Project DREAD: White House veterans helped Gulf monarchy build secret surveillance unit

In the years after 9/11, former U.S. counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke warned Congress that the country needed more expansive spying powers to prevent another catastrophe. Five years after leaving government, he shopped the same idea to an enthusiastic partner: an Arab monarchy with deep pockets.

In 2008, Clarke went to work as a consultant guiding the United Arab Emirates as it created a cyber surveillance capability that would utilize top American intelligence contractors to help monitor threats against the tiny nation.

The secret unit Clarke helped create had an ominous acronym: #DREAD, short for #Development #Research #Exploitation and #Analysis #Department. In the years that followed, the #UAE unit expanded its hunt far beyond suspected extremists to include a #Saudi women’s rights activist, diplomats at the United Nations and personnel at #FIFA, the world soccer body. By 2012, the program would be known among its #American operatives by a codename: #Project #Raven.

Reuters reports this year revealed how a group of former National Security Agency operatives and other elite American intelligence veterans helped the UAE spy on a wide range of targets through the previously undisclosed program — from terrorists to human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.

Now, an examination of the origins of DREAD, reported here for the first time, shows how a pair of former senior White House leaders, working with ex-#NSA #spies and #Beltway contractors, played pivotal roles in building a program whose actions are now under scrutiny by federal authorities.

To chart the UAE spying mission’s evolution, #Reuters examined more than 10,000 DREAD program documents and interviewed more than a dozen contractors, intelligence operatives and former government insiders with direct knowledge of the program. The documents Reuters reviewed span nearly a decade of the DREAD program, starting in 2008, and include internal memos describing the project’s logistics, operational plans and targets.

Clarke was the first in a string of former White House and U.S. defense executives who arrived in the UAE after 9/11 to build the spying unit. Utilizing his close relationship to the country’s rulers, forged through decades of experience as a senior U.S. decision-maker, Clarke won numerous security consulting contracts in the UAE. One of them was to help build the secret spying unit in an unused airport facility in Abu Dhabi.

👉🏼 Read more:
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-raven-whitehouse/

📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv

The #UAE's new law about fake news, combatting online harassment and bullying will give powers to the local courts to confiscate devices, software, content or other means used in the crime.

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/government/new-uae-law-devices-used-to-spread-fake-news-to-be-confiscated-content-could-be-deleted

#UAE Threatens Two Years in Jail, $54,450 Fine for Social Media Users Who Mock COVID-19 Measures or Spread Information

🇦🇪@COVID19Up: United Arab Emirates (UAE) residents who ignore COVID-19 mandates or are found to be spreading “misinformation” online regarding the pandemic—or even mocking the measures on social media—could soon find themselves serving jail time and paying massive fines.

This is what the Federal Emergency Crisis and Disasters Prosecution on January 10 cautioned those living there against doing, with the Gulf country’s news agency citing a statement that said it was not permitted to either spread “rumors and false information” about COVID-19 measures, or flaunt them.

If found guilty of spreading such misinformation, social media users can be imprisoned for at least two years and ordered to pay a fine equivalent to $54,450.

📷Aftermath of a #Saudi-led air strike on Yemen’s capital Sanaa, 18 January 2022.

Gross violations of international law. Missiles raining down on houses. Kleptocrats laundering their ill-gotten gains through #London and buying political influence. Aggressive, powerful states attacking a poorer neighbour; backing separatist rebels; illegally occupying its land; dropping cluster bombs and conducting crippling cyber-attacks. Sound familiar?

This is what Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been doing to Yemen since 2015. It’s a conflict that has continued during Putin’s offensive in Ukraine, but with a fraction of the media scrutiny.

Unlike with #Russia, there have been no recent calls for financial or even sporting sanctions on Gulf regimes from prominent British commentators or politicians. With the war in #Yemen worsening once again – as Declassified’s new film shows below – the silence of Britain’s political class becomes ever louder.

Yemen: the war the world forgot https://declassifieduk.org/yemen-the-war-the-world-forgot/

#WarCrimes #UAE #UK

Sponsor with batch-filed whiskers: Ballistic Bobcat’s scan and strike backdoor | welivesecurity

ESET Research uncovers the Sponsoring Access campaign, which utilizes an undocumented Ballistic Bobcat backdoor we have named Sponsor

ESET researchers discovered a Ballistic Bobcat campaign targeting various entities in Brazil, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates, using a novel backdoor we have named Sponsor.

We discovered Sponsor after we analyzed an interesting sample we detected on a victim’s system in Israel in May 2022 and scoped the victim-set by country. Upon examination, it became evident to us that the sample was a novel backdoor deployed by the Ballistic Bobcat APT group

#APT #BallisticBobcat #backdoor #Israel #Iran #UAE

High Court grants permission for journalist's legal case against UAE's alleged spyware use - Solicitors Journal

Rania Dridi, a journalist and former activist known for her involvement in the Tunisian revolution of 2011, has been granted permission by the High Court in London to initiate legal proceedings against the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The case revolves around the alleged use of Pegasus spyware to infiltrate her mobile phone, marking a significant development in the realm of digital surveillance and transnational repression.

#Pegasus #NSO #Tunisia #UAE
#RaniaDridi #Journalist