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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://theintercept.com/2023/04/13/standing-rock-tigerswan-protests/">theintercept.com</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">After Spying on Standing Rock, TigerSwan Shopped Anti-Protest “Counterinsurgency” to Other Oil Companies</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Alleen Brown, Naveena Sadasivam - April 13, 2023<br></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><div><img src="cid:ii_lgfuejyc1" alt="image.png" width="392" height="196"><br><p><u>A new business</u> model for breaking down environmental movements was being hatched in real time. On Labor Day weekend in 2016, <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/4/dakota_access_pipeline_company_attacks_native">private security dogs</a>
in North Dakota attacked pipeline opponents led by members of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe as they approached earth-moving equipment. The
tribal members considered the land sacred, and the heavy equipment was
breaking ground to build the Dakota Access pipeline. With a major public
relations crisis on its hands, the pipeline’s parent company, Energy
Transfer, hired the firm TigerSwan to revamp its security strategy.</p>
<p>By October, TigerSwan — founded by James Reese, a retired commander
of the elite special operations Army unit Delta Force — had established a
military-style pipeline security strategy.</p>
<p>There was one nagging problem that threatened to unravel it all:
Reese hadn’t acquired a security license from the North Dakota Private
Investigation and Security Board. Although Reese claimed TigerSwan
wasn’t conducting security services at all, the state regulator insisted
that its operations were unlawful without a license.</p>
<p>TigerSwan turned to Jonathan Thompson, the head of the National
Sheriffs’ Association, a trade group representing sheriffs, for help.
The security board “has a problem understanding and staying within their
charter,” Shawn Sweeney, TigerSwan’s senior vice president, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773115-tigerswan-document-emails-between-nsa-and-tigerswan">wrote to Thompson</a>.
If he could “discuss possible political measures to apply pressure it
will assist in the entire project success [sic],” the employee appealed.</p>
<p>Thompson was enthused to work with TigerSwan. “We are keen to be a
strong partner where we can help keep the message narrative supportive
[sic],” he wrote back. “[C]all if ever need anything.”</p></div><a target="_blank" href="https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/23773115-tigerswan-document-emails-between-nsa-and-tigerswan"><img src="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23773115/pages/tigerswan-document-emails-between-nsa-and-tigerswan-p1-normal.gif" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="272" height="392"></a><p>Despite
Thompson’s offer of assistance, TigerSwan continued to operate in North
Dakota with no license for months. The company managed dozens of
on-the-ground security guards, surveilled and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/12/30/tigerswan-infiltrator-dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock/">infiltrated</a>
protesters, and passed along profiles of so-called persons of interest
to one of the largest midstream energy companies in North America.<br></p><div><p><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2023/04/GettyImages-13981254111.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=683" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 19: Jonathan Thompson, the Executive Director and CEO of the National Sheriffs' Association speaks at a press conference on the introduction of the “Active Shooter Alert Act 2022,” legislation outside of the U.S. Capitol Building on May 19, 2022 in Washington, DC. The proposed bipartisan legislation would create a system similar to the AMBER Alert for law enforcement to alert the public to active shooters in their community. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></p><p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">Jonathan
Thompson, the executive director and CEO of the National Sheriffs’
Association speaks at a press conference at the U.S. Capitol on May 19,
2022, in Washington, D.C.</font></p>
<p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">
Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images</font></p></div><div><p>
The revelation of TigerSwan’s close working relationship with the
National Sheriffs’ Association is drawn from more than 50,000 pages of
documents obtained by The Intercept through a public records request to
the North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board. In 2017, the
board <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/06/28/tigerswan-faces-lawsuit-over-unlicensed-security-operations-in-north-dakota/">sued TigerSwan</a>
for providing security services without a license. The state eventually
sought a $2 million fine through the administrative process, but
TigerSwan negotiated a $175,000 fine instead — well <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/11/15/standing-rock-tigerswan-infiltrator-documents/">below standard fines</a> for such activities.</p>
<p>A discovery request filed as part of the case forced thousands of new
internal TigerSwan documents into the public record. Energy Transfer’s
lawyers fought for nearly two years to keep the documents secret, until
North Dakota’s Supreme Court<a href="https://www.inforum.com/news/north-dakota/north-dakota-supreme-court-says-dapl-security-documents-are-public-record"> ruled</a>
in 2022 that the material falls under the state’s open records statute.
Because an arrangement between North Dakota and Energy Transfer allows
the fossil fuel company to weigh in on which documents should be
redacted, the state has yet to release over 9,000 disputed pages
containing material that Energy Transfer is, for now at least, fighting
to keep out of the public eye.</p>
<p>The released documents provide startling new details about how TigerSwan used social media monitoring, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773104-tigerswan-document-daily-intelligence-update-20161014">aerial surveillance</a>, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773106-tigerswan-document-daily-intelligence-update-20161229">radio eavesdropping</a>,<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773105-tigerswan-document-daily-intelligence-update-20161217"> undercover personnel</a>,
and subscription-based records databases to build watchlists and
dossiers on Indigenous activists and environmental organizations.</p></div><a target="_blank" href="https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/23773105-tigerswan-document-daily-intelligence-update-20161217"><img src="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23773105/pages/tigerswan-document-daily-intelligence-update-20161217-p1-normal.gif" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="290" height="392"></a><div><p>At times, the pipeline security company <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773109-tigerswan-document-information-summary-20161012">shared this information with law enforcement officials</a>. In other cases, WhatsApp chats and emails confirm TigerSwan used what it gathered to <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773107-tigerswan-document-north-dakota-dapl-operations-center-daily-update-brief">follow pipeline opponents</a> in their cars and <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773113-tigerswan-document-presentation-on-anti-protestor-social-media-campaign">develop propaganda campaigns online</a>. The documents contain records of TigerSwan attempting to help Energy Transfer <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/15/dakota-access-pipeline-dapl-tigerswan-energy-transfer-partners-rico-lawsuit/">build a legal case</a>
against pipeline opponents, known as water protectors, using the
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, a law that
was passed to prosecute the mob.</p>
<p>The Intercept and Grist contacted TigerSwan, Energy Transfer, the
National Sheriffs’ Association, as well as Thompson, the group’s
executive director. None of them responded to requests for comment.</p></div><div><p>To
TigerSwan, the emergence of Indigenous-led social movements to keep oil
and gas in the ground represented a business opportunity. Reese
anticipated new demand from the fossil fuel industry for strategies to
undermine the network of activists his company had so carefully gathered
information on. In the records, TigerSwan expressed its ambitions to
repurpose these detailed records to position themselves as experts in
managing pipeline protests. The company created marketing materials
pitching work to <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773101-tigerswan-documents-conoco-email">at least two</a> other <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773100-tigerswan-document-presentation-for-dominion">energy companies </a>building
controversial oil and gas infrastructure, the records show. TigerSwan,
which was staffed heavily with former members of military special
operations units, branded its tactics as a “<a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/11/15/standing-rock-tigerswan-infiltrator-documents/">counterinsurgency approach</a>,” drawing directly from its leaders’ experiences fighting the so-called war on terror abroad.</p>
<p>TigerSwan did not just work in North Dakota. Energy Transfer hired the company to provide security to its <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773099-tigerswan-docuemnt-email-from-james-reese-to-atlantic-pipeline-official">Rover pipeline</a>, in Ohio and West Virginia, the documents confirm. By spring 2017, TigerSwan was <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773112-tigerswan-document-report-prepared-for-sunoco-logistics">also assembling intelligence reports</a> on opponents of Energy Transfer and Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 pipeline in Pennsylvania.</p>
<p>The documents from the North Dakota security board paint a detailed
picture of counterinsurgency-style strategies for defeating opponents of
oil and gas development, a war-on-terror security firm’s aspirations to
replicate its deceptive tactics far beyond the Northern Great Plains,
and the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773095-tigerswan-document-on-so-called-environmental-extremist-groups-in-nov-15-protest">cozy relationship</a>
between businesses linked to the fossil fuel industry and one of the
largest law enforcement trade associations in the U.S. The impetus for
spying was not simply to keep people safe but to drum up profits from
energy clients and to allow fossil fuels to continue flowing, at the
expense of the communities fighting for clean water and a healthy
climate.</p></div><blockquote><span></span><p>“For them, it was an opportunity to help create a narrative against our tribe and our supporters.”</p></blockquote><div><p>“For
them, it was an opportunity to help create a narrative against our
tribe and our supporters,” said Wasté Win Young, a citizen of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and one of the plaintiffs in a <a href="https://cccct.law.columbia.edu/content/standing-rock-litigation">class-action civil rights lawsuit</a>
against TigerSwan and local law enforcement. Young’s social media posts
repeatedly showed up in the documents. “We weren’t motivated by money
or payoffs or anything like that. We just wanted to protect our
homelands.”</p>
<p>The Intercept published the first <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-security-firms-counterterrorism-tactics-at-standing-rock-to-defeat-pipeline-insurgencies/">detailed descriptions</a>
of TigerSwan’s tactics in 2017, based on internal documents leaked by a
TigerSwan contractor. Nearly six years later, there have been no public
indications that the security company obtained major new fossil fuel
company contracts. Meanwhile, corporate lobbyists spurred the passage of<span> so-called critical infrastructure laws widely understood to </span><a href="https://grist.org/protest/utah-critical-infrastructure-law-felony/"><span>stifle fossil fuel protests in 19 states</span></a><span> across the U.S</span>. <a href="https://theintercept.com/series/policing-the-pipeline/">Collaborations</a> between corporations and law enforcement against environmental defenders have proliferated, from <a href="https://grist.org/protest/enbridge-line-3-pipeline-minnesota-public-safety-escrow-account-invoices/">Minnesota’s lake country</a> to the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/03/08/atlanta-cop-city-protesters/">urban forests</a> of <a href="https://grist.org/protest/atlanta-cop-city-terrorism/">Atlanta</a>.</p>
<p>No significant regulatory reforms have been enacted to prevent firms
from repeating counterinsurgency-style tactics. And TigerSwan is far
from the only firm to use invasive surveillance strategies. The North
Dakota documents show that <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773119-tigerswan-document-dapl-intelligence-operations-cell-intelligence-analysis-and-assessment">at least one other private security firm</a> at Standing Rock appears to have utilized similar schemes against pipeline opponents.</p>
<p>“We need to always be very clear that the industry knows what a risk
the climate movement is,” said May Boeve, the executive director of
<a href="http://350.org">350.org</a>, a climate nonprofit that was <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773093-tigerswan-document-background-investigation-350org">repeatedly mentioned</a> in <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773117-tigerswan-document-pipeline-opposition-model-powerpoint">TigerSwan’s marketing</a> and surveillance material. “They’re going to keep using these kinds of strategies, but they’ll think of other things as well.”</p></div><div><p><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2023/04/GettyImages-828313558.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=682" alt="Sections of pipe sit near a farm at an Energy Transfer Partners LP construction site for the Sunoco Inc. Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids pipeline project near Morgantown, Pennsylvania, U.S. on Aug. 4, 2017. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has issued four notices of violation after "inadvertent" spills of drilling fluids associated with horizontal directional drilling for the project. Photographer: Charles Mostoller/Bloomberg via Getty Images" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></p><p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">Sections
of pipe sit near a farm at a construction site for Sunoco and Energy
Transfer’s Mariner East 2 pipeline project near Morgantown, Pa., on Aug.
4, 2017.</font></p>
<p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">
Photo: Charles Mostoller/Bloomberg via Getty Images</font></p></div><div><h2>TigerSwan’s Surveillance Gospel</h2>
<p>“Gentlemen, as you are aware there has been a shift in
environmentalist and ‘First Nations’ groups regarding the tactics being
used to prevent, deter, or interrupt the oil and gas industry,” said a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773101-tigerswan-documents-conoco-email">February 2017 email</a> drafted by <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773103-tigerswan-document-conoco-emails-2">TigerSwan </a><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773103-tigerswan-document-conoco-emails-2">employees</a> to a regional official at ConocoPhillips, a major oil and gas producer — and a potential TigerSwan client.</p>
<p>“Recently in our area the situation has become extremely tense with
‘protestors’ using terrorist style tactics which are well beyond simple
civil disobedience,” the email continued. “If steps have not already
been taken to prevent and plans to mitigate [sic] an event or events
like these to Conoco I may be able to suggest some solutions.”</p></div><div><p>TigerSwan’s
marketing materials read like a playbook for undermining grassroots
resistance. ConocoPhillips was just one of the companies the private
security firm had in its sights.</p>
<p>In another case, a PowerPoint <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773100-tigerswan-document-presentation-for-dominion">presentation drafted for Dominion</a>,
which was building the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline through
three mid-Atlantic states, offered detailed profiles of local
anti-pipeline groups and individuals identified as “threat actors.” (The
planned pipeline was canceled in 2020.) TigerSwan laid out the types of
services it could provide, including a “Law Enforcement Liaison” and
access to GuardianAngel, its GPS and mapping tool. (Neither
ConocoPhillips nor Dominion responded to questions about whether they
hired the security firm.)</p></div><a target="_blank" href="https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/23773100-tigerswan-document-presentation-for-dominion"><img src="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23773100/pages/tigerswan-document-presentation-for-dominion-p1-normal.gif" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="289" height="392"></a><div><p>In January 2017, a TigerSwan deputy program manager emailed a presentation titled “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773117-tigerswan-document-pipeline-opposition-model-powerpoint">Pipeline Opposition Model</a>” to Reese and others, <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773116-tigerswan-document-email-with-pipeline-opposition-model-powerpoint-attached">explaining</a>
that it was meant to serve as a business development tool and a
“working concept to discuss the problem.” The presentation claimed
external forces had helped drive the Standing Rock movement and pointed
to outside tribes, climate nonprofits like <a href="http://350.org">350.org</a>, and even
billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, who had a “vested
interest in DAPL failure” because of their investments in the rail
industry.</p>
<p>Water protectors used an elaborate set of social movement theories to
advance their cause, another slide hypothesized, including “Lone Wolf
terror tactics.” Specifically, TigerSwan speculated that pipeline
opponents could be using the “hero cycle” narrative, a storytelling
archetype, to recruit new movement members on social media and energize
them to take action — a strategy, the presentation said, also used by <a href="https://abc7chicago.com/iteam-isis-abu-muslim-videos-and-hollywood/1194173/">ISIS recruiters</a>.</p>
<p>Anyone whose work had touched the Standing Rock movement could become a villain in TigerSwan’s sales pitches. One<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773100-tigerswan-document-presentation-for-dominion"> PowerPoint</a><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773100-tigerswan-document-presentation-for-dominion"> presentation</a> included biographical details about Zahra Hirji, a journalist who worked at the time for Inside Climate News. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773117-tigerswan-document-pipeline-opposition-model-powerpoint">Another included</a> a photo of a water protector’s former professor and her course list.</p>
<p>As a remedy, the company offered up a suite of “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773117-tigerswan-document-pipeline-opposition-model-powerpoint">TigerSwan Solutions</a>.”
To the security firm, keeping the fossil fuel industry safe didn’t just
mean drones, social media monitoring, HUMINT (short for human
intelligence, such as from undercover personnel), and liaising with law
enforcement officials and agencies — all included on its list — it also
meant local community engagement, counter-protesters, building a
“pipeline narrative,” and partnering with university oil and gas
programs.</p>
<p>“Win the populace, and you win the fight,” the presentation stated, repeating a key principle of counterinsurgency strategy.</p>
<p>Reese approved: “I’d like to have these cleaned up and branded so I can use,” he wrote back.</p>
<p>Reese used similar material to shore up his relationship with
existing clients. In December 2016, he requested a copy of a
presentation titled “Strategic Overview,” which he hoped to send to
Energy Transfer supervisors working on building the Rover natural gas
pipeline. The presentation, a <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/11/15/dakota-access-pipeline-dapl-tigerswan-energy-transfer-partners-rico-lawsuit/">version</a> of which The Intercept previously published, draws heavily from a 2014 <a href="https://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases-republican?ID=53280DCB-9F2C-2E3A-7092-10CF6D8D08DF">report</a>
by the Republican minority staff of the Senate Committee on Environment
and Public Works, claiming that a “club” of billionaires control the
environmental movement.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773121-tigerswan-document-memo-about-the-so-called-standing-rock-effect">In a memo</a> called “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773122-tigerswan-document-powerpoint-slides-about-the-standing-rock-effect">The Standing Rock Effect</a>,”
TigerSwan lays out a set of seven criteria the company had developed
for identifying anti-pipeline camps sprouting up across the country.
“TigerSwan’s full suite of security offerings offsets the risk these
camps pose to a company’s bottom line,” the company concluded.</p></div><p>TigerSwan
utilized its promotional materials to target both energy companies and
states with oil and gas resources. In April 2017, the security firm and
the National Sheriffs’ Association planned to brief more than 50 state
employees in Nebraska, including staffers in the governor’s office, the
state Emergency Management Agency, and the State Patrol, on the “lessons
learned” from the Dakota Access pipeline protests. A contractor for the
National Sheriffs’ Association <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773114-tigerswan-document-nsa-emails-to-nebraska-state-employees">wrote that the briefing</a> was in part “to prepare the state of Nebraska for the Keystone Pipeline issues coming in months ahead.”<br></p><div><p><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2023/04/GettyImages-623416388.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=683" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: LaDonna Brave Bull Allard (C) of Cannon Ball, North Dakota, talks with Maj. Gen. Donald Jackson of the Army Corps of Engineers during a demonstration against the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline outside the Corps headquarters November 15, 2016 in Washington, DC. Allard's father and son are both buried on a hillside overlooking the confluence of the Cannon Ball and Missouri rivers and she asked Jackson to block the proposed pipeline. Organizers held a national day of action to call on President Barack Obama and the Army Corps of Engineers to permanently reject the pipeline before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></p><p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">LaDonna
Brave Bull Allard of Cannon Ball, N.D., talks with Maj. Gen. Donald
Jackson of the Army Corps of Engineers during a demonstration against
the proposed Dakota Access pipeline outside the Corps headquarters on
Nov. 15, 2016, in Washington, D.C.</font></p>
<p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images</font></p></div><div><h2>Target: Water Protectors</h2>
<p>TigerSwan’s obsessive tracking of environmental activists is laid out
in detail in the North Dakota documents. Assisted at times by National
Sheriffs’ Association personnel, the company targeted little-known water
protectors, national nonprofits, and even legal workers.</p>
<p>The first page of a<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773110-tigerswan-document-intel-huddle"> template for intelligence sharing</a>
encouraged TigerSwan employees to enter information about any “New
Person of Interest.” TigerSwan personnel routinely referred to its
targets as “EREs,” short for <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773123-tigerswan-document-strategic-focus-memo">environmental rights extremists</a>, apparently a version of the Department of Homeland Security’s <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/04/11/how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-movie/">classification</a> of “Animal Rights/Environmental Violent Extremist” as one of five <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/03/23/ecoterrorism-fbi-animal-rights/">domestic terrorism</a> threat categories.</p>
<p>A document labeled “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773093-tigerswan-document-background-investigation-350org">Background Investigation: 350.org</a>”
helps explain why the company kept tabs on a national environmental
organization with little visible presence on the ground at Standing
Rock. Using an “Influence Rating Matrix,” TigerSwan ranked <a href="http://350.org">350.org</a>’s
“formal position in organization/movement” and its “criminal history” as
0 — but gave its highest rating of 5 to the group’s size, funding,
online presence, and history with similar movements.</p></div><a target="_blank" href="https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/23773093-tigerswan-document-background-investigation-350org"><img src="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23773093/pages/tigerswan-document-background-investigation-350org-p1-normal.gif" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="297" height="392"></a><div><p>TigerSwan
also attempted to dig up dirt on legal workers with the Water Protector
Legal Collective, which represented pipeline opponents. The security
company used the CLEAR database, which is only available to select
entities like law enforcement and licensed private security companies,
to dig up information on attorney Chad Nodland. The company concluded
that Nodland was also representing a regional electric cooperative that
generates some of its power through wind — apparently considered a rival
energy source to the oil the Dakota Access pipeline would carry.
(Nodland told The Intercept and Grist he never worked for the
cooperative.) TigerSwan also put together a whole PowerPoint
presentation on Joseph Haythorn, who also worked for the legal
collective and submitted bail money for clients to be released.</p>
<p>At the same time, the National Sheriffs’ Association was <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773095-tigerswan-document-on-so-called-environmental-extremist-groups-in-nov-15-protest">building its own profiles</a> and sharing them with TigerSwan. In one instance, a contractor for the sheriffs’ group passed along a six-page <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773111-tigerswan-document-backgrounder-on-ladonna-allard-water-protector-and-leader-of-dapl-protests">backgrounder on LaDonna Brave Bull Allard</a>,
a prominent Dakota Access pipeline opponent and historian, to
TigerSwan. The document included statements Allard made to the press,
her public appearances, social media posts, and details about tax liens
filed against her and her husband.</p>
<p>Targeting individual pipeline opponents like Allard seems to have
been part of TigerSwan’s strategy particularly when it needed to have
something to show its client, Energy Transfer Partners. In one exchange
with employees, Reese suggested digging up more intelligence on a
pipeline opponent who goes by the mononym Tawasi.</p></div><blockquote><span></span><p>“We need to start going after Tawasi as fast as we can over the next couple weeks so we can show some more stuff to ETP.”</p></blockquote><div><p>“We
need to start going after Tawasi as fast as we can over the next couple
weeks so we can show some more stuff to ETP,” Reese wrote, using an
abbreviation for the company’s old name, Energy Transfer Partners. The
documents show that TigerSwan kept close tabs on Tawasi, reporting his
movements in <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3940252-Internal-TigerSwan-Situation-Report-2017-03-19">daily situation reports</a>, monitoring his social media, and at one point noting that he had gotten a haircut.</p>
<p>Tawasi, who had a large social media following but was not a
prominent leader of the anti-pipeline movement, was bewildered that he
had been so closely monitored. “They didn’t have anything at all,” he
told The Intercept and Grist. “And they picked me as somebody that they
thought they could make something out of.”</p>
<p>“It makes me feel unsafe,” he said, “because the same contractors
could be working for a different company, still following me around
under a different contract from the next oil company down the line.”</p>
<p>Prairie McLaughlin, Allard’s daughter, said records of TigerSwan’s
activities remain important, even six years later. “It matters because
it gives somebody a handbook on what could happen — what might happen.”<br></p></div><div><p><img src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2023/04/GettyImages-627685034.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=682" alt="An activist stands alone in silent protest by a police barricade on a bridge near Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota.Native Americans and activists from around the country gather at the camp trying to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. / AFP / JIM WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="261"></p><p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">An
activist stands alone in silent protest by a police barricade on a
bridge near Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux
Reservation on Dec. 4, 2016, outside Cannon Ball, N.D.</font></p>
<p class="gmail-caption"><font size="1">
Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images</font></p></div><div><h2>Not a “Mercenary Organization”</h2>
<p>After The Intercept published its <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/05/27/leaked-documents-reveal-security-firms-counterterrorism-tactics-at-standing-rock-to-defeat-pipeline-insurgencies/">first set</a> of leaked TigerSwan documents in 2017, the company attempted to downplay the impact of the revelations. In a memo, TigerSwan <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773123-tigerswan-document-strategic-focus-memo">shrugged off the story’s importance</a>.
“The near-term impact of the article is positive for the company,”
TigerSwan claimed. The revelations had caused water protectors to limit
their social media activity, rendering them “incapable of effectively
recruiting members, raising operational funding, or proselytizing,”
TigerSwan wrote.</p></div><div><p>The company
intended to use “information operations” to maintain the paranoia: “This
looking over-their-shoulder behavior will continue for several months
because of internal suspicions and targeted information operations.”</p>
<p>Internally, the company<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773124-tigerswan-document-background-memo-on-how-to-counter-intercept-stories"> scrambled</a> to mount a public relations response, calling on help from Chris LaCivita, a Republican political consultant now<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/25/trump-campaign-lacivita/"> reportedly</a> being considered for a senior role in Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. A <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773118-tigerswan-document-plan-for-response-to-the-intercepts-tigerswan-reporting">memo</a>
emailed to LaCivita by TigerSwan’s external affairs director said that,
as a defensive strategy, the company would assert on background that
“TigerSwan is not a ‘mercenary organization.’” It was a point that must
never be made on the record, the document says, because it “would be
like saying ‘no I don’t beat my wife.’” (LaCivita did not immediately
respond to a request for comment.)</p>
<p>TigerSwan’s offensive strategy primarily consisted of trying to
marshal evidence showing that water protectors were violent lawbreakers,
professional protesters, un-American, and not even very Indigenous. The
document author advised TigerSwan to locate “Any visuals, video of
demonstrators waving flags or using insignia of an enemy of the United
States.” Another suggested talking point said, “Upon our arrival, we
quickly learned that a vast majority of the protestors were not
indigenous not [sic] part of the peaceful water movement.”</p></div><a target="_blank" href="https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/23773108-tigerswan-document-pipeline-camp-master-list-email-from-tigerswan-intelligence-analyst"><img src="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23773108/pages/tigerswan-document-pipeline-camp-master-list-email-from-tigerswan-intelligence-analyst-p1-normal.gif" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="272" height="392"></a><div><p>In a final act of law enforcement collaboration, the <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773118-tigerswan-document-plan-for-response-to-the-intercepts-tigerswan-reporting">memo</a> advised TigerSwan to identify one local and one federal law enforcement source who could defend them — but only off the record.</p>
<p>Outside the public relations strategy, TigerSwan didn’t dramatically
shift its tactics in response to the story, the documents suggest. In <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23773108-tigerswan-document-pipeline-camp-master-list-email-from-tigerswan-intelligence-analyst">an email dated June 20, 2017</a>,
nearly a month after The Intercept’s first exposé, an intelligence
analyst distributed a list of anti-pipeline camps across South Dakota,
where the Keystone XL pipeline was supposed to be built.</p>
<p>“Maybe your folks can take a look at the list, check the social media
for the sites, and figure out if A) you can get in and B) if there’s
value to being inside and C) do you have the creds you need to get in.
If you figure out that you need to attend some more events to build cred
and access we can do that,” he said. “That should feed the beast until
the next shiny thing.”</p></div></div></div></div>
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