Ethics – Page 173 – Public Intelligence Blog

Interesting bit:

“The answer,” says Brown when I meet him in a north London cafe, “is because that's how it always happens. Look at whistleblower culture. If you want to be a whistleblower you have to be prepared to lose your job. I'm able to do what I'm doing here because I'm nobody. I don't have to keep any academics happy. I don't have to think about the possible consequences of my actions for people I might admire personally who may have based their work on this and they end up looking silly. There are 160,000 psychologists in America and they've got mortgages. I've got the necessary degree of total independence.”

The British amateur who debunked the mathematics of happiness

The astonishing story of Nick Brown, the British man who began a part-time psychology course in his 50s – and ended up taking on America's academic establishment

Andrew Anthony

The Observer, Saturday 18 January 2014

Read full account.

2014/01/16

David Swanson: Chelsea Manning Awarded Sam Adams Integrity Prize for 2014

Ethics, Military

Chelsea Manning Awarded Sam Adams Integrity Prize for 2014

Announcement by Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII)

The Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence (SAAII) have voted overwhelmingly to present the 2014 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence to Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

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2014/01/15

Rob Dover: The NSA, Snowden and the Media

Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, Media, Military

The NSA, Snowden and the Media

By Robert Dover

e-International Relations on January 15, 2014

As Michael Goodman and I tried to whimsically note in the sub-title of our edited collection on intelligence and the media – media needs intelligence and intelligence needs the media. The symbiosis of this relationship can be partly found in common expertise and practices (investigative zeal and tradecraft around weeding out hidden empirical detail), but also in the political or normative function of intelligence agencies, namely to constrain and repel certain forms of political discourse and activity deemed to be abhorrent to the majority, but more particularly which is abhorrent to the established political elites. So, at a very basic level media outlets learn much from the activities of intelligence agencies and the business they engage in. Similarly the agencies have both used mainstream media to shape debates (the Cold War and the War on Terror were notable examples), and to position adversaries in a particular way (and this might apply to every conflict since the printing press was invented). But what I want to rehearse here are the particular ways in which mainstream and parallel media sources – with a particular emphasis on the UK – have coalesced and acted within the NSA/Snowden furore, and the lessons we can learn from this.

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2014/01/152014/01/23

2014 Intelligence Reform (All Others)

Ethics, Government, IO Impotency, IO Secrets, IO Sense-Making

SHORT URL:

http://tinyurl.com/2014-Intel-Reform

Under Construction – Send Nominations to robert.david.steele.vivas@gmail.com

Updated 23 Jan 2014 14:58 E

Phi Beta Iota: The current literature on intelligence reform is underdeveloped and under-specified. An example of this under- or mis-specification can be seen in the treatment of 9/11. The dominant position that 9/11 was an intelligence failure is correct in principle. It was, however, a failure of counterintelligence not of warning. Ample warnings had been provided, including from 9 different nations warning the White House and the CIA in advance. George Tenet had a clear role in positioning the intelligence community away from these warnings, including ABLE DANGER. Keith Alexander seems to have shared this misplaced analytical view, along with the Acting Director of the FBI who was not able to lever influence when the actual Director resigned. 9/11 was – in effect – enabled by Dick Cheney, who ordered a national counter-terrorism exercise for “the day,” months in advance, despite the numerous and clear warnings — not to stop 9/11, but to allow it, embrace it, enhance it, and leverage it. Today's US Intelligence Community is dedicated to moving money — nothing more — and of course this is all Congress wants, with its eye on the standard 5% kick-back to sponsoring Members. It is not in any way, shape, or form committed to producing ethical evidence-based decision support applicable to national strategy, national policy, national acquisition, or national operations. Intelligence with integrity is not to be found in the US Government (good people, bad system — this is a meta-challenge). Most intelligence scholars are currently serving to bolster this system rather than to stand as critical friends to challenge and help in the reform of it.

Below the line is an integrated list from the past several years. This is everybody else. For an alternative perspective on intelligence reform, see 2014 Robert Steele on Intelligence Reform.

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2014/01/11

Yoda: Schoolboy Stops Terrorist – A Perfect Example of Bottom-Up Security

Academia, Civil Society, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics

Rush & crush, this is.

Teen Dies Saving Classmates From Suicide Bomber

ABC, ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Jan. 10, 2014

He was an average student from Hangu, a remote town in North Western Pakistan, but he has become a national hero.

Aitzaz Hasan, 14, stopped a suicide bomber from entering his school Monday and sacrificed his life to protect his fellow students.

“I saw Aitzaz trying to get hold of a guy and then there was a big explosion,” said Habib Ali, who is a senior teacher at the school.

The target of the bomber was the morning assembly of approximately 450 students, Ali said.

“He was an average student, but was a bold child,” the teacher said.

Read full article.

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2014/01/092014/01/10

Robin Good: Beyond Google Evil Lie Individual Human Curators

Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, IO Impotency

The future of search may not just be about Google and Bing. In the future of search, believe it or not, there are going to be a lot of people like you and me who will be providing much more helpful information guidance to specific requests than Google could ever do. I know this sounds probably unrealistic to you, but I think there are now many good indications that this likely going to happen much sooner than you expect. One of the key reasons why, human beings will start to reclaim this highly valuable search territory, is the fact that in the last few years we have slowly but deeply surrendered our ability to evaluate, decide and select what is “real” to Google's own algorithms, in ways that can only be detrimental to us.

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2014/01/082014/01/08

John Danaher: Rule by Algorithm? Big Data and the Threat of Algocracy

Advanced Cyber/IO, Ethics

Rule by Algorithm? Big Data and the Threat of Algocracy

An increasing number of people are worried about the way in which our data is being mined by governments and corporations. One of these people is Evgeny Morozov. In an article that appeared in the MIT Technology Review back in October 2013, he argued that this trend poses a serious threat to democracy, one that should be resisted through political activism and “sabotage”. As it happens, I have written about similar threats to democracy myself in the past, so I was interested to see how Morozov defended his view.

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Category: Ethics

Berto Jongman: British Amateur Whistleblower Exposes Fraud Among American Psychologists