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Fang Chen
Fall 2014 & Spring 2015
HOMELAND SECURITY MINI PAPERS
Predator Full Motion Video
The unmanned Predator system, which was designed in response to a DOD
requirement to provide combatants with persistent intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance (ISR) information, carries the Multi-Spectral Targeting System that
integrates an infrared sensor, color/monochrome daylight TV camera, image-intensified
TV camera, laser designator, and laser illuminator. This system offers highresolution, narrow-field-of-view (so-called soda-straw) daytime television cameras
providing full-motion video (FMV) in color at 30 fps, and day-and-night television
cameras that provide similar performance at infrared wavelengths. In addition, FMV from
each of the imaging sensors can be viewed as separate video streams or fused together.
A recent FMV upgrade supports not only Narrow Field of View from unmanned vehicles,
but also the newly deployed Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) sensors that generate a
greater order of magnitude of data than previous sensors. FMV is currently delivered in
standard resolution, although high-definition output will reportedly soon be commonplace.
The resources required to provide the warfighter with intelligence derived from the
Predator FMV sensor are substantial. A crew of 192 airmen can be associated with a single
Predator or Reaper CAP, including 30 intelligence analysts dedicated to the exploitation of
motion imagery. However, where crews are colocated, certain personnel are shared,
leading to significant savings. Even with manpower savings from such economies of scale,
total crew positions associated with remotely piloted aircraft run into the thousands
(Menthe et al. p. 4) Thus, one of the challenges in deploying unmanned ISR capabilities is,
ironically, manpower. Another challenge is the threat of information overload resulting
from the widespread use of unmanned systems. As of 2012, more than 10,000 hours of
motion imagery was collected each month in Iraq and Afghanistan alone. According
to Lockheed Martin, the company's upgraded FMV capabilities promise to make search
and analysis of motion imagery as easy as searching YouTube.
References:
Lockheed Martin. "Searching and Streaming: Full Motion Video Gets an Upgrade."
16 October 2012. http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/isgs/connect/fmv-upgrade-10-1612.htm
Menthe, Lance, Amado Cordova, Carl Rhodes, Rachel Costello, and Jeffrey Sullivan.
2012. "The Future of Air Force Motion Imagery Exploitation: Lessons from the
Commercial World." RAND Corporation.
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U.S. Air Force. "MQ-1B Predator Fact Sheet." 20 July 2010.
http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104469/mq-1bpredator.aspx
MI5: Overview
Established in the United Kingdom in 1909, the Security Service (MI5) bears the
principal responsibility for domestic intelligence, whereas the Secret Intelligence Service
(SIS) is tasked with overseas intelligence gathering. Although this division between
domestic and foreign is similar to what exists in the US intelligence community, unlike the
FBI, MI5 has no powers of detention or arrest. For those functions, MI5 relies upon the
police. However, UK law enforcement is not only involved in terrorist investigations
during the arrest phase. British intelligence organizations have been in existence far longer
than their US counterparts and, for over a century, MI5 has worked alongside Special
Branch, units within the Metropolitan Police that deal with political security.
MI5 also has close working relationships with SIS and GCHQ, the British
equivalent of the NSA which dates back to World War I. While MI5 became the lead
agency for counterterrorism, Special Branch had responsibility for investigations involving
the Irish Republican Army. The British model of domestic intelligence continued without
major changes until 9/11 which became an important watershed for UK leaders.
Acknowledging that the primary threat of terrorism was no longer from the IRA but from
Muslim extremists, policymakers sought to restructure counterterrorism response in the
United Kingdom.
The creation of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and the Centre for the
Protection of National Infrastructure, both semiautonomous organizations within MI5,
mirrored the new counterterrorism entities established in the US by the Homeland Security
Act. While American policymakers struggled to fix the lack of cooperation within the US
intelligence community, UK reforms expanded the already broad role of police detectives
by involving them even earlier in MI5’s investigations through the establishment of
Counter Terrorism Intelligence Units at the regional level. With no equivalent in the
American intelligence or law enforcement communities, the UK’s regional
counterterrorism centers underscore just how much catching up the US has to do in order
to achieve the same degree of interagency cooperation.
MI5 is not without its controversies, however, and has been hit with allegations of
abuse of power not unlike the domestic spying charges made against the FBI during the
1970s. To fend off misconceptions that it is a secret police force, MI5 explicitly states on
its web site that it is not a law enforcement agency. Based in the Prime Minister’s office,
the Central Intelligence Machinery also exists to keep MI5 in line. As the principal
oversight body for British intelligence, the Central Intelligence Machinery has its US
counterparts in the National Security Council and intelligence committees of Congress.
References:
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HM Government. CONTEST: The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering Terrorism.
July 2011.
Jackson, Brian A., ed. Considering the Creation of a Domestic Intelligence Agency in the
United States: Lessons from the Experiences of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and
the United Kingdom. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Publishing, 2009.
MI5. “Is MI5 the Secret Police?” https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/about-us/faqs-aboutmi5/is-mi5-the-secret-police.html
CIA: Overview
Comprised of four directorates—the Directorate of Intelligence, the National
Clandestine Service (formerly the Directorate of Operations), the Directorate of Science
and Technology, and the Directorate of Support—the CIA is the primary agency for
collecting and analyzing human intelligence (HUMINT) and also the lead agency for
conducting covert action. Since the establishment of the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence in 2005, the CIA Director no longer serves as head of the US intelligence
community. Most of the debate surrounding the growth of the CIA’s mission after 9/11 has
to do with covert operations, particularly the program code-named “Greystone,” the
agency’s largest covert action program since the height of the cold war according to The
Washington Post. Much less well known are the CIA’s efforts at collecting HUMINT
within the United States.
Although the FBI is the principal domestic intelligence agency, the CIA and the
Department of Defense also have limited domestic intelligence roles. On the face of it,
domestic intelligence collection by the CIA seems to contravene the agency’s mission of
operating only in the foreign sphere. The National Security Act of 1947 states that the
Director of the CIA “provide overall direction for and coordination of the collection of
national intelligence outside the United States through human sources by elements of the
intelligence community authorized to undertake such collection and, in coordination with
other departments, agencies, or elements of the United States Government which are
authorized to undertake such collection, ensure that the most effective use is made of
resources and that appropriate account is taken of the risks to the United States and those
involved in such collection.”
Since 9/11, the agency has shifted more officers to its domestic operations which
include the recruitment of intelligence sources within the United States. However,
cultivating CIA sources from among the country’s commercial, banking, educational, and
scientific institutions dates back to the early years of the agency. H. Bradford Westerfield,
editor of Inside CIA’s Private World, a collection of articles from the agency’s internal
journal, says, “More than is generally perceived, CIA collects inside the United States
much of its clandestine and semi-clandestine humint about foreign countries. This is not
just a process of Americans’ spontaneously volunteering information to their government.
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Often they (and aliens) need to be induced to do so by methods that include a large part of
clandestine espionage tradecraft….”
In particular, the article, “Techniques of Domestic intelligence Collection,”
discusses how the agency, through its network of field offices across the country, has
tapped into the vast potential of information available from both American citizens and
foreign nationals. Published in 1959, the CIA’s article focused on the fight against
communism, but the recruitment techniques discussed could be just as productive today in
preventing terrorist attacks. The article’s author notes, as examples, seeking reports from a
company’s overseas branches and interviewing travelers who have recently visited
countries of interest to the CIA. The key principle is that these sources are helping the
agency seek foreign intelligence as the final objective. In this way, the CIA is able to tread
a fine line and conduct domestic intelligence gathering without altering its original
mission.
References:
Czajkowski, Anthony F. “Techniques of Domestic intelligence Collection.” In H. Bradford
Westerfield, ed., Inside CIA’s Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency’s
Internal Journal 1955-1992. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.
PBS Frontline. “Top Secret America.” 6 September 2011.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/iraq-war-on-terror/topsecretamerica/transcript6/#number1
National Security Act of 1947.