In the first paragraph of Jan. 6 Senate report - I'm already frustrated. "FBI and DHS officials stressed the difficulty in discerning constitutionally protected free speech versus
actionable, credible threats of violence." rules.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…
"In testimony before the Committees, officials from both 2 FBI and DHS acknowledged that the Intelligence Community needs to improve its handling and
dissemination of threat information from social media and online message boards." Ugh....
If FBI & DHS had done an intel assessment based on social media postings of Trump supporters, and disseminated it around USG, what do you think would happen? 'spying on Trump campaign', 'Deep State'....'peaceful protest'
There's only a few state/local/smaller police departments that have capacity & training to do proactive intelligence that was needed on Jan. 6
alternative perspective, USCP didn't think the President's supporters would attack cops.
Cognitive dissonance?
important point from the report, DoD's hesitance on Jan. 6 after politicization the previous summer during George Floyd protests
Seems an acting Attorney General at DoJ would be the point for defense on Jan. 6. Which would have been about 13 days after assuming the role from Barr. 'Death of the administrative state' wasn't that what Bannon was hoping for? Seems like we got there
For @DHSgov USCP - recommendations call for intel training, capability development, DHS already paid for this years ago, its in their catalog. Guess what scenario is: armed protests occupy & then attack local municipal buildings (not joking) circa 2012 firstrespondertraining.gov/frtserver/cata…
I'm aware of this, because I wrote the scenario, developed this curriculum with @NJOHSP they were ahead of their time in preparing their frontline law enforcement and emergency response personnel.
All of the recommendations seem reasonable and smart, but....Congress can't even agree on what the intelligence community is permitted to discuss in domestic space. Consistent pushback to DHS analysis, IC reports on U.S. persons.
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Musk - the owner of this platform with the largest following on Twitter - is boosting an enduring Russian propaganda & disinformation campaign into nearly all Twitter feeds tonight.
The Kremlin has covertly and more recently overtly tried running CALEXIT and TEXIT campaigns on social media in america since at least 2014. texasmonthly.com/news-politics/…
Kremlin’s active measures strategy seeks to break unions, “win through the force of politics rather than the politics of force” it hasn’t worked, but, Medvedev could only dream of having millions see this narrative, today is the day kqed.org/news/11217187/…
Surprising and not surprising at the same time. For those interested, NYT did an excellent broadcast “Day X” about similar extremism in Germany nytimes.com/2022/12/07/wor…
Again, not a surprise. They wanted to make contact with Russia.
Germany is a pivotal partner for holding together NATO/EU and support to Ukraine through the winter. Deeply alarming and not surprising based on recent indicators.
ok, let's take a breath on Russian meddling in election via social media. The website here hosts american content gets little to no traction, the account posting memes is well known, extremely low traction nytimes.com/2022/11/06/tec…
At present, this is least Russian influence activity I've seen in 4 election cycles. Unless strategic hack on election day, see no evidence Russia tipping any election outcome.
More importantly for journalists, when IRA-Prighozin noisy & overt, they are doing little covert & achieving less. Putin's chef is achieving effects here, while not doing much of anything. apnews.com/article/2022-m…
Summary: “Americans use Iranian disinformation about election 2020 to create American disinformation about election 2022” this is foreign disinfo being re-used by Americans - #NotLegit
This is a fake video the US Treasury said Iran "made in an attempt to undermine faith in the election by implying that individuals could cast fraudulent ballots."
Video created by Iranian state-sponsored actors executing a digital influence operation to intimidate and influence American voters. home.treasury.gov/news/press-rel…
week until Election Day 2022, regarding foreign influence & interference, my general assessment is same as 2020 “what could a foreign country do to America that America is not already doing to itself.” However, a few things we’ve seen, few to look for nytimes.com/2022/10/31/tec…
2 parts to foreign election meddling; 1) influence of the outcome 2) interference in the conduct. On #1 - foreign has been light & weak. Seen no signs that of the outcome of any contest being tipped by those outside the U.S., but one interesting highlight...
China finally jumped into social media influence ops in U.S. election. An escalation for them, past elections had been CCP had been overt or sloppy or both. This time they tried to play like the Russians, except, lucky for the U.S., China sucks at it. rollingstone.com/politics/polit…
Russian troop in/around Kherson are in retreat. Kremlin taking heavy losses, realize they will not take Ukraine they are resorting to targeting energy infrastructure inside Ukraine. Also expanding cyber/sabotage on Europe. Escalating to deescalate, settle for ground before defeat