is needed. However the Pentagon over-relies on technical solutions for everything when the issue is almost always cultural. In short, our mindset needs to change.
CWII has worked in SCIFs responsible for our most protected nuclear secrets. Having been granted his bright shining TSSCI + he was astonished to see people walking into the SCIF with backpacks. There were no check points. You could print out a phone book and walked out and no one would have known. This was pre Chelsea Manning but things didn’t really change all that much thereafter - except perhaps for the secret coding of printed pages that caught Reality Winner.
The system relied on trust. The people had been vetted and cleared. It had been decided somewhere that bag searches, manual or machine, was not needed. Nor were there gun detection devices that are in most schools. Guns were not allowed but there were no systems to check. There were cell phone sniffers at least. In a way, it was kind of quaint. Like pre-911 airport security where the system was not designed for a thinking opponent.
Changed Insider Threat Profile
In this case, there was an added issue of novelty. Counter intelligence uses MICE to find traitors. Money, Ideology, Compromise or Ego - are the baseline motivations of spies. In this case, it was Ego. Young Jack became a "spy" to impress children in a computer game.
I cant even believe I just wrote that.
He exposed the US, its allies and interests, fighting an active shooting war against an enemy that has repeatedly said it will use nuclear weapons that could escalate into a general nuclear war and result in the deaths of thousands of Americans - to impress 14yr old gamers. Incredibly, one of them said it was cool at first but then they just wanted to get on with the game.
I can just imagine the response of the contracting company that does the scanning for insider threats: "Oh, the algorithm didn't find that behavior because it wasn't coded. How are we expected to imagine that would happen? Now give us more money and we will get creative". A classic case of finding only what you are looking for. This misses the point entirely. It is a cultural issue and an important one. Nor is a 21 yr old airman seeking to impress children the only way society has changed that makes the current detection systems irrelevant.
"Trusted Workforce 2.0 Continuous Vetting" (TW 2.0) is a major reform of the clearance process that is currently being rolled out. Instead of conducting a one-off review every 5 or 10 years, there is a continuous vetting process to constantly scan credit reports, foreign travel, bank records, and “public records”. The USG outsources this to companies like Experian and Intelius. If you have ever got a copy of your credit report, you know how fallible they can be and hard to correct. It’s not exactly the pin-point perfection of espionage movies.
Even worse…
TW 2.0 does not scan social media.
So government employees with high level security clearances could be plotting the next J6 on social media and government constant vetting would never discover the plot.1 The reason of course is the first amendment. Only in America could your right to plot against the government be protected!2 The 20 min computer based security training for clearance holders has a multiple choice questionaire that asked "if a colleague complains about the government, should you report them". The acceptable answer is "no". After all, who wants to live in a Stasi world?
The problem with this is the insider threat game has changed along with social norms and the rise in domestic insecurity.
As in the society it serves, the civil service is likely filled with ~50% of people who believe Fox propaganda [that Fox itself does not believe] that the election was stolen. Of those, an unknown proportion support anti-democratic efforts, and some, violently. The CWII series on the penetration and compromise of the United States Secret Service by maga is a case in point.
Nothing appears to have been done about those who hate the government, in the government.
Extremists are not limited to the USSS. Classified chat rooms reportedly turned into Twitteresque dumpster fires in 2019. This continues to this day, as independently confirmed to CWII by sources.
Worse, the ‘maga deep state’ are cheered on by anti-government Members of Congress who are busy spinning Teixeria as a hero, as they did for J6 terrorists in jail. These are the same ones attacking the DOD as “woke” to score political points against “Biden” when in fact they are falsely undermining the military. The same military they want to fail in Ukraine so Putin wins.
Teixeria’s actions were not political. But that fact wont stop the usual suspects from using him to continue their agenda to bring down democracy. How is it that they continue to have the freedom to incite rebellion?
If we saw this in a developing country we would assess a coup by an anti government faction was immanent.
Except, it's already happened! In failure, J6 simply became training day. Plans for coup 2.0 continues apace - just look at the efforts being put in to normalize violence against the government by a former President and his active terrorist cell in Congress. None of this is capable of being detected by the vetting of our most trusted national security experts. There is something seriously wrong with this picture.
Double Standard
America is behaving lawlessly. As soon as the system finally caught up with Jack Teixeria he was arrested and will likely not get bail. Yet Donald Trump walks free years after his crimes, including stealing classified documents.3 Comparing the Teixeria and Trump cases exposes the foundational concept that everyone is "equal before the law" as an empty slogan. Trump, lets us not forget, mounted a coup against the country and is on the record calling for the constitution to be terminated, for terrorists to be freed, for officers of various courts to be harmed, and for civil war.
Baghdad Blowback
If there is a deep state our security clearance vetting process will not find it. Trusted Workforce 2.0 will not be improved to scan for pro-violence anti government coup plotters inside the national security state. There are two key reasons for this. One, they still cant imagine the threat is real. Two, if the government was cleansed of all hard core maga, thousands would be on the streets. It would be like disbanding the Iraqi Army. With nothing else to do, they would organize and mount an active insurgency.
It’s hard to know if this is a conscious decision or an accident of inertia. It’s like Trumps covid testing mantra “you only find it if you test for it”.
The US has a security culture inside the government that inadvertently or not, is enabling coup plotters with high level security clearances to plot in place. We have no idea how many there are, how active they are or what their plan will be, because security refuse to test for anti government plots. If the culture of security is not updated, when it fails you can just blame the technology then ask for more money to fix the problem.
Thats not security vetting 2.0, thats government 101.
Social media was teaming with threats pre J6. Despite some denials, the FBI and other agencies conduct warrantless scans of publicly available social media looking for threats. But that is not connected to the government security clearance process. More on general public social media surveillance in a future post.
Of course that is not how the government would characterize the protection, but that is its result if the system does not change to account for the anti-democracy faction within the government.
Asked nicely, Trump handed some things back after denying he had anything. Eventually subpoenaed, he handed more back. His lawyers signed court documents testifying all was returned. It was a lie. The subsequent FBI raid found more than 700 pages of TSSCI and Secret materials related to nuclear matters.