Technical collection represents the largest asymmetric edge that technologically advanced countries such as the United States and its allies have in the intelligence business. Intelligence veteran Robert M. Clark’s new book offers a succinct, logically organized, and well written overview of technical collection, explained at a non technical level for those new to the field. Filling a void in the literature, The Technical Collection of Intelligence is the only book that comprehensively examines the collection, processing, and exploitation of non-literal intelligence information, including laser, acoustic, and infrared signals; non-imaging optical intelligence sources; and radar tracking and measurement of aerospace vehicles. A compelling final chapter addresses the substantial challenges that come with managing technical collection. A stunning full-color interior design features high quality graphics while a handy "tabs" feature keeps content at the ready. A useful list of recommended books and reports, a glossary of terms, and a list of acronyms make this guide a go-to resource. Technical Collection will prove invaluable to all source analysts, managers of technical collection, customers of intelligence, and recruiters for the intelligence community.

This volume examines the role of technology in gathering, assimilating and utilizing intelligence information through the ages. Pushing the boundaries of existing works, the articles contained here take a broad view of the use and implementation of technology and intelligence procedures during the cold war era and the space race, the September 2011 attacks, and more recent cyber operations. It looks at the development of different technologies, procedural implications thereof, and the underlying legal and ethical implications. The findings are then used to explore the future trends in technology including cyber operations, big data, open source intelligence, smart cities, and augmented reality. Starting from the core aspects of technical capabilities the articles dig deeper, exploring the hard and soft infrastructure of intelligence gathering procedures and focusing on the human and bureaucratic procedures involved therein. Technology and innovation have played an important role in determining the course of development of the intelligence community. Intelligence gathering for national security, however, is not limited only to the thread of technical capabilities but is a complex fabric of organizational structures, systemic undercurrents, and the role of personnel in key positions of decision making. The book’s findings and conclusions encompass not just temporal variation but also cut across a diverse set of issue areas. This compilation is uniquely placed in the interdisciplinary space combining the lessons from key cases in the past to current developments and implementation of technology options.

"A result of an activity called for in Presidential Policy Directive 28 (PPD-28), issued by President Obama in January 2014, to evaluate U.S. signals intelligence practices. The directive instructed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to produce a report within one year 'assessing the feasibility of creating software that would allow the intelligence community more easily to conduct targeted information acquisition rather than bulk collection.' ODNI asked the National Research Council (NRC) - the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering - to conduct a study, which began in June 2014, to assist in preparing a response to the President."--Publisher's description.

This comprehensive book by one of the foremost authorities in the field offers systematic and analytical coverage of the "how and why" of intelligence collection across its three major stages—the front end (planning), collection, and the back end (processing, exploitation, and dissemination). The book provides a fresh, logical, and easily understandable view of complex collection systems used worldwide. Its ground-breaking organizational approach facilitates understanding and cross-INT collaboration, highlighting the similarities and differences among the collection INTs. The first part of the book explains how the literal INTs—open source, human intelligence, communications intelligence, and cyber collection—work. The second part focuses on nonliteral or technical INTs including imagery, electronic intelligence, and measurements and signatures intelligence. All chapters use a common format based on systems analysis methodology, detailing function, process, and structure of the collection disciplines. The third part is a complete chapter discussing the complexities of collection management in the United States. Rich, full color illustrations accompany the text with examples throughout the book on topics as diverse as battlespace situational awareness, terrorism, weapons proliferation, criminal networks, treaty monitoring, and identity intelligence.

This volume examines the ethical issues generated by recent developments in intelligence collection and offers a comprehensive analysis of the key legal, moral and social questions thereby raised. Intelligence officers, whether gatherers, analysts or some combination thereof, are operating in a sea of social, political, scientific and technological change. This book examines the new challenges faced by the intelligence community as a result of these changes. It looks not only at how governments employ spies as a tool of state and how the ultimate outcomes are judged by their societies, but also at the mind-set of the spy. In so doing, this volume casts a rare light on an often ignored dimension of spying: the essential role of truth and how it is defined in an intelligence context. This book offers some insights into the workings of the intelligence community and aims to provide the first comprehensive and unifying analysis of the relevant moral, legal and social questions, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision making. The contributors analyse the ethics of spying across a broad canvas – historical, philosophical, moral and cultural – with chapters covering interrogation and torture, intelligence’s relation to war, remote killing, cyber surveillance, responsibility and governance. In the wake of the phenomena of WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden revelations, the intelligence community has entered an unprecedented period of broad public scrutiny and scepticism, making this volume a timely contribution. This book will be of much interest to students of ethics, intelligence studies, security studies, foreign policy and IR in general.

Provides an unclassified reference handbook which explains the categories of intelligence threat, provides an overview of worldwide threats in each category, and identifies available resources for obtaining threat information. Contents: intelligence collection activities and disciplines (computer intrusion, etc.); adversary foreign intelligence operations (Russian, Chinese, Cuban, North Korean and Romanian); terrorist intelligence operations; economic collections directed against the U.S. (industrial espionage); open source collection; the changing threat and OPSEC programs.