Proyecto de Intelligencia Estadounidense para ‘vigilar’ America Latina

POR PATRICE McSHERRY | GLOBAL RESEARCH | MARCH 13, 2013

El nuevo proyecto de supercomputadoras está a cargo de un organismo poco conocido, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (Iarpa), que funciona bajo la orientación del director de Inteligencia Nacional de los EE.UU.

El gobierno de los Estados Unidos, con el apoyo técnico de algunas universidades estadounidenses, quiere utilizar información “pública” que los usuarios colocan en Facebook, Twitter, páginas de web, webcams, blogs y otros medios sociales para acumular una enorme base de datos con el propósito de predecir tanto las crisis políticas, es decir, revoluciones, inestabilidad o estallidos sociales, como crisis económicas. Al igual que el Proyecto Camelot de los años ’60, este proyecto de vigilancia y espionaje estará dirigido a América latina.

El nuevo proyecto está a cargo de un organismo poco conocido, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (Iarpa), que funciona bajo la orientación del director de Inteligencia Nacional de los EE.UU. El proyecto copiará, automáticamente, por medio de supercomputadoras, datos de 21 países de América latina, por un período de tres años que comenzaría en 2012. Hay un proyecto similar para Afganistán, patrocinado por Darpa (la organización “hermana” militar, del Pentágono) para identificar redes sociales de potenciales terroristas en este país.

En 1964, la Oficina de Investigación y Desarrollo del ejército de los Estados Unidos patrocinó el Proyecto Camelot, que fue un esfuerzo de recopilación de información en el contexto de la estrategia de contrainsurgencia. Camelot fue concebido, originalmente, para tener una vasta cobertura, abarcando países en todo el mundo en desarrollo. Sin embargo, el proyecto se implementó solamente en Chile y no por mucho tiempo.

Los objetivos declarados del proyecto eran “diseñar procedimientos para evaluar la potencialidad de que se desarrollara una guerra interna al interior de las sociedades nacionales” e “identificar… aquellas acciones que un gobierno pudiese de- sarrollar para mitigar las condiciones favorables a ella”. Bajo el camuflaje brindado por un proyecto universitario de ciencias del comportamiento, que se ubicaba en la Oficina de Investigación de Operaciones Especiales de la American University (financiada por el ejército), Camelot era un proyecto encubierto de inteligencia. Un general del ejército estadounidense afirmó que dicho proyecto “nos ayudaría a predecir la utilización potencial del ejército estadounidense en cualquier número de casos en donde la situación pudiese desbordarse”.

En Chile, Camelot fue presentado como una encuesta académica, escondiéndose su relación con el Pentágono. Los investigadores encuestaron a chilenos de todos los sectores de la sociedad para establecer sus creencias políticas, su compromiso con la democracia y otra información personal y política. Según una chilena que fue entrevistada, cada persona fue luego puesta en categorías de conformidad con el nivel de peligro o de “potencial subversivo”. Cuando esta persona trataba posteriormente de obtener una visa de los Estados Unidos, las autoridades estadounidenses tenían un archivo completo sobre ella, con toda la información supuestamente confidencial que ella había colocado en el formulario.

Las bases de datos de Camelot también fueron utilizadas para la guerra psicológica. Sirvieron para influir en las actitudes políticas y, de esa manera, para manipular ciertas elecciones clave. La CIA digitalizó los datos recopilados por Camelot y los analizó y utilizó para producir atemorizantes anuncios anticomunistas durante la campaña eleccionaria de 1964 de Eduardo Frei, candidato demócrata cristiano, contra el izquierdista Salvador Allende. Por ejemplo, se les dijo a las mujeres que, de ser electo Allende, sus hijos serían enviados a Cuba y sus esposos a campos de concentración. La naturaleza contrainsurgente del Proyecto Camelot fue descubierta por el gobierno chileno y fue clausurado en 1965, luego de audiencias tanto en el Congreso de Chile como en el de los Estados Unidos.

No es la primera vez que en época reciente el gobierno de los EE.UU. ha acumulado grandes cantidades de datos en proyectos de data mining (extracción masiva de datos). Durante la administración de George Bush, la National Security Agency empezó la extracción de datos de millones de ciudadanos de los Estados Unidos –de llamadas telefónicas, correos electrónicos, fax y otras fuentes– en un programa secreto sin autorización judicial, supuestamente para descubrir y vigilar a potenciales integrantes de redes terroristas. Dicha administración también trató de implementar otro enorme proyecto, que se llamó Total Information Awareness, para acumular una base de datos para buscar patrones de conducta o tendencias en los correos, llamadas telefónicas, transacciones financieras, información de visas, etcétera, supuestamente para identificar enemigos. Este programa fue rechazado por el Congreso después de que se produjera una reacción muy negativa del público.

Este tipo de proyecto tiene implicancias sumamente preocupantes para los ciudadanos, tanto de América latina como de los Estados Unidos y cualquier otro país. Es el punto de partida para una vigilancia masiva a toda la población, a través de su vida personal y social, violando su libertad personal y sus derechos. La idea de que organizaciones de inteligencia y militares estén vigilando y realizando seguimientos de los ciudadanos –todos bajo sospecha– para predecir actos de violencia en el futuro es autoritario y orwelliano, y evoca la doctrina de seguridad nacional. El aparato de seguridad nacional estadounidense parece estarse extendiendo y ampliándose fuera de control, con proyectos cada vez más intrusivos y antidemocráticos. Ahora que los ciudadanos en muchos países están cada vez más indignados con los respectivos sistemas y recurren a actos de protesta para plantear cambios económicos, sociales y políticos, se hace necesario conocer y desafiar a este tipo de proyectos.

J. Patrice McSherry : Directora del Programa de Estudios sobre América latina y el Caribe en Long Island University, Brooklyn. Autora de Los Estados Depredadores: Operación Cóndor y la Guerra Encubierta en América Latina.

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Raytheon + Social Networks = Data Mining Riot

“Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search.”

By RYAN GALLAGHER | SMH | FEBRUARY 12, 2013

A multinational security firm has secretly developed software capable of tracking people’s movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.

A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an “extreme-scale analytics” system created by Raytheon, the world’s fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

Raytheon says it has not sold the software – named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology – to any clients. But the Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing “trillions of entities” from cyberspace.

The power of Riot to harness websites for surveillance offers a rare insight into techniques that have attracted interest from intelligence and national security agencies, at the same time prompting civil liberties and online privacy concerns.

Using Riot it is possible to gain a picture of a person’s life – their friends, the places they visit charted on a map – in little more than a few clicks of a button.

In the video obtained by the Guardian, Raytheon’s “principal investigator” Brian Urch explains that photographs which users post on social networks sometimes contain latitude and longitude details – automatically embedded by smartphones within so-called “exif header data”. Riot pulls out this information, showing the location at which the pictures were taken. Riot can display online associations and relationships using Twitter and Facebook and sift GPS location information from Foursquare, a mobile phone app used by more than 25 million people to alert friends of their whereabouts. The Foursquare data can be used to display, in graph form, the top 10 places visited and the times at which they visited them.

Mining from public websites for law enforcement is considered legal in most countries. But, Ginger McCall, a lawyer at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre, said the Raytheon technology raised concerns about how user data could be covertly collected without oversight or regulation.

“Users may be posting information that they believe will be viewed only by their friends, but instead, it is being viewed by government officials or pulled in by data collection services like the Riot search.”

Raytheon, which made sales worth an estimated US$25 billion in 2012, did not want its Riot demonstration video to be revealed on the grounds that it says it shows a “proof of concept” product that has not been sold to any clients.

Jared Adams, a spokesman for Raytheon’s intelligence and information systems department, said in an email: “Riot is a big data analytics system design we are working on with industry, national labs and commercial partners to help turn massive amounts of data into useable information to help meet our nation’s rapidly changing security needs. Its innovative privacy features are the most robust that we’re aware of, enabling the sharing and analysis of data without personally identifiable information being disclosed.”

In December, Riot was featured in a new patent Raytheon is pursuing for a system to gather data on people from social networks, blogs and other sources to identify whether they might be a security risk.

In April, Riot was scheduled to be showcased at a US government and industry national security conference for secretive, classified innovations, where it was listed under the category “big data – analytics, algorithms”.

Facebook’s IPO Ponzi Scheme Collapsing

Company shares have plunged almost half from their original value. As predicted, correction will place company’s value at the correct level.

AP | AUGUST 16, 2012

Shares of Facebook are plunging to all-time lows after the expiration of a lock-up period that has provided early investors and insiders with an opportunity to exit.

The stock fell 7 percent, or $1.49, to $19.71 in Thursday morning trading.

If the stock hits $19, it will have lost half its value since Facebook went public in May.

It’s been a rough run for Facebook. After one of the most anticipated initial public stock offerings in history, Facebook Inc. suffered what may be the most-botched IPO as trading glitches marred its first day. It’s been almost all downhill since then.

In all, 271 million shares become eligible for sale Thursday, on top of the 421 million already trading. It’s conceivable no one would sell those extra shares, but if too many do, Facebook’s stock could decline.

Firms ranging from Accel Partners to Goldman Sachs, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus and Facebook board members James Breyer, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman are among those free to sell stock they own. Microsoft Corp., an early Facebook investor, is another one, though it’s unlikely to sell because of partnerships it has with Facebook.

It’s not yet known whether anyone had sold shares. The stock price decline could reflect investor anticipation of such a move.

Other shareholders, including many Facebook employees, will be able to sell beginning in October. The last lockup period expires next May, a year after the initial public offering.

Facebook Inc. is based in Menlo Park, Calif.

Facebook’s Overvalued Stock Fiasco Uncovered

Although the slide on Facebook’s stock price was officially explained as a ‘glitch’, reality demonstrates that the company’s artificially high-valued position was due to the intervention of its underwriters.

BLOOMBERG | MAY 22, 2012

Criticism of the Facebook Inc. FB -10.99% stock deal grew as the shares dropped below their offering price in their first full day of trading Monday, wiping $11.5 billion off the social network’s market value.

The company, its investment bankers and the Nasdaq Stock Market came under fire for failing to ensure a smooth debut for one of the most anticipated deals in recent memory. Facebook shares, which opened Friday at $38 and managed to add just 23 cents during the day, fell 11% Monday to $34.03.

While investors agreed Facebook shares weren’t worth $38 apiece, they couldn’t find consensus on who deserved the most blame.

Monday’s selloff was attributed partly to investors who were allotted more Facebook shares than they expected and moved to pare their holdings, said people familiar with the matter. Retail investors usually are allocated up to 20% of the total shares allotted in an IPO, but in Facebook’s case, retail allocation was around 25%, the people said.

Facebook had increased the number of shares being offered at the last minute before the IPO. As a result, many retail investors weren’t hungry for more shares once trading began, according to the people.

Facebook’s offering, one of the biggest U.S. IPOs, was supposed to burnish the reputations of Morgan Stanley, MS -1.20% the deal’s lead banker, as an underwriter, and Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. NDAQ +3.59% as the listing exchange of choice for hot technology companies. But some investors said tactical missteps and technical problems left them uneasy about the deal even before trading began Friday morning.

They faulted Morgan Stanley for overloading the market with too many Facebook shares and took aim at Nasdaq for system glitches that prevented some investors from confirming their trades or trade cancellations, which some said cost them tens of thousands of dollars.

“The underwriters completely screwed this up,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities. The offering “should have been half as big as it was, and it would have closed at $45.”

At $34, Facebook would have a price-to-earnings ratio, a measure of how expensive or cheap a stock is, of about 57 times projected earnings for the next 12 months, according to FactSet research. The ratio means a Facebook share is more than four times expensive as a share of Google Inc. GOOG +2.28%

“Facebook’s IPO priced at a level well-above where we foresaw compelling 12-month returns,” BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield said in a research note Monday. With revenue and earnings growth decelerating in 2012, “we find Facebook’s current valuation unappealing.”

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Facebook IPO Financing NSA Data Mining Front

INFOWARS.COM | MAY 18, 2012

Facebook has become a new icon of elite dominance over the web, and increasingly the tech-driven economy as well. Technocrats are busy building stock market credibility via the IPO for their Facebook spy front, while Bilderberg attendees select politicians, steer social movements and spy on the masses to harvest data. Aaron Dykes has a special report on Mark Zuckerberg and his intel ring of social media kingpins and financiers. Bilderberg 2012 is set to convene on Chantilly, Virginia during May 31-June 3. Stayed tuned at Infowars.com for full spectrum coverage of the secretive meeting.