I know….what the Hell is HUMINT?
First, in my days with military intelligence (no not the oxymoron) we dealt with human intelligence(HUMINT)…..that is intel gathered from human resources….or as defined by the CIA……
Human intelligence (HUMINT) is defined as any information that can be gathered from human sources.
The National Clandestine Service (NCS) is the branch of the CIA responsible for the collection of HUMINT. The NCS is charged with strengthening national security and foreign policy objectives through the clandestine collection of HUMINT.
HUMINT is collected through:
- Clandestine acquisition of photography, documents, and other material
- Overt collection by people overseas
- Debriefing of foreign nationals and U.S. citizens who travel abroad
- Official contacts with foreign governments
The NCS officers responsible for collecting HUMINT are called Operations Officers. They focus on acquiring information from individuals with access to vital foreign intelligence on the full range of national security issues.
To be successful, NCS officers must understand one of the most complex aspects of running assets — human nature. Emotions, intentions and motivations differ from person-to-person and change overtime. Understanding people, with all of their complexities, is crucial to the business of running assets to collect HUMINT.
Collection methods can take place in a variety of ways, including in-person meetings. Some HUMINT operations are short in duration, while others take years. Through it all, NCS officers must understand and assess the intentions and motivations of their assets, as well as the authenticity of the intelligence they provide. The most successful HUMINT sources provide volumes of intelligence responsive to Intelligence Community requirements.
Okay, does that help?
This technique was all but abandoned when Reagan came to power….his CIA chief, Turner, did not place much confidence in HUMINT….he thought that SIGINT would be a better place to put the funding.
He was wrong and since those days we are struggling to find human resources for intel gathering…we lost a whole generation of 2nd generation Americans that spoke these languages they way they are suppose to be spoken not from some school.
WE have yet to return to the adequate state of our HUMINT that we had before 1980…..and that is the cause of many of the problems we are having with our intel gathering.
In Saner Thought 
What is it with organisations and acronyms? Create an acronym, get more funding. That’s my suspicion.
best wishes, Pete.
Its a military thing….they cannot exist without those damn things….LOL chuq
Just like Republicans, always changing things without any real thought of the consequences, just to oppose the other side, that’s their only strategy and it sucks big time. They cannot do a better job because they don’t think or read deeply into things, if they read into them at all. To bad that Americans allow themselves to be played by emotional fare, simply because to do anything else is way too complex for them.
While most people prefer to simply place their trust in gov’t pros to do the right thing on their behalf, they don’t look at the failures and realize these things happen because someone is being played. Remember, having the biggest and best military on earth also makes us the worlds greatest potential source of danger on earth. So, you have to think of what that means to the rest of the world. If you are not an American you have a few choices:
1. You can try to work your way under the U.S. military umbrella.
2. You can try to defeat U.S. objectives/programs etc..
3. You can try to ignore all and just stay focused on your own nations problems.
Obviously no. 3 isn’t a very good choice, most especially if you have marketable resources. Which means that most of the world is going to gravitate towards choices 1 or 2. Both of which involve maintaining their own covert intelligence and counter intelligence ops. When these succeed, U.S. intelligence fails. So we don’t have a choice of ignoring our own intelligence failures. Even while our own politicians try to cover up failures for political reasons. The more they do that, and the more we simply go along, the more at risk we are of further failures.
And it gets worse! While programs for social stability are offered, like “entitlements” etc., are intended to keep the nation together, the resistance is keeping us divided, which portends great opportunities for our adversaries to advance. So, when you hear of legislation attacking blacks, Indians, Muslims, Mexicans, Immigrants etc., you are hearing exactly what our enemies love to hear because that increases their opportunities to defeat us, because they will face a nation divided. You simply cannot have it both ways. Enough said for now.
Thanx for your visit and your thoughts….I agree with your assertions….please stop by as often as you can….have a good weekend….chuq
I appreciate the “Follow”….chuq