hep 320 final

• Intelligence process


  1. Requirements (planning/direction)

  2. Collection

  3. Processing/exploitation

  4. Analysis/production

  5. Dissemination(consumption/feedback)
• The intelligence process is a never-ending cycle, non-linear
• Collection methods


  Considered during a planning/direction process
• Requirements (planning/direction)


  What intelligence is needed for collection, and what intelligence is collected - made by policy makers
• There are limitations to the intelligence process because of technical (capability) or personnel resources - RESOURCES are the hidden driving factor that drives priorities
• Priorities have to be set and conveyed to the intelligence community
• Requirements may be satisfied by a single or multiple collection methods
• Analysts


  • Need to have knowledge of sources, may uncover information that addresses other requirements or new/valuable information hasn't been addressed in a formal requirement
• Collection produces information NOT intelligence - processing and exploitation have to happen before it is passed to analysts
• Current vs long term intelligence

  How to balance resources/time spent on each - long term threats we already know about
• Classification system


  • Confidential - information whose unauthorized disclosure could cause damage to national security
  • Secret - information whose disclosure could be expected to cause serious damage to US security
  • Top secret - information whose disclosure could cause exceptionally grave damage to national security
• Other classification


  • Law enforcement sensitive - information of on-going criminal cases
  • Sensitive homeland security information - information or threats that may include protective measures that if compromised, would negate their effectiveness
• Requirements


  Intelligence priorities should reflect policy priorities, long standing requirements or continuous requirements, often policy makers fail to specify requirements or assume that a requirement already exists
• Requirements gap


  Caused by policy makers not providing specific/clear requirements, is an area of unknown and requires information
• Ad-hocs


  Additional requirements added by the intelligence community based on their analysis of data collected against a specific requirement
• Collection (the INTs)


  • More important element of intelligence from a budgetary and resource perspective
  • Analysis driven collection is a goal of the intelligence process, meaning collection priorities should reflect the intelligence needs of the analysts
  • Denial - target uses knowledge of collection method to avoid collections
  • Deception - target transmits information knowingly to the collector
  • It is a requirement to identify countries that practice denial and deceptions
  • Pros to commercial satellite - provides opportunities to free up intelligence satellites, con is that it could offer hostile/terrorist groups access to useful imagery
• Counterintelligence


  • External indicators - sudden loss of overseas spy network, change in patterns of military exercises, SIGINT can offer indicators of ongoing espionage
  • Discovery of foreign agents may not automatically lead to arrest as opportunities are presented to learn more about the intelligence services activities
• Issues/challenges in counterintelligence include: any CI penetration will be covert, human factor - basic tendency is to trust your own people that are vetted/cleared, unwanted suspicion can be disruptive, CI point of friction between FBI and CIA
• Covert action


  Activity of the US govt to influence/manipulate political/economic or military conditions overseas - goal is that the role of US govt won't be known
• Covert action methods


  • Propaganda
  • Political covert action
  • Economic covert action
  • Coup
  • Paramilitary covert action
• Covert action operations


  • Operation Ajax - Iran 1953
  • Operation Success - Guatemala 1954
  • Bay of Pigs invasion
  • Assassination attempts on Fidel Castro
  • Phoenix program in Vietnam
  • Supporting Mujahedeen in Afghanistan against Soviets
• Covert action ladder


  Graph showing the violence and ability for plausible deniability of different covert action methods - from least violent/most deniable (propaganda) to most violent/least deniable (paramilitary ops)
• History of covert operations - from WWII sabotage to Cold War and post-9/11 operations, with changing budgets and focus over time
• Covert action decision making process

  Requires presidential finding, notification to Congress, staying within the law, and executive leader approval
• How many assassination attempts did US have for Fidel Castro- 638
• identifying requirements: defining policy issues or areas to which intelligence is expected to make a contribution, also makes decisions about which issues have priority over others, it could also mean specifying the collection of certain types of intelligence
• collection produces information not intelligence
• more information can be collected than can be processed or exploited
• intelligence priorities should reflect policy priorities
• National security council NSC sets the policy and intelligence priorities- the DNI is the final adjudicator within the intelligence community
• intellectual means of assessing requirements is to look at the likelihood of an event and its relative importance to national security, the greater concern being the highest likelihood and importance
• it should be easier to assess importance (based on known or stated national interests) than the likelihood (an intelligence judgement or estimation but not a prediction)
• resources are the hidden factor that drives priorities
• priority creep becomes man issue when analysts or policy makers seek higher priority for certain issues and is also known as the "priority trap." there is also difficulty encountered in returning issues to a lower priority status
• ad hocs: unexpected issues that come up with little to no warning
• collection comes directly from requirements because the requirement depends on the nature of the issue and on the types of collection that is available.
• processing and exploitation are key steps in converting technically collected information into intelligence, and collection far outruns processing or exploitation capabilities in the US
• down stream activities: steps that follow collection
• TPED: tasking, processing, exploitation, and dissemination

  tasking: the assigning of collectors to specific tasks

  tasking and dissemination are the least problematic for the IC and congress
• analytically driven information: collectors act in response to analytic needs and not independently or opportunistically

  analysts are not intellectual ciphers