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

Feds Recruit Private Sector to Expand Drone Use

The federal government’s expanded use of drones over U.S. airspace for “humanitarian assistance and homeland security” purposes soon will receive a boost of assistance from the private sector.

A cadre of contracted “subject-matter experts” will help devise national policies and procedures governing unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs.

In order to “facilitate the safe expansion” of the Obama administration’s domestic drone deployment, the U.S. Air Force Safety Center, or AFSC, will outsource to industry the assembling of this expert crew, according to a Sources Sought document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor discovered via routine database research.

The release of a formal Request for Proposals to provide those services is imminent.

A recent amendment to the procurement – known as the RPA Advisory & Assistance Services initiative – indicates that the bid request will be made public this week.

The AFSC’s Remote Piloted Aircraft, or RPA, Safety Branch, which oversees “safety policy, global mishap prevention strategies and processes,” said the outsourcing of this “safety expertise” will play a critical role in integrating drones into the National Airspace System.

The endeavor also will enable the Department of Defense to execute its plan to establish 65 regional drone Combat Air Patrols, while additionally providing “functional safety capabilities in support” of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom missions, the solicitation said.

Helping to clear a backlog of RPA cases under investigation at the Air Force Central Command and the Air Combat Command also falls within the purview of this procurement.

The department intends to hire a single prime contractor – which must be a U.S. firm –responsible for filling several subject-matter expert positions. According to a Summary of Required Services document, approximately seven analysts and engineers will comprise the RPA safety crew.

Positions slated to be created for the expert drone cadre include an “operations research analyst” and an “airspace/air traffic control expert.” Those contractors will interact with representative of the major military commands and the Federal Aviation Agency generally to help safely expand drone operations in U.S. airspace.

A pair of “systems safety engineers” and a “human factors expert” specifically will be tasked with analyzing “aviation safety trends,” involving evaluations of existing “mishap reports and data.” The document did not include statistics revealing the extent of such drone “mishaps.” Those experts also will coordinate safety efforts with other unmanned aerial system – or UAS– users, both governmental and non-governmental, “to identify common problem areas and share potential technical solutions.”

Among those other entities is the Electronic Systems Center, or ESC, a key Air Force unit responsible for many Defense-wide military command and control projects around the globe. ESC, headquartered at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts, oversees “some of America’s most valuable defense assets.”

Those assets include the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, or Joint STARS, whose primary mission “is to provide theater ground and air commanders with ground surveillance to support attack operations and targeting that contributes to the delay, disruption and destruction of enemy forces.”

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research and Engineering, known as MITRE Corp., was identified in the document as a non-governmental partner with whom the engineers would work. MITRE, for example, later this year will host a panel meeting on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense to explore UAS “sense and avoid, or SAA, science and research.”

The defense secretary’s office, in a Request for Information on SAA data, acknowledged that “a key challenge to integrating UAS into the National Airspace System is a means for UAS to sense and avoid other aircraft.” The meeting will take place Nov. 14-15 at MITRE’s McLean, Va., facility, where the Office of the Secretary of Defense will lead an assessment of “ongoing science and research initiatives.”

The gathering also will seek to identify “areas where industry and the research community desires government guidance.”

This article originally was published via WND.com on July 8, 2012. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to the author, Steve Peacock.

State Department Taps Into Intelligence-Extraction Technology to Monitor Social Media

The U.S. Department of State is banking on Internet-trawling software to help it identify references to departmental activities in social media as well as traditional online-media sources. This week it renewed three 90-day site-licenses for the technology, awarding a $35,000 contract to Riva Solutions, Inc., to use Sysomos social media analytics technology.

Sysomos describes itself as a company that is:

redefining social media analytics with a powerful product suite that provides customers with the tools to measure, monitor, understand and engage with the social media landscape. Sysomos provides instant access to all social media conversations from blogs, social networks and micro-blogging services to forums, video sites and media sources.

The four "key steps of the Sysomos methodology," according to the company website, are:

• Data collection: "Conversations happening in social and traditional media are continuously collected, and cleaned of spam."
• Information processing: "Proprietary language processing and text analytics technology is applied to extract insights and intelligence."
• Data analysis: "Metric s and comparative trends focused on buzz, sentiment and geo-demographics are calculated."
• You: "Collected insights and metrics are delivered via user-friendly and intuitive online dashboards."

State specifically is obtaining the rights to use Sysomos's "Media Analysis Platform," or MAP, product.

Source document: Solicitation #SAQMMA12Q0147.

FOR RELATED COVERAGE, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S STATE DEPT. PAGE.

ALSO CHECK OUT THE MONITOR'S INTELLIGENCE/SPYING PAGE AND THE PRIVACY/SURVEILLANCE PAGE.

U.S. to Ramp Up Afghan Infowar with 'Aggressive Actions' -- Contractor to Bring About 'Desired Effects' in Global Media

The next phase of a global information-warfare campaign to influence public and media perceptions about U.S. operations in Afghanistan is unfolding, according to an updated U.S. Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) planning document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has located.

“The information domain is a battlespace, and it is one in which USFOR-A must take aggressive actions to win the important battle of perception,” according to the project’s modified Performance Work Statement (PWS), dated June 7.

Consequently, the Dept. of Defense, via the U.S. Army Contracting Command-Rock Island unit, is enlisting the assistance of the private sector not only to monitor how the media reports on Afghanistan, but to sway the opinions of the Afghan people about their government:

USFOR-A requires the ability to develop and implement a comprehensive, self-sustaining, long term media operations capability, to include stand-alone studio and regional communication collection and distribution hubs. This initiative also addresses efforts to collect public information and interpret it to support senior leader decision making, specifically regarding the attitudes of the public and the media concerning political, social and economic issues. This initiative will allow Government representatives in USFOR-A to inform key audiences (media and civilian populations internationally and within the region) to achieve desired affects. (Emphasis added)

Although dozens of vendors have expressed interest in the Public Affairs Operations-Afghanistan endeavor—and though no contract award has been announced—the Arlington, Va. and Los Gatos, Cal.-based Strategic Social Holdings already is hiring specialists to carry out duties for a USFOR-A project in Kabul that mirrors the above-mentioned initiative.

The co-founder and CEO of Strategic Social is Matt Bigge, whom the corporate website describes as a former U.S. Army ranger and Harvard Business School graduate.

Among the various duties and positions that the PWS describes (and for which Strategic Social is hiring) are Afghan Linguists/Media Monitors, who would provide “a minimum of 300 media monitoring hours per week.” At least one Pashto- and one Dari-speaking linguist/monitor “should be available at all times.”

An English-speaking media monitor also would be hired for the project, for which that person will assess and summarize “international, regional, and Afghan” Internet, radio, audio, video, and print media outlets.” That position will provide at least 144 media monitoring hours per week to “supplement three media monitor military personnel” who also will perform those tasks.

The contractor also will provide a comprehensive suite of public affairs services to USFOR-A and to Afghan authorities, including the deployment of media analysts,  media monitoring website/database developer and manager, the provision of social media and new media management, and advisement on how to engage in “strategic communications.” The management and maintenance of a Defense Video Information Distribution System (DVIDS) also will fall under the purview of the contractor.

This project is critical, according to the PWS, because insurgents have succeeded in undermining the credibility of USFOR-A, the international community, and Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) “through effective use of the information environment, albeit without a commensurate increase in their own credibility.”

Consequently, U.S. Forces and the GIRoA must “wrest the information initiative from the INS” in order to “maintain and strengthen the Afghan population's positive perception” of Afghan government institutions and the support that USFOR-A and the international community provide, the document says.

As a courtesy to readers and researchers, tomorrow, July 1, the Monitor will make available for download the full text of the Army's Performance Work Statement for the Public Affairs Operations-Afghanistan initiative.

FOR ADDITIONAL REGIONAL COVERAGE, PLEASE VISIT THE MONITOR'S AFGHANISTAN PAGE.

PLEASE ALSO CHECK OUT THE MONITOR'S INTELLIGENCE/SPYING PAGE.

The Monitor Celebrates 10,000 Page-Views

As the editor of U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor, I once again wish to thank all those readers from around the globe who continue to visit this site. It is with great delight to report that the Monitor this week exceeded the 10,000 page-view mark in its brief three-month existence. In terms of relative magnitude, to you that figure likely doesn't elicit a jaw-dropping response, yet the figure is significant for a one-man, part-time operation taking place at the Shore of New Jersey (and, yes, I intentionally avoided using the term “Jersey Shore” to avoid connecting with or riding upon the success of the popular but moronic TV show of that name—a show that is, unfortunately, filmed not far from my location).

Before I continue, please note that the Monitor never has, never does, nor will ever collect or distribute personally identifying information from visitors/readers. The information I am now sharing via this post primarily comes from Google Analytics, which assesses the general source of traffic to this site (i.e.: country of origin, referring web pages, Internet Service Providers, etc.) as well through the TypePad service that hosts the Monitor.  In other words, unless you identify yourself when posting comments (which I encourage people to do), you remain anonymous to me.

Anyhow, having inserted that critical addendum, I first want to express continued thanks to John Young from Cryptome.org, who regularly posts links to Monitor articles. Cryptome, an excellent repository of national security and law enforcement-related information plus hard-to-find government documents, is responsible for driving significant Internet traffic my way.

That may or may not be the reason that a handful of visitors from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, the U.S. State Dept., the U.S. Dept. of Justice, and a few other federal entities have made their way to the Monitor. It could be that I have annoyed a few bureaucrats along the way by uncovering projects or conflicts of interest that they would rather I keep quiet about.

Ironically, I have gotten quite a few visitors from two sides on opposite end of the political spectrum: FreeRepublic.com on the right, and BuzzFlash.com on the left. It just goes to show that wasteful government spending is a topic of concern for everyone, no matter whether you blame President Obama for the world’s problems or if you seek salvation through him!

Likewise, I welcome the many worldwide visitors whom have made their way to the Monitor. Though the bulk of traffic comes from the U.S., with a growing number of readers from other primarily English-speaking nations such as England, Canada, and Australia, other readers have come from places including Pakistan, Italy, Mexico, Germany, France, India, China, and Russia—with a smaller numbers of visitors coming from places (93 countries and territories in all) ranging from Iran to Sudan and from Argentina to Zimbabwe!

If you like this site, please let people know about it. Simply click the Facebook thumbs-up icon near the top right-hand corner of this page (located near the Amazon.com link to my memoir, Hotel Dick: Harlots, Starlets, Thieves & Sleaze) and let your friends know about the Monitor.

One final note: if you wish to redistribute Monitor articles, I urge you, for instance, only to post the title, an excerpt (i.e.: the first paragraph or two), and a direct link to the article of interest. I recently discovered that one blog actually took one of my articles, reworded it with a level of creativity emblematic of a lazy, plagiarizing 14-year-old the night before a term paper is due, and re-posted as its own work! The thief actually posted accompanying links to the source documents as if that person, and not I, had painstakingly researched and discovered those resources for the article.

Such copyright infringement will not be tolerated, folks.

So, ending on a more positive note, please feel free to share what the Monitor has to offer, but do so with respect for the copyright owner.

Come back soon, even you folks at DHS!

-- Steve Peacock

Pakistani Intelligence, Military to be Trained on U.S. Soil?

Training of Pakistani intelligence and military personnel in the use of electronic surveillance and analysis equipment potentially could take place on U.S. soil, according to an Army planning document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has located.

The document asserted that the Army at this point only is conducting a market survey of firms capable of providing such training; however, the “sources sought” notice equally made clear that a follow-on Foreign Military Sales procurement of services would allow the training to take place either outside of the country—Pakistan, specifically—or domestically.

The notice referred to Arizona, Florida, and Maryland as possible training locations without explicitly identifying facilities or military bases. Presumably, though, one such possibility is the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, whose contracting center is coordinating what formally is known as the Market Survey for Ground Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (GISR) System (Solicitation #MARKET-SURVEY-5101-1).

The GISR system was developed by DRS Technologies, a Parsippany, N.J.-based subsidiary of Finmeccanica SpA— a company for which the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance owns, according to the corporate website, 30.2% of the share capital.

Though the notice did not identify the name of the GISR system that DRS developed, nor did it refer to a specific, previous contract to develop that system, the document offered the following description:

The system provides rapid detection and localization of a wide-range of threat signals, monitors signals of interest, and supports real-time analysis to provide mission-critical intelligence to the warfighter. The system consists of a combination of 3 or more subsystems each consisting of; a manpackable direction finding (DF) and homing VHF/UHF receiver, a handheld computer, DF and communications antennas, handheld radio for communications and internetworking, a video transmitting air to ground microwave communications system, a vehicular mounting kit for on the move operations, and a sophisticated signals analysis node hosted on a laptop computer and connected via radio.

Separately, the U.S. government in recent years awarded DRS contracts valued in the billions for a multitude of technology and training programs, many which the company carried out or supplied in combat situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, one of its employees—former U.S. Marine Javier de la Garza—was killed while working for DRS as a communications technician in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was updated Jan. 31, 2012, to include a direct link to the above-mentioned market-survey document. It should be noted that, as of this date, the U.S. Army has not make publicly available any further information about the Pakistani training endeavor). 

OTHER MONITOR ARTICLES ON PAKISTAN:

Pakistan to Get US-Funded Engineer for Water, Wastewater Projects

U.S. Aid to Pakistan Continues as Debate Over bin Laden Complicity Rages

U.S. Spends Lavishly on Foreign Energy Projects; Investment Banker-Turned-Bureaucrat Oversees Billion-Dollar Program

USTDA to Fund Initial Phase of Pakistan's 'Clean Energy' Bus Initiative

Navy to Fund 'Tactical Surveillance' Research Project

A new research project of the U.S. Navy hopes to develop an advanced, autonomous means of gathering and processing data for tactical and battlefield situations. The Autonomous Persistent Tactical Surveillance program of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) will provide about  $41.5 million over five years to researchers who submit “white papers” or proposals for innovative projects leading to the potential development of “major advancements” in this area.

“United States (US) Forces are being placed in environments where they are required to function with increased autonomy,” the Navy says in Broad Agency Announcement # 11-023. “The need is stronger than ever to be able to autonomously maintain persistent surveillance of activities and entities over a region of interest on a continuing (24 hrs / 7 days a week) basis, as well as automated tasking of these assets…”

Among the various shortfalls of existing Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance capabilities that the BAA identifies include:

There is a lack of sharing knowledge of unfolding events across mission threads.  

There is a lack of timely exploitation of useful theater and national sensor data. There are gaps in alerting Forces to danger.  

There is a lack of mobile tools for field users to gather information. There is a lack of means for reporting soft biometric data on at-risk individuals or groups engaged in suspicious activity.  

Many sensors fail to deliver relevant information to users outside their stovepipes… Sensor data overwhelms the distribution, analysis, storage, and assimilation capabilities.

Proposals are due Sept. 12. ONR anticipates making a decision about awards on or around Oct. 11.

SAIC Secures DARPA Contract for 'Insight' Data-Mining Project

A contract specific to the creation of a next-generation global data-mining and intelligence-analysis system was awarded Friday (May 20) to Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC). Other than revealing that SAIC received a $14 million award related to Insight, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) did not disclose any contract details other than the solicitation number (#DARPA-BAA-10-94), the contract award number (#HR0011-11-C-0047), SAIC's corporate name and McLean, Va. address, and a DARPA point of contact (Dr. Benjamin Cutler, DARPA-BAA-10-94@darpa.mil).

SAIC similarly is keeping quiet about the contract, insofar as it did not announce this contract award via the corporate website.

As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor reported on Friday (May 20), DARPA last week issued a call to industry for innovative ideas leading to the creation of an advanced  “‘plug and play’ modular architecture” of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, technologies. The newly unveiled Insight Focused Incubator initiative is the latest phase of DARPA's Insight project launched last year, but is listed under a separate solicitation number (#DARPA-SN-11-36).

Next Phase of Advanced Global Data-Mining & Intelligence System Unfolds

Details of an emerging data-mining and intelligence-analysis program reminiscent of the Pentagon’s controversial Total Information Awareness (TIA) project emerged yesterday, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has discovered.

Similar to TIA, which Congress in 2003 de-funded insofar as domestic applications, the Insight Focused Incubator initiative seeks to create a multimedia system that obtains, synthesizes, and analyzes mass volumes of data via the development of an advanced  “‘plug and play’ modular architecture” of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) technologies.

According to a Special Notice that the Monitor obtained via routine database research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued a call to industry for innovative ideas leading to the creation of such a system.

The Insight program at DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O) became known to the public last September, when it initially met with industry representatives to discuss its vision for the program (solicitation # DARPA-SN-10-70). However, yesterday’s reference to the Insight Focused Incubator moniker appears to take the program to the next level of execution.

“As part of the Insight platform, the Insight program is developing a virtual environment (VE) capability to enable system evaluation using simulated sensor data, augmented with real-world collected data, within a simulated world of various threats, terrains, and terrain features,” the special notice/request for information says.

The key to Insight’s development extends beyond the mere collection of data and the development of virtual threat scenarios; rather, DARPA is looking for innovative ideas for an evolutionary, interoperable system of various ISR components.

From a technical standpoint, the new system that DARPA envisions would possess the ability “to easily add, remove, substitute, and modify software and hardware components” as they become available to the government.

From an operational perspective, the Insight Focused Incubator would lead to the design of a system that integrates, correlates, fuses, and exploits “multi-intelligence data.” This would include, for example, a combination of worldwide sensors and platforms that combine the use of signals intelligence, video and ground moving target indicators (VMTI and GMTI) and even “Behavioral (pattern-of-life) modeling including cultural, social, and insurgency dynamics.”

Other objectives for the system include “data mining across all sources, both real-time and forensic” as well as the creation of “an active sensing process with multiple functions occurring simultaneously.”

DARPA anticipates launching a three-phase structure for Insight Focused Incubator, during which time it would award contracts ranging from $400,000-$800,000 per phase for each contractor selected for the project. The agency did not disclose the total potential funding for the program. Proposals are due June 30.

U.S. Forces in Europe Procuring Tens of Millions of Gallons in Fuel

Over 40 million gallons of fuel are being ordered for military bases in England, specifically for Royal Air Force (RAF) bases used by the U.S. as forward operating locations for bomber units, ammunition supplies, and intelligence-gathering operations, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has learned.

The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency this afternoon uploaded a solicitation (#SP060011R0223 ) to a federal contracting database seeking potential vendors to supply these mass quantities of petroleum products over the next three years. The destinations for the fuel include RAF Menwith Hill, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Lakenheath, RAF Alconbury, RAF Croughton, RAF Welford and RAF Fairford.

The U.S. military has occupied several of these sites since the end of World War II, originally as a means of building up a deterrent in Europe against the Soviets,” according to GlobalSecurity.org.

It remains unclear whether the volume of fuel for this solicitation is typical or is indicative of an increase in magnitude, as a database search did not produce comparable requests for multi-base procurements in the United Kingdom. Prior fuel acquisitions found in the database were limited to single-purchases of no more than 1.2 million gallons.

In the absence of that data, the Monitor offers the following summary of the primary functions of the sites for which the fuel is destined.

RAF Menwith Hill is known as one of the largest communications intercept stations in the world. According to the Federation of American Scientists, Menwith Hill is jointly operated by the U.S. National Security Agency and the British Ministry of Defence and is capable of handling up to two-million worldwide communications-intercepts per hour.

RAF Mildenhall touts itself as one of the most diverse bases, housing units from four major commands: Air Combat Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, Air Mobility Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe. It also accommodates U.S. Navy operations as well.

RAF Lakenheath houses units such as the 48^th Operations Group, which “provides three flying squadrons of F-15C/D/E aircraft capable of accomplishing fighter operations worldwide…” according to a U.S. Air Force official website.  It also is home to the 48^th Medical Group, which “provides direct and operational Expeditionary Medical Support (EMEDS) Capability to the United States European Command, Africa Command and Central Command.”

RAF Alconbury hosts the 423^rd Air Base Group, which provides a variety of “mission support” services while RAF Croughton is home to the 422^nd Air Base Group, which “provides command, control, communications and computer support to Department of Defense and civilian agencies across the European theater…” The Croughton facility “operates one of Europe's largest military switchboards and processes approximately a third of all U.S. military communications in Europe.” Both groups are part of the 501^st Combat Support Wing. 

RAF Welford is a key ammunition compound serving U.S. forces across Europe.

Aside from delivery destinations, the contracting document offered little else with the exception of the fuel category breakdown: “The types of fuel and estimated quantities are: Premium Unleaded Gasoline: 26,241,871 USG; Super Premium (High Octane) Gasoline: 3,816,000 USG; Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel: 11,752,987 USG; Kerosene  Class C2: 10,000 USG.”

OTHER MILITARY- and FUEL-RELATED ARTICLES FROM U.S. TRADE & AID MONITOR

U.S. Spends Lavishly on Foreign Energy Projects; Investment Banker-Turned-Bureaucrat Oversees Billion-Dollar Program

U.S. Could Spend Millions to Aid Turkmenistan Energy Sector

U.S. Military Supplies for Africa Ops Surge