Intel community worried Obama administration disclosed too much about latest al Qaeda threat
Fear that sources and methods may have been compromised
By Lisa Ruth – The Washington Times Communities, Saturday, August 3, 2013
In warning about possible al Qaeda attacks against Americans overseas, U.S. officials may have provided too much detail about intercepted chatter and the source of the information, and that may make it more difficult to get such tips next time, former and current intelligence officials say.
. . . . . . .
“Now? We are going to have to start all over again. We are operating blind,” he says.
Phi Beta Iota: This may be a sincere article but it is sadly misinformed at best, and active propaganda at worst. The US IC has been blind, is blind, will always be blind, as long as it focuses on very expensive technical inputs and neglects processing, human and open sources and methods, and accountability for outputs: ethical evidence-based decision-support useful to the President AND everybody else (not the same decision support for everyone, but rather tailored decision support for EACH). Nothing has changed in the past quarter century — more money has simply made the problems and the managers WORSE. As one Australian journalist put it, giving money to the secret world without changing the managers or the mind-set is like pouring gasoline on a fire. The US IC has NOTHING in the way of responsible clandestine HUMINT across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and beyond. It pretends that its local liaison handouts (e.g. from the Yemen government) and its domestic legal traveler overt debriefings, are the fruits of its unilateral clandestine activities. Not so. ZERO HUMINT and nothing DIA, SOCOM, or DHS do in the next five years will be useful because they are creating “mini-mes” of the CIAs monstrously stupid approach to clandestine HUMINT. The US IC would have us believe that both Al Qaeda (actually local rebelswith legitimate grievances) is stupid; and it clearly believes the US public is stupid — they may be half right. NSA is a joke — its primary successes are against stupid politicians subject to secret world blackmail, not against smart terrorists or insurgents who learned how to read decades ago.
See Also:
2013 Robert Steele Answers to MA Student in UK — OSINT and Terrorism 2.0
2012 USA Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Scorecard 1.1
2012 USA Intelligence Scorecard – Deja Vu 2000 1 of 5
2012 USA Intelligence Scorecard – Deja Vu 2000 2 of 5
2012 USA Intelligence Scorecard – Deja Vu 2000 3 of 5
2012 USA Intelligence Scorecard – Deja Vu 2000 4 of 5
2012 USA Intelligence Scorecard – Deja Vu 2000 5 of 5
Books on Intelligence & Information Operations by Robert David STEELE Vivas et al
Marcus Aurelius: Reuel Marc-Gerecht on NSA High Cost – Low Return — Robert Steele Comments
Search: humint [as of 2013-06-13]
Search: tactical versus strategic intelligence + Meta-RECAP
Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Intelligence (Most)
