The U.S. military
inquiry into the so-called Havana syndrome, the mysterious illness claimed by a litany of American intelligence officers, is tapping a controversial contractor: a private surveillance firm that once boasted of its ability to stalk American intelligence officers.
Documents obtained by The Intercept through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that technology from the Virginia-based startup Anomaly 6 has been used to assist the “Anomalous Health Incidents Cross Functional Team,” the
Pentagon’s official Havana syndrome investigatory task force
. That group studies a cluster of strange symptoms claimed by personnel from U.S. spy agencies, the State Department, and elsewhere in the federal government.
American Phone-Tracking Firm Demo’d Surveillance Powers by Spying on CIA and NSA
In 2022, The Intercept revealed that Anomaly 6 had used a provocative demonstration of its surveillance prowess in a closed-door business pitch. The company, which purchases bulk cellular location data harvested from millions of unwitting smartphone users around the world, showed a potential customer that its data stores were so vast and accurate that it could pinpoint the
movements of employees of both the CIA and NSA
, tracking them as they commuted between their homes and their respective agencies headquarters. It was a remarkable demonstration of the advanced capabilities of private sector surveillance brokers, who lean on unscrupulous smartphone apps and advertisers that
indiscriminately share and sell users’ location data
.
For any military, the appeal of this technology is obvious, and the Pentagon has used commercial device tracking for years. Although Anomaly 6 previously marketed its wares by showing how it could spy on fellow Americans, the pitch also showed how the company could track a foreign adversary’s naval assets abroad, for example.
It’s not clear on what basis the U.S. Air Force Concepts, Development, and Management Off
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