Sources and Methods...

Image Source: Debate dot org

Topics: Commentary, Existentialism, Politics

Abstract from Oxford Handbooks:

“Sources and methods” is a term used to describe the practice of intelligence collection and analysis. Intelligence sources and the nature of information obtained vary. Intelligence sources may include information obtained from espionage, images obtained by satellites, intercepted communications, and publicly available media reporting. The nature of information may vary from purloined documents to the “signature” of ship's radar. The term methods, which is synonymous with tradecraft, pertains to the techniques used by operations officers and analysts to carry out their duties. Methods may include social-science methodologies, computer-based analytic tools, maintaining secretive communications and so on. Sources and methods of intelligence agencies are heavily guarded because it comprise of the ways the information is collected and analyzed can give opponents opportunity to assess the capabilities and interests of their enemy. Intelligence agencies surround their sources and methods in a cloak of secrecy because they are significant in the success of ongoing and future operations and analysis. In the advent of globalization, the barriers are dissolved between foreign and domestic violence activities including the way local and national law enforcement and intelligence agencies work. Distinctions between private and public interests and entities are also blurred as activities in the public and private sphere interact to shape domestic and international threats. Apart from globalization, the advent of information revolution also changed the practice and study of intelligence. Policymakers, analysts, and scholars are now confronted with a torrent of data and information as well as the virtual realities of “cyberspace”. New collective workspaces which are empowered by the advancement in communication and computer technologies are also creating new opportunities for collaboration. This article discusses three emerging topics in the study and practice of intelligence in such a way to illustrate the emerging sources and methods of intelligence studies. These new emerging topics are: the intelligence for homeland security, the concept of collective intelligence, and the application of intelligence and warning methodologies to mitigate risk.

We can no longer call them the party of "family values." That title went out the window with the Birther Movement cum Orly Tate cum the 45th occupant-Manchurian-candidate of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That title went when quite a few of them PROUDLY displayed a bumper sticker quoting Psalms 109: "8 Let his days be few; [and] let another take his office. 9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek [their bread] also out of their desolate places." about the p-grabber's black predecessor. That title went with justifying an avalanche of lies that impugns the so-called "faith" of white evangelicals, from the p-grabbing serial adulterer that has his third wife pissed with him at the state of disunion because he paid off a porn star to hide their secret backgammon games! Which is kind of ironic, since she was his affair on his second wife, and his SECOND wife was his affair on his first wife! Talk about not getting-a-clue. Kind of makes you NOT stand on the applause line "family and faith." There's only so much felgercarb even a possibly illegal Slovenian can take. From his warm-up act at the Vice President Debate to the Olympic-level obfuscations we've endured since January 20, 2017, Pence is the physical embodiment of John 8:44. Millennials may be lost for generations for this laid-bare, abject hypocrisy.

We can thoroughly jettison national security as a bona fide of republicanism. It was way before changing the republican platform in 2016. The same political party that went after their president's* opponent for mishandling classified information in the form of emails on a private server is MISHANDLING CLASSIFIED INFORMATION! The sanctions are not being implemented, even after overwhelming, presidential* veto-proof support in congress. Vlad the impaler is hellbent on repealing the Magnitsky Act, and he has the right stooges in our executive and legislative branches in the government of our shredding republic to do it.

With the release of the Nunes memo, likely on Carter Page that's probably being exploited as an asset (my thought) in a "honey pot" trap, the FBI's hands are tied, and the republican* house knows it. They can't say which area in the memo is true or false because THAT would reveal "sources and methods." Methods like those the traitor Edward Snowden revealed on his work in the NSA (he's conveniently in Russia for "protection"). Sources like HUMINT: human intelligence, meaning spies and informants, behind enemy lines in Afghanistan and Iraq, or allied agents in Russia.

As someone who had to go through an excruciating interview with the-then Defense Intelligence Service over my SF-86 form (the same one the first son-in-law has botched ad nauseum without consequences), that the investigator kept me over 2 HOURS because as the only African American in my Air Training Command class, he couldn't believe I had never smoked weed. "Why should I believe you?" he asked. My answer: "because most of my class would likely have driven into my neighborhood to buy it, going back to their pristine suburbs. Just because I lived there, doesn't mean I used anything!" He said they would personally interview five people and "I'd better be telling the truth." I challenged him to interview ten. I passed my security clearance.

"Sources and methods" was drilled into ALL of us the whole time I held a Top Secret SCIF (special compartmental information facility) clearance in the Air Force. I had to in order to work in Communications for COMSEC (Communications Security) and OPSEC (Operations Security). I was in during the Cold War, when Vladimir was master spy head of the KGB. It was the difference between winning and losing; the difference between agents and informants for the FBI or the CIA living through an operation...or dying.

I'm incensed as a veteran because a lot of people are about to get killed, and that's not hyperbole.

What American would want to serve their nation when its president* is willing to sacrifice their lives to cover up a possible crime, collusion or espionage? What American would want to serve in the Armed Forces when our elected representatives* (I guess I have to use the asterisk for these yahoos, too) would collude to stop an investigation to protect ONE man and a demographically dwindling party, versus our COUNTRY?

The frightening thing that's likely to happen is a lot of good, experienced people are going to start running for the door, or retiring before being put in harms way by traitorous buffoons. #MAGA should mean: morons are governing America. I can't blame them.

However, you can't GO FUND intelligence services. They take years to build in apparatus and infrastructure and apparently, a few months of septuagenarian bowel-movement tweeting incessantly to deconstruct, along with a feckless congress that hasn't read The Constitution they swore to "protect and defend."

And like a hog fattened for the slaughter, that's when our republic (like Rome) will topple over the cliff, pushed over by a master spy...and his orange puppet.