New House Committee Report Suggests US Intelligence Community is Hiding Information about Electronic Warfare
A new House Intelligence report suggests agencies have improperly withheld evidence about electronic warfare waged against Americans.
A new report from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence suggests that the United States Intelligence Community has been less than forthcoming in its public assessment of electronic warfare waged against Americans. The report suggests that there is evidence to suggest the attacks are likely being waged by a foreign adversary.
Reasons to withhold this information may be both political and practical. If the attacks (which have been broadly mischaracterized under the misleading name "Havana Syndrome") are being waged by Russia or another foreign adversary, it would raise questions about whether and how to respond — especially in the context of NATO Article 5 and conflict between nuclear-armed powers. Should such attacks be sufficient to draw the United States and NATO into direct nuclear confrontation with Russia? This question would seem to be under Congress' purview, and not left to the sole discretion of the intelligence community.
A second reason to withhold information about adversarial attacks may stem from concerns over recruitment. Convincing new recruits to join up with the intelligence services, the foreign service, or diplomatic corps may become much more difficult if there is a widespread perception that employees are at risk of attack by electronic weaponry.
Earlier this year, The Insider, Der Spiegel, and 60 Minutes collaborated on a series of investigations that identified Russian GRU intelligence Unit 29155 as central to the development and deployment of portable electronic weapons that could be used for 'combat activities in urban settings,' a description which matches the reports of victims. The weapons technology seems to have roots in an earlier Soviet-era program called Operation Reduktor.
Early reports from victims were met with skepticism, and rightly so. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But that evidence is mounting. The intelligence community needs to inform Congress and the public about what it knows about electronic weapons, and the degree to which Putin is successfully waging war against American citizens around the world.
The bottom line is that Russia is at war with us, but for a variety of reasons we don't want to admit it. It's time to tell the truth.
For a summary of the new report and the reporting by The Insider from earlier this year, have a listen to this podcast generated by Google's NotebookLM from those sources. It's AI, but offers a concise and correct overview.
