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Intelligence Analysis in the Digital Age (Studies in Intelligence)
By Stig Stenslie; Lars Haugom; Brigt Harr Vaage. 2022
This book examines intelligence analysis in the digital age and demonstrates how intelligence has entered a new era. While intelligence…
is an ancient activity, the digital age is a relatively new phenomenon. This volume uses the concept of the "digital age" to highlight the increased change, complexity, and pace of information that is now circulated, as new technology has reduced the time it takes to spread news to almost nothing. These factors mean that decision-makers face an increasingly challenging threat environment, which in turn increases the demand for timely, relevant, and reliable intelligence to support policymaking. In this context, the book demonstrates that intelligence places greater demands on analysis work, as the traditional intelligence cycle is no longer adequate as a process description. In the digital age, it is not enough to accumulate as much information as possible to gain a better understanding of the world. To meet customers’ needs, the intelligence process must be centred around the analysis work – which in turn has increased the demand for analysts. Assessments, not least predictions, are now just as important as revealing someone else’s secrets. This volume will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, security studies, and international relations.Selling De-Radicalisation: Managing the Media Framing of Countering Violent Extremism (Routledge Studies in Countering Violent Extremism)
By Gordon Clubb, Daniel Koehler, Jonatan Schewe, Ryan O'Connor. 2021
This book examines how de-radicalisation programmes have been portrayed in the media and details the role of public relations (PR)…
strategies employed by such programmes and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) to create positive coverage of their work. CVE and de-radicalisation programmes have seen a significant rise in recent years and are now cornerstones of many countries’ counterterrorism strategies. Despite the increased importance of these tools to counter violent radicalisation leading to terrorism, they remain controversial and sometimes receive fierce public criticism and opposition. This work looks at how CVE and de-radicalisation programs are able to influence a country’s discourse on de-radicalisation, and how far governmental programs differ from non-governmental initiatives in terms of their PR strategies. The book also provides a theoretical basis of how the discourse on CVE is constructed in the media. As major case studies, this book examines the United Kingdom, Germany and Nigeria. For these countries, the authors have gathered and assessed roughly 3,000 newspaper articles on de-radicalisation programmes over a decade to provide an empirical base. This book will be of much interest to students of countering violent extremism, de-radicalisation, and terrorism studies.This book argues that guilt, shame, and remorse, associated with a history of substance abuse, explain why a minority of…
Islamist extremists carried out suicide terrorism in Europe between 2001 and 2018. Since 9/11, Islamist terrorism has dominated the European security landscape, but there has been little systematic analysis of either the attacks or the men responsible. This book addresses that gap, drawing on terrorist discourse, court transcripts, elite interviews, government reports, and three years of ethnography to provide an exhaustive account of how and why Islamist terrorism has occurred in Europe. Making a detailed analysis of 48 terrorist attacks carried out by 80 suicide terrorists, the book introduces two new theories. The first argues that most of these men first engaged in Islamist extremism as an alternative to substance abuse. The second contends that, following a five-stage process of radicalisation, cognitive dissonance triggered guilt, shame, and remorse over previous misconduct. From this emotional distress, suicide terrorism emerged as a rational choice ahead of either suicide or a return to active addiction. This book argues that the root cause of suicide terrorism in Europe is not so much politics or religion but is more about personal crisis and a search for redemption. This book will be of great interest to students of terrorism/counterterrorism, de-radicalisation, political Islam, and security studies in general.This book demands that we question what we are told about security, using tools we have had for thousands of…
years. The work considers the history of security rhetoric in a number of distinct but related contexts, including the United States’ security strategy, the "war" on Big Tech, and current concerns such as cybersecurity. Focusing on the language of security discourse, it draws common threads from the ancient world to the present day and the near future. The book grounds recent comparisons of Donald Trump to the Emperor Nero in a linguistic evidence base. It examines the potential impact on society of policy-makers’ emphasis on the novelty of cybercrime, their likening of the internet to the Wild West, and their claims that criminals have "gone dark". It questions governments’ descriptions of technology companies in words normally reserved for terrorists, and asks who might benefit. Interdisciplinary in approach, the book builds on existing literature in the Humanities and Social Sciences, most notably studies on rhetoric in Greco-Roman texts, and on the articulation of security concerns in law, international relations, and public policy contexts. It adds value to this body of research by offering new points of comparison, and a fresh but tried and tested way of looking at problems that are often presented as unprecedented. It will be essential to legal and policy practitioners, students of Law, Politics, Media, and Classics, and all those interested in employing critical thinking.Bent Coppers
By Graeme McLagan. 2004
The inside story of a secret unit that has worked under cover to expose corruption in the Metropolitan Police since…
the early 1990s.'If you want a book that is genuinely 'unputdownable' read BENT COPPERS' Johnny Vaughan, THE SUN'A very engaging read - the outrageous nature of bent cops' behaviour guarantees that' SUNDAY TELEGRAPHShocked by the extent of corruption within its ranks, Scotland Yard set up a new anti-corruption unit in the early 1990s. Its members had to operate in conditions of unprecedented secrecy and they became known as the 'Ghost Squad'.Bent Coppers really did believe they were untouchable: they stole cash and property, fitted-up innocent people and sold secret information to cripple court cases. Many of the bent coppers are now in jail or awaiting trial but the battle against corruption is not over.Only now can the story of the 'Ghost Squad' be revealed. Award-winning BBC home affairs correspondent Graeme McLagan had followed the investigation since the beginning. He has interviewed undercover officers and many of the bent coppers they have exposed. this is the inside story of the 'Ghost Squad' and how it broke into the secret world of police corruption.In Deep: The FBI, The CIA, And The Truth About America's Deep State
By David Rohde. 2020
A two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist’s investigation of the "deep state." Three-quarters of Americans believe that a group of unelected government…
and military officials secretly manipulate or direct national policy in the United States. President Trump blames the "deep state" for his impeachment. But what is the American "deep state" and does it really exist? To conservatives, the “deep state” is an ever-growing government bureaucracy, an "administrative state" that relentlessly encroaches on the individual rights of Americans. Liberals fear the "military-industrial complex"—a cabal of generals and defense contractors who they believe routinely push the country into endless wars. Every modern American president—from Carter to Trump—has engaged in power struggles with Congress, the CIA, and the FBI. Every CIA and FBI director has suspected White House aides of members of Congress of leaking secrets for political gain. Frustrated Americans increasingly distrust the politicians, unelected officials, and journalists who they believe unilaterally set the country’s political agenda. American democracy faces its biggest crisis of legitimacy in a half century. This sweeping exploration examines the CIA and FBI scandals of the past fifty years—from the Church Committee’s exposure of Cold War abuses, to Abscam, to false intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, to NSA mass surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden. It then investigates the claims and counterclaims of the Trump era, and the relentless spread of conspiracy theories online and on-air. While Trump says he is the victim of the "deep state," Democrats accuse the president and his allies of running a de facto "deep state" of their own that operates outside official government channels and smears rivals, both real and perceived. The feverish debate over the "deep state" raises core questions about the future of American democracy. Is it possible for career government officials to be politically neutral? Was Congress’s impeachment of Donald Trump conducted properly? How vast should the power of a president be? Based on dozens of interviews with career CIA operatives and FBI agents, In Deep answers whether the FBI, CIA, or politicians are protecting or abusing the public’s trust.This book has been written with one very specific objective in mind. It aims to give you, the reader, an…
in-depth appreciation of the skills and abilities required to pass the police national recruitment tests, including the process for applying to be a Police Community Support Officer (PCSO). As you read through this book, you will see the approach is to explain in detail the reasoning and rationale behind each exercise, the mechanics of how each exercise works, and the various limitations that exist within the exercise itself – from the perspective of those who designed it. It is not about making you a better person, although if you follow the principles contained throughout, you may just end up that way! In essence, this book is a ‘how to’ guide to passing the police recruitment system. It aims to give you the best chance of passing through the process successfully.A Guarded Life: My story of the dark side of An Garda Síochána
By Majella Moynihan. 2020
A GARDA, A FORCED ADOPTION, A FIGHT FOR JUSTICEIn 1984, Majella Moynihan was a fresh-faced young garda recruit when she…
gave birth to a baby boy. Charged with breaching An Garda Síochána's disciplinary rules - for having premarital sex with another guard, becoming pregnant, and having a child - she was pressured to give up her baby for adoption, or face dismissal. It forced her into a decision that would have devastating impacts on her life. Majella left the force in 1998 after many difficult years and, in 2019, following an RTÉ documentary on her case, she received an apology from the Garda Commissioner and Minister for Justice for the ordeal she endured as a young garda. Here, for the first time, she tells the full story. From an institutional childhood after the death of her mother when she was a baby, to realising her vocation of becoming a guard only to confront the reality of a police culture steeped in misogyny and prejudice, A Guarded Life is both a courageous personal account of hope and resilience in the darkest times, and a striking reflection on womanhood and autonomy in modern Ireland.Migration and Mortality: Social Death, Dispossession, and Survival in the Americas
By Jamie Longazel and Miranda Cady Hallett. 2021
Death threatens migrants physically during perilous border crossings between Central and North America, but many also experience legal, social, and…
economic mortality. Rooted in histories of colonialism and conquest, exclusionary policies and practices deliberately take aim at racialized, dispossessed people in transit. Once in the new land, migrants endure a web of systems across every facet of their world—work, home, healthcare, culture, justice—that strips them of their personhood, denies them resources, and creates additional obstacles that deprive them of their ability to live fully. As laws and policies create ripe conditions for the further extraction of money, resources, and labor power from the dispossessed, the contributors to this vibrant anthology, Migration and Mortality, examine restrictive immigration policies and the broader capitalist systems of exploitation and inequality while highlighting the power of migrants’ collective resistance and resilience. The case studies in this timely collection explore border deaths, detention economies, asylum seeking, as well as the public health and mental health of migrants. Ultimately, these examples of oppression and survival contribute to understanding broader movements for life and justice in the Americas.In "The Vendetta," author Alston Purvis recounts the story of his father, Melvin Purvis, the iconic G-man and public hero…
made famous by his remarkable sweep of the great Public Enemies of the American DepressionOCoJohn Dillinger; Pretty Boy Floyd, and Baby Face Nelson. PurvisOCOs successes led FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover to grow increasingly jealous, to the point where he vowed to bring down Purvis. Hoover smeared PurvisOCOs reputation, and tried to erase his name from all records of the FBI's greatest triumphs. This book sets the record straight, and provides a grippingly authentic new telling of the gangster era, seen from the perspective of the pursuers. "Snitch: Informants, Cooperators & the Corruption of Justice
By Ethan Brown. 2007
Our criminal justice system favors defendants who know how to play the "5K game": criminals who are so savvy about…
the cooperation process that they repeatedly commit serious crimes knowing they can be sent back to the streets if they simply cooperate with prosecutors. In Snitch, investigative reporter Ethan Brown shows through a compelling series of case profiles how the sentencing guidelines for drug-related offenses, along with the 5K1. 1 section, have unintentionally created a "cottage industry of cooperators," and led to fabricated evidence. The result is wrongful convictions and appallingly gruesome crimes, including the grisly murder of the Harvey family in Richmond, Virginia and the well-publicized murder of Imette St. Guillen in New York City. This cooperator-coddling criminal justice system has ignited the infamous "Stop Snitching" movement in urban neighborhoods, deplored by everyone from the NAACP to the mayor of Boston for encouraging witness intimidation. But as Snitch shows, the movement is actually a cry against the harsh sentencing guidelines for drug-related crimes, and a call for hustlers to return to "old school" street values, like: do the crime, do the time. Combining deep knowledge of the criminal justice system with frontline true crime reporting, Snitch is a shocking and brutally troubling report about the state of American justice when it's no longer clear who are the good guys and who are the bad.Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal
By Dick Lehr, Gerard O'Neill. 2012
John Connolly and James "Whitey" Bulger grew up together on the tough streets of South Boston. Decades later in the…
mid-1970s, they met again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI's Boston office and Whitey had become godfather of the Irish Mob. Connolly had an idea, a scheme that might bring Bugler into the FBI fold and John Connolly into the Bureau's big leagues. But Bulger had other plans. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, Black Mass is the chilling true story of what happened between them--a dark deal that spiraled out of control, leading to drug dealing, racketeering, and murder.Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel
By Tom Wainwright. 2016
This is a unique look into the huge and fascinating multi-billion dollar international drug industry. Rather than reporting it as…
a "war,” Wainwight looked at the drug trade as a business, with a quarter billion customers and worldwide revenues of about $300 billion a year--with similar concerns as any Fortune 500 business, such as human resources, outsourcing and corporate social responsibility. Some of Wainwight’s insights to help turn the way we think about the war on drugs on its head include: *Supply and demand. Drug cartels, as monopoly-buyers, use tactics like forcing their suppliers, the farmers, to absorb price shocks when coca fields are eradicated, rather than absorb it themselves. *Research and development. The cartels have invested in innovative ways to increase yield from coca plants; so even though less coca is now grown, it yields more cocaine, thus keeping the supply chain in good shape. *Mergers and acquisitions. Why the violence and bloody battles of the Mexican cartels have been generated by opportunistic takeover attempts. *Competition and collusion. Why the mafias running El Salvador’s drug gangs realized that violent competition was hurting profits and opted for a strategy of collusion. *Social responsibility. How cartels "give back” to society by meeting social needs that governments have been unable to satisfy. *Media relations. How dedicated "press officers” communicate with (and threaten) local journalists to secure the kind of coverage the cartel wants and use the media to send intimidating messages to their rivals *Human resource models. How cartels, in a business with a high turnover of personnel because of all the killing use prisons as employment agencies and training academies to ensure a steady stream of new recruits for jobs that are risky and don’t pay particularly well. *Franchising. Lessons the cartels have learned from some of Fortune 500’s restaurant business'. Using classical economics and modern business theory to explain why drug cartels work in the way they do and based seven years of reporting in more than a dozen countries, Wainwright provides fascinating, humorous and novel insights into a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry and provides an innovative blueprint to address the drug problem, as well as a range of other criminal activities. If mobsters think like businessmen, law enforcers can thwart them by learning to think like economists.Bomb Squad: A Year Inside the Nation's Most Exclusive Police Unit
By Richard Esposito. 2007
An unprecedented behind-the-scenes look at the men who protect us from the most frightening prospect of life in the age…
of terrorism"In my mind it's all business; I don't worry about my family, I don't worry about a function that I'm doing after work, I just worry about what's at hand. And what's at hand is that package." --Detective First Grade Joe Putkowski, NYPD Bomb SquadThe New York City Police Department Bomb Squad is the oldest such squad in the nation, founded in 1903. Each year its thirty-three members make more than two hundred stress-filled "bomb runs," in which they check suspicious briefcases, defuse hand grenades, and even respond to "art" projects constructed with real explosives. The public rarely sees these men--and when they do, it's usually from a distance, telephoto pictures of helmeted figures in ninety-pound suits of Kevlar armor.Starting on December 31, 2003, in the heart of the New Year's Eve action in Times Square, journalists Richard Esposito and Ted Gerstein had exclusive access to the nation's most elite police unit for an entire year. Their often chilling, never-before-told tales from the front line provide an extraordinary view of the domestic war on terrorism.The Threat Matrix: The FBI at War in the Age of Global Terror
By Garrett M. Graff. 2011
The Threat Matrix is the story of a small group of FBI agents who believed that they could confront a…
new generation of international terrorists like al Qaeda without sacrificing America's moral high ground. At the heart of this classic good versus evil battle are decades of tensions between the FBI and the CIA, which repeatedly fell short as America's eyes overseas. Given unprecedented access, thousands of pages of once secret documents, and hundreds of interviews, Garrett M. Graff takes us inside the FBI and its attempt to protect America. From the corridors of the Hoover Building to the cells of Gitmo and the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Graff tells the true story of how a generation of FBI agents taught themselves to confront threats no one had ever seen before. Brilliantly reported and suspensefully told, The Threat Matrix peers into the darkest corners of this secret war and will change your view of the FBI forever.Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces
By Radley Balko. 2013
The last days of colonialism taught America's revolutionaries that soldiers in the streets bring conflict and tyranny. As a result,…
our country has generally worked to keep the military out of law enforcement. But according to investigative reporter Radley Balko, over the last several decades, America's cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other-an enemy.Today's armored-up policemen are a far cry from the constables of early America. The unrest of the 1960s brought about the invention of the SWAT unit-which in turn led to the debut of military tactics in the ranks of police officers. Nixon's War on Drugs, Reagan's War on Poverty, Clinton's COPS program, the post-9/11 security state under Bush and Obama: by degrees, each of these innovations expanded and empowered police forces, always at the expense of civil liberties. And these are just four among a slew of reckless programs.In Rise of the Warrior Cop, Balko shows how politicians' ill-considered policies and relentless declarations of war against vague enemies like crime, drugs, and terror have blurred the distinction between cop and soldier. His fascinating, frightening narrative shows how over a generation, a creeping battlefield mentality has isolated and alienated American police officers and put them on a collision course with the values of a free society.Crossing the Thinnest Line: How Embracing Diversityfrom the Office to the OscarsMakes America Stronger
By Lauren Leader-Chivee. 2016
In CROSSING THE THINNEST LINE, Lauren Leader-Chivee looks at America and describes the possibility for our nation when we embrace…
our differences. At the heart of America's current social conflict are fundamental questions about our values as a nation. What does it mean to be American? When will women be fully equal? Should gays and lesbians have equal rights? Does racism still exist? What should we do about immigration? As one of the most diverse nations on earth, how can we live together peacefully and productively? Leader-Chivee passionately argues that we must find a way to make our multifaceted diversity an asset, or else it will continue to be our deepest and most painful source of strife. In CROSSING THE THINNEST LINE, she explains it is possible to bridge our divides and turn our differences into a source of ingenuity, innovation, and prosperity. It is possible to talk about difference so that everyone becomes part of the solution.One of the Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2016 -- Publishers WeeklyOne of the Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2016--Elle11…
Fall Books We Can't Wait to Read -- Seattle TimesA best book of fall 2016--Boston GlobeOne of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's 20 Books to Watch, fall 2016One of Vulture's "7 Books You Need to Read this November"A deeply reported book that brings alive the quest for justice in the deaths of Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray, offering both unparalleled insight into the reality of police violence in America and an intimate, moving portrait of those working to end itConducting hundreds of interviews during the course of over one year reporting on the ground, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled from Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland, Ohio; Charleston, South Carolina; and Baltimore, Maryland; and then back to Ferguson to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today.In an effort to grasp the magnitude of the repose to Michael Brown's death and understand the scale of the problem police violence represents, Lowery speaks to Brown's family and the families of other victims other victims' families as well as local activists. By posing the question, "What does the loss of any one life mean to the rest of the nation?" Lowery examines the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs.Studded with moments of joy, and tragedy, They Can't Kill Us All offers a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, showing that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. As Lowery brings vividly to life, the protests against police killings are also about the black community's long history on the receiving end of perceived and actual acts of injustice and discrimination. They Can't Kill Us All grapples with a persistent if also largely unexamined aspect of the otherwise transformative presidency of Barack Obama: the failure to deliver tangible security and opportunity to those Americans most in need of both.Our 50-State Border Crisis: How the Mexican Border Fuels the Drug Epidemic Across America
By Howard G. Buffett. 2018
From one of America's most prominent philanthropists, an eye-opening, myth-busting new perspective on the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Howard…
G. Buffett has seen first-hand the devastating impact of cheap Mexican heroin and other opiate cocktails across America. Fueled by failing border policies and lawlessness in Mexico and Central America, drugs are pouring over the nation's southern border in record quantities, turning Americans into addicts and migrants into drug mules--and killing us in record numbers. Politicians talk about a border crisis and an opioid crisis as separate issues. To Buffett, a landowner on the U.S. border with Mexico and now a sheriff in Illinois, these are intimately connected. Ineffective border policies not only put residents in border states like Texas and Arizona in harm's way, they put American lives in states like Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont at risk. Mexican cartels have grown astonishingly powerful by exploiting both the gaps in our border security strategy and the desperation of migrants--all while profiting enormously off America's growing addiction to drugs. The solution isn't a wall. In this groundbreaking book, Buffett outlines a realistic, effective, and bi-partisan approach to fighting cartels, strengthening our national security, and tackling the roots of the chaos below the border. A New York Times BestsellerThe Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America's Law Enforcement
By Matthew Horace, Ron Harris. 2018
CNN contributor offers a searing indictment of America's law enforcement."This is a must-read.... Telling this story demonstrates nothing but raw…
courage for a black police officer who wants the truth to prevail." --John Lewis"[T]his [is a] hard-hitting, convincing indictment of the biases in today's law enforcement.... A must-read for anyone interested in understanding and solving these problems." --Booklist (starred review)Matthew Horace was an officer at the federal, state, and local level for 28 years working in every state in the country. Yet it was after seven years of service when Horace found himself face-down on the ground with a gun pointed at his head by a white fellow officer, that he fully understood the racism seething within America's police departments. Using gut-wrenching reportage, on-the-ground research, and personal accounts garnered by interviews with police and government officials around the country, Horace presents an insider's examination of police tactics, which he concludes is an "archaic system" built on "toxic brotherhood." Horace dissects some of the nation's most highly publicized police shootings and communities highlighted in the Black Lives Matter movement and beyond to explain how these systems and tactics have had detrimental outcomes to the people they serve. Horace provides fresh analysis on communities experiencing the high killing and imprisonment rates due to racist policing such as Ferguson, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Chicago from a law enforcement point of view and uncovers what has sown the seeds of violence.Timely and provocative, The Black and The Blue sheds light on what truly goes on behind the blue line.