Commerce Department security unit evolved into counterintelligence-like operation, Washington Post

[riversedge]

Source: Washington Post





Commerce Department security unit evolved into counterintelligence-like operation, Washington Post examination found

Shawn Boburg May 24, 2021 at 7:21 p.m. CDT

An obscure security unit tasked with protecting the Commerce Department’s officials and facilities has evolved into something more akin to a counterintelligence operation that collected information on hundreds of people inside and outside the department, a Washington Post examination found.

The Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS) covertly searched employees’ offices at night, ran broad keyword searches of their emails trying to surface signs of foreign influence and scoured Americans’ social media for critical comments about the census, according to documents and interviews with five former investigators.


....................In a fact sheet released Monday summarizing preliminary findings of the review, Wicker said the unit improperly gathered information on foreign visitors and U.S. citizens. Wicker said “the ITMS has mutated into a rogue, unaccountable, police force without a clear mission.” An official report, he wrote, will be released in the coming months.


Costello privately proposed dissolving ITMS in October after he conducted an internal review, according to a report he wrote. Costello resigned after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, before the department could act on his recommendation.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/05/24/commerce-department-monitoring-itms/

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[AllaN01Bear]

1. typical. hope that unit has been disbanded.

[DENVERPOPS]

3. I can only imagine

there are countless others............

It's like there are "No More Secrets".......................1984ish.........

Everyone can name the intelligence groups, FBI, CIA, NSA..........Can you name the other + or- dozen?

20-30 years ago, someone I knew, who was in a position to know about some of it, told me: If you put it in an email, say it over the phone, etc etc etc, you can assume some one is watching, listening and reading it. At the time, I thought he was borderline paranoid.
After what we have seen these past decades, especially this last 5 years, I had to re think what I thought about his statements.....

AND, I have to tell you, it's not just 1984 and the Government stuff, someone was telling me about the depth of "information mining" the corporations are all doing on every single person.......

Oh well...........Information, truly is power.......

And it's not just done by OUR intelligence gathering groups. It is soooooo obvious that Trump, Graham, dozens of Republican Senators etc etc are being blackmailed by Putin. Putin has been collecting and grooming anyone important for decades, in case the info he has gathered on them will be important in the future......

Oh, and the guy pictured, wilbur ross? just read the HISTORY of this guy that Trump (actually Republicans) appointed as Secretary of Commerce... His entire life of corruption in the corporate/gov't world is beyond words. Perfect that the Repubs would put him in a position of power....

[Champp]

2. republiQon fascism at work

Egad, the republiQons are so rotten to the core. Shame on them. Eternal shame on them.