As thousands of attendees roam the halls of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center during this year\u2019s Association of the U.S. Army Annual Meeting & Exposition in Washington, a handful of agents with Army counterintelligence are working to keep the Army\u2019s secrets safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow more than ever, our adversaries absolutely have a full court press on us in both the cyber domain and physical domain,\u201d said Brig. Gen. Sean Stinchon, head of Army Counterintelligence Command. \u201cThey\u2019re coming after our people, networks and critical infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Foreign agents attend shows such as AUSA, trying to collect sensitive information and exploit people, Stinchon said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scott Grovatt, region special agent in charge for the Northeast Region, told Army Times that his team collaborates with all levels of law enforcement to track possible incursions by foreign agents and actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Army is going through one of the largest transformations in the past 40 years, AI, autonomy, drones. The more industry is developing those capabilities, the more we are seeing the adversary gather, copy and mimic,\u201d Grovatt said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s why Grovatt\u2019s team contacts each industry participant and ensures they know to reach out if anyone is asking overly technical questions or trying to photograph items that are not supposed to be photographed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe let them know about the threat, what emerges and that it changes every day,\u201d Grovatt said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a before and after aspect to the work that counterintelligence does, Stinchon said. His agents break down by adversary the gaps they\u2019re seeking to fill and collect intelligence on. Then counterintelligence builds its network on the ground at the conference against what it believes the adversary is trying to collect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the conference, his team will publish reports on the trends they observed and lessons learned for the next conference or event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the efforts are mostly focused on educating and contacting industry vendors, Stinchon welcomed anyone to report suspicious activity that they might witness at the show, such as individuals asking detailed technical questions or requesting specifications, or people taking photographs of items that were explicitly noted not to be photographed, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Special Agent in Charge James, who declined to provide her first name due to security concerns, said that AUSA is one of the biggest shows that Army counterintelligence covers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe start prepping for this almost a year in advance,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the work isn\u2019t expected to slow down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe more advancements we make, the more it\u2019s going to increase,\u201d James said. \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been a decline in the amount of foreign registrants at AUSA.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Threats continue to increase as adversaries seek an edge in the technology race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":88295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[78,160,29,14,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3481],"class_list":["post-45663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ausa-digital-show-dailies","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-land","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"GG2OKLWRYBAPDLZHOITUMV27WE","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-army\/2025\/10\/14\/these-army-agents-keep-a-close-watch-on-the-services-secrets\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n