On the menu today: Up in New York City, the U.S. Secret Service breaks up a terrorist plot right out of 24, with evidence pointing to the cartels and some hostile foreign power, possibly China. Meanwhile, Apple TV+ postpones the debut of a new counterterrorism drama series, featuring Jessica Chastain playing an awfully familiar type of character.
What the Secret Service Found in New York
Americans have a lot of intense political, social, and ideological divisions, and those divisions cannot be ignored. But I fear that as our countrymen have become increasingly consumed by ire at their domestic political opponents, we’re losing focus on the threat from our overseas enemies — notice the nouns in that sentence. Our enemies want us to turn against each other and get us at each other’s throats, and I fear that someday, when they think we’re weak and too divided to respond, they’ll strike us. (Ahem.)
Yesterday, the U.S. Secret Service announced they had intervened to stop a major foreign threat to the telecommunications infrastructure of the New York City area:
The U.S. Secret Service dismantled a network of electronic devices located throughout the New York tristate area that were used to conduct multiple telecommunications-related threats directed towards senior U.S. government officials, which represented an imminent threat to the agency’s protective operations.
This protective intelligence investigation led to the discovery of more than 300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards across multiple sites.
In addition to carrying out anonymous telephonic threats, these devices could be used to conduct a wide range of telecommunications attacks. This includes disabling cell phone towers, enabling denial of services attacks and facilitating anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises. . . .
“The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” said U.S. Secret Service Director Sean Curran. “The U.S. Secret Service’s protective mission is all about prevention, and this investigation makes it clear to potential bad actors that imminent threats to our protectees will be immediately investigated, tracked down and dismantled.” . . .
To set up something like this, the perpetrator needs money, manpower, time, and the ability to operate without attracting attention.
From ABC News: “Agents were first tipped off last spring, and officials believe the plot is connected to the Chinese government, according to one law enforcement source briefed on the probe.” (Good thing our government consistently stands up to China, right? We’ve always held them accountable for their provocations, plots, and disregard for our laws, right? It’s not like the regime in Beijing would pull a stunt like this because the lesson they’ve taken from the recent past is that our government talks tough but never follows through, right? I’m just saying that when the Chinese government does something reckless, it tends to go viral.)
Then there’s this detail in the coverage from the New York Times:
Initial analysis of the data on some of the SIM cards has identified ties to at least one foreign nation, as well as links to criminals already known to U.S. law enforcement officials, including cartel members, Secret Service officials told reporters on Monday in a call previewing Tuesday’s announcement. [Emphasis added.]
More on the cartel angle below, but that Times article also offers this detail:
James A. Lewis, a cybersecurity researcher at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, said that only a handful of countries could pull off such an operation, including Russia, China and Israel.
The hostile intent of Russia and China is clear, and Lewis is explaining which countries have the capability to do this, not the motive. Considering the beeper operation against Hezbollah, only a fool would underestimate Israel’s technological, intelligence, and covert operations abilities. But more than 20,000 Israelis live in New York City, and they would likely suffer the consequences of an attack on the city’s telecommunications infrastructure just like everyone else. Considering the ongoing worldwide demonization of Israel, I wish the Times article hadn’t mentioned the world’s lone Jewish state in the context of discussing this plot, because you just know it’s going to accelerate a thousand conspiracy theories.
Wired magazine talked to some telecommunications experts, and they offered a different conclusion than the government:
Despite speculation in some reporting about SIM farm operation that suggests it was created by a foreign state such as Russia or China and used for espionage, it’s far more likely that the operation’s central focus was scams and other profit-motivated forms of cybercrime, says Ben Coon, who leads intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Unit 221b and has carried out multiple investigations into SIM farms. “The disruption of cell services is possible, flooding the network to the degree that it couldn’t take any more traffic,” Coon says. “My gut is telling me there was some type of fraud involved here.”
The telecom industry source adds that the images of SIM servers and boxes published by the Secret Service indicate a “really organized” criminal operation may have been behind the setup. “This means that there is great intelligence and significant resources behind it,” the person added.
The article also quotes Cathal Mc Daid, VP of technology at telecommunication and cybersecurity firm Enea, discussing similar plots he’s seen from another hostile foreign state:
Mc Daid notes, however, that he’s tracked similar operations discovered in Ukraine — some of which have been as large or even larger than the one revealed on Tuesday by the Secret Service. Over the course of the last few years, law enforcement officials in Ukraine have discovered tens of thousands of SIM cards being used in SIM farms allegedly set up by Russian actors. In one case in 2023, around 150,000 SIM cards were reportedly found. These SIM farms have been used to operate fake social media profiles that can spread disinformation and propaganda.
Would Russia attempt to pull off a provocative and destructive operation like this? Yesterday, large drones of unknown origin shut down the airports in Copenhagen and Oslo. The Danish police chief superintendent said the drones were operated by someone “who has the capabilities, the will and the tools to show off in this way.” Hey, which nearby hostile country has been flying a lot of its drones and military jets into NATO airspace lately?
Vladimir Putin is feeling his oats and is confident that NATO is never going to hit back at him in a way that hurts. I really want to believe the latest Truth Social post from President Trump supporting Ukraine and criticizing Russia, but we’ve heard these sorts of comments from Trump throughout the year. Actions mean more than statements.
Regarding the cartel angle mentioned above, I understand the objection to the term “narcoterrorism.” Cartels usually want money and power, while most terrorist groups want to commit mass-casualty attacks in the name of some cause or ideology. But the lines between those two types of violence have been blurry for a long time. Hezbollah was involved in the drug trade in Lebanon and Syria. (Hey, just like other drug dealers, they use beepers and pagers, up until recently.)
Over in Afghanistan, “The Taliban has been consistently involved in the drug trade in various roles and capacities.” In Colombia, dissident factions of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia have set off car bombs and taken down helicopters with drones. In Mexico, cartels have used improvised explosive devices and explosive-laden drones.
For a bunch of drug dealers, they sure do act like terrorists, don’t they?
Counterterrorism Karen’s Debut Delayed
With Jimmy Kimmel back on the air, at least in certain markets, the next great hue and cry about Hollywood’s corporate class is likely to surround the Apple TV series, The Savant:
Apple TV+ has postponed the release of “The Savant,” its upcoming thriller series starring Jessica Chastain as an investigator working to prevent domestic extremism. The move comes amid the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
“After careful consideration, we have made the decision to postpone ‘The Savant,’” reads a statement from Apple. “We appreciate your understanding and look forward to releasing the series at a future date.”
The official logline for the series says that it “follows an undercover investigator known as ‘The Savant’ as she infiltrates online hate groups in an effort to stop domestic extremists before they act.” In it, Chastain plays Jodi Goodwin, a military veteran who works at the Anti-Hate Alliance. There, she secretly visits 4Chan-like message boards and tries to draw out possible terrorists. Early in the series, while posing as a white nationalist, she stumbles upon the planning of a large-scale domestic attack and attempts to infiltrate the group to thwart it.
The trailer for The Savant can be found here. More than a few right-of-center folks online found it hackneyed and cliched, a woman’s power fantasy of seeming like an ordinary suburban mom, but secretly being so smart, and so cunning in slipping into extremist groups, that everyone else is in awe of her. And of course, the villains appear to be right-wing anti-government militia types.
I’d argue that it looks and sounds like Jessica Chastain is playing the FBI version of her CIA character from Zero Dark Thirty.
ADDENDUM: Can I gripe about Zero Dark Thirty? In a lot of ways, it’s an excellent film. (Mark Strong’s big scene as a frustrated CIA senior official is a tour-de-force; language warning at that link.)
And I recognize that any effort to tell the story of a ten-year manhunt into two hours and 37 minutes is going to have to leave out key moments and create composite characters, etcetera.
But the effort to catch Osama bin Laden was a Herculean task that involved hundreds if not thousands of people throughout our government, and portions of Zero Dark Thirty really makes it look like Jessica Chastain’s composite character “Maya” — looking so badass in her sunglasses — is an underappreciated, dedicated analyst fighting a one-woman war against not just al-Qaeda but a hesitant and risk-averse CIA bureaucracy. She has the superpower of knowing the intelligence about the Abbottabad compound is correct, while the men above her dither and hesitate and bicker about probabilities. Many scenes imply her analysis is ignored or downplayed because she’s the only woman in the room.
Back in 2012, Peter Bergen, who wrote four books on Osama bin Laden, told NPR, “The guy who was on the account from 2003 to May 1, 2011, when bin Laden was killed, and the guy who was always saying . . . that bin Laden is living in the mysterious compound in Abbottabad — that guy is a guy, he’s not a female.” Were there women who played key roles on the hunt for Osama bin Laden? Absolutely. But it feels like Hollywood chose to tell the story it wanted to tell in that movie, shoehorning in its favorite and familiar tropes — the fiery redhead who’s endlessly determined and married to the job, the cool person who rebels against authority, the mostly hapless superiors other than CIA director Leon Panetta, etc.
Once again, Chastain is playing a super-dedicated, super-smart analyst who can instinctively figure out what the terrorists are up to, who is overseen by risk-averse superiors who aren’t taking her warnings seriously enough. At least this one is fiction.