Journal ISSN 1078-1935 – Page 1655 – Public Intelligence Blog

Recommind Survey Shows Stats Related to Information Governance

January 16, 2014

The article titled Bridging the Global Information Governance Gap on IDM offers more governance advice from the findings of Recommind’s survey of US and UK companies. The survey posed questions related to information governance (IG), which is “a cross-departmental approach to optimising [sic] the value of information simultaneously associated risks and costs.” We had thought Recommind was a variant of the Autonomy type of system, we are learning new things every day. Their survey revealed that only 58% of companies in the US have an IG policy. The article quotes the global head of information governance at Recommind, Dean Gonsowski:

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Only 58% of US-UK Companies and Information Governance Policies”

2014/01/16

SchwartzReport: USG Deals with Cartels, Lets Billions of Dollars of Drugs Be Smuggled

07 Other Atrocities, 10 Transnational Crime, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Law Enforcement

When you read this think of the hundreds of thousands of individuals, particularly young people and, most particularly, Black and Brown kids whose lives, and the lives of whose families, were derailed by arrest and incarceration for years or decades for tiny amounts of drugs, while this government supported dope trade was going on. You have to ask yourself: who are the real crimi! nals?

Is it any wonder that American's now see their government as the country's leading problem.

U.S. Deal With Cartel Let Billions of Dollars of Drugs be Smuggled
NATASHA LENNARD, Assistant News Editor – Salon

In a shady deal to garner informants, the government has been working with the notorious Sinaloa cartel since 2000

Read full article.

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.

Continue reading “Rob Dover: The NSA, Snowden and the Media”

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.

Continue reading “2014 Intelligence Reform (All Others)”

2014/01/152014/01/15

Berto Jongman: Bits, Bytes, & Stuff 2.0

Cultural Intelligence, IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency, Peace Intelligence

BOOK: The Turning Point: Creating Resilience in a Time of Extremes

Also: Radio Interview with Author

BUDGET: Congress Wants More Insight into Cyber, SOF Budgets

CYBER: Cyberwar Increasingly Defined By Espionage and Regional Conflicts, Argues FireEye

CYBER: DDoS New Technique, Warns US-CERT

CYBER: Google Spyware SMS Tracker

CYBER: How Jihadists Use the Internet Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Bits, Bytes, & Stuff 2.0”

2014/01/152014/01/15

Tikkun Rabbi Michael Lerner: Identity Politics and Spiritual Politics

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence

David Izenberg: DynCorp Shines in Africa

Peace Intelligence

What the World Can Learn From DynCorp

In the past, Dyncorp has come in for criticism for its work in Iraq and Afghanistan. While deserved, that is hardly the end of the story. It is also important to remember that DynCorp has also done great, no, make that outstanding, work. That would be its, relatively unheralded, work in Liberia.

Continue reading “David Izenberg: DynCorp Shines in Africa”