Cyber Threat Intelligence League Attempts to Subvert Accountability in Response to Censorship Allegations

The Cyber Threat Intelligence League (CTIL) recently published a statement, entitled “Response to the censorship allegations about the CTI League (CTIL) made by Mr Taibbi & Mr Shellenberger,” in response to the CTIL files. CTIL makes a number of arguments to subvert accountability for what was exposed in the reporting, which show that censorship and anti-disinformation tactics were deeply partisan and that such tactics were just one part of a larger influence strategy.

Firstly, CTIL says it “had no relationship with Stanford or the Election Integrity Project [Partnership]. There was no communication between the CTI League and those organizations.”

However, both Public and Racket never claimed that there was a direct relationship between CTIL and Stanford or the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP). Both publications claimed that CTIL’s partnership with the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) appeared to be a precursor for EIP.

In fact, Racket and Public actually noted that Renée DiResta, one of EIP’s leaders, was a member of the working group that developed the Adversarial Misinformation and Influence Tactics and Techniques (AMITT) framework with one of CTIL’s disinformation team leaders, Sara-Jayne Terp.

Second, CTIL argues that the CTIL files misrepresented the organization. “The league was focused on the defense of healthcare alone,” they wrote. “Non healthcare related topics such as the election were stated as being out of scope.”

However, the league’s disinformation team expanded its scope beyond Covid to consider alleged misinformation about topics related to political extremism. This is evidenced by documents Public and Racket uncovered showing CTIL’s desire to infiltrate far-right groups.

Third, CTIL argues “The volunteers in the CTI League are private citizens with no special authorities…. They have no power to remove content, no power to censor information, and no power to direct the government.”

That claim is misleading. As we demonstrated, there were CISA and Department of Defense (DOD) personnel present and active in the league’s disinformation team. Some of them specifically discussed trying to get content removed. Others discussed other offensive actions to combat narratives they disliked.

Marc Rogers, who describes himself as a “hacker” and a cybersecurity expert, seemingly authored the statement. Yet Rogers’ own bio says he has worked as the head of security or strategy for at least two military contractors, CloudFlare and Okta, and LookOut, which works for military contractors.

Fourth, CTIL also states that it “only created its disinformation team at the request of hospitals,”

Public and Racket found no evidence to support the organization’s creation myth. One of the whistleblowers emphasized that the group offered nothing of value or original to cybersecurity professionals.

CTIL continues to insist that the organization served a critical function and had no influence from government or military contractors, but nowhere in its response statement did it address the military backgrounds of Terp and her associate, Navy Commander Pablo Breuer. As Public and Racket reported, Terp and Breuer met at a US Special Operations Command exercise and developed the initial idea for what would become the league’s disinformation team.

Lastly, CTIL accuses Taibbi and Shellenberger of antisemitism for reporting that one of its founders, Ohad Zaidenberg, was a former Israeli intelligence officer.

However, this information comes directly from a Wired article promoting the league in September 2020. “A former intelligence officer with dark hair and a closely cropped beard,” wrote Sonner Kehrt in Wired, “Zaidenberg had left the Israeli army with a deep belief in working for peace. Coronavirus is a war, he thought.”

The league neither provides any evidence to support its claim that Zaidenberg hadn’t worked for the Israeli military nor an explanation of how such a claim would be antisemitic.

Read More:

• https://public.substack.com/p/censorship-leaders-accuse-us-of-antisemitism

• https://cti-league.com/response-to-the-censorship-allegations-about-the-cti-league-ctil-made-by-mr-taibbi-mr-shellenberger/