Tradecraft is essential in maintaining the integrity of IC products. But it can only do so much when a document intended for use within the IC leaks to the public. At that point, it is management’s job to step in and shield the analyst and the intelligence unit, and to defend their work. Caveat: ThisContinue reading “Beyond Tradecraft: What Happens When A Product Leaves The Building”
Author Archives: PATTI
Political Neutrality: The Foundation of Intelligence Community Legitimacy
A foundational principle of the Intelligence Community is political neutrality, which extends to participation in political social media. Staying neutral is important because it gives US citizens the confidence they won’t be monitored or targeted for their political beliefs and an administration won’t use its intelligence apparatus for leverage or revenge. An example of thisContinue reading “Political Neutrality: The Foundation of Intelligence Community Legitimacy”
Inverted Pyramid: The Format For Intelligence Products
Formal intelligence products follow the same basic format, an inverted pyramid. Agencies have their own templates—sometimes multiple templates to fit different types of intelligence products—but all place the most important information at the top, followed by supportive analysis and facts. The overall presentation is sometimes referred to as the “bottom line up front,” or BLUF.Continue reading “Inverted Pyramid: The Format For Intelligence Products”
How To Defend An Analytical Conclusion
If you’re challenged to defend an analytical conclusion, it will strengthen your argument if you’ve based that conclusion on a strong analytical framework. If confronted, you can retrace the path that led you to your findings, and it will bolster your case because structured techniques minimize bias and outside influence. Several years ago, I wasContinue reading “How To Defend An Analytical Conclusion”
Open Source Intelligence: Good, But Use With Caution
Open source intelligence sites, such as .gov, .org, .edu, and many .com sites, used to be acceptable choices for research for both finished and raw intelligence. They might not always have been neutral, but their biases were generally discernible and could be filtered from the final product. But the trustworthiness of publicly available data isContinue reading “Open Source Intelligence: Good, But Use With Caution”