Steve Peacock's U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor

FBI Becomes the 'Watchers-in-Chief'

The number of people identified by the Obama administration as potential terrorists surged in the past two years, and the FBI now is preparing for another spike as it plans to intensify its scrutiny of foreign visitors and U.S. citizens, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has discovered.

The federal government will hire up to 116 full-time private-contractor personnel to help amass and screen data on persons whose movements or activities are brought to the attention of the Terrorist Screening Center, an FBI-administered interagency unit.

The federal government, starting from the time Obama took office, in various ways has described returning veterans, conservatives, pro-lifers and those who support a constitutional government as potential terrorists.

And in just recent months, through the revelations of document-leaker Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency has been shown to be spying on virtually every telephone call made in America.

So TSC’s expansion comes at a time of rising skepticism about President Obama’s public pledge to reform the government’s surveillance and information-collection apparatus.

Such plans are specific to communications-intercept and data-gathering activities at the embattled NSA, still under fire in the wake of operational leaks by former contractor Snowden.

TSC lacks authority to independently collect personal data or communications. As a national repository, however, it receives personal information that local, state, federal and international entities submit about “known or suspected terrorists,” or KSTs.

The centralized Terrorist Watchlist – officially known as the Terrorist Screening Database – uses data from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

According to a project Statement of Work discovered via routine database research, the screen center is staffed by “officials from multiple agencies, including the FBI, DHS, DOS, Transportation and Security Administration, and the United States Customs and Border Protection.”

The FBI is recruiting contractors capable of working with those federal representatives, filling operations-support slots at the center’s Vienna, Va., facility.

Contractors likewise will fill positions at an unidentified “alternate site.”

Analysts and other personnel hired for this endeavor will assess the validity of data submitted or stored on people “associated with terrorism or terrorist activity,” federal documents show.

Part of the screening process includes removing persons from the list.

Indeed, the center “regularly conducts comprehensive and case-specific” data reviews, an FBI Safeguarding Civil Liberties web page states. Such reviews help ensure terrorist identity data is “thorough, accurate, and current,” and meets the federal government’s strict criteria for watch listing, it says.

The center also ensures that “complaints and misidentifications are addressed and any errors are corrected.”

The center’s Operations Branch, which manages center functions around the clock, comprises eight specific work units needing contractor services.

Recent and projected escalations of “encounter” activity necessitate the services, the government says.

The Terrorist Screening Operations Center is one such unit experiencing growth in KST “encounters.”

The unit serves as the “focal point for all domestic and international encounters” with potential terrorists. It provides 24-hour availability to partner screening-agencies, according to the contracting document.

“TSOC currently averages approximately 275 requests for service per day, which represents a 27 percent increase over FY2012 and a 70 percent increase over FY2011 levels,” documents show.

“TSOC anticipates encounter volume will continue to increase at a steady pace.”

Unit personnel assist other agencies via the TSDB, the U.S. government’s “sole consolidated watchlist for information used in terrorism screening.”

Following an operations center “positive encounter” with a person suspected of terrorist affiliation, the Terrorist Screening Operations Unit gets involved.

“When appropriate, TSOU creates and transfers operational assessments to FBI Field Offices for action,” the document says.

TSOU contributes to the database’s accuracy “by conducting research in several databases when a positive encounter is received.”

The Domestic Engagement unit is tasked with alerting the U.S. Intelligence Community and the U.S Law Enforcement Community to the availability of watch-list services.

Part of DE’s mission is to help intelligence and police agencies “utilize watchlist data and manage encounters with watchlisted persons.”

The Intelligence Unit “serves as the information sharing focal point for the TSC.”

IU analyzes and disseminates intelligence data that the Center collects. It assists both domestic and “foreign partners.”

Annually the unit disseminates “over 1,500 raw and finished intelligence products per year to support executive decision making and the USIC/LEC.”

The Terrorist Review & Examination Unit, or TREX, is tasked with “all watchlisting related matters for the FBI.” TREX also is responsible for the timely sharing of information on “FBI international and domestic terrorism investigations” among watch-listing partner agencies.

The Nominations and Data Integrity Unit, or NDIU, which adds and deletes data, averages about 8,700 record reviews weekly, with each initial review taking about seven minutes.

“NDIU anticipates an annual increase in workload volume averaging 10-15 percent per year,” according to the document.

The unit makes “thorough, accurate, and current additions, modifications, and deletions” to the TSDB.

It accomplishes the tasks through what it calls “biographical information validation,” “derogatory information assessment” and “biometric information identification linkage verification.” The document did not define the terms.

Another unit known as the Visa Review and International Liaison screens and identifies visa applicants against the watchlist. The office daily averages 400 service requests, “with an annual workload increase of 10 percent anticipated.”

Other than acknowledging its location “within the continental United States but outside the Northern Virginia or any other major metropolitan area,” little is offered about the “Alternate Site,” a unit that provides center “with the ability to conduct certain mission functions at a more remote location.”

The document also makes clear that contractor employees hired for center operations are forbidden from representing themselves in the capacity of performing “Inherently Governmental Functions.”

If such employees get in situations “where it may be assumed that he or she is an FBI employee, then the contract employee shall identify himself or herself as a contractor.”

The FBI did not disclose the estimated cost of a contract award.

A similar version of this article originally was published Jan. 20, 2014 via WND.com. Under agreement with the publisher, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

Sequestration-Related Cuts? Fed Spending Continues Unabated

The Obama administration recently issued warnings to contractors of potential sequestration-related spending cuts, but in the meantime federal spending continues unabated, domestically and globally.

Some of the apparently indispensable projects include a environmental public murals in Hebron and Jericho along with similarly themed summer camps and field trips for Palestinian children, alternative energy outings to Turkey, and assistance to mango growers and hotel operators in Pakistan.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said in a public notice that “due to the failure of Congress to reach a deal on balanced deficit reduction to avoid sequestration, the president on March 1, 2013, as required by law, issued a sequestration order canceling approximately $85 billion in budgetary resources across the federal government for the remainder of the federal fiscal year.”

USAID recently advised vendors that the agency “is taking every step to mitigate the effects of these cuts, but … it is likely that your company’s workforce, revenue, and planning processes may be affected.”

But that is not stopping USAID from reaching out to contractors to carry out its new $700 million global “ecological-governance” program.

The primary goal of the agency’s Restoring the Environment through Prosperity, Livelihoods and Conserving Ecosystems, or REPLACE, program is to strengthen the ability of governments and non-governmental organizations around the globe to provide climate-change mitigation and adaptation, seascape and landscape management, and other environmental and economic interventions.

Numerous other federal entities issued similar warnings via the FedBizOpps contractor database.

Despite the advisories, new projects continue to emerge while existing programs undergo expansion, from the seemingly inconsequential – such as a $79,000 U.S. Trade & Development Agency grant to send U.S. railway representatives on an exploratory mission to India – to initiatives on a multi-billion-dollar scale.

Most notable is the Department of Defense’s extended outsourcing of global counter-narcotics functions through its Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office, or CNTPO, a potential $15 billion contract vehicle that has enriched – and will continue to enrich – Blackwater Lodge & Training Center Inc.; Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems; ARINC Engineering Services LLC; Raytheon Technical Service Company; and Northrop Grumman/TASC Inc.

The report "DoD Prepares Follow-Up to $15 Billion Global Counterdrug Contracts" continues to be one of the Monitor's most regulalry visited articles, generating consistent visits and Google search hits nearly twenty months later.

The following list of federal procurement actions represents an additional snapshot of recent contracts, requests for proposals and other solicitations, both large and small. This nation-by-nation compilation is by no means comprehensive but is designed to enlighten U.S. taxpayers about how the federal government is spending – or intends to spend – their money.

GAZA/WEST BANK

The creation of environmental-themed public murals, conducting student field-trips to “environmentally important sites” in Hebron and Jericho and holding environmental summer camps for Palestinian children are among programs that the Department of Agriculture’s U.S. Forest Service intends to fund. And the USFS is procuring the services of the Palestinian Association for Child Arts and Culture to carry out these tasks for youth in the city of Hebron. The agency did not disclose the estimated cost.

Helping the Palestinian Authority to “build more effective and competent public institutions that are accountable to the public and respond to citizens’ needs” will cost $20.5 million under a contract that USAID awarded to Development Alternatives Inc.

U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor founder Steve Peacock initially broke the story on the project’s unveiling last April for WND.com.

PAKISTAN

Current efforts to improve the competitiveness of small- and medium businesses in Pakistan have been extended another 20 months, now that USAID has raised Chemonics International’s contract ceiling to $93 million. The current contract for the Pakistan Firms Project was slated to end April 15, but with a $2.5 million increase, Chemonics will continue to provide technology upgrades, skill development and other assistance to hotels, mango growers, knitted-garment manufacturers and other Pakistani enterprises through December 31, 2014.

TURKEY

Alternative-energy industry representatives are getting free hotel rooms and airfare to Turkey to explore ways to capitalize on the nation’s energy boom. The U.S. Trade & Development Agency is offering a $537,000 grant to carry out the Smart Grid Upgrades to the Teias Electricity Transmission Network Feasibility Study. According to the agency, “Turkey is facing a rapidly rising demand in the midst of its bustling economic growth. The Turkish government is consequently making a concentrated effort to explore alternative sources of energy, such as wind, hydro and geothermal power as a way of meeting this shortfall.”

Consequently, the Obama administration has decided that U.S. taxpayers should shoulder the burden of that trip to Ankara.

UNITED STATES

Under its Adult Education and Immigrant Integration project, the U.S. Department of Education awarded a $1.3 million contract to World Education Inc. of Boston to design an initiative to “reduce linguistic, academic, and employment barriers for skilled and low-skilled immigrants and refugees, and to integrate them into the U.S. workforce and professions.”

A similar version of this article first appeared via WND.com on March 18, 2013. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

Obama's Plan to Make Illegals Comfy

Inmates must have 'abundant natural light,' 'ample recreation,' 'aerobics'

As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security expands its outsourcing of detention  across the nation, potential contractors are being forewarned to abide by the Obama administration’s kinder, gentler approach to detaining illegal aliens.

DHS Immigration & Customs Enforcement most recently embarked upon the outsourcing plan in Georgia, where it will continue to push the administration’s reform agenda to create a civil, rather than penal, processing system.

According to contracting documents that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located through routine database research, the Georgia outsourcing endeavor requires providers to offer detainees, among other perks, “abundant natural light throughout the facility [and] ample indoor and outdoor recreation that allows for vigorous aerobic exercise with extended hours of availability.”

ICE recently issued a Request for Information from potential contractors in which the agency intends to assign detention responsibilities to private sector entities that will build new facilities, renovate existing structures or leverage a combination of the two.

The agency acknowledged that some detainees may have a criminal history or suffer from mental illness. In those cases, it would require the contractor to separate such persons into a medium- or maximum-security area.

Other detainees, however, would be accommodated with various services and conditions, such as:

• Four hours per day of outdoor recreation and ideally a minimum of two hours recreation in a gymnasium during inclement weather.
• Private showers and restrooms (where practicable).
• Cafeteria-style meal service.
• Non-institutional detainee clothing.
• “Contact visitation,” including special arrangements for visiting families, with extended hours including nights and weekends.
• Private areas for attorney-client visits, with video teleconferencing capabilities.
• Noise control.
• Enhanced, but controlled, freedom of movement.
• Enhanced law library and legal resources.
• “Enhanced programming,” including religious services and social programs and dedicated space for religious services.

ICE tentatively is looking for space in Georgia to hold about 2,000 male detainees – up to 600 who would be categorized a low-security, 900 as medium-security and 400 designated as a high-security population. Capacity for an additional 100 detainees would be divided between administrative detention and mental health units.

DHS in recent months launched additional searches for contractors offering detention, transportation, and food services in cities such Chicago, Miami and Houston.

The projects come at a time when the push for immigration reform – in varying forms – is heating up both on Capitol Hill and at the White House.

Indeed, in the House Committee on the Judiciary’s first hearing of the 113th Congress, Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., emphasized that the American people and members of Congress “have a lot of questions about how our legal immigration system should work.”

“They have a lot of questions about why our immigration laws have not always been sufficiently enforced.”

Goodlatte pointed out that while reform could greatly affect U.S. citizens, legal residents, and illegal aliens alike, he affirmed the principle that “America is a nation of immigrants. … But we are also a nation of laws.”

In response to that hearing, the immigrant-advocacy group Detention Watch Network reiterated its call to repeal mandatory detention laws.

Emily Tucker, DWN director of policy and advocacy, said in a statement: “While we are excited about the momentum to finally create a path to citizenship for millions of people, immigration reform must include the reform of our wasteful and inhumane detention and deportation system.

“Neither the White House’s nor Senate’s plans respond to years of community outrage about border and interior enforcement programs that have separated families, violated due process rights, and led to serious human rights abuses,” she said.

The DWN statement indicated that the committee reportedly is due to introduced a draft immigration-reform bill this week.

The Heritage Foundation says, “So far there is no actual bill – just a set of “principles” for the promised legislation.”

Jessica Zuckerman, research associate at Heritage, said in an issue brief, “These principles, however, do not adequately address the tough issues that have to be tackled to provide lasting and beneficial fixes that strengthen the U.S. economy, security, and civil society.”

Similarly, she added that the White House recently announced its own set of immigration reform principles, while promising to introduce an “even more comprehensive bill if Congress does not move fast enough.”

Zuckerman warned, however, that “if both initiatives do nothing more than reintroduce confusing, complicated, and contentious bills similar to the failed ‘comprehensive’ bill of 2007, then our nation will be poorly served by these latest efforts.”

A similar version of this article was published via WND on Feb. 15, 2013. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.