Letter to Mr. Brian Murphy, Acting Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis - Intel Dems Demand Answers from DHS Intelligence on Role in Portland Protests

Letter

Dear Acting Under Secretary Murphy:
We have grown increasingly concerned about the role and operations of the
Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Intelligence and Analysis
(I&A) in particular, with regard to the protests in Portland, Oregon. As a member
of the Intelligence Community, I&A is obligated by statute to keep the
congressional intelligence committees fully and currently informed of its
operations. Given the intense national as well as congressional interest in DHS
activities related to protests in Portland and around the country, documents and
other information related to I&A's operations should be provided to the Committee
pro-actively, and not merely in response to repeated requests or following
revelations in the press.
We request that you provide the following information:
1. Of the I&A personnel deployed to, or otherwise who have been assigned to
missions connected to the Portland protests, how many are analysts and how
many are collectors? What I&A mission centers do they work for? What
backgrounds and training do they have that are relevant to the Portland
mission?
2. Has I&A employed any contractors for the Portland mission? If yes, please
describe their roles.
3. Where have I&A personnel in Portland physically worked and with whom
have they been co-located?
4. Please provide a breakdown of the DHS components I&A personnel have
supported and a description of the support provided to each such component.
To what extent does the chain of command of I&A personnel include those
components, as opposed to I&A Headquarters?
5. Please describe interactions and coordination between I&A personnel in
Portland and state and local law enforcement and political authorities.
6. Please describe interactions and coordination between I&A personnel in
Portland and federal law enforcement, including elements of the
Departments of Justice and Homeland Security.
7. A July 9, 2020, I&A document describing "Portland Surge Operation" states
that I&A personnel may "collect from incarcerated, detained, or arrested
persons" so long as the collection is conducted overtly. You stated during a
briefing for Committee staff on July 23, 2020, that I&A personnel have not
engaged in custodial debriefings. Please confirm. Have I&A personnel
been indirectly engaged with detainee operations, for example, by providing
collection requirements or requests, or suggested lines of questioning, to
detaining authorities or otherwise requesting or receiving information related
to detainees?
8. You also stated during the July 23, 2020, briefing that I&A personnel have
not interacted with protesters in any way. Please confirm.
9. During the July 23, 2020, briefing, you stated that I&A had neither collected
nor exploited or analyzed information obtained from the devices or accounts
of protesters or detainees. Please confirm.
10.Please describe I&A's open source collection. What rules of engagement
apply to open source collection in the context of protests in which the vast
majority of participants are exercising their First Amendment rights? What
rules or guidance does I&A follow to distinguish actual threats of violence
or vandalism from political hyperbole, and what training do I&A personnel
receive on the implementation of that guidance?
11.What processes does I&A have to vet the authenticity of open source threat
reporting? What processes does I&A have to vet the authenticity of social
media accounts in which individuals take credit for acts of violence or
vandalism, on their own behalf or on behalf of an ideology? How has this
vetting been conducted prior to disseminating this information, or using it as
a basis for analysis?
12.Have I&A operations in connection with the Portland protests been reviewed
by an I&A Intelligence Oversight Officer, DHS's Privacy Office and Office
for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, or any other DHS personnel responsible
for reviewing the impact of I&A operations on the privacy and civil liberties
of U.S. persons? If yes, please describe those reviews.
13.The "Job Aid" document authorizes collection of information that "informs
an overall assessment that threats to [law enforcement] personnel, facilities,
or resources will materialize." The document includes a similar explicit
authorization with regard to public monuments, memorials and statues. Can
I&A collect information on U.S. persons who are not threatening violence
and, if so, under what circumstances?
14.Has I&A conducted network analysis linking individuals suspected of
violence? If yes, please describe how that analysis has been conducted
while not collecting on U.S. persons not suspected of violence? Please
provide any such analysis.
15.During the July 23, 2020, briefing, you stated that I&A is able to track those
who engage in violent acts because "it is the same people who come out
after midnight." Please describe how I&A is able to differentiate between
peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment rights and those
individuals who have planned or conducted acts of violence, and what
information or intelligence is used in making this determination.
16.Has I&A produced or contributed to targeting packages or dossiers on
particular suspects? If yes, please provide these to the Committee.
17.On July 16, 2020, the FAA put in place flight restrictions over Portland to
prevent drones from flying below 1000 feet. The FAA cited a DHS
conclusion that private drone use presented a threat. Please provide any
intelligence to support that conclusion.
18.Have I&A personnel obtained or analyzed data from overhead surveillance
of protests? If yes, please describe.
19.On July 25, 2020, you sent a memo to I&A personnel in which you stated
that individuals in Portland committing acts of violence are "VIOLENT
ANTIFA ANARCHIST INSPIRED (VAAI)." Please describe the origin of
this designation and the analytical process whereby it was developed and
applied.
20.Your July 25, 2020, memo stated that the VAAI designation was informed
by FIRs, OSIRs, "baseball cards" and FINTEL. Please provide these
documents to the Committee.
21.Please describe how I&A has applied its retention guidelines to information
related to the Portland protests. What information has been marked for
indefinite retention? How has I&A sought to apply its 180-day retention
limitation to information it has disseminated?
22.Please describe what I&A raw reporting has been disseminated to what
entities, whether DHS, federal law enforcement, state or local or municipal
law enforcement, or the Intelligence Community.
23.Are there limits to I&A's role in protecting public monuments, memorials or
statues absent threat of violence to persons? Does it matter whether such
monuments, memorials or statues are on federal, state, local, or private
property?
24.What other cities has I&A deployed to, or plans to deploy to in response to
protests or associated threats of violence? Please provide any
documentation or guidance related to any such deployments.
25.According to press accounts, I&A disseminated Open Source Intelligence
Reports on a journalist and a legal scholar who had written about I&A. If
that is accurate, provide those reports, a complete description of who they
were disseminated to, and an explanation of the purpose and basis for the
reports and their dissemination under law and I&A's intelligence oversight
guidelines, including with regard to the identification of any U.S. persons
within them.
Please provide responses no later than Thursday, August 6, 2020.
Thank you for your attention to this important and urgent matter.
Sincerely,

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