[Infowarrior] - JIEDDO caught doing domestic intel collection

[Richard Forno]

Pentagon anti-bomb force 'improperly retained' information on Americans

	• JIEDDO taskforce acted inappropriately – read the declassified report
	• Defense department has criticized its ‘aggregation’ of data on US firms, people
	• Group ‘improperly’ held data from Five Eyes: UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada
 
A Pentagon department focused on improvised explosive devices has been collecting intelligence on Americans. 

Friday 19 December 2014 14.26 EST

The Pentagon’s taskforce charged with stopping insurgent bombs has for years inappropriately acted as an intelligence agency, according to a declassified internal report obtained by the Guardian.

The Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) collected information on American companies and their executives, people inside the United States, US military personnel and Afghan farmers. Despite internal Pentagon criticism, it continues to carry out intelligence functions.

JIEDDO used aliases and impersonated US college students to gather information. It pursued US firms doing business with a Pakistani company with no real ties to terrorism. It collected and “improperly retained” US telephone numbers, as well as those from among the US’ “Five Eyes” intelligence partners: the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. On at least one occasion, JIEDDO mishandled information it accessed from a National Security Agency database.

JIEDDO disputes that it actually “collected” intelligence, preferring to say it “aggregated” already-existing intelligence and public data.

Some of JIEDDO’s intelligence work, particularly the collection of data on US companies, occurred “at the behest of [JIEDDO] leadership”. All of it violated a raft of Defense Department and executive-branch regulations, up to and including Executive Order 12333, a foundational intelligence guideline. Those violations led to the first-ever establishment of an inspector general within JIEDDO, William Rigby.

JIEDDO’s previously unknown intelligence activities are detailed in an 80-page investigation conducted by the Pentagon inspector general, issued secretly in April and acquired by the Guardian and other news organizations through the Freedom of Information Act. It is the latest example of a post-9/11 proliferation of intelligence operations by unapproved US government organizations.

JIEDDO continues collecting and retaining intelligence, including intelligence on Americans. One analyst told the inspector general that when the organization acquires Americans’ data, its officials “tuck it to the side”. As of April 2014, the inspector general wrote: “We remain concerned about JIEDDO conducting activities that fall out of the scope of its original charter.”

That mission creep first led JIEDDO to view expansively its minimal intelligence authorities related to foreign IED threats. Then, confusion amongst the workforce about what intelligence activities were permissible “allowed contract analysts and government supervisors to collect information about US persons that fell outside of [a JIEDDO component’s] foreign intelligence function.” As far back as February 2007 – barely a year into JIEDDO’s existence – the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency warned that JIEDDO should be properly reclassified as an intelligence enterprise to remove dangerous ambiguity about the organization’s true activities.

< - >

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/19/pentagon-bomb-force-intelligence-americans