Since 2008, the year of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the U.S. Department of Defense has funded a multimillion dollar university research program to probe the complex dynamics of mass social and political movements, anticipate global trends, and ultimately augment the intelligence community’s preparations for civil unrest and insurgencies both abroad and at home.

Part of that has involved developing advanced new data mining and analysis tools for the U.S. military intelligence community to pinpoint imminent and potential threats from individuals and groups.

Among its many areas of focus are ongoing projects at Arizona State University (ASU) designed to enhance and automate the algorithms used by intelligence agencies like the NSA to analyze “open source” information from social media in order to track the potential threat-level to U.S. interests. Formal organizations and broad social networks as well as individuals could be identified and closely monitored with such tools to an unprecedented degree of precision.

Loosely defined concepts of political “radicalism,” violence and nonviolence, as well as questionable research methodologies, open the way for widespread suspicion of even peaceful activist groups and their members, and the equation of them with potential terrorists. Civil society organizations in the U.K., including both Muslim religious groups and non-religious anti-war networks, have been prioritized for study to test and improve the effectiveness of these data-mining tools.

Increasingly, though, the automation of threat-detection and terrorism-classification has been accompanied by the automation of killing, in the form of the generation of “kill lists” of terrorism suspects to be targeted via extrajudicial assassination by drone strikes. As President Obama, encouraged by powerful lobbies in the defense industries, has paved the way for the systematic integration of drones into domestic law-enforcement and homeland security operations, the prospect of extrajudicial assassinations occurring on U.S. soil are no longer merely hypothetical.

Now, new but little-known Pentagon directives authorize the use of armed drones against American citizens in the homeland in the context of domestic emergencies.

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Flawed DoD Algorithms Determine Extrajudicial Assassinations

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Algorithms of Death

“The algorithms being developed at ASU remind me of the algorithms used as the basis for signature strikes with drones,” said Thomas Drake, a former senior National Security Agency executive who leaked information about the NSA’s data-mining project Trailblazer to the press in 2006.

Drake agreed that the algorithms linked to “LookingGlass,” a new Pentagon-sponsored visual intelligence platform, could in fact be applied to fine-tuning the generation of the CIA’s notorious “kill lists.”

“Having the U.S. government and Department of Defense fund this kind of research at the university level will bias the results by default. This is a fall-out of big data research of this type, using algorithms to detect patterns when the patterns themselves are an effect – and mixing up correlation with causality. Under this flawed approach, many false positives are possible and these results can create an ends of profiling justifying the means of data-mining.”

It is now increasingly recognized that U.S. drone strikes against foreign terrorism targets have systematically killed large numbers of civilians, with a 2012 joint Stanford and New York University report suggesting that as few as 2% of casualties are “high-level” targets – an analysis cohering with counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen’s 2009 estimate showing a “kill ratio” of 50 civilians to one militant, or, in other words, 98% civilian casualties.

“My colleagues in Special Forces tell me that the men on the front line are furious with the lack of accuracy and integrity at the national level, and no longer trust the targeting data,” said former veteran CIA case officer Robert Steele, who previously served as a Marine Corps infantry officer.

“They have seen for themselves how wrong the system is when they look their man in the eyes. Technical surveillance is the most expensive, least useful, and least accurate form of surveillance. Technology is not a substitute for thinking. We must become deeply and broadly expert at the human factor.”

Drones Come Home

U.S. administration officials including Obama himself have repeatedly refused to confirm whether the alleged legal power to conduct extrajudicial assassinations via drone strikes extends to the U.S. homeland. Last year, prior to becoming CIA director, John Brennan told the Senate Intelligence Committee: “…we do not view our authority to use military force against al-Qaeda and associated forces as being limited to ‘hot’ battlefields like Afghanistan.” He referred to Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement that “neither Congress nor our federal courts has limited the geographic scope of our ability to use force to the current conflict in Afghanistan.”

In February 2012, Obama signed in a law directing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to throw American airspace wide open to drones by as early as September 2015. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) already deploys Predator drones to spot smugglers and illegal immigrants crossing into U.S. territory, and two dozen U.S. police departments have successfully applied for FAA permits for drones. As National Geographic observes, “all 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are potential customers.” By 2020, it is estimated that some 30,000 drones would be active across the U.S. homeland.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) show that police plan to use drones essentially for surveillance. In Seattle and Miami, drones are already being used during criminal investigations and in “hot pursuit” of suspects, and could be used during natural disasters along with “specific situations with the direct authorization of the Assistant Chief of the Homeland Security Bureau.” Hundreds of “domestic drone missions” have been flown by CBP on behalf of other state and local agencies.

Last year, government documents revealed that Department of Homeland Security had customized its Predator B drones, built originally for foreign military operations, for domestic surveillance tasks and to “respond to emergency missions across the country,” including “identifying civilians carrying guns and tracking their cell phones.”

These drones are now being used on U.S. soil by the FBI, Secret Service, Texas Rangers and some local police forces. The DHS had also proposed to arm its domestic fleet of border patrol drones with “non-lethal weapons designed to immobilize TOIs [targets of interest]” – an option also being pursued by local police agencies that want to arm drones with rubber bullets, tear gas and other riot control weapons.

According to an unclassified U.S. Air Force document, the deployment of military drones in U.S. airspace will be controlled by the Pentagon and will be able to monitor unidentified groups, as well as “specifically identified” individuals with the Secretary of Defense’s approval. Military drones “are allowed to fly drones in public areas and record information on domestic situations,” noted Jennifer Lynch of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Executive Decisions

In February 2013, an extraordinary Pentagon directive authorized the deployment of U.S. military resources and personnel to respond to domestic emergencies, quell civil unrest and support civilian law enforcement in a domestic terrorism incident. The new directive builds on an earlier 2010/2012 DoD directive specifically authorizing the use of military surveillance drones on U.S. soil under Pentagon authority.

Although that directive prohibited the use of “armed” drones for “DSCA [Domestic Support to Civil Authorities] operations,” the new 2013 directive for Domestic Support to Civil Law-Enforcement Agencies goes further. It broadly asserts that “the Secretary of Defense may authorize the use of DoD personnel in support of civilian law enforcement officials during a domestic terrorism incident.”

Unlike the older directive, it stipulates that U.S. military commanders, including those at USNORTHCOM, USPACOM, and USSOCOM, would receive blanket authority over “operations, including the employment of armed Federal military forces at the scene of any domestic terrorist incident.” No limit is specified on what kind of “armed military forces” the Pentagon can conceivably deploy.

The “hypothetical” but nevertheless real extension of powers here was confirmed when Republican Senator Rand Paul asked Attorney General Holder to confirm the Obama administration’s position on conducting armed drone strikes on U.S. soil.

Holder wrote back that “the president could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances like a catastrophic attack.”

While denying any specific “intention” to do so, Holder conceded “it is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance, in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the president to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”

Although Holder’s comments were widely publicized last year, their pseudo-legal parallel in the form of the Pentagon’s 2013 directive was not. The latter demonstrates that Holder’s consideration of the U.S. military’s legal authority to execute drone strikes on U.S. soil is far from “hypothetical.” On the contrary, the U.S. military was determined to ensure that this extraordinary authority was formally adopted.

I asked the U.S. Department of Defense whether it could confirm that the Minerva-funded data-mining research would not be used to support the U.S. intelligence community’s analytical tools to identify terrorism suspects, in particular to identify targets for extrajudicial assassination. I did not receive a direct answer to this question.

“Research in these areas will improve strategic and operational responses to insurgencies,” said Dr. Erin Fizgerald, chief of the Minerva program. “Perhaps more importantly, these efforts will help analysts faced with a particular political environment that seems ripe for mass mobilization – or a particular movement that appears to be turning violent or destabilizing a government – know where to look to understand a particular movement and its implications for society.”

Global Instability

Prof. Mark Woodward, an anthropologist who leads the ASU projects funded by the DoD’s Minerva Research Initiative, is also affiliated to the CIA-funded Political Instability Task Force (PITF), originally formed in 1994 by appointment of the U.S. government. Although the PITF boasts of developing a predictive model with a “two-year lead time and over 80% accuracy” based purely on modelling “political institutions, and not economic conditions, demography, or geography,” in practice U.S. intelligence was unable to anticipate the unprecedented wave of instability that has swept across the Middle East and North Africa since 2011.

The Pentagon Minerva program addresses this gap in attempting to account for a complex range of interconnected factors beyond political institutions, including the impacts of environmental, energy and economic crises.

As I reported last year, the NSA’s surveillance programs are linked to extensive Pentagon planning for civil unrest in the context of escalating risks from climate, oil, food and economic shocks. Official documents over the last decade confirm that the intelligence community anticipates a heightened threat of instability, including “domestic insurgencies,” due to social and political collapse triggered by such shocks.

As episodes like the recent conflagration in Ferguson demonstrate, the Pentagon’s fears of a future of imminent domestic civil unrest are already being borne out.

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is a bestselling author, international security scholar, investigative journalist and regular Guardian contributor on the geopolitics of interconnected environmental, energy and economic crises. This article was originally published on Occupy.com and is the fourth and last part of an investigation published. The first part can be read here, the second part here and the third part here.

Photo by Truthout on flickr

After BP agreed to pay $4.5 billion to the government, and another $9.2 billion in penalties since its catastrophic oil spill, a new ruling has put the corporation under fire again.

A US District Judge has found BP grossly negligent and it’s subcontractors, Halliburton and TransOcean, negligent for their roles in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent dumping of more than 210 million gallons of toxic sludge into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and countless marine creatures in the process. Under the Clean Water Act, the new ruling could effectively quadruple the penalty per barrel spilled that BP will have to pay.

BP’s criminal negligence shouldn’t come as a surprise. After nine years at sea, company management acknowledged that the Deepwater drilling rig was in decline and presented a quote “intolerable risk” to safety, yet chose to do nothing. Halliburton also plead guilty to the destruction of key evidence related to the company’s shady cost-cutting practices like failing to inspect the well’s cement mixture, and using only six of the recommended 21 centralizers to secure the site.

Besides the massive damage that’s been done to the environment as a result of the BP disaster, the health impact on humans continues – largely because of the decision by BP and the EPA to spray nearly two million gallons of a dispersant called Corexit onto the water, making the oil 52 times more toxic, according to the Environmental Pollution Journal.

All this aside, BP’s contracts with the Defense Department have more than doubled in the years since the disaster.

Even though the media is fatigued with its coverage of this disaster, Breaking the Set went down to the Louisiana Gulf Coast to see how the region is faring nearly five years later and to investigate the spill’s lasting damages. We learned that hundreds of thousands of people are still sick, and that the oil industry has turned the once vibrant shore into a graveyard.

Abby

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BP’s Oil Spill: Criminal Negligence, Thousands Sick & Gulf Graveyard Left Behind

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Exclusive coverage includes interviews with Jorey Danos, a sick clean-up worker who was exposed to a toxic chemical dispersant known as Corexit, award winning toxicologist Wilma Subra, Gulf Restoration Network’s Jonathan Henderson and Clint Guidry, President of the Louisiana Shrimpers Association.

We also reached out to BP, which provided the following statements:

Q: Why were cleanup workers refused respirators and even threatened with termination if they requested them, according to multiple interviews with clean-up workers and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network?

A: We certainly do not and would not retaliate against workers. BP worked closely with OSHA, the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and other US government agencies to take extraordinary measures to safeguard the health and safety of responders.

Workers were provided safety training and appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), and were monitored by federal agencies and BP to measure potential exposure levels and to help ensure compliance with established safety procedures.

Response workers applying dispersants received training on work procedures and PPE usage designed to minimize exposures, and were provided respirators and other PPE.

Workers who were not exposed to dispersants may have asked for a respirator, possibly in the mistaken belief that it would provide an extra level of protection and safety. This is not true. Perhaps the most important consideration in voluntary respirator usage is the potential physiological burden placed on the user. That was particularly true given the hot working conditions encountered during the response.

Due to the extensive controls in place, there was little potential for worker or public exposure to dispersants. More than 30,000 air monitoring samples were collected by the Coast Guard, OSHA, NIOSH, and BP as part of a comprehensive air monitoring program to evaluate the potential for human exposure to dispersant and oil compounds. The results showed that response worker and public exposures to dispersants were well below levels that could pose a health or safety concern.

Additional Background: OSHA advises that, “in workplaces with no hazardous exposures, but where workers choose to use respirators voluntarily, certain written program elements may be necessary to prevent potential hazards associated with respirator use. Employers must evaluate whether respirator use itself may actually harm employees. If so, employers must medically evaluate employees and, if necessary, restrict respirator use…”

For these reasons, respirators typically are not provided to people who do not need them, and who have not passed the required tests for fitness to wear the equipment. In consultation with NIOSH and OSHA, BP developed guidelines to help determine when PPE, including respirators, was to be used. Known as the “PPE Matrix,” this guideline was made available on several websites, including websites for BP and OSHA. Under the PPE Matrix, respirators were to be used in specifically- identified situations, including during the application of dispersants. There were times, however, when the potential risks associated with using a respirator outweighed the benefits since air monitoring data indicated that worker exposures to chemicals of concern generally were well below occupational exposure limits, and respirator use could place physiological stress on the body. In those cases, protection was provided by work practices and procedures and the use of other PPE.

A paper reviewing OSHA and NIOSH’s response to the accident can be found here.

Q: Why was the public told that Corexit was as harmless as Dawn, when five of the ingredients in it are linked to cancer, 33 are linked to skin irritation and 11 are respiratory toxins, according to expert toxicologists, Wilma Subra and Dr. Susan Shaw?

A: The Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for Corexit, where human exposure characterization is addressed notes, “Based on our recommended product application and personal protective equipment, the potential human exposure is: Low.” Also, Section 16 of the MSDS characterized Corexit’s general product risk- “The human risk is: Low. The environmental risk is: Low.”

The same ingredients contained in Corexit are also found in common consumer products such as household cleaners, food packaging, hand lotion and cosmetics. The product ingredients alone do not determine if a compound has created a public health concern; there must also be exposure to a compound at levels and for sufficient duration that could cause harm.

The results of extensive monitoring conducted by federal agencies and BP show that response workers and the public simply were not exposed to dispersant compounds at levels that might pose a health risk.

Due to the controls in place during dispersant application operations, there was little potential for public or worker exposure when dispersants were applied to the oil offshore. This was confirmed by the government findings as previously mentioned.

Q: Why has the active cleanup of Louisiana’s coast officially ended when thousands of tar balls continue to wash on shore?

A: The Coast Guard ended active cleanup after an extensive four-year effort. Even so, we remain committed and prepared to respond at the Coast Guard’s direction if potential residual Macondo material is identified through the National Response Center reporting process and requires removal. We have teams and equipment at staging areas in Grand Isle, LA and Gulf Shores, AL ready to rapidly respond as necessary.

Additionally numerous studies and reports have documented the presence of tar balls along the Gulf coast in the decades before the Deepwater Horizon accident, and during our cleanup efforts we continued to find tarballs that did not contain residual Macondo oil.

Q: Why have only 148 people received any medical claim whatsoever well over four years after the disaster and why is the average benefit only $1,600 dollars, when doctors such as Michael Robichaux has studied hundreds of patients and observed long term and possibly lifelong health effects in the process?

A: BP and the PSC consulted with medical experts to determine compensation amounts and formulate a list of the conditions that, according to scientific evidence, could be caused by exposure to oil or to the dispersants used in the cleanup. Compensation for these listed conditions is subject to the clear terms of the MSA. As is common in class action settlements, the settlement program did not begin processing and paying out claims until all appeals were exhausted, which occurred earlier this year. As to Dr. Robichaux, his allegations were considered and rejected over a year ago by a New Orleans federal court, which found that the doctor “wholly failed to provide any competent evidence in support of the assertions he makes.”

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Art by flickr user Hierry Ehrmann