
White House Veterans Helped Gulf Monarchy Build Secret Surveillance Unit - mzs
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-raven-whitehouse/
======
vowelless
Unfortunately, not a surprise at all. Recall that Clarke was one of the guys
who OKed the return of the bin Laden family on 9/11 [edit: 1]. Clarke had deep
connections to royals and rich elites like the bin Ladens

See how they targeted Qatari individuals including Al Thani himself. They say
the incentive was the fight against Al Qaeda. But I am skeptical. This is
about the rivalry between the Qatari and other Khaleeji royals (recall that
Qatar was kicked out of GCC recently for aligning with rival ideologies like
Muslim Brotherhood).

Also interesting to note is that until very recently, America’s Mid East
command was in Qatar; so America was playing both sides of that conflict (as
usual). I am, of course, assuming that Good Harbor / DREAD have deep federal
ties. Not sure about DarkMatter — that seems Emirati.

———-

Edits:

[1] the commenter below corrected me. It was on 13th of September. But my
understanding is that there was still an exception made for the Saudis (see
the private aircraft ban extending beyond the time when Saudis were being
shuttled around)

~~~
BeetleB
> recall that Qatar was kicked out of GCC recently for aligning with rival
> ideologies like Muslim Brotherhood

This is a very narrow view of what happened. It has more to do with the worry
of Qatar's growing influence and independence in the region, as well as their
close ties with Iran and Turkey. And the success of Al-Jazeera. I mean, just
take a look at the demands made of Qatar:

\- Closing Al-Jazeera and its affiliate stations.

\- Closing other news outlets that Qatar funds, directly and indirectly,
including Arabi21, Rassd, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed and Middle East Eye.

\- Closing the Turkish military base in Qatar, and terminate the Turkish
military presence and any joint military cooperation with Turkey inside Qatar.

\- Reducing diplomatic relations with Iran. Only trade and commerce with Iran
that complies with US and international sanctions will be permitted.[228]

\- Expelling any members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and
cutting off military and intelligence cooperation with Iran.[229]

\- "Qatar must announce it is severing ties with terrorist, ideological and
sectarian organizations including the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Jabhat Fateh al
Sham, formerly al Qaeda's branch in Syria" according to one Arab official.

\- Surrendering all designated terrorists in Qatar, and stopping all means of
funding for individuals, groups or organisations that have been designated as
terrorists.

\- Ending interference in the four countries' domestic and foreign affairs and
having contact with their political oppositions.

\- Stopping granting citizenship to wanted nationals from Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain.

\- Revoking Qatari citizenship for existing nationals where such citizenship
violates those countries' laws.[228]

\- The payment of reparations for years of alleged wrongs.

\- Monitoring for 10 years.[226]

\- Aligning itself with the other Gulf and Arab countries militarily,
politically, socially and economically, as well as on economic matters, in
line with an agreement reached with Saudi Arabia in 2014.[228]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_diplomatic_crisis#Demand...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_diplomatic_crisis#Demands_on_Qatar_and_responses)

~~~
mclightning
It is weird US is bothered by Qatar having good relations with Turkey, which
harbour US bases, 50+ US nukes, and NATO's second largest army.

It is almost like US doesn't want its allies to work well with each other. /s

~~~
thefounder
>> It is almost like US doesn't want its allies to work well with each other.

Pretty much on point. See also support for Brexit and anything that divides
Europe. It's really just about protecting US's interests. Double standards is
part of that. International law is for weaker nations(i.e divided).

~~~
jonnybgood
I don’t believe brexit is in US interests. And I think any US politician
saying they support brexit is pandering to their base. The UK is a major
diplomatic and political avenue into the EU. What other EU country has a
relationship with the US like the UK?

~~~
tempguy9999
Brit here: I think it is in the US interests, depending (and trump thinks in
very simple ways). If the UK splits hard from the EU, it can (supposedly) be
persuaded to accept US standards of food etc. Europe is also weakened by
losing a major member so it can be pulled apart over time and 'embraced'.

I can see how the US, this pres especially, might see brexit as an opportunity
and benefit.

(edit: clarification)

------
walrus01
In my personal opinion there is _absolutely no way_ that "five eyes" nations
should allow ex-intelligence-agency personnel, particularly from the NSA and
related SIGINT entities (CSE, GCHQ, etc) to go work in the private sector for
non democratic regimes.

You want to go work for Denmark, or Germany? Sure, get the appropriate permit
from the department of state. For the UAE, or Iran, or Myanmar? No. I don't
care if the royal family running the UAE are supposedly our friends.

Any person that is a citizen of a five eyes + partner nation, which goes to
work for a project like this, should immediately find themselves the target of
their country-of-citizenship's intelligence agencies.

~~~
Der_Einzige
Not to imply that Myanmar is a place where sigint entites should work, but
since 2010 the country has dramatically improved and democratized and even has
a (mostly) free press

~~~
walrus01
Right, except for that pesky ethnic cleansing problem

------
AndrewBissell
> Drawn to the UAE with the promise of combating terrorism, dozens of American
> intelligence contractors cycled in and out of a secret hacking unit over the
> course of a decade. As time went on, the mission became less focused on
> preventing violent attacks than on targeting the country’s political
> enemies.

It's time for us to stop pretending that the purpose of mass surveillance
programs is to prevent one-off terrorist attacks. They exist to surveil and
quash political dissidents.

~~~
c22
It seems like a natural progression. Obviously you want to stop terrorist
attacks _before_ they happen, but now you're not targeting terrorists, you're
targeting political dissidents who have a plan to become terrorists. The
earlier in the planning stages you can catch them the better. Soon enough
you're keeping an eye on them before they've made any plans...

~~~
naringas
...and then get them before they choose to dissent

~~~
cr0sh
...or encourage them to dissent.

/when you don't have any dissent, manufacture it

~~~
mirimir
The US has done that with domestic Muslim terrorists. Agents even setup links
for obtaining weapons and explosives.

------
gnatman
I listened to an episode of Darknet Diaries[1] where they interview one of the
contractors that worked on this project.

[1]
[https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/](https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/)

~~~
saganus
Interesting!

Is there an RSS link to use with a podcast app?

I couldn't find one from my phone.

~~~
blotter_paper
RSS:
[https://feeds.megaphone.fm/darknetdiaries](https://feeds.megaphone.fm/darknetdiaries)

Platform specific links:
[https://darknetdiaries.com/subscribe/](https://darknetdiaries.com/subscribe/)

------
secfirstmd
Dodgy Middle East money and Western intelligence people wanting to take it
goes further than just cyber security. There are often times when Middle
Eastern money competes to flow into and lock up various prestigious private
(mostly human) intelligence companies. Ditto with close protection.
Essentially trying to keep them on side during various legal and illegal
battles.

Its not my area but I also heard recently the same thing happens quite a lot
with the big marketing firms.

~~~
secretasiandan
This article claims it happens with lawyers too

    
    
      Mr. Pottinger later said that the scenario would have involved him representing a victim, settling a case and then representing the victim’s alleged abuser. He said it was within legal boundaries. (He also said he had meant to type “No client lawsuit is actually involved.”)
      Such legal arrangements are not unheard-of. Lawyers representing a former Fox News producer who had accused Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment reached a settlement in which her lawyers agreed to work for Mr. O’Reilly after the dispute. But legal experts generally consider such setups to be unethical because they can create conflicts between the interests of the lawyers and their original clients.
    

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/business/david-boies-
pott...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/30/business/david-boies-pottinger-
jeffrey-epstein-videos.html)

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
[repeat w/o scrollbar due to double spaces]

"""

Mr. Pottinger later said that the scenario would have involved him
representing a victim, settling a case and then representing the victim’s
alleged abuser. He said it was within legal boundaries. (He also said he had
meant to type “No client lawsuit is actually involved.”)

Such legal arrangements are not unheard-of. Lawyers representing a former Fox
News producer who had accused Bill O’Reilly of sexual harassment reached a
settlement in which her lawyers agreed to work for Mr. O’Reilly after the
dispute. But legal experts generally consider such setups to be unethical
because they can create conflicts between the interests of the lawyers and
their original clients.

"""

------
zbyte64
The USA built counterterroism surveillance tools for the UAE monarchy and in
2016 Emirati firm DarkMatter takes over. Yikes.

------
walrus01
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSRA_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSRA_Inc).

One of the contractors in question. Now a part of General Dynamics.

------
onetimemanytime
>> _Utilizing his close relationship to the country’s rulers, forged through
decades of experience as a senior U.S. decision-maker, Clarke won numerous
security consulting contracts in the UAE._

Let's collects lots of business cards so in a few years we can cash in our
favors. There oughta be a law...

------
Havoc
If the money is good there will always be people willing to look away

------
a0zU
How did nobody realize that DREAD is an incredibly ominous acronym early on in
this project?

~~~
smt88
That was the point... this kind of sinister backcronym is common in military
and intelligence.

~~~
int_19h
And law enforcement, at least in US.

Fun fact: the guy who came up with "SWAT" originally intended it to mean
Special Weapons Attack Team. His supervisor told him to come up with something
that didn't sound quite so aggressive, and thus it became Special Weapons And
Tactics.

------
carokann
Khasoggi (and a myriad of other political dissidents) was tracked with
software obtained by Saudis from Israel (NSO) and butchered in a consulate. A
year after it, Veterans are still allowed to co-op with these dudes? No lesson
learned after all.

------
chiefalchemist
> "He said the plan was approved by the U.S. State Department and the National
> Security Agency, and that Good Harbor followed U.S. law."

If you're cynical that sentence is frightening.

~~~
ev0lv
Can you elaborate why?

------
api
Someone posted this and got downvoted to the point of 'dead'. I smell bots
and/or troll farmers, so I'm reposting:

\--

I listened to an episode of Darknet Diaries[1] where they interview one of the
contractors that worked on this project.

[1]
[https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/](https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/47/)

~~~
OnlineGladiator
> Someone posted this and got downvoted to the point of 'dead'. I smell bots
> and/or troll farmers

I wonder how pervasive this is on HN, since you need a minimum of 500 karma
before you can downvote someone. I have to admit though, over the past year HN
has started to feel more like reddit (this is not my first account, I have
been here for many years). I don't think it's because of poor moderation, I
think it's just a result of HN becoming popular enough that it's attracting a
larger audience.

~~~
dang
"HN is turning into Reddit" was a cliché 10 years ago. Even the responses were
clichés 10 years ago. I think we can say what Voltaire said when told that
coffee is a slow poison: "It must be very slow." [1]

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=turning%20%22into%20reddit%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=66057)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=223184](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=223184)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=225134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=225134)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247582](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247582)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=278785](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=278785)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=289254)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=576431](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=576431)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=582513)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=633099)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=926703)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1495742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1495742)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1523969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1523969)

It would be fun to find the first appearance of this on HN. Here's one from
when HN was still called Startup News:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13852).
So HN was turning into Reddit before it was HN. (The name Hacker News came in
Aug 2007:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html))

[1] Actually it was Fontenelle, not Voltaire, but I guess all 18th century
French jokes eventually go to Voltaire.

~~~
vonmoltke
While "turning into Reddit" is a tired cliché here, I have seen a slowly-
increasing trend of unjustified and irrational downvoting here. It's nowhere
near reddit-bad, but it _is_ significantly worse than when I joined eight
years ago. I have seen an increase in longer-term users commenting on
undeserved downvotes of other people's posts, which tells me I'm not the only
one seeing this.

Unfortunately, I think the cat has left the bag. Removing the censorship
feature from downvotes would counteract most of the damage it does to
discourse, I think.

~~~
dang
This perception has been around since the early years too. I've even pulled
out the Voltaire joke about it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12670004](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12670004).

In fact, the guideline against downvote complaints predates the guideline
against "turning into Reddit" complaints by a couple of years:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080706144102/http://ycombinato...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080706144102/http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
mjfl
> The secret unit Clarke helped create had an ominous acronym: DREAD, short
> for Development Research Exploitation and Analysis Department.

“Are we the baddies?”

~~~
naringas
classic mitchell and webb sketch
[https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU](https://youtu.be/hn1VxaMEjRU)

------
brobdingnagians
Reminds me of the Mitchell & Webb Look sketch where it goes like this:

    
    
        > Second Nazi: Have you noticed that our caps actually have little pictures of skulls on them?
        > Hans: I don't... er-
        > Second Nazi: Hans... are we the baddies? 
    

People going around helping monarchies (and/or democracies) to implement mass
surveillance on journalists and human rights activists, with projects' named
things like DREAD, should start asking themselves that question...

~~~
tux1968
What is more concerning is that in popular culture right now many people are
loudly calling for government control of news, to stamp out so called fake
news. That can only lead to what amounts to a government Ministry of Truth,
and support for surveillance of all journalists and activists.

So while those working on such projects need to ask themselves some serious
questions, the rest of us should be loudly speaking out against the rising
support of censorship and authoritarianism in general.

~~~
cr0sh
Honestly what we need is the re-instatement of the Fairness Doctrine:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine)

Between that and maybe some kind of regulation of websites or other internet
media that purport to be "news" but are something else (ie - make it a
requirement that such sites conspicuously show a "for entertainment purposes
only" or "satire" or similar banner). Perhaps with penalties for those who
don't comply.

Of course, there's a fine line to the above; simple bloggers or even HN could
potentially overstep it. There's also the issue of false accusations...

I doubt, though, that any of these things will likely occur.

------
the-dude
Renders as white page for me. Can not read.

~~~
wavefunction
It's working for me in Chrome with uBlock on.

the tldr is that Americans (former officials, former NSA hackers) built an
offensive hacking unit for the UAE that is now targeting other governments and
activists in the region. Women's rights activists in Saudi Arabia and
journalists and such.

~~~
stevenwoo
It sounds like the Americans eventually did all the work except the cinematic
final return key press to start execution of a program for many of the
operations as they could not train enough UAE employees to do the work.

------
readhn
How about another fun one? :

Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) program to arm and finance the jihadists, in Afghanistan from
1979 to 1989, prior to and during the military intervention by the USSR in
support of its client, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The program
leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups that were favored by
the regime of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in neighboring Pakistan, rather than other,
less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the
Marxist-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan regime since before the
Soviet intervention.[1] Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most
expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken;[2] funding officially began
with $695,000 in 1979,[3][4] was increased dramatically to $20–$30 million per
year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987.[1][5][6] Funding
continued after 1989 as the mujahideen battled the forces of Mohammad
Najibullah's PDPA during the civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992).[7]

~~~
mzs
Huh? Unlike the article I submitted, this has nothing to do with cyber,
computers, hackers, tech… so I fail to see why you commented about it here o_O

Instead here's "another fun one" where OSINT computer DBs were searched* to
reveal how one country made an offer to a prisoner to assassinate someone in
another country.

* [https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/12/06/ide...](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/12/06/identifying-the-berlin-bicycle-assassin-russias-murder-franchise-part-2/)

