ABSTRACT The relationship of the intelligence services with openness has been elusive and erratic, changing at the path of the scandals that shaked politics and public opinion. At different rhythms and marked by their national contexts, different intelligence services have embarked over the last two decades in different initiatives to promote societal awareness and a better understanding among society on the intelligence function. In this paper, a theoretical framework is proposed for understanding those openness strategies implemented by the intelligence agencies. The paper discusses two potential approaches to openness with a spectrum of mixed approaches in-between them. The first consists of generating and maintaining a (good) image/reputation and, the second is to legitimize its existence and its role within the State.
ABSTRACT The COVID-19 pandemic has fostered a greater appreciation of the significance of health security and intelligence capabilities. This article examines health security and intelligence capabilities in the United States and other countries, with a view to raising awareness of biological threats across the Five Eyes community. New biotechnologies offer vaccines, therapies, and healthcare solutions, but also present biological threats that must be managed. This article begins by discussing the rise of biological threats and the relative lax regulatory environment in the United States and overseas. The second part then examines the growing importance of health security intelligence and the role it can play in response to this potential threat. The third part focuses on intelligence collection, capability, and threat mitigation, and how this could be mobilized to address harmful impacts of biological threats. The final part of the article provides recommendations for building an intelligence capacity within ICs as well as associated regulatory reforms.
Since December 2019, Coronavirus has been spreading rapidly across the world. From its early stages, while the rest of the world was still new to COVID-19, Italy was one of the first and most severely hit countries. The chronic nature of the COVID-19 outbreak and untimely treatments were translated into an unstable social and emotional environment. This study explores the societal response to the first wave of the pandemic outbreak in Italy, looking at geographic variations, social and policy perspectives, and sentiments across northern, central, and southern regions. For this study, we collected nearly three million tweets associated with the coronavirus outbreak in the Italian regions of Lombardy, Lazio, and Sicily, during the months of March-May, 2020. A sentiment analysis was developed to (i) identify the spatio-temporal distribution of the polarity patterns of anger, fear, and joy; (ii) test correlation between these sentiments and COVID-19 cases; and (iii) determine the statistical significance between the sentiments across geographies. Findings provide insights on the relationship between sentiment variations and spatio-temporal case distribution associated with regional differences. These findings align with those of the "Track IT. COVID-19 International Survey," that investigated the societal response of Italians to the new measures enforced by local governments. Overall, the findings of this study can be weaved together into important implications for emotional wellbeing and economic perspective.
ABSTRACT Contributions to the Italian intelligence studies literature have seen an expansion since the major reform of Italian intelligence introduced in 2007. Italian civil society also increasingly recognizes the importance of intelligence. This paper first explores Italian intelligence studies literature as it stands today before considering the academic research. The six main categories of Italian intelligence literature are presented within: history, sources of intelligence, international relations and geopolitics, theories of intelligence and theoretical frameworks, great figures and memoirs, law enforcement, and the fight against criminal organizations. A short comparative analysis between the Italian literature and international intelligence studies is drawn which includes a comparison of categories, topics, key questions, and projects. The goal of this paper, therefore, is to draw a likely depiction of the state of Italian intelligence studies.
This article examines the activities and controversies of the Policy Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) within the context of the 1976 “B Team” competitive analysis exercise. While this policy-based red team exercise failed to help the intelligence community (IC) to avoid an intelligence failure in the months preceding the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the external narratives focusing upon it served as a conceptual “red herring” for an accurate assessment of its activities and thus helped to distort intelligence reform efforts in the post-failure period. Ultimately, this case casts further doubt upon the utility of red teams within a policy environment.
Since our last publishing, a year has passed and too many things have happened. It’s true that life is movement. However, the feeling is that there is not much new under the sun. With all the nuanc...
With COVID-19 global deaths surpassing a million lives as of late-September 2020, there are compelling reasons to examine the epidemic warning process and how public health agencies work with governments to translate their information into action. The problem of failures in this warning-policy interface has long been an issue for intelligence agencies worldwide. This paper explores the problem of intelligence failures and applies their lessons to the warning and response to pandemics and other large-scale health emergencies and disasters. This analysis offers lessons for public health warning and response to future pandemic crises. Pandemic response is potentially more complex than traditional national security issues as government players are augmented by nongovernmental organizations, health practitioners, the private sector, and general public of every country in the world. Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic with an international perspective can aid warning and response to coming waves as well as future epidemics. A set of suggestions are provided for epidemic intelligence warning and response to pandemics presenting whole-of-society and transnational approaches. Included are areas for further research including research avenues to prevent and mitigate the future pandemic events.
The August 2021Taliban takeover of Kabul, and the prospect of Jihadi influxes from Afghanistan subject to Taliban government manipulation, elicit several international security challenges to the United States, and several international and domestic security challenges to several nation-states in close proximity to Afghanistan. Those countries include, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Pakistan, India, China, and Iran. The threat from potential Jihadi influxes is examined, along with new opportunities for the Biden administration to improve relations with Iran’s Ayatollah Khamene’i and President Raisi by means of what political scientists call “assurance games.” It follows the use of an “ assurance games” framework to help protect Iranian interests in Afghanistan such as the Hazaras for example, has the potential to influence the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) talks because issue areas in international politics are related. To further this goal, public U.S. administration support for the efforts by the Taliban government to protect Hazara communities in Afghanistan against ISIS-K terrorism is critical for a substantive reengagement of American influence in Afghanistan. At the domestic politics level, this is also a prudent position for President Biden to take after his ill-conceived and costly withdrawal from Afghanistan
ABSTRACT The intelligence and security sector in Brazil has experienced institutional tensions between legitimacy and effectiveness throughout its history. The combination of unequal socioeconomic structures, an authoritarian political culture, and uncooperative political dynamics explain such imbalances. During the Military Dictatorship (1964–1985), the National Information Service (SNI) was effective against those opposing the regime. The New Republic (1985–2014) tried to overcome its legacy. In 1990, the SNI was closed down. In the first decade after the Cold War, security reforms lingered. The National Congress established the Brazilian Intelligence Agency (ABIN) in 1999. Over two decades, the Brazilian Intelligence System (SISBIN) expanded to 42 leading agencies. Legislative oversight developed slowly and narrowly focused on ABIN. Although prone to various crises, Brazil was able to keep the trilemma democracy, security, and development in precarious equilibrium. Tight reelection for Dilma Rousseff (PT) in 2014 marked a new prolonged economic crisis and bitterly polarized politics in Brazil. Under Bolsonaro, there is concern about the military tutelage, undue politicization of law enforcement and security, and insufficient legislative oversight. Legitimacy in the security realm depends on analytical integrity, robust accountability, and clear operational rules and limits. Will that be possible in an era of global erosion of equality and democracy?
ABSTRACT This article argues that lack of effective strategic security planning and capacity building undercuts the ability of security agencies to provide adequate intelligence and effective security to multinational oil pipeline facilities in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta. The article relies on content analysis and interpretative reviews of government documents to underscore the problem of strategic security planning in Nigeria. Using the case of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), the article establishes important linkages on how critical strategic planning gaps are implicated in the government’s inability to upscale professionalism of security officials and procure important operational equipment and gadgets such as hi-tech communication gadgets, firefighting equipment, operational vehicles, trucks, cranes, speedboats, surveillance equipment, helicopters, and speedboats. Again, the award of pipeline surveillance and protection contracts to private companies encouraged overlap functions and frictions, which further undermined the general coordination and stability of the Corps as a security agency.
This paper examines the challenges faced by the U.S. intelligence community (IC) in recognizing and responding to the elements inherent in asymmetric competition with China. We offer that cultural and procedural impediments are negatively impacting the community’s capabilities and argue that reliance on outdated methodologies and ad hoc technology acquisition to detect activities specific to asymmetric competition has allowed adversaries to exploit three types of interstitial gray areas (IGA) – operational, organizational, and informational. We argue that an updated framework to combat emerging threats from asymmetric competition and commensurate IGAs that has been proven in field settings to enhance detection, deterrence, denial, diplomacy, and defense against adversarial actions is needed. We demonstrate how the framework improves security resilience by focusing more on the human as a driver and user throughout the system, enabled by technological tools that start with the development of more diverse rules for data analytics through inputs from of federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, provincial, and private sector operators.
The current fight against COVID-19 is not only around its prevention and cure but it is also about mitigating the negative impact resulting from misinformation around it. The pervasiveness of social media and access to smartphones has propelled the spread of misinformation on such a large scale that it is considered as one of the main threats to our society by the World Economic Forum. This ‘Infodemic’ has caused widespread rumors, fueled practices that can jeopardize one’s health, and has even resulted in hate violence in certain parts of the world. We built an engine that has the ability to match incoming text, which may contain correct or incorrect information, with a known repository of misinformation. By matching texts on embeddings generated using BERT, we evaluated paraphrased texts to see if they matched texts previously labeled as misinformation. Further, we augmented an existing data corpus of texts by tagging each misinformation with one or more impact categories. We may be able to take specific actions to avert the consequence of misinformation if we can predict the particular ramification of a certain type of misinformation.
ABSTRACT The global terrorism database (GTD) shows that 3,207 out of the total 191,464 terror incidents across the world from 1970 to 2018 were targeted at other terrorists and non-state militias. This study investigated why terrorists attack other terrorists. The GTD has three variables on terrorism criteria that indicate the motive of an attack. The criteria include criteria 1: the attack incident was aimed to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal; criteria 2: the attack incident was aimed to coerce, intimidate, or publicize to larger audiences; criteria 3: the attack incident was an action outside international humanitarian law. Obviously, all terror attacks satisfy criteria 3 by default. The risk ratio was deployed on the GTD to evaluate which of the two criteria (criteria 1 and 2) has an association with terror attacks on terrorists. It was discovered that terrorists attack other terrorists when the purpose is to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal (criteria 1). However, when the purpose of an attack is to coerce, intimidate, or publicize to larger audiences (criteria 2), it is very unlikely that such an attack would be targeted at other terrorists. The relevance of these findings in counterterrorism is discussed.
People make decisions based, in part, on the information they receive from others in social interactions and through different communication channels. Individual perceptions and assessments on the reliability and credibility of information sources and how they correspond with facts impacts individual decision-making. Individuals increasingly rely on these social media networks, messaging apps and streaming platforms for news stories and opinions from sources such as family, friends, colleagues, pseudo experts, news media outlets, peer review journals, and institutions. Information from these sources can be of huge quantity and varying quality. In highly dynamic and rapidly evolving situations like the current COVID-19 pandemic, the volume of information available has become a challenge for individuals to effectively synthesize and share, and has impeded governments’ ability to implement public health measures effectively. On 15 February 2020 at the Munich Security Conference, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic” (WHO, 2020). An infodemic has been defined as “an overflow of information of varying quality that surges across digital and physical environments during an acute public health event and makes it difficult for people to find information to better protect themselves and their communities” (Calleja et al., 2021, p. 3). This can include misinformation, information that is inaccurate, and disinformation, which is misinformation specifically designed to achieve an agenda. WHO, in collaboration with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC), organized the first global infodemiology conference (online) from 29 June to 21 July 2020, engaging experts, agencies and authorities from fields ranging from epidemiology and public health to social and behavioral sciences. Following the conference, a joint call for papers for
ABSTRACT India, which has a growing base of 350 million social media users and large proportion of which are unaware about fact checking of the sources. This study aims to assess the impact of COVID-19 misconceptions on knowledge, attitude and preventive (KAP) practices in India using an online cross sectional survey and using semi-structured interviews. sThe 5 sections of the e-form collected the demographic profile, COVID-19 information profile, knowledge, preventive practices and attitude toward COVID-19. Also, this study aims to assess the impact of misinformation on individual and social behavior through 24 semi structured open ended interview questions and suggests mitigation measures. The misinformation question included “Coronavirus is airborne disease,” Frequent washing clothes can reduce spreading of COVID-19”, “Consuming herbal products, home cures and supplements can prevent COVID-19” and “Gargling with salt water or vinegar can prevent COVID-19.” Among the 520 responses, 44%, 51%, 44% and 32% agreed to these questions respectively. Binomial regression model was fitted to identify the predictors of KAP of COVID-19 prevention by taking the level of KAP separately and it revealed that the predictors for poor knowledge, negative attitude and noncompliance to preventive measures were associated with the misconceptions. The descriptive analysis in Tableau revealed that the trusted sources of information is majorly mass media. The content analysis of the interviews revealed that religious preventive methods, consumption of daily supplements, risk factors of the infection, disease statistics; treatments and conspiracy theory, are the subjective categories of the current outbreak. The consequences of misconceptions include stigma of discrimination, psychological distress and increased hygiene practices. The antidote to infodemics should include analyzing the information propagation and understanding the cognition and behavior of the population. In the era of the internet, health bodies can educate and address the people’s concern with the help of digital and e- health literacy.
(2021). Ghana’s Readiness to Combat Terrorism: Strategies of Security Institutions. The International Journal of Intelligence, Security, and Public Affairs: Vol. 23, Special issue section on Infodemiology and Infodemics Management, pp. 367-399.
The infodemic has become a means to facilitate the exploitation of weaknesses in digital networks and launch cyberattacks against vulnerable communities and vital services, highlighting a lack of cybersecurity in critical infrastructure. This paper will delve into the caveats of the cyber threats posed by the infodemic and what it means for the broader network of cybersecurity and the protection of human rights in cyberspace. It will also examine the damage sustained by vulnerable groups as a result of cyberattacks, particularly in light of COVID-19. The infodemic has created a situation where malicious cyber actors spread false information to manipulate human nature and deceive individuals, leaving them susceptible to devastating attacks that risk producing physical and financial harm. This has the effect of undermining human security, dignity and equity in cyberspace. The situation is further exacerbated by the lack of accountability that operates as a carte blanche for cybercriminals to continue with illicit operations against vulnerable persons.
There is a popular aphorism in the intelligence world that ‘there are only intelligence failures and policy successes’ (Jervis, 2010, p. 157). It is an observation with telling resonances on many d...
ABSTRACT The authors of this article – a team of graduate students led by a professor – identified the probable hideout locations of the fugitive ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. To do this, we built on a geographic profiling approach created by another academic team. In addition, we created a profile of the buildings Baghadi could hide in and analyzed one of his speeches to glean further details of his whereabouts. Soon after our analysis was complete in the fall of 2019, Baghdadi was killed by U.S. forces in north-western Syria. Subsequent reports suggest our assessment was valid during the spring of 2019: one of Baghdadi’s confirmed locations is an hour drive from an area we suspected he would hide. And, on at least two occasions, he hid on the outskirts of town as we expected. However, once Baghdadi fled to Syria our analysis was invalidated because we misunderstood the fugitive terrorist’s motivations and hiding strategies. To improve our approach, we recommend the integration of additional analytic techniques to stimulate critical thinking. This article contributes to the academic literature on fugitives in national security and provides an example of a ‘real world’ open source analysis task with relevance to academics and practitioners.
This article addresses intelligence in the aftermath of the Portuguese so-called Carnation Revolution of 1974, which would end up in the birth of a new democratic state in April 1976. It maps all the legal transformations of intelligence in democratic Portugal and analyses the main ones, putting into evidence its historical evolution, organization, and democratic control, arguing that there are three critical moments. The birth of civilian intelligence only in 1984, the 2004 reform that led to a modern and effective intelligence system, and the recent attempts to access to metadata in 2017, which show that the authoritarian legacy of PIDE-DGS is finally fading away among the political decision-makers. The double legacy of the authoritarian regime and the revolutionary process of transition to democracy influenced until very recently the Portuguese intelligence culture, being its democratic structure, a political outcome conducted by the politics of memory.
