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While there are books that cover national security, intelligence collection, intelligence analysis, and various intelligence services, U.S. National Security and the Intelligence Services is the first, all-inclusive book to examine intelligence agencies as a direct function of national security. It serves as a comprehensive text for students and a resource for those in the intelligence profession and national security scholars.　 The book offers an in-depth understanding of the important role that the intelligence services provide to the national security of a nation. It also includes information on the various types of intelligence, collection methods, tradecraft and intelligence analysis methods, as well intelligence-related resources. Coverage provides an overview of what national security is and its relationship to intelligence services of the United States, its key allies, and hostile nations.　

This interdisciplinary Handbook provides an in-depth analysis of the complex security phenomenon of disinformation and offers a toolkit to counter such tactics.

Disinformation used to propagate false, inexact or out of context information is today a frequently used tool of political manipulation and information warfare, both online and offline. This Handbook evidences a historical thread of continuing practices and modus operandi in overt state propaganda and covert information operations. Further, it attempts to unveil current methods used by propaganda actors, the inherent vulnerabilities they exploit in the fabric of democratic societies and, last but not least, to highlight current practices in countering disinformation and building resilient audiences. The Handbook is divided into six thematic sections. The first part provides a set of theoretical approaches to hostile influencing, disinformation and covert information operations. The second part looks at disinformation and propaganda in historical perspective offering case study analysis of disinformation, and the third focuses on providing understanding of the contemporary challenges posed by disinformation and hostile influencing. The fourth part examines information and communication practices used for countering disinformation and building resilience. The fifth part analyses specific regional experiences in countering and deterring disinformation, as well as international policy responses from transnational institutions and security practitioners. Finally, the sixth part offers a practical toolkit for practitioners to counter disinformation and hostile influencing.

This handbook will be of much interest to students of national security, propaganda studies, media and communications studies, intelligence studies and International Relations in general.

NGA has created a program to hire high school students as interns and give them top-secret security clearances to work on mission-critical work like cybersecurity to bolster the talent pipeline.

“Hook ’em early.” That’s the mantra for Gary Buchanan, chief information security officer of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, on how to bolster the cyber workforce at his agency.

But he’s not talking about college interns. NGA has created a program to hire high school students as interns and give them top-secret security clearances to work on mission-critical work like cybersecurity to bolster the talent pipeline, Buchanan said during a panel at Scoop News Group’s Cybertalks last week.

Acting Department of Home Affairs secretary Stephanie Foster has been tapped to replace ousted Mike Pezzullo.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese moved quickly to backfill the role amid growing controversy over the High Court’s decision to render indefinite immigration detention unlawful.

Pezzullo was sacked first thing on Monday morning after an investigation by former Australian Public Service Commissioner Lynelle Briggs found he had breached the Australian Public Service Code of Conduct 14 times following the revelation of a slew of WhatsApp messages playing political hardball.

Foster’s appointment is for five years, with the clock starting today. It will set in train another lot of shuffling and promotions beneath her.

The airborne fraction of soil, or dust, contains biological and chemical ‘signatures’ which act as a fingerprint to a specific location.

Australian forensic science experts, led by Flinders University, have highlighted the usefulness of the latest technology by testing a series of field sites in South Australia for their unique chemical and biological profiles.

This work is strong evidence for including dust as a medium in forensic intelligence gathering to incorporate as a standard tool in future forensic casework, the scientists say in a new study published in an international journal.

Beijing is persistently courting one of America’s closest partners in the Pacific, giving Micronesia the benefit of two superpower benefactors but prompting fears among local leaders that the island nation could be caught up in a brawl between them.

Why it matters: As U.S.-China competition grows on several fronts and tensions intensify over Taiwan, China is pulling new partners into its Pacific orbit. Beijing’s focus on a country with deep ties to the U.S. comes as Washington urgently seeks to upgrade its military footprint in the region and remain the preeminent power.

The U.S. controls Micronesia’s vast expanse of ocean, and it funds much of the country’s budget. Micronesians attend U.S.-built schools, use U.S. dollars and serve in the U.S. military at a higher rate than any U.S. state.

Over the past three decades, the Internet has gone from a fringe communication technology to ubiquitous in day-to-day life. Like the rest of us, violent extremists have used it to socialise, learn, and be activists for their cause (Neumann 2013). For around fifteen years, the idea of ‘online radicalisation’ has been a pressing concern within policy circles and the media, as well as receiving substantial academic interest. For many years, scholars noted that there was a lack of data-driven research which analysed the phenomenon, instead relying on anecdotal evidence and an over-emphasis on analyses of extremist online content (Gill et al. 2015; von Behr et al. 2013). However, recent years have seen a substantial increase in empirical studies which, from different perspectives, attempt to understand the ways in which the Internet may play a role in the radicalisation process. As such, it is important to consolidate this research to comprehend what we know about the contemporary picture. This is the core objective of this report.

The UK’s national security landscape was created for an earlier era, in which novel information was scarce, the process of capturing it carried intrinsic value, and its dissemination was highly prized. Limited by the complexity and cost of gathering and guarding secrets, its scope was inevitably constrained, leading to a highly insular culture.

But the world has changed. We are in the information age, where data is ubiquitous. The intelligence edge now lies with those who can most readily access and exploit data and use it to generate actionable insights at pace, using tools such as collective intelligence, data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. And the demand for such insights is not restricted to defence and national security, but to all parts of government and the wider public sector. Across government, politicians and policymakers are wrestling with complex, interconnected challenges which must be addressed for future UK prosperity, advantage, and resilience.

Paul Lay and Alastair Benn are joined by Calder Walton, author of Spies: The epic intelligence war between East and West, to discuss how governments can use covertly acquired intelligence as a powerful tool to influence debate — and how easily it can all go wrong.