A company in Portland, Oregon, that specializes in AI targeting for drones has made significant shipments of materials to military contractors in Israel, according to cargo data reviewed by The Intercept. The shipments raise the possibility that a boutique Pacific Northwest tech firm has helped the Israeli military attack people in places like Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, among others.<\/p>\n
Sightline Intelligence, a firm focused on AI video processing, has made at least 10 shipments of hardware to the Israeli weapons giant Elbit Systems since 2024, according to investigators with the Movement Research Unit<\/a>, the group that originally obtained the documents.<\/p>\n The revelation that a local company has been doing business with Israel has led to protests by activists in Portland.<\/p>\n \u201cWe really want our city councilors to help us follow up and look into what Sightline is doing,\u201d said Olivia Katbi, a member of Portland Democratic Socialists of America and an organizer with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. \u201cAre they producing these items here in our city? What is their relationship with Elbit Systems in Israel?\u201d<\/p>\n Drones<\/a> have become a crucial part<\/a> of Israel\u2019s military strategy<\/a>, allowing it to mount deadly attacks without endangering its own troops, said Movement Research Unit\u2019s Abdullah F., who asked to omit his last name due to the sensitivity of his work.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve been connected to the death of many civilians,\u201d he said, \u201cand they\u2019re a critical part also of the surveillance architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n 10 Shipments<\/p>\n Researchers with the Movement Research Unit, which gathers information for left-wing organizations and causes, said they pinpointed 10 shipments from Sightline to Elbit Systems in Israel. Four of the shipments went to an Elbit facility in the city of Karmiel, Israel; four to Rehovot; one to Holon; and one to Haifa.<\/p>\n The Intercept was able to independently verify the dates and corresponding cargo weights of those shipments from Portland to Israel.<\/p>\n Six of the shipments passed through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and four went through Newark International Airport in New Jersey. (Sightline, its parent company Acron Technologies, and Elbit Systems did not respond to requests for comment.)<\/p>\n Using commercial data drawn from cargo manifests, the researchers found that the shipments included SLA-3000-OEM embedded video processing boards and associated components that are part of a surveillance system that can be used for target recognition.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can all imagine how decisions might be made based on that algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n In marketing materials, the company says the tech can quickly identify<\/a> people and vehicles on the ground and classify them as civilians, military targets, armed targets, or people willing or unwilling to surrender. It assigns a percentage to the confidence of these classifications.<\/p>\n \u201cSightline provides an application that allows unmanned vehicles to autonomously classify targets, and these video processing boards are a crucial part of that,\u201d Abdullah said. \u201cThey enable low-latency \u2014 AKA very fast \u2014 video processing so that a drone operator can, in real time, see like, \u2018This person is 94 percent unarmed\u2019 or \u201875 percent military.\u2019 And so we can all imagine how decisions might be made based on that algorithm.\u201d<\/p>\n Abdullah declined to detail research techniques for fear that companies could take steps to evade identification of future shipments. Research using these techniques has, however, been borne out in the past. Shipments identified by the group\u2019s methods were confirmed through parliamentary questioning in the United Kingdom<\/a> and are, in part, the basis for an ongoing court case in Belgium<\/a> against FedEx for the undeclared transport of weapons components, in both cases with regards to the shipment to Israel of parts for F-35 fighter planes.<\/p>\n Similar methods were also used to expose a shipment of nitrocellulose<\/a> \u2014 an explosive component used in ammunition \u2014 from JFK Airport to Israel in May 2025, as first reported by The Intercept and the Irish investigative website The Ditch<\/a>.<\/p>\n Israeli Targeting<\/p>\n Originally founded in 2007 as Sightline Applications, Sightline Intelligence is based in Portland, with offices in Hood River, Oregon, and Brisbane, Australia. Until Friday, the company was owned by Artemis, a Boston-based private equity firm that announced last week<\/a> it had sold the company for an undisclosed sum to Acron Technologies.<\/p>\n Sightline specializes in target recognition and touts its low-latency video processing as an essential tool in the modern military arsenal. The firm has not publicized business dealings with Elbit Systems, a prominent target of the global BDS movement. On its website, however, Sightline lists FMS Aerospace \u2014 a company that works with weapons contractors in the country \u2014 as an \u201cinternational partner.\u201d FMS Aerospace, in turn, lists Israel\u2019s air force as a partner<\/a>, along with Elbit Systems and other companies in the Israeli military\u2013industrial complex.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s use of military drones and commercial quadcopter drones<\/a> has been documented extensively by journalists<\/a> and human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch<\/a> and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor<\/a>. There is no publicly available information as to whether the hardware or software developed by Sightline Intelligence has seen use in the field by Israeli forces, but a recent photo included in a dossier of information hacked from the phone of a high-ranking general appears to indicate that, at the very least, Israel has tested the technology, Abdullah said.<\/p>\n The photo<\/a>, published online by the Handala hacking team, an outfit believed to be operating out of Iran<\/a>, shows Israeli Gen. Herzi Halevi with half a dozen other men in military garb and a laptop screen in view that appears to shows a software user interface that places a map with markings on the left of the screen and informational and toggle displays in a column on the right side. (Abdullah, who pointed The Intercept to the image, cautioned that he could not independently verify it.) The display is similar to the user interface for Sightline targeting program that the company posted online<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the laptop you can see what looks very, very similar to Sightline\u2019s geospatial intelligence planning tool,\u201d Abdullah said. \u201cYou can see the long blue lines that are on the front of the screen, which appear to match up with the planning tool. You can also see a couple of blue toggles on the side that also seem to match up, and then a goal distance bar in the bottom right of the screen that appears very similar.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we cannot say conclusively that this is the same platform,\u201d he added, \u201cthis is highly suggestive of this software being deployed or trialed in an Israeli military environment.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Thank You For Joining! <\/p>\n \n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/p>\n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?\n <\/p>\n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n Portland Protests<\/p>\n In Portland, protesters organizing against Sightline\u2019s business relationship with Israel spoke last week at a City Council meeting and later gathered several dozen people to rally outside the company\u2019s headquarters. (A spokesperson for Portland Mayor Keith Wilson declined to comment.)<\/p>\n One item in particular from Sightline\u2019s promotional materials caught the eye of local activists. The company\u2019s website shows what appears to be a surveillance image taken from above the aerial tram stop at Oregon Health & Science University, a public research university in the city.<\/p>\n
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