Unravelling TrapWire: The CIA-Connected Global Suspicious Activity Surveillance System

 

Unravelling TrapWire: The CIA-Connected Global Suspicious Activity

Surveillance System

http://publicintelligence.net/unravelling-trapwire/

 

August 11, 2012 in Featured

 

A screenshot from the front page of trapwire.net, which is believed to be a

web-based portal affiliated with the TrapWire system.

 

Public Intelligence

 

Hacked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor shed light on a

global suspicious activity surveillance system called TrapWire that is

reportedly in use in locations around the world from the London Stock

Exchange to the White House.  The emails, which were released yesterday by

WikiLeaks, provide information on the extent and operations of a system

designed to correlate suspicious activity reports and other evidence that

may indicate surveillance connected with a potential terrorist attack.

 

A proprietary white paper produced by TrapWire, formerly called Abraxas

Applications, describes the product as "a unique, predictive software

system designed to detect patterns of pre-attack surveillance."  In an

interview from 2005 with the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the CEO

of Abraxas Corporation Richard "Hollis" Helms says the goal of TrapWire is

to "collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate

than facial recognition, draw patterns, and do threat assessments of areas

that may be under observation from terrorists."  Fred Burton, the former

CEO of Stratfor and current vice president, describes TrapWire in an email

from November 2009 as "a technology solution predicated upon behavior

patterns in red zones to identify surveillance. It helps you connect the

dots over time and distance."

 

Documents submitted with Abraxas' initial trademarking of TrapWire,

describe the system as utilizing "a facility's existing technologies (such

as pan-tilt-zoom [PTZ] cameras) and humans (security personnel, employees,

and neighbors)" to collect data which is then "recorded and stored in a

standardized format to facilitate data mining, information comparison and

information sharing across the network."  TrapWire "standardizes

descriptions of potential surveillance activity, such as photographing,

measuring and signaling" and then shares "threat information" across the

network to track potential correlations across other locations on the

network.

 

One thing that makes TrapWire a particularly interesting company is that its

president, chief of operations and director of business development are all

former employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.  According to a

management page on TrapWire's website, which has recently been removed for

an undisclosed reason, the president and one of the founders of the company,

Dan Botsch, "served 11 years as an Intelligence Officer with the Central

Intelligence Agency, focusing on Russian and Eastern European affairs."

Michael Maness, the company's business development director, served over 20

years with the CIA, "where he directed counterterrorism and security

operations in the Middle-East, the Balkans and Europe. As a senior

operations officer and field operations manager, he was instrumental in

combating Al-Qaeda's operational units in the immediate wake of the

September 11 terrorist attacks."  Michael K. Chang, the company's director

of operations, served for "12 years with the Central Intelligence Agency as

a counterterrorism operations officer and security officer" and even acted

as personal security for the Director and Deputy Director of Central

Intelligence.

 

Abraxas Corporation, the company that originally created TrapWire under its

subsidiary Abraxas Applications, also has significant ties to the CIA.  The

company was founded by Richard "Hollis" Helms in 2001, two years after he

left the CIA where he had worked for nearly 30 years.  Many of the company'

s past employees and management have worked at the CIA or other intelligence

agencies. In fact, Tim Shorrock notes in his 2008 book Spies for Hire that

so many employees of the CIA were thought to be going to work for private

companies like Abraxas that in 2005 CIA Director Porter Goss had to ask the

company to stop recruiting in the CIA Cafeteria at Langley. The Los Angeles

Times reported in 2006 that Abraxas had a contract from the CIA for

developing front companies and false identities for the Agency's

nonofficial cover (NOC) program.  The company and its work are so secretive

that Shorrock reportedly called the company for comment and was told, "Sir,

we don't talk to the media."

 

High-Profile Clients Around the World

 

The Stratfor emails on TrapWire detail the extent to which the software

system is being utilized around the world, describing deals with clients

representing domestic agencies, foreign governments and multinational

corporations.  An email from Don Kuykendall, the chairman of Stratfor, in

May 2009 describes how TrapWire's clients "include Scotland Yard, #10

Downing, the White House, and many [multinational corporations]."  The

email goes on to say how Stratfor is working to help introduce TrapWire to

people at "Wal Mart, Dell and other Fred cronies."  Another email from

Fred Burton to Kuykendall in July 2011 describes how the Nigerian government

is interested in opening a fusion center and may want to deploy TrapWire in

the Nigerian Presidential Palace.

 

In another email Burton brags about Stratfor's role in authoring situation

reports that feed into the TrapWire system, saying that this is the

Stratfor's number one way of impressing potential clients in government

positions.  "Do you know how much a Lockheed Martin would pay to have their

logo/feed into the USSS CP? MI5? RCMP? LAPD CT? NYPD CT?" Burton asks,

implying that TrapWire is in use by the U.S. Secret Service, the British

security service MI5, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as

counterterrorism divisions in both the Los Angeles and New York Police

Department. In a 2009 thesis from the Naval Postgraduate School, the Los

Angeles Joint Regional Intelligence Center (LA-JRIC), one of more than

seventy fusion centers around the country, is listed as utilizing TrapWire.

 

The emails also suggest that TrapWire is in use at military bases around the

country. A July 2011 email from Burton to others at Stratfor describes how

the U.S. Army, Marine Corps and Pentagon have all begun using TrapWire and

are "on the system now."  Burton described the Navy as the "next on the

list."

 

The Information Sharing Environment - Suspicious Activity Reporting

Evaluation Environment Report from 2010 describes how the Las Vegas Police

Department is providing TrapWire software to at least fourteen different

hotels and casinos in the area. Several emails make reference to the network

running in Las Vegas and one discusses contacting a security officer at the

MGM Grand to discuss the system's practical implementation.

 

According to one particularly unusual email from Burton, TrapWire is

reportedly in use to protect the homes of some former Presidents of the

United States.

 

Burton also describes TrapWire as possibly "the most successful invention

on the [global war on terror] since 9-11."  Describing his connections with

the company's management, he adds "I knew these hacks when they were

GS-12′s at the CIA. God Bless America. Now they have EVERY major

[high-value target] in [the continental U.S.], the UK, Canada, Vegas, Los

Angeles, NYC as clients."

 

Links to Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative

 

TrapWire is also linked to the National Suspicious Activity Reporting (NSI)

Initiative, a program designed to help aggregate reports of suspicious

activity around the country.  One email from an executive at TrapWire states

that "TrapWire SAR reports are fed directly/automatically into the National

SAR Initiative" as well as "the FBI's eGuardian system if/when there's

confirmed nexus to terrorism or major crimes (which is happening

frequently)."  The email goes on to say that "our networks in LA, Vegas

and DC all support See Something Say Something (S4 as I call it)."

 

Over the past few years, several cities around the U.S. have implemented

websites allowing the public to report suspicious activity, including

Washington D.C., Houston and even the U.S. Army.  These activities are part

of a larger program called iWatch, which also feeds into TrapWire according

to a leaked email:

 

    iWatch pulls community member reporting into the TrapWire search engine

and compares SARs across the country…with potential matches being fed back

to the local LE agency. An amazing amount of good quality reporting is

coming in from alert citizens (and police officers) in the DC area in

particular.

 

TrapWire reportedly operates separate regional networks around the country,

each with a number of different interconnected sites.  However, the

president of the company Dan Botsch explains in an email to Fred Burton that

the TrapWire system operators do "cross-network" some information from

separate networks and that he believes one day the networks will begin to

merge:

 

    We have regional networks in which information sharing is limited to

that network. If a network has 25 sites, those 25 sites match against each

other's reports. They can also send reports to any other site on the

network and they can post reports to a network-wide bulletin board. Sites

cannot share information across networks.

 

    However, we do cross-network matching here at the office. If we see

cross-network matches, we will contact each affected site, explain that the

individual(s) or vehicle they reported has been seen on another network, and

then offer to put the affected sites into direct contact. We have not yet

had a cross-network match. I think over time the different networks will

begin to unite. I'm not exactly being prescient here, as there is already

talk in Vegas and LA of combining their two networks. Same here in DC.

 

The use of TrapWire could eventually extend to fusion centers all around the

country as congressional testimony from June 2011 indicates that the

Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department is part of a trial project of

the Department of Homeland Security to test the use of TrapWire.  The Texas

Department of Public Safety, which operates the Texas Fusion Center, also

purchased TrapWire software in 2010.

 

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