Holiday Cheer From DHS (And That's No Disinformation)

It's holiday time once more, and one of the traditional ways we observe the season here in Washington DC is by sending out a new threat advisory to all our fellow citizens from the folks at Homeland Security. Please enjoy. 

This year's holiday wishes from DHS are really no different from previous years. You can see this post on the same subject from way back in 2008 (!) for instance. 

I get it that these vague 'we-have-nothing-specific-but,-hey,-you-never-know,-anything-could-happen-in-this-crazy-world' advisories are just bureaucratic ass covering exercises. You can't have a DHS without that. But their all-purpose language and the way they are linked to every kind of special occasion make them the USG's version of Hallmark cards. 

As my contribution to the tradition of pointless panic mongering, let me repeat this bit of doggerel from that 2008 post: 

Roses are red, violets are blue, here's a new analytical note for you.  

You might be attacked this holiday season or maybe not, who can tell? (there's no reason). 

Our warnings we can't substantiate, and against them there's no way to mitigate.  

But take it from us and start to panic, one day you'll go down just like the Titanic. 

We've been wrong in the past, but that's OK, al Qaeda will strike again one of these days.  

Maybe not now but someday, and soon, we'll be right if we keep predicting your doom. 

Read us and worry, you never can tell, it will do you no good, but then, what the hell?  

It keeps us employed and no one minds, So believe all our notes and our portents and signs!

Miss Dismal Now Has a Name, and a Voice

The Biden administration rolled out its Disinformation Governance Board this week, in an announcement by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas while addressing Congress on Wednesday. 

The DGB seems to not have any legal powers of its own, but will be part of the Biden administration’s Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, so I suppose that federal grants will be the DGB’s weapon of choice against mis-dis-and-mal information. 

Best of all, Miss Dismal now has a face, and a voice. She is Nina Jankowicz, age 33, Executive Director of the DGB and someone with a fabulous musical legacy on social media.* 

I have many questions, and none of them were answered by Secretary Mayorkas. Like, how will the DGB spot mis-dis-and-mal information and then fish it out of the endless stream of news and opinion? Does it have some kind of Dipstick of Truth for measuring the depth and trustworthiness of foreign discourse? Can social media ever be truly Sanitized For Your Protection? And, by what means will the DGB examine a statement by you, me, or anyone else and determine its bona fides? 

Well, he didn't say, so that’s where you just have to have blind faith in the power of government to know what’s best for you. 

In related news this week, the United States – which, remember, invented the Internet – launched the Declaration for the Future of the Internet.** 

According to the White House Spokesperson:

On the international front — what we’re talking about today — we have seen a trend of rising digital authoritarianism, where some states have been acting to repress freedom of expression, to censor independent news sources, to interfere with elections, promote disinformation around the world, and deny their citizens other human rights.

I’m glad my own government doesn’t repress free expression, censor news sources, or do any of that digital authoritarianism stuff. No, it just works with tech companies to do that stuff on its behalf, which is different. To quote the White House spokesperson, they are "flagging problematic posts for Facebook" and "helping to get trusted content out there," and what could be wrong with that? *** 

I mean, unless you're the kind of American who harbors untrusted information. If that's the case, then Miss Dismal and the DGB will set you straight.     

And when my government interferes with elections it does so only for the purpose of promoting Democracy.**** As is well known, Democracy can’t defend itself forever from voters who harbor “unacceptable views,” to quote our neighbor to the North, ‘Jackboots’ Justin Trudeau.***** 

In fact, my government has a long and proud history of forcing democracy upon recalcitrant foreign nations, even if we need to use military force to make them achieve their Democratic Destiny. ****** 

Nothing can possibly go wrong with this Disinformation Governance Board. At least, not unless someone such as Ron DeSantis wins the election in 2024, because he’s just the sort who would use the info-policing powers of DHS for, frankly, partisan purposes.

* Certified True Fact ™ here (among many other performances, which you may google for yourself) 

** Certified True Fact ™ here 

*** Certified True Fact ™ here 

**** Certified True Fact ™ here

***** Certified True Fact ™ here 

****** Certified True Fact ™ here 

 

Pistols, Patches, and Pelican Cases = All It Takes To Cosplay as a Cop

The latest Secret Service scandal rolls on, along with conspiracy theories fueled by the Pakistan national identity card and the two passports with Iranian visas and entry/exit stamps that were found in the several apartments occupied by those two curious characters. 

But here's my favorite part of Washington's fake DHS agents scandal, the freebies those two got just for pretending to be cops:

A former representative of Crossing DC who worked at the building since the start of Taherzadeh's lease confirmed that none of the units were being paid for at any time. When asked why they were not paying rent on the units, the individual responded with one word: 'Government'.

Government?! Has that ever worked for you? I know it hasn't worked for me, but then, I admit I've never tried asking my mortgage holder if I could skip making payments because "Government."

Read the criminal complaint here and take note of the remarkably thin window dressing that was all it took to convince at least five Secret Service agents plus local Metro Police officers that those two wild and crazy guys were actually federal law enforcement officers. They carried the correct pistols for Secret Service agents, first a SIG 229 and then a Glock 19, even exchanging insider tidbits about the Glock transition course which the real Secret Service agents - AKA dupes - were taking. Sprinkle around a few shoulder patches and pose for a photo in front of a closet shelf stacked with Pelican gun cases and, why, anyone would be fooled. I mean, they would, wouldn't they?

Maybe it was giving the credulous cops free use of apartments and vehicles that overcame any doubts they may have secretly harbored. Anyway, the scam worked fine until it encountered a Postal Inspector, i.e., a law enforcement officer from one of the humbler and less romanticized federal agencies, who saw through the costumes.   

As an aside, I am kind of pleased to learn that DC city cops never questioned either the open or concealed carry of pistols by those two fraudulent feds. Despite all the gun bans in DC, it seems you may walk around armed so long as you add a little police paraphernalia to your daily wear. Hey, I have gun belts and other pieces of equipment with which to accessorize my office garb, why haven't I ever tried just adding a pistol and a couple magazines? It seems that might work.

As yet a further aside, I recall reading in G. Gordon Liddy's autobiography that when he first came to Washington as a political appointee in the Treasury Department he phonied-up a badge and credentials for himself as an excuse to - illegally - carry a pistol. Since Treasury was known to have lots of obscure law enforcement functions, he reasoned, he would be able to brazen it out should a local cop ever question his gun. Today, it's DHS that is know to have myriad obscure law enforcement functions, so its the clear choice for today's fraudsters.

In Today's News, Phony DHS Cops Dupe Real Secret Service Agents

A very weird news item that explains why a DC apartment building was raided yesterday. https://t.co/Sz2MEFV36m

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) April 7, 2022

The Secret Service has had its fair share of scandals, and more, but a new one is shaping up today that might be particularly damning because it is the rare one that involves professional misjudgment rather than personal misbehavior.

According to the Daily Mail:

[Arian] Taherzadeh and [Haider] Ali are accused of posing as members of a fake Department of Homeland Security taskforce investigating gang violence and the January 6 Capitol riots. The pair, whose nationalities have not been revealed, are said to have driven around in an official-looking SUV equipped with flashing lights.

They are said to have successfully ingratiated themselves with Secret Service agents, who they supplied with rent-free luxury apartments, high-end electronics and policing equipment. Four members of the agency - including the first lady's bodyguard - have been placed on leave, with their identities not revealed.

In one instance, Taherzadeh allegedly offered a member of First Lady Jill Biden's security detail with a $2,000 assault rifle. He and Ali also reportedly supplied a USSS agent with a penthouse apartment valued at more than $40,000 a year.

It is unclear what they had hoped to gain from the ruse, and prosecutors say the investigation is ongoing, even as four members of the Secret Service - including the one from the first lady's security detail - have been placed on leave.

According to the WaPo (here) this genius scheme to do who-knows-what was foiled when the phony DHS agents voluntarily assisted a Postal Inspector who was investigating an assault on a mailman which they, eagled-eyed and on high alert as always for signs of terrorist activity, claimed to have witnessed.

The [Postal] inspector learned the men were in contact with several members of the Secret Service and had provided gifts to them or their families and use of the SUV, the affidavit states. The document did not explain how the inspector learned about the gifts.

The inspector informed [the real] DHS, which then informed the FBI.

Wow. Assuming the details being reported are true and even close to complete, there ought to be a lot of egg on a lot of federal law enforcement faces today.

Miss Dismal Says Unapproved Information Is Dangerous, Read Her Comic Book To Learn More

It was a bright cold day in February and the clocks were striking thirteen when Homeland Security's latest Summary of the Terrorism Threat to the United States popped up on my telescreen.

(Forget I said that. I should cut out the 1984 references for fear that DHS will suspect me of thoughtcrime.)

So the latest threat to America's homeland comes from MDM, or Mis-Dis-and-Mal Information, and it will take trained info-cops from Homeland Security to police the marketplace of ideas for anything that might mislead, harm, or manipulate you and me.

I say, first of all, Mis-Dis-Mal needs an acronym you can pronounce, something like "Miss Dismal." Second, it needs a good judicial review because, hard as it may be to believe, there are some people who would not want federal agents and their contractors policing our public and private media for signs of MDM.

What would Thomas Jefferson say about this initiative? Or about Homeland Security itself, I wonder? But before I get on a watchlist for wondering about that, I'll stay on the safe side and let the trained info-cops of DHS explain:

Misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation make up what CISA [Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency] defines as “information activities”. When this type of content is released by foreign actors, it can be referred to as foreign influence. Definitions for each are below.

• Misinformation is false, but not created or shared with the intention of causing harm.

• Disinformation is deliberately created to mislead, harm, or manipulate a person, social group, organization, or country.

• Malinformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.

What should our corps of trained professional info-cops do about the threat posed by Miss Dismal? Naturally, it should deploy comic books – yes, comic books – to counter the influence spread by any malign 'threat actor.'

Foreign and domestic threat actors use MDM campaigns to cause chaos, confusion, and division. These malign actors are seeking to interfere with and undermine our democratic institutions and national cohesiveness. The resources provided at the bottom of this page provide examples and more information about MDM activities.

First in the series, Real Fake demonstrates how threat actors capitalize on political and social issues (especially around election cycles) to stealthily plant doubt in the minds of targeted audiences and steer their opinion.

Readers follow protagonists Rachel and Andre as they discover that a command center in Russia is using a network of troll farms to spread false narratives about elections to American voters. With the elections coming up, Rachel and Andre follow the trail of synthetic media and stop the cyber assailants from causing chaos, confusion, and division.

They're calling this comic book "Real Fake?” Really? I wonder who it was in DHS who greenlighted that term because it makes me recall the “fake but accurate” excuse that Dan Rather came up with after he was fired from CBS News for using forged documents to – come to think of it – influence an election.

Rathergate was big news once, but that was back in 2004, when most of today’s DHS employees were in grade school. See the CBS News' final word on it here: CBS Ousts Four For Bush Guard Story.

This is where things get funny, because Rathergate had a simply hilarious aspect in that Rather and his producers exposed George W. Bush’s purported misdeeds by producing four old Texas Air National Guard memos. The perfect smoking gun, right?

But, as some TV viewers noticed the very night the story was broadcast, those memos, which were dated in 1972 and ‘73, had been typed in Microsoft Word with default settings. They had proportionally spaced font, and even superscripts (as in Rathergate), things that did not become available to office workers until Steve Jobs invented the MacIntosh computer

Although Rather still keeps on defending himself all these many years later, game over, man. Those documents weren’t fake but accurate, they were just plain fake.

I don’t think DHS intended for Americans to associate their Mis-Dis-and-Mal-fighting comic books with that failed attempt to influence the 2004 election. Although, I would be totally open to a comic book series based on Rathergate.

DOD Support to Federal Law Enforcement at the Southwest Border

U.S. Northern Command continues providing military support to the DHS and CBP to secure the SWB of the United States. See the following statement for information on DOD support at the San Ysidro POE. @DeptofDefense @USArmyNorth @CBP @DHSgov pic.twitter.com/LjUQ1h3anc

— NORAD & USNORTHCOM (@Norad_Northcom) November 25, 2018

DOD just provided a simple answer to the question of whether U.S. military troops will be conducting law enforcement activities on the Mexican border. They will not, but they will provide force protection for federal law enforcement personnel. For example, riot control.

Photo from NORAD and U.S. Northcom Facebook

This is nothing new. We trained at riot control formations way back in my own Military Police days, when Reagan was President and there were still vivid memories of Army support to domestic law enforcement during the riots of the '60s and '70s.

The Department of Homeland Security - What's It Good for?

Tonight's vote in the House to extend full DHS funding for another three weeks failed, and failed by a good margin - 224 to 203. There is time for another vote before DHS funding runs out at midnight, but I would not bet that Speaker Boehner can turn enough of his rebellious members to pass an unamended bill tonight.

Would it really be such a great big deal if DHS went into a 'shutdown' mode while Congress, the courts, and the President duke it out over the latter's refusal to deport millions of illegal aliens?

Maybe DHS is the only thing that stands between us and a terrorist invasion of the Mall of America, like Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson says. Or, maybe we wouldn't miss it much if it were gone for a while.

As Foreign Policy magazine asks, Who Needs the Department of Homeland Security Anyway?

With two days left until funding for the Department of Homeland Security dries up, Jeh Johnson has been pleading with Republicans to save his department from a partial shutdown.

That job might be easier if the 12-year-old department weren’t so widely derided on Capitol Hill and beyond for its size and clumsiness.

-- snip --

[E]ven the entreaties of the two Republican heavyweights weren’t enough to stop a letter campaign by 30 House conservatives urging House Speaker John Boehner to “stand firm against these unlawful executive actions” and reject an emerging funding deal brokered by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

-- snip --

[That deal] may be a tough sell, in large part because Johnson’s dire warnings about the impact of a budget cutoff ring hollow. One reason is practical: 80 percent of DHS employees are deemed “essential” to national security and would still show up to work in a shutdown — albeit without pay. All core functions of agencies such as Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Secret Service would remain intact; the only people from the department’s 240,000-person workforce who would be furloughed would be 30,000 nonessential employees, mostly office workers.

-- snip --

But another reason for the lack of urgency boils down to one word: respect.

-- snip --

The fact that the FBI, the agency tasked to “protect and defend” against “terrorist and foreign intelligence threats” is housed outside DHS indicates the department’s awkward and uncertain place in America’s national security bureaucracy.

“DHS’s biggest problem is that it is still less than the sum of its parts,” said Daniel Byman, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University and a contributor to Foreign Policy. “The whole point of it was integration of homeland security functions, but it is still a divided organization with few synergies — so it has the problems of a big organization without the benefits.”

-- snip --

“The irony in that complaint [referring to blame-shifting by DHS's defenders] is that the very reason DHS was founded was to deal with the problem of insufficient coordination within the government,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “If DHS failed to solve that problem, it’s unclear why it exists.”

-- snip --

Another concern is that the department, forged in a fearful post-9/11 environment, owes its existence to a wildly exaggerated understanding of the terrorist threat to the United States. As Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, has pointed out, Americans are substantially more endangered by threats such as infectious disease, gun violence, and drunk driving than terrorism. In fact, the odds of being killed in a terrorist attack in the United States or abroad are 1 in 20 million.

“This low risk isn’t evidence that homeland security spending has worked: It’s evidence that the terror threat was never as great as we thought,” wrote Kenny.

-- snip --

Although a shutdown still looms, most observers expect House Republicans to cave in to political pressure and pass a “clean” funding bill by the end of the week. Either way, at a time when U.S. media attention on terrorist threats is at an all-time high, it’s ironic that a department dedicated to homeland security has such a hard time justifying its existence. And until it finds more solid footing within the national security bureaucracy, that problem isn’t likely to go away soon.

It turns out that "most observers" were wrong about the House Republicans caving by the end of the week. What happens next is anybody's guess, but, regardless of whether DHS get full or only partial funding, it would be nice if we finally figured out why it exists at all.

"No Specific Credible Threats" Means No Specific Credible Security Measures

The Department of Homeland Security announced this week that it has heightened security around federal buildings in response to last week's attack by a lone nut on the Canadian parliament in Ottawa, and other global events. Needless to say, this heightened security - whatever it may consist of - is "not based on any specific, credible information at this time indicating any active plot against government officials and law enforcement in the United States."

Doesn't pretty much every public warning or security advisory ever put out by DHS say that it is not based on any specific credible threat information? Yes, they do. In fact, let me Google that for you.

Threats aside, what does this "heightened security" mean for my fellow Feds in the many government office buildings in and around Washington DC? Realistically speaking, it means nothing. The government agency responsible for security of the federal government's 9,500 workplaces, the Federal Protective Service, is just as under-resourced this week as it has been for many years now, and it is simply not equal to the task of heightening security at all those places.

In particular, it lacks the personnel to provide more than a token presence at most government buildings. According to DHS's written testimony before a House subcommittee in May of this year, “FPS directly employs more than 1,000 law enforcement officers, inspectors, and special agents who are trained physical security experts and sworn Federal law enforcement officers. Approximately 13,000 FPS-contracted [Protective Security Officers] staff guard posts at FPS-protected Federal facilities.” That's 13,000 guards for 9,500 office buildings, minus the few belonging to agencies that provide their own building security. You do the math.

And that's putting the best spin on the situation. The head of the employees union that represents FPS put it more bluntly in an interview with Federal News Radio:

David Wright, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 918, told the panel buildings security reviews have also suffered because of understaffing at the agency. Wright, who works as an FPS inspector, said the organization is top-heavy and more employees need to be deployed to the field.

All told, more than 21 percent of staff is assigned to headquarters staff, "which robs federal buildings of necessary security," Wright testified.

Meanwhile, he said, employees in the field struggle to perform all their duties. Most inspectors are assigned to oversee an average of nearly two dozen buildings and are responsible for conducting security assessments, overseeing contractors and a host of other duties.

"How do inspectors accomplish all their tasks? They don't, because there are simply not enough of them," Wright said.

A bit too blunt, perhaps. However, the General Accountability Office agrees that FPS is a troubled agency.

This week's announcement by DHS is obviously more security theater than anything else. When DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson calls on Congress and the Administration to give FPS the funding it needs to truly heighten security around federal buildings, then I'll get interested.

Until then, keep calm and carry on, you Feds, and don't expect to see any more security presence than usual.

Egypt's Homeland Security - The Sincerest Form Of Flattery?

H/T to gwb for sending me a link that led to this tidbit in a Financial Times article about ongoing political repression in Egypt - Egypt state security feelers still active (registration required by FT):

After some initial moves to purge the security forces, attempts at systemic reform were halted, say analysts and political observers. Under the auspices of the Ministry of Interior, the 100,000-strong state security service has been renamed homeland security and personnel moved around.

I can't believe the Egyptian secret police are actually copying the infelicitous name we gave to DHS. Maybe something got lost in translation.

Does the phrase "homeland security" sound innocuous in Arabic? Or does it have the same unfortunate association with European fascism that it has in English, where "homeland" is a second cousin to "Fatherland?" I'm afraid I'll find out it's the latter.

On second thought, the old name was perfect: the Egyptian State Security Investigations Service. If they need to rebrand, the name "Stasi" is available, and would really suit the situation perfectly.

We Have Been Warned (Vaguely)

The FBI and Homeland Security have issued another of their vague terrorism warnings ("analytical notes") to local law enforcement agencies. See the Washington Post article Feds Warn About Possible Terrorist Plot Targeting NYC. As usual, they have no specific threat information and, consequently, no security countermeasures to recommend. They just want to drop their warning and let you make of it what you will.

Here are some quotes from the story:

We have no specific details to confirm that this plot has developed beyond aspirational planning, but we are issuing this warning out of concern that such an attack could possibly be conducted during the forthcoming holiday season," states the warning, which is dated Tuesday.

While federal agencies regularly issue all sorts of advisory warnings, the language of this one is particularly blunt.

Intelligence and homeland security officials are working with local authorities to try to corroborate the information "and will continue to investigate every possible lead," the memo says.

Knocke, the DHS spokesman, said the warning was issued "out of an abundance of caution going into this holiday season."

No changes are being made to the nation's threat level, or for transit systems at this time.

Here are news reports of two previous warnings, from November, 2007, and October, 2008. The warnings always follow the same script. Timing is critical, since you want the threat to sound like it is imminent, but under no circumstances do you want it to be specific or linked to a certain date, like, 'next Monday,' otherwise people will start keeping track of how often these warnings are duds. The latest warning covers "the forthcoming holiday season," which is a nicely broad time frame. By the time the holiday season is over, we'll have new things to worry about and will have forgotten that something or other was supposed to have happened in New York.

I think of these FBI / DHS warnings as the Hallmark cards of the security industry, since they are sent out before all anniversaries and major occasions, religious holidays, national day celebrations, Presidential inaugurations, summit conferences, and so on. And that leads me to try my hand at some Hallmark-ish doggerel.

Roses are red, violets are blue,
here's a new analytical note for you.
You might be attacked this holiday season
or maybe not, who can tell? (there's no reason)

Our warnings we can't substantiate,
and against them there's no way to mitigate.
But take it from us and start to panic,
one day you'll go down just like the Titanic

We've been wrong in the past, but that's OK,
al Qaeda will strike again one of these days.
Maybe not now but someday, and soon,
we'll be right if we keep predicting your doom

Read us and worry, you never can tell,
it will do you no good, but then, what the hell?
It keeps us employed and no one minds,
So believe all our notes and our portents and signs!