Archive for the ‘NSA’ Category

Spies Like AI: The Future of Artificial Intelligence for the US Intelligence Community – Defense One

Putting AI to its broadest use in national defense will mean hardening it against attack.

Americas intelligence collectors are already using AI in ways big and small, to scan the news for dangerous developments, send alerts to ships about rapidly changing conditions, and speed up the NSAs regulatory compliance efforts. But before the IC can use AI to its full potential, it must be hardened against attack. The humans who use it analysts, policy-makers and leaders must better understand how advanced AI systems reach theirconclusions.

Dean Souleles is working to put AI into practice at different points across the U.S. intelligence community, in line with the ODNIs year-old strategy. The chief technology advisor to the principal deputy to the Director of National Intelligence wasnt allowed to discusseverything that hes doing, but he could talk about a fewexamples.

At the Intelligence Communitys Open Source Enterprise, AI is performing a role that used to belong to human readers and translators at CIAs Open Source Center: combing through news articles from around the world to monitor trends, geopolitical developments, and potential crises inreal-time.

Imagine that your job is to read every newspaper in the world, in every language; watch every television news show in every language around the world. You dont know whats important, but you need to keep up with all the trends and events, Souleles said. Thats the job of the Open Source Enterprise, and they are using technology tools and tradecraft to keep pace. They leverage partnerships with AI machine-learning industry leaders, and they deploy these cutting-edgetools.

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AI is also helping the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or NGA, notify sailors and mariners around the world about new threats, like pirates, or new navigation information that might change naval charts. Its a mix of open source and classified information. That demands that we leverage all available sources to accurately, and completely, and correctly give timely notice to mariners. We use techniques like natural language processing and other AI tools to reduce the timelines reporting, and increase the volume of data. And that allows us to leverage and increase the accuracy and completeness of our reporting, Souleles said.

The NSA has begun to use AI to better understand and see patterns in the vast amount of signals intelligence data it collects, screening for anomalies in web traffic patterns or other data that could portend an attack. Gen. Paul Nakasone, the head of NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, has said that he wants AI to find vulnerabilities in systems that the NSA may need to access for foreignintelligence.

NSA analysts and operators are also using AI to make sure they are following the many rules and guidelines that govern how the NSA collects intelligence on foreigntargets.

We do a lot of queries, NSA-speak for accessing signals intelligence data on an individual, Souleles said. Queries require audits to make sure that NSA is complying with thelaw.

But NSA technicians realized that audited queries can be used to train AI to get a jump on the considerable paperwork this entails, by learning to predict whether a query is reportable with pretty high accuracy, Souleles said. That could help the auditors and compliance officers do perform their oversight roles faster. He said the goal isnt to replace human oversight, just speed up and improve it. The goal for them is to get ahead of query review, to be able to make predictions about compliance, and the end result is greater privacy production foreveryone.

In the future, Souleles expects AI to ease analysts burdens, proving instantaneous machine translation and speech recognition that allows analysts to pour through different types of collected data, corroborate intelligence, and reach firmer conclusions, said Jason Matheny, a former director at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity and founding director of the new Center for Security and Emerging Technology at GeorgetownUniversity.

One roadblock is the labor of collecting and labeling training data, said Souleles. While that same challenge exists in the commercial AI space, the secretive intelligence community cannot generally turn to, say, crowdsourcing platforms like Amazons Mechanical Turk.

The reason that image recognition works so well is that Stanford University and Princeton published Imagenet. Which is 14 million images of the regular things of the world taken from the internet, classified by people into about 200,000 categories of things, everyday things of the world; toasters, and TVs, and basketballs. Thats training data, says Souleles. We need to do the same thing with our classified collections and we cant, obviously, rely on the worlds Mechanical Turks to go classify our data inside our data source. So, weve got a big job in getting ourdata.

But the bigger problem is making AI models more secure, says Matheny. He says that todays flashy examples of AI, such as beating humans at complex games like Go and rapidly identifying faces, werent designed to ward off adversaries spending billions to try and defeat them. Current methods are brittle, says Methany. He described them as vulnerable to simple attacks like model inversion, where you reveal data a system was trained on, or trojans, data to mislead asystem,

In the commercial world, this isnt a big problem, or at least it isnt seen as one yet, because theresno adversary trying to spoof the system. But concern is rising, in 2017, researchers at MIT showed how easy it was to fool neural networks with 3D-printed objects by just slightly changing the texture. Its an issue that some in the intelligence community are beginning to talk about as well with the rise of new tools such as general adversarialnetworks.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has proposed an AI security program. Matheny said national labs should also play a leading role. To date, this is piecemeal work that an individual has done as part of a research project, hesaid.

Even a bigger problem is that humans generally dont understand the processes by which very complex algorithms like deep learning systems and neural nets reach the determinations that they do. That may be a small concern for the commercial world, where the most important thing is the ultimate output, not how it was reached, but national security leaders who must defend their decisions to lawmakers, say opaque functioning isnt good enough to make war or peacedecisions.

Most neural nets with a high rate of accuracy are not easily interpretable, says Matheny. There have been individual research programs at places like DARPA to make neural nets more explainable. But it remains a keychallenge.

New forms of advanced AI are slowly replacing some neural nets. Jana Eggers, CEO of Nara Logics, an AI company partnered with Raytheon, says she switched from traditional neural nets to genetic algorithms in some of her national security work. Unlike neural nets, where the system sets its own statistical weights, genetic algorithms evolve sequentially, just like organisms, and are thus more traceable. Look at a tool like Fiddler, a web debugging proxy that helps users debug and analyze web traffic patterns, she said. Theyre doing sensitivity analysis with what I would consider neural nets to figure out the why, what is the machine seeing that didntnecessarily.

But Eggers notes that making neural nets transparent also takes a lot of computing power, For all the different laws that intelligence analysts have to follow, the laws of physics present their own challenges aswell.

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Spies Like AI: The Future of Artificial Intelligence for the US Intelligence Community - Defense One

Former NSA Security Advisor John Bolton Heading to NJ to Address Anti-Semitism by Republicans in Jackson Township – Shore News Magazine

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JACKSON-A report in the Lakewood Scoop on Thursday said National Security Advisor John Bolton was heading to New Jersey to meet with religious leaders, community leaders and GOP officials to address a pattern of anti-Semitism against Orthodox Jews by the Jackson Township Republican Club.

Bolton, a former Trump aide was invited by Dr. Richard Roberts, President Trumps former Advisor on Jewish Relations who has pledged his support to combat what has become a culture of anti-Semitism within the Jackson Republican Club.

In recent years, Jackson Township has experienced a population surge of Orthodox Jews, after neighboring Lakewood Township is running out of space to build new homes. That influx of new residents and the fear of rapid overdevelopment has the community of Jackson on edge, but Roberts said some members of the local GOP club who run the town have gone too far.

Roberts blames party leaders Ocean County GOP Chairman Frank B. Holman, III and Mayor Michael Reina for the acceptance of intolerance in their party. Over the years the club has been plagued with resignations of members from township boards because of remarks made on social media. In one instance, a former Jackson GOP appointed zoning board member even threatened New Jersey State Senator Robert Singer and former Ocean County Chairman George Gilmore, both of whom are known to foster good relations with the Orthodox Jewish community in Ocean County.

Roberts claims Holman and Reina have failed to take proper actions to call out anti-Semitism within the party, especially in Jackson where the clubs two top officials, County Committee Chairwoman Clara Glory and Jackson GOP Club President Todd Porter have been under fire for insensitive and anti-Semitic posts made on Facebook against Orthodox Jews.

Jackson Township and elected officials are currently defending two federal civil rights lawsuits regarding actions and ordinances by the township government that claims those actions were based on anti-Semitism. Those defending the township claim they are merely fighting overdevelopment in their town brought by the need for more housing to accommodate the volume of Orthodox Jews moving into the town.

In one lawsuit, plaintiff Agudath Israel of America claims the township crossed the line when it drafted ordinances aimed to limit the construction of Synagogues and dormitories for religious schools. The lawsuit also claims former Jackson Township Councilman Robert Nixon crossed many lines after it was learned that he orchestrated a campaign against Orthodox Jews that involved checking on homes where prayers were being held and an increase in code enforcement activity in neighborhoods where Orthodox Jews were moving into.

Nixon resigned from the township council in November.

Last year, three Jackson GOP Club members were forced to resign from their positions on the township planning and zoning boards after they attended a meeting of a group called CUPON whose mission is to discuss strategy on how to stop residential overdevelopment in the town. At that meeting, comments were made that some deemed offensive and anti-Semitic, but because the three members sat on land use boards, they were forced to resign.

John Burrows, a former zoning board member and Jackson GOP club member John Burrows who ruled against an application for an all-girls religious high school later posted a scathing message on Facebook against Senator Robert Singer on September 10th, 2017, a day known as Suicide Awareness Day.

I implore senator Singer to step up and commit suicide, Burrows posted on Facebook. He is nothing but the byproduct of a human body eating matzoh and gafelta [sic] fish.

After many years of watching senator Singers proposals and interests which are solely to support and advance the Lakewood medieval cult, on the backs of the surrounding communities, its time to come to an end, his tirade continued. He is so obviously bought, paid for, and in the pocket of the Lakewood cult.

Burrows statement opened the door for the school developer to file a lawsuit against Jackson for the denial, claiming it was based on anti-Semitism and not building code or zoning.

GOP Club President Todd Porter on Facebook offered to chase Jewish children and families out of township parks by blasting death metal music and Slayer. Porter later issued an apology for that comment.

Ocean County Republican Committee Chairwoman Clara Glory was also accused of making anti-Semitic posts on Facebook, including a comment referencing Jews as criminals.

After another resident posted, They are crooks and should be deported they serve no good interest to America. People better start waking up before its too late, another user posted, We should not stereotype, there are bad in every group.

Glory, who also sits on the township Municipal Utilities Authority and an executive of the Jackson Chamber of Commerce replied, NO STEREOTYPING HERE..FACTS ARE FACTSTHIS IS EXACTLY WHAT JACKSON RESIDENTS FEAR. AND YES IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING.

Glory has also been criticized for her ties to Rise Up Ocean County by Dr. Roberts. On multiple occasions, Glory shared posts and videos by the group, which has been declared a hate group by the Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders. Rise Up Ocean County, an anonymous group claims their page is dedicated to resisting overdevelopment, but nearly every post on the page is focused on Orthodox Jews in Jackson, Lakewood and New York. Posts frequently detail crimes and offenses committed by Orthodox Jews and comments regarding overdevelopment in Lakewood Township.

Barry Calogero, another Jackson GOP Club member and elected councilman in Jackson has also come under fire for anti-Semitism. Ken Bressi, another GOP councilman recently claimed in a legal deposition that he felt Calogero and Reina were anti-Semitic. Calogero also happens to be a Trump appointee, serving as Executive Director of the NJ Farm Services branch of the USDA.

Lakewood Township is home to the worlds largest concentration of Orthodox Jews outside of Israel and home to Americas largest Jewish Yeshiva, Beth Medrash Govoha. Lakewood has become a concern by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the New Jersey State Police and other local law enforcement agencies after brutal attacks on Orthodox Jews in Jersey City and Monsey, New York. It has long been identified as a potential target of terrorism by DHS.

The Jackson Township GOP, which has drawn the attention of Roberts and Bolton has recently been condemned by National GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and NJ GOP Chairman Doug Steinhardt who both said there is no place for hate or anti-Semitism within the Republican Party. Roberts also criticized County GOP Chairman Holman for turning a blind eye to comments made by Glory. Holman, who is also a Jackson native has been protective of Glory. The boast frequently of their longtime relationship that dates back to their childhood.

Anti-Semitism was the topic of this weeks meeting of the Jackson Republican Club after several Orthodox Jews joined the club and claimed that a club member asked for their names and wrote them on a sheet of paper. A discussion about anti-Semitism became somewhat heated when club officials reportedly asked those new Jewish club members if they thought the club was anti-Semitic.

The Orthodox Jewish growth issue isnt contained to Jackson. In neighboring Toms River, in 2016, former Mayor Thomas Kelaher said the influx of Jewish residents was an invasion. Kelaher has since been replaced as Mayor by Maurice Mo Hill who has strong ties to the Orthodox Jewish community. Hill is a native of Lakewood and had the full support of the Jewish community during his 2019 election and tensions in Toms River have since eased.

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Former NSA Security Advisor John Bolton Heading to NJ to Address Anti-Semitism by Republicans in Jackson Township - Shore News Magazine

What is National Security Agency (NSA)? – Definition from …

The National Security Agency is the official U.S. cryptologic organization of the United States Intelligence Community under the Department of Defense.

Responsible for the coordination of communications intelligence activities throughout the government, the top secret NSA was covertly formed in November 1952 under a directive from President Harry S. Truman and the National Security Council.

Secrecy around the agency's activities has suffered, however, as security breaches have exposed global surveillance programs and cyberweapons -- malware agents -- developed to target computers and networks of U.S. adversaries.

The agency exists to protect national communications systems integrity and to collect and process information about foreign adversaries' secret communications to support national security and foreign policy. The classified information is disseminated to 16 separate government agencies that make up the U.S. Intelligence Community.

In October 2017, Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed new guidelines to enable the NSA to provide intercepted communications and raw signals intelligence -- before applying domestic and foreign privacy protections -- to 16 government agencies, including the FBI and CIA.

The National Security Agency works in close conjunction with the Central Security Service, which was established by presidential executive order in 1972 to promote full partnership between the NSA and the cryptologic elements of the armed forces. The director of the NSA/CSS, in accordance with a Department of Defense directive, must be a high-ranking -- at least three stars -- commissioned officer of the military services.

Although the organization's number of employees -- as well as its budget -- falls into the category of classified information, the NSA lists among its workforce analysts, engineers, physicists, linguists, computer scientists, researchers, customer relations specialists, security officers, data flow experts, managers, and administrative and clerical assistants.

It also claims to be the largest employer of mathematicians in the U.S., and possibly worldwide. NSA/CSS mathematicians perform the agency's two critical functions: they design cryptographic systems to protect U.S. communications, and they search for weaknesses in the counterpart systems of U.S. adversaries.

The NSA denies reports claiming that it has an unlimited black budget -- undisclosed even to other government agencies. Nevertheless, the agency admits that, if it were judged as a corporation, it would rank in the top 10% of Fortune 500 companies.

NSA surveillance operations, which intensified after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. soil, have come under scrutiny. U.S. surveillance laws changed suddenly when the USA Patriot Act -- Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 -- was enacted by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001.

The Patriot Act expanded the government's surveillance powers beyond the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, established in 1978, which provided exceptions to the Fourth Amendment when the search -- or wiretap -- was to gain foreign intelligence. For example, the Patriot Act authorized law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to secretly search personal and business records of U.S. citizens, including telephone, email and financial information, without judicial or congressional involvement.

In 2013, details about some of the NSA's surveillance programs became public when former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor Edward Snowden leaked troves of confidential NSA information, first travelling to Hong Kong to meet with reporters and then seeking asylum from U.S. authorities in Russia. Russia extended his asylum in January 2017 until 2020. The documents indicated the agency had broadened its domestic surveillance activities to bulk collection of U.S. communications.

Questions of legal authority were raised when Snowden's NSA disclosures revealed the organization collected internet data stored by internet service providers, as well as surveillance metadata on U.S. citizens' telecommunications -- phone records. The agency's surveillance operations also targeted third parties, such as business owners required to turn over customers' records, and U.S. companies involved in any type of foreign communications.

The exposure of the details of the NSA's widespread surveillance programs also embarrassingly revealed that the agency intercepted allied government communications, allegedly tapping mobile phones of world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The unauthorized leaks also provided information on the NSA's Tailored Access Operations program, an elite offensive hacking unit created in 1998 that conducts technical surveillance. According to Snowden's disclosures, in addition to computer networks, TAO infiltrated satellite and fiber optic communications systems, which are the backbones of telecommunications providers and ISPs.

The NSA and FBI also appeared to gain access to servers and stored internet communications through a top secret project code named PRISM. While Snowden's documents alluded to PRISM, U.S. technology providers claimed to provide government assistance only when the law required it, or to have no knowledge of the data collection program. The NSA revelations raised concerns worldwide that U.S. hardware and software manufacturers may have shipped compromised products with malware or backdoors installed, enabling the agency to access customers' data.

The USA Freedom Act -- Uniting and Strengthening America by Fulfilling Rights and Ending Eavesdropping, Dragnet-collection and Online Monitoring Act -- was proposed by Congress in October 2013.

Provisions of the Patriot Act, including roving wiretaps and bulk metadata collection, expired on June 1, 2015. The next day, the USA Freedom Act was signed into law by President Barack Obama. It restored the Patriot Act provisions with modifications and imposed limits on bulk collection of telecommunications metadata. However, the NSA could still access that information through telecommunications companies.

Early interception techniques relied on radio signals, radar and telemetry.

The Army Signal Corps developed the Signals Intelligence Service in May 1929 after taking over cryptology from military intelligence. Civilian William F. Friedman became chief cryptologist at SIS and was tasked with educating a small team of civilians on cryptanalysis so they could compile codes for the U.S. Army.

After the armed forces saw success cracking German and Japanese codes during World War II, the National Security Agency was established by President Truman. SIS, renamed the Signal Security Agency, and then the Army Security Agency in the mid-1940s, became part of the National Security Agency, headquartered in Fort Meade, Md.

In 2012, the New York Times reported that Stuxnet malware, discovered in June 2010 after a damaging attack on Windows machines and programmatic logic controllers in Iran's industrial plants, including its nuclear program, had been jointly developed by the U.S. and Israel. Neither country has admitted responsibility for the malicious computer worm.

A hacker organization dubbed the Equation Group allegedly used two of the zero-day exploits prior to the Stuxnet attack, according to antivirus company Kaspersky Lab, which is based in Moscow and made the claims in 2015.

In addition to protecting national security through cryptography and cryptanalysis, the NSA has weathered security breaches beyond Snowden that have caused embarrassment for the agency and affected its intelligence-gathering capabilities.

An unidentified NSA contractor removed classified U.S. government information from the NSA in 2015 and stored the material, which included code and spyware used to infiltrate foreign networks, on a personal device. The files were allegedly intercepted by Russian hackers. The contractor acknowledged using antivirus software from Kaspersky Lab, a company that, according to some reports, may have ties to the Russian government.

In 2017, Israel intelligence officers revealed that they detected NSA materials on Kaspersky networks in 2015. Kaspersky officials later admitted that they became aware of unusual files on an unidentified contractor's computer, and they did not immediately report their findings.

In December 2017, the U.S. government banned the use of Kaspersky Lab products for all federal agencies and government employees.

A hacker group calling itself the Shadow Brokers claimed they had stolen NSA files in 2017. They released batches of files on the internet, some of which allegedly contained the IP addresses of computer servers that were compromised by the Equation Group -- hackers reported to have ties to the NSA.

The continual dumping of NSA files has exposed zero-day exploits targeting firewalls and routers, Microsoft Windows vulnerabilities, and other cyberweapons. The NSA, according to the ongoing leaks, has been stockpiling vulnerabilities, most notably the Windows EternalBlue exploit used by cybercriminals in the global WannaCry ransomware attacks.

Harold T. Martin III, a former NSA contractor employed by Booz Allen Hamilton, was arrested by the FBI in August 2016 and accused of violating the Espionage Act for unlawful possession of terabytes of confidential materials allegedly taken from the NSA and other intelligence agencies over a 20-year period. He was indicted by a grand jury in February 2018. The case is still pending as prosecutors wrestle with criminal counts and the sheer volume of materials.

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What is National Security Agency (NSA)? - Definition from ...

What happened to Robert Vance on Manifest? NSA director rises from the dead – Monsters and Critics

7th January 2020 12:22 AM ET

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On NBCs hit sci-fi series Manifest, Robert Vance was the NSA director who was giving the survivors of Flight 828 a hard time.

However, over the course of the first season, Vance came around and seemed to realize there were bad things afoot and started to help the passengers.

See, there were 11 missing passengers from Flight 828 that UDS took and was experimenting on. In the episode, Dead Reckoning, Michaela, Jared, Vance, Ben, and Fiona head to the warehouse hoping to find them.

When Cal shows up and finds a hidden door, a shootout takes place and the 11 missing passengers are freed. However, Vance, Jared, and Laurence are caught in an explosion and all of them die.

The funeral for Robert Vance takes place in the next episode, called Crosswinds.

As people should expect in science fiction, and especially science fiction that includes people seemingly escaping death, dont believe everything that you see.

In the first episode of Manifest Season 2, titled Fasten Your Seatbelts, Robert Vance turns out to still be alive.

As with any explosion that does not result in a dead body pulled out of the wreckage, never assume someone is dead. Remember, he was loaded into an ambulance and the police said he didnt make it. That does not mean it is true.

Robert Vance is a spy and he can disappear if he wants to, and that appears to be what the show pulled off as the second season begins.

Ben was taken near the end of the Manifest Season 2 premiere and he ended up face-to-face with Vance.

Now that Vance is presumed dead, he can help Ben and the passengers better than he could as a government employee. In an underground manner, and thanks to his experience as a spy, Vance could be their most valuable ally now.

Of course, Robert Vance was gone for a while and there is no telling what he was up to while everything was going down last season after his death.

Manifest airs on Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.

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What happened to Robert Vance on Manifest? NSA director rises from the dead - Monsters and Critics

Sheriffs group nabs national expert to serve as director – Fall River Herald News

BOSTON A nationally recognized expert in corrections and criminal justice is coming to Massachusetts to run the Massachusetts Sheriffs' Association as its new executive director.

Carrie Hill, who most recently worked as director of the National Sheriffs' Association's National Center for Jail Operations and has worked in the corrections field for more than three decades, has been hired to lead the MSA effective Jan. 16, Middlesex Sheriff Peter Koutoujian announced as president of the organization.

"I am thrilled and honored to be joining President Koutoujian and each of the Massachusetts sheriffs as we work collaboratively and cooperatively with our federal and national partners to elevate the office of sheriff as well as the jails and communities in which they serve," Hill said. "Massachusetts sheriffs have led innovative programming and initiatives that have become national models. It is our privilege to provide a voice for both those served by and those serving in our nation's jails."

A frequent speaker at corrections conferences and professional development summits around the country, Hill has worked at the state and county levels, and served as a consultant to organizations like the National Institute of Corrections. Before her work with the NSA, Hill "focused on providing training and consulting on national, regional, state and local levels for a variety of private and public entities," according to a conference biography.

Her previous roles include serving as general counsel to the Utah Department of Corrections, senior administrative manager for former Hennepin County, Minn., Sheriff Richard Stanek, and as editor of Corrections Managers' Report, a bi-monthly industry bulletin published by the Civic Research Institute.

"The Massachusetts Sheriffs' Association is extremely visionary to hire Carrie Hill as their next executive director," Newport News, Virginia, Sheriff Gabe Morgan, who chairs the NSA's Jail & Detention Committee, said.

Retired Associate Deputy Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice Steven Cook said, "The Massachusetts Sheriffs are fortunate to be bringing Carrie Hill on board. She is a widely recognized expert on jail and detention issues, and she has been a leader at a national level building relationships and coalitions to protect and pursue the interests of sheriffs and law enforcement."

Koutoujian, who has led the MSA as president since 2018, described the hiring of Hill as executive director as "a milestone moment" for the 15-plus-year-old MSA.

"To attract someone of Carrie's caliber to the ranks of the MSA is a testament to how respected Massachusetts sheriffs have become nationally. We have earned this position through the diligent work of each sheriff and the generous assistance of our longtime executive director, James Walsh," the former state representative said.

As executive director of the MSA, Hill is also expected to continue to work with national initiatives like the NSA-National Association of Counties Joint Task Force, which the MSA said is "studying the impacts of the national behavioral health crisis on county jails" and with partnerships and programs that the NSA is engaged in to benefit sheriffs across the country.

The hiring of Hill comes while the MSA has been active on Beacon Hill and among its peer organizations, and in rebuilding relationships with state policymakers.

In 2016, Auditor Suzanne Bump's office found that the MSA was not meeting its statutory transparency and reporting requirements, and she said the organization "did not have the tools or the policies and procedures in place to do" what it was established in 2004 to do, facilitate communication between the state's 14 sheriffs.

Since then, under new leadership at the sheriff level and now soon at the executive director level, the MSA has been active in Beacon Hill's debate of criminal justice reform. Koutoujian worked closely with lawmakers in 2018 to craft a bill that has allowed correctional facilities in Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Norfolk and Franklin counties to run a three-year pilot program using medication-assisted treatment to combat opioid addiction.

The state's 14 sheriffs run county jails and houses of correction, as well as inmate rehabilitation programs that seek to provide social services to people who are incarcerated. As an organization, the MSA has gotten involved in criminal justice reform and advocating for the sheriffs' positions during debates over other public policy issues, like marijuana legalization.

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Sheriffs group nabs national expert to serve as director - Fall River Herald News