Summer reading

I’ve been working through some journal articles that have been stacking up in my ‘to read’ bin.

Training and Educating U.S. Intelligence Analysts (International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol22 no 1)  Stephen Marrin.

Interesting (although not particularly ground breaking) discussion of the challenges the community is facing circa 2008.  While the author confines his discussion to the federal IC, most of what he says applies to sub-national intelligence agencies as well.

He links a number of ideas that have been floated around for a few years.  I like his description of intelligence training being divided into two general camps (‘trainers vs. educators’) which roughly corresponds to the debate of intelligence as art versus science, craft versus profession, etc.  Ultimately settles on a none too surprising conclusion that a mix of both is what we need.  The devil, as they say, remains in the details of actually bringing such a system to fruition.

The best part of the paper is an unanswered question that everyone in charge of an analytical unit or designer of an analytical training program should ask themselves before they undertake any reform.

Do the training centers teach structured methods because they are the best way to do analysis, or do they teach structured methods because that’s what they can teach?…are the intelligence organizations emphasizing the value of structured methods because their application produces better analysis, or because the formal process of teaching these methods provides a way for the organizations to prove to external overseers that they are improving…?

The Intelligence Analyst as Epistemologist (International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol19 no 4)  Mathew Herbert

Very interesting (if somewhat dense) article that argues that “[i]ntelligence analysis, unlike many mature professions, lacks an agreed, unified methodology and the experts necessary for regulating one.”  That lack of shared paradigm allows all sorts of snake oil salesmen to sell (often times literally) their wares and drown out more rigorously done analysis.

What is required, Herbert asserts, is

• an emphasis on difference between  what is known and what is believed
• an ability to understand and communicate the level of probability or uncertainty in both individual assumptions as well as how uncertainties within a chain of reasoning interact with each other
• an understanding of key information which is unknown but could alter a particular analytical judgment (those pesky Rumsfeldian ‘known unknowns’)

Definitely worth a second read.

Political Scrutiny and Control of Scandinavia’s Security and Intelligence Services (International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol13 no 2) Geoffrey R. Weller

An overview of domestic intelligence scandals in Sweden, Norway and Denmark from post WWII to the mid-90s and the differing responses from the various governments.  It’s particularly interesting to read this article (written in 2000) from a post 9/11 viewpoint where intelligence services were given much wider latitude in their activities among domestic populations.

If you aren’t particularly interested in the region, here’s the relevant bit for wherever you are:

The Scandinavian experience of controversy in relation to the security and iintelligence serves indicates clearly that control that blends protection for citizens and a need for efficient iintelligence agencies is extremely difficult to achieve, even in nations with a strong democratic tradition and a strong tradition of parliamentary supremacy.

Or, may I add, with a popular leader promising change and a more open, transparent government. (H/T A. Sullivan)

Harsh Lessons:  Roman Intelligence in the Hannibalic War (International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol17 no 3) Daniel A. Fournie

Caesar, Intelligence, and Ancient Britain ((International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence vol15 no 1) Rose Mary Sheldon

I mention these together not only because they cover similar subject matter (intelligence in ancient Rome) but because the Fournie piece was heavily influenced by the work of Sheldon.

If you have an interest in ancient Rome or military history I’d recommend both of these pieces.   They do an admirable job of taking sparse source material to talk about ideas and concepts which weren’t developed at the time.   Even though I was familiar with both military conflicts I have to admit I never thought of them from an intelligence perspective.  Good stuff.

Counterinsurgency as domestic policy?

I was thinking about the infatuation everyone has apparently developed with social networking software as a result of the resent events in Iran and I began considering ways in which they could as intelligence collection assets.

Then I read Peter’s post (with whom I am engaged in an interesting if accidental back and forth) further expanding upon the idea about using counterinsurgency concepts to reconsider approaches to stressed (high crime, non-existent legal economic base, lawlessness, etc) urban areas in Western cities.

Stick with me as I try to intertwine these two ideas.

Peter says:

Give trusted local partners in local communities the training, resources, backup and legal authority to provide their own basic security – as community patrols, neighbourhood watches, special constables?  Free up law enforcement agencies for specialist tasks, like emergency response, investigations, surveillance, and intelligence collecting and analysis.

I would agree  with this sentiment although, as a precondition, locals would need to trust whatever ‘local partners’ take over basic security.   That might prove to be difficult and have to be built from the ground up.  In Iraq, the U.S. co-opted the Sons of Iraq, most of whom were militia members, former insurgents or armed tribesmen of dubious law abiding credentials but with the general trust of those they would be patrolling.  I don’t think there’s a reasonable counterpart that could be quickly adopted for use in Western cities.  Even if there was I think any such organization would be viewed with hostility by law enforcement which would see it as a competitor for authority and resources.

However, there is an important role to be played by local residents.  Not only are there not enough resources to adequately patrol every neighborhood but, from a broader public safety perspective, there are huge gaps in our knowledge of the environment.  Everyone knows people have (but frequently don’t use) 9-1-1 to report crimes but what about places where people feel unsafe for any number of reasons?  At what point will authorities find out that some buildings being taken over by homeless squatters?  That illegal garbage is being dumped in an abandoned lot?  That street lights have been shot out along a certain section of road?

Typically, that information has to peculate through a variety of channels, usually avoiding any sort of integration and thereby making the development of a clear picture of what’s going on difficult.

Here’s where those Iranian protesters come back into things.  If we could get locals to use social networking tools to provide near real time information about their neighborhoods, it would provide authorities the ability to address problems more quickly and consistently than currently.

Now, first off, I’m not advocating any sort of secret police, inform on your neighbor sort of system.  One of the characteristics of any such reporting system is that information submitted should be visible to the general public (like a twitter feed, blog post or flickr photostream).  Unfortunately the law enforcement community has picked up the bad habit of overclassification from the national intelligence community and seems to think the more information it can keep from the public the more valuable it is.  Real confidential information (anonymous reporting of crime, etc) should be handled in the traditional way.

Consider the effects of having a series of tweets from residents all saying they won’t let their children get on the school bus at the 4th street stop because of drug dealing in the area or reporting on a running gun battle (which don’t always get reported).  Or asking people to send in photos of their neighborhoods of areas that are unsafe or frightening (my boss told me about that idea at a conference he recently attended…my apologies but I don’t know who to attribute that to).

And there’s nothing saying this would have to be a one way communication.  Couldn’t authorities use this to query the general public for information?  Asking people to identify the location of homeless people in advance of a dangerous cold snap so that they can be brought to shelters, for example.

If you develop that capacity, then you’d also be better prepared in the event of a larger threat to public safety.  Imagine the utility of such a resource during Katrina or the Los Angeles riots.  What neighborhoods are safe and calm and which need attention immediately?  What’s going on in areas with limited access?

The Army has a concept called ‘Every Soldier a Sensor‘ which is designed to get soldiers used to the idea that, in addition to their assigned military specialty, they also have a role as an information/intelligence collector.  I’m advocating something like a ‘Every Citizen a Sensor’ approach with careful consideration of preventing/removing any sinister Orwellian implications.

Of course, you’d need a whole host of collators and analysts at the back end to integrate that information with the stuff collected from traditional channels and then create something that can be used by decision makers and the general public.  Some of this work could (and hopefully would) be done by the public, combining the data with other information to examine in ways that are relevant to them and the authorities (police, emergency services, transportation/infrastructure types, etc.) would be customers in their own rights using the data as they see best.

Stop screwing with our preconceived notions!

Karma is a bitch.  One day after taking someone to task for referencing themselves too much I find myself tempted to do the same thing.

Another right wing extremist (conservative translation is apparently:  hard working, God-fearing, patriotic American who isn’t worth the attention of the DHS) has decided to let God sort ‘em out and shot some security guards at the Holocaust museum.

So, we have one guy kill George Tiller and claim more assassinations are on the way, another shooting two weeks later and I still have people telling me that right wing extremism is a liberal invention that will distract us from the ‘real’ threat.  Apparently the guys who can’t figure out how to get a map of Ft. Dix in 18 months are suddenly going to become super-villans and carry out a wave of attacks that will bring the republic to its knees.  Of course, radical Islamists are a threat but their light shouldn’t blind us to the other stars of extremism out there.

I suspect part of the problem is that many still can’t get their heads around the idea of leaderless resistance and so can point to the unconnectedness of these attacks as evidence that there isn’t a real threat but rather ‘just a bunch of kooks’.  But that’s the whole point of that strategy.  You’re not going to have a convenient puppet master you can put on an FBI poster and scare little children with if they don’t eat their spinach.

The Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Law Enforcement complex has invested so much effort into focusing on Muslim terrorists and WMD attacks it’ll be interesting to see what it’ll take to shatter that paradigm.  While I hope I’m wrong it’ll still be interesting to see how people try to spin the ‘it flew under our radar’ or ‘no one could have predicted this’ message if a non-Koran weilding terrorist causes a mass casualty attack or the body count from these types of attacks eventually reaches the ‘Houston, we have a problem’ threshold.

Extremists? Nah, they just want to hug with hate.

The outrage at intelligence agencies calling out right wing extremism were spot on, even if the reports themselves were a bit generic and bland.  Information about the Tiller assassin indicates he wasn’t a single issue fanatic:

“He told me about a lot of conspiracy stuff and showed me how to take the magnetic strip out of a five-dollar bill,” Leach said. “He said it was to keep the government from tracking your money.”

Roeder, who in the 1990s was a manufacturing assemblyman, also was involved in the “Freemen” movement.

“Freemen” was a term adopted by those who claimed sovereignty from government jurisdiction and operated under their own legal system, which they called common-law courts. Adherents declared themselves exempt from laws, regulations and taxes and often filed liens against judges, prosecutors and others, claiming that money was owed to them as compensation.

In April 1996, Roeder was arrested in Topeka after Shawnee County sheriff’s deputies stopped him for not having a proper license plate. In his car, officers said they found ammunition, a blasting cap, a fuse cord, a one-pound can of gunpowder and two 9-volt batteries, with one connected to a switch that could have been used to trigger a bomb.

If there’s any good to come of this, hopefully it’ll be that people will realize this isn’t some sort of game and pull back before the body count rises.  Certainly after Oklahoma City that happened.  One indicator of how things will go, I believe, will be if Roeder is regarded as a kook or a martyr by the far right.  If the former, this event might just be an anomoly.  If the latter, get ready for more of the same.

And the waters cleared…

Good news today as the President ordered a review of our national classification system perhaps even more interesting is that it looks like the review will include information included in the ‘Sensitive but Unclassified‘ category as well.

This is great news since it seems that everyone and their brother seems to subscribe to the idea that ‘the only valuable information is restricted information’ and so slaps all sorts of caveats onto their products to give them the air of gravitas.  My personal pet peeve is ‘law enforcement sensitive’ which is horribly overused and guidelines for its use (like who can slap that title on or take it off) are about as elusive as bigfoot.

Let’s hope this is a sign of some coming common sense.

Once more into the breach

I’m still thinking about that DHS report that’s caused such a stir among the right.  This post got me thinking about how the wording of the report got interpreted differently by different audiences.  I suspect Malkin accurately captured the assumption of the right today (and could have described the left over the past eight years) when she wrote that “there are no coincidences” when discussing the current administration.

In fact, there are coincidences everywhere, as this video demonstrates (h/t Daily Dish)

And so, when members of the right read in the report that

“right wing extremists are antagonistic toward the new presidential administration and its perceived stance on a range of issues, including immigration and citizenship, the expansion of social programs to minorities, and restrictions on firearms and use”,

I suspect they understand that to mean:

“Everyone who exhibits any of these characteristics will be classified as a ‘right-wing extremist’.”

I’m guessing the writers assumed their product would only be read by law enforcement officials and so didn’t think they needed to insert a disclaimer or more complete defintion that would be understood without explicitly being made.  While that is taken for granted by most in the field, readers not familiar with intelligence work in the law enforcement/homeland security field would have no context or familiarity with which to place the report.

Therefore, I’d argue that the intent of that sentence was suppossed to be something along the lines of:

The definition of right-wing extremism (to the extent that it is of interest to law enforcement/homeland security personnel) depends not only on the ideology (mentioned above) of individuals but also on criminal activity connected to or in furtherance of that ideology.

In any case, it’s more a case of poor writing/organization than a harbinger of a sinister plan to lock up ‘undesirables’ into some sort of FEMA created gulag.

Therefore, blogging about tax policy isn’t a problem but arguing that someone should bomb the Treasury and then illegally acquiring explosives might put you in the ‘right wing extremist’ category.

Hysteria over the DHS

I’m not entirely sure why but there’s been some hysteria over a recently leaked report by the DHS about the possible rise of right wing extremism.  Michelle Malkin’s screeching will probably be picked up by remote alien civilizations it’s so loud.  It really would be nice if these people would read the document before they start screaming about the destruction of the constitution.

This assessment is very typical of the sorts of warning that have been put out since 9/11.  Like Greenwald and Sullivan point out, we didn’t hear a peep from these quarters when the federal government was collecting intelligence and issuing warning about various peace groups and kids keying SUVs.

The truth is much closer to Marc Ambinder’s assessment.  The report doesn’t mention any groups or specific threats but is rather a general assessment of what the law enforcement/intelligence community might see in the future.  C’mon people, this is what your intelligence analysts are supposed to do.  Now, it is true, as Marc says:

The report is pretty absurd. Absurd in that a government report was prepared and disseminated to tell law enforcement officials something everyone already knows: instability nourishes discontent, some racists dislike Obama, and as the “out” group, the fringes of the right are more unhappy than usual.

Unfortunately, that is the general level of analytical product circulating nowadays and (equally disturbing) is not something ‘everyone already knows’.  Just because the FBI and DHS elements in Washington D.C. have a good understanding of domestic extremism (and given some of the products I’ve read about animal extremism over the years, I’m not entirely convinced of that) that can not be considered evidence that offices and agencies further away from the hub are equally well attuned.

Mark also makes a great observation that the report really sugar coats some of the motivations of right wing extremism, particularly with regards to immigration.  While the report identifies wage deflation as the cause of anger over illegal immigration that does gloss over the xenophobia that underlies much of the movement.

I agree the assessment is generally fluff and could have been summarized to a page or less but I’m guessing most of its ten pages was designed to insulate the DHS from just the sort of criticism it is now facing by trying to provide some context to their assertions. The report goes out of its way to avoid talking about mainstream political opposition in fact, ignoring the numerous ‘mainstream‘ sources which seem to be claiming that the current administration is planning to destroy the Republic in order to establish some sort of Communist regime and coming as close to inciting violence as they can while maintaing plausible deniability.

In fact, if you read Malkin’s post you’ll see that all of her objections rely on living in her paranoid world where:

“In Obama land, there are no coincidences.”

Ah, yes.  Obama the puppet master.  Pulling the strings and controlling the vast left wing conspiracy.

Now, I’m not one who believes ‘What’s good for the goose…’ in this situation.  If the rights of Americans are being violated then it’s a disaster for all of us.  Even if they are bat-shit crazy.  But that’s not the situation here.  There are no warnings about the infamous ‘Tea-Parties’ or any political groups names.  If Ms. Malkin were truly as “familiar with past assessments [the DHS] and the FBI have done” then she would know the same cannot be said of past assessments about eco-extremists over the past ten years.  One needn’t look far to find countless examples of warnings issued about legal activities conducted by law abiding citizens simply because they share similar ideological beliefs (yet to a less extreme degree).

After all, despite being active for over 30 years and consistently being labeled the most serious domestic terrorist threat in the United States, ecological extremists still haven’t managed to kill anyone.

Right wing extremists have a much more successful track record.

It’s also not insulting vets.  It’s simply saying that vets might be targeted for recruitment by extremist groups.  Just like they are supposedly recruited by street gangs.  There’s absolutely nothing new there.  Move along.

Like the recent dust up over a similar assessment by the Missouri Information Analysis Center this may be a weak intelligence product but it’s not sinister.  In fact, if you are convinced the government is salivating over the chance to kick your dog and take your guns you should be feeling pretty good about this assessment.  Is this really the best the new Maoist/Stalinist intelligence community can do when they’ve been mobilized to attack freedom loving patriots?

So my problems with the assessment are rather banal.  Annoying lack of details, over classification, no sourcing of information, no good indicators to identify illegal extremist activities and the use of the word ‘chatter’.  But that doesn’t mean assessments like this shouldn’t be done.  They just need to be done correctly.  It is can be a tricky row to hoe in not crossing the line and collecting on legitimate political activity but that’s what we are paying our intelligence professionals for.  The wrong thing to do would be to cave into pressure and stop all examination of political extremism because of hysterical rantings by people whose livelyhood depends on dividing the country.

I’d recommend checking out AJStrata’s comments of this little drama.  Today was the first I ever saw his blog but anyone concerned about the future of the Republican party/conservative movement should read his posts as a warning of what’s in store if they continue along their path.

TSA follies

After years of travelling both internationally and domestically and having various tubes of toothpaste, shampoo and other sundries taken from me, being forced through the security line like a fattened bovine through the cattle chute on its way to becoming a double cheeseburger and learning to remove various items of clothing so well while standing and juggling various items that I think I’m now qualified to teach advanced burlesque techniques, the TSA has decided to take a firm stance against my dangerous behavior.

Finally, after playing who knows how many rounds of Russian roulette with me, they finally decided to take this dangerous weapon away from me.  With its intimidating 1+ inch blade who knows what kind of havoc I could have wrecked.  I’m not sure how this is dangerous and yet the TSA thinks a 4 inch pair of scissors isn’t (after all, it’s not like I couldn’t seperate the shears and end up with two four inch long blades) but it seems clear these carry on policies are still a bit rough around the edges.

Honestly I forgot I had the thing in my wallet but probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought if I had remembered it.  At $3 a pop the things are pretty much disposable so I’ll probably get another, put it in my wallet and forget about it.  If the past is anything to go by I won’t have to worry about the TSA taking that one until 2018.

“We had no idea it could end like this.”

Of course, we won’t even get that level of responsibility when some kook takes a shot at the President, or another truck bomb to a federal building, or some other act of terrorism. Do they know how close to the fire they’re playing? (from TPM)

“…a revolution every now and then is a good thing. We are at the point, Sean, of revolution.”

“…we have no hope of standing on our own as a sovereign nation with our own economic system. It’s over.”

“  But where tyranny is enforced upon the people, as Barack Obama is doing, the people suffer and mourn.”

Tyranny?  Tyranny?  Does this jackass have a clue to what that word actually means?  Perhaps they should also look up the term ‘histrionic’, ‘hysterical’ and ‘paranoid’.

But wait…the very existence of the Republic is at stake:

Right now I’m a member of Congress. And I believe that my job here is to be a foreign correspondent, reporting from enemy lines. And people need to understand, this isn’t a game. this isn’t just a political talk show that’s happening right now. This is our very freedom, and we have 230 years, a continuous link of freedom that every generation has ceded to the next generation. This may be the time when that link breaks.

This is not political debate.  It’s seeing how close one can get to inciting violence without being held criminally liable.

If this was a lone voice in the wilderness you could write it off as inbreeding or a psychotic episode but as I’ve mentioned before (here and here)  it is a reoccuring theme in the public discourse which, in these very troubling times may prove to be a volatile mix.  I wonder how gung-ho for revolution these people will be when this sort of rhetoric leads to dead Americans.  Oh wait, that’s right, these are the people who brought us the Iraq war.

Business as usual.

All aboard for Crazytown…

I may be jumping the gun on this but I can’t help feeling that some potentially dangerous stars are aligning that might signal the resurgence of the right wing extremism in the coming years.  Here’s what I mean:

• Economic distress – Providing you haven’t been living in a cave during the past few months you know this already.  Assuming things don’t get better (or at look like they might get better) at some point people might blame the government for their problems (apparently about 18 months from now).
• Border troubles down South – There is a possibility that military forces may play a more prominent role in maintaining the border with Mexico.  Details are sketchy but there might be questions of posse comitatus which always gets the right wing extremists fired up.
• Increased rhetoric within the mainstream media.  Remember all that talk about how we would be forced to become Socialists?  Obama was a radical Muslim?  And he isn’t a real citizen?  FEMA is building concentration camps?  While Batshit crazy seems to be the style of many conservative pundits (Mr. Beck, your straight jacket is waiting.) I suspect not everyone’s psycho-meter is fully engaged and able to realize these transmissions are originating from bizarro world.

Now, I’m certainly not saying that there’s any sort of imminent threat but I think the conditions may come to exist in which a triggering event could set of a reaction of extremist activity.  After all, the nominal cause of the riots in Greece this past winter was the shooting of a kid by the police but there had to be a host of additional factors in play to mobilize the population like it did (likewise the Paris riots, L.A. riots, et. al.)

In an incredible instance of fortuitous timing, on the same day I was thinking about writing about this WikiLeaks (which, on balance, is a very good site) released a document from the Missouri Information Analysis Center titled “The Modern Militia Movement“.  It’s not a bad report as these things go.  I’ve certainly seen much worse.  But it does leave out supporting information for various assertions and it’s not at all clear if ‘militia activity’ they cite really was done for political reasons, was routine criminal activity or the suspects were just freakin’ nutjobs.  As a result, it’s not clear if this is an emerging threat or a report in search of a problem.  I certainly have my suspicions but would like to see them make a stronger case.