Tag: civil lawsuit

TigerSwan’s Troubles

Open records request info: disregard for state laws, citizens, and property

By C.S. Hagen
MANDAN – Trouble followed TigerSwan everywhere the security company went in the Peace Garden State.

Tasked with the mission to protect the Dakota Access Pipeline by Energy Transfer Partners, TigerSwan stepped into a messy scene — chaotic — but the well oiled former Army Delta Force-led security machine went straight to work, starting at the local airport.

Records obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the security company signed leases not with Mandan Municipal Airport’s Authority, but with companies the airport leased to — which was a breach of contract.

Rectifying the issue was complicated, airport authorities said, and wasn’t cleared up until shortly before TigerSwan left North Dakota earlier this month, nearly a year after their arrival.

Before TigerSwan’s arrival, police were driven back repeatedly from front lines. Former Governor Jack Dalrymple declared an emergency state to seek federal funds and to bring in the North Dakota National Guard. Activists chaining themselves to sleeping tar dragons stopped pipeline construction, daily. Arrests hovered around 29. Days later, Ohio-based Frost Kennels employees were siccing attack dogs on activists defending water and land rights. Other security companies, some without proper licenses, also wanted a piece of Energy Transfer Partners protection budget. Morton County couldn’t keep up with the activists surging into the camps, which at its height became the state’s tenth largest community.

But it was TigerSwan that was chosen for the “fusion lead.” The international security company, known as a mercenary-for-hire agency with government contracts around the world, coordinated security companies such as Bismarck’s 10 Code Security, EH Investigations and Security, LLC, and Leighton Security Services, from Texas. They inserted their own liaison into the law enforcement’s “Joint Operation Command,” thereby fusing private and public intelligence operations, according to documents released by The Intercept.

“There were four different security companies involved,” Mandan Municipal Airport Authority Chairman Mike Wagner said. “And we lumped them into one and called them DAPL Security.”

TigerSwan, EH Investigations and Security, LLC, and Leighton Security Services, Inc., are all named in a civil lawsuit filed by the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board for working illegally in the state.

Activists tackled by DAPL Security

Additional law enforcement, the North Dakota National Guard, and TigerSwan’s arrival dramatically shifted the prairies into what was called a war zone by United Nations Chief Edward John. Organized police phalanxes began marching down Highway 1806. Law enforcement lines became impregnable, twisted with razor wire, cement blocks, and bolstered with water cannons and long range acoustic weapons. Helicopters flew like locusts, and never truly left.

DAPL Security came in wearing khakis and bulletproof vests. Lip sweaters and chin curtains painstakingly frayed as urban lumbersexuals, they stampeded into the Dakota plains in 4×4 pickup trucks and all-terrain vehicles.

Private security personnel outside of Standing Rock near DAPL – online sources

They roamed the rolling hills freely, backed by law enforcement, tackling those who strayed too far on lands once owned by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Activists practicing free speech became terrorists, jihadists, and the propaganda was disseminated to big-oil-trusted mainstream media outlets across the state, such as the Scott Hennen Show on AM 1100 “The Flag,” Rob Port’s “Say Anything Blog” owned by Forum Communications Company, and TigerSwan’s propaganda arm, Netizens for Progress and Justice, which according to its website is a “countering the leftist media propaganda nightmare” media outlet.

TigerSwan also “attempted to place undercover private security agents within the protest group to carry out investigative and surveillance activities against these groups on behalf of Energy Transfer Partner and others,” the civil lawsuit states. Security teams monitored vehicles, gathered intelligence, provided “around the clock protection” and security for the “resumption of construction” of the Dakota Access Pipeline, according to the civil lawsuit.

Where eagles and vultures once ruled, DAPL Security covered the skies using Double M Helicopters, testing software, spying on activists with long-range lenses.

Two months after TigerSwan’s arrival, arrests jumped to 410.


 According to the civil action filings filed by the governor-appointed private security board, TigerSwan ignored warnings saying they were working only as consultants. In response to  the lawsuit, a TigerSwan representative identified as TS Press said this week via email that “we were not providing security, but consulting services.”

DAPL Security’s arrival at the Mandan Municipal Airport set management on edge. Clear Sky Aviation, Inc. was under a 20-year contract with the airport authority, a contract signed on November 1, 2012, stipulating the company, which according to its website is managed by Double M Helicopters, did not have the authority to sublease.

The stated purpose of the lease was for Clear Sky to “use the premises solely for regular airport and aviation business purposes, including, but not limited to, aircraft charter or rental, aircraft repairs and maintenance, major or minor, aircraft sales, aircraft flight instructions,” according to the contract.

But Clear Sky Aviation violated its lease when it subleased a part of a hangar to TigerSwan’s John Porter, Energy Transfer Partner’s chief security advisor, according to airport records.

“On August 26, 2016, without the prior written approval of MAA, Clear Skies entered into a lease agreement with ‘DAPL Security,’” the Mandan Airport Authority reported.

The Mandan Municipal Airport also signed a 20-year lease with Mandan Aviation, LLC, on October 17, 2012, and on September 2016 struck an oral sublease agreement with TigerSwan, breaking section 21 of the original lease agreement, according to an April 23 letter written to owner David Barth from Wagner. Mandan Aviation subleased office space in the upper level of the south end of the Mandan Aviation hangar, according to a consent to sublease contract.

The subleases not only violated contracts, they put the airport’s future in jeopardy. Airport land and buildings can only be used for aeronautical purposes, according to airport authorities. Any additional use must be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Mandan Municipal Airport is publicly owned, and is a part of the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, which allows the airport to receive federal grants under the Airport Improvement Program. The airport’s grants came into question when TigerSwan arrived, as according to Federal Aviation Administration regulations Airport Compliance Program all airport property must be available for aeronautical use, and not available for non-aeronautical purposes unless approved by the FAA.

Clear Sky Aviation, Inc. was established on June 22, 2012, and is registered to Cindy Becker; Double M Helicopters was registered on September 3, 2009 to Monte Myers, and Mandan Aviation, LLC was registered on June 14, 2006 to Barth, according to North Dakota Secretary of State records. No records exist for Clear Skies Aviation in the North Dakota Secretary of State.

According to emails, contracts, and recorded meeting minutes obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, airport management pondered whether or not to kick DAPL Security out of the airport, or to require payments from the companies involved if the airport lost federal grant monies needed for a perimeter fence next year. If FAA permission was not granted, the airport stood to lose upwards of $2 million, airport records state.

Although DAPL Security entered the airport after county, state, and federal law enforcement set up a headquarters, TigerSwan stayed after law enforcement left, posting guards and interfering with air traffic and personnel, according to airport records.

“You can’t get answers. They won’t talk,” Mandan Municipal Airport Manager Jim Lawler wrote in an email on October 27. “I would like to see them gone.”  

Wagner pointed out the issues in a response to Lawler’s email.

“There are a couple of things affecting the airport wastewater system, parking, driving on the airside, parking equipment on the airside without permission, complaints from users of feeling intimidated when entering the airport and living at the airport,” Wagner said. “They continue to guard the entrance. Would we be a target if they weren’t here, and are we a target after they leave?”

“Also, no contact from the people that promised to be in my office everyday,” Wagner wrote. “Just because they are chartering the helicopters is not a reason to allow use of office space and living quarters to non-aviation businesses. All of this is also part of the grant assurances which we sign as part of the FAA AIP funding, and could jeopardize that funding.”

TigerSwan operatives left messes behind, documents report. Bathrooms weren’t cleaned. Septic tanks were filled. Six chairs went missing.

“In a general sense it was them becoming acclimated to being on airport property,” Wagner said. “I think a lot of it was misunderstanding. As soon as they were instructed, they were good about correcting it.”

Nearly three months after TigerSwan arrived, negotiations began over lease pricing, and the issue came up during the airport authority’s board meeting on November 21, 2016. The Mandan Municipal Airport Authority decided to first obtain FAA approval, develop a security plan, a code of conduct, and then charge a fair market rate, not aeronautical rates, which are cheaper.

Later that same night, while law enforcement sprayed hundreds of activists with a water cannon in freezing temperatures, Myers, owner of Double M Helicopters, was still attempting to obtain signed sublease agreements from TigerSwan, according to a November 22, 2016 email.

The morning after, TigerSwan director, Al Ornoski, congratulated a list of people ranging from TigerSwan operatives, airport and Fusion Center personnel, 10 Code Security, and others.

“Outstanding job, thanks to everyone for your dedication, support and work during last night’s critical event,” Ornoski wrote.

Three days after the “critical event,” Myers wrote Lawler an email, which included the sublease agreement.

“I think the one point that was missed on this whole deal at the board meeting was the end result of all this is the Mandan Airport now has 24-hour security at no cost to the airport itself,” Myers wrote. “Without a security fence and some sort of restricted access gate, all are extremely vulnerable at the Mandan Municipal Airport. With the situation as it is in Morton County, this seems a win/win for the airport.”

Private security personnel along pipeline route – online sources

Myers also reported that activists used the FAA database to determine owners of the airplanes involved against the Standing Rock camps, and that he was being threatened.

“Don’t believe much of what you read on Facebook, or some of these other publications. The comments about tail numbers, using the helicopters as weapons, dropping objects on them, spraying them with mustard gas, flying over them at night with all our lights off and spraying them with pesticides is obviously crazy.”

True reports included a Double M Helicopter herding more than 200 buffalo away from police lines, and activists shooting at helicopters with arrows, or flying drones toward them, according to Myers.

“The helicopter was a very effective tool to direct the buffalo back into the pasture that the protesters had knocked the fence down earlier that day,” Myers said.

After Myers’ email, the Mandan Municipal Airport Authority became worried about their own safety, asking if TigerSwan, had completed  a threat assessment of Mandan Airport.

Nearing Christmas, arrests jumped again to 571.

The leasing dispute lasted more than nine months, until an April 3 airport executive session meeting, when the board decided if FAA permission was not granted, then eviction notices would be sent out.

The issue became an ask for forgiveness or permission, and it was already too late to ask for permission. Airport authorities feared “potential adversarial administrative proceedings with the FAA,” which could “have an adverse fiscal effect on the bargaining or litigation position of MAA.”

“Beg for forgiveness [to the FAA] that we weren’t even aware of this, and now that we are, we’re trying to remedy,” Lawler said during the 30-minute board meeting. Breach of the original lease agreement “put the board in the awkward position of trying to figure out what our duties and obligations were as board members.”

In April, the airport authority agreed to proceed as if they had been approached before the sublease agreements were entered, rather than as a breach of the original lease, according to Wagner.

FAA Program Manager Donald Phillips was contacted by airport authority in April, approximately six weeks before TigerSwan left the state to continue protecting oil pipelines in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. On May 26, emails indicate that the FAA did not object to the temporary non-aeronautical use of airport property “during the DAPL protest.”

The reason the issue took more than nine months to resolve is because Mandan Municipal Airport has seen enormous change in the past few years, Wagner said. Airport authorities have been scrambling to study a 600-page FAA rulebook.

“It took some time to get up to speed and get educated,” Wagner said. “The FAA’s primary role in the whole thing was to make sure we weren’t going to violate grant assurances and that included making sure a non-aeronautical rate was applied rather than aeronautical.” Aeronautical rates are cheaper, Wagner said.

By the end of the leasing controversy, long after the last tents and trash were cleared from along the Cannonball River, airport authorities agreed to accepting 10 percent of all payments made by DAPL Security to the aeronautical companies. Mandan Aviation charged $1,300 a month, and Clear Sky Aviation received checks for their sublease agreements worth $35,000, of which $3,500 was to be given to the airport authority. On June 19, Lawler said he received a check for $2,100 from Clear Sky Aviation.

Official records indicate 761 people were arrested during the DAPL controversy, and already 114 cases have been dismissed by the state. Eleven people received guilty verdicts; 50 pled guilty – primarily on lesser charges, and three have been acquitted, according to the Water Protector Legal Collective. Numbers from the legal firm report a total of 854 people were arrested.

TigerSwan and Co. responses
Early morning, February 17, 2017, site security advisor for TigerSwan, Stuart Kortus, alerted airport authorities that he would be flying at 250 feet.

“I will be conducting a test flight to test new software,” Kortus said. “I will be near the field to the west between hangars and Highway 6.”

Kortus did not reply to requests for more information pertaining to what kinds of software TigerSwan was testing near Standing Rock.

A TigerSwan representative, identified only as TS Press, replied to a request for information, saying the claims made in official Mandan Municipal Airport documents were, in essence, fake news.

“Your questions are rooted in speculation and heresy [hearsay] and show that you seem interested in perpetuating the same false narratives about our work that have been manufactured by groups that seek to malign a service-disabled, veteran-owned small business,” TS Press stated in an email. “We appreciate your inquiry, but until you take a more objective view of the facts, we will not respond to your questions and will continue working with the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board to convey the realities of our work in North Dakota.”

A second email from TS Press stated that TigerSwan “never had a contract at the airport.”

Ornoski, listed as a director of DAPL Security ND, or TigerSwan, hung up the phone when contacted. Myers was contacted by telephone and email, messages were left, but Myers did not reply for comment.

When Barth of Mandan Aviation was contacted, he said the situation was complicated.

“We have attorneys involved, and what you may or may not write may or may not be the truth,” Barth said. “So, if I were you, I would just keep my nose out of it.”

IT specialists investigate cyber warfare crimes at Standing Rock

State worked with TigerSwan to ensure “battle rhythm,” second DAPL security worker whistleblower steps forward 

 By C.S. Hagen
CANNON BALL – The lawsuit against TigerSwan for illegally working security in North Dakota is a civil case, but proof now exists that cyber warfare tactics were used against activists at the Standing Rock camps, according to IT analysts. One question remains: who was responsible for launching the attacks?

Hundreds of mobile phones and vehicles were damaged as batteries were suddenly drained of power, or were “fried,” during warm and cold weather. Incidents of random hot spots for Internet reception with alternating GPS locations, hacked laptops and cellphones, are too many to count. Bugs or listening devices were planted in meeting rooms at the nearby Prairie Knights Casino & Resort. Fiber cable boxes were broken into. Additionally, cars en route to and from Oceti Sakowin broke down without warning, and have not been the same since.

Morton County Sheriff’s Department denied that their deputies used cyber weaponry, but leased a mobile cellular tower from Verizon to boost reception. The Office of the Governor of the State of North Dakota claims it was unaware that TigerSwan was operating illegally, and yet was in the loop, keeping the “battle rhythm” alive. The National Guard is considered a “law enforcement multiplier” under emergency situations, and police are not in the business of digital disruption, preferring to operate in the legal gray zone of electronic intelligence gathering. Possible suspects that remain include the federal government and TigerSwan, the North Carolina security firm whose services were paid by Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access LLC.

Headed by former Delta Force officer James Reese, both Reese and TigerSwan face a civil lawsuit filed by the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board for illegally working in the state despite repeated warnings. 

The cyber and cellular attacks at Standing Rock on activists ranged from malware, IMSI catchers, to electromagnetic field devices, IT analysts report. Malware typically comes as viruses through emails, links, or attachments and acts with stealth, not programed to alert the owner. IMSI Catchers – sometimes known by the brand Stingrays – act as fake cellular towers, forcing GSM phones to connect and then suck in data. The electromagnetic field device is a cyber weapon used in the Middle East to block cellular phones sending data to Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs. It is a short burst of electromagnetic energy meant to disrupt or damage nearly any equipment with a microchip.

Semi-mobile Stingray rogue field intercept cell tower antenna array with collection/detection gear powered by a grid utility pole with a backup battery, photographed by drone near to where Standing Rock Chairman was arrested – photo by Myron Dewey

Only government entities can authorize a cyber or cellular attack. 

Plucked from the war-torn fields of Afghanistan and Iraq, TigerSwan employees are well trained in military tactics, and the company not only advertises its military-grade data and human intelligence capabilities on its website, it has a history of partnering with hi-tech companies, such as its 2012 partnership with Saffron Technology. 

Saffron Technology is a small data analytics company that uses technology to mimic the human brain’s capability to connect people, places, and things, at lightning speed, according to the company’s website. Saffron Technology’s products were originally used in Iraq to predict where bombs were located, according to Reuters, but now it offers its services to corporations such as Boeing Co., to forecast weather, and to TigerSwan. 

While IT technicians continue the hunt for additional proof of cyber weaponry used at the Standing Rock camps, the Water Protector Legal Collective, which operates in partnership with the National Lawyers Guild in defending many activists, reports Kourtni Dockter, a former DAPL security employee, is not the only whistleblower.

On Tuesday night, Kyle Thompson, the former project manager for Leighton Security Security Services, came forward live on Digital Smoke Signals with owner Myron Dewey, and began to tell his side of the Dakota Access Pipeline story, making hints that more is to come. Thompson’s burgeoning testimony comes after his former girlfriend and Leighton security employee, Dockter, blew the whistle on TigerSwan activities.

Kyle Thompson during interview on Digital Smoke Signals

“We are starting to see some of the security workers defect,” Water Protector Legal Collective staff attorney Andrea Carter said. “When you look at Kyle’s interview yesterday, i think he feels very troubled about what happened, and a part of him really wants to connect to the camps.” 

Thompson plans on sharing more information about his experience working security along the Dakota Access Pipeline, but “not yet,” he said. 

“I feel like I can help a lot of people with me coming out with my truth, which could benefit the people facing charges,” Thompson said during the recorded interview. 

“The healing has started,” Dewey said. “And it’s not easy.” 

The casualties

As the Dodge Ram’s engine sputtered, Alex Glover-Herzog wasn’t thinking of the military-Internet complex or of TigerSwan, or of the DAPL helicopter that swooped low along the Missouri River’s banks. 

Late November outside of Standing Rock, Glover-Herzog was trying to stay warm. His 4×4’s engine was purring normally, pouring much-needed heat from the vents before the engine coughed, then suddenly died. 

“It was way too cold to think about anything else at that moment,” Glover-Herzog said. “The only thing I can say is that my truck died twice for no reason while at Oceti.” 

Hundreds of others camped outside of Standing Rock during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy experienced the same phenomena, Myron Dewey, owner of Digital Smoke Signals, said. It resembled a futuristic nightmare straight from the movie “Matrix,” executive director for Geeks Without Bounds, Lisha Sterling, said. She spent months at the camps training people and helping improve communication technology. Geeks Without Bounds is a Washington-based humanitarian organization that works toward improving communication and technology. 

Two automobiles that suddenly lost battery power at Standing Rock camps – photo provided by Myron Dewey

“When the squids were coming at them.” Sterling said about the comparison of the “Matrix” scene and what happened at the Standing Rock camps. “They powered down their machine and did an EM pulse, which fries electronics… and the squids coming at them.” 

Cooper Quentin, the staff technologist on the cyber team with Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization defending liberties in the digital world, spent a few days at the Standing Rock camps.

“While I was there I was looking for evidence of Stingrays, and I did not find any evidence,” Quentin said. “But they could have been using them before I got there.”

He looked at computers, mobile phones, but said he found nothing conclusive.

“There is definitely some weird stuff, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence, but it doesn’t have to be malware. Extreme temperatures can do weird things to phone batteries. There were definitely a lot of weird things going on at the camps, but none of that is exclusive.”

Quentin is still interested in investigating further, however, but the case needs a digital forensics expert, which is costly.

“Even if we do find malware that looked like spyware, and we were able to prove from time stamps that they got it while they were at Standing Rock, we would still need to prove where it came from. If the server is owned by law enforcement or TigerSwan, then you have solid attribution. If that’s not the case then it becomes much harder to figure out who to blame.

“But my opinion is not shared by some of the other experts. If people have solid evidence I would happily continue to investigate.”

Colorado resident Christina Arreguin’s first phone at Standing Rock became little better than a paperweight in mid-October, she said. She had 80 percent battery left when it got hit, but even after trying three separate chargers, her phone was never able to call or text again. She learned to adapt quickly; stowed the battery in one pocket, and her new phone in the other when she went to the frontlines.

The attacks weren’t isolated to the frontlines. Cars broke down when a helicopter flew by, she noticed. 

“The sound from the planes so much became like part of the background, just a familiar noise, kinda like how you get used to the beep from a smoke detector after a while,” Arreguin said. “I do remember a helicopter though, when the Blazer broke down it looked different than the other ones.” 

The omnipresent white helicopter over Standing Rock camps – photo provided by Myron Dewey

“When the Cessna flew by, that’s when cellphones got zapped,” Lisa Ling, also with Geeks Without Bounds, said. Ling is a former Air Force technical sergeant who worked in America’s armed drone program in what is known as a Distributed Ground System, a secret networked killing operation capable of sucking up personal data to be able to track and shoot people anywhere, and at any time. Ling turned whistleblower in 2014, and her testimony was featured in the 2016 documentary film National Bird

On Ling’s first trip to the Standing Rock camps, Internet connection was difficult. 

“When we first got there the only place you could get any connectivity was Facebook Hill,” Ling said. “If you left Facebook Hill there was no connectivity.” On her second trip, she said random places in the camps had connectivity. She knocked on tent and tipi doors asking people if they had boosters. No one had any. 

“My phone actually got zapped a number of times by some sort of EMP,” Ling said. “These cellular disruptors, as we call them, can do physical damage to the phone.” Such an attack is not legal for a private company to issue, and Ling said it should not be legal for law enforcement to utilize without warrants. 

FOIA requests to the Office of the Governor of North Dakota, to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to the North Dakota National Guard, so far, have revealed that no warrants were issued for the use of cyber weapons outside of Standing Rock.

Such attacks are an invasion of privacy, a right protected by the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution, which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.”

Fiber optic box broken into near Standing Rock – photo provided by Lisa Ling

“I paid close attention to what things flying above us when certain things happened,” Ling said. “And there was a small white plane, and that’s the thing that flew when our phones got zapped. So if you managed to turn your phone off when that thing came by, then your phone wouldn’t get zapped. When that Cessna was up, cellphones got zapped, and it wasn’t because of the cold, as they’re trying to say, it happened before the winter as well.” 

Ling brought radios to the camps to help with communication and safety during sub-zero temperatures, she said, but TigerSwan operatives discovered their frequencies and harassed them. Internet cables were cut inside the dome by infiltrators, she said. 

“They were intentionally interrupting that,” Ling said, adding that during the freezing winter months such interruptions could have cost lives. 

The automobile breakdowns coincided with either the private Cessna that circled the camps, or with helicopters. 

“I documented, I have proof,” Dewey said. Proof was easy to obtain because of the “digital divide” separating Indian country and the rest of the modernized world. He spotted and photographed a Stingray device near Highway 1806 where Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II was arrested. 

Myron Dewey with drone, all charges against him dropped earlier this week – Facebook page

The device has been identified by multiple sources as a semi-mobile Stingray rogue field intercept cell tower antenna array with collection and detection gear powered by a grid utility pole with a battery backup.

“It was easy to identify cyber warfare out there, because we already were in a digital divide,” Dewey said. Dewey is also a filmmaker, uses drones, and lost at least three to gunfire and electromagnetic field devices, he said. Charges against Dewey were dropped this week, and he is waiting the return of one of his drones in Mandan. 

“Indian country has been in a digital divide since America has had access to technology.” 

Dewey claims that TigerSwan operatives on snowmobiles chased him while he was driving, and he has video to prove the harassment. One of his drones was hit at Treaty Camp, which was taken over by law enforcement on October 27, 2016.

“The drones were hit several different ways, so I sent one drone up and another to film it and see what happened,” Dewey said. “It seemed like an EMP charge, but it was more like a wave, and it dropped into the water.”

His mobile phone also got hacked, Dewey said. “It started recording my voice right in front of me and another guy, and then sent to text. I was really paranoid a lot of the times, but I had people to protect me some times.”

In addition to the cyber attacks, TigerSwan operatives, or security personnel working under the TigerSwan umbrella, boarded vehicles like pirates to a ship, he said, smashed out windows, stole radios to report misleading information, and curse.

“‘We’re going to rape your women and have half-breed babies,’” Dewey said the security operatives would yell over frequencies activists used. The threats were difficult to ignore as they brought on old fears from native oral stories and traditions handed down for generations.

“If the military catches you, stuff your insides with dirt in the hopes that they kill you,” Dewey said. “We thought the police were there to keep the peace, but it was like Custer who wanted the gold. History repeating itself, the second wave of Custer’s cavalry, and they felt the need to win.”

Dewey drives a Yukon Hybrid, and had just installed a new battery when it too was fried at the Standing Rock camps. The first electromagnetic pulse hit the camps in August, Dewey said. “Several hoods were up, and I went over and asked them what happened and they said they’re batteries were dead as well.” 

The cyber field of battle sits in a legal gray zone, but inside the United States only a government entity has the authority to utilize use cyber weapons. Private companies, even if they are attacked first, cannot legally reciprocate on their own volition.

“So my educated guess is that the IMSI Catchers were owned and authorized by either or both the Morton County Sheriff’s Department and the National Guard, but the chances are similarly high that they would not have had the experience to manage them, so that is where TigerSwan comes in,” Sterling said.

“It is also possible that nobody really cared, and that they were owned by TigerSwan themselves.”

Outside of the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and a handful of other government agencies, only criminal organizations and massive corporations have the funds to purchase and store high-end disruptive cyber weapons. A zero-day vulnerability exploit targeting Apple products can cost as much as $500,000.

IMSI Catchers used to be difficult to obtain, but now can be bought online for under $2,000 on Alibaba, or from dozens of companies online some of whom specify their products are for law enforcement use only.

“What we got now is the lull between battles,” Sterling said. “It will more likely be seen in the big cities soon, Standing Rock Part Two, in terms of the cyber warfare, the strong-armed tactics, and not just militarized police, but the militarized contractors as well.”

North Dakota National Guard vehicles at Standing Rock camps – photo provided by Myron Dewey

The gray zone

Cyber weapons are not lethal in the sense of traditional weapons, but can also be dangerous and disruptive far beyond an intended target, Shane Harris, the author of the 2014 book “@ War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex,” wrote. Harris is a senior correspondent at the Daily Beast and covers national security, intelligence, and cyber security. 

Cyber warfare began in the 1990s. Early pioneers, or cyber warriors, blazed a complicated legal trail into the 2000s until 2013, when former President Barack Obama issued executive order PDD-20, effectively paving the way for more streamlined cyber defense and offense. 

Black helicopter flying over the Standing Rock camps – photo provided by Myron Dewey

The president must order all cyber strikes internationally; no private companies are authorized for digital, cellular, or cyber offensive actions. Despite a contentious relationship between government agencies and private companies, “there’s an alliance forming between government and business in cyberspace,” Harris wrote. 

“It’s born of a mutual understanding that US national security and economic well-being are fundamentally threatened by rampant cyber espionage and potential attacks on vital infrastructure,” Harris wrote. 

Oil pipelines are included under the infrastructure category by the Department of Homeland Security, as are dams, chemicals, emergency services, communications, critical manufacturing, healthcare, water and wastewater, transportation, information technology, and government facilities, along with other sectors of economy. 

Approximately 85 percent of the computer networks in the United States are owned and operated by private groups and individuals, and any one of the telecom companies, the tech titans, the financial institutions, the defense contractors, could be the weak link against cyber attacks. 

“The government has decided that protecting cyberspace is a top national priority,” Harris wrote. “But the companies have a voice in how that job gets done. That’s the alliance at the heart of the military-Internet complex.” 

Masked TigerSwan employee – photo provided by Myron Dewey

The Homeland Security Presidential Directive, or HSPD-7, signed by former president George W. Bush on December 17, 2003, seeks to protect infrastructure from “terrorist attacks.”

During the months TigerSwan was illegally involved as the chief security organizer for Energy Transfer Partners’s oil interests, the security company called activists camped against the Dakota Access Pipeline terrorists, even jihadists.

“Terrorists seek to destroy, incapacitate, or exploit critical infrastructure and key resources across the United States to threaten national security, cause mass casualties, weaken our economy, and damage public morale and confidence,” HSPD-7 reports. 

“While it is not possible to protect or eliminate the vulnerability of all critical infrastructure and key resources throughout the country, strategic improvements in security can make it more difficult for attacks to succeed and can lessen the impact of attacks that may occur. In addition to strategic security enhancements, tactical security improvements can be rapidly implemented to deter, mitigate, or neutralize potential attacks.” 

The lines between spies, saboteurs, or intelligence gathering and military operations are blurred. Intelligence gathering techniques fall into a legal gray area and while the tactic may not be illegal for a federal or police agency to conduct on US citizens, the evidence obtained by such means may still not be allowed in a court of law. 

Daily, TigerSwan coordinated and provided intelligence to Energy Transfer Partners and others. TigerSwan placed operatives in the law enforcement joint operations center, and were responsible for in-depth analyses of cyber, workforce, facility, electronic, and environmental security threats, according to the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board.

Emails shared between Morton County Sheriff’s Department Public Information Officer Rob Keller and Office of the Governor of North Dakota Communications Director Mike Nowatzki, the governor’s office was knowledgeable of TigerSwan’s activity, but reported they did not know the security company was working illegally.

“I wanted to give you a heads up on this Energy Transfer and TigerSwan meeting with Kyle [Kirchmeier],” Keller wrote to Nowatzki on January 16. “I don’t know the intent and the PIOs will not be there.” 

“If it is a closed session, it’s fine,…” Nowatzki wrote back. “Our JIC PIO and Unified Command meet from 0830 to 1000 (CT) every Tuesday so that battle rhythm should be protected with our state team.” 

Battle rhythm is a military term, meant to describe the maintenance of synchronized activity and process among distributed “warfighters,” according to the Defense Technical Information Center.

“I was deployed to the Middle East, and the term was used there,” Ling said. “I worked in the drone program, and the term was there. I worked in the National Guard and the term was used there, but I have never heard the term battle rhythm used in a civilian setting. It would imply that there is an enemy.”

– This story is part of the ongoing investigation into government and TigerSwan’s actions during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy. 

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