Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-24T10:23:13.131Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Managing national security and law enforcement intelligence in a globalised world

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2009

KEVIN A. O'BRIEN
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article argues that there are five major challenges currently facing Western intelligence communities. First – ensuring skills retention for intelligence officers and analysts, while developing knowledgeable managers and customers, all in an increasingly-complex security environment. Second – instituting and inculcating knowledge and expertise in these staff – while addressing an opponent in al-Qaeda which demonstrates increasingly sophisticated use of IT, new media, etc. Third – drawing-in outside expertise from the research and business communities, as is done currently in the US and Canada but in only a very limited manner in the UK. Fourth – overcoming institutional rigidity in dividing the foreign and domestic – alongside rigid sharing and co-operation relationships. Fifth – creating truly collaborative environments that offer genuine socio-cultural incentives to collaboration rather than mere ‘IT solutions’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 903 - 915
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 While this may be the case in the US, historically in the UK this was less the case – as one former senior intelligence official noted, ‘when dealing with the IRA we only moved to prosecution if there was no other way in which we could disrupt, divert, disinform, etc, while taking-away some of that sense of grievance within the community through significant financial investment in Northern Ireland’ – both points which witnessed significant divergences between 2003 and 2008 in the UK. Interview – former security intelligence official, London – January 2009.

2 See C. Anderson, ‘Mistrial in Sears Tower Bomb Plot Trial’, AP (13 December 2007), {http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/FedCrimes/wireStory?id=3996409}; Rupert Cornwell, ‘Tall stories: The plot to topple Chicago's Sears Tower was not all that it seemed’, Independent (UK), (25 June 2006), {www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/tall-stories-the-plot-to-topple-chicagos-sears-tower-was-not-all-that-it-seemed-405399.html}. See also Joanna Walters, ‘Three held, one sought for bomb plot at JFK airport’, The Observer, (3 June 2007), {www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/03/usa.joannawalters}. More generally concerning the questionable nature of a number of alleged terrorist plots prosecuted in the US since 2001, see Tim Dickinson, ‘Truth or Terrorism? The Real Story Behind Five Years of High Alerts’, Rolling Stone, (7 February 2008), {www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18056504/truth_or_terrorism_the_real_story_behind_five_years_of_high_alerts}; Brian Doherty, ‘Where's the Terror? Post-9/11 prosecutions end with a whimper’, Reason.com, 11 September 2006, {www.reason.com/news/show/36832.html}; or Bruce Schneier, ‘Portrait of the Modern Terrorist as an Idiot’, Wired, (14 June 2007), {www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/06/securitymatters_0614?currentPage=all}.

3 R v Barot, Court Of Appeal (Criminal Division), [2007] EWCA Crim 1119 [Transcript: Wordwave International Ltd (A Merrill Communications Company)] – Hearing-Dates: 3 April, 16 May 2007 (16 May 2007). However, an article in an Indian newspaper – purporting to detail information from Indian investigators following-up on any connection by the Glasgow airport bomber Kafeel Ahmed to the Subcontinent – notes that the failure of the car-bomb was due to the bombers' technical inexperience rather than any other cause: see Praveen Swami, “Glimpses into the mind of suicide bomber: Internet records provide insights into likely cause for failure of three car bombs assembled by Kafeel Ahmed”, The Hindu (14 July 2007): {www.hinduonnet.com/2007/07/14/stories/2007071458960100.htm}.

4 See, for example, Security Service, Responding to the threat: {www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page552.html}; and Association of Chief Police Officers, POLICE REFORM GREEN PAPER: The Future of Policing (March 2008), {www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/ACPO_submission_re_Green_Paper_20_March_2008_(PUBLIC).pdf} – particularly ch. 4.

5 See, for example, RCMP, ‘Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET)’: {www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/security/insets_e.htm}.

6 B. A. Jackson (ed.), Considering the Creation of a Domestic Intelligence Agency in the United States: Lessons from the Experiences of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (RAND, 2009): {www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG805.pdf} – 65.

7 See, for example, S. Swann, ‘Aabid Khan and his global jihad’, BBC News (18 August 2008), {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7549447.stm}; Daniel McGrory, ‘British computer whiz-kid exports terror via internet’, The Times Online, (7 June 2006), {www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article672452.ece}.

8 Jonathan Evans, Address to the Society of Editors by the Director General of the Security Service, 5 (November 2007), {www.mi5.gov.uk/output/Page562.html}.

9 See P. Taylor, ‘Panorama Special: Real Spooks’, BBC Panorama, (30 April 2007), {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6476207.stm}.

10 See B. M. Jenkins, ‘International Terrorism: A New Mode of Conflict’, in David Carlton and Carlo Schaerf (eds), International Terrorism and World Security (London: Croom Helm, 1975), p. 15; see also G. Krikorian, ‘Calmly taking terror's measure’, LA Times, (31 January 2008), {http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jan/31/nation/na-jenkins31}.

11 See, for example, the UK's Counter-Terrorism Strategy II (CONTEST-II) and its emphasis on ‘Preventing violent extremism and radicalisation’ through much greater community engagement: {http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/counter-terrorism-strategy/}. Similar emphases have also been placed on countering terrorism from – for example – the governments of The Netherlands, the US, and Canada.

12 See footnote 11.

13 Intelligence and Security Committee, Report into the London Terrorist Attacks on 7 July 2005, (May 2006), {www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/~/media/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/publications/reports/intelligence/isc_7july_report%20pdf.ashx} – s131.

14 Sir Ronnie Flanagan, The Review of Policing: Interim Report (2007), {http://police.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/police-reform/Review_of_Policing_Interim_1.pdf?view=Binary} – 4.

15 See particularly, ‘Executive Summary’ (and then throughout), Metropolitan Police Authority, Counter-Terrorism: The London Debate, (February 2007), {www.mpa.gov.uk/downloads/committees/mpa/070222-06-appendix01.pdf} – Home Affairs Select Committee, Terrorism and Community Relations, (6 April 2005), {www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200405/cmselect/cmhaff/165/16502.htm}. See also Charlie Edwards, The case for a national security strategy (Demos, February 2007), {www.demos.co.uk/files/Demos_report_the_case_for_a_national_security_strategy.pdf?1240939425}.

16 This is similar to the approaches being used in theatres of conflict – such as Iraq and Afghanistan – by the US military's Human Terrain System programme: see Noah Shachtman, ‘Montgomery McFate: Use Anthropology in Military Planning’, wired Magazine, 16:10 (22 September 2008), {www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/16-10/sl_mcfate}.

17 See, for example, Secret Intelligence Service, ‘Careers as a linguist’: {www.sis.gov.uk/output/linguist-careers.html}; or Shane Harris, ‘Intelligence File Languishing Linguists’, Government Executive, (1 July 2007), {www.govexec.com/features/0707-01/0707-01adif.htm}.

18 See K .A. O'Brien, ‘Assessing Hostile Reconnaissance and Terrorist Intelligence Activities: The Case for a Counter Strategy’, RUSI Journal, 153:5 (October 2008), pp. 34–9.

19 That is, from the native ethnic populations – usually meaning ‘white-eyes’, as al-Qaeda has referred to them – in Western societies.

20 Interview, senior CT intelligence official, London – April 2009.

21 Witness, for example, the 2007 sentencing of Mohammed Atif Siddique from Scotland – given eight years for possessing terrorist literature – compared with that of Martyn Gilleard from Goole, Humberside – given only three more years for possessing ready-to-use bombs and other weapons to ignite a race-war in Britain – in 2008), see ‘Man convicted of terrorism offences’, BBC News, (17 September 2007), {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/6997830.stm} and ‘Man jailed for terrorism offences’, BBC News, (23 October 2007), {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7056707.stm}; and ‘Man jailed over nail bombs plot’, BBC News, (25 June 2008), {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7473060.stm}.

22 Following a retrial, three of the airlines plotters (Operation OVERT) were found guilty and sentenced to a minimum of 32–40 years in jail (see Haroon Siddique and Vikram Dodd, “Airline bomb plotters jailed for life”, Guardian (14 September 2009): {www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/14/airline-bomb-plotters-jailed-life}), while the Crown sought a second retrial for the other three members accused of the plot (see Adian Jones, “DPP seeks second retrial of men accused of airline bomb plot”, Guardian (12 September 2009): {www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/sep/11/airline-bomb-plot-trio-retrial}). In the Operation THESIUS (7/7) plot, all three accused were found not guilty in a second trial (see Rachel Williams, “Muslim men cleared of 7/7 plot but jailed for attending terror camps”, Guardian (30 April 2009): {www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/30/july-7-london-bombings-trial}) but two were sentenced to seven years for attending overseas terrorist training camps.

23 P. O'sullivan, Director-General, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation – quoted in Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2006 Week 5 Hansard (9 May), p. 1345: {www.hansard.act.gov.au/hansard/2006/week05/1345.htm}. See also Porter Goss, ‘Text From the Congressional Record’, C-SPAN Congressional Chronicle, 1999–05-13/11:11:51–11:19:53 – {www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=8633393}.

24 CSIS, Remarks by Jim Judd, Director of CSIS, at the Global Futures Forum Conference in Vancouver (15 April 2008), {www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/nwsrm/spchs/spch15042008-eng.asp}.

25 Interview – former security intelligence official, London – January 2009.

26 See, for example – J. Cornwell, ‘Is technology ruining children?’, The Sunday Times (27 April 2008), {http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article3805196.ece}; see also N. Carr, ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’, The Atlantic Monthly (July/August 2008), {www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google}.

27 D. Hart and S. Simon, ‘Thinking straight and talking straight: Problems of intelligence analysis’, Survival, 48:1 (March 2006), pp. 35–60, particularly pp. 37–43.