America First Legal released its entire trove of documents (80 pages) obtained through litigation following a legal win in May against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). AFL's lawsuit was filed on behalf of former Ambassador Rick Grenell against the "Homeland Intelligence Experts Group (HIEG)." AFL released all six installments of its #DeepStateDiaries, a multi-part series of releases exposing the highly politicized Brennan-Clapper Intel Group.
One of the more stunning revelations includes a proposal to expand DHS's reach into local communities by "contemplating ways to get teachers and mothers to report their children." Another set of documents showed a proposal for profiling by using tags to identify people in the military or religious groups who might be "extremists" or terrorists. A second set of documents show group members discussed their belief that "most of the Domestic Terrorism threat now comes from supporters of the former president," meaning Trump supporters. These findings add to the long list of ways the Biden administration has managed to shred the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the most sinister ways.
During HEIG's introductory call on May 23, 2023, stakeholders heard from Intelligence Community (IC) experts who asserted there were "unprecedented challenges for U.S. intelligence organizations" concerning threats to the "U.S. economy, domestic extremists, cyber actors, and attacks on our democracy." Leadership emphasized the need to gain perspective from State, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) communities using the State and Local Intelligence Council (SLIC) as a primary vehicle for input. The call recognized a recent "realignment" of Intelligence and Analysis (I & A). Arguably, the realignment has more than something to do with a specific worldview, given everything else coming out of the current administration.
I & A is the only intelligence community asset "statutorily charged with delivering intelligence to the SLTT, private sector partners, and developing intelligence from those partners for DHS and the IC," according to the website. The I & A provides training and information to DHS to "keep the Homeland safe, secure, and resilient." Attendees also considered in the call whether DHS should have a "bigger/better" Domestic Terrorism (DT) branch. The first in-person meeting occurred at the Nebraska Avenue Complex on June 23, 2023. Key priorities identified in the first call included "tightening up" the political dimension, preventing people from radicalizing, "moving towards a public health approach, and dealing with immigration and global migration patterns."
Notably, the meeting document obtained by AFL talks about the role of The New York Times (NYT) as a partner in intelligence collection. The difference between the way I & A collects intelligence and the way that the NYT collects intel allegedly has to do with whether the collection is active or passive. According to the document, I & A is passive, not "covert or clandestine." The NYT, on the other hand, has fewer constraints, according to the meeting document. NYT assigns 8 to 10 reporters to monitor "the worse parts of the Internet" and can engage directly. "The NYT has more authorities and can be more intrusive," whereas in I & A, "everything has to be overt." The I & A can use "non-attributable accounts and collectors," but they cannot interact. I & A is not an investigatory body, so the FBI investigates when I & A identifies a concern.
There are three core elements in what the document called The Partnership Office. That office was "stood up" in 2022. The core elements are "Field Intelligence, Engagement Liaison, and the Intelligence Watch and Coordination Center." Field Intel has 150 personnel throughout the U.S., with one person in each of the 80 Fusion Centers in 12 regions. There are also 30 Reports Officers deployed across the country.
Private Sector Engagement engages Chief Security Officers from Fortune 500 companies. The Engagement Liaison's priorities are focused on the Analytic Exchange Program, which includes private sector and government analysts partnering "on products." They look at indicators of violence, and their activities "feed into Guardian and eGuardian." The FBI developed the eGuardian system in 2008 to help with the challenges of collecting and sharing terrorism-related activities with law enforcement agencies.
According to the meeting documents, Intelligence Watch and Coordination is a 24/7 operation. Liaisons reach across the IC. In 2022, 50,000 special events, including inaugurations, rallies, the Super Bowl, etc., were submitted to the IC.
Some of the documents obtained by AFL showed IC officials admitting the group needs to work "quietly" to "make democracy work." The group also acknowledged the Biden administration drafted a "classified implementation plan to accompany their 2021 Domestic Surveillance Strategy." John Brennan and James Clapper have allegedly advocated for covert messaging and influence campaigns "targeted at the American public." AFL characterized the activity of the group as "more evidence of a Whole-of-Government approach" advocated by the Biden administration "to silencing political dissent and a new Orwellian effort to reclassify political dissent as an 'indicator' of domestic terrorism' to justify increased surveillance of conservatives."
This type of targeting and rhetoric has been common on the Left throughout Biden's presidency. The following graphic defining the types of Domestic Violet Extremists (DVEs) to monitor was included in the FBI's 140-page Strategic Intelligence Report on Domestic Violence. It aligns closely with the administration's worldview.
On Friday, UncoverDC spoke with former FBI agent and whistleblower Steve Friend about how groups like these manipulate the rules and laws to justify their surveillance. He and his fellow "Suspendable," Kyle Seraphin, have often spoken about how the FBI finagles to "bolster" its investigations, using the media and other partners in a circular feedback loop. Friend lays out the circular method below:
"It is often a circular method using public reporting and other partners to bolster an investigation. It is like what we saw with the 'nonpartisan' PRRI, the Public Religion Research Institute. And they're the ones that did the survey about white nationalism, which is then wandered into intelligence board because they're saying like, oh, look, there's a nonpartisan think tank studies religion in the in America.
Then the Atlantic will take that because they are partners and then report on it. PRRI are the ones that did the survey on white nationalism, which is then wandered into the intelligence board because they're saying oh, look, there's a nonpartisan think tank that studies religion in America. The Atlantic will come in behind and report on it. The investigation will be further justified because now there is independent reporting on it. And what they are really talking about is the idea that there is a high number of Christian nationalists who are all sympathizers with Donald Trump."
Friend also confirmed what he perceives as "the political overtones and wholesale coordination in the government led by provable perjurers with security clearances like Brennan and Clapper. They are doing stuff that is anti-constitutional." They lied to Congress and used their titles to add credibility. Brennan and Clapper's handprints are all over the AFL-acquired documents.
UncoverDC asked Friend to help de-code what the document means when it states that the "political dimension is an issue" and needs to be a "top priority to tighten that process up?" His answer? "I am not sure, but they may be saying that some speech that is political in nature is what we will be targeting. So we need to make it more of an efficient process to go after. It is like what Tiffany Justice said in a recent interview with me. You don't have to change a single law. You just have to change the meaning of the words that make up that law. "
Friend's words above ring true. Notice the document also references a wish to have "different statutory authorities" and ways they can leverage various programs to bring in or allocate additional funding they might not otherwise have available through Congressional authority. They know they have legal, constitutionally mandated limits, but they are always jockeying to work around the system. Referencing my question about the meaning of having a "structure and operating rhythm" referenced in the document excerpt below, Friend responded, "It sounds as though they also want to have a central hub."
Friend helped translate the intelligence speak in the exchange above by saying, "I don't speak intelligence. They speak a different different language. But it sounds to me like they want to have a central hub, have access to all the different databases, and figure out different ways to query searches to then get a more automated way of generating products that they want. They're smart guys. They don't want to say what they want, which is that 'we' need to figure out a way that 'we' can just automate going after people whom 'we' don't like. They have cover to say, yeah, it's our processes that generated that. It was the algorithm that did it! It wasn't us specifically targeting all the inputs to the processes. You know, like 'hey, does this person say things that are pro-Second Amendment, pro-traditional marriage—then they're going to be targeted."
Friend's interpretation of the document excerpts certainly makes sense, given what we know about the way the IC community seems to be managing its political biases. The IC knows full well the Constitution would not allow for half of the surveillance activity in which they seem to be involved.
