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[1/3] https://www.stallman.org/archives/2020-sep-dec.html#17_November_2020_(Undercover_Infiltrators) -- Undercover infiltrators in the opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline. -- https://theintercept.com/2020/11/15/standing-rock-tigerswan-infiltrator-documents/ -- In the Mercenaries’ Own Words: Documents Detail TigerSwan Infiltration >>253 >>489 >>494 >>496 of Standing Rock -- November 15 2020 -- North Dakota’s private security regulator said a trove of company documents showed TigerSwan’s denials were “willfully false and misleading.”

The weekend before Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, a secret private security initiative called “Operation Baratheon” was scheduled to begin. A PowerPoint presentation [ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7328406-TigerSwan-at-Standing-Rock-Operation-Baratheon.html ] laid out the plan for Joel McCollough, a burly ex-Marine bearing a resemblance to “Game of Thrones” character King Robert Baratheon. He had been posing as an opponent of the Dakota Access pipeline at protests in Iowa but was now assigned to travel to North Dakota to collect intelligence on the growing anti-pipeline movement. There, near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, thousands were camped out as part of the Indigenous-led resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline. Energy Transfer, the venture’s parent company, had plans to run the Dakota Access pipeline under the Missouri River. Calling themselves water protectors, the people in camp objected to the threat the pipeline would present to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s primary drinking water source. The effort to stop the pipeline had quickly become one of the most important Indigenous uprisings of the past century in the U.S. And McCollough, working for the mercenary security firm TigerSwan, was a key player in Energy Transfer’s multistate effort to defeat the resistance, newly released documents reveal. TigerSwan took a militaristic approach: To McCollough and his colleagues, the anti-pipeline movement was akin to the insurgencies the veterans had confronted in Afghanistan and Iraq. In line with that view, they deployed the same kinds of subversive tactics used in theaters of war. One of these tactics was the use of spies to infiltrate [ https://theintercept.com/2018/12/30/tigerswan-infiltrator-dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock/ ] so-called insurgents. That was McCollough’s goal when, in November 2016, he drove to North Dakota with an unwitting pipeline opponent. A PowerPoint slide titled “Mission” described exactly what he would do once he arrived: “infiltrate one of the Standing Rock camps.” Another slide, titled “Situation,” listed his adversaries, under the heading of “Belligerents”: “Native American activists, anti-establishment radicals, independent press, protester intelligence cells, camp security.”

The newly revealed documents obtained by The Intercept show how security operations like McCollough’s infiltration were carefully orchestrated and managed by TigerSwan — describing in the security firm’s own words activities that it has repeatedly denied ever took place. The documents make clear just how far security companies hired by energy industry firms — in this case, TigerSwan and Energy Transfer — will go to protect their clients’ business interests against a growing climate movement, and how much the energy companies are willing to spend for these aggressive defenses: An invoice [ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7328405-TigerSwan-at-Standing-Rock-Energy-Transfer.html ] from December 2017 said TigerSwan had billed Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer, some $17 million up to that point. For movements like the one at Standing Rock — Indigenous land and water defenders, fighting for territory central to their identity and health, and climate activists, staving off a potential future of chaos and suffering — their actions are a matter of survival. But the same can be said for the energy companies, evidenced by their willingness to deploy war-on-terror-style tactics. Advocates for the activists, though, say the war-like tactics have created harmful conditions for those exercising their right to dissent. “This level of saturated, coordinated attack between private corporate interests, law enforcement, private security to shut down the climate justice movement particularly in the United States is extremely dangerous,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, co-founder of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which is working with the Water Protector Legal Collective to represent water protectors in a class-action lawsuit against North Dakota law enforcement officials for using high-pressure water hoses and other aggressive tactics at Standing Rock. The suit notes TigerSwan’s close collaboration with the sheriffs’ officials.

The new documents, which are being reported here for the first time, were turned over as discovery material to the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board. The board filed an administrative complaint against TigerSwan and its former CEO, James Reese, a retired commander of the elite special operations military unit Delta Force, for operating without a license in the state — alleging violations carrying more than $2 million in fines. TigerSwan responded to the claim in court by saying the firm only provided consultation for the operations. The security board made the new material public as exhibits attached to a legal filing alleging that TigerSwan’s denials were “willfully false and misleading” and that the documents proved it. In his responses to the board’s allegations, Reese claimed misinformation was to blame for parts of the security board’s lawsuit against TigerSwan, suggesting the culprit was a series of investigative stories from The Intercept: “The board considers one sided news reports from an anti-energy on-line publication a sufficient basis for calling me a liar,” Reese declared. In the same affidavit, Reese claimed the operation involving McCollough had merely been proposed to the firm and, owing to its lack of a security license, not approved by TigerSwan. (At the end of last summer, TigerSwan and Reese signed a settlement with the board for less than $200,000, admitting no wrongdoing.) TigerSwan’s own reports, however, offer rich detail about the company’s operations — better than any other source to date. (Neither Reese nor TigerSwan responded to a detailed request for comment for this article. Energy Transfer directed questions to TigerSwan and said, “We have no knowledge of any of the alleged activities.” McCollough suggested that some of the TigerSwan documents included as exhibits in the North Dakota board’s filing — which he incorrectly described as “leaked” — may contain inaccurate information, but declined to point to any specific fact he disputed or item he believed to be false.)

WhatsApp chats, invoices, operational plans, and organizational charts, all made public by the North Dakota security board, show how Reese and TigerSwan were making, according to the board, “willfully false and misleading” claims when they said that the company had not carried out private investigation, security work, or infiltration operations in North Dakota. The company documents show instead that TigerSwan at times promoted its “human intelligence” operation as a driving element of its effort to fight pipeline resistance. “TS personnel have established eight months of relationships with activists,” a presentation titled “TigerSwan [ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7328409-TigerSwan-Intelligence-Slide-Deck.html ] Intelligence” stated. The same slide noted that TigerSwan operatives had gotten to know “Anti-pipeline groups in Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, and North Dakota” and “Maintain personal relationships with key leaders.” “No other company has infiltrated these activist groups on a long-term basis,” another slide said. “Our personnel even now develop deeper ties into activist communities and groups that are international in their reach.” TigerSwan organized its surveillance work like a full-fledged state intelligence agency but on a smaller scale. The company divided the intelligence operation into teams focused on human intelligence, imagery intelligence, signals intelligence (intercepting communications), and open-source intelligence based on news reports or other publicly available material like social media posts. The TigerSwan teams worked out of “fusion centers” — the same term state law enforcement agencies use to describe a network of post-9/11 information sharing offices — located in Bismarck, North Dakota; Des Moines, Iowa; and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, according to an organizational chart.

The imagery intelligence team included an operative who took photographs of the camps from a helicopter, while the signals intelligence team monitored water protectors’ radio communications. At times, on the radios, TigerSwan operatives would add their own disruptive messages, according to a former member of the intelligence team, who declined to be named out of fear of retribution. Key to the security operation was the use of infiltrators. “Having TS CI/HUMINT infiltrators on the ground is critical in minimizing lost construction time,” the TigerSwan Intelligence PowerPoint noted, using acronyms for counterintelligence and human intelligence. The plan for Operation Baratheon describes how the company organized such activities. In advance of McCollough’s election-week trip, TigerSwan meticulously plotted out the mission, compiling a slideshow with the weather forecast, the driving route from Iowa to North Dakota, and a detailed escape plan, including an option for a helicopter evacuation. This calculated approach was new for the company, said the intelligence team member. Recently, a company infiltrator had been hastily removed from the North Dakota camps after his cover was blown, and TigerSwan did not want to be caught unprepared again. Once a day, McCollough was to use code phrases to check in with his handlers on a WhatsApp channel that included six other TigerSwan operatives, according to the documents. The operation plan warned of certain types of people — referred to as “belligerents” — thought to be dangerous. McCollough, for example, was to be wary of members of the independent press. The former contractor explained the thinking: Independent reporters are “not unbiased,” he said, “and they’re basically an intelligence collection node for whatever movement they’re a part of.”

Framing journalists, camp security, and Native American activists as hostile aggressors was in line with TigerSwan’s view of the protests as an insurgency that must be quelled: “TigerSwan’s counterinsurgency approach to the problem set is to identify and break down the activist network,” the intelligence PowerPoint stated. “TS Intel understands anti-pipeline activists have developed cultural, religious, and ethnic environments which we are uniquely capable of exploiting.” Pipeline opponents have alleged that the counterinsurgency campaign led to civil rights violations. Although the North Dakota security board signed the settlement agreement, at least one other lawsuit against the security firm is outstanding. The suit, which alleges that the closure of the highway passing by the resistance camps infringed on pipeline opponents’ First Amendment rights, says TigerSwan’s close collaboration with police and public officials makes the security firm liable for the abuses. Water protectors believe that the paltry fines imposed by the security board provide only a semblance/parody of justice. “TigerSwan has not yet been held meaningfully accountable for their actions at Standing Rock,” said Noah Smith-Drelich, an attorney representing water protectors in the highway case. “We’re hoping to change that.” Two bearded men wielding swords and wearing wolf skins illustrate the cover of a TigerSwan “Daily HUMINT” report for December 8, 2016. The men represented in the TigerSwan document are úlfhéðnar, a type of elite Viking soldier that goes into a trance-like state as they lead attacks on enemies.