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Counterplans

Fund HUMINT CP

The cplan’s just more data overload – makes intel ops less successful AND will re-create new resource tradeoffs.


Tufekci ‘15

Zeynep Tufekci is a fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, an assistant professor at the School of Information and Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, and a faculty associate at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society. “Terror and the limits of mass surveillance” – Financial Times’ The Exchange - Feb 3rd http://blogs.ft.com/the-exchange/2015/02/03/zeynep-tufekci-terror-and-the-limits-of-mass-surveillance/



The most common justification given by governments for mass surveillance is that these tools are indispensable for fighting terrorism. The NSA’s ex-director Keith Alexander says big data is “what it’s all about”. Intelligence agencies routinely claim that they need massive amounts of data on all of us to catch the bad guys, like the French brothers who assassinated the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo, or the murderers of Lee Rigby, the British soldier killed by two men who claimed the act was revenge for the UK’s involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the assertion that big data is “what it’s all about” when it comes to predicting rare events is not supported by what we know about how these methods work, and more importantly, don’t work. Analytics on massive datasets can be powerful in analysing and identifying broad patterns, or events that occur regularly and frequently, but are singularly unsuited to finding unpredictable, erratic, and rare needles in huge haystacks. In fact, the bigger the haystack — the more massive the scale and the wider the scope of the surveillancethe less suited these methods are to finding such exceptional events, and the more they may serve to direct resources and attention away from appropriate tools and methods. After Rigby was killed, GCHQ, Britain’s intelligence service, was criticised by many for failing to stop his killers, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. A lengthy parliamentary inquiry was conducted, resulting in a 192-page report that lists all the ways in which Adebolajo and Adebowale had brushes with data surveillance, but were not flagged as two men who were about to kill a soldier on a London street. GCHQ defended itself by saying that some of the crucial online exchanges had taken place on a platform, believed to be Facebook, which had not alerted the agency about these men, or the nature of their postings. The men apparently had numerous exchanges that were extremist in nature, and their accounts were suspended repeatedly by the platform for violating its terms of service. “If only Facebook had turned over more data,” the thinking goes. But that is misleading, and makes sense only with the benefit of hindsight. Seeking larger volumes of data, such as asking Facebook to alert intelligence agencies every time that it detects a post containing violence, would deluge the agencies with multiple false leads that would lead to a data quagmire, rather than clues to impending crimes. For big data analytics to work, there needs to be a reliable connection between the signal (posting of violent content) and the event (killing someone). Otherwise, the signal is worse than useless. Millions of Facebook’s billion-plus users post violent content every day, ranging from routinised movie violence to atrocious violent rhetoric. Turning over the data from all such occurrences would merely flood the agencies with “false positives” — erroneous indications for events that actually will not happen. Such data overload is not without cost, as it takes time and effort to sift through these millions of strands of hay to confirm that they are, indeed, not needles — especially when we don’t even know what needles look like. All that the investigators would have would be a lot of open leads with no resolution, taking away resources from any real investigation. Besides, account suspensions carried out by platforms like Facebook’s are haphazard, semi-automated and unreliable indicators. The flagging system misses a lot more violent content than it flags, and it often flags content as inappropriate even when it is not, and suffers from many biases. Relying on such a haphazard system is not a reasonable path at all. So is all the hype around big data analytics unjustified? Yes and no. There are appropriate use cases for which massive datasets are intensely useful, and perform much better than any alternative we can imagine using conventional methods. Successful examples include using Google searches to figure out drug interactions that would be too complex and too numerous to analyse one clinical trial at a time, or using social media to detect national-level swings in our mood (we are indeed happier on Fridays than on Mondays). In contrast, consider the “lone wolf” attacker who took hostages at, of all things, a “Lindt Chocolat Café” in Sydney. Chocolate shops are not regular targets of political violence, and random, crazed men attacking them is not a pattern on which we can base further identification. Yes, the Sydney attacker claimed jihadi ideology and brought a black flag with Islamic writing on it, but given the rarity of such events, it’s not always possible to separate the jihadi rhetoric from issues of mental health — every era’s mentally ill are affected by the cultural patterns around them. This isn’t a job for big data analytics. (The fact that the gunman was on bail facing various charges and was known for sending hate letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed overseas suggests it was a job for traditional policing). When confronted with their failures in predicting those rare acts of domestic terrorism, here’s what GCHQ, and indeed the NSA, should have said instead of asking for increased surveillance capabilities: stop asking us to collect more and more data to perform an impossible task. This glut of data is making our job harder, not easier, and the expectation that there will never be such incidents, ever, is not realistic.

Modest amounts of data’s key. Cplan won’t solve, doesn’t cut back on data overload.


Press ‘13

Gil - Managing Partner at gPress, a marketing, publishing, research and education consultancy. Previously held senior marketing and research management positions at NORC, DEC and EMC. Most recently he was a Senior Director, Thought Leadership Marketing at EMC, where he launched the Big Data conversation with the “How Much Information?” study (2000 with UC Berkeley) and the Digital Universe study. He is also contributes on computing technology issues as a guest writer at Forbes Magzzine – “The Effectiveness Of Small Vs. Big Data Is Where The NSA Debate Should Start” – Forbes – 6-12-13 - http://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2013/06/12/the-effectiveness-of-small-vs-big-data-is-where-the-nsa-debate-should-start/



Most of the discussion around the revelations about the data collection activities of the NSA has been about the threat to our civil rights and the potential damage abroad to U.S. political and business interests. Relatively little has been said, however, about the wisdom of collecting all phone call records and lots of other data in the fight against terrorism or other threats to the United States. Faith in the power (especially the predictive power) of more data is of course a central tenet of the religion of big data and it looks like the NSA has been a willing convert. But not everybody agrees it’s the most effective course of action. For example, business analytics expert Meta Brown: “The unspoken assumption here is that possessing massive quantities of data guarantees that the government will be able to find criminals, and find them quickly, by tracing their electronic tracks. That assumption is unrealistic. Massive quantities of data add cost and complexity to every kind of analysis, often with no meaningful improvement in the results. Indeed, data quality problems and slow data processing are almost certain to arise, actually hindering the work of data analysts. It is far more productive to invest resources into thoughtful analysis of modest quantities of good quality, relevant data.”

No solvency — focus on metadata will still exist — they’ll use metadata before Humint data.



Funding alone is not enough — divisional focus must be diverted for Humint.


Gallington 06 — Daniel Gallington, Adjunct Professor of National Security Law at the University of Illinois, senior policy and program adviser at the George C. Marshall Institute, LL.M. from the University of Michigan Law School, J.D. from the University of Illinois, 2006 (“What hope for HUMINT?,” Washington Times, May 8th, accessible online at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/may/8/20060508-091537-5575r/?page=all, accessed on 6-30-15)

Assuming Mike Hayden is confirmed as the new director, basic CIA “housecleaning” should continue — happening at the same time will be significant budgetary shifts from high-tech “remote-sensing” intelligence operations, to human-intelligence collection, the traditional CIA mission. Because the entrenched CIA senior bureaucracy remains resistant to change, it’s also fair to ask if the CIA can improve its human-intelligence collection even if we spend a lot more money on it. The answer in the shorter term — three to 10 years — is probably “no,” and whether we can do it for the longer term is not at all clear yet. Why such a negative assessment? Looking at how we have done in the past with human intelligence provides at least an indicator of our probable success: Our archenemy for 50 years, the Soviet Union, proved very hard to collect against using human sources. And, for most of the Cold War we seemed oblivious to this: Many sources we used were double agents and “played us like an organ,” as the expression goes. A primary way to get human intelligence — pay for it — can too often become the only way, because it is simply easier. And, we have probably paid a lot of money over the years for bad information — much of it planted with us by double agents. Traditionally, we have been unable to develop long-term, well-placed sources in other countries. The reason is that the time required — sometimes 20 years — seems beyond our comprehension and the ability of our government to fund and keep secret for sustained periods. Too often, our idea of “cover” for our agents was something your mother — let alone the KGB — could have figured out in about 30 seconds. We have the wrong kind of people doing the work: Despite being the most culturally diverse free nation in the world, we seem to send blond-haired, blue-eyed people to do intelligence field work. They simply can’t do the mission in today’s world — however, they seem to rise to leadership positions without difficulty. What should we do? (1) We have to take a very critical look at ourselves. This cannot be done objectively by the CIA and the other agencies because their primary focus is on the very short term — getting more money to spend. The president — consulting with the Intelligence Committees in Congress — should call together a group of experts, including counterintelligence experts, and chart out a long-term HUMINT collection strategy. We should get their guidance, Congress should fund it and the president carry it out. (2) It isn’t written in stone that the traditional HUMINT roles, missions and collection authorities of the various intelligence agencies should stay the same. In fact, everything should be on the table and no agency should expect its traditional HUMINT mission will remain intact. On paper at least, the new director of national intelligence (DNI) would seem empowered to direct this kind of reallocation of mission. (3) Too often, our intelligence collections overseas are based on second- and third-hand reports, and often obtained from host or other nations’ intelligence services. As these reports are analyzed and similarities are seen and written about, it’s easy to see how we can be misled by “group speak” reporting, mostly controlled by sources we have no way of assessing. Spying is spying: We should do more of it on our own throughout the world and get our own, firsthand information. (4) Most HUMINT collections should be controlled centrally: Local authorities overseas — including the U.S. ambassador in the country concerned and the regional military commander — should not, ordinarily, be “in the loop” for such activities. (5) There has been way too much emphasis on “open source” reporting, and it’s become a crutch for a number of agencies. Many so-called “open sources” are manipulated by those opposed to us, whether we consider them our “friends” or not. And, way too often, “open source” reporting just means someone reading a foreign newspaper — then writing an “intelligence” report on it. Will these recommendations work? We don’t have any choice: We are simply not getting the critical information we need to be responsive to the ever-broadening spectrum of threats from terrorism. And, unless we can penetrate terrorist organizations, including their planning and financing, we’ll simply be unable to prevent more terrorist attacks against us around the world and at home. Nevertheless, even if we do all these things — and do them right — we may be 15 or 20 years away from developing a true “world class” HUMINT collection capability: as good, for example as some of our key adversaries have had against us for years. But let’s make sure we stay on task and do it right — not just fling our money in a different direction for a few years.

A shift in intelligence gathering priority is key — commanders still prioritize drones post-counterplan.


BI 14 — Business Insider, major US business journal — Byline: Robert Caruso, 2014 (“Here's How the US Can Build the Intelligence Capabilities Needed to Defeat ISIS,” Business Insider, September 8th, accessible online at http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-needs-better-humint-to-beat-isis-2014-9, accessed on 6-29-15)

The U.S. government has a large number of officers trained by the CIA that can be deployed globally. Their efforts should focus on high-quality targets for human source intelligence that can provide information on strategic intent. Sources that only provide tactical and capability-based intelligence are insufficient.

Human source intelligence collection is as much a psychological and emotional construct as it is a political, military, or national security one. Intelligence collection is not an academic exercise that can be understood by rote formula or analyzed by a linear thinking process.

Typical defense intelligence priorities must undergo a conceptual shift. The practice of providing tactical intelligence to support military commanders is extremely important. But only understanding our adversaries’ capabilities without knowing their intentions means the U.S. is only winning half the battle.

There's a legal dimension to the problem that today's enemy combatants pose as well. In order to expand the fight against groups like ISIS, a congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force may be necessary. But that brings up questions of its own: Authorization for what? And, more poignantly, against whom? The language could become rapidly outdated as the nature of the enemy and the scope of the fight changes.

Today's enemy is embedded in local populations. Drones have no way of distinguishing between enemy combatants and noncombatants without actionable intelligence. Deep knowledge of today's enemies is vital to understanding them — and defeating them.

Humnit must consistently be our focus to solve.


Webster 08 — William Webster, Chairman of the National Security Council, Former director of both the CIA and FBI, J.D. from Washington University, St. Louis, 2008 (“How can the U.S. improve its human intelligence,” Washinton Times, July 6th, accessible online at http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/06/how-can-the-us-improve-its-human-intelligence/?page=all, accessed on 6-29-15)

Expansion of human intelligence (Humint).



These on-the-ground sources are the most reliable means of ascertaining the intentions and capabilities of our adversaries. Whenever the threat seems lessened these sources are the first to go and not be replaced. These sources are vital to our security, they cannot be put on ice and immediately called up and put in place to meet each new threat, whether officially assigned or as nonofficial cover agents (NOCs). This takes time, and the time to do it is now. Complete the FBI’s reorganization of its data gathering and data mining electronic capability. Past efforts have failed to transform this extremely valuable resource into a system that can supply needed intelligence to CIA and other key agencies. “Need to share” is just as important as “need to know.” The cost is high, but well worth it. Pre-emptive and preventive intelligence. The intelligence gathered by modern digital technology on a rapid basis should be made available to all personnel charged with spotting suspected terrorists at various points of entry as will those on the watch lists seeking to fly on commercial aircraft. Any useful intelligence gathered abroad must be promptly conveyed to security officers looking for suspected individuals and cargo so that the prompt and preventive policy can be more effective. Improve National Estimates. The longer-view estimates have often been neglected by consumers at the White House and elsewhere in favor of the “current intelligence” that seems to be more readily actionable. The NIEs have real, though less apparent value, in spotting trends and conditions that could result in hostile action against the United States and should be elevated in quality and presentation. Retention of objectivity. We may expect in a troubled world during this century that our leaders may want to cherry-pick the intelligence to support a previously determined program for action. Intelligence officers must not only be seen to be objective; they must protect the work product from distortion by the consumers that can only undermine its credibility. This can be a tough assignment, but it must be done. Our satellites project important imagery and signals intelligence that expand our understanding of potentially hostile activities and should be enhanced wherever possible. They do not, however, replace the need for on-the-ground intelligence about the intentions and capabilities of our adversaries. A well-placed human source can be of critical importance in explicating the purpose of such activities detected by our electronic “eyes and ears.” Similarly, human intelligence can also be an important factor in helping our electronic tools focus upon unusual plans or activities on the ground. Each is important in early detection and analysis. Together, they can make an important contribution to the safety of our nation by avoiding surprise and miscalculation of the intentions and capabilities of our adversaries and are thus indispensable to our policy-makers in reaching sound decisions in the best interest of our country. Public source information must also be factored in. But if we want to avoid surprises like Pearl Harbor and 9/11 we must have access to closely guarded secrets. Humint cannot be an afterthought.


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