Iran Press/ America: Reuters revealed how a pair of former senior White House leaders, working with ex-NSA spies and Washington contractors, played pivotal roles in building a program whose actions are now under scrutiny by federal authorities.
In 2008, former United States counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke went to work as a consultant guiding the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as it created a cyber-surveillance capability that would utilize top US intelligence contractors to help monitor threats against the tiny nation.
The secret unit Clarke helped create had an ominous acronym: DREAD, short for Development Research Exploitation and Analysis Department.
The UAE unit expanded its hunt far beyond suspected extremists to include a Saudi women's rights activist, diplomats at the United Nations and personnel at FIFA, the world soccer body.
By 2012, the program would be known among its US operatives by a codename: Project Raven.
In an interview in Washington, Clarke said that after recommending that the UAE create a cyber-surveillance agency, his company, Good Harbor Consulting, was hired to help the country build it. The idea, Clarke said, was to create a unit capable of tracking "terrorists". He said the plan was approved by the US State Department and the NSA, and that Good Harbor followed US law.
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