What's the Harm? The Ethics of Intelligence Collection

Abstract

As the professional practice of intelligence collection adapts to the changing environment and new threats of the twenty-first century, many academic experts and intelligence professionals call for a coherent ethical framework that outlines exactly when, by what means and to what ends intelligence is justified. Reports of abuse at detention centres such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, the ever increasing use of technological surveillance, and the increased attention on the use of torture for intelligence collection purposes have all highlighted a need to make an explicit statement about what is and what is not permissible intelligence practice. In this article an ethical framework will be established which will outline under what circumstances the use of different intelligence collection activities would be permissible. This ethical framework will first underline what it is about intelligence collection that is ‘harmful’ and, therefore, should be prohibited under normal circumstances. The ethical framework then outlines a set of ‘just intelligence principles’, based on the just war tradition, which delineate when the harm caused can be justified. As a result, this article outlines a systemic ethical framework that makes it possible to understand when intelligence collection is prohibited and when it is permissible.     

Is there a theory of the subject in Georges Canguilhem?

Although there is no clear-cut doctrine of the subject in the work of Georges Canguilhem, nevertheless there is a sense in which the subject functions as a kind of operator in his work. This article delineates three aspects of such an operative function: a quasi-ontological discontinuity separating the living from the non-living; a discontinuity separating technique from science; and an ethical discontinuity that can be exemplified in the case of medicine. It is at these points of discontinuity that the notion of the subject effectively comes into operation in Canguilhem's work.     

Is the Department of Homeland Security an Intelligence Agency?

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) applies a variation of the intelligence cycle – the process of planning, collecting, processing, analysis, and dissemination of information characteristic of intelligence agencies – to mitigate the risk of terrorist attack and respond to national security breaches. The intelligence cycle helps DHS encourage voluntary security measures, serve its customers, and avoid economic disruption, but the Department's program setbacks and failures illustrate the difficulty of applying the intelligence model to the needs of homeland security. The Department's particular means of producing intelligence and information challenge the conventional conception and definitions of the intelligence cycle.     

Congressional Oversight of Intelligence: Is the Solution Part of the Problem?

After presenting evidence that the current system of congressional oversight of intelligence is failing, this article analyzes how the system has been undermined by a toxic combination of problems: the intelligence committees' inherent informational disadvantage in relation to the executive branch, the jurisdictional morass in which the committees must operate and their own internecine partisanship. The article discusses a range of specific changes that could be made, but concludes that the critical ingredient in strengthening the oversight system is to emphasize the development of strong, nonpartisan committee leadership.     

Is there anything Left? The politics of social spending in new democracies

The evolution of public social expenditures displays divergent patterns across non‐western countries. This exploratory article argues that in order to understand the domestic sources of this divergence, institutional and structural explanations should be complemented with an actor‐oriented perspective. Analyses of the role of party politics in non‐OECD democracies, through multivariate fixed‐effect regressions using data from 46 countries between 1995 and 2015, reveals a robust positive association between shifts towards Left party government and increases in total public social expenditures, also when controlling for structural and institutional factors. This association however seems potentially conditional on sufficient levels of economic growth. While indicating an impact of partisanship, further research is arguably needed regarding the origins, organization and policy outputs of parties in more recently democratized countries, as well as regarding the conditions under which the ideological orientation of parties in government are actually consequential.     

What News on the Rialto? The Trade of Information and Early Modern Venice’s Centralized Intelligence Organization

This article explores one of the earliest centrally organized state intelligence services in world history. Contrary to the orthodoxy that sees systematized intelligence as a modern political phenomenon, this was developed in early modern Venice. The article reveals the complex organization of Venetian systemized intelligence that distinguished it from other contemporaneous states’ espionage networks. It also shows how Venetian authorities commodified intelligence by engaging citizens and subjects in a trade of information for mutual benefits. Ultimately, the article challenges our understanding of early modern political communication and offers a fresh vista of intelligence as a business trait and economic necessity.     

The Next 100 Years? Reflections on the Future of Intelligence

Abstract

A growing interest in the history of intelligence might be a way to learn more about not only the past, but also the dynamics shaping the future of intelligence. Intelligence is an evolving activity and the twentieth-century experience must be regarded as a phase in an ongoing transformation of its institutions, methods and roles. At least six fundamental processes can be identified as relevant to this re-shaping of intelligence in long perspective; the decreasing hegemony of national intelligence, the rise of new fields of knowledge with intelligence relevance, the diminishing relative importance of exclusive sources and methods, the rise of new actors producing and providing intelligence, the loss of an intellectual monopoly in a competitive knowledge environment and finally an increasing demand for reliable assessments and verification in a fragmented world of information.     

Is Public Management Neglecting the State?

Public management is a domain of research that is now roughly three decades old. Researchers in this area have made important advances in understanding about the performance of public organizations. But questions have been raised about the scope and methods of public management research (PMR). Does it neglect important questions about the development of major institutions of the modern state? Has it focused unduly on problems of the advanced democracies? Has it made itself irrelevant to public debates about the role and design of government, and the capacity of public institutions to deal with emerging challenges? This set of eight short essays were prepared for a roundtable held at the research conference of the PMR Association at the University of Aarhus in June 2016. Contributors were asked to consider the question: Is PMR neglecting the state?     

Is the marriage market unbalanced? The case of Mexico in 1980

"The objective of this article is to present the results obtained when estimating how balanced, in numerical terms, the Mexican population of marriageable age [12 to 50 years old] was in 1980, in relation to its structure by age and sex, as well as the timing of its nuptiality. This estimate was made for both the state and national levels, using as a source of information the 1980 Census...." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

Intelligence and the formulation of policy and strategy in Early Modern Europe: The Spanish Monarchy in the Reign of Charles II (1665–1700)

This article seeks to explore the means whereby the Spanish Monarchy under the last Habsburg, Charles II (1665–1700), contributed to its own survival in the era of Louis XIV by exploring its acquisition and use of intelligence. There was nothing particularly distinctive about Spain's intelligence machinery. Nor was it always effective. Nevertheless, Spain's extensive diplomatic and imperial network facilitated the acquisition of a great deal of information which on occasion was clearly of great importance – for example, in preventing the destruction of Charles II's fleet in the summer of 1693 by that of Louis XIV. In sum, intelligence contributed to the remarkable resilience of the Spanish Monarchy in an age of supposed Spanish decline.     

Is the Ceiling Truly Glass or Something More Variable?

Women advance more rapidly in the appointive executive and judicial branches than in the elected legislative branch at both national and state levels. Demand side and supply side factors explain much of this. In particular, greater male variability restricts the opportunity for gender equity.

Crisis for the State or Crisis of the State?

The Conservative‐Liberal Democrat government's policy risks turning the financial crisis into a crisis of the state. This article argues that the current trajectory of the British state risks exacerbating the very social antagonisms which it has fought so hard to contain in recent years. It contends that the crisis (2007–09) was a crisis of neoliberalism and yet, paradoxically, neoliberalism—in the form of further depoliticisation and a new politics of debt—is being re‐invoked to deal with the post‐apocalyptic condition of the British economy. The article suggests that the state lacks the necessary political discourse to secure popular consent and—as a result—is resorting to a more coercive form of political management; and that the effects of austerity are being offset through an increased indebtedness of the British public. Both risk igniting social conflict. In the conclusion several points are indicated for an alternative political agenda.     

The 2012 Elections in Mexico: The Birth of a Consolidated Federal Democracy?

In 2012, the simultaneous elections at the federal, state and municipal levels in Mexico reopened the debate about the path of democratic consolidation in the country. With the return of the Revolutionary Institutional Party to the presidency in 2013, there are renewed signs that Mexican democratic consolidation is underway. Particularly important in this process is that the 2012 gubernatorial and mayoral elections have been more competitive, resulting in higher political alternation in power between political parties. Under a changing subnational political context, there are indications that subnational politicians are no longer under the shadow of a dominant party system. As a more consolidated federal democracy, the political landscape in Mexico has become more complex.     

Public policy‐making in France: The art of the possible

This article examines the policy performance of the Mitterrand administration from the perspective of rationalist and incremental models of policy‐making. It is argued that the incrementalist approach provides a more comprehensive and realistic framework with which to assess the policy record of the French Socialist government. The failure of that government to implement its radical programme supports the view that effective policy‐making even within a formally centralised state is, in practice, a highly complex and multilateral process involving constant negotiation between the government, the administration and powerful interest groups.