The Death of Modern Day Intelligence Analysis Objectivity
Welcome.
E.C.H.O’s first blog post is NOT a lesson in building an analytic argument on whether or not this is occurring or how it’s playing out in AORs, both large and small. Akin to “What If?” analysis, we are starting at ‘it’s occurring’ and thinking backwards.
‘Click.’. Bert, a strategic analyst in a fusion center in the western United States, sits back in his chair after the last ‘.’ is entered in his intelligence assessment. He breathes a sigh of relief. After a month of pouring over qualitative and quantitative data, he’s finished his three-page strategic assessment of gangs in his area of responsibility (AOR).
Bert has had training on intelligence writing and heard of the value of sitting a paper aside for a period - letting his mind ‘breathe’ (refresh).. He clicks ‘print’ and sends his product to the section’s printer, determined to get eyes on it again after lunch. An hour later, he opts to walk to the local city district and grab a sandwich to go and start reading through his final draft before sending it to peer review.
A brisk walk, sunshine, and a growing sense of accomplishment have Bert feeling well as he begins his sandwich and his first read-through of his product. It does not take long for dread to start to settle in. It’s not the title, nor the bottom line or product beginning. In fact, he initially feels a sense of pride for his concise beginning section - composed of all of the key elements that lead directly into his substantiation.
It’s not the lack of a bottom line up front (BLUF) that has Bert worried; it’s the BLUF itself and supporting argumentation. He’d been too focused on objectively working through the data and building his analytic argument to notice - this product flies in the face of the fusion center’s parent agency’s strategic messaging and that of the state’s three-term governor.
The state police commissioner, which oversees the division where the fusion center is positioned, reassigned ten troopers and agents a month ago to focus on the perceived threat by transnational-affiliated street gangs. The governor lauded the efforts at a press conference and had taken to social media in recent weeks to talk about the “invasion” of various immigrant communities into the state, which she claimed were “filled” with nothing but “hordes of juvenile scum” that were “stealing anything not bolted down” and “flooding our cities with drugs and prostitutes.” Now, Bert recalls feeling concerned how the operational plan and public statements preceded the analysis (a cart before horse scenario, he thought)..
Memories of concern shifted quickly to dread. Bert had painstakingly worked to craft a detailed collection plan on the status of street gangs in his state and made sure to carefully consider both quantitative and qualitative data, to include confidential human source reporting from the state’s narcotics division. During the past two weeks of writing, Bert had not given a second thought about the implications of the bottom line or recommendations. Rather, he was focused on thoroughness and his tradecraft skills - as he should have. His final draft outlined with no degree of ambiguity that local hybrid street gangs were overwhelmingly the most significant gang threat and that transnational-affiliated street gangs in his state posed minimal criminal threat statewide. The best he could find to substantiate any transnational-affiliated gang presence were a handful of arrests of late-teen or twenty-somethings who had been arrested in the past six months in his state who were part of possible organizations based in other states.
“They are going to absolutely lose it,” Bert thought on his second read through. “Told to rewrite it at best; fired at worst,” he muttered to himself.
Versions of this hypothetical scenario play out weekly in intelligence units across the United States on a weekly basis. The consensus of E.C.H.O.’s analytic team is that the intelligence units across the countries are most likely mirroring the populations they serve and becoming more and more politicized. No, we do not think intelligence analysts are necessarily becoming less objective, rather leadership ranks in law enforcement , public safety, and homeland security agencies are more likely to be influenced by personal, agency, and AOR politics than they should.
E.C.H.O’s first blog post is NOT a lesson in building an analytic argument on whether or not this is occurring or how it’s playing out in AORs, both large and small. Akin to “What If?” analysis, we are starting at ‘it’s occurring’ and thinking backwards.
In our scenario, what are Bert’s options?
Scrap it all together and hope no one notices.
Scrap it and advise management that he had trouble collecting data and did not feel the “juice was worth the squeeze” to start over.
Finish his product and send it to peer review, trying to finish it as is (his agency does not have a section chief approval; it could get published without management even knowing his conclusions before it’s “too late”).
Talk to management about the draft before going to peer review and see how it goes.
At best (options 1 or 2), he sacrifices his professional integrity. At worst (options 3 or 4), he faces standing up to management or peers, who may agree with the current political climate, before or after the product is published. What if he is told to start over and write a product that directly aligns with the agency’s recent operational efforts, or worse with the governor’s public statements?
Will tradecraft and objectivity, weighting logic and evidence over personal beliefs or the beliefs of others, win the day? At E.C.H.O., we desperately hope so. If not, public safety efforts across the country will suffer and democracy begins to be slashed in small and large ways with keystrokes in government offices across the nation.
~by Knight, with support of Bishop and Rook