Surveillance



Surveillance

U.S. Intelligence Agencies

America's secret agencies engage in three primary missions. First and fore-most, they are expected to gather and interpret information from around theworld (referred to by intelligence officers as collection and analysis). Second, the agencies are expected to protect U.S. government secrets from espionage by other governments (counterintelligence). Third, from time to time they have been directed to oppose the nation's adversaries through the use of aggressive clandestine operations abroad (covert action). Throughout the Cold War (1945-91) the Soviet Union was the nemesis of American foreign policy and hence the number-one target of the intelligence agencies. The containment of Soviet-inspired communism was the preeminent objective that shaped America's relations with the rest of the world and provided the raison d'être for the secret agencies.

In the light of this jarring breach of trust, U.S. intelligence agencies would no longer enjoy the same breadth of discretion in the conduct of covert opera-tins around the globe as they had had before. Henceforth officials within the executive branch—and, in a dramatic expansion of supervision, the legislative branch as well—would attempt to hold the nation's spymasters to a higher standard of accountability. A Season of Inquiry traced the debates about the future of intelligence that took place during the Year of Intelligence, as some officers of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) remember 1975, or—for the more embittered—the time of the Intelligence Wars. Scandal had forced both the president and the Congress to grapple with the dilemma of how to tighten control over the secret agencies without stifling their initiative and morale inthe struggle against America's external enemies. Unique experiment in intelligence accountability had begun. (Alex Shimmers Pp. 23)

I begin by examining what is meant by intelligence, why nations with global interests consider it important to have secret agencies, and how the use of intelligence is beset with existential vexations. Brings a broad historical overview of America's secret operations abroad from the Cold War to the present. The purpose of this chapter is to indicate how the emphasis placed on the different intelligence missions by the government has fluctuated over the years. The moral implications of clandestine operations are assessed, where I offer a set of guidelines for a more ethical approachto the use of secret power.Unifying theme binds together this corpus of research. The information provided to policymakers by the intelligence community often contributes vitally to the making of sound decisions, giving the secret agencies a role of unquestionable importance to the nation's well-being. Yet the evidence clearly reveals that, at the same time, the intelligence agencies have the capacity not only to safeguard democracy but to subvert it as well. Moreover, the information they have provided to the nation's leaders has at times been wrong, as a result of errors in judgment or bias in reporting—or because many things about the world are simply unknowable. Thus the intelligence agencies indeed warrant the sup-port of Americans, but they also require a close watchfulness even wariness.( IC21)

Policymakers understand that intelligence sources offer unique access to ...