Cybersecurity Policy Report, ‘Ubiquitous Technical Surveillance’ Endangers National Security, Senators Told, (Oct 8, 2025)

By Tom Leithauser

“Ubiquitous technical surveillance” (UTS), a term that describes the harvesting of data produced by modern human activities, is used by adversarial foreign nations to track U.S. military activities, a Senate subcommittee was warned yesterday.

“UTS is not a single sensor you can switch off,” Michael Stokes, vice president–strategy at security firm Ridgeline International LLC, told the Senate Armed Services Committee’s emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee.

“It is a fused fabric of phones and apps, connected cars, building cameras, electronic payments, cell and Wi-Fi metadata—plus a vast commercial data market,” Mr. Stokes said in his written testimony.

“That fusion exposes patterns, and deviations from those patterns are triggers for an adversary. An unusual no-phone day. Synchronized travel by people who should be unconnected. A route, flight, or driving pattern that does not match the desired cohort,” he explained.

“These anomalies trigger an automated investigation, followed by human scrutiny. Near-peer adversaries—and sophisticated non-state actors, such as cartels—already leverage UTS to anticipate, frustrate, and compromise U.S. missions worldwide,” he said.

A similar warning was offered by Justin Sherman, founder and chief executive officer of Global Cyber Strategies. “In the last two decades, the volume of open-source information in the world, the amount of commercial data available on the United States, and the degree of digital connectivity in the United States and around the world have exploded,” he noted in his written testimony.

“Simultaneously, our country has unfortunately been woefully behind in recognizing the threats all this information, data, and connectivity pose to our national security—including our servicemembers and other Americans serving our country in the national security community,” Mr. Sherman told the subcommittee.

“Foreign adversaries such as China and Russia, meanwhile, are investing readily to be able to exploit these vulnerabilities,” he said.

Mr. Stokes recommended that Congress require the Department of Defense to task a single DoD office “with owning the problem.”

“Today, UTS is everyone’s problem and no one’s priority, so dollars for digital force protection fall below the line. An ad-hoc approach to this issue is not sufficient,” he said.

He also called for legislation that would restrict data brokers from collecting and selling data about service members and their dependents.

Mr. Sherman suggested that a comprehensive national consumer data privacy law would help. “Congress should pass a strong, comprehensive, federal privacy law to protect all Americans’ data,” he said.

“While protections implemented in a consumer context will not be wholly sufficient to mitigate enhanced levels of risk or different kinds of risk to U.S. national security in particular, a broader privacy law—such as one that raises minimum data protection standards for companies, bolsters vehicle privacy, strongly regulates the data brokerage industry, and puts responsible safeguards around commercial advertising networks—could shift some of the risk mitigation burden off U.S. national security personnel and raise the privacy baseline for all Americans,” he told the subcommittee.

Another witness at the hearing, Joseph Kirschbaum, the Government Accountability Office’s director–defense capabilities and management, said the GAO was preparing to release a report that addresses DoD’s data threats.

The report, according to Mr. Kirschbaum’s written testimony, recommends, among other things, that DoD “improve collaboration across the department to reduce the risks of information about DOD and its personnel becoming publicly accessible” and “review and assess security training to ensure that digital profile issues are considered in all security areas.”

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