An Information Security Place

Martin McKeay has posted that phone tapping is not as effective as human intelligence, and I have agreed. But I also pointed out how difficult it is to get intelligence from traditional tactics with this type of enemy. It is not the same as gathering intelligence from communist governments, etc. I talked about this some more in my podcast.

Now Martin has replied to my previous post, and I have to say that his post is daunting. He is definitely passionate about this debate, and I agree with him on a number of points. I agree that phone-tapping is not a replacement for HUMINT.

But I have to take this debate a little farther. The NSA is not limiting itself to phone tapping. Bruce Schneier posted a link to this article this morning. It looks like the NSA is gathering information from MySpace and other social networking sites. Like Bruce, I don’t find this surprising. And to boot, it is not illegal. Anybody can grab this stuff from these sites. The NSA just happens to have more technology than most small countries, so they can be more effective at it. If people are crazy enough to let so much of their private lives hang out in public view, then they are going to have to deal with the consequences.

So what does the NSA hope to get from this data? Is it really effective as an intelligence tool? When you consider the sheer amount of data out there, the Internet would seem to be an ideal hiding place. And these social networking sites have added so much clutter to the Internet, it would appear to be impossible to gather any real, usable intel.

But I would say that it is effective, even with the high volume of data. Canada’s latest terror bust proves that website and Internet monitoring is effective at catching terrorists. This NY Times article (registration required) points out that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service “began monitoring Internet exchanges, some of which were encrypted” in 2004. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation also reported that “the investigation began as security officials monitored traffic to extremist-related websites.”

And here is another point. Martin, have you considered that gathering data from social networking sites really is HUMINT? Many of these social networking sites have replaced coffee houses and the like. By using the Internet, a terrorist cell does not have to risk all its members or multiple members being captured by meeting at the same place. They can gather in relative anonymity in many places. It provides some safety. But it is still HUMINT to monitor these sites because they serve the same purpose: collusion to perform heinous tasks.

And on the subject of gathering intelligence on our citizens: if we limit intelligence gathering to non-citizens, aren’t we leaving out a huge number of potential suspects? Many of the terrorists have been citizens of the countries they have attacked. The CBC article mentioned above says, “All of the suspects were either born in Canada or were long-time residents. Luc Portelance, the assistant director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) called it a case of ‘home-grown terrorism.’”

Martin has said that I have come over to his side, and I agree that I have moved my thinking to a huge degree. Between Martin, Ira Winkler, Alan Shimel, and Bruce Schneier, I have received a healthy dose of reality. Couple that with the sheer amount of data being gathered, and I have almost totally changed my mind on this issue. I agree that this amount of intelligence gathering can lead to abuse. I hesitate to say a police state is in our near future, but I can follow the tracks into the future far enough to agree that it can happen. I don’t like it. It scares me. The capturing of so much info on so many people really makes my hackles rise. This has changed our country considerably, and in a short time.

I also agree that our intelligence gathering agencies have been hamstrung in many ways, and I think they should be built back up to a high level of effectiveness. That is and always will be our most effective tool at fighting these baddies. But Martin, the terrorist threat is immediate. What do we do until then? There is where I have problems. I just don’t know how to effectively deal with the threat until then. I am not disagreeing. I just haven’t heard an alternative from anyone. And I am not saying I have one either. This is the ONLY reason I have not completely condemned these methods.

Sheesh…

Vet

[In case you see a couple of versions of this post (my RSS reader shows updated versions as separate posts), I must tell you that I have updated this post a couple of times due to some poor wording and garbled sentences. The message has not changed, just the wording. Thanks to Martin for pointing it out.]