Post

Project Salt Box
@projectsaltbox.com

Of all the things that give me pause about ICE's draft ERO ONE statement of work, a section titled "Network, Link, and Relationship Analysis" is the most eyebrow-raising. I spent close to 20 years as an intel analyst. Here's what section 4.6 says and means, paragraph by paragraph.

72 reposts90 likes

Project Salt Box
@projectsaltbox.com

"Network analysis" is intel parlance for mapping how people connect. Who someone lives with, works with, travels with, and talks to. Paragraph 1 tasks contractors with assessing relationships among "individuals, organizations, locations, events, activities, data points, and other entities."

Project Salt Box
@projectsaltbox.com

Paragraph 2 is pattern-of-life analysis. "Areas of convergence" and "temporal or geographic connections" mean: where does a person go, when, and who else is there. How does a person spend their days? That last part is how this analysis generates new names and potential targets of interest.

Project Salt Box
@projectsaltbox.com

Paragraph 4 lists the products an ERO ONE analyst would prepare: link charts, network diagrams, timelines. That is a picture of when a subject is likely to be somewhere, and who is likely to be there too. An ops planner could use it to maximize the number of people arrested at once.

Project Salt Box
@projectsaltbox.com

What information are they working from? The statement of work never says. It refers only to "authorized sources." It does say the work environment may involve "classified national security information." That's a strange line to find in a law enforcement contract.