Intelligence_ From Secrets to Policy - Mark M. Lowenthal [71]
6. Radio frequency: the electromagnetic signals generated by an object, either narrow-or wide-band
MASINT can be used against a wide array of intelligence issues, including WMD development and proliferation, arms control, environmental issues, narcotics, weapons developments, space activities, and denial and deception practices.
MASINT has suffered as a collection discipline because of its relative novelty and its dependence on the other technical INTs for its products. Often analysts or policy makers look at a MASINT product without knowing it. MASINT is a potentially important INT still struggling for recognition. It is also more arcane and requires analysts with more technical training to be able to use it fully. At present, policy makers are less familiar—and probably less comfortable—with it than they are with GEOINT or SIGINT. Responsibility for MASINT is shared by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and NGA: it is not a separate agency. Some of its advocates believe that MASINT will never make a full contribution until it has more bureaucratic clout. Others, even some sympathetic to MASINT, do not believe this INT needs the panoply of a full agency.
HUMAN INTELLEGENCE. HUMINT is espionage—spying—and is sometimes referred to as the world’s second-oldest profession. Indeed, it is as old as the Bible. First Moses and then Joshua sent spies into Canaan before leading the Jewish people across the Jordan River. Spying is what most people think about when they hear the word “intelligence.” whether they conjure up famous spies from history such as Nathan Hale or Mata Hari (both failures) or fictional spies such as James Bond. In the United States, HUMINT is largely the responsibility of the CIA, through the National Clandestine Service (NCS), formerly known as the Directorate of Operations (DO). The DIA also has a HUMINT capability with the Defense Humint Service, which it has sought to expand since the war in Afghanistan. The FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) also have officers who operate overseas. This multitude of collectors was what led DCI Porter Goss to create the NCS. The NCS has three branches: CIA HUMINT; Community HUMINT; and Technology. The Community HUMINT office serves to coordinate among the various agencies conducting HUMINT, a necessary task to avoid duplication of effort or operations that run at cross purposes. The director of the CIA (DCIA) is the HUMINT program manager.
HUMINT largely involves sending clandestine service officers to foreign countries, where they attempt to recruit foreign nationals to spy. The process of recruiting spies has several steps and a unique vocabulary. The process of managing spies is sometimes referred to as the agent acquisition cycle. The cycle has five steps.
1. Targeting or spotting: identifying individuals who have access to the information that the United States may desire.
2. Assessing: gaining their confidence and assessing their weaknesses and susceptibility to be recruited: done via the asset validation system.
3. Recruiting: making a pitch to them, suggesting a relationship; a source may accept a pitch for a variety of reasons: money, disaffection with their own government or thrills. U.S. clandestine service officers state very firmly that blackmail is not used, at least by them, to recruit spies.
4. Handling: managing of the asset.
5. Termination: ending the relationship for any of several reasons—unreliability, a loss of access to needed intelligence, a change in intelligence requirements, and so on.
Another HUMINT term of art is the developmental, a potential source who is being brought along—Largely through repeated contacts and conversations to assess his or her value (validation) and susceptibilities—to the point where the developmental can be pitched. If and when the pitch has been accepted, the officer must meet with this new source regularly to receive information, holding meetings in a manner and in places