Posts Tagged ‘Counterintelligence’
CI is defined as the effort made by intelligence bodies to prevent their enemy counterparts from successfully gathering and collecting useful intelligence. It is the role of intelligence cycle security to maintain the process embodied in the intelligence cycle by combining a variety of disciplines which often have to monitor a wide range of potential threats, making complete threat assessment a very complex task.
Most governments make Counterintelligence agencies separate and very distinct from their intelligence collection services. In the majority of countries, the counterintelligence is spread across several organizations and there is frequently a domestic CI service which is perhaps part of a larger law enforcement organization.
Great Britain utilizes this model with great success with their separate internal intel service known as MI5. Although MI5 does not have any direct police powers, it works in conjunction with Special Branch (an elite section of the British police), they can carry out arrests and conduct warranted searches.
Military organizations often have their own counterIntel forces, capable of conducting offensive, protective and counter-espionage operations. The term ‘counter-espionage’ is generally specific to countering human intel, but, since virtually all offensive CI entails exploiting human intel, the term ‘offensive counterintelligence’ is used often to avoid confusion.
In modern models of practice, a number of missions are associated with counterintelligence. Firstly, ‘defensive analysis’ or looking for vulnerabilities in one’s own organization , and, with due regard for risk versus benefit, closing any discovered gaps.
Secondly, ‘offensive counterespionage’ is the set of tactics that neutralizes discovered foreign intelligence service (FIS) personnel and arrests them or, in the case of politicians, expels them. Alternatively, it exploits FIS personnel to get intelligence for the allied side and or actively exploits the FIS personnel to harm the hostile FIS.
Now that threat is no longer restricted to the FIS, contemporary counterIntel missions have broadened somewhat exponentially. Threats have multiplied to include threats from non-national or trans-national groups, including internal enemies, organized crime and transnational based groups. Yet, ‘FIS’ remains the usual term for defining the threat faced by counterintelligence agencies.
Finally, ‘counterintelligence force protection source operations’ (CFSO) are human source operations conducted abroad and are intended to bridge the existing void in national level coverage in securing a field station or force from terrorism and espionage.