Comparing Effective Military and Civilian Intelligence Teams

Introduction

The following notes are based on my experiences and observations while working to document and limit the damage caused by Antifa during the fiery but mostly peaceful riots of the 2020 “Summer of Love.” I participated in three “operations”:

1. Tracking the evolution of CHAZ/CHOP in Seattle, Washington
2. Tracking the riots in Philadelphia
3. Tracking a major Antifa/BLM protest in one of the suburbs of Philadelphia

These operations contained elements of military intelligence, police investigation, private investigation, and corporate competitor analysis but do not fit easily into any one of those categories. However, there is much in common with military intelligence when it comes to building an effective team to monitor those riots.

The organization and processes described here are not limited to monitoring Antifa but are also applicable to the investigation of child predators and human traffickers.

The purpose here is to examine how these civilian intelligence teams operate, with the long-term goal of adapting the aspects that make military intelligence teams effective to these civilian analogs.

Goal of an Effective Intelligence Team

The goal of an effective intelligence team is to develop relevant, accurate, timely, and actionable information. This goal is realized by three “information paths” within the team:

1. Incoming data (raw and unverified – could be called “pre-intelligence”)
2. Analyses by individuals and teams to convert this data into intelligence (verify, deconflict, and determine significance)
3. “Upward” movement as intelligence is organized and unified with other sources and becomes actionable.

These aren’t one-way paths, however – there must be a cycle that starts with evaluating a piece of information’s accuracy, classifying it according to relevance, and using that intel to drive follow-up investigations.

Qualities of Good Intelligence Team Members

Besides initiative, the most important quality that all team members must have is a sense of objectivity, which means that the team member:

• Can distinguish reality from hearsay and from political bias
• Can judge the quality of incoming data
• Is self-aware enough to know what he/she does not know
• Has a bearing of “effective professionalism”

A skill any analyst must possess is the ability to translate intelligence goals into relevant collection and analysis tasks. This doesn’t come naturally to many people and must be developed through experience and mentorship.

The team member must possess appropriate technical skills, such as using GIS, working with OSINT sources, having the ability to infiltrate, etc. Infiltration (either physical or on-line) is not something everyone is willing to do and requires the ability to be inconspicuous while still making important observations. We found that for best results – in general and not just for infiltration - the team member’s skills and interests must be matched to his role.

Finally, team members must understand and practice excellent OPSEC. This need was demonstrated when one of the teams tracking the riots in Philadelphia (not mine!) decided to live-stream their operations on YouTube. This allowed Antifa supporters to locate the exact hotel room from which they were operating in under 30 minutes.

Leader’s Role

The leader of an intelligence team must be able to identify intelligence gaps and set goals to fill those gaps, and clearly communicate those goals to the analysts. He must prevent team members from “going down the wrong rabbit holes” – performing investigations on topics or individuals not clearly related to the goals. He must act as a sounding board while providing analysts with a healthy dose of skepticism when appropriate.

The leader must be able to package-up the results of the team into recommendations and supporting documents for action by the relevant authorities. In the case of Antifa, child predators, or human traffickers, those authorities are law enforcement agencies.

Leadership Style

The sociologist Douglas McGregor described two broad styles of leadership, which he labeled Theory X (lack of trust in subordinates which leads to micromanagement) and Theory Y (confidence in subordinate’s ability to be self-motivated)¹. McGregor recommends Theory Y, though it can devolve into “servant leadership.”

A different way of looking at Theory Y are the leadership styles known as "mission command" and the older German concept of "Auftragstaktik." Mission command has officially been a part of the US military command doctrine since the 1980s, though was practiced much earlier², and states that a good commander sets the mission and constraints (e.g. time bounds), and lets subordinates choose the means to accomplish the mission. Auftragstaktik³ is broader and more fundamental than mission command because it is a type of military professionalism based on three virtues: “knowledge, independence, and the joy of taking responsibility.” Mission command can thus be seen as a corollary of Auftragstaktik.

Mission command and Auftragstaktik are both excellent and appropriate styles for leading effective intelligence teams, either civilian or military.

Establishing a Team

Once a group of individuals comes together to perform intelligence activities, and after basic groundwork (meeting times, communication methods, etc.) is laid, there are three tasks that must be performed: creating an area study, identifying and developing information sources, and making contacts with law enforcement.

An area study is packaged information about the team’s geographical area of interest. Besides physical aspects (physical terrain, weather, transportation systems, and critical infrastructure), the area study must include economic, political, and cultural factors (businesses, governance, law enforcement and security agencies, and political leanings). Finally, it must include a threat overview - in this case that would be information about the local Antifa members and activities. This will involve performing a RAFT (relationships, actors, functions, tensions) analysis⁴ on Antifa.

One assumption commonly made when doing an area study is that the adversary’s command structure lies within the area of interest. Groups such as Antifa are decentralized organizations, and human traffickers are sometimes trans-national, so a RAFT analysis not constrained by geographic area is an invaluable supplement to the traditional area study.

Certain aspects of the area study will stay constant (e.g. physical terrain) whereas others (e.g. Antifa membership) will change, sometimes rapidly, and it is important to update the area study as needed.

The new team must also identify and develop information sources. For direct human sources this includes recruiting and vetting informants, determining their accuracy and reliability, and “handling.” There are also tasks needed for indirect sources: finding mainstream media news sources and online video streams that provide on-the-spot coverage, locating and infiltrating relevant chat rooms and other messaging systems, etc. Even GIS requires setup: for example, finding and importing the correct map layers for some geographic information systems can be an involved process.

Social media is yet another source of information. Antifa members like to announce their proclivities, the larger the forum the better. Once an Antifa member’s account is located on a social media platform, it is easy to find his/her followers and monitor their posts. This is very valuable, and for remote intel operations it is one of the few available roads to inside information.

In anticipating the creation of actionable information, it is necessary to identify the consumers, those who will act on that information (after they perform their own analysis), and this usually means law enforcement agencies. Given the “hands off” approach many law enforcement agencies and district attorneys take with Antifa, it may be necessary to “shop around” to find the proper consumer. Prosecuting child predators is something most law enforcement agencies are willing to do; the record on human trafficking seems to be mixed.

Specialized Intelligence Teams

There are types of military intelligence teams, such as Female Engagement Teams, Culture Support Teams, Human Terrain Teams, and High Value Target Teams, that use specialized approaches when confronting adversaries.

Human Terrain Teams

Human Terrain Teams consist of sociologists and cultural anthropologists used to advise military personnel on social norms and taboos within a target population⁵. There really is no civilian analog to HTTs – private or police investigators cannot afford to maintain a staff of social scientists, and any attempt to provide cultural interpretations of events involving child predators or human traffickers is nothing but rationalizing evil.

The other types of teams do have certain parallels in civilian intelligence operations.

Female Engagement Teams

In conflict zones in which women are marginalized, like in Afghanistan, Female Engagement Teams (FETs) were used to gain the trust and confidence of Afghani women⁶. They were initially controversial because they involved putting female soldiers or Marines into combat situations. The effectiveness of FETs and the related Culture Support Teams were brought into question because the FET were not able to maintain prolonged contact with the female population of any particular village⁷. Further, FETs required a male contingency to provide security.

In civilian and law enforcement intelligence teams, women can play several specialized roles. In child predator stings, they can serve as “prey,” specifically in the time immediately prior to in-person contact by the predators. In operations to disrupt human trafficking or prostitution rings, women go undercover with the goals of observing and recording evidence of wrongdoings by the ring leaders, and (maybe) getting prostitutes to disaffect.

These civilian and law enforcement intelligence operations are more successful than FETs for several reasons: first, limited time of contact is not an issue with child predator or human trafficking operations – contact is maintained only as long as it is needed to catch the predator or disrupt the traffickers; there is no need to maintain contact in perpetuity. Second, there is no need to provide ongoing security by male team members - security is supplied only as-needed.

Another reason for the success of undercover female officers is their expected behavior while undercover: by their actions, undercover officers seek to raise standards by eliminating criminals, and there is no attempt to be “culturally sensitive” to the predators and traffickers. The same cannot be said for FET members – their presence is designed to minimize “cultural threat” while still hoping to win female hearts and minds. This was demonstrated by the requirements that FET members have male escorts and that they always keep their heads covered.

High-value Target Teams

High-value Target Teams (HTTs) are interagency operations that use network-based targeting, combine intelligence with operational capability, and employ counterterrorist and counterinsurgency methodologies in unison. The idea is to use intelligence to find leaders (high-value individuals) in the insurgency network, and then target them with sufficient force and accuracy so that they are eliminated while isolating peaceful civilians from the effects of the elimination⁸. This tactic was credited for success in Iraq in 2007-2008 – by eliminating the most powerful insurgents, the civilian authorities gained the time needed to establish themselves and to dominate the less powerful insurgents.

There is no direct analog of HTTs in civilian intelligence operations, simply because either the operational capability is separated from the intelligence capacity, or (as in situations described above where district attorneys are sympathetic with Antifa) the operational capability is completely absent. There are a few similarities between HTTs and civilian intelligence teams, however. The most obvious one is that both analyze their adversaries’ networks to identify leaders and to seek and exploit vulnerabilities. The other similarities mostly lie in the factors determining team success. In particular, civilian teams are small, have common purpose, are not divided by loyalties to outside agencies.

Comparison and Conclusions

Military and civilian intelligence teams share the goal of gathering valuable, timely, and actionable information about their adversaries. They both use methodologies such as RAFT analysis to organize that information and derive additional intel from it. They face the same problems – vetting sources, distinguishing false leads from actual evidence, identifying intel gaps, contending with rapidly changing intel priorities, maintaining OPSEC, and so on.

Both types of teams have similar organizations (both in terms of personnel and information flows), and their success depends on the effective leadership of competent and enthusiastic team members.

They face similar adversaries: during the GWOT, military intel teams were tasked with gathering information about Islamic extremists; civilian intel teams are needed to gather info on Antifa, child predators, and human traffickers. All these enemies have either no leaders or have a decentralized organization. They are also located and operate within the common population, and so they can “blend in.”

The similarities end there.

Military intelligence teams have the advantage when it comes to available information and resources. Civilian intel teams are limited to OSINT, IMINT, and limited forms of geospatial intelligence. Military intel teams are capable of all that plus SIGINT, MASINT, etc.

Military intelligence teams and civilian intel teams differ in that the former are part of a larger organization (the U.S. military) that legally can and oftentimes does act based on the recommendations from their intel teams. Civilian intel teams are not part of a larger organization, and many district attorneys support and cover for Antifa and similar groups.

Another difference is the quantity of information that is available to each – military intel teams must contend with information overload. Civil intel teams scramble for each bit of knowledge, so in that they are like private investigators. The only situation where the volume of information is remotely comparable is with the firehose of information available from social networks.

Perhaps the most important difference between military intelligence teams and the type of teams described here is that the former is a profession. It has a shared body of knowledge; various schools such as the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center (JMITC) and the United States Army Intelligence Center of Excellence (USAICoE) transmit that knowledge; and it has fictional heroes such as James Bond, Jason Bourne, Ethan Hunt, and even Sterling Archer, to inspire people to enter that vocation. In short, military intelligence has a culture.

Civilian teams have none of that – they come together in an impromptu manner, they must invent/discover the tradecraft needed to accomplish their goals, then they disband only to be reinvented when another group of agitators gains momentum – Hamas protesters, anyone? The closest thing to being an exception are individuals and teams that hunt for child predators and human traffickers. They mostly operate using sting operations, and while the results of these operations are popularized, the implementation details best remain trade secrets. Other than this limited exception, civilian intelligence teams have no means of transmitting their experience, or creating a body of knowledge, or building a culture. It is not a profession, it is an avocation.

Which is the superior institution? In combat situations, military intelligence teams have the wherewithal and experience to be extremely effective. In riot control and law enforcement situations, civilian intelligence teams are better in at least one aspect: it is more difficult to turn civilian intel teams inwards towards mass surveillance.

2020 Antifa/BLM Riots. Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images

Footnotes

1. Mind Tools Content Team, “Theory X and Theory Y: Understanding Peoples’ Motivations.”
2. Andrew Kiser, Mission Command: The Historical Roots of Mission Command in the US Army.
3. Donald Vandergriff, “How the Germans defined Auftragstaktik”
4. Dale Eikmeier, “Design for Napoleon’s Corporal”
5. Ben Connable, “Human Terrain System is Dead, Long Live … What?”
6. Megan Katt, “Blurred Lines: Cultural Support Teams in Afghanistan”
7. Ibid.
8. Christopher Lamb & Evan Munsing, “Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation”

Bibliography

Connable, B. “Human Terrain System is Dead, Long Live … What?” Military Review, January-February 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2018/Human-Terrain-System-is-Dead-Long-Live-What

Eikmeier, D. “Design for Napoleon’s Corporal.” Small Wars Journal, 27 September 2010. Last retrieved on 25 April 2024 from https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/557-eikmeier.pdf

Kiser, A. J. Mission command: The historical roots of mission command in the US Army. Defense Technical Information Center, May 2015. Last retrieved on 24 April 2024 from https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1001514.pdf

Lamb, C. & Munsing, E. “Secret Weapon: High-value Target Teams as an Organizational Innovation.” Institute for National Strategic Studies, Strategic Perspectives, No. 4, 2011. Retrieved on 24 April 2024 from https://ndupress.ndu.edu/Portals/68/Documents/stratperspective/inss/Strategic-Perspectives-4.pdf

Mind Tools Content Team. “Theory X and Theory Y: Understanding Peoples’ Motivations.” Mind Tools website, N/D. Retrieved on 25 April 2024 from https://www.mindtools.com/adi3nc1/theory-x-and-theory-y

Vandergriff, D. E. “How the Germans defined Auftragstaktik: What mission command is – and – is not” Small Wars Journal, 21 June 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2024 from https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/how-germans-defined-auftragstaktik-what-mission-command-and-not

Recent Technological Developments Relevant to Espionage and Information Warfare

Introduction

In Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui’s “Unrestricted Warfare,” written in 1995, they describe how militarily and politically weak Communist China can triumph over a stronger power such as the United States. They do this by using an extremely broad concept of weaponry, to wit: "Everything that can benefit mankind can also harm him. This is to say that there is nothing in this world that cannot become a weapon.” They go on to give examples of these new types of weapons: stock-market crashes, computer viruses, and rumors or scandals on the Internet. They argue that four fundamental elements of war - soldiers, weapons, battlefield, and purpose – “have changed so that it is impossible to get a firm grip on them. When that day comes, is the war god’s face still distinct?” (Liang, Q. & Xiangsui, 2015).

This paper examines two examples of this expanded type of weapon: a Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency used to create dissent and conflict within the United States, and social network analysis and graph databases that could be used to track employees and recruit assets from inside Iran’s Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility.

 

The Internet Research Agency

The Internet Research Agency was a Russian company operating from July 2013 to July 2023 that maintained social media accounts for the purpose of spreading propaganda, altering public opinion, and sowing dissent. It was owned and financed by Yevgeny Prigozhin of Wagner Company fame (Volchek, 2021) and was used to influence European public opinion of Ukraine and the upcoming invasions. In the United States, the IRA’s purpose was to influence social media with the goal of eroding trust in American media organizations, spreading distrust in American politicians and political parties, and generally to inflame tensions.

The IRA created user accounts and various Facebook groups with titles such as "Heart of Texas," "United Muslims of America," "Being Patriotic," "LGBT United," "Don't Shoot," "Blacktivist," "BlackMattersUS," and "SecuredBorders", among others. The IRA then used these groups to organize protests or even dueling protests/counterprotests including:

• A Black Lives Matter protest (not organized by IRA) and a Blue Lives Matter counterprotest (that was organized using the "Heart of Texas" group) held in Dallas, Texas, on 10 July 2016.
• A "Safe Space for Muslim Neighborhood" rally in Washington, D.C., on 3 September 2016 was organized using the "United Muslims of America" group.
• As mentioned in Zegart (2022), the "Heart of Texas" and "United Muslims of America" Facebook groups were used to organize dueling protests on 21 May 2016 in Houston, Texas.
• "BlackMattersUS" and "United Muslims of America" groups were used to organize anti-Trump protests.
• The "Being Patriotic" group was used to organize multiple pro-Trump rallies throughout Florida.
• "United Muslims of America" was used to organize the "Support Hillary, Save American Muslims" rally.
• A vigil for the Pulse nightclub shooting victims was organized using the "LGBT United" group.
• Etc.

The supposed ultimate goal of the IRA in the United States was to influence the 2016 election. While this may be true, supporters of this supposition make several assumptions that must be explicitly stated:

• Social media platforms allow anyone to create groups and use them to organize meetings and protests.
• For each group IRA created, numerous non-IRA groups with the same concerns existed.
• It is likely that the IRA groups were used by Americans for our own purposes, e.g. to schedule our own rallies.
• The influence of the IRA was small in comparison to the biases enforced by various social media companies.
• The various problems the IRA supposedly tried to inflame were already concerns for multiple decades, including:
  • The growing influence of Islam and other foreign cultures.
  • Illegal immigration.
  • Fear of government overreach and doubts of its legitimacy.
  • Contempt of elected officials and other government employees.
  • Contempt that elected officials and other government employees have of their constituents.
  • Doubts about the intentions of US intelligence agencies.
  • Distrust of traditional and social media outlets.
• For people concerned about those problems, the IRA was doing nothing but "preaching to the choir."

For those of us who already distrust mainstream media, it is not clear if the IRA had any influence on us, since we rely on other methods for gathering information and arriving at conclusions (multiple alternative news sources, discourse and debate, historical reference, plausibility, consistency, evidence of the senses, correspondence with reality). Further, the ultimate responsibility for an individual's beliefs and actions lies with himself, despite the "NPC" (non-player character) description that is often applied to those that continue to trust media and government.

This does not mean that the IRA did not have an impact: the Mueller Investigation lasted from May 2017 to March 2019, and though the final report of the Investigation "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities" (Mueller, 2019), the pretext for the investigation was used by various politicians, government employees, and media outlets to foment dissent on their own. This wasn't obviously a part of the IRA's plan, but it was certainly an example of how certain politicians and news agencies are willing to create a tragedy so as not to let it go to waste. Was it an unintended consequence?

 

An Emerging Technology Useful for Espionage

An emerging technology that is useful for espionage is the field of social network analysis with the support of graph database technology.

Traditional relational databases store data in one or more tables, and each table consists of rows (records) and columns (fields). Graph databases store data in nodes (also called vertices) and edges (lines or arrows connecting nodes). (Robinson, et. al., 2015) This organization is perfect for storing data about social networks.

[Illustration comparing data organization in relational vs graph databases]

What the nodes and edges in a graph DB represent depend on the application. For example:

• For navigation, the nodes can be cities and the edges can be roads.
• For an e-commerce recommendation engine, the nodes can represent products and two products are connected by a directed edge if a customer who purchases one product is likely to purchase the other.
• The nodes can be people and the edges can be various types of relationships (familial, coworker, etc.)

Nodes do not need to be all the same type: one type of node can represent people, and a second type can represent organizations, and an edge connects a person-node to an organization-node when that person is a member of that organization. Similarly, there can be different kinds of edges: besides the membership-edge, there can also be familial-relationship edges linking two people who are of the same family.

By itself, a graph database is useless without a source of data. For social network analysis, populating a graph DB usually involves manually entering specifically chosen people or organizations to seed the graph DB, then augmenting that with data pulled from social media sites.

The investigative applications include:

• The process of “doxxing” was studied using graph DBs in (Lee, 2022).
• Relationships between Antifa, journalists, and university professors were investigated in (Lenihan, 2022).

If Antifa were to be designated a criminal organization, graph databases would be immensely useful for investigating that organization. (Jaccourd, et. al., 2023).

 

The Definition of "Importance" in Graph Databases

For sake of discussion, suppose we are investigating terrorism, and the nodes in our graph DB represent individual terrorists or terrorist organizations, and edges between those two types of nodes represents membership. We also assume that terrorists can be linked with an edge if they are of the same family.

Once our database is populated with terrorists, organizations, and the relationships between them, how do we extract information from all that data? The most obvious approach is to pick a target (a known terrorist), and then investigate all the people related to that target and all the groups (terrorist organizations) to which that target belongs. There are situations where this approach is applicable (like should a terrorist be captured), but in general this approach begs the question: how is a target of interest chosen? This is not a trivial question since there may be tens of thousands of terrorists in our graph database.

This problem - determining which nodes (terrorists or organizations) are most important or influential - is solved in various ways through what are called "measures of centrality." There are numerous measures of centrality, the most basic one being "degree centrality" - the nodes with the most edges are most important, i.e. the terrorists with the most connections to other terrorists or terrorist organizations are most influential.

A different measure that is perhaps more useful is "betweenness centrality". This involves finding the shortest path between all distinct pairs of nodes and counting the number of these shortest paths that pass-through a given node. The nodes with the highest betweenness centrality can be thought as the ones through which the most information passes.

In terms of espionage, it would then make sense to prioritize intelligence-gathering on terrorists with the highest betweenness centrality, since the most information would pass through those terrorists. In terms of counterterrorism, eliminating a terrorist with a high betweenness centrality would cause the most disruption in information flow.

An example of this kind of social network analysis was performed independently by Kieran Healy (Healy, 2013) and Shin-Kap Han (Han, 2009) using data found in David Hackett Fischer's "Paul Revere's Ride" (Fischer, 1995). Fischer includes data on 254 individuals involved in the American Revolution (among them John Adams, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere) and their memberships in seven Whig groups, including the Tea Party and the London Enemies. Using only this data, it is possible to determine:

• the number of groups to which any pair of people both belonged (for example, John Adams and Sam Adams both belonged to two groups)
• the number of people any pair of organizations have in common (the Tea Party and the London Enemies had 10 people in common).

Notice that the starting data (membership lists for the organizations) did not include data about which individuals knew each other, but a social network can be derived from the membership lists - two individuals are related if they share membership in an organization. (Breiger, 1974).

[Illustration from (Healy, 2013)]

Centrality measures can then be calculated on that social network. Healy and Shin-Kap Han found that Paul Revere has the highest betweenness centrality of the 254 individuals and ranks high in several other centrality measures. Shin-Kap Han describes Revere's role as a "broker" between not only the people in Fischer's analysis but also between the various classes - artisans and gentlemen, patricians and plebeians, and to make the American Revolution a success, for those people,

"both the identities and interests needed to be articulated and organized as in any effort at extensive, robust, and sustained mobilization. For that, the movement needed men whose socioeconomic status and cultural outlook allowed them to move among the various ranks of society. As a man whose contacts reached deep and wide into the social and political networks, Revere was one of the few who were comfortable in all of these places, each of which became an important part of Boston’s revolutionary movement." (Han, 2009).

 

Past, Present, and Emerging Technologies for Espionage

Past and current espionage-related methodologies and technologies could be used to recruit individuals working inside Iran's Natanz nuclear facility. For example, wiretapping could have been used to monitor the telephone calls of employees of that facility, and from the conversations, potential assets could be chosen. This would have worked before calls were encrypted. Combining satellite photographs with on-the-ground presence, individuals working in the facility can be identified, traced, appraised, and recruited. Realtime satellite imaging may not be needed, but considerable collaboration between satellite reconnaissance teams and in-person reconnaissance would be necessary.

Another current technology that is applicable are mobile applications such as TikTok, Facebook/Meta, etc. These applications track the user's location, the people the user interacts with, and can be used to build a psychological profile of the user. Further, by manipulating the popular trends displayed by those apps, the companies owning these applications can attempt to influence user opinions.

Can social network analysis be used to recruit an individual working inside a highly secure location, like the Natanz facility? Natanz employees may not be allowed to have applications such as TicTok on their phones. All hope is not lost, however... As described above, Kieran Healy and Shin-Kap Han were able to build a social network using only a list of names and membership lists for organizations – they built a social network using data that predated social network analysis by centuries! The same can be done today, and examples of the organizations that would be helpful in the case of the Natanz facility include:

• Universities, for their graduation lists and list of faculty members
• Mosques
• Fraternal organizations

Additional sources of information include marriage announcements, graduation announcements, flight logs, and so on.

 

Conclusion

These two examples of contemporary espionage technology – troll farms and social network analysis – represent two examples of the new types of weapons envisioned by Liang and Xiangsui. The Internet Research Agency was effective (in some way) in spreading dissent in the U.S., though they were dwarfed by the attempts at manipulation and “nudging” used by social media companies. Social network analysis would certainly be useful for investigating the operations of criminal organizations and should also be relevant for identifying intelligence assets and evaluating the importance of individuals in facilities like the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility.

 

References

Breiger, R. (1974). The duality of persons and groups. Social Forces 53(2)
Retrieved from: https://pdodds.w3.uvm.edu/research/papers/others/1974/breiger1974a.pdf

Fischer, D. H. (1995). Paul Revere’s ride. Oxford University Press.

Han, S-K. (2009). The other ride of Paul Revere: The brokerage role in the making of the American Revolution. Mobilization: An International Quarterly 14(2): 143-162
Retrieved from: https://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/chwe/ps269/han.pdf

Healy, K. (2013). Using metadada to find Paul Revere.
Retrieved from: https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/

Jaccourd, L., Molnar, L., & Abei, M. (2023) Antifa's political violence on Twitter: A grounded theory approach. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research. 29, 495-513 (2023)
Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10610-023-09558-6

Lee, Carmen. (2022). Doxxing as discursive action in a social movement. Critical Discourse Studies, 19:3, 326-344, DOI: 10.1080/17405904.2020.1852093

Lenihan, E. (2022). A classification of Antifa Twitter accounts based on social network mapping and linguistic analysis. Social Network Analysis and Mining (2022) 12:12
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-021-00847-8
Retrieved from: https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s13278-021-00847-8

Liang, Q., Xiangsui, W. (tr. 2015). Unrestricted warfare. Echo Point Books & Media.

Mueller, R. S. (2019) Report on the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Election. U.S. Department of Justice.

Robinson, I., Webber, J., Eifrem, E. (2015). Graph databases: New opportunities for connected data. 2nd Edition. O'Reilly Media.
Retrieved from: https://web4.ensiie.fr/~stefania.dumbrava/OReilly_Graph_Databases.pdf

Volchek, D. (2021). Inside the ‘propaganda kitchen’ – A former Russian ‘troll factory’ employee speaks out. Radio Free Europe/RadioLiberty.
Retrieved from: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-troll-factory-hacking/31076160.html

Zegart, A. (2022). Spies, lies, and algorithms: The history and future of American Intelligence. Princeton University Press.

The Last Fourth

We remember important first events - the first time you met the person who will become your significant other, the first words and first steps of your growing child. We also remember important last events - the last time you visited your alma mater, the last time you spoke with a dying parent.

Some events, though, are taken for granted - we didn't correctly identify the importance of an event until after it happened - so we remember neither the first nor the last time they occurred.

For example, my ex significant other and I always used to drive at least an hour to some random small town just to have pizza for dinner. The particular town or restaurant didn't matter - all small towns have good local Italian restaurants. What mattered is that we did this together, and that we enjoyed it. It was such a simple thing, and neither of us at the time realized how important those weekly outings were. For that reason, I cannot tell you the name of the town or restaurant we first ate at. I thought these road trips would go on forever, and now that he and I are separated, I can't remember the last place we went to. All I know is that there was a first town and restaurant and a last town and restaurant, and that there will be no more such road trips.

The same goes with holidays, Independence Day in particular. I have a childhood memory of my first fireworks show: the symmetry of the explosions, the three-dimensionality of the trails of sparks, how the bursts looked like flowers, only loud! At the time I didn't know why there were fireworks on that day, the Fourth of July, but I knew that that day must be important.

Years and years later, I also recall the last fireworks show I attended, which was in 2010. In the time between the first fireworks show and that last one, I became extremely averse to their sounds as well as to crowds. This may sound stupid, but there it is.

In an attempt to cure myself of this, I attended the 2010 Fourth of July celebration at a beach town in Maryland. I arrived very early, found a place on the beach as close as possible to the fireworks launcher, laid back on my towel, stretched my arms out, and watched. By the end, I was tired from the conscious effort needed not to move, and my hands were sore from grabbing the sand and towel for dear life! As I returned to my car, several strangers on the boardwalk asked if I was OK. I wasn't, but it didn't matter, for I made it through the whole thing.

This brings us to the Fourth of July 2020. Most large fireworks displays were cancelled because of the China Flu. Even if they weren't canceled, the meaning of Independence Day has changed for some Americans. Instead of being a time to celebrate our freedom, for them it has become an occasion to disparage our country.

There are three groups of people doing this.

First, there are the gay rights activists. They claim that homophobia exists, but to justify this they must add letters to what used to be only LGB. By doing so, they drop the idea that what makes a gay person gay is who he or she is attracted to, and replace it with an "assigned gender preference." They elevate fetishes to the status of sexual orientation. They also make a lack of self-awareness into an orientation, calling such people "transgender," "non-binary," "questioning," "pansexual," or "gender fluid". Further, some of them are attempting to normalize pedophilia, saying that the adult participants in this are "minor-attracted people" and trying to add a second "P" to the ever-growing initialism of non-cis-heterosexual "orientations".

Instead of "LGBTTQQIAAP," activists should save time and letters just by using "ABS" - anybody but straight.

With each letter added to "LGB" and each color added to the rainbow flag, someone claims a victory. But victories are meaningless when the opposition is negligible and the cost of losing is nonexistent.

If they want a true victory, these so-called activists should attempt to end the lawful execution of gays in Muslim countries. But they won't even try, since they are convinced that all cultures must be respected.

Then there is the Black Lives Matter movement, which is composed either of guilty white liberals or people looking for any opportunity to loot and burn. Black lives matter to them as long as it is a black man who was killed by a white cop, or if the black in question votes for the Democrats.

Of course there was slavery, but we fought a war to end it. The people who claim racism still exists are the same ones rewriting the history of the Civil War and destroying monuments describing that war. BLM continues to fight a war that ended in 1865 while completely ignoring the fact that slavery is still common in Africa and that there is an active slave trade in the Arab world.

Finally, there are the socialists calling themselves Antifa. They despise capitalism while living off their parents' trust funds and organizing their permanent revolution by using capitalist-made computers, all while enjoying overpriced coffee at Starbucks.

These modern-day Trotskyites operate in a logical and historical vacuum, ignoring the mass genocides that occurred in the countries governed by the very leaders that Antifa idolizes, all while favorably comparing themselves to American D-Day troops.

The commonality to these groups is that their members don't know how good they have it, and they have to invent nonexistent enemies to aggrandize their otherwise unremarkable lives. They are fueled by a vacuous education system, encouraged by their over-indulgent parents, enabled by left-wing politicians and judges, and operate unopposed by spineless cuckservastives.

The people doing this denigration are either ignorant of our history or were taught a straw-man version of history. We're the country that built the Transcontinental Railroad in only six years. We conquered the Axis Powers in under six years. We landed men on the Moon nine years after Kennedy set the direction. We've cured diseases, invented technologies, raised the standard of living for everybody. We're the ones who coined the term "self-made man," and many of us live that American dream.

These same people who deprecate this country have the whole world in their pockets, literally, either in iPhone or Android format. Yet the best they can do is defecate in their own kitchens.

Given all this, one must wonder if the July Fourth that ended a few hours ago is indeed the last Independence Day we'll see that hasn't been eviscerated of content and celebrated only out of habit.

While all the local fireworks shows were cancelled, some individuals at nearby apartment complexes decided to have their own shows. This is America at its best - private individuals taking up the slack left by our spineless representatives. I went to one of these apartment complex shows; while the crowds weren't very big, the noises were still nerve wracking. For if this is to be the last real Fourth of July, I want to experience it, and I want it to hurt.

Snowflake's Day

Dad is still pissed at me for dropping out of math class. He can be such a hard ass! Yea, I waited until it was too late to get even a partial refund from the university, but so what? Dad will pay for the class again next semester.

The math professor I had this time was a real task master, and he had it out for me since day one. On the first day of class, I asked him if we should clap or just snap our fingers so that people don't get triggered. His response was "neither, this isn't the Oprah Winfrey Show." When I pressed him on the issue, he said, "this is not a debate club, either."

I dropped that class because it was hard and that professor had high expectations for us. When I complained to him about it, he said that he was surprised anybody could graduate from high school and still need remedial math! Before I walked out, I told him that logic and reason are racist creations of white men used to oppress minorities. That's what I learned in gender studies last semester.

The university doesn't like students to shop around, but hopefully I can get an easy math prof next semester.

Yesterday was boring. I started to watch an American football game because I heard the players would be taking a knee during the National Anthem. I've heard about how players have been cussing-out fans for booing them, but that's OK: the players are part of an oppressed minority, and that's just payback.

I only watched the first 20 minutes of the game. I much prefer real football, or what ignorant Americans call soccer. American football is nothing but a capitalist bourgeois spectacle celebrating toxic hetero-normative masculine values. When will people learn that gender is just a social construct? Why can't America be more like Europe?

Today should be interesting, though, because I'm meeting with my friends Mohammed, Shaniqua, LaShawn, José, and Graham over at Starbucks.

Mohammed has always hated Graham because he's gay, even though Graham bends over backwards to kiss Mohammed's ass. Figuratively, not literally. I really thought Graham would drop out of our group after the Orlando shootings, but he's more enlightened than some of his gay friends. They actually want to ban Muslim immigrants, but Graham knew that the real problem was lax gun control laws. He lost some gay friends over that.

Graham has been hitting on me lately. I told him I was bi so I can appear to be inclusive, but I'm really straight. You'd think he'd have figured it out by now. I wish he'd stop bringing dildos to our meetings - yes, Graham, we all know you're gay!

LaShawn, who is thinking about transitioning, is very active in the BLM - he says he's one of the few black men in that organization. "The rest are guilty-ass crackas," he says. BLM is all about fighting racism, and that's LaShawn's main issue.

José has been boycotting Taco Bell lately because they've appropriated his culture. José has been lying low, he hasn't worn his "Make America Mexico Again" hat in weeks. He's undocumented, and he doesn't want to go back to Mexico. He was originally going to skip tonight, but the La Raza meeting got cancelled.

There's always been an undercurrent of tension between LaShawn and José. Not sure why, though.

Shaniqua's an African-American woman and a lesbian. Her main issue is body positivity. She's tired of fat shaming. Even though she's 350 pounds, she still walks up one flight of stairs every morning and hardly wheezes. So much for gravitationally-challenged people being less healthy than everyone else! Shaniqua doesn't complain about my white male privilege, much. She's just made associate professor over in the Women's Studies Department, and I hear she's pulling a salary in the high five figures.

My friends can be kind of tiring with all their backstabbing and general cattiness, but they represent the diversity that is our future!

It is 10:30 in the morning, so I might as well get out of bed. It is still chilly - why do mom and dad always keep the basement so cold?

I look in my dresser - not too many clothes there, mom needs to do laundry. I've got a red Che Guevara t-shirt, but today is Friday, and I hear that people on the right wear red on Fridays to support the military. Nazi pigs! I'll wear my black and white AntiFa t-shirt instead.

I've only got one clean pair of blue jeans, but tomorrow is "National Coming Out Day" and I want to wear those on campus. Instead, I'll wear my skinny jeans that mom got me last week. Like I said, mom needs to get around to doing laundry.

So, only a few hours before that meeting at Starbucks.

You know, dad always says that I need some direction in life. I've made significant progress on that issue over the last 12 months, I think. This meeting is part of that progress.

Last year, I wished that my generation had a great cause, something that would get people to rise up and get organized. The government should get involved, and force people to get off their butts. I wished that there was something great I could do. I'm still mad at my math prof. He said, "we are standing on the shore of a great ocean" and "great men create great times." Sexist pig, assuming only males can be great! Didn't he know that it is society that makes the person? Any person's character can always be deconstructed into the effects that others have on that person. That's what my lit-crit professor said two semesters ago. Has Mr. Math Professor even heard of Derrida?

My generation now has a great cause - fighting Trump! We're organizing a "Resist Fascism" rally at this meeting. When I told my math prof that I joined AntiFa to resist Fascism, he asked if I was going to storm the beaches of Normandy. I don't understand what he says half the time. But whatevs, he's a white male, and he can't see the world as it is because of his white male privilege.

We are resisting Fascism, and that's a worthy cause!

I get dressed and go upstairs. No one left me lunch, and the only thing to eat was some cold pineapple pizza. I'm vegan, so dad has them hold the ham. Animal rights are very important to me, that's why I'm vegan.

I guess I'd better get ready for the meeting at Starbucks, so I need my MacBook and my hammer and sickle flag. Mom won't be able to give me a ride today. That's OK, our carbon footprint is too large. I'll just take the bus.

My Apple MacBook has finished charging. How I love that MacBook! Thanks, mom and dad, for getting it for me! Apple's CEO is gay, and they had Michelle Obama speak at one of the developer conferences earlier this year. Those two things right there make Macs better than Windows machines any day! The best tech companies fight for progressive causes, and aren't afraid of getting rid of employees who question this. Good for them!

Side note: I'm really looking forward to the new iPhone X. The web page announcing it has absolutely no photos of lilly-white males using it! Dad says he'll get me one when they come out!

Anyway, my MacBook is ready to go.

What else should I bring? The first time I went to an AntiFa meeting, I brought poster-board and magic markers, thinking we'll be making signs. I was told that the signs will be printed for us. Less work for us! Great!

Wait, I almost forgot my Communist flag with the hammer and sickle on it! Where is that flag? Oh yea, the police confiscated it and the flagpole it was attached to when my friend used it to stab a police horse in the neck. Her bail was set at something huge! The government isn't enlightened - who cares that the flagpole had a nail in it? The horse deserved it, working for the hegemony like that. I'll never see that flag again.

I'll just ask mom and dad to pick me up another hammer and sickle flag - they've always indulged and supported me. I'm only 25, no one can expect me to buy one of those on my own!

Photobombing a Tragedy

Certain Christian sects have a proud tradition of "witnessing" - the adherents believe that they are in this world to witness tragedies, to minister to the sick and injured, and to spread the Word, thereby making the world a better place.

There is a secular version of this activity that is extremely relevant today: being an independent journalist. With mainstream media resigning themselves to being propagandists and high-profile agent provocateurs, an alternative is needed. Take for example the MSM coverage of AntiFa: you almost never see photos of them carrying hammer-and-sickle Communist flags, but they do. Without direct witnessing (observation), most people wouldn't know that they indeed fly that flag.

There is an activity that can be confused for witnessing, and that is "photobombing". By this I mean the insertion of oneself or one's group into a situation where they have no purpose being - beyond gathering publicity.

The presence of militias at the riots in Charlottesville, VA, is a perfect example of photobombing.

The primary participants in the riots were AntiFa and various neo-Nazi groups. Any reasonable outsider would have stayed at home and cheered as the two sides tried to kill each other, or they would attend only in order to witness events and spread the words that MSM reporters are loathe to speak.

Certain members of various militias decided to insert themselves into that mess with the stated goal of keeping the two sides apart.

In what situations should a militia or militia-like group take action? Here's some criteria. Action should be taken if one has proper:

• Training
• Equipment
• Manpower
• Mission
• Authority

How many members of the militia had training in urban operations, crowd control, etc? Of the people who went to Charlottesville, few if any.

Did they have the right equipment? None of the photos of the event showed them possessing riot gear, like face protection or shields. But they were "tacticool".

The militia presence consisted of about 32 people, not nearly enough do crowd control.

Then there is the mission: was there a clearly defined mission, carefully planned, with criteria for both success and failure, as well as a timetable? No.

Finally, there's the issue of authority. If Charlottesville law enforcement had deputized the militia members, then perhaps they would have a purpose there. They would be part of a well-organized law enforcement organization that did have proper training, equipment, manpower, mission, and authority. Trouble is, they could borrow the equipment but they could not borrow the training, so again they would be ill-prepared.

Did the police even want the militia there? There may have been a gentlemen's agreement, but nothing in writing.

Yet, there the militia was, where they had no business. They photobombed the riots.

Another disturbing aspect of the militia's participation is the large amount of media coverage it generated. The MSM lumped the militiamen together with the white supremacists. It didn't help that the militia members forgot to scrub their uniforms, and one was photographed wearing a Confederate flag on his uniform.

There was only one seemingly positive report about the militia's presence, a Washington Post article. The writing was so nebulous that it could be read as either a glowing review or a damning condemnation of the militia. An analysis of this article can be found on the Patrick Henry Society website which examines the ambiguity in the WaPo's article, and eviscerates the story as well as the subject of that story.

All this gave the militia a black eye, but other acts made it worse. One militia member created a "Hug a Muslim" video, and he also made overtures to the BLM, despite their explicit racism, in order to prove that militias aren't racist. What happens should the BLM start rioting while the militia is standing next to them? No comment.

Unlike some other people in the patriot community, I do believe that a professional and effective militia is a possibility. It requires eliminating drama and favoring substance over optics. It requires a lot of training from veterans, and the first step is for militiamen to shut up, work hard, and learn from the training. Even then we will never be as good as they are, but that's OK. We just have to be good enough to protect that which we value.