Courtesy of Ralph Peters in the NY Post: * Famed for its penetration, Israeli intelligence failed this time. It didn’t detect the new weapons Iran and Syria had provided to Hezbollah, from anti-ship missiles to longer-range rockets. And, after years of spying, it couldn’t find Hezbollah. This should set off global alarm bells: If Hezbollah…

Fighting cyber-crime requires an Enron-like scandal to force the hand of legislators, the FBI argued today. Only after such an event could the necessary reforms be made to allow authorities to effectively battle online criminals, according to FBI special agent Shéna Boswell-Crowe. […] “I do not think that [cyber-crime] has had its day. There has…

The Weekly Standard posts a well done bit of research (got to get me a think-tank job) on what is really needed in our war efforts from an intelligence perspective. Since I think it deserves a full read I’m not going to post an extract, suffice it to say that when presented with an opportunity…

Army STRATCOM tries and fails: Information Operations Newsletter  Compiled by: Mr. Xxxx Xxxxxx US Army Strategic Command G3 Plans, Operations, and Exercises Information Operations Branch Table of Contents  […long list of somewhat relevant IO-related news stories . . .] Everyone wants to be TWI-3; no one wants to make the effort. Guys, if your audience…

Welcome OTB readers . . . Christine Axsmith, a software contractor for the CIA, considered her blog a success within the select circle of people who could actually access it. Only people with top-secret security clearances could read her musings, which were posted on Intelink, the intelligence community’s classified intranet. Writing as Covert Communications, CC…

U.S. officials said Tuesday the U.S. intelligence community was grappling with policies to effectively share information. […] Rep. Rob Simmons, R-Conn., chairman of the Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives, said he was not satisfied with progress on reforming national intelligence capabilities to counter threats. […] The U.S. Congress mandated modernization…

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte may have his eye on history as he attempts to secure a prime downtown Washington property – Navy Hill, overlooking the Potomac River – for his headquarters. During World War II, the property’s gracious Central Building, constructed in 1910, served as the home office for William “Wild Bill”…

The Transportation Security Administration, which has faced start-up pains for much of the past four years, is expanding career opportunities for passenger and baggage screeners in hopes of reducing staff turnover and improving aviation security. For the most part, TSA screeners have had little chance to advance in their jobs, and many have quit because…

Now is the time to tell our soldiers in Iraq that “hot pursuit” is okay, that the terrorist training camps on both sides of Iraq are legitimate targets, to be attacked in self-defense. Now is the time to tell the Iraqi government to come forward with the abundant evidence of Iranian evil-doing, and that we…

More a current events than an intel post, so pardon the interruption . . . So I’m reading about Hezbollah rocket attacks against Nazareth and for some reason I’m taken back to the spring of 2001 when the Taliban blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas and I wonder: how soon before there is no physical evidence…