Activity-based intelligence replaces identity with behavioral templates as targeting basis

Evidence

From the mass of information collected about a particular individual, group, or place gradually emerge patterns, or traceable themes. Activity becomes an alternative to identity. Once a target has been named, instead of trying to localize it, do quite the opposite. Start by establishing surveillance and gathering information. Next, make large-scale graphs to do an analysis of “big data,” picking out nodular points that, by reason of the position and scale they occupy on the diagram, can be identified as threats that need to be neutralized. … The painstaking work of establishing an archive of lives progressively gathers together the elements of a file that, once it becomes thick enough, will constitute a death warrant. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 216 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Furthermore, in determining that status, one slips from an epistemology of manifest observation and statements of fact into an epistemology of suspicion in which a targeting decision is based on the identification of behavior or a pattern of life that suggests membership in a hostile organization. For example, your pattern of life might suggest a 70 percent chance that you are a militant, in other words a combatant, and we accordingly have the right to kill you. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 482 (#expands, via linked claim)

But Anwar was not aware that he was marked for surveillance the minute he stepped into the airport because he was placed on the Selectee List. He assumed it was his behavior, like carrying only a backpack, or his appearance that triggered TSA’s suspicion of him. But many passengers fly with only carry-­on luggage and are not subjected to intense interrogation by TSA agents. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 274 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Activity-based intelligence replaces identity and files of data become death warrants; Signature strikes kill based on behavior patterns, not confirmed identity; Under activity-based intelligence, established patterns replace identity as grounds for killing. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 216 (+4 more)

Related

• Activity-based intelligence replaces identity and files of data become death warrants (similarity 0.91)
• Under activity-based intelligence, established patterns replace identity as grounds for killing. (similarity 0.91)
• Pattern-of-life strikes kill civilians through unconfirmed behavioral inference (similarity 0.88)
• Signature strikes kill based on behavior patterns, not confirmed identity (similarity 0.88)
• Signature strikes fire blindly on pattern-of-life indicators and kill innocents (similarity 0.85)
• Drone targeting decisions rest on probabilistic inference from behavior rather than observed facts. (similarity 0.83)
• Most drone strikes target suspects whose identity is unknown at the moment of killing. (similarity 0.81)
• Surveillance can predict civilian behavior from recurring spatial and social patterns (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Under activity-based intelligence, established patterns replace identity as grounds for killing. #corroborates (0.95) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 216
• Drone targeting decisions rest on probabilistic inference from behavior rather than observed facts. #expands (0.80) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 482
• Profiled men misattribute list-based surveillance to their own appearance or behavior #expands (0.60) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 274