1. American Military University
Activity Based Intelligence
And
Social Media Sex Trafficking
Homeland Security Program
American Public University System
By
CPT Matthew C. Kurnava
Arlington, VA
December 27, 2015

2. ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ii
FIGURES AND TABLE iii
I. INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM STATEMENT 1
II. RESEARCH QUESTION 1
III HYPOTHESIS 2
III. LITERATURE REVIEW 2
IV. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 7
V. DATA AND ANALYSIS 7
VI. CONCLUSION 11
REFERENCES iv

3. iii
FIGURES
Figure 1 OTSH Web Map (Penedo 2013) ......................................................................................................2
Figure 2 Support at 3 levels (Penedo 2013)..................................................................................................2

4. 1
I. INTRODUCTION AND PROBLEM STATEMENT
Social Media (Facebook, Instragram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Craigslist, etc.) has ingrained its
presence into the everyday life of Americans. It is used to connect with friends and family, find
jobs, sell items, organize events and even online dating. In a study by Pew Research Center, in
September of 2013, 90% of internet users age 18-29 used social media sites (Perrin 2015). That
is a significant jump from the 12% of internet users of the same age group in 2005 (Perrin 2015).
There is a dark side to Social Media. Within the past 5 years there has been a rise within
social media to conduct human trafficking. Social Networking sites have been connected to
instances of sexual human trafficking. From the case of the 14 yr old recruited through Myspace
to be a prostitute in Arizona (Latonero 2011) to the selling of young girls over Facebook in
Indonesia (Latonero 2011), social networking has been shown to have a very convenient way
human trafficking criminals can anonymously use social media and still exploit their victims.
With the increasing amount of internet users using social media and human traffickers
using social media to exploit their victims then it is most probable that unless an effective
solution is placed to detect human trafficking on social media, then there will be an increase in
sex trafficking within the United States through the vector of social media
II. RESEARCH QUESTION
The research will review the social media and sex trafficking and attempt to find through
what intelligence collection methods can be used to counter it. The intent of this thesis is to
address this primary question:
“Can Activity Based Intelligence (ABI) be used against social media sex trafficking?”

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III. HYPOTHESIS
Considering how popular social media is and also knowing that the internet and social
media provide ease of access and a level of anonymity. The hypothesis for this research is:
The use of Social Media to conduct illegal sex trafficking activities within the United States has
the potential to grow in the future if the Intelligence Community does not produce a viable
solution to hinder social media human trafficking activities. In order to prevent this growth a
viable legal intelligence collection method and intelligence product dissemination system must
be emplaced in order to facilitate productive intelligence product output that will significantly
disrupt the sex trafficking via social media. It is possible that Activity Based Intelligence can
accomplish this in the United States under certain provisions.
IV. LITERATURE REVIEW
Human Trafficking Definitions
Depending on the source there are many definitions of human trafficking. The United
Nations Palermo Protocol definition is:
"Trafficking in persons" shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by
means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of
power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of
a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a
minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or
services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. (United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime 2004)

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The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) also defines human trafficking.
Severe forms of trafficking human persons is defined as:
(A) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person
induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or
(B) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the
use of force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or
slaver (U.S. Department of State 2000)
The TVPA also defines sex trafficking within Section 103, paragraph 8 as: “the
recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a
commercial sex act” (U.S. Department of State 2000). The Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) also adheres to this definition as listed on their U.S Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) Web Page (DHS: ICE 2015).
For the purpose of this paper, the sex trafficking definition of the TVPA Section 103
paragraph 8 will be the definition used whenever referencing trafficking or sex trafficking
throughout this paper. This definition is used because it is the same definition used by the DHS
and the definition defined under U.S Federal Law.
Internet and Sex Trafficking
In recent years, sex trafficking and the internet have gone hand in hand. Sex traffickers
have used the internet for recruitment through social networking, ad sites and false job
advertisements (Kunze 2010, 243). Sex trafficking has also used the internet for exploitation of
their sex workers. The sex traffickers use social networking and websites to exploit and
prostitute their victims to individuals via the internet. (Kunde 2010). Sites such as Craigslist

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have been used in the past by sex traffickers to exploit and prostitute their victims (Kunze 2010,
242). Stories of this exploitation have common consistent patterns of the individuals being lured,
enticed, trapped, abused and then exploited (Kunze 2010). The following story is not anecdotal,
but serves as an example of how the internet has been used historically in many cases for sex
trafficking. Mr. Kunze writes,
Debbie,” a 15 year old honors student from Arizona, was abducted in front of her own house by “friends” of a girl
she knew from school. Debbie’s captors drugged her, psychologically manipulated her (threatening harm to her
family if she attempted to escape), and locked her in a dog crate. Shortly after abducting her, Debbie’s captors
placed an ad offering her services as a prostitute on Craigslist. As soon as the ad ran, men appeared at her captor’s
apartment where they raped Debbie at all hours of the night and day. Debbie was rescued and her story told when
Phoenix police officers raided the pimps’ apartment and found her locked in a drawer under a bed. During Debbie’s
captivity, over fifty men who responded to the Internet and paid Debbie’s captors to rape her (Kunze 2010, 248)
Craigslist ran its erotic services section from its inception as a web service until 2010
when it was removed (Miller 2010). In July 2010, two months before Craigslist shut down its
erotic services site CNN reported about an open letter that was written to the founder Craig
Newmark by two girls that were victims of the sex trafficking of Craigslist (Saar 2010). The
letter read:
I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28-year-old man...I am not an exception.
The man who trafficked me sold many girls my age, his house was called 'Daddy Day Care… All day, me and other
girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Craigslist. He made $1,500 a night selling my body,
dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock -- and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car. I am 17 now,
and my childhood memories aren't of my family, going to middle school, or dancing at the prom. They are making
my own arrangements on Craigslist to be sold for sex, and answering as many ads as possible for fear of beatings
and ice water baths. (Saar 2010)
As stated, Craigslist no longer has the erotic services ads open. Dr. Laterno points out
that as social media has grown, the internet and online services have provided other avenues for
sex trafficking through social media and even gaming services. He writes:

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Even the most popular online services are reportedly being exploited. Examples involve the use of mainstream
social media sites like Facebook and gaming systems with social networking capabilities, such as Xbox Live, to
make connections with minors, advertise minors for sex, record sexual videos and images of minors for advertising,
and transfer payment for commercial sex with a minor. (Latonero 2012)
As Social Networking has grown into a global way of connecting, its use for sex
trafficking has also grown. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and even gaming systems have
provided a venue for sex traffickers to exploit victims. Craigslist may have been the first major
site used by sex traffickers on the internet, but the social media and other online services have
provided another avenue that can be used easily and effectively to recruit and exploit its victims.
Activity Based Intelligence and Anti –Human Trafficking
Activity Based Intelligence is a Cyber Intelligence discipline that has been previously
used by the military. The IC community and military has used ABI to track Geo Spatial
locations of insurgent networks and individuals (Gray 2013). There are four “pillars” of ABI
that are consistent within its framework. Former Director of the National Geo Spatial
Intelligence Agency Letitia Long identifies and summarizes these pillars as:
1. Geo-reference to discover: In accessing “Big Data” it is critical in accessing the information
of unidentified objects. Within this pillar it is the understanding that “everything has to be
somewhere at some time” (Long 2013, 7-15). It is then tagged across multiple intelligence
disciplines and stored within the cloud. It is then sorted out according to these tags. Patterns of
activity can be then identified in reference to these tags to these geo spatial reference tags (Long
2013, 7-15).
2. Sequence neutrality. ABI differs from traditional event sequencing by sequencing events non
linearly. Ms. Letitia Long elaborates, “It allows the analyst to form a hypothesis first and then

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search the data and even drive new collection to test the hypothesis. It also allows the analyst to
integrate data before exploitation to focus an analyst’s investigation on anomalies in the data that
have been correlated” (Long 2013, 7-15).
3. Data Neutrality. ABI accepts all intelligence from all disciplines. Every piece of data is
relevant and believed to be able to be connected to others within the cloud of data, tagged and
linked (Long 2013, 7-15).
4. Knowledge Management. Within ABI, knowledge management consists of storing the
information and then sharing the information with the relevant partners and intelligence agencies
(Long 2013, 7-15).
In 2012, President Obama requested that tech companies get involved in the development of
tools that could assist law enforcement activities in human trafficking cases (Gray 2013). One of
the solutions for the collection of data on human trafficking came from BAE Systems and its use
of ABI for a human trafficking solution (Gray 2013).
For human trafficking, BAE systems has suggested this cyber intelligence big data
collection method be used for human trafficking methods. Ms. DeEtte Gray, President of BAE
Systems Intelligence and Security Sector writes,
For example, analysts reviewing physical evidence in an ABI system may be simultaneously capturing cyber
evidence that trafficking operations leave behind. Rather than focusing solely on evidence from past crimes, analysts
could be collecting data about a suspected trafficking organization’s involvement online, its involvement in
discussion forums, its use of virtual currency exchanges and its involvement in social networking platforms, all in
real-time. The grouping of all this data in one central operating environment could accelerate the process of
identifying trafficking perpetrators and recruitment tactics, while enhancing the analyst’s understanding of
trafficking markets

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BAE Systems Intelligence & Security sector’s Advanced Analytics Lab is working on
ABI to be able to research and identify profiles s of suspected traffickers using “social media vs
hidden sites” within a geo spatial area (Gray 2013).
V. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research methodology for this research will be a theoretical descriptive qualitative
analytical approach of collective case studies in order to show triangulation of evidence.
Through the collecting and analysis of data through various sources (articles, documents,
websites) the verification of the strengths and weakness of ABI shall become evident and its
usefulness for sex trafficking be made apparent. In this research study, the, ABI method is the
independent variable evaluated by its effect on the dependent variable, the production of quality
social media sex trafficking intelligence reports .
Independent Variable: Activity Based Intelligence Method
Dependent Variable: Viable Social Media Sex Trafficking Reports
V. DATA AND ANALYSIS
Data will be separated and then analyzed in accordance with the four pillars of ABI as
previously outlined. The verification of data for sex trafficking being applicable within each of
the four pillars will and efficiently being processed within ABI system will reveal whether the
system can or cannot produce viable social media sex trafficking intelligence reports to be used
by the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.

11. 8
Human Trafficking and Geo
Referencing
Other countries have already started
human trafficking and geo referencing
programs and results have shown
significant success. In Europe, Portugal
set up the Observatory on Trafficking in
Human Beings (OTSH) in 2008. The OTSH has been able to produce intelligence reports on
human trafficking s utilizing geo- referencing that displays, country of origin / transit /
nationality, transportation methods, and location on national territory (Portugal Ministry of
Internal Affairs 2010). This was accomplished by using their geo referencing program in
coordination with SDIIA (Spatial Data Infrastructure for Internal Affairs), called GEOTSH
(Portugal Ministry of Internal Affairs 2010).
By 2012 OTSH had presented within their reports, the initiative to work with Directorate-
General of Internal Affairs of the European Project to build the Pan-European Monitoring
System of Trafficking in Human Beings (Pan-EU MoSy) (Portugal Ministry of Internal Affairs
2010). The system would aim to:
1) To improve the capacity of the partners capabilities to collect THB data; 2) To develop a common system to
analyze data at a transnational level, namely by sharing geo-statistical data and using the same indicators (Eurostat);
3) To involve other relevant countries of origin, transit and destination in the EU and neighboring countries.
(Portugal Ministry of Internal Affairs 2010)
Figure 1 OTSH Web Map (Penedo 2013)

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The system would provide support at 3 levels as displayed below:
Since December 2014, this system has been completed (International Center for
Migration Policy Development 2015). Other European countries have been trained and initiated
incorporation of the system as recently as 2015 (Penedo 2015). To date, there have been no
official public reports of results made available to open source intelligence (OSINT).
Geo Referencing Software is available through U.S.DOD contractors already. The ability
to create a system such as the Pan-EU MoSy for the United States is not beyond the capability of
the United States government. The funds required to do so must be appropriated accordingly and
if done so then could possible coordinate with the Pan-EU MoSy as well.
Human Trafficking Data Collection Systems (Sequence Neutrality, Data Neutrality and
Knowledge Management)
One of the key features of ABI is that it collects “everything” from all sources. The
intelligence gathered, whether it is seen as important or not, is tagged and logged into the
database. It is through searches later that analysts pull linked data sets that previously may have
Figure 2 Support at 3 levels (Penedo 2013)

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not been seen as connected. Since the data is not sequenced prior to input into the system
(Sequence Neutrality) and the data is taken from many disciplines and agencies (Data Neutrality)
the database or cloud that controls the collection (Knowledge Management) holds within it
thousands of tags that become relevant after the search by the analyst. Essentially, you have the
answer before you have the question. For example, if an analyst searches for sex trafficking
event within a built database, within a certain area. Hey may get results showing arrests,
suspected individuals, videos, documents, etc., anything that was “tagged” when input into the
system.
In its complexity, the “tagged” events and data will be able to show patterns previously
not seen. The analyst then can look into deeper into the patterns and develop intelligence
products on those events. It can even search key words and phrases of known suspects and data
within social networks. This has been done previously when searching for terrorist activity on
social media through the Defense Department:
Social media analytics and content categorization technology from SAS coupled with data mining capabilities are
used to scan more than 20 million websites, including blogs, chats, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, while "natural
language processing" extracts online discussions in Arabic, Farsi and 28 other native languages and dialects. All this
is used to support geospatial intelligence gathering and analysis. The technology is designed to enable the
identification of "unknown unknowns." (Slabodkin 2013)
There are systems and databases already used within the Department of Defense to
collect and sort. In order for the ABI to work for sex trafficking, all it takes is a modification of
these types of databases to annotate and collect from different agencies data related to sex
trafficking rather than terrorist activities and hold them within an identified vehicle specified for
sex trafficking intelligence.

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VI. CONCLUSION
As a practical system for the tracking of “reported” sex trafficking events that are geo
spatially referenced and collected then an ABI system for use to defend against sex trafficking in
the United States can be used. However, the issue of using the system to track on social media
the presence of sex trafficking suspects, like how ABI systems were used to track foreign
terrorists on social media, is unconstitutional. While the intent is just, the way that ABI works is
that it sorts through Meta data when an analyst pulls the data. However, this data amount is
massive when it comes to social media. While the system would be able to link and sort a data
pull of sex trafficking activities within the United States, it is against US citizen’s constitutional
rights for it to do so. The collection of such social network Meta data would be no different than
the Meta data that the NSA telephone metadata that was collected and deemed illegal under the
Patriot Act (de Vogue 2015).
However, this does not mean that the ABI for Social Media Sex trafficking can’t be used,
but only restricted. In the U.S. the system could be used if and only if the geo spatially tagged
events and the data mining that occurs is done legally. In other words, the ABI could not search
through social media like it did for the DOD and the terrorist groups. It can only search through
data entries reported by different agencies and collected by legal means. This answers the
question of whether ABI can be used for anti-social media sex trafficking. It can, but under
restricted provisions that do not violate US citizens constitutional rights. This confirms my
hypothesis that the ABI system can accomplish what is needed to fight social media sex
trafficking. I would advise that the Geo Spatial National Intelligence Agency, in coordination
with BAE Systems move forward with an ABI system that would model itself on the Pan EU

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MoSy and the ABI database systems used in the DOD, however the system should be validated
and screened for Intelligence Oversight rigidly and ensure the rights of U.S citizens are never at
risk.

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