Nearly 5 million hold security clearances

The number of people holding security clearances rose to about 4.9m in 2012, according to the latest official figures (pdf) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

Steven Aftergood of the FAS Security blog provides more details:

The total number of cleared personnel as of October 1, 2012 was 4,917,751.  Although the number of contractors who held a clearance declined in 2012, the number of eligible government employees grew at a faster rate, yielding a net increase of 54,199 clearances, or 1.1 percent, from the year before.

It is possible that there were more security-cleared Americans at some points during the Cold War, when there was a larger standing military with more cleared military personnel than there are today.  But until 2010, no comprehensive account of the size of the security clearance system had ever been produced.  So the new 4.9 million figure is the largest official figure ever published.

As he notes, ODNI requested that the legal obligation to report these numbers be canceled, which was initially granted, but following a public outcry, the obligation was restored (ODNI claimed it took a lot of time and effort to prepare).

It’s very useful for us to know these numbers, and indeed further information could well be disclosed without threat to national security, such as the number of contractors working at each IC agency, and in what capacity.

Obama memo on killing US citizens

Charlie Savage and Scott Shane have an important story on the Obama administration’s justifications for killing a US citizen, citing yesterday’s leaked memo obtained by NBC News correspondent Michael Isikoff.

The memo fills in important details of the government’s justifications for these killings, while still leaving plenty of terms only very loosely undefined. Perhaps most noticeably, it claims that killings can be performed in the face of an “imminent attack” but that there need not be any evidence of an attack.

According to Savage and Shane, the memo is also not the specific one used in the killing of Anwar Al-Awlaki, and lawyer Jesselyn Radack has noted that it wouldn’t justify that killing. (Awlaki was a US citizen.)

COIN and the cultural turn

Derek Gregory has a new post about counterinsurgency (COIN) and the cultural turn here. He makes some very good points about COIN and the academic response, as well as providing some useful references:

When I wrote “Rush to the intimate” (DOWNLOADS tab) the new field manual FM 3-24 had just been released, and I was interested in how this – together with changes in pre-deployment training, technology and the rest – described a ‘cultural turn’ of sorts that seemed to be addressed as much to the American public as it was to the American military.

…

There is indeed something odd about a mode of military operations that advertises itself as ‘the graduate level of war’ (one of Petraeus’s favourite conceits about counterinsurgency) and yet describes a ‘cultural turn’ that is decades behind the cultural turns within the contemporary humanities and the social sciences.

This is an interesting point and one which I feel needs addressing. When military/intel enrolls geography into its doctrine and methodology, there is often a mismatch. As I said in a long post reflecting on the latest GEOINT conference a little while ago, this is either because academia has (wrongly or rightly) given up on something that others find valuable, or because there is a misunderstanding of the potential of our more recent work. Gregory continues:

That said, the discussion of counterinsurgency surely can’t be limited to a single text, its predecessors and its intellectual credentials. If there has been a ‘cultural turn’, then its codification now extends far beyond FM 3-24 (which is in any case being revised); if the domestic audience was an important consideration in 2006, the public has certainly lost interest since then (and, if the US election is any guide, in anything other than an air strike on Iran); and whatever the attractions of large-scale counterinsurgency operations in the recent past, Obama’s clear preference is for a mix of drone strikes, short-term and small-scale Special Forces operations, and cyberwar.

At the moment I don’t feel we in academia have a good enough take on this, or that we’re convincing to policy-makers on why foreign policy shouldn’t be a mix of drone strikes (see eg., “the moral case for drones” here and here by the American philosopher Bradley Strawser) aside from personal opinion informed on ethical grounds.

Or see Matthew Aid, a generally good commentator on intel, and his practically fan-boy adoration of Petraeus, here.

On special ops there are large majorities of Americans in favor of this:

“Do you approve or disapprove of the United States taking military action in countries where it believes terrorists are hiding?”
		Approve	Disapprove	Approve of some (vol.)	Unsure
		%	%	%	%
	11/6-10/11	65	22	7	6
“Is it ever okay for the U.S. to authorize the killing of an American citizen in a foreign country if that person is known to be a terrorist, or is that never okay?”
		Okay	Never okay	Unsure
		%	%	%
	11/6-10/11	53	35	12

On cyberwar, this is a huge issue for the intelligence community, and one of the central planks of the ODNI & CIA efforts. Not least, because of “insider threat” but also it is framed around threats from China and Russia, especially the former  and industrial secrets.

So I’m just saying that those three things are extremely well entrenched and we need better approaches.

Here are the references he provides:

Ben Anderson, ‘Population and affective perception: biopolitics and antiicpatory action in US counterinsurgency doctrine’, Antipode 43 (2) (2011) 205-36

Josef Teboho Ansorge, ‘Spirits of war: a field manual’, International political sociology 4 (2010) 362-79

Alan Cromartie, ‘Field Manual 3-24 and the heritage of counterinsurgency theory’, Millennium 41 (2012) 91-111

Marcus Kienscherf, ‘A programme of global pacification: US counterinsurgency doctrine and the biopolitics of human (in)security’, Security dialogue 42 (6) (2012) 517-35

Patricia Owens, ‘From Bismarck to Petraeus:the question of the social and the social question in counterinsurgency’, European journal of international relations [online early: March 2012]

Is transparency enough?

Two recent events have got me thinking about transparency. Particularly whether demands for transparency of process, coupled with oversight, are sufficient to ensure good practice.

The proximate cause of these thoughts was Sarah Elwood’s excellent talk to the geography department “Activism, Civic Engagement and the Knowledge Politics of the Geoweb.” Sarah discussed NGOs and their use of geospatial and GIS technologies, and noted that they claimed these offered a benefit to the user (eg., to increase participation) due to their added transparency compared to previous NGO efforts. Sarah was careful to note that these were the NGO claims, and that they needed further assessment. Given the subject matter of her talk, the clear implication was that transparency alone (ie., access to knowledge about their activities) is no more sufficient than previous claims for transparency of the map were ever sufficient. (The map as a transparent window on to the real world.)

The original comments that started me on this however were a couple of posts on Derek Gregory’s blog (here and here) on covert killing through drone strikes. Here are the pertinent sections, first in the context of a recent report on the civilian impact of drones:

military protocols are indeed more public, even transparent, as the authors note, but the space between principle and practice is still wide enough to inflict an unacceptably heavy burden on the civilian population.

Derek had previously made a more developed version of his point:

Madiha’s root objection is to the way in which what she calls the Obama administration’s ‘theatrical performance of faux secrecy’ over its drone war in the FATA (and elsewhere) – a repugnantly teasing dance in which the veil of secrecy is let slip once, twice, three times – functions to draw its audience’s entranced eye towards the American body politic and away from the Pakistani bodies on the ground.  The story is always in Washington and never in Waziristan.  It’s a hideously effective sideshow, in which Obama and an army of barkers and hucksters – unnamed spokesmen ‘speaking on condition of anonymity’ because they are ‘not authorised to speak on the record’,  and front-of-house spielers like Harold Koh and John Brennan – induce not only a faux secrecy but its obverse, a faux intimacy in which public debate is focused on transparency and accountability as the only ‘games’ worth playing.

It is certainly true that the administration’s “now you see it, now you don’t” position on CIA drone strikes (as opposed to those performed by the military in Afghanistan) are hypocritical. On the one hand they issue the standard Glomar response (“neither confirm nor deny”) about drone use in countries with which the US is not at war (Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia). On the other they send out self-congratulatory announcements about killing suspected al-Qaeda members in Yemen, even when they hold American citizenship (such as Anwar al-Awlaki). (Glenn Greenwald has written the most informatively on this, eg here.)

I would also agree with Derek that “false transparency” is deceptive (as is the quest for total or full transparency). However, I would argue that the conditions of knowledge, or if you like the politics of knowledge, are currently in such an asymmetrical state that efforts to rebalance these asymmetries are meritorious. Not just the two recent reports on drones (which I haven’t read yet but plan to do so), but also efforts like WikiLeaks, which I wrote about recently in Geopolitics. The Obama administration’s war on whistleblowers has been truly unprecendented, and brave employees of the NSA, like Thomas Drake, and of the CIA, such as John Kiriakou (who revealed its practice of waterboarding and admitted it was torture) have been charged under the Espionage Act. Not to mentioned Bradley Manning, accused whistleblower, who allegedly provided State department cables to WikiLeaks. (The Drake case was dismissed but the Kiriakou case continues. Proceedings against Bradley Manning are also continuing today.)

While transparency is not enough, and false transparency is misleading, I think it’s important to continue to work for increased government oversight, and I know that it is effective. Things like FOIA and working on declassified documents in archives do yield plenty of information. The FAS Secrecy blog is also highly informational (not least in part because of their use of FOIA to obtain eg., the NGA Congressional budget justifications). In a paper I wrote this summer with two colleagues, Susan Roberts and Ate Poorthuis, we used information we obtained from  corporate filings with the SEC. The paper would not have been as empirically rich without it.

This issue has connections to the vexed problem of visuality, but my focus has more often been on knowledge, and, as here, access to knowledge and denial of access (secrecy). I have a blog post coming up on “the secret” so more on that soon.

GEOINT 2012 [pictures]

GEOINT (geographical intelligence) 2012 is the largest open gathering of intelligence-related participants (contractors, government employees, directors of intel agencies) I know of. This year it is being held in Orlando, Florida and it closes out tonight. Here are some pictures of the event so far.

The main presentation room looking at the stage and the main screen. Presentations here are recorded and appear on geointv.com.

Views of the massive exhibition hall.

Somebody brought a missile from the Cuban missile crisis!

The meeting is organized by the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. Here’s their huge banner in the atrium of the Gaylord Palms hotel.

..and what was below that banner!

How much does the US spend on “security”?

How much does the US spend on security each year? Taking everything into account, and including the Pentagon military base budget and overseas contingency operations (foreign wars), intelligence, Department of State, past wars that have to be paid off, etc, the total comes out to $1.2 trillion, according to Chris Hellman, of the National Priorities Project.

That’s a good base number to keep in mind during talk of sequestration (obligatory spending cuts if no budgets are agreed to).

How does this affect spending on military/intelligence contractors? The pattern is clear: since 2006 contractors have shrunk the number of people they employ (jobs they provide) while at the same time increasing the amount of federal contracting dollars they take in.

As David Swanson puts it, “the logic of bigger contracts = more jobs is essentially a bucket of hope and change.”

What remains to be seen is if smaller contracts = fewer jobs. But here’s two indications it won’t necessarily be so simple.

Navy SEAL in bin Laden raid unmasked

A Navy SEAL who was part of the raid on bin Laden’s headquarters has apparently written a book about his exploits. Although it was written under a pseudonym, media reports have already identified the author.

The book comes at a time when concern about leaks is at a fever pitch in Washington and in the White House. The Obama administration has been especially tough on whistleblowers (defined as those who wish to report wrong doing, malfeasance or waste and have a reasonable belief their superiors will not act upon the evidence). However, since the book was not cleared by the DoD or the CIA speculation is that it may contain classified information (or if not, be a very short book).

This raises the question of whether this is leak, a leak which the administration winks at (a large amount of very derring-do information was leaked by the administration after the raid) or something else. Will they prosecute or quietly reward the author? (Added: On the other hand, the book may turn out to be highly critical of the WH.) As Glenn Greenwald writes in the Guardian, this is also in the context of judicial refusals to provide records of the raid. Are those refusals now overtaken by leaked information?

The book is being published on the symbolic date of September 11, just a couple of months before a presidential election.

The .22 caliber cigarette and other gadgets of the OSS

Couldn’t resist getting this book out, a republication of the rare OSS weapons manual (OSS Special Weapons and Equipment, Spy Devices of WWII, by H. Keith Melton).

Pictures speak louder than words, so herewith:

The .22 caliber cigarette. Careful who you share ciggies with!

Simulated poop smell. Highly offensive.

Cool! A folding motorbike for air drops. I say, invented by the British. Top speed 30mph!

No spy would be caught without a miniature camera.

The famous pen gun.

Exploding coal! Confound your enemies and amuse your friends. Breaks the ice at parties!

Take that! Oof!

What, no suicide pill?

Probably not a problem for Katniss.

For the cryptos…

This is just a small selection. There were actually suicide pills (L-pills). don’t smoke cigarettes? There was also an exploding pipe (Captain Haddock anyone?). Great boy’s own stuff…

 

New report on Human Terrain Systems (HTS)

A new report on the Human Terrain System (HTS) appears in the Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin for Oct-Dec 2011.

Readers might be interested in what the military sees HTS doing and how that relates to geography:

Structural analysis. Used to gain an understanding
of structures, systems and processes underlying
the people, organizations and capabilities
within an area of operations. Structural analysis
may also include geospatial analysis, which
is used to analyze the spatial and geographicalpatterns of people, organizations, capabilities,
and events in space and time.
 Cultural domain analysis. Used to develop an
understanding of norms, standards, and commonly
held beliefs of people and organizations.
 Text analysis. Used to identify and then confi
rm patterns or themes from written and verbal
mediums.
 Quantitative analysis. Used to analyze large
amounts of complex, numerical data.
 Mixed Method analysis. Used to analyze a variety
of data.

[Update: Interestingly they acknowledge the critiques of HTS:

The concept of social science support to the military in a combat theater has received mixed reviews. The social science community criticized HTS for  potentially sacrifi cing social science ethics in order  to properly support the military commanders. This was not the case. It did, however, highlight the need to constantly update and expand the rigor HTS places on its employees concerning ethics. It also highlighted the need to clearly differentiate the HTS methodology and ethics concerning social science research for non-lethal activities. Critique of HTS by some in the academic community has been productive in that we have channeled this into a state of the art review process. The internal process is founded in social science ethical processes and sets clear standards for oversight and review of all projects. It provided confi dence to the team members that what they are doing is consistent with conventional professional ethical standards. Indeed, nothing else could be more important to the success of the HTS mission since we are the ones to advise our units about the sensitivities, mores and morals of the local population. To undermine these is to undermine the governance and stability we hope to create for the good of all. (p. 19)

Via Steve Aftergood/FAS

Geographers, academics and governmental consulting

One of the points I’m interested in with the OSS/intelligence material is the relationship between academics/scholars/experts and government. I think this goes back to my fascination with the World War One era Inquiry; a think tank of experts that President Wilson formed to determine America’s post-war foreign policy/international relations. The idea is that knowledge is a weapon, along with intelligence, to help you fight a war (or avoid war), and the relationships between knowledge and politics.

Although geographers have long had governmental ties (and the history of the discipline, along with cartography, is shot through with governmental-military relationships), a recent post by Glenn Greenwald about the psychologist Dr. Larry James got me thinking that there hasn’t been anyone like him in geography. Prof. James was the Chief psychologist at Guantanamo in 2003 when a number of abuses–Greenwald calls them war crimes–were committed. He is currently Dean and Professor at Wright State University in Ohio.

Anthropology had its controversy with the human terrain system (HTS) and geography has had the Mexico Indigena controversy (see pieces in Political Geography in December 2010 and February 2011).

Incidentally, there are geographers who’ve worked for HTS, including Philip Zaprzalka (U. Colorado Springs and now at George Washington Univ.) and Heather McAfee, who both confirmed to me on the record that they have worked in the HTS. They also mentioned Robert M. Kerr, formerly at University of Central Oklahoma and 2006-7 Academic Fellow with the right-wing Foundation for Defense of Democracies (Board of Directors includes Newt Gingrich, Bill Kristol and Joe Lieberman). (Kerr’s UCO webpage has been deleted but is available via Google cache where he describes himself: “I am a political geographer with particular interests in Global Jihadist Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism Studies, and Xenophobia”). If anybody knows his current position I would appreciate it. Another page describes a forthcoming book Marking Territory: Xenophobia and the Geographical Imagination, but I’ve not been able to trace it. (Update: Kerr responds in the comments below.)

But we have not had anyone who calmly poured themselves a cup of coffee while watching a suspect being force-clothed in pink panties and rolled into a nightie. And who didn’t then report the abuse (details on Greenwald’s blog).