subscription SOW 20220617.pdf

UNCLASSIFIED

UNCLASSIFIED 1 of 2

Office of Intelligence & Threat Analysis

SITE Intelligence Group

June 17, 2022

Statement of Work

General Information:

The Office of Intelligence and Threat Analysis (ITA) is responsible for monitoring information regarding threats and incidents against U.S. interests and providing warning on and analysis of this intelligence in a timely manner to support life/safety decision-making by Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) leadership and field personnel. This requires near real-time transmission of information to ITA to facilitate continued support for the DSS security and protective missions.

SITE Intelligence Group provides full translations of jihadist materials posted on social media and other areas and makes it available on their proprietary website, providing access to the information for a fee. While a handful of other vendors provide translated jihadist information, SITE is unique in that they provide a “push” service (customers are messaged or otherwise alerted to the information) rather than a “pull” service (in which the customer has to find the material that requires translation, with a single translation provided for a fee). In this way, SITE is able to grant access to a broader range of information of interest to ITA in a timelier fashion than other competitors, including the US Government’s National Virtual Translation Center (which is administered by the FBI) and the U.S. Government Open Source Enterprise.

In addition, information aggregation platforms such as Babel Street and Hyperion have been tested for use by ITA personnel. The review process included ease of access to the information, a determination of the timeliness of the information presented versus that on SITE, and the relevance of the information to DSS. ITA subject matter experts specializing in threat analysis and warning conducted the review, with the outcome that, in general, none of the tested sites delivered the same real-time, high-volume data of significance to DSS as SITE. Several of the subscription services lacked the push notifications that earmark SITE’s functionality, while others provided that capability but only focused on content specific to certain regions or countries. In at least one instance, the provider’s content was primarily analytical overviews of events and trends, rather than real-time highlighting of events. The aggregation platforms did provide the volume of information but were difficult to search for the specific pieces of data of interest to ITA and did not always provide alerting services when new information of interest was published.

In many cases, the sites feeding the aggregation services were no more timely in their information acquisition than regular social media, whereas SITE seemed to have almost immediate access to jihadist platforms not commonly picked up via regular Twitter, Facebook, and other feeds.

Requirements:

SITE Intelligence Group will provide email news alerts, sector-specific analytical reports, and real-time feeds of terrorist-related data sourced from hard-to-reach online forums, as well as access to a global data set of confirmed terrorist and violent extremist online content sourced to proclamations, media, and online chatter for up to 20 users, renewable on an annual basis. Specifically, ITA subscribers will receive access to:

The Jihadist Enterprise, covering all aspects of the global terrorist movement:

• Official and unofficial media, military activity, chatter, etc.;

• Foreign Terrorist cells, so-called ‘lone wolves’, movements and communities;

• Content from all official primary dissemination channels as well as hundreds of hard-to-access support networks, spanning dozens of languages;

• Analytical reports on ISIS, al-Qaeda and Western jihadists, and special topics.

Far Right/Far Left Monitoring, covering:

• Ideologically and racially/ethnically motivated violent extremists;

• Neo-Nazis, white supremacists, militant/armed groups, individual actors, violent-prone conspiracy movements, anarchists, eco-extremists, etc.;

• Global span, with emphasis on monitoring languages / content from Europe and the Americas.

Dark Web Cyber Security, including:

• Reports on how terrorists and violent extremists use social media, apps, messaging forums, the Dark Web, and other forms of ICT;

• inSITE on Technology and Terrorism, reports on trends, developments, and tech-related threats.

Users may cite and share relevant SITE Intelligence Group information important to the conduct of the mission with other elements within the Department of State, as well as include such information in ITA analytical products, as long as it is appropriately sourced to “SITE Intelligence Group.” Any other use of the information must be approved for use by SITE Intelligence Group.

SITE Intelligence Group will maintain intellectual property of what they produce, and what is produced can’t be rebranded or forwarded outside of the Department of State without the contractor's approval. SITE is not legally or financially responsible for decisions made based upon their reporting.

SITE Intelligence Group will provide technical support to users as needed to assist with website access (including password resets) and receipt of email notifications.