{"id":375,"date":"2017-02-01T20:23:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T20:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/?p=375"},"modified":"2017-02-01T20:23:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-01T20:23:33","slug":"a-license-to-receive-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/?p=375","title":{"rendered":"A License to Receive Intelligence?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should government officials be licensed or pass a test before they can receive intelligence?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The debate about whether to believe intelligence reporting on Russian hacking of the DNC highlights a chronic problem.\u00a0 Steps were taken to improve collection, analysis and reporting in response to the wildly wrong assessments about Saddam\u2019s WMD a decade ago.\u00a0 This included better training of analysts.<\/p>\n

But there is no training for politicians, bureaucrats and other recipients of intelligence reports.<\/strong>\u00a0 Most consumers, and especially new political leaders, have no idea how intelligence is gathered or how intelligence analysis is created.\u00a0 The types of reports, confidence levels, systemic weaknesses, prejudices, and processes are often only gradually learned ad hoc by political leaders over time.\u00a0 In order for a consumer to make a valid judgment about the quality of a report provided, he\/she must have some understanding of how these things come to be.<\/p>\n

As someone who has been involved in such matters for decades, here are a few observations that illustrate pitfalls for untrained recipients of intelligence:<\/p>\n

There is a tendency to think a highly classified report that few people can see is more important and more believable, than a less classified report.<\/p>\n

A report based on stolen secrets is deemed more valuable than one full of information gained another way.\u00a0 (If your enemy doesn\u2019t know that you have the information, that\u2019s another and different characteristic–important, but does not necessarily relate to accuracy.)<\/p>\n

There is a tendency to highlight the unusual or explosive.\u00a0 If a source in a bar in Beirut says he overheard someone say they had\u00a0seen no WMD in Iraq, that may get reported, but it would not get much attention in Washington.\u00a0 But, if a source reported that he overheard someone saying his cousin had a WMD container in Iraq\u2014that account would go up the food chain very quickly.\u00a0 The data in the first report is of no different quality than the second.<\/p>\n

Confidence levels are now usually attached to assessments, but does the reader really understand what low, medium or high mean?<\/p>\n

What is the character of the source of the information?\u00a0 There are a lot of different sources each with weaknesses and flaws and potential for misinterpretation.<\/p>\n

Transcripts of conversations appear very compelling.\u00a0 But they can be very misleading.\u00a0 Are they translations?\u00a0 Do they account for sarcasm?\u00a0 Imagine reading a transcript of a discussion where discussants mention the \u201cnuclear option.\u201d\u00a0 If Saddam had said that, it would have created quite a stir.\u00a0 If a Senator on the Hill says it, that\u2019s another matter.<\/p>\n

For intelligence analysts, when making an assessment, the downside of over-estimating a threat is often less than under-estimating it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s very difficult to make a downward revision from a high confidence assessment to a lower confidence assessment.\u00a0 It is awkward to explain that new information may have undermined a previous judgment.<\/p>\n

There a host of biases inherent in the system and there are a myriad of peculiarities of how intelligence is gathered, sorted and reported.\u00a0 Readers of these products can only know how to judge intelligence judgments if they have some understanding of how they\u2019re created.<\/p>\n

One useful thing the much-maligned office of the Director of National Intelligence could do is create a short course on intelligence products and processes for consumers and mandate that only those who have taken the course should receive material.<\/p>\n

The government spends a lot of time and money checking the backgrounds of people to be \u201ccleared\u201d to receive intelligence.\u00a0 That makes sense to protect sensitive information.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t it make sense to expend some additional effort to make sure the recipients understand the intelligence they are getting?<\/p>\n

You need to pass a knowledge test to drive a car or carry a concealed weapon.\u00a0 Untrained use of intelligence can be very dangerous too.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should government officials be licensed or pass a test before they can receive intelligence? The debate about whether to believe intelligence reporting on Russian hacking of the DNC highlights a chronic problem.\u00a0 Steps were taken to improve collection, analysis and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}