Research Essay - HUMINT - Human Intelligence - Digital Exhaust - Assessment Answer

Research Essay Assignment

Assignment Task

Below is the Research Essay topic

For HUMINT (human intelligence) collectors, the issue of maintaining their cover identity is paramount: to hide their identity, mask their activities and to protect their sources and methods. The analog world afforded more possibility for HUMINT officers to remain clandestine. The Internet and digitization have created the challenge of “digital exhaust,” which has meant that cover is much more difficult to create and maintain.

Analyse the challenges faced in today’s digital world regarding “cover” and discuss what experts are saying needs to be done within the intelligence community, and what can be done to combat this problem in the future.

Below is a citation for a recent journal article to get you started on your research:

Undercover Under Threat: Cover Identity, Clandestine Activity, and Covert Action in the Digital Age. Jonathan Lord, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 28, Iss. 4, 2015

Introduction

Human Intelligence also known as HUMINT is intelligence gathered with the help of interpersonal contact. It is exactly opposite to that of Signal intelligence that has become popular in this digital world. In HUMINT information is collected by human sources and in SIGINT it is collected by digital means. HUMINT provides various kinds of information such as refugees, observation during travel, escaped friendly POWs, etc. HUMNIT in this manner is a source of positive intelligence. The most significant issue involved with HUMNIT collectors is that they need to maintain their cover identity and mask their activities along with protecting methods and sources. During previous times it as easy for them to remain clandestine but now their problems are increasing due to digitisation. This implies that it is getting difficult day by day to maintain and create cover. The essay deals with discussing the challenges that are faced by HUMINT in this digital era regarding their cover. This will be discussed with the use of opinions of experts and on the basis of that a number of recommendations will be provided to deal with this combat in the future. In this manner the essay is relevant in understanding the threats pertaining to undercover and clandestine activity. The essay will analyse various aspects related to HUMINT and identity issues and after that the focus will be shifted on discussing the challenges that intelligence community faces. The entire discussion will be based on academic sources and journals.

HUMINT and identity

HUMINT refers to the data gathering activity through human contact. It is one of the most traditional means of intelligence gathering. HUMINT is comparatively a low-tech traditional method of intelligence gathering as opposite to IMINT and SIGINT. The practitioners off human intelligence are ‘spies’ in actual sense and their tasks are totally based on personal interaction. In human intelligence, the more a practitioner works closely with the community the more successful he/she will be in gathering intelligence and practicing HUMINT. It seems very simple though it is very difficult for intelligence practitioners to work like this (Robert, 2012). The major function of intelligence practitioners involves conversations and interrogation with the persons who have information. The manner in which human intelligence operations are being conducted depends upon nature of the information source and official protocol. It is not true that all human intelligence activities shall involve clandestine activities because there are many activities in US military that do not involve clandestine activities (Adam & Roger, 2012). The sources of human intelligence information can be hostile, friendly or neutral. The information source may or may not be witting and this term refers to the art that denotes that an individual is also aware about the connection to intelligence along with piece of information. There are various sources that can be quoted as example and these are diplomatic reporting by military attaches, prisoners of war, non-governmental organisations, diplomatic reporting, special reconnaissance and refugees (Luke, 2016).

With the advent of technologies in digital world it has become very difficult for human intelligence practitioners to remain undercover. Moreover they are facing numerous problems when it comes to cover their sources and identities (Bliase, 2012). For human intelligence practitioner covering their identities and masking their sources is paramount and this is now become a difficult tasks for them. There are a number of problems involved while performing tasks. The role of human intelligent practitioner involves cheating and lying to people to gather information. At the same time misrepresenting himself and this is the biggest problem in this digital era. Many experts have now started rising questions that whether human espionage should be employed to gather intelligence or not. This is because of immense digitisation (Lerner, 2012).There are legitimate concerns about the challenges that technology poses for human intelligence. There were times when identity was created with little concerns and no one had reach to enough resources to check the background but now anyone can easily check the background and due to that human intelligent officers face cover problems. This is the most significant problem that all individuals now have to register themselves with governmental identification units and everyone has unique identity number. With the help of this identity number it becomes very easy to track information of an individual. There are many associated problem such as overloading information, inability to prioritize, etc. but the most significant ones are related to identity. In this manner HUMINT is now facing a number of issues involving challenges regarding cover and hiding sources and information (Silva, 2015).

Challenges faced by intelligence community

Intelligence community was not so concerned about their identities a few decades back but digitisation has engrossed so much pressure over them. In Analog world it was easy to hide identities and maintain covers properly. At the same time the collected sources and information were also safe but now they are not safer. The digital world is not so friendly for espionage and the latest technologies are fatal for the working of human intelligence. The biometric tests are most significant concern in front of intelligence community. As a matter of fact the espionages have to travel every now and then to other locations and while doing that they need to check-in at airport (Schnell, 2014).Every airport now has a biometric identity machine that can easily identify the actual identity of espionage. This is a very big threat to the intelligence community. Before this century there were no such technologies that could detect the identity of an individual within a few seconds and due to that these problems ever existed before. There have been so many cases when intelligence practitioners were being caught and their actual identity has been revealed (Fingar, 2011) Due to that entire intelligence community is worried about how to save the identity from being getting affected. There is a very simple cycle that intelligence community uses to disseminate the tasks (See figure 1). But the matter of concern is that this cycle has been disturbed now. The intelligence cycle has five major steps that are planning, collection, processing exploitation, analysis and dissemination. Now the problem that digitisation has bring into this cycle is at collection stage. This implies that the cycle even gets disturbed before starting properly. This is a serious matter of concern for intelligence community that this cycle has disturbed. The direct effect of this cycle is on sources of information and information gathering (Hall, 2011). Due to breaking of this cycle in the middle the actual agenda of intelligence gathering remains incomplete.

The most significant objective of human intelligence practitioners is to collect information and detect the sources. The actual problem arises when this objective is not achieved (Jiehan, 2012). The increasing use of technological devices and checking depots is a matter of concern for intelligence community. Technology has caused burdening effects on espionage and high-tech gadgets and devices are fatal for the existence of world’s second largest profession (Fan & Lau, 2015). The intelligence community is of the opinion that there is an immense need to change the manner in which espionage work now. It is now possible to track the date range on which a person will be travelling or whatever he/she may be doing. Everything has a digital record now and this manner digital record is affecting the human intelligence and their practices (Redlich, 2012).

The cold war era has revolutionised a number of sectors within the technological industries around the world and it created new outlets for gathering information (Jeffery, 2015). But the technology advancements in communication, satellites, surveillance have nearly made human intelligence to become obsolete. Now a day’s other alternatives like Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) and Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) are replacing the need of human intelligence. But there is need of HUMINT to unearth the terror cells and probe into various theological aspects and this is something that only HUMINT can do (Lori, 2014). This is why it is very important to save HUMINT from fatal consequences of technological intervention. Intelligence community plays a very significant role in the security and safety of US but open sources in also a major issue. The primary agenda of intelligence community is to reduce uncertainty and at the same time provide warning about potential threat to the security of the nation (Jonathan, 2015). But this is also coming as an emerging issue for the intelligence community because the HUMINT is not able to effectively do this. This is again because they are not able to remain undercover because of various technologies and this further impacts the detection of sources by HUMINT. In this manner the entire process gets affected. This is the major reason why many experts have started asserting that either HUMINT shall be replaced entirely by a latest modern technological intelligence service or there is a need to bring some changes into it (Lee, 2011). But again the arguments come stating that a human can always be more dangerous than an arsenal and what a human is capable of doing is something that no technological intervention can do. This suggests that the most significant issue in front of intelligence community is to bring a solution. They are also required to come to consensus about the HUMINT issues and deal with digital issues and their critical impact on the community.

There are various significant parts of intelligence communities that are ‘raw data’ , ‘hard data’, ‘fact’ , ‘active data’ , ‘raw Intel’ ,etc. It is argued that ‘raw Intel’ is a variable in the bigger picture of gathered information and it makes comprehending the secrets very easy (Lowenthal, 2012). But technology has also affected this and it is now very difficult for intelligence community to process and source the intelligence gathering (Joy, 2015). In this manner there are many problems and challenges that are faced by intelligence community and these are interlinked and interrelated. Thus technology has made the position of intelligence community vulnerable.

Opinions of experts about the issue

HUMINT as per the opinion of experts is an integral part of intelligence community and the role played by HUMINT is vital for a nation and its security. The experts are also concerned about the issues that intelligence community is facing due to technological intervention and digitisation. The experts from Capitol Hill and White House showed their concerns by saying that there are high chances that espionage might come to the stage of being obsolete (Ali & Green, 2012). The IC analysts said in an interview that approximately 100,000 civilian and Military are part of the community and there are around 20,000 individuals who work as intelligence practitioners and maximum of them are worried about their coverings. The experts say that increasing cases of uncovering agents is a matter of great concern for thecommunity and this is further affecting the manner in which they used to gather intelligence (Triandis, 2012).

There are two different opinions of experts about the issues that intelligence community is facing. Some experts are of the opinion that the human intelligence will get obsolete because technology has taken over. They supports the fact that IMINT, SIGINT, DNI, etc. are the new means of intelligence gathering and due to that it is better to adopt them (Galliers & Leidner, 2014). They also assert that HUMINT is creating trouble to intelligence gathering by not able to prevent the cover and keep the source confidential. These experts thus say that there is only one way to deal with the issue and this is by exploring and adopting alternatives to this. On the other hand there are other experts who are of the opinion that some changes are required to be made in the present intelligence community aspects. These are the experts who are of the opinion that human intelligence is something that cannot be replaced by any technology (Kroll, 2013). These experts say that human touch is very significant and powerful. What human intelligence is capable of doing cannot be done by any technology and due to that it is important to save human intelligence from being exploited by the technological interventions. The experts who support this aspect also suggest that human intelligence has played very important role in saving the nation from external threats and this is why protecting it is very important. The experts have also shown their concerns by saying that the government needs to increase the budget for human intelligence to make it competent so that it become easy to deal with the issues related to cover and intelligence gathering (Mettler & Winter, 2015).

Most of the experts are of the opinion that HUMINT has been always beneficial to the nations. For example at the time of second world-war the Vatican smuggled a number of individuals from getting captured by Nazis and this is only because of its spies and deep pockets (Wise, 2011). The Soviet Union has relied heavily on HUMINT to gather information for further technological development and to eliminate spies from their borders. Along the line many other countries such as UK, China, etc. have relied heavily on their HUMINT for intelligence gathering. These countries also tried to use other sources but could not get success. On the basis of these facts the experts say that human intelligence is capable of doing anything. There is a very powerful example of all the times that is 9/11 in which the enemy was dependent on HUMINT (Russano, 2014).After 9/11 the lack of HUMINT is evident from the fact that number of allied soldiers and civilians deaths began to add up. The superpower was dependent on technology whereas the enemies were dependent on HUMINT. This suggests that all the issues related to intelligence community shall be resolved at the earliest to protect the nations. The experts say that GEOINT and IMINT may be powerful and developing but there is no comparison to human assets. There are many other issues that are faced by HUMINT are lack of time and efforts to learn about the multiple languages (Mithas, Tafti, & Bardhan, 2012). It is important to learn about multiple languages to deal with the intuitions in different nations. This helps in covering their identity and gather intelligence. The most significant opinion of experts is that, it is important to understand that chronic problems are increasing because of advancement of technology and it is also creating a blind spot in intelligence and due to that the security of a state is in the dark. This blind spot can be referred as a lack of balance between technology and the use of HUMINT as a major component in multiplication of force. The lack of investment in human intelligence will lead to disaster. This is why the experts suggest that technology shall be merged with human intelligence. The human intelligence alone cannot be powerful in current context (Rai & Tang, 2013). In this manner it can be summarized from the opinions of the experts that the issues that intelligence community is facing can be solved with the help of increased investment on intelligence aspects and merging it with technology. This will further enhance the ability of intelligence practitioners to cover their identity and gather intelligence in an effective manner.

Combating the problem in future

It is a matter of great concern that where is the HUMINT heading to. There are questions regarding the end of prioritization of HUMINT. If intelligence agency is required to be changed then various reforms are required to be made in the intelligence agency. The world has changed significantly as compared to that of the world war times and due to that the level of services human intelligence is providing is also changed now. This problem related to cover can be solved with the help of technology only (Alexandrina, 2012). The experts say that technology and digital world are the reasons behind difficulty in maintain cover and the solutions to this also lies in adopting the technology. HUMINT is a vital part of first line defence against the terrorists. In order to deal with cover issues in future the intelligence community shall pool sovereignty. In effect to this the community will be able to provide cooperation and coordination for Intel sources. There are several nations that have put forward comprehensive plans to enhance HUMINT with technological combination. This will save the intelligence community from becoming obsolete.

The merger of intelligence community with technology will save it from exploitation. It is true that undercover agents are under the threat and they are not able to protect their identity. At the same time clandestine activity and covert actions are also ineffective in this digital age. But it is not true that it has taken all over and there is no way to get the actual human intelligence. To combat this, it is necessary first of all to promote intelligence officers on the basis of merit so that they can save themselves based on their experience. There is a hope of positivity lying amidst everything (Nygaard, 2014). The fact that human intelligence is a very old profession that hold no value in the world that is technologically driven also implies that most of the population of the world lives in an environment that is less advanced in terms of technology and this is why it is easy to deal with the present problem. This is the most significant aspect that will help in dealing with issue in future as well.

Conclusion

HUMINT throughout the ages has left civilizations with sense of security. It also influences the government to enforce national security so as to survive in the era of insecurity and uncertainty. The uncertainties still exist in today’s world but the ability of intelligence communities is still strong. HUMINT will remain the most significant tool for intelligence gathering no matter how many problems it faces. There is a need to take actions to deal with the issues regarding cover of the undercover community to save its integrity and dignity.