SIGINT Spy Drone Key to Capturing Shahzad?
A retired National Security Agency (NSA) source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, says signals intelligence was a key factor in catching Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad.
Working with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, NSA agents apparently tracked Shahzad’s movements by locating signals from his cell phone, possibly via a drone. This is ironic because in a video posted at the Long War Journal, the Taliban claims that the Times Square bombing was revenge for recent drone attacks in Pakistan.
Curiously, at 6:21 pm EST on Tuesday, WCBS-2 TV in New York reported that Army intelligence aircraft had led to the suspect’s arrest. “In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport,” reported Marcia Kramer.
But then the article was quickly taken down. Wired magazine’s Danger Room website speculates that “those planes were likely RC-12s, equipped with a Guardrail Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) system.” Tim Brown, a senior fellow with GlobalSecurity.org who specializes in satellite technology and imagery analysis, disagrees. “Guardrail is a tactical SIGINT package used in the sandbox [i.e. the Middle East],” Brown told me in a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles. ”Guardrail are modified Beechcraft King Air planes generally used to pinpoint a location to call in an air strike. Guardrail is not deployed in the United States because it would violate Posse Comitatus,” Brown explained.
The Posse Comitatus Act, signed into law in 1878, limits the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement purposes. And it likely explains why WCBS-2 took the article down. Brown believes that if Faisal Shahzad’s capture was owing to signals intelligence from an intercepted phone call, it could have come from a satellite relay from a drone equipped with a sophisticated SIGINT package. But flying drones over New York City “gets into a murky area,” Brown explained, one that is the subject of a growing and yet unresolved debate. “Coast Guard, DHS and local law enforcement have expressed interest in flying drones domestically for surveillance purposes,” Brown explains, but so far it appears no one “officially” does.
“Is the public ready to have drones flying around overhead?”
Why not? We already allow widespread monitoring of the public via traffic systems including automated enforcement systems. CCTV everywhere is everywhere, especially at airports, and we don’t care. The government has mandated “black boxes” in all cars in just a few years and the jump to monitoring those black boxes via roadside monitors or aerial drones or satellites is just a technocratic half step away. The ability to monitor all the movements of the public is irresistible to big government types. The excuse to do it will be “public safety” or some other canard but in fact it’s merely about control for the sake of control and also taxation.
Up in WA State for the Seattle area they proposed “congestion tolls” on all highways and arterial roads.
This system would use toll transponders and charge drivers for the road used, the amount of congestion and time of day.
By default such a system would have a pretty comprehensive database of individuals’ daily movements.
The movement database should keep personal data anonymous until someone
shows they have ‘The Right and the Need to Know’ by way of a court order,
or a verified time-critical Homeland Security emergency; 21st century SOP,
people, learn to live with it, while maintaining maximum privacy possible.
Surely the NY Times will want to expose this intolerable governmental spying on our citizens, right?
There’s no need for aircraft to monitor (and triangulate) a cell phone. It can be done from the comfort of your desk, provided you have the right employer.
Nobody say NSA, OK?
Can’t ANYONE keep a secret nowdays? Now in addiiton to the New York Times, we have people bragging about methods that ought to kept under wraps. I mean really.
It certainly does a little to dissipate the air of incompetence that wafts through the DC air these days.
My take is this situation would fall into a grey area.
A attempted attack took place designed to cause mass casualties. Particularly in the context of the ongoing GWoT, gov’t's first reaction should be this is a part of the larger war.
Posse Comitatus applies to the Federally constituted standing army participating in Law Enforcement in the CONUS.
This grey area exists more because of the current administration insisted on treating terrorism as a LE issue and not a warfare issue. By treating these incidents as law enforcement they move using federal military assets into the realm of Posse Comitatus.
If terrorism was clearly and consistently treated as a warfare issue there would be no question.
I found in a Rand monograph the following listed as an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act:
• Aerial photographic and visual search and surveillance by military
personnel were found not to violate the Posse Comitatus
Act.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1251/MR1251.AppD.pdf
Not a big leap to SIGINT.
You can connect to the computer of the cell phone service provider (probably with a warrant) and follow the suspect. No need for drones.
Why speculate? Ask a Congressman directly – they can ask the relevant questions, to the right people.
My hipshot answer? No. What is described crosses a very, very bright line that previously was strong enough to make most mid-level SIGINT management types wet their pants at the thought of crossing.
IF – and this is a huge if – such assets were employed in the CONUS for this type of activity, it would have required AT LEAST Attorney General level, if not White House involvement and approval, in addition to the involvement of the FISA. Quite frankly, while the current administration is likely Machiavellian enough to do it, it’s doubtful they have the competence or the stones to pull it off.
Think your source is credible? Crank up the FOIA machinery, and get some Congresscritters on it.
Game on.
More likely it would have required National Command Authority clearance for SIGINT drones to be operating in the CONUS. Meaning the president himself.
Warrantless wiretaps anyone?
I don’t think most people would be against the use of a drone under certain limited sets of circumstances such as we just had an example of. If someone wants to bring down the government and put in an Islamic regime than that is worth a few extreme measures.
On the other hand I wouldn’t trust the likes of Obama with my car keys let alone with the ability to track me everywhere I go. The last thing I need is a laser beam from a circling FDA drone evaporating the salt shaker from my hand.
Besides, it is becoming pretty clear that we are going to have to overthrow the current crop of leaders we have fairly soon. We will see if it can be done peacefully but I think we are going to see a civil war in my lifetime. A society doesn’t elect someone like Obama unless it is in its death throes and there is usually violence when a great country comes to an end.
“Quick, get the post dated letter giving the NYPD control of the drone, and don’t let anyone know we have been listening in on the Mosques to over the sea enemys.
Tell Holder to come by tonight.
BLT POTUS”
Intel collection does not violate Posse Comitatus.
There are well defined rules on when and where military personnel can be used on domestic targets for Intel collection purposes. MI personnel, special units, and certain recon units are regularly briefed on the policy. The chain of command is well defined as well. There is a paper trail.
Nice work, NerdyBaldGuy.
So Shahdad asked “How did you find me?”
The agent told him, “A little bird told us where to look.”
The issue isn’t posse comitatus (assistance to LE) per se. The military is specifically proscribed from conducting surveillance in the CONUS. DOD can provide imagery of the CONUS (such as assessing flood damage in support of disaster relief) provided the imagery is not greater than a certain level of fine-grain detail. That jibes with NerdyBaldGuy’s RAND citation. Note, however, that the RAND citation is very specific (“Aerial photographic and visual search”); this does not include SIGINT.
This is a holdover from the aftermath of the Church Commission in the ’70s. The last time I read about this, Executive Order 12333 was the policy source.
When Bush was getting flack for wiretapping international calls to/from terrorists, I was pretty OK with it. I didn’t think there was a reasonable expectation to privacy there, but my lib friends busted my ass over it. When the Christmas bomber got nabbed and they mirandized him, I wasn’t hot on it but figured they either had to do that or push him to military tribunal (which this admin isn’t going to admit it to) and got flamed from the left and right.
Now we’re seeing US Citizens targeted for assasination overseas, electronic spy drones used in our cities, and more, and it’s awfully quiet. WTH happened? Crap really does seem to be running down the slippery slope and it’s all good.
So your telling me that the US Government used special top secret spy technology to find this Muslim Terrorist.
But, wait, the human side the, you know; the proverbial cash and one way ticket thingy was missed again, yea I’m impressed with this story.
I can’t wait till they bring back those special top secret spy Decoder Rings again.
This story is what I call Jornalistic B.S. to impress, you know us’s masses.
George somewhere in the comments has it right. Can’t we (the government and the media) refrain from describing our methods for catching terrorists for even 10 minutes? Every person caught becomes a detailed lesson for the bad guys about what not to do next time. Who is this retired NSA idiot, violating his agreement not to discuss such things even after leaving the agency? Why do so many press outlets immediately put together an expert team to try and research how the catch was made and then print the details? Sounds like they caught this guy because he was using a pay-go cell phone. You can bet the next terrorist won’t.
“This is despite the fact that the suspect’s name had been placed on the TSA’s no-fly list earlier that same day: “He reserved a ticket on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, paid cash on arrival and walked through [airport] security without being stopped.”
A couple of years ago I got a telephone call from Wells Fargo asking me if I had made a purchase on my credit card which was larger than usual. They must have millions of customers and transactions to track… yet.
Obviously, NY Air Traffic Control would have to know whether there was a military aircraft flying around NYC.
Why would it violate Posse Committas?
snopercod: “NY Air Traffic Control would have to know” … really?
8. Jacob said “You can connect to the computer of the cell phone service provider . . . and follow the suspect. No need for drones.”
It’s likely as simple as that. The same method used for tracking talkative drug dealers.
Everybody wants to be a know-it-all when it would be better to just keep your mouth shut. Loose lips, et. al. Inelligence data, methods, and sources are best when their release is limited to NTK. Never would I have imagined, years ago, that NSA personnel would be unreliable trustees of the nations secrets.
Make me even prouder of the “Silent Service” and the secrets we’ll take to the grave.
They’ve been doing it for a while…
Homeland Security drone patrolling NNY
http://www.myabc50.com/news/local/story/Homeland-Security-drone-patrolling-NNY/8ujqf9M2YkCXVlOmBVxFOg.cspx
Drone aircraft are patrolling U.S. Cities
http://publicintelligence.net/drone-aircraft-are-patrolling-u-s-cities/
They are also at least intermittently patrolling the border near Nogales, AZ but I have no idea of their capabilities or which agency is using them to be pretending to do something.
“The Posse Comitatus Act, signed into law in 1878, limits the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement purposes. And it likely explains why WCBS-2 took the article down.”
What evidence makes it likely? Not say that the author is incorrect but it is just as likely that it was taken down because they were wrong.