Ineptitude – Page 120 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/12/152012/12/15

SchwartzReport: Poisoning the Well – Federal Collusion with Industry to Pollute Natio’s Underground Water Supply

Corruption, Earth Intelligence, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

Injection Wells: The Hidden Risks of Pumping Waste Underground

Poisoning the Well: How the Feds Let Industry Pollute the Nation’s Underground Water Supply

Federal officials have given energy and mining companies permission to pollute aquifers in more than 1,500 places across the country, releasing toxic material into underground reservoirs that help supply more than half of the nation's drinking water.

In many cases, the Environmental Protection Agency has granted these so-called aquifer exemptions in Western states now stricken by drought and increasingly desperate for water.

EPA records show that portions of at least 100 drinking water aquifers have been written off because exemptions have allowed them to be used as dumping grounds.

“You are sacrificing these aquifers,” said Mark Williams, a hydrologist at the University of Colorado and a member of a National Science Foundation team studying the effects of energy development on the environment. “By definition, you are putting pollution into them. … If you are looking 50 to 100 years down the road, this is not a good way to go.”

As part of an investigation into the threat to water supplies from underground injection of waste, ProPublica set out to identify which aquifers have been polluted.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: The ignorance of the US National Intelligence Council in endorsing fracking as a path to energy is breathtaking. $70 billion a year plus, and the National Intelligence Council has no idea that fracking causes earthquakes and contaminates scarce groundwater?

2012 Global Trends 2030: Review by Robert Steele — Report Lauds Fracking as Energy Solution, Disappoints on Multiple Fronts

Sir Richard Branson: Breaking the Taboo — Ending the War on People also known as the War on People

2012/12/102012/12/11

Steven Aftergood: Senate Slams Door on Defense Clandestine Service — Robert Steele Comments + DoD Clandestine RECAP

Advanced Cyber/IO, Corruption, Government, Ineptitude, Military

Updated 11 Dec 2012 to add Graphic: Intelligence Requirements, Collection, Evaluation, and Capabilities Building

Senate Puts Brakes on Defense Clandestine Service

The Senate moved last week to restrain the rapid growth of the Defense Clandestine Service, the Pentagon’s human intelligence operation.

Under a provision of the FY2013 defense authorization act that was approved on December 4, the Pentagon would be prohibited from hiring any more spies than it had as of last April, and it would have to provide detailed cost estimates and program plans in forthcoming reports to Congress.

“DoD needs to demonstrate that it can improve the management of clandestine HUMINT before undertaking any further expansion,” the Senate Armed Services Committee wrote in a report on the new legislation.

Longstanding problems with defense human intelligence cited by the Committee include: “inefficient utilization of personnel trained at significant expense to conduct clandestine HUMINT; poor or non-existent career management for trained HUMINT personnel; cover challenges; and unproductive deployment locations.”

The Committee noted further that “President Bush authorized 50 percent growth in the CIA’s case officer workforce, which followed significant growth under President Clinton. Since 9/11, DOD’s case officer ranks have grown substantially as well. The committee is concerned that, despite this expansion and the winding down of two overseas conflicts that required large HUMINT resources, DOD believes that its needs are not being met.”

Instead of an ambitious expansion, a tailored reduction in defense intelligence spending might be more appropriate, the Committee said.

“If DOD is able to utilize existing resources much more effectively, the case could be made that investment in this area could decline, rather than remain steady or grow, to assist the Department in managing its fiscal and personnel challenges,” the Senate Committee wrote.

The Washington Post published a revealing account of Pentagon plans to expand the size and reach of the defense human intelligence program in “DIA sending hundreds more spies overseas” by Greg Miller, December 1.

Along with overhead surveillance, bolstering human intelligence has been the focus of one of two major defense intelligence initiatives, said Under Secretary of Defense (Intelligence) Michael G. Vickers last October. The Defense Clandestine Service “enable[s] us to be more effective in the collection of national-level clandestine human intelligence across a range of targets of paramount interest to the Department of Defense,” he said.

The latest issues of the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, released under the Freedom of Information Act, are available here (in some very large pdf files).

“A Short History of Army Intelligence” by Michael E. Bigelow of US Army Intelligence and Security Command, dated July 2012, is available here.

Newly updated doctrine from the Joint Chiefs of Staff includes Information Operations, JP 3-13, 27 November 2012, and Joint Forcible Entry Operations, JP 3-18, 27 November 2012.

Continue reading “Steven Aftergood: Senate Slams Door on Defense Clandestine Service — Robert Steele Comments + DoD Clandestine RECAP”

2012/12/092016/03/26

2012 USA Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Scorecard 1.1

Government, Ineptitude, Military

Document: USA HUMINT 1.1

This is tentative (new draft) pending additional feed-back from a handful of still-engaged colleagues. It assumes CIA being dead in the water, reliant on foreign liaison and legal traveler debriefings for 90% of its “clandestine” Human Intelligence (HUMINT), and its OSC being totally out of touch with 80% or more of the relevant Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), for example, materials pertinent to Chinese submarines and their weapons systems. It assumes that DIA and the Services are still playing patty-cakes with enlisted people playing case officer, and shallow historical, cultural, or linguistic capabilities for the circuit riders. It also assumes that misplaced obession with security in Stone Age terms has blocked all new initiatives with respect to multinational collaboration and limited duty HUMINT assets (principal agents) that never come inside.

It integrates the following comments from Ralph Peters:

It was HUMINT operatives, running local agents, that have enabled us to target hundreds of terrorist leaders around the world. Of course, HUMINT alone isn't responsible, and everything from phone intercepts to host-state information play roles, as you know…but our HUMINT, while it could be better, will always remain imperfect–because humans are imperfect. The real problems we face in HUMINT are the limited number of dedicated, expert career agents with language skills and long stretches on the ground in target countries. Then there are the political restrictions. Also, as I can tell you from the experience of friends, military-run HUMINT (primarily spec ops) has made enormous strides. While this is primarily tactical/operational HUMINT, it's pretty impressive. The other key thing, though, to which I alluded above, has been the pretty successful integration of HUMINT with other disciplines to give us some genuine all-source intelligence. I'm impressed with the targeting we've been able to do globally–although less impressed with our analytical ability to exploit the raw data and deliver successful, useful strategic forecasts.