Articles & Chapters – Page 4 – Public Intelligence Blog

Bruce is bascially saying that the IC has failed completely…..which we know it has. This also supports my view that the folks who dreamed up the latest air attack are also out of touch with AQ reality. But the media has dumbed down the public enough that they believe almost anything….

The thing I find interesting is that Bruce has openly said that the IC is a failure. He also raises some questions that would suggest bin Laden was not alive, i.e. the focus on the Arab Spring. This does not fall into line with UBL as much as it does with Zawahiri….and his Muslim Brotherhood.

As I noted, the fact that someone with Hoffman's stature is questioning the IC should make people pause and reflect on the state of affairs within those halls….

Bruce Hoffman: What Osama Was Thinking at the End

Bin Laden was more fearful that his men might be affected by the weather than by any effort of the Pakistani government to apprehend them.

By releasing 17 documents seized last year from Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the U.S. government has supplied a needed corrective to the bunkum that has passed for analysis throughout the war on terrorism's first decade.

For too long, government officials and pundits alike have made extravagant and incorrect claims about the weakness of al Qaeda and the irrelevance of its founding leader.

Continue reading “DefDog: Bruce Hoffman, the US IC, Bin Laden…Many Contradictions”

2012/04/30

Berto Jongman: Interesting National Security Links

Articles & Chapters

C.I.A.’s Misuse of Secrecy

C-SPAN Bill Roggio Editor Long War Journal Use of Military Drones with Statistics (VIDEO)

EU Annual Report on Terrorism

Gwen Olsen – the Rx Reformer

Memories of Bin Laden are fading, but his methods and ideology remain

Senate follows House with more questions about construction of Savannah River Site's MOX plant

Terrorism Experts Come to Zurich

“War on Terror”: One Year On

Youth Frustration Monitor – Focus on Europe

2012/04/29

Reference: Social Media Intelligence? Or More OSINT Than Spies Can Handle?

Articles & Chapters

The growth of social media poses a dilemma for security and law enforcement agencies. On the one hand, social media could provide a new form of intelligence – SOCMINT – that could contribute decisively to keeping the public safe. On the other, national security is dependent on public understanding and support for the measures being taken to keep us safe.

Social media challenges current conceptions about privacy, consent and personal data, and new forms of technology allow for more invisible and widespread intrusive surveillance than ever before. Furthermore, analysis of social media for intelligence purposes does not fit easily into the policy and legal frameworks that guarantee that such activity is proportionate, necessary and accountable.

This paper is the first effort to examine the ethical, legal and operational challenges involved in using social media for intelligence and insight purposes. It argues that social media should become a permanent part of the intelligence framework but that it must be based on a publicly argued, legal footing, with clarity and transparency over use, storage, purpose, regulation and accountability. #Intelligence lays out six ethical principles that can help government agencies approach these challenges and argues for major changes to the current regulatory and legal framework in the long-term, including a review of the current Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

Tip of the Hat to Berto Jongman.

Phi Beta Iota: Government intelligence is incompetent with what they have now. “SOCMINT” (for Social Media Intelligence) is as silly as claiming that Document Media Exploitation (DOMEX) is a separate discipline. Both will spawn bureaucracies and undeserved promotions along with attendant fraud, waste, and abuse. While well intentioned, this contribution is part of the problem–doing the wrong things righter–not part of the solution. Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) covers both of the above, and until the government can make the leap from OSINT to M4IS2 (Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making) it is by no means ready to muck about within Social Media. We are quite certain that social media intelligence is emergent, and it will emerge faster, better, cheaper (if not free) than any government bureaucracy could possibly fund, imagine, or execute in several decades.

2012/04/292012/04/29

John Robb: Techcrunch Interview on Resilient Communities (Be Happy)

Articles & Chapters, Blog Wisdom, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Ethics, Future-Oriented, Methods & Process, Policies, Resilience

Techcrunch Interview

Posted: 28 Apr 2012 10:15 AM PDT

I did an interview the Jon Evans at Techcrunch (the social technology hub) earlier this week. Here it is.

I'm spending most of my time writing and editing the Resilient Communities letter (it's free to subscribe).

As I said in the interview, the reason I started the letter was because I strongly believe that the most successful, happiest people on the planet in twenty years will be living in resilient communities.

Lots of good stuff in the RC letter — from DiY sewage systems to how to power an entire neighborhood with solar energy.

Phi Beta Iota: Creating resilient communities from the bottom up is what the federal government should be but is not facilitating. We're on our own.

See Also:

Paul and Percival Goodman, Communitas: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life (Columbia University Press, 1990)

Kirkpatrick Sale, Human Scale (New Catalyst Books, 2007)

E. F. Schumaker, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (Hartley and Marks Publishers, 2000)

2012/04/24