Review: Lines of Fire – A Renegade Writes on Strategy, Intelligence, and Security

Ralph Peters 5.0 out of 5 stars Six Star Epilogue, the Capstone Work, September 26, 2011 I have been a fan of Ralph Peters for over fifteen years now, going back to the early 1990’s when the US Marine Corps was trying to get the Secretary of Defense (then Dick Cheney) to focus on most …

Paul Fernhout: How Security Clearance Process Harms National Security by Eradicating Cognitive Diversity

This essay discusses how the USA’s security clearance process (mainly related to ensuring secrecy) may have a counter-productive negative effect on the USA’s national security by reducing “cognitive diversity” among security professionals. Background refs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_clearance#United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secrecy Scott Page wrote an insightful book about the value of “cognitive diversity” in making effective groups, called The Difference: …

Review: Top Secret America – The Rise of the New American Security State

Dana Priest and William M. Arkin 5.0 out of 5 stars 6 Stars–A Nation-Changing Public Mind Opener of a Book,September 2, 2011 I generally take a very jaundiced view of books that emerge from Washington Post columns I have already read, but this book surprised, engages, and out-performs the columns by such a leap that …

Cofer Black: Hackers Evil, Pay Me… + Hackers RECAP

Cofer Black Says Threat Posed by Hackers Same as Pre-9/11 Terrorism Public Intelligence Net, 4 August 2011 not to be confused with Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog Ex-CIA official sounds alarm about hackers’ next targets (CNN): The former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center raised concerns Wednesday about an impending “code war” in …

Robert Steele: Secrecy, Self-Restraint, & Democracy Done in By Elites and “Experts”

The times they are a’ changing.  I was asked to comment on  the recently published Reference: Protecting Sensitive “Open” Information and do so gladly.  The author of that work means well, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the substance of what he expouses.  It is simply not reasonable nor feasible in context. I know …

Chuck Spinney: Pentagon Underfunded? Integrity Lacking…

Why the Pentagon Is Always Underfunded CHUCK SPINNEY, The Blaster, July 19, 2011 Cap Ferrat, France The courtiers in the Hall of Mirrors that is Versailles on the Potomac are lining up to give Leon Panetta advice on how to manage the Pentagon in the coming era of budget “constraints.”  Most of this wisdom takes the form …