Ty Clevenger mentions this article about the “secret units” in FBI
Anons read this Forbes Article.
Ty Clevenger mentions this article about the “secret units” in FBI:
From Sharyl’s article on Seth:
“The existence of the DITU is not a secret, and it certainly is not classified. See, e.g., Thomas Brewster, “Revealed: Two Secret Cogs In The FBI National Surveillance Machine,”
Revealed: Two Secret Cogs In The FBI National Surveillance Machine. Thomas Brewster
|Feb 21, 2018,
The COG in the machine
Forbes learned about the existence of the furtive Collections Operations Group (insiders call it “the COG”) from the results of a freedom of information act request filed with the FBI in 2017. That FOIA filing concerned a deal signed last year between tech contractor CDW Government and the Data Intercept Technology Unit (DITU, pronounced “dee-too”) for $1.1 million in services. DITU, part of the Operational Technology Division in Quantico, Virginia, is one of the most clandestine divisions within the FBI, helping gather crucial data for investigations and intelligence. The OTD is the overarching body that oversees bleeding edge tech development for the entire FBI.
The FBI confirmed to Forbes that the COG is a sub-unit within DITU. The agency refused to comment on the specific nature of the group and its operations. But there’s some tantalizing new information nonetheless: according to the FOIA response, the COG’s mission “is to provide tools, expertise and solutions to effect lawfully-authorized electronic surveillance of data communications on today’s evolving local area network and internet technologies. The COG is responsible for the procurement, development and deployment of network equipment to assist in electronic surveillance to various field offices and OGAs.”
OGA stands for “other government agency.” As previously revealed in NSA files leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013 detailing the now-infamous PRISM espionage initiative, one of DITU’s roles sees it collect data from technology and telecom companies (whether that’s Facebook, Google, Microsoft or your phone and internet provider) before turning it over to intelligence agencies (which could be the DIA, CIA and NSA).
The COG is core to that intelligence sharing both within the FBI and outside the agency. Sources tell Forbes the COG is a go-between surveillance shop, setting up spy tools and associated networking across the FBI or whatever agency demands its services, and helping shift intel between them. Forbes spoke with multiple sources in the security and intelligence fields who claimed knowledge of DITU and its sub-units. All asked to remain anonymous.
“Think of it like this: it’s a technical group that oversees technical capabilities so that when lawful requests are issued on providers, and the data they return needs to be analyzed, it can be converted to human-readable formats,” said a person with knowledge of the COG. “Often, raw network data comes back in many forms and these teams work to make sure that the special agents and investigative teams can properly interpret the data.”
What kinds of equipment does the COG build and deploy in order to capture data? Sources who previously worked in the national intelligence community say it was probably technology such as pole-mounted boxes that capture wireless network traffic, or devices installed at ISPs that vacuum up data.
As for the WiFi Group, it’s another DITU sub-unit “responsible for the deployment and installation of communications equipment to support ongoing criminal, counter-terrorism and foreign counter-intelligence investigations,” according to a FOIA response for another CDW contract. That 2014 deal, for unspecified surveillance equipment, was worth just $26,571……
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/02/21/fbi-hidden-hacking-groups-revealed/?sh=508f9218330f