Like clockwork, fresh off the heels of a bill that would deny security clearances to so-called "conspiracy theorists" (read: Trump supporters), Senator Duckworth suggested that the DOD monitor the social media habits of its employees for "extremist views."
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) on Monday suggested that the Pentagon find a way to examine the social media habits of incoming and existing service members who show tendencies toward extremist views.A bit of research reveals that would-be commissar Duckworth herself has no clue just how Orwellian the Globalist American Empire's surveillance state has become. Indeed, for quite some time the FBI has had access to creepy "sentiment analysis" tools that it is likely using in its revolutionary post 1/6 effort to cleanse the defense sector of any MAGA sympathies.
"It's not a new thing, but I will tell you that I have seen over the last probably two decades this growing radicalization of a portion within the military. And I think part of it too comes with social media consumption," Duckworth, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, said at The Hill's Future of Defense Summit. [The Hill]
In particular, the FBI uses the powerful "Babel Street" social media panopticon software. Such network surveillance tools allow citizens' affiliations with online narratives or subcultures to be quickly assessed and databased at scale:
Along with bragging about the high-profile clients they have like the FBI, the military's Special Operations Command, and the Australian Attorney General's Office, they include a list of the exact capabilities, explaining the depth and efficacy of Babel Street's software.Robust slang and vernacular dictionaries hone in on the unique idiosyncrasies of a cultural movement or belief system.
Babel X has access to over 25 social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, and to Twitter's firehose... Babel X can also surveil millions of URL's including the deep web. The software can instantly translate over 200 languages, and can set up geo-fences around areas of special interest, and has highly customizable filtering options including for hashtags, emojis, handles, names, and keywords. Users can also filter for numerical sequences like credit card or social security numbers.
Babel Street's filtering options are extremely precise, and allow for the user to screen for dates, times, data type, language, and — interestingly enough — sentiment. Their website includes a short paragraph on this sentiment aspect which claims that they "possess the most sophisticated sentiment analysis tool on the market. Derived from collaboration with top university linguistic programs, Babel Street boasts the ability to evaluate sentiment in 19 languages — far exceeding the capacity of any other competitor. [VICE]
Did you ever amplify a dissident hashtag like #StopTheSteal? Have you ever added cognitive contraband like Pepe Hot Sauce to your Amazon wish list?
That's how easy it would be to end up in an FBI "lead generator."
And now, if Senator Duckworth and her allies in the Pentagon, Big Tech, FBI/CIA/DOJ and media get their way, your career in the military will be over before it begins.
The years old Vice story about FBI's use of sentiment analysis software illuminates unanswered questions regarding the Agency's methods in subjecting 25,000 National Guard troops to "ideological extremism" tests:
Twelve National Guard troops have been removed from duties related to the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., two of them for possible links to right-wing extremist movements, Defense Department officials said on Tuesday.In fact, sentiment analysis software like Babel Street likely represents only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to resources the FBI and security state has at its disposal. Readers may recall an earlier Revolver report on disgraced Obama General Stanley McChrystal's involvement in a software company that deploys technology originally designed to combat ISIS against Trump supporters:
The two made inappropriate comments or sent inappropriate texts, officials said. Another group of 10 were flagged for reasons unrelated to recent events in the Capitol.
Officials declined to provide any details about the vetting that detected the Guard members, who are from different states.
The acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, said on Sunday that the F.B.I. was assisting the U.S. military in vetting more than 25,000 National Guard troops being deployed to assist in protecting the Capitol and areas in central Washington for potential security concerns.
An Army spokesperson declined to provide any information on the two National Guard troops or the vetting procedures, citing operational security, and referred all questions to the U.S. Secret Service. [NYT]
So, in General McChrystal we have a former General in Afghanistan involved in a firm deploying information warfare tools designed to fight ISIS against Trump supporters. In Jared Cohen, former Hillary State Department official turned Google's "director of regime change," we have a man deploying military grade AI censorship tools to police internet conversation, with politically predicable biases.In case you think the ISIS/MAGA comparison is far-fetched even for our utterly corrupt ruling class, consider the following of many possible examples:
These two troubling cases must be understood within the context of the undeniable corruption of large swaths of America's national security bureaucracy-from the CIA, to the FBI, to the DOJ, to other top military brass. Over the past four years we have seen how each institution has been corrupted and repurposed-not to advance American national security interests, but to suppress expressions of populism and nationalism domestically. Ironically, while the national security establishment likes to accuse its adversaries of using weapons "against their own people," increasingly corrupt elements of the national security state are doing just that — repurposing our vast security apparatus to suppress political expression and activity at home.
Perhaps the most disturbing example of this is the recent claim by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security that "white supremacy" is the biggest national security threat. True white supremacy is virtually non-existent in the United States, and any efforts to "combat" white supremacy simply amount to code-language intended to justify the use of the security apparatus to intimidate and silence conservatives, populists, and nationalists. [Revolver]
Former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence, Frank Figliuzzi, said in an interview on Sunday that he sees similarities to the violent rhetoric ISIS used with that the Republicans are using in wake of the 2020 election.FBI Special Agent for Counterintelligence Investigations Asha Rangappa:
Figliuzzi explained that political polarization has turned the division into existentialist threats.
"What do terrorism experts tell us, Alex?" he continued. "When people think there is an existential threat to their being, what they believe, when they believe is that the other side is not just wrong, it is evil or from the devil — as Doug Collins in Georgia implied with Rev. Raphael Warnock who's running for Senate. For the audacity of what? Being a pro-choice pastor? And Doug Collins said that is a lie from the pit of hell? When we hear rhetoric like this, it should wake all of us up." [Raw Story]
ISIS-MAGA conflation has absolutely saturated the FBI's senior-most ranks, and the entire intelligence apparatus and security state is prepared to act accordingly.
The traditional discipline of American counter-intelligence has thus morphed into what we have coined as Counter-American Intelligence.
Traditional counter-intelligence techniques, strategies, and mindsets are being re-purposed domestically, in order to cleanse the entire U.S. national security apparatus, including the DOD, of latent political sympathies — presumably as a precondition to rid the entire nation of said sympathies.
Today, the top target of this Counter-American Intelligence operation is President Trump's MAGA movement.
If you thought the War on Terror was costly, disastrous, and unethical, wait until you get a load of the sequel — starring you and 74 million others like you as unwitting "domestic terrorists."
Strap in. It's only going to get crazier.
Comment: This deployment of sentiment analysis to weed out a particular kind of person from the military could be an end in itself, but that doesn't exclude the possibility that it's also part of a bigger agenda. The number of people in the military is rather small compared to the total population, so it's possible that this is, in addition to securing greater compliance within the military, a way to improve the algorithms for later deployment. The targets of that later deployment likely being those who question government directives regarding vaccines, lockdowns, etc.