Insurgent Consciousness

Police Militarization, Professionalism, and the Balance of Persuasion and Force

By Fred Leland and Alex Olesker

“The strategic success of the Byzantine empire was of a different order than any number of tactical victories or defeats: it was a sustained ability, century after century, to generate disproportionate power from whatever military strength could be mustered, by combining it with all the arts of persuasion, guided by superior information.” ~Edward Luttwak

There has been a lot of talk recently in the wake of responses to the Occupy Wall Street Movement and its nationwide evolution on the topic of militarizing police forces. This topic has also come up in regards to police raids in their various forms throughout the country. Yet “militarization” is seldom defined and has grown to mean whatever the author doesn’t like about modern law enforcement. Often it’s about gear, but dressing in black does little to militarize an agency. Expanding tactical capabilities also do not justify the widespread outrage, as a more capable police force is, all else being equal, always preferable.

Though automatic weapons and armored vehicles in law enforcement are usually associated to the War on Terror, it’s important to remember that SWAT was a response to several sniping incidents against citizens and police in 1960s Los Angeles and the rise of urban guerrilla movements. The North Hollywood shooting in 1997 is yet another example of a conventional crime turned unconventional, when an armed confrontation between two heavily-armed bank robbers and the LAPD. This incident left police outgunned to the point they had to go commandeer weapons from a local firearms dealer.

We are witness to a worldwide evolving threat from highly trained active shooters. Westside Middle School, Thurston High School, Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, the Amish school house in Pennsylvania and many other schools, universities and campuses have been victims of active shooting incidents. Terrorists have used small arms and small unit swarming tactics at luxury hotels, restaurants, train stations, community centers, cinemas, police headquarters and other public locations.  Recent examples include the coordinated attacks in Mumbai, India and the premeditated shootings at Fort Hood, Texas and the gangs and narco-terrorists on the Mexican border.

Police departments large and small need to have forces capable of handling violent criminals who would arm themselves and use those arms to harm police as they attempt to stop various degrees of criminal activity. Domestic violence, drug raids, robberies, ongoing deadly action (active shooter situations), barricade, and hostage rescue situations are only a few examples. This show of force does much to help keep officers safe in the performance of their duties, as well as keep any innocents safe from harm.

The term “militarization” is often used when that force goes too far, such as in the recent UC Davis pepper spray incident. Yet there is nothing military-like about mismanaging force, and we do not train out service members to harm civilians. Of all the tacit or overt definitions of militarization in the press, the most interesting and useful comes from the former Chief of Police of Seattle, Norm Stamper, who suggests that the problematic, militarized element of law enforcement is the paramilitary bureaucracy and culture. Reliance on internal reviews, a “just following orders” mentality, and rigid hierarchy may expedite the process of war, but they hinder the agility and accountability needed in the civilian world for a peace officer.

Ironically, the military itself is moving away from this brand of militarization as it’s faced with complex scenarios and interactions outside of the battlefield. As recent tactical failures, from botched raids to heavy-handed yet ineffective responses to the Occupy protests have demonstrated, law enforcement must follow suit in order to better balance force and persuasion, the core of a peace officer’s mission.

There is definitely a place for SWAT teams and more highly trained full spectrum street officers capable of handling the conventional and unconventional crisis situations they find themselves in. The question is; are we using these units and tactics in appropriate ways? Are cops doing their homework and developing enough actionable information prior to taking action? Are the courts who sign off on warrants to search and arrest asking tough enough questions before they sign off?

Probable cause just means that information gathered would warrant a reasonable police officer to believe that the person sought for arrest would have most probably committed the crime or the location to be searched, and the evidence sought would be at the specific location. Police work is based on this premise, a much lower standard than in court which is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In the case of probable cause, cops do not always have all the information. As a matter of fact, in most situations there are numerous things cops do not know or cannot know prior to their taking action. For example: does the person they seek have any weapons and is the person capable and willing to use a weapon against the police when they respond to conduct a raid, etc?  What type of criminal background the person has can be researched, but what if there is no criminal background? What if the person sought has a minor or no criminal back ground but the circumstances and lessons from history show that the crime and manner of arrest lead to a potential for violence, such as with drug dealers and even street level drug use?  What about the minor crimes or infractions such as traffic violations that have led to the deaths of officers on the street? The motives and intent of people are often unknown and erratic and the circumstances surrounding arrests and raids can create psychological and physiological responses such as fight or flight, making people very unpredictable and hence police full of uncertainties as they carry out their duties.  How do we prepare for this? Are we considering options such as taking a subject into custody at a location other than the home where it may be safer and more advantageous, more tactically sound?

This being the case, police must respond utilizing tactical judgment based on what they know and what they do not know to prepare for all possible contingencies. This is one of the main reasons why there is the need for highly trained response teams. The question is, are we using these teams effectively? Are we using them in the right circumstances? Are we training officers to a high enough standard, do we have the right standards and do we have the right people, with the right attributes on these teams? Are those leading the teams the right people who understand conflict, violence, and the moral, mental, and physical aspects - dynamics of potentially violent encounters? Do they understand crowd dynamics in the case of a protest or employee strike, or human nature when entering a persons home, and how the tactics they choose can potentially create or decrease conflict? Are we just using attrition type tactics because that is what we are familiar with or are we thinking things through and using them when there necessary?

There must be a balance sought in the use of persuasion and force. This balance is not easily gained in a world where violence and the loss of life weigh so heavily. Cops are being killed and ambushed in record numbers but we still must understand our mission and intent, which all stems around public service and the standard mantra to protect and serve. This, rather than snappy uniforms and accreditations, is what is meant by police professionalism. All professions have their own unique standards and requirements that would seem outlandish and extreme in a different trade. Pilots are required to sleep at least 8 hours a night, taxi drivers must know a city like the back of their hand, and cops must be able to manage complex conflicts with incomplete information to achieve desired tactical and strategic outcomes.

To return to the example of pepper spraying UC Davis protesters, much of the debate has focused on rules and regulations surrounding the use of OC spray. Pepper spray is typically officially justified when subjects resist, causing critics to decry police training and procedure as brutal. Yet just because pepper spray could be justified in this instance doesn’t make it the right choice. Rather than follow policy and habit like automatons, professional police officers must consider the physical, mental, and moral implications of their actions, Physically, instead of preventing campus police from having to lay hands on the now-disoriented protesters, pepper spray necessitated it. Mentally, it escalated the conflict, riling up the crowd and increasing confusion among the ranks of campus police. Morally, it was a tremendous blow not only to campus police but to UC Davis and law enforcement trying to control the protests everywhere.

Just like the military is trying to reform their hierarchy, bureaucracy, and culture with the mission order, which spells out the goals of an operation first and foremost so that commanders have the flexibility to tailor tactics in a changing battlefield to the desired end state, police officers need to first think of “why” they are performing an operation before they consider how they will go about it and what they will do. This runs counter to the “militarized” model of sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and chiefs dictating what to do and relying strictly on procedural checklists for how to do it. Many of the problems attributed to militarization can be overcome with this approach. Overuse of SWAT, for example, can be reduced if rather than deploying a team for every drug warrant, the department asks WHY they are arresting the suspect, WHY use a team, and WHY perform a raid this night. More often than not, they will find that the suspect is not a clear and present danger to anyone, does not require an immediate intervention, and can be arrested more smoothly the next day away from home by regular patrolmen.

Giving officers the “why” and trusting them to shape the how and what to fit the dynamic situation on the ground, however, is only possible and beneficial if each member of the organization is a true law enforcement professional. That means that “trained observers” must actually be trained to observe, that those who wield force understand how to balance it with persuasion, and that, in a job that primarily consists of community interaction, cops sharpen their interpersonal and communication skills, including understanding body language. Professionals should have as much hands-on training as possible so that they may be agile police officers with a wide array of workable options open to them.

Still, none of this replaces specialized units and fuller spectrum street cops. The terrorist threat is rapidly evolving and drug cartels are using more violent and innovative tactics, criminals are using more violence in their methodologies to rob banks, commit workplace violence. Sometimes and more frequently today people with no criminal backgrounds at all are resorting to violent acts testing the street cops tactical ability to handle with only the basic tools. The teams are necessary. It is in how we are using the teams and more advanced equipment that needs to be thought about to ensure we keep support of the people we serve. Staying safe and going home at the end of your shift is the priority, but let’s not lose sight of WHY we do what we do and think about our tactics, the HOW we do what we do to win in the moral, mental and physical dimensions.

Stay Oriented!

BIO:

Alex Olesker is a security and technology analyst who writes for websites including Fear, Honor, and Interest and CTOvision.

Fred T. Leland, Jr. is the Founder and Principal Trainer of LESC: Law Enforcement & Security Consulting (www.lesc.NET).In addition to his work with LESC, Fred Leland is an active Lieutenant with the Walpole (MA) Police Department. He previously worked as a deputy with the Charlotte County (FL) Sheriff’s Department and before that spent six years with the United States Marines including as a squad leader in Beirut, Lebanon.

Leland is an accomplished trainer with more than 28 years experience teaching law enforcement, military and security professionals. His programs of instruction include handling dynamic encounters; threat assessment; non-verbal communications; decision making under pressure; evolving threats; violence prevention; firearms; use of force; officer created jeopardy and adaptive leadership. He is also a 2004 graduate of the FBI National Academy Class 216, and a current instructor for the Massachusetts Municipal Police Training Committee. Outcomes based training and education (OBTE) is his approach to creating and nurturing decision makers to observe, orient, decide and act while considering consequences.

 

On Police Bashing

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of very negative press towards law enforcement in the media and blogs, generally centered around either police resistance towards civilians recording their work or police use of force, with one complaint usually leading to the other. Take, for example, the analysis of documents leaked by LulzSec on the Arizona Department of Public Safety concern about iPhones, two Gawker articles yesterday on police victimizing innocents, in one case arresting a man for looking too much like a police sketch and another on the tazering of a disabled youth, and commentary on The Atlantic blog of author Ta-nehisi Coates. I'm not interested in defending bad police work, and some of the concerns are valid, but has the entire profession of policing deteriorated so rapidly? While the increase in annual police officer deaths may suggest officers are growing more lax about their personal safety, there is nothing to indicate they are doing the same about yours. So why is everyone beating up on the police?

As Fred Leland often points out, wearing the badge comes with higher standards, unique risks, and greater responsibilities. Everyone makes mistakes - a chef may mess up your order, a plumber may puncture a pipe trying to fix it - but when a cop makes a mistake, somebody could get hurt, whether an officer, bystander, or suspect, falsely arrested, or, in the case of the department or municipality, land in a high-liability law suit. The stakes are high and professionalism means more than proper attire and certifications. Before we condemn the entire profession of policing, as so many commentators are wont to do, let's take a look at what we ask of our officers.

In the taser case above, for example, the Ohio cops in question did not seem to be acting with professionalism. They misread a teen's mental disability, compounded by a speech impediment, and ended up using unnecessary force. Even if it was an honest mistake, being able to identify mental impairments, whether due to disability or intoxication, is a crucial part of the job, as, for example, mentally ill persons are present in 65% of officer-involved shootings nationwide. If those cops weren't prepared to deal with the mentally ill, disabled, or otherwise impaired, that's a professional failing.

The second Gawker article is a little less clear. The article portrays the police as buffoons who arrested Lanell Dowling for looking identical to a police sketch of a violent mugger terrorizing his neighborhood. Dowling was identified by four victims, who the author and commenters quickly assume to have been prepped by police, and unfortunately was in jail for 7 months until evidence surfaced that provided an alibi. I don't know what the other evidence for his arrest was, or if there was any, but four possitive identifications is not trivial. As the only commentor not jumping to the conclusion that the NYPD was eager to just put another black man behind bars noted: 

"....Dowling was I.D.'d by the four victims, but they were older women who'd probably been versed on how they'd turned up this remarkable sketch doppleganger, and all they needed to do was give it the thumbs up to feel safe forever." 

God knows you can't trust "old broads" to use their faculties or trust their own judgement. 

What the fuck is wrong with you? 

But what really led me to examine popular opinion turning against law enforcement was the discussion following Coates' commentary on "Defending Awful Policing," pointing out the flawed logic of those defending the Rochester Police Department in arresting (then releasing) a woman who was taping a traffic stop from her own property. Coates is a very smart, well educated guy, as are most of his commenters (this isn't Youtube, it's The Atlantic), but while he is justifiably critical of the officers in this particular case, the comments section quickly devolves into almost 200 blatant attacks on law enforcement as an institution. For example:

"Every time a police officer walks up to a driver's window, the driver should be aware that today is the day s/he could get shot."

"We're insufficiently oppressed, insufficiently unemployed, and sufficiently impressed with authoritarianism as the solution to why we can't personally punch a hippy - they do it for you.  If someone actually polices the police, hippies might get away with not getting punched!"

"Maybe this sort of stormtroopers-as-heroes twist will ratchet down some if the Dept of Unamerican Activities - oops, Homeland Security, ever gets disbanded. Until then, expect more us v. them."

"I don't know that they are always on, but I know that dash cams and belt tapes are both standard for the Albuquerque police force.  

Doesn't seem to stop them from shooting folks . . ."

I want to examine the last one in particular. Albuquerque just came out with a big study on use of force, which I will write much more on shortly. Dash-cams are used, but they are not standard. Belt tapes, however, are standard, as are cameras on police uniforms. And the commenter is correct, APD does have an unusually high rate of police shootings and use of force, despite some very progressive training, procedures, and monitoring, a mystery that the report tries to examine. But let's look at the nature of these shootings. In 84% of all incidents involving deadly force the officers were confronted by subjects with weapons. In the other 16%, subjects were thought to be reaching for weapons. Still, APD decided their use of deadly force was excessive (and I agree) and had the Police Executive Research Forum conduct an extensive review of their practices.

Make no mistake about what the Albuquerque Police Department asked its officers to do - find ways to avoid using deadly force, and any force if possible, on armed suspects. How many of us, confronting an armed adversary, would hesitate to use our weapon to protect outselves and others? This is where law enforcement stands out. The standards of professionalism are such that good policing means further reducing use of force even there, and if force is necessary, reducing injury and fatality as much as possible, sometimes at personal risk.

That's not to say there are no bad cops. There are, and concern in places like Rochester and Arizona over being taped are excessive, especially in an age when more and more departments tape themselves. But police perform a necessary duty, and the majority perform it honoraby and competently, though sometimes the public can't see this as, when it goes wrong, the results can be disastrous, just like in medecine. Yet the internet doesn't rejoice when hospitals are downsized...

By Alex Olesker

Ace Hood's Hustlenomics

  

There are three major themes in mainstream rap: "I'm so awesome", "I'm so rich", and "I'm so poor". This is, of course, an oversimplification, as it leaves out  sub-genres like "I'm so high and/or drunk", and "I'm so socially conscious and/or misinformed", but again, we're talking mainstream.

Usually, just to be safe, the rapper will cover his or her (but probably his) bases by mentioning more than one theme and often all three, the Holy Trinity of club bangers and radio records. Like the other Holy Trinity, this can get rather confusing and paradoxical- how can all three be the same thing?- yet when we learn to reconcile the Father ("I'm so awesome"), the Son ("I make so much money because I'm so awesome"), and the Holy Spirit ("But I'm still hood") we can reach some enlightening conclusions (as you can probably tell, I attended a Jesuit university). Take, for example, Ace Hood's classic "Hustle Hard".

"Times are getting hard," Ace Hood notes, summing up the recession, and "mama needs a house, baby needs some shoes." He invites us to guess his course of action, but we already know: "hustle, hustle, hustle HARD." And you can't blame him. After all, "closed mouths don't get fed on this boulevard."

But the first verse paints a different picture. He brags about his car on 24 inch rims and all the rosé he buys at the club. Has his hustle grown so successful that he can now afford this lifestyle? Nope. As soon as the chorus kicks in, it's the "same old shit, just a different day." Mama still needs that house, baby still needs some shoes, and Ace Hood is still "out here trying to get it, each and every way." That is, until the next verse, when he hits the mall with his ladyfriends and gives them a blank check to buy whatever they like.

What's going on here? Most likely, Mr. Hood was just trying to cover the spectrum of rap culture, but I prefer to draw my own conclusions. Inadvertently, this song is a very accurate discription of the drug trade for the vast majority of hustlers.

As Freakonomics famously noted, dealing isn't terribly profitable for all but the select few at the top. For many, once they pay thier connect, their crew, the boss, etc., the profit is no better than minumum wage. And, unlike unlike flipping burgers or washing dishes, they are constantly being arrested, beaten, or killed. So why would anyone follow that career path?

Ace alludes to one of the reasons right in his song: "All I know is hustle." In the projects and the ghetto, not everyone has markatable skills or even an education. They may also be missing life skills like interviewing and job-hunting. The black markey may be all a young foot soldier knows and the only career he has considered. As Jay-Z recalls in "Allure", "My brother hustled so naturally up next is me."

More importantly, it's "cool", and similar minumum wage jobs aren't.  As Big L explains in "Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous", "Picture me getting a job, taking orders from Bob, selling corn on the cob... I'd rather do another hit." And if being a flipper is cool, being a don is awesome, as evidenced by the estimated 50% of rap from the perspective of a crime boss. It's this aspiration, suggests Freakonomics, that drives otherwise reasonable young men to take absurd risks for low pay.

Except that real dealers don't always see it that way. In an interview on NPR, legendary drug dealer Freeway Rick Ross (the real Rick Ross, not the Twitter Thug) questioned the high-risk, high-reward model of drug dealing. To Ross, the risk hardly ever crossed his mind, as he never expected to make it past 24 anyway. Even at the top, the drug trade was hardly glamorous as it entailed long hours, a life in hiding, and constant distrust. Still, Ross loved it for the feeling of power. It was a lifestyle thing. As Sudhir Venkatesh recounts in Gang Leader for a Day, for a certain segment of the population, the life of a dealer is appealing. You spend most of your time hanging with the homies, getting high and/or drunk and perhaps rapping about it (see above), you carry a gun, and are treated with fear and respect.

Which brings us back to Ace Hood and "Hustle Hard". Poverty and rosé aren't antithetical, they are both par for the course for a rising dealer. Ace may have gotten into the drug game to put a roof over mama's head and some shoe's on baby's feet, but as soon as he can "double up on [his] profit" he hits the club to live the life. After all, as Raekwon mentions on Kanye West's "Gorgeous", in this game "if you can't live. you're dying." But once the dope boy lifestyle eats up your meager earnings, you're left right back where you started. To finish with some OutKast: "So now you're back in the trap, just that, trapped. Go on and marinate on marinate on that for a minute."

By Alex Olesker

 

Pipeline and Network Security: Protecting a Series of Tubes



With Lulzsec’s recent press and the big FBI cyber busts, I was reminded of similar yet seemingly unrelated security challenge. This February, I was invited to give a talk in the Netherlands on Caucasian security. Sitting on a panel with the nation’s experts on Eurasian geopolitics, I decided to leave the big picture to them and drill down on one fascinating problem, pipeline security.

In this oil and gas rich region, most of the hydrocarbons pass through the conflicted Kurdish region of Turkey on their way to energy-hungry United States and Europe. Turkey derives tremendous revenue from transit fees and rent through their oil pipelines, and is expanding to gas and LNG. Given the importance of the pipelines, the PKK puts pressure on Turkey and Iraq by continuously blowing them up, burning fuel, and disabling miles of international infrastructure for millions of dollars of damage. As an added bonus, Turkey is embarrassed and loses investor confidence.

Though damaging, these attacks are cheap and simple, requiring no more than two guys, a truck, shovel, and some home-made explosives. Protecting those pipelines, however, is an almost impossible task. Thousands of miles long, they cannot be patrolled across their entire lengths, which mostly pass through hostile regions with difficult terrain. Pipelines are easy to find as even when they are buried they tend to be marked above ground and their location is public knowledge.

Turkey has tried and failed to prevent attacks with numerous approaches over the years. They saturated the area with six times the number of US troops in neighboring Iraq at a cost of 2-3% of their GDP. They put pressure on the Kurds with brutal and aggressive counterinsurgency techniques and at the same time met most of the initial Kurdish demands over the years to no avail. They’ve also put their faith in expensive technology and are developing more, hoping that their problems have a technical solution.

Pipeline security reminds me cyber security. Both are daunting problems of countless vulnerabilities to attack and the potential for tremendous economic and even diplomatic fallout. In both cases, it’s nearly impossible to truly harden the targets, due to the nature of pipelines, which must be extremely long and go through Kurdish land to effectively reach the West, and the structure of the internet, whose infrastructure promotes openness and convenience rather than security.  Attribution is another common problem, with hackers launching attacks through third parties and covering their tracks and the PKK blending seamlessly into Kurdish villages.

Not surprisingly, both security problems have similar remedies. The most effective way to protect your network from cyber attack is to assume that malware will make it through, even that your network is already compromised, and then ensure that it is robust enough to bounce back from minor attacks. Pipelines are the same way. The most cost effective response to pipeline bombings has been to keep plenty of spare parts and streamline the repair process to minimize damage and lower the rewards for attacks.

In cyber security, detection and monitoring are critical through intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, and better log monitoring. The former two simplify the latter and allow for better scheduling. Administrators are rarely able to monitor all network activity, so having them jump in when the automated systems find an anomaly can reduce required manpower while improving remediation. Turkey is seeing success with a similar strategy. They have deployed seismic monitoring along lengths of their pipelines, which, while expensive, is highly effective for detecting strange behavior across great lengths. The monitors detect vibrations in the pipelines and can recognize a truck driving too close, footsteps approaching where a pipe is buried, and digging, allowing an expeditionary security force to be deployed quickly for an active defense versus the passive defense of constant patrols. This also cuts down on required personnel, which may make up for the cost of the new technology.

Overall, however, for both complex security environments, there is no magic bullet. Better means of protecting pipelines helped when the Turkish government continued to put pressure on the PKK, but a heavy-handed counterinsurgency only served to make martyrs until it was combined with soft power. Damaging the PKK also required transnational actions and support, as the leaders were scattered through the Kurdish diaspora. Cyber security also requires a mix of protection, active defense (read: offense), international cooperation, technological advances, and hours of hard work. While resilience and remediation are the most effective means of dealing with both sorts of attacks, both will remain towering problems that can only be mitigated with a medley of techniques and never completely overcome.

 By Alex Olesker

The Birth of the Twitter Thug

First recorded use of the term "Twitter thug", by Rick Ross

    Newspapers would have you believe the Twitter Thug emerged in January, 2010, when Jameg Blake allegedly killed Kwame Dancy with a shotgun blast to the neck in "the world's first Twitter murder." Never mind that the friends fell out over a real, live woman, not Primoris Era, or that the murder weapon was a firearm and not a retweet- they had argued over Twitter.

Dancy's mother, Madeline Smith, said she was stunned to learn that tweets between the friends could have led to murder.

'That's not a reason to shoot somebody,' she said.

'That's crazy. I don't know what's going on with that Twitter thing.'

    Around the same time, street gangs were justifying the mini-blogging moral panic by using Twitter to set up fights and fuel disputes, leaving at least one young gang member wounded in a shooting in Harlem. Why were gangs turning to the new technology? "One 15-year-old in the 28 Gunnaz gang said it's just like any other "form of communication," except that the world can listen in on the conversation." As would be expected, police had caught on the that one minor difference and monitor timelines to prevent violence and search for clues. " 'It is another tool ... just like old phone records,' a police source said. 'We can go through them [messages] to track these guys.' "

    For most of it's history, Twitter has just been just another tool, albeit a stupid one, for would-be thugs- Twitter Thugs - to communicate, like text messages, phone calls, or graffiti. Recently, however, a far more threatening set of Twitter Thugs, the Taliban, have begun to really exploit the potential of the social media website. Through their official account @alemarahweb, the Taliban have begun to post in English, usually citing exagerated casualties and death tolls in Afghanistan. This is more than just another ploy to "inspire" young Western Muslims like Jihadi rap, it's an attempt to control the narrative coming out of Afghanistan, and it may see some success.

    More than their tapes, websites, and magazines, which even sympathisers know are propoganda, Twitter is all about breaking news before th media, which also means before there are reports to contradict it. Through @AlexOlesker, I know about the stories that are relevant for me on rap, cartels, technology and Unmanned Alcohlic Vehicles, hours or days before my non-tweeting friends see them in he news, if they make it there at all. Twitter is more than just "another form of communication", it's a platform for the information-starved and skeptical around the world, and the Taliban have begun to use it as a broken telehone to get their story out first to sympathisers ready to retweet and give it an air of legitimacy.

By Alex Olesker

 

The Evolution of the Police Notebook

With immense respect to the force, I have to say that law enforcement can be painfully slow at adopting new technology. And I don't mean replacing service pistols with directed-energy weapons, just the low hanging fruit like record and paperwork digitalization, which took and has been taking forever.

One big step towards modernizing policing was the introduction of ToughBooks in squad cars by departments like Washington DC's Metropolitan Police Department. Now Baltimore PD is taking this initiative to the next level by introducing police smartphones. There is tremendous potential here and hopefully the initiative will take off and not be labelled blasphemy against the pocket notebook.

I cover the technology here: http://ctovision.com/2011/04/cloud-computing-for-law-enforcement/

By Alex Olesker

Yemen

Photograph by Glen Allison/Getty Images

    With Panetta named SecDef, and Petraeus heading the CIA, commentators are talking about a blurring of the lines between intelligence and defense. In Yemen especially, traditional security categories and concepts are inadequate to describe what's going on.

    While the U.S. has supported in word and in bomb several revolutions throughout the Middle East, Yemeni President Saleh is one of several autocrats whom the American government doesn't want to leave. He has allowed American covert action in Yemen for most of a decade. American predator drone strikes and reconnaisance on Al Qaeda targets in Yemen have received the most press, but American Special Operations Forces have been training Yemeni forces in counterterrorism as well. And one would be surprised if these commandos weren't also involved in intelligence-gathering and "kinetic" operations.

    Yemen is one of those nation-states that aren't. It's the poorest country in the Middle East, which is an area not commonly cited for its economic dynamism. A long-running Iran-supported Shia rebellion in the north indicates how weak the central government's hold on power has been. Al Qaeda has exploited the tribally-dominant (not to be confused with chaotic) environment for over a decade to train, recruit, and hide out from its enemies.

    Now that Ali Abdullah Saleh looks willing to leave power shortly, many strategic questions arise. What will be the new regime's attitude towards American covert action? Will Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula exploit the situation's uncertainty and weakened government to expand its operations both inside and outside of Yemen? 

    What are the U.S. governments options here? What instruments of power does it have at its disposal?

By Russ Greene

DoDIIS Worldwide

Back to blogging after finals and attending the Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems (DoDIIS) conference in Detroit.  DoDIIS filled an expo center with the Qs to America's James Bond, except instead of invisible cars the exhibitors focused on ways to enhance and secure information technology for intelligence, which in today's Intelligence Community is much more valuable. As part of the technology team from Crucial Point LLC, I wrote on a few of the vendors at the event. Here are a few examples of what I saw there:

IBM's Master Data Management software can provide a complete profile of an individual by uncovering his or her obvious and non-obvious relationships. For honest people, this simplifies background checks and such, but where the system gets really interesting is when Global Name Recognition kicks in to uncover an alias. Aside from understanding alternate spellings, nicknames, titles, and typos, the software can often find who's behind a false identity by analyzing their identity package. Fraudsters usually don't make up the details of their new identity from scratch. In order to remember the specifics, they re-use or modify details from their lives like their mother's maiden name or an old girlfriend's phone number. The Master Data Management software can uncover those links to pinpoint an actual identity.

Thetus Corporations’ Savanna provides analysts with search, discovery, and visualization tools by partnering with companies such as Kapow to pull information from web sites and all-source intelligence, Janya to perform textual analysis on that information, and then use MetaCarta, who's directory of locations is 7 times the seize of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's gazateer, to perform geospatial analysis. All of this allows analysts to explore questions and test hypotheses quickly yet completely, uncovering hidden links and then putting the whole package together in a coherent, unified, and searchable format.

On the hardware side, IronKey provides highly secure USBs. Though thumb drives have been blacklisted by many agencies because they can  contain malicious code or extract classified information in a WikiLeaks scenario, IronKey seeks to make USBs secure again with a variety of safety features. They contain hardware encryption, active anti-malware software combined with automatic malware scanning, and remote administration to control what devices anIronKey can be used on and even to self-destruct when lost. Seriously.

 There are dozens more covered on the blog we put together, DoDIIS Tech, on "the technology of the DoDIIS enterprise."

 By Alex Olesker

 

Updates From Tunisia: Revolution Done Right

    Landing at the Tunis-Carthage airport, I noticed something unexpected: order, two months after a revolution that still shakes the Middle East. While the reporters and cameras have moved on from Tunisia’s Jasmine revolution, Tunisians have quietly but determinedly begun building their democracy, keeping the wheels of government turning all the while.

    One of the most remarkable parts of Tunisia’s revolution happened after Ben Ali left and the international media crowed victory. The Tunisians I spoke with told me that, in a last ditch attempt to retain power, security services freed prison inmates and began shooting people at random. They hoped to create chaos, which would delegitimize the revolution in the eyes of the Tunisians and the world.

    But, in a remarkable display of community resilience, Tunisians responded by forming neighborhood watches. Armed with baseball bats and kitchen knives, they set up check-points, searched cars and arrested suspected militiamen. Within days, the chaos subsided.

Resilient Communities in Action: Neighborhood watches checking ids and searching for weapons. AP

    The international airport, which often acts as a weathervane of stability, closed for a single day before resuming operations.

    Note that despite these exceptional circumstances, the succession of governments occurred strictly according to constitutional requirements. Contrast this with Egypt, where the army is left in legal limbo.

    As the dust settled, the interim government hit several key notes crucial to success:

    First, it quickly legalized most banned parties, notably the much maligned islamist parties. The moderate Renaissance party Nahda, which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, pledged its support for multi-party democracy and liberalism. A far more extreme party, El Tahrir, advocates Sha’ria law and remains banned. Yet rather than seek arrests, the interim governments simply let secular and feminist groups work as counter-balance, the essence of democratic discourse.

    In the desert oases, it redistributed Ben Ali’s plantations to landless farmers, permitting the uninterrupted maintenance of this fragile ecosystem. The holdings of Ben Ali and his family were vast and included factories, school and huge swaths of land. Closing them down pending legal action would have caused a huge economic shock, so instead the government nationalized these holding and encouraged citizens to run them in the interim.

    Finally, it started a public works program, employing youths to pick up trash and plant trees.  This stopgap measure addresses the pressing issue of youth unemployment, which helped fuel the revolution. And more help is coming, as the World Bank and Afircan Development Bank are mobilizing hundreds of millions of dollars in develop aid and soft loans.

    This isn’t to say that problems don’t remain: there are still near daily strikes in downtown Tunis, and tanks still straddle the main boulevard.  But the seeds of democracy and prosperity have been planted. Come watch them grow.

By the Barefoot Economist

Exploring with Google Earth

CTOvision just put up my post on how Google Earth does more to uncover ancient ruins and remains, track pirates, and other really cool stuff for free than commercially available products for hundreds of thousands of dollars could a decade ago. The growing power of open source and off-the-shelf technology as well as the internet has been one of the drivers of non-state actor super-empowerment.

The background to that post is pretty interesting as well. I heard about what Google Earth could do from Dr. Lee Berger himself (upper left). I was having a beer at DC's Thunderburger when a man to my left started making observations on the varied physiognomy of the people sitting at the bar. This drew me in to a conversation and, when I asked him what he did, he replied that he was an explorer. Not realizing we still had explorers, I asked Lee, with whom I was on first name basis at this point, to elaborate, and he told me that he was the man behind the Maputo caves discovery, the largest find of early human remains, and invited me and a friend to a ceremony at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History where I got so see the casts of australopithecus sediba (bottom left) that were being donated on behalf of the South African government. When security asked me which journal I represented, I told them that I was one of Lee's drinking buddies. This sort of thing only happens in DC...

By Alex Olesker