WASHINGTON — In an opinion editorial published by Breaking Defense, Representative Ronny Jackson (TX-13) highlighted the growing national security threat posed by ubiquitous technical surveillance (UTS) and the need to better protect America's servicemembers from digital vulnerabilities. He explains how commercially available data can expose military movements and operational patterns to America's adversaries.

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Protecting America’s Troops on the Digital Battlefield

Breaking Defense 

Rep. Ronny Jackson

July 29, 2026

Earlier this year, a naval officer’s routine use of the app Strava revealed the location of the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle while it was operating in the eastern Mediterranean, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran. No classified system was hacked. No network was deliberately penetrated. The information came from ordinary digital behavior that most people would never think twice about.

That is the danger of ubiquitous technical surveillance, or UTS.

UTS is the constant collection and monitoring of digital information through the combination of physical and environmental sensors, cameras, smartphones and mobile devices, fitness apps, financial transactions, connected devices, and the countless other technologies that quietly record where we go, who we meet, and what we do. One data point may seem harmless, but in the aggregate, these data points can quietly reveal actionable insights, such as military movements, operational patterns, and the identities of the people behind them.

If publicly available data can expose the location of an allied aircraft carrier, we should assume sophisticated, near-peer adversaries like China are already intentionally using the same methods to track and undermine the operations of US warfighters. And with the pace of technology, that threat is only growing.

We have already seen how digital carelessness becomes battlefield vulnerability. During the early stages of the war in Ukraine, the Russian military acknowledged that a Ukrainian strike killed scores of its soldiers and blamed the losses on cellphone use that exposed the soldiers’ position. The lesson is clear: digital discipline is now force protection.

During my 25 years of service in the United States Navy, including deployments to Iraq during the height of the insurgency, force protection meant physical barriers, guards, patrols, and hardened perimeters. Today, the threat is broader and more dangerous. Every smartphone, every app, every connected device, and every camera can become another sensor to be exploited by our adversaries.

As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s Intelligence and Special Operations Subcommittee, I have the opportunity to focus Congressional oversight on the growing risks of the modern information environment. During a hearing in our subcommittee in March, Adm. Frank Bradley, head of US Special Operations Command, specifically called out the UTS threat, labeling the information we expose in the digital domain a “boon for our adversaries.” Just a few weeks later, Bradley Hansell, the Under Secretary of War for Intelligence and Security, testified that the Defense Intelligence Enterprise is actively investing to “transform the human enterprise to Watch experts discuss foreign influence risks, evolving DoD policy, and strategies for balancing security with scientific collaboration.

It’s encouraging to see Department of War leaders clear-eyed about this threat. However, responsibility for countering UTS remains fractured; today, no single office has been given clear ownership of the responsibility to confront it at a department-wide level. 

That changes with Section 1098 in this year’s House National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). I was proud to lead this provision to help ensure the Department treats UTS as the persistent national security threat it is and institutionalize accountability across the entire enterprise.

For the first time, federal law would require the Department of War to designate a single head of an organization within the department as being responsible for identifying UTS vulnerabilities across the force. It would direct the department to develop a comprehensive strategy for the research, development, and procurement of secure communications and obfuscation technologies, develop UTS training and techniques to enhance force protection, and produce a plan for a long-term program of record to meet counter-UTS needs.

President Donald Trump has made rebuilding the world’s most lethal fighting force a top priority. But military strength is not just measured in platforms. It also depends on whether we can protect our servicemembers from the invisible threats that they are exposed to each and every day.

As Congress works to conference the House and Senate versions of this Fiscal Year 2027 NDAA, this critical provision should be preserved in any final package and signed into law. We would never send American troops into combat without body armor. We should not send them onto today’s digital battlefield without the appropriate protection either.

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