Another Look into the Future - Technology in the War on Terror

Interesting look at technological trends that are undeniable and pretty much irreversible ...

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The Terrorists' Technological Edge
by Arnaud de Borchgrave

excerpt ...

U.S. national security is at risk, Mr. Negroponte argues, "unless we take steps to deal with it right away." The 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act created a director of science and technology in the DNI's office. It also established the director of a National Science and Technology Committee, including all the chief science officers from the entire intelligence community.

There are still critical mission gaps. Mr. Negroponte listed three:

1. Locating terrorists.
2. Identifying and locating WMD activities by nation-states and nonstate actors.
3. Protecting the homeland against WMD and cyber attacks.

The DNI also listed "credibility gaps" that the intelligence community is endeavoring to close:

1. U.S. collection capabilities are not pervasive and persistent enough. Human-intelligence-enabling technology is far from where it needs to be.
2. Intelligence analysis suffers from a lack of collaborative infrastructure and tools to help minimize analyst information overload.
3. U.S. ability to foster prudent information sharing remains inhibited by rigid, segregated networks that are too vulnerable to compromise.

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The good news in a bleak picture is that ...

Among recent breakthroughs, Mr. Negroponte said, is computer modeling that is "helping us uncover foreign activities that have been hidden underground to defeat U.S. satellite imagery"; "pattern analysis helping us find the insurgents who are building IEDs in Iraq"; "computer-assisted linking of data on foreign terrorists helping us disrupt plans for attacks in this country."

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