US Intelligence Agencies To Americans Travelling Abroad: Trust No One, Use Burner Phones, They're All Out To Get You

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) has been going through something of an awkward phase the last few years. The Office, which is a part of the White House, and is supposed to direct and coordinate various parts of the intelligence community, has been trying to figure out how to be more open and "transparent" to the public since the Snowden documents began flowing. Given that historically the intelligence community has focused on being as secret as is humanly possible, it's not very good at this whole transparency thing. And sometimes it's just really, really awkward. Just try (really) to watch this video it put out on Wednesday, telling US travelers abroad to fear everyone and everything.That's not to say that there isn't some good advice mixed in there, but it's mixed in with some ridiculous claims, an overreaching level of paranoia, and some incredibly bad acting. The basic premise, though, is that wherever you go, even if you're visiting a US ally country, basically every person you meet has an ulterior motive, and it's to get your digital stuff. The border patrol guy who welcomes you to the country clicks a button that says "INITIATE SURVEILLANCE" (literally) and apparently suddenly every living human being in this foreign country now knows to spy on Frank.He checks into his hotel, and the person at the front desk is friendly, but apparently having been tipped off by border patrol to spy on Frank, she immediately texts his room number to a sketchy guy. We know he's sketchy because he wears a leather jacket. When Frank heads out of his hotel room, he puts his tablet in the room safe, and as soon as he's gone, Mr. Sketchy comes in and opens the safe and downloads everything. To be clear: hotels are not very secure and people get electronics stolen all the time. And, yes, if you're a serious target, people may target your electronics. Of course, many of those people may actually work for the US government. Isn't that part of how the NSA hacks into various global companies? It seems like this video is giving up more US procedures than anything else. Then the video just gets weirder. A smug asshole shows up claiming he's someone who "knows better" and tells Frank not to bring so many electronic gadgets with him. He actually recommends getting a burner phone and a throwaway email address for travel overseas. Yes, this is part of the same US intelligence community that has talked about how burner phones have created problems for its surveillance efforts, though which these days also is pretty good at connecting burner phones to individuals by merging various databases together. Smug guy also says not to post on Facebook (or, rather, "Friend Basket" in the video) that you'll be travelling overseas. Now, that's also not necessarily a bad recommendation, but it depends on context quite a bit. If the fear is that you're alerting foreigners to target you, given the earlier paranoia in the video, it's unlikely that those targeting you are finding out because of your social media posts. Then, the paranoia goes deeper. Frank meets a woman and they agree to go for drinks. Smug Jackass basically says that anyone that friendly to Frank must be evil. Then, he reminds Frank never to send a work email, even though he's traveling for work. And then he actually says: "Besides, who's got time for work? You're traveling! Get out there! Live a little!" Remember that literally a minute earlier, Smug Guy was berating Frank for doing exactly that. Yes, there are certainly some people where this kind of thing applies to them when travelling abroad. But this video isn't likely to help them, and it applies to a fairly limited population of people. Meanwhile, this video really kinda reveals the paranoia with which the US intelligence community lives. They spy on absolutely everyone, so they assume that absolutely everyone is getting spied on everywhere as well. It's also somewhat bizarre that they're pushing disposable email and burner phones on people while warning about terrorists using the same. The key messages: the US intelligence community is creepy and smug, and they want you to be deathly terrified of anyone you encounter in a foreign country. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story