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I will have more to say about this story after considering my legal options. For now, a few points...
washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
(1) It does not trouble me that DHS officials shared my tweets internally. That is certainly appropriate given that the tweets contained disclosures of information from DHS I&A. The contents of these intelligence reports are innocuous enough.
(2) What is troubling about this story is that I&A shared my tweets *as intelligence reporting,* that is, an intelligence arm of the government filed a report on a citizen for activity at the heart of journalism: revealing newsworthy information about government to the public.
(3) DHS is permitted to collect and analyze intelligence pursuant to homeland security missions. I am not sure how my reporting of unclassified material constitutes any kind of homeland security threat that justifies the dissemination of intelligence reporting on a US person, ...
particularly not one exercising core First Amendment rights and nothing more. I intend to find out.
(4) I am also not sure I understand the parameters of DHS’s authority to collect and report on people like me. If this activity is okay, is it okay to build a full dossier of public record information on a journalist?
Is it okay to buy a lot of information from a data broker and report it to senior policy makers? I intend to find out the answer to these questions too.

Stay tuned.
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Benjamin Wittes
@benjaminwittes
Today I obtained the three DHS I&A intelligence reports on which @shaneharris reported yesterday--two concerning my Twitter activity and one concerning that of @ByMikeBaker of the New York Times. I am deeply grateful to all of those who have reached out with words of support.
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Benjamin Wittes
@benjaminwittes
Internal memo from head of DHS I&A formally changing the blame for Portland violence from "Violent Opportunists" (VO) to Antifa.
Glossary:
FIR=field intelligence report
OSIR=open source intelligence report
Understand this document as responsive to POTUS pressure to "designate" Antifa as a terrorist organization.
And to Brian Murphy: I have read, and I acknowledge receipt.
Read 3 tweets
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Benjamin Wittes
@benjaminwittes
Here are four questions congressional intelligence committees should be asking regarding DHS intelligence operations vis a vis protestors:
(1) DHS I&A has a data exploitation team that can get all kinds of material off phones. It's normally used to assist with watchlisting. Is it being used to get material off of phones of those arrested in Portland?
(2) Is DHS I&A exploiting commercially available data about protestors from data brokers who collect such material routinely?
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