Intelligence officer

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An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of officer is a working title, not a rank, used in the same way a "police officer" can also be a sergeant, or in the military, in which non-commissioned personnel may serve as intelligence officers.

Contents

Organizations which employ intelligence officers include armed forces, police, and customs agencies.

Sources of intelligence

Intelligence officers make use of a variety of sources of information, including

Communications intelligence (COMINT)
Eavesdropping and interception of communications (e.g., by wiretapping) including signals intelligence (SIGINT) and electronic intelligence (ELINT).
Financial intelligence (FININT)
The gathering of information about the financial affairs of entities of interest.
Human intelligence (HUMINT)
Derived from covert human intelligence sources (Covert Human Intelligence Source or CHIS, agents or moles) from a variety of agencies and activities.
Imagery intelligence (IMINT)
Derived from numerous collection assets, such as reconnaissance satellites or aircraft.
Measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT)
Derived from collection assets that collect and evaluate technical profiles and specific characteristics of certain targeted entities.
Open-source intelligence (OSINT)
Derived from publicly available sources such as the Internet, library materials, newspapers, etc.
Technical intelligence (TECHINT)
Based on scientific and technical characteristics of weapons systems, technological devices and other entities.

Role and responsibilities

The actual role carried out by an intelligence officer varies depending on the remit of their parent organization. Officers of foreign intelligence agencies (e.g. the United States' Central Intelligence Agency, the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) may spend much of their careers abroad. Officers of domestic intelligence agencies (such as the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the UK's Security Service (MI5) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) are responsible for counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, counter-proliferation and the detection and prevention of serious organized crime within their own countries (although, in Britain, the National Crime Agency is responsible for dealing with serious organized crime).

Titles and responsibilities common among intelligence officers include:

Field officer
An officer who manages the intelligence collection plan for specific missions in foreign countries.
Case officer
An officer who runs intelligence agents in order to collect raw intelligence information. Case officers spend their time recruiting and exploiting source agents in order to collect HUMINT.
Collections officer (collector)
An officer who collects information, not necessarily from human sources but from technical sources such as wiretaps, bugs, cyber-collection, MASINT devices, SIGINT devices and other means.
Operations officer
An officer who plans or enacts the necessary steps to disrupt or prevent activities of hostile individuals or groups.
Analyst
An officer who analyzes collected information and results of operations to determine the identities, intentions, capabilities and activities of hostile individuals or groups and to determine requirements for future operations. After analysis, analysts are also responsible for the production and dissemination of their final product. [1] [2]
Counterintelligence officer
An officer that works to prevent detection, penetration, manipulation and compromise of the intelligence agency, its operations and overall national security by foreign, domestic, or hostile agents. [3] Often counterintelligence officers are law enforcement officers, as is the case with the Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Counterintelligence Division and the Diplomatic Security Service's Counterintelligence Division. This is often done in order to arrest moles and foreign intelligence agents. However, counter-intelligence officers can and do actively handle sources and agents in order to collect raw intelligence information.

Intelligence agents

Intelligence agents are individuals that work for or have been recruited by an Intelligence Officer, but who are not employed by the intelligence agency of the intelligence officer. Sometime around 2000, the United States Intelligence Community adopted a more "corporate" vocabulary and began referring to agents as assets. [4] Intelligence agents can be of several types:

Source agent
A primary source of intelligence information. This is the classic HUMINT source.
Access agent
An agent who identifies and approaches potential sources (eventual source agents) for assessment or recruitment. In counter-proliferation (CP) access agents are often scientists. In counter-terrorism (CT) access agents are often religious or ideological leaders. [4]
Agent provocateur
An agent who infiltrates hostile organizations with the intent of spreading disinformation from within or disrupting their operations through enticement and sabotage.
Rogue agent
A former intelligence officer, who may be subject to a burn notice, who is no longer accepting direction from their agency.
Double agent
An agent or intelligence officer who accepts direction from two or more intelligence agencies. [5]

Contrary to popular belief or what is seen in Hollywood films, professionally trained intelligence officers are never referred to as agents, secret agents or special agents (except in the case of FBI Special Agents). They are most often referred to as case officers or operations officers. Agents are the foreigners who betray their own countries to pass information to the officer; agents are also known as confidential informants or assets.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Signals intelligence</span> Intelligence-gathering by interception of signals

Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people or from electronic signals not directly used in communication. Signals intelligence is a subset of intelligence collection management. As classified and sensitive information is usually encrypted, signals intelligence in turn involves the use of cryptanalysis to decipher the messages. Traffic analysis—the study of who is signaling whom and in what quantity—is also used to integrate information again.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Human intelligence (intelligence gathering)</span> Intelligence gathered by means interpersonal contact

Human intelligence is intelligence gathered by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as signals intelligence (SIGINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT) and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counterintelligence</span> Offensive measures using enemy information

Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or other intelligence activities conducted by, for, or on behalf of foreign powers, organizations or persons.

Measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) is a technical branch of intelligence gathering, which serves to detect, track, identify or describe the distinctive characteristics (signatures) of fixed or dynamic target sources. This often includes radar intelligence, acoustic intelligence, nuclear intelligence, and chemical and biological intelligence. MASINT is defined as scientific and technical intelligence derived from the analysis of data obtained from sensing instruments for the purpose of identifying any distinctive features associated with the source, emitter or sender, to facilitate the latter's measurement and identification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Directorate of Operations (CIA)</span>

The Directorate of Operations (DO), less formally called the Clandestine Service, is a component of the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was known as the Directorate of Plans from 1951 to 1973; as the Directorate of Operations from 1973 to 2005; and as the National Clandestine Service (NCS) from 2005 to 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marine Corps Intelligence</span>

Marine Corps Intelligence is an element of the United States Intelligence Community. The Director of Intelligence supervises the Intelligence Department of HQMC and is responsible for policy, plans, programming, budgets, and staff supervision of Intelligence and supporting activities within the U.S. Marine Corps as well as supervising the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA). The Department supports the Commandant of the Marine Corps (CMC) in his role as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), represents the service in Joint and Intelligence Community matters, and exercises supervision over the MCIA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Army Intelligence and Security Command</span> Unit of the US Army

The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) is a direct reporting unit that conducts intelligence, security, and information operations for United States Army commanders, partners in the Intelligence Community, and national decision-makers. INSCOM is headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

Radiofrequency MASINT is one of the six major disciplines generally accepted to make up the field of Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT), with due regard that the MASINT subdisciplines may overlap, and MASINT, in turn, is complementary to more traditional intelligence collection and analysis disciplines such as SIGINT and IMINT. MASINT encompasses intelligence gathering activities that bring together disparate elements that do not fit within the definitions of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Imagery Intelligence (IMINT), or Human Intelligence (HUMINT).

Intelligence collection management is the process of managing and organizing the collection of intelligence from various sources. The collection department of an intelligence organization may attempt basic validation of what it collects, but is not supposed to analyze its significance. There is debate in U.S. intelligence community on the difference between validation and analysis, where the National Security Agency may try to interpret information when such interpretation is the job of another agency.

Intelligence cycle management refers to the overall activity of guiding the intelligence cycle, which is a set of processes used to provide decision-useful information (intelligence) to leaders. The cycle consists of several processes, including planning and direction, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and production, and dissemination and integration. The related field of counterintelligence is tasked with impeding the intelligence efforts of others. Intelligence organizations are not infallible but, when properly managed and tasked, can be among the most valuable tools of management and government.

National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of nations, are vulnerable to attack. It is the role of intelligence cycle security to protect the process embodied in the intelligence cycle, and that which it defends. A number of disciplines go into protecting the intelligence cycle. One of the challenges is there are a wide range of potential threats, so threat assessment, if complete, is a complex task. Governments try to protect three things:

Clandestine human intelligence is intelligence collected from human sources using clandestine espionage methods. These sources consist of people working in a variety of roles within the intelligence community. Examples include the quintessential spy, who collects intelligence; couriers and related personnel, who handle an intelligence organization's (ideally) secure communications; and support personnel, such as access agents, who may arrange the contact between the potential spy and the case officer who recruits them. The recruiter and supervising agent may not necessarily be the same individual. Large espionage networks may be composed of multiple levels of spies, support personnel, and supervisors. Espionage networks are typically organized as a cell system, in which each clandestine operator knows only the people in his own cell, perhaps the external case officer, and an emergency method to contact higher levels if the case officer or cell leader is captured, but has no knowledge of people in other cells. This cellular organization is a form of compartmentalisation, which is an important tactic for controlling access to information, used in order to diminish the risk of discovery of the network or the release of sensitive information.

The Clandestine HUMINT page adheres to the functions within the discipline, including espionage and active counterintelligence.

Clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting refers to the recruitment of human agents, commonly known as spies, who work for a foreign government, or within a host country's government or other target of intelligence interest for the gathering of human intelligence. The work of detecting and "doubling" spies who betray their oaths to work on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency is an important part of counterintelligence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Organizational structure of the Central Intelligence Agency</span>

The CIA publishes organizational charts of its agency. Here are a few examples.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Army Counterintelligence</span>

United States Army Counterintelligence (ACI) is the component of United States Army Military Intelligence which conducts counterintelligence activities to detect, identify, assess, counter, exploit and/or neutralize adversarial, foreign intelligence services, international terrorist organizations, and insider threats to the United States Army and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

CyberHumint refers to the set of skills used by hackers, within Cyberspace, in order to obtain private information while attacking the human factor, using various psychological deceptions. CyberHumint includes the use of traditional human espionage methodologies, such as agent recruitment, information gathering through deception, traditionally known as Humint, combined with deception technologies known as Social engineering.

A human intelligence exploitation team is a tactical collection asset usually at the battalion or higher level that uses HUMINT techniques such as interrogations and source operations to collect information to fulfill intelligence requirements.

All-source intelligence is a term used to describe intelligence organizations, intelligence analysts, or intelligence products that are based on all available sources of intelligence collection information.

References

  1. ↑ U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Intelligence and Analysis Brochure,
  2. ↑ Department of Homeland Security, Deployed Intelligence Officers and Protective Security Advisors, "Deployed Intelligence Officers and Protective Security Advisors | Homeland Security". Archived from the original on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2016-07-29., accessed Jan 8 2013
  3. ↑ USAjobs.gov, Counter-Intelligence Officer Job Duties
  4. 1 2 Ishmael Jones, The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture, 2008
  5. ↑ Begoum F.M. Observations on the Double Agent. Central Intelligence Agency.
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