Human intelligence (intelligence gathering)
Human intelligence is intelligence gathered by means of interpersonal contact, as opposed to the more technical intelligence gathering disciplines such as signals intelligence, imagery intelligence and measurement and signature intelligence.
NATO defines HUMINT as "a category of intelligence derived from information collected and provided by human sources." Typical HUMINT activities consist of interrogations and conversations with persons having access to information.
The manner in which HUMINT operations are conducted is dictated by both official protocol and the nature of the source of the information. Within the context of the U.S. military, most HUMINT activity does not involve clandestine activities. Both counter intelligence and HUMINT do include clandestine HUMINT and clandestine HUMINT operational techniques.
HUMINT can provide several kinds of information. It can provide observations during travel or other events from travelers, refugees, escaped friendly POWs, etc. It can provide data on things about which the subject has specific knowledge, which can be another human subject, or, in the case of defectors and spies, sensitive information to which they had access. Finally, it can provide information on interpersonal relationships and networks of interest.
HUMINT is both a source of positive intelligence, but also of information of strong counterintelligence value. Interviews should balance any known information requirements of both intelligence collection guidance and of counterintelligence requirements...
Basic HUMINT operations
Human source screening is the logical start of collection of HUMINT. This involves selecting people who may be sources of meaningful HUMINT, possibly positively identifying them, and conducting interviews of various types. Properly recording and cross-indexing the results of interviews is essential. No intelligence collection discipline is more likely to find meaning in apparently small bits of information than is HUMINT. Especially when there is reason to have additional interviews with the same individual, the subsequent interviews need careful planning, especially when the interrogator does not speak the language of the person being interviewed.Intelligence preparation for working in cultures
As with other intelligence collection disciplines, intelligence analysis can play many supporting roles. An obvious one is biographical intelligence, to help identify known hostile undercover personnel, or individuals who will impartially mislead an assortment of national intelligence services for profit.Equally important is the broader area of cultural intelligence, which draws heavily on the social sciences. In a book review in the CIA professional journal, Lloyd F. Jordan recognizes two forms of study of culture, both of which are relevant to HUMINT. In the review, Jordan describes Patai's book as an excellent example of a second type of cultural analysis. He reviews the first group of scientific analyses of culture and character as beginning with "cultural anthropology as early as the 1920s. During World War II, those methods employed earlier in the academic community in this field of research were brought to bear upon a variety of problems connected with the war effort.
"It was precisely the inaccessibility of the target country and the availability of only fragmentary information about it that made national character research relevant to intelligence analysis during the war. The cultural anthropologists had long been developing models of former and disappearing cultures from fragmentary materials. The anthropologists, joined by the psychiatrists, combined the use of psychoanalytic theory, interaction theory, child development theory, and learning theory with standard anthropological research methods to construct models of the contemporary cultures of wartime enemy countries, Japan and Germany." The classic work of this type is Ruth Benedict's study of Japan, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.
Mike observes that Benedict's approach was the only one in use until the late 1950s. "National character studies" focused on the statistically most significant personality characteristics of the group, rather than the most common manifestation of the traits. "...modal personality construct tended to be related to the total culture, or at least, its salient features."
The second class of studies, of which Patai's is an exemplar for Arab culture, had a more narrow focus. "...they concentrated on the relationship of personality traits to subsets of a given society or a given category of roles of that society, rather than on the identification of relationships between personality and the social structure as a whole." A third category, the comparative study, included Francis L. K. Hsu's Americans and Chinese. Indeed, some recent and controversial works, such as Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order can be regarded as an extension of comparative study into the idea of conflicts among the groups compared.
Basic differentiation by subject type
Different types of human subjects will share information voluntarily or involuntarily. The interrogator builds a relationship with the subject, a relationship that can be based on trust, fear, friendship, or any of a range of human emotions. Prisoners have an understandable fear of what may happen, and, contrary to "tough guy" images, it can be important to relax them and, as much as possible, put them at ease.Some organizations teach their members that the other side tortures everyone, and, if that is known, that fear must be addressed; Japanese prisoners in WWII often attempted suicide for that reason but were sometimes dissuaded, as by Guy Gabaldon.
"The question of torture should be disposed of at once. Quite apart from moral and legal considerations, physical torture or extreme mental torture is not an expedient device. Maltreating the subject is from a strictly practical point of view as short-sighted as whipping a horse to his knees before a thirty-mile ride. It is true that almost anyone will eventually talk when subjected to enough physical pressures, but the information obtained in this way is likely to be of little intelligence value and the subject himself rendered unfit for further exploitation. Physical pressure will often yield a confession, true or false, but what an intelligence interrogation seeks is a continuing flow of information."
Especially when the subject is a prisoner, the screener, who need not be the main interrogator, should examine the Enemy Prisoner of War captive tag or other basic information giving the circumstances of capture: when, where, how, by whom, and so forth.
If the subject is not under any restraint, it is still quite useful for a screener to prepare contact information comparable to the information on the EPW tag.
When the subject is a POW, screeners should pay particular attention to rank insignia, condition of uniforms and equipment, and behavior demonstrated by the source. Screeners should look for things like attempts to talk to the guards, intentionally joining placement in the wrong segregation group, or any signs of nervousness, anxiety, or fear. Any source whose appearance or behavior indicates that he is willing to talk should be noted by the screeners.
Assuming the subject has been under guard, the screener often can get valuable information about the subject's behavior from the guards. They can tell the screener how the source has responded to orders, what requests have been made by the source, what behavior has been demonstrated by the source, and so forth. Along with the basic contact information, such observations can be extremely helpful to the interrogator, who can study the information before the interview. Having background on the subject helps the interrogator retain the initiative in an interview.
Again for prisoners, screeners should examine the documents captured with the source and any documents pertaining to the source. If the subject is voluntary and providing documents, they may even be more valuable. Screeners may need to get help from linguists or document specialists in understanding the material. If the documents have insignia or other graphics, these should be compared with an existing graphics register, and added to it if they are new.
Documents captured with the source can provide information that identifies the source, his organization, his mission, and other personal background. This information can be used to verify information from documents captured with the source and further assess his willingness to cooperate. When examining documents, screeners should look for items that will indicate whether the source is cooperative or willing to cooperate based on any specific personal interest.
If the source has information pertaining to new foreign material, contact appropriate TECHINT specialists, and if the source has information of target exploitation interest, contact the appropriate staff members who deal with targeting. These specialists are not necessarily qualified interrogators and may need to meet jointly with the subject and interrogator, or pass questions to the interrogator.
Selecting potential sources
It involves evaluating an individual, or group of individuals, "to determine their potential to answer collection requirements or to identify individuals who match a predetermined source profile. The goal of the process is to identify individuals who may have information of interest, and are willing or can be persuaded to cooperate. Willing individuals will undergo debriefing, and, subject to the relevant laws, regulations and policies of the HUMINT organization, unwilling people may be interrogated.Screening techniques also can select individuals who may be prospects to collect intelligence or work, in other ways, with the HUMINT organization or its sponsor. Individuals may also be identified who are of interest to counterintelligence or to technical intelligence specialists.
| Cooperation level | Cooperation code | Knowledgeability level | Knowledgeability code |
| Responds to direct questions | 1 | Very likely to have pertinent information | A |
| Responds hesitantly | 2 | May have pertinent information | B |
| Does not respond | 3 | Unlikely to have pertinent information | C |
It may be necessary to screen individuals in a local area, as residents or possibly workers, to determine if they may be security risks.
Identification
Since the identity of individuals is very relevant to HUMINT, it makes extensive use of biometric data collected on persons of interest.Types of interviews
Subject interview has many of the same dynamics as a psychotherapeutic relationship. In an extended interrogation, if there is dialogue between interrogator and subject, there will be dynamics closely related to the psychotherapeutic concept of transference and countertransference. In the former, the subject projects emotional experiences of his own onto the interrogator, and in the latter, the interrogator will start thinking of the subject in terms of his own life experiences.There are other ways to use social science to understand interviews, in the broad sense of cooperative debriefing and hostile interrogation. Speaking of interrogation in the law enforcement context, "There is a vast literature on interrogation... but hardly anything on it at all in the field of argumentation theory.... Argumentation theorists have taken as their point of interest rational argumentation in which two parties reason together to try to get at the truth of a matter following collaborative rules of procedure. And the interrogation is scarcely a model of how to conduct balanced rational argumentation. Far from that, it seems to represent a coercive kind of dialogue exchange that is associated with intimidation..."
but a debriefing is not necessarily coercive.
In some cases, an interrogation becomes less coercive, if the subject begins to identify with the conceptual framework of the interrogator. The latter can be a false Stockholm syndrome context, or it can be a case where the subject actually sees that his belief system has fallacies, and he may start to share aspects of the interrogator's mindset.
With WWII Japanese prisoners who believed that the shame of capture permanently separated them from that culture,
and who were unable to commit suicide, appeared to see themselves as now part of the interrogator's culture, and became quite cooperative. "...there was one infallible method of convincing a reluctant Japanese prisoner to tell all he knows: to tell him, via interpreters, that they will send his name and picture back to Japan.... We might note that few Japanese ever attempt to hold anything back. Being taken prisoner is not in their handbooks. No Japanese is ever taken alive. Thus, they are not drilled in the "Name- Rank- Serial No- nothing more" routine. They usually reveal everything easily without any persuasion and seem unhappy when their lack of information does not permit them to answer a specific question. ...doesn't expect to return to Japan ever, has completely excluded his family and his wife from his thinking, and appears pleasantly resigned to going to the States and working there even as a prisoner for the rest of his life."
In argumentative theory, interrogation is a form of information-seeking dialogue, but also can include other kinds of dialogue, such as negotiation. In both police and intelligence interviews, there may be bargaining, where the interrogator offers incentives for the subject to reveal information. The revealed information, especially in a HUMINT context, is not necessarily about the interrogation and also may involve persuasion of the subject to speak.
Before going on to study the relationship of the interrogation to information seeking
dialogue, some account must be given of other types of dialogue related to interrogation as well. For the interrogation has a way of shifting from pure information-seeking to other types of dialogue. As an example, argumentative theory recognizes 'persuasion', in the sense meant in the persuasion dialogue, with certain strategic interrogations, the interrogator might objectively question some of the practices of the subject's side. This is not done for direct elicitation of information, but to set a new context for further interrogation in which the subject might question some of his own loyalties and assumptions. In the case of the Japanese prisoners of the US, they began to operate in that new context.
Debriefing
Debriefing involves getting cooperating human sources to satisfy intelligence requirements, consistent with the rules, laws, and policies of the HUMINT organization. People being debriefed are usually willing to cooperate, although it is possible to obtain information through casual conversation. Debriefing may be conducted at all echelons and in all operational environments.Types of people being interviewed include both "tasked" and "non-tasked" individuals. Tasked individuals are, in some way, part of the interviewer's organization.
| Tasked | Not tasked |
| Military police and infantry patrols in nominally controlled areas | Residents of nominally controlled areas |
| Special reconnaissance teams | Nongovernmental organization workers in the area of operations |
| Diplomats of one's own country | Friendly or neutral foreign diplomats |
| National or higher command level subject matter experts | Persons outside the area but knowledgeable about it |
Tasked personnel giving brief reports of the enemy use the technique. More formal or extensive debriefing methods are used for obtaining specialized or complex information.
Other than talking to tasked personnel, there is a tendency for some HUMINT collectors to regard debriefing as a waste of time. The approach to a voluntary source needs to be quite different from that to a cooperative prisoner, especially if the interrogator has reason to believe the source is knowledgeable. While a subject may be a volunteer, a refugee or displaced person is likely to have some of the fears and uncertainty undergone by POWs. Active listening and sympathy can pay great benefits, especially in the areas of love of family, and anger at those who made them homeless.
The HUMINT collector should allow specialized or senior sources more latitude to interpose their opinions and evaluations. Prior to the meeting, collectors need to examine all available information, to have an idea of the subject's personality and motivations when beginning to talk to them. It also may require unobtrusive observation of the subject to establish such things as patterns of activity and likes and dislikes. The closer the interview environment can be to the customary surroundings of the subject, the more comfortable and cooperative the source may be.
One example of source that should have latitude are trained foreign internal defense or unconventional warfare personnel that work with local residents, or military forces, on a routine basis. Such people may very well themselves have HUMINT and/or CI training; US Special Forces groups have two-man HUMINT/CI teams that can augment operational detachments.
Historically, after the WWII experience of resistance leaders such as the Jedburgh teams, occurred to various commanders that soldiers trained to operate as guerillas would have a strong sense of how to fight guerillas. Even before specialist FID/UW units were constituted, organizations such as Military Assistance Advisory Groups, as in Greece just after WWII, also had extensive local knowledge. Before the partition of French Indochina in 1954, French Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés took on this role, drawing on French experience with the Jedburgh teams. GCMA, operating in Tonkin and Laos under French intelligence, was complemented by Commandos Nord Viêt-Nam in the North. In these missions, the SOF teams lived and fought with the locals.
United States Army Special Forces, U.S. Marine Corps Combined Action Program program personnel
and various training detachments are apt to have valuable and structured information.
In all cases, the more knowledgeable the interrogator is of the volunteer, the better the result is likely to be. Hostile interrogations may require the interviewer to maintain a higher level of control, compared to non-hostile interrogations. Additionally, admitting ignorance of a custom, and respectfully asking for explanation, can trigger a flow of information.
While it takes sophistication, the best general approach to willing subjects is a planned elicitation of information, always with a specific goal in mind. The key to elicitation is the establishment of a rapport between the elicitor and the source, normally based on shared interests. In the initial stages of an elicitation, the collector confines his conversations to innocuous subjects such as sports and social commentary. Dependent on the value of the source, the collection environment, and the security consciousness of the subject, the HUMINT specialist will then shift to a more focused topic.
Once in that mode, elicit the information by continuing to ask for clarification, with questions of the form "I agree, however, what did you mean by....?") or expressing a hypothetical situation. The focused discussion can involve mild flattery and interest in the conversation, or, in a much more delicate approach, selectively challenging statements or introducing new information to show knowledge and stimulate more responses.
Interrogation
As opposed to debriefing, the subject of interrogation is not necessarily cooperating with the obtaining of information by the organization. The subject is normally in custody, although the legal circumstances may be such that an uncooperative subject may be able to leave.Examples of subjects being interrogated include POWs, individuals detained by patrol as not being from the area, and a thief arrested by the civilian police.
Interrogation is a skilled technique, which often involves building rapport with the subject. In an intelligence context, interrogators should be trained specialists, although they may work with linguists and subject matter experts.
Regardless of whether the interview is voluntary or involuntary, the interrogator needs to keep the initiative. To keep the initiative, the interrogator may not need to be harsh. Indeed, the many successful interrogators are formally polite within the subject's cultural traditions. If, in societies with a strong host-guest tradition, the interrogator takes the role of host, that can allow polite domination of the conversation.
The interrogation process itself is a HUMINT collection, not analysis, technique. It may well be that the interrogator, after the interview, does analysis, cross-checking statements made against name indices and [|"wiring diagrams" of social networks]. The interrogator checks his notes against the finished report to ensure that the report contains and identifies the information as heard, seen, or assumed by the source
Planning the initial interview
While the actual interview technique will vary with the attitude of the subject and the needs of the interviewer's service, the interrogator should develop a basic plan for the first interview. This might be put into a paper folder along with documents associated with the subject, or, if available, it can go into a HUMINT database so other interrogators, analysts, cultural and language specialists, can review it. Reviews can help plan the current interview, or give ideas to other interrogators for other interviews.The basic elements to collect are:
"The preliminary interview is not intended to obtain intelligence, but only to enable the interrogators to make a firm assessment of the character and type of subject with whom they will have to deal."
How much psychological pressure to use, how many symbols of dominance are appropriate to use, require great judgment. Some classic interviewing techniques, without threatening the subject, make him uncomfortable, as, for example, having "interrogators – preferably two of them – seated behind a table at the far end of a long room, so that the subject after entering will have some distance to walk before taking his chair in front of them. This device will enable them to observe his poise and manner, and may often quite unsettle the subject. In this pressure-oriented technique, the interrogators should sit with their backs to the main source of light in order to obscure their faces, veil their expressions, and place a strain on the prisoner. The subject can be placed under further strain by providing him an uncomfortable chair, say one with a polished seat and shortened front legs so that he tends to slide off it, or one with wobbly legs.
"On the other hand, an opposite technique has sometimes been successful: the prisoner is made so comfortable, after a hearty lunch with beer, that he drops his guard in drowsiness.
When conducting military source operations, the location of the questioning will have psychological effects on the source. The questioning location should be chosen and set up to correspond to the effect that the HUMINT collector wants to project and his planned approach techniques. For example, meeting in a social type situation such as a restaurant may place the source at ease. Meeting in an apartment projects informality while meeting in an office projects more formality. Meeting at the source's home normally places him at a psychological advantage, while meeting in the HUMINT collector's work area gives the collector a psychological edge. The HUMINT collector should consider the status and level of the source, security, the workspace available, furnishings, the amount of lighting provided, and the ability to heat or cool the room as needed.
Characteristics of the interrogator(s)
Interrogation is an interaction, and, even before considering the different attitudes the subject may have, the interrogator needs to know his own style, strengths and weaknesses. He needs to judge if he needs cultural advice, how to handle language issues, and if he needs specialist help.The HUMINT collector must also consider the physical conditions of the source and himself. After extended operations, there may be a limit on how long either the HUMINT collector or source can concentrate on a given subject.
Support needs
If the interrogator thinks that offering incentives will help, he must decide what they are and how they are obtained. If incentives were promised in earlier interviews, the collector must know if they were delivered. If they were not, the interrogator needs to plan how the failure to deliver may interfere with any trust built, and how to correct the problem.The HUMINT collector must decide if he will need additional support including analytical, technical, or interpreter support. On rare occasions, it may be desirable for the HUMINT collector to seek polygraph support or support from a Behavioral Science Consultant. BSCs are authorized to make psychological assessments of the character, personality, social interactions, and other behavioral characteristics of interrogation subjects and advise HUMINT collectors of their assessments, as needed.
Attitudes of the subject
The basic attitude of the subject will help define the approach to the interview. There are four primary factors that must be considered when selecting tentative approaches:Cooperative and friendly
A cooperative and friendly source offers little resistance to the interrogation and normally speaks freely on almost any topic introduced, other than that which will tend to incriminate or degrade him personally.To obtain the maximum amount of information from cooperative and friendly sources, the interrogator takes care to establish and to preserve a friendly and cooperative atmosphere by not inquiring into those private affairs which are beyond the scope of the interrogation. At the same time, he must avoid becoming overly friendly and losing control of the interrogation. The interrogator, however, may need to get expert advice on the customs of the subject's culture. While Americans might not spend time inquiring about the journey to the place of the interrogation, the health of one another's family, etc., not to do so is extremely impolite in some cultures. Not following cultural norms may transform a cooperative subject into a silent one.
For example, Arab cultural norms, reasonable to follow in a friendly conversation with a subject of that culture, do, often in ceremonial terms, speak of family. Handshakes are traditional at the start and end of the meeting.
Neutral and nonpartisan
A neutral and nonpartisan source is cooperative to a limited degree. He normally takes the position of answering questions asked directly, but seldom volunteers information. In some cases, he may be afraid to answer for fear of reprisals by the enemy. This often is the case in low-intensity conflict where the people may be fearful of insurgent reprisals. With the neutral and nonpartisan source, the interrogator may have to ask many specific questions to obtain the information required.Hostile and antagonistic
A hostile and antagonistic source is most difficult to interrogate. In many cases, he refuses to talk at all and offers a real challenge to the interrogator. An interrogator must have self-control, patience, and tact when dealing with him.Inexperienced interrogators may do well to limit their interview, and pass the subject to a more senior interrogator. When handing off the subject, the next interrogator will find it very useful to have any clues why the subject is being hostile.
"The recalcitrant subject of an intelligence interrogation must be "broken" but broken for use like a riding horse, not smashed in the search for a single golden egg."
No two interrogations are the same. Each interrogation is thus carefully tailored to the measure of the individual subject. The standard lines of procedure, however, may be divided into four parts:
The first three steps, which emphatically do not involve torture, can be combined and called the "softening-up" process. If the subject is using a cover story, it may be broken by softening-up.
"Showing some subjects up as liars is the very worst thing to do, because their determination not to lose face will only make them stick harder to the lie. For these it is necessary to provide loopholes by asking questions which let them correct their stories without any direct admission to lying".
The questioning itself can be carried out in a friendly, persuasive manner, from a hard, merciless and threatening posture, or with an impersonal and neutral approach. In order to achieve the disconcerting effect of alternation among these attitudes it may be necessary to use as many as four different interrogators playing the following roles, although one interrogator may sometimes double in two of them:
Planning additional interviews
The main factor for human intelligence is getam. This can be part of softening-up, or part of the exploitation phase. "When the cover story and the will to resist have been broken, when the subject is ready to answer a series of carefully prepared questions aimed at an intelligence target, the exploitation can begin, often in a veiled spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance. At this stage the interrogation may for example be moved to an office assigned the subject, where he might even be left alone for a few minutes to show that he is being trusted and that there is something constructive for him to do. This feeling of trust and responsibility can be very important to a broken subject, because he may now have suicidal inclinations; he must be given something to occupy his mind and keep him from too much introspection.Which course is better will depend on the subject's character, the way he was broken, and his present attitude toward those who have been handling him. Sometimes only a fresh interrogator can get real cooperation from him. Sometimes, on the other hand, he is so ashamed of having broken that he is unwilling to expose himself further and wants to talk only to his original questioner. And sometimes he has built up a trustful and confiding relationship with his interrogator which should not be destroyed by the introduction of another personality.
Principles of questioning
The HUMINT collector adopts an appropriate persona based on his appraisal of the source but remains alert for verbal and non-verbal clues that indicate the need for a change in the approach techniques. The amount of time spent on this phase will depend mostly on the probable quantity and value of information the source possesses, the availability of other sources with knowledge on the same topics, and available time. At the initial contact, a businesslike relationship should be maintained. As the source assumes a cooperative attitude, a more relaxed atmosphere may be advantageous. The HUMINT collector must carefully determine which of the various approach techniques to employ.If a source cooperates, his or her motivations vary. They can range from altruism to personal gain; they may be based on logic or emotion. From a psychological standpoint, the HUMINT collector must be cognizant of the following behaviors. People tend to—
Building rapport
"Establish and maintain a rapport between the HUMINT collector and the source. Rapport is a condition established by the HUMINT collector that is characterized by source confidence in the HUMINT collector and a willingness to cooperate with him. This does not necessarily equate to a friendly atmosphere. It means that a relationship is established and maintained that facilitates the collection of information by the HUMINT collector. The HUMINT collector may establish a relationship as superior, equal, or even inferior to the source. The relationship may be based on friendship, mutual gain, or even fear.If he does introduce himself, normally he will adopt a duty position and rank supportive of the approach strategy selected during the planning and preparation phase. The HUMINT collector must select a rank and duty position that is believable based on the HUMINT collector's age, appearance, and experience. A HUMINT collector may, according to international law, use ruses of war to build rapport with interrogation sources, and this may include posing or "passing himself off" as someone other than a military interrogator. However, the collector must not pose as—
- A doctor, medic, or any other type of medical personnel.
"At this interview the interrogators should do as little as possible of the talking, however many questions they are anxious to have answered. The prisoner should be asked to tell his story in his own words, describe the circumstances of his arrest, give the history of some period of his life, or explain the details of his occupation. The object is to get him to talk without prompting in as much continuous narrative as possible; the more he talks the better the interrogators can assess his personality.
Use of recorders
"The interview must of course be recorded, either or in stenographic notes." An audio recording is particularly useful if the interview requires an interpreter. If the interpreter is not a regular member of the interrogator's forces, a recording, which can be reviewed by a staff linguist, can be an important part of quality control."The interrogators must on no account try to do this job themselves; it would distract them from the critical task of framing questions and steering the course of interrogation according to the implications of the subject's replies. Whether the stenographer or recorder should be concealed or visible depends on the subject's sophistication and the state of his alert. If the recording process is not evident some subjects may become careless of what they say when they see that the interrogators are not taking notes, whereas a visible recording would alert them to be more cautious. For others, consciousness of a recording going on in full view may be unnerving, and they may betray the weak links in their stories by showing signs of distress at these points.
"At a later stage of the interrogation it may be of value to play back to the subject some part of this recording. The sound of his own voice repeating his earlier statements, particularly any with intonations of anger or distress, may make a psychological breach in his defenses."
Working with interpreters
"Without doubt an interrogator using the subject's language is in a much better position than one who has to work through an interpreter. But the interrogation skill is infinitely more important than the language skill, and a good linguist should not be substituted for a good interrogator. In the absence of an interrogator who speaks the language, an interpreter should be used, preferably one with some training in interrogation techniques. It is very important that the interpreter not only report accurately what both parties say but also reflect as faithfully as he can their inflection, tone, manner, and emphasis. He should try to become part of the furniture in the room rather than a third personality, and the interrogator should act as though he were not there."Interpreters are frequently a necessary aid to HUMINT collection. There are certain advantages to using an interpreter. The most obvious is that without an interpreter, a HUMINT collector without the proper language or necessary proficiency in that language is severely limited. Furthermore, if properly trained, briefed, and assessed, the interpreter can be a valuable assistant to the HUMINT collector.
Interpreters may have more knowledge of the local culture as well as the language, but the HUMINT manager must be cautious that the interpreter is not, for example, a member of a subculture, religion, etc., of the area, that would be offensive to the subject.
Going through an interpreter will slow the process, and also increase the chance of miscommunication. HUMINT collectors also need to be sure that local or third-country nationals are aware of security, and indeed will be loyal to the interpreter's side.
The collector should be aware of potential problems in interpretation. Some warning signs include:
Recruited/trusted sources
Special Reconnaissance Patrolling
Special reconnaissance is done by soldiers, normally uniformed, who observe enemy activity deep beyond the front line of one's own side. See special reconnaissance for details. Since these are highly trained specialists, they will usually have been communicating clandestinely to the HUMINT organization, and will be systematically prepared for debriefing. The debriefing may be done by HUMINT officers of their own organization, who are most familiar with their information-gathering techniques. Some of those techniques may be extremely sensitive and held on a need-to-know basis within the special reconnaissance organization. They operate significantly farther than the furthest forward friendly scouting and surveillance units; they may be tens to hundreds of kilometers deeper. They may enter the area of operations in many ways.Their mission is not to engage in direct combat. It may be to observe and report, or it may include directing air or artillery attacks on enemy positions. If the latter is the case, the patrol still tries to stay covert; the idea is that the enemy obviously knows they are being attacked, but not who is directing fire.
Espionage
is the collection of information by people either in a position of trust for the enemy, or with access to people with such access. The process of recruiting such individuals and supporting their operations is the HUMINT discipline of agent handling.It may be possible for an agent handler to meet directly with the agent and [|debrief] him. More commonly, agents send messages to the organization for which they work, by radio, Internet, or by leaving the messages in a hard-to-find place. The latter technique, called a dead drop, will have either a courier or the agent handler retrieve them in a clandestine manner. These are examples of espionage tradecraft.
Analyzing relationships among HUMINT subjects
After interviews, be they debriefings or interrogations, there is likely to be data about other people with whom the subject has had contact or knows about. These data are focused on human relationship networks, not, for example, on military information that the subject knows.Once information is obtained, it is put into an organized form. Very frequently, information obtained at one interview may help structure the next interview with the same person, or with another subject.
Identifying other people of interest
During interviews, a subject is apt to mention things about other people, or be prompted in a seemingly conversational way.Operational network "wiring diagram"
Much modern interest in tracking networks of people are relevant to guerilla operations and terrorist networks, two loose categories that do not completely overlap. When examining the overall structure of terrorist groups, there are two general categories of organization: networked and hierarchical. A terrorist group may employ either type or a combination of the two models. Newer groups tend towards organizing or adapting to the possibilities inherent in the network model. Ideology can have an effect on internal organization, with strict Leninist or Maoist groups tending towards centralized control and hierarchical structure. Whether the organizational model is hierarchical or not, the operational personnel almost invariably use the cell system for security.One relevant study looks at modeling terrorist networks in a manner similar to other systems that "exhibit regularity but not periodicity.
Their model focuses at the "mid-range", "not at the level of state leadership, and not at the level of mapping and predicting the behavior of each individual terrorist, but rather at an intermediate or organizational level"... Much as vulnerability analysis of connectionless packet networks such as the Internet
concentrates on the nodes whose loss would most interfere with connectivity, the study here looks for the "pattern of connections surrounding a node that allows for wide network reach with minimal direct ties. "Structural holes" at the intersection of flows across knowledge communities position unique and superior nodes. It is the individuals spanning these "internal holes of opportunity" that impact the network's functioning and performance. The implicit corollary of this is that if a small number of these critical nodes can be identified and "clipped" from the network, then command signals will not be able to propagate through the system."
In the 9/11 case, the pilots were such key nodes, once the US operational groups were in-country and operating. Taking the observation of centrality a step farther, COMINT can complement HUMINT in finding the nodes of a geographically dispersed human network.
Obstacles to development of HUMINT capabilities
The following observations are drawn from the article by Lawrence Wright who interviews Director of National Intelligence John Michael McConnell.Inability to recruit people who are different due to a misperception of security risk factors
To develop HUMINT agents it is necessary to recruit HUMINT controlling officers with native foreign-language skills. However, the U.S. Security clearance process has several problems:- It is biased against first-generation immigrants with active relationships to their former country.
- It is biased against non-heterosexuals. The U.S. Army, for example, has dismissed hundreds of gays with important language skills, during a time of critical national need for Arabic linguists. This while, according to Wright's article, the FBI has gone from 8 Arabic-speaking agents to 9 in the seven years since the 9/11 attacks.
- It takes up to two years to complete, longer than many immigrants are willing to put their careers on hold while waiting for a clearance.
- Shorten the clearance process to a month or less.
- Subject officers to "'life-cycle monitoring' – that is, constant surveillance".
- Alan Turing's homosexuality versus Britain's need for cryptanalysis.
- Robert Oppenheimer's radical politics versus US need for nuclear weapons.
"'Look back at all the spies we've had in our history', he said. 'About a hundred and thirty. How many did it for money? A hundred and twenty-eight.'"
For example,
- Philip Agee allegedly received $1 million from Cuban intelligence service to publicize the names of CIA agents as part of an active measures campaign by the KGB.
- Israel Defense Forces psychiatrist David Shamir "attempted to make contact with the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Hamas officials, and the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, with the intention of selling them classified information which he came upon during his military service". While his claimed motivation was political, the bottom line was still money :
Inability to trust people who are different due to failure to innovate in technical OPSEC
Wright claims that "Much of the intelligence community is technophobic and is also hamstrung by security concerns. Only recently have BlackBerrys made their way into some agencies, and many offices don't even have Internet connections."Hence it is difficult to institute technical controls that would allow the organization to effectively compartimentalize the knowledge of officers in the organization so that even moderately untrusted people could serve. I.e., in many cases of "moles" or internal spies, low-level spies have had access to huge volumes of secret data. This would not be possible if adequate technical measures were instituted to effectively compartmentalize information access on a more finely categorized and motivated need-to-know basis. In other words, there is a so far lost opportunity to use technical measures to improve operational security while at the same time allowing a broader range of people to serve. Another aspect of this would be to automatically filter information "down to" and tailored to a specific subject-matter need-to-know characterization of the requesting individual.
Inability to share information across the community due to operational technophobia
A third obstacle to HUMINT and intelligence analysis in general is effective information sharing across the intelligence community. Wright's article notes that "the community still relies on more than thirty online networks and eighty databases, most of which are largely inaccessible to one another".Lack of information sharing has been partly addressed technically by adding new information-sharing tools
- Intellipedia, using MediaWiki software with additional security features.
- A-Space, "based on sites such as MySpace and Facebook – in which analysts post their current projects as a way of creating social networks."
- The Library of National Intelligence, which "is an online digest of official reports that will soon provide analysts who use it with tips, much the way Amazon and iTunes offer recommendations to their customers."