Commerce Department security unit evolved into counterintelligence-like operation

[Nevilledog]

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Marc Fisher
@mffisher
Post Investigation: Trump’s Commerce Department identified and examined Americans who criticized the administration on social media.

Commerce Department security unit evolved into counterintelligence-like operation, Washington Post...
The obscure Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS) used tactics, including broad keyword searches on employee emails and scouring Americans’ social media for criticism of the census, to...
washingtonpost.com
5:19 AM · May 24, 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/05/24/commerce-department-monitoring-itms/

An obscure security unit tasked with protecting the Commerce Department’s officials and facilities has evolved into something more akin to a counterintelligence operation that collected information on hundreds of people inside and outside the department, a Washington Post examination found.

The Investigations and Threat Management Service (ITMS) covertly searched employees’ offices at night, ran broad keyword searches of their emails trying to surface signs of foreign influence and scoured Americans’ social media for critical comments about the census, according to documents and interviews with five former investigators.

In one instance, the unit opened a case on a 68-year-old retiree in Florida who tweeted that the census, which is run by the Commerce Department, would be manipulated “to benefit the Trump Party!” records show.

In another example, the unit searched Commerce servers for particular Chinese words, documents show. The search resulted in the monitoring of many Asian American employees over benign correspondence, according to two former investigators.

*snip*

[secondwind]

1. Drumpf tentacles ran deep in our systems....

Ugh

[Hortensis]

2. Another nest of corruption to clean out. Hard on any career people who

might have found themselves tangled up in it. Illegal and unethical behaviors used to be clearly defined in procedure manuals, but the Trump administration destroyed a lot of them and this was a new unit. Still, most of the same rules apply in business enterprises as well.

[2naSalit]

3. Or is that devolved?