Klippenstein: ICE Masks Up in More Ways Than One

[Nevilledog]

https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-ice-masks-up-in-more-ways

Homeland security is increasing the use of undercover techniques to infiltrate and interact with social media users in order to collect intelligence and target individuals, documents leaked to me reveal.

The new program, called “masked engagement,” allows homeland security officers to assume false identities and interact with users—friending them, joining closed groups, and gaining access to otherwise private postings, photographs, friend lists and more.

A senior Department of Homeland Security official tells me that over 6,500 field agents and intelligence operatives can use the new tool, a significant increase explicitly linked to more intense monitoring of American citizens.

For years, homeland security has been conducting what it calls “Open Source Intelligence” (OSINT) collection, using social media to enhance general "operational awareness” and for investigating targets in a criminal, civil, or administrative context. Each DHS component defines the level of use, which were previously limited to the following practices (defined below):

“overt engagement”

“overt research,”

“overt monitoring,”

“masked monitoring,”

“undercover engagement”

Masked monitoring allows officers at agencies like ICE and Border Patrol to use alias accounts to passively observe public online activity. Crucially, this level of monitoring bars DHS representatives from interacting with other users directly. Under masked monitoring, officers are not allowed to ask an admin for entry into a private group or to “friend” a target to see non-public posts.

*snip*

[calimary]

1. This is CREEPY!!!