Among many security professionals, intelligence still remains a governing factor in resource allocation and configuration of security operations. This situation drives many security directors and law enforcement officers to wait for intelligence gathered by outside agencies (FBI, CIA, DHS etc.) to dictate security efforts and deployment as if there is a magical formula between intelligence and security.
The threat level color system currently used by the Department of Homeland Security is a mechanism that promotes exactly this kind of misuse of security resources. It is purely an intelligence driven system that mandates how America needs to do security. This leads to a situation where vague chatter gathered over cell phones or the internet directly effect the deployment of security or law enforcement officers at a random airport in Maine or a mall in Texas. Every time the national threat level rises from “Yellow” to “Red” law enforcement and security organizations are “beefing” up their operations, increasing their security visibility for the public, yet fail to provide real obstacles for the aspiring terrorist.
The question one should ask is whether general intelligence, indicating general threat should have such a great impact on the entire security configuration of this country. Intelligence has a role in apprehending terrorists before they execute their plan but the role of intelligence in defining and manipulating security efforts should remain very specific and limited. If information gathered is reliable, timely and targeted it should, in-fact focus the efforts of security. However unspecific and general intelligence should not be an instigator of an all-out different security approach and makeover. Relying in such way on intelligence can be used by terrorists or adversaries who want to slowly grind down our resources and patience and terrorize a whole nation
through disinformation.
Security directors and/or police chiefs should not wait for outside intelligence in order to act; they must develop their own intelligence gathering capabilities within the protected environment. This internal intelligence gathering mechanism has to directly correspond to terrorist activities and suspicious indicators that are specific to the protected environment. Developing an internal intelligence gathering system is done by first identifying the terrorist methods of operations that apply to the protected environment by simulating all aspects of a terrorist activi ty from the planning stages to the execution and finally the getaway. Second, suspicious indicators need to be articulated based on the terrorist methods of operation. This knowledge will arm security and law enforcement personnel with the skills to detect, assess and deploy against any kind of suspicions or threatening situation.
Finally, Intelligence and security are two mechanisms that support each other but in no way can they depend on one another. Intelligence must constantly strive to find the terrorist as if there is no security and security must constantly assume threat as if there is no intelligence.
This is the only way to go and to be one step ahead of the terrorist.
