Ethics And The Future Of Spying

This volume examines the ethical issues generated by recent developments in intelligence collection and offers a comprehensive analysis of the key legal, moral and social questions thereby raised. Intelligence officers, whether gatherers, analysts or some combination thereof, are operating in a sea of social, political, scientific and technological change. This book examines the new challenges faced by the intelligence community as a result of these changes. It looks not only at how governments employ spies as a tool of state and how the ultimate outcomes are judged by their societies, but also at the mind-set of the spy. In so doing, this volume casts a rare light on an often ignored dimension of spying: the essential role of truth and how it is defined in an intelligence context. This book offers some insights into the workings of the intelligence community and aims to provide the first comprehensive and unifying analysis of the relevant moral, legal and social questions, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision making. The contributors analyse the ethics of spying across a broad canvas – historical, philosophical, moral and cultural – with chapters covering interrogation and torture, intelligence’s relation to war, remote killing, cyber surveillance, responsibility and governance. In the wake of the phenomena of WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden revelations, the intelligence community has entered an unprecedented period of broad public scrutiny and scepticism, making this volume a timely contribution. This book will be of much interest to students of ethics, intelligence studies, security studies, foreign policy and IR in general.

Intelligence professionals are employees of the government working in a business that some would consider unethical-the business of spying. This book looks at the dilemmas that exist when one is asked to perform a civil service that is in conflict with what that individual believes to be "ethical." This is the first book to offer the best essays, articles, and speeches on ethics and intelligence that demonstrate the complex moral dilemmas in intelligence collection, analysis, and operations that confront government employees. Some are recently declassified and never before published, and all are written by authors whose backgrounds are as varied as their insights, including Robert M. Gates, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; John P. Langan, the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Professor of Catholic Social Thought at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University; and Loch K. Johnson, Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of Georgia and recipient of the Owens Award for contributions to the understanding of U.S. intelligence activities. To the intelligence professional, this is a valuable collection of literature for building an ethical code that is not dependent on any specific agency, department, or country. Managers, supervisors, and employees of all levels should read this book. Creating the foundation for the study of ethics and intelligence by filling in the gap between warfare and philosophy, Ethics of Spying makes the statement that the intelligence professional has ethics.

This volume examines the ethical issues generated by recent developments in intelligence collection and offers a comprehensive analysis of the key legal, moral and social questions thereby raised. Intelligence officers, whether gatherers, analysts or some combination thereof, are operating in a sea of social, political, scientific and technological change. This book examines the new challenges faced by the intelligence community as a result of these changes. It looks not only at how governments employ spies as a tool of state and how the ultimate outcomes are judged by their societies, but also at the mind-set of the spy. In so doing, this volume casts a rare light on an often ignored dimension of spying: the essential role of truth and how it is defined in an intelligence context. This book offers some insights into the workings of the intelligence community and aims to provide the first comprehensive and unifying analysis of the relevant moral, legal and social questions, with a view toward developing policy that may influence real-world decision making. The contributors analyse the ethics of spying across a broad canvas – historical, philosophical, moral and cultural – with chapters covering interrogation and torture, intelligence’s relation to war, remote killing, cyber surveillance, responsibility and governance. In the wake of the phenomena of WikiLeaks and the Edward Snowden revelations, the intelligence community has entered an unprecedented period of broad public scrutiny and scepticism, making this volume a timely contribution. This book will be of much interest to students of ethics, intelligence studies, security studies, foreign policy and IR in general.

In the high-stakes world of spying, do the ends justify the means?

Intelligence agencies provide critical information to national security and foreign policy decision makers, but spying also poses inherent dilemmas for liberty, privacy, human rights, and diplomacy. Principled Spying explores how to strike a balance between necessary intelligence activities and protecting democratic values by developing a new framework of ethics. David Omand and Mark Phythian structure this book as an engaging debate between a former national security practitioner and an intelligence scholar. Rather than simply presenting their positions, throughout the book they pose key questions to each other and to the reader and offer contrasting perspectives to stimulate further discussion. They demonstrate the value for both practitioners and the public of weighing the dilemmas of secret intelligence through ethics. The chapters in the book cover key areas including human intelligence, surveillance, acting on intelligence, and oversight and accountability. The authors disagree on some key questions, but in the course of their debate they demonstrate that it is possible to find a balance between liberty and security. This book is accessible reading for concerned citizens, but it also delivers the sophisticated insights of a high-ranking former practitioner and a distinguished scholar.

The just intelligence model -- Intelligence and the just war tradition : the need for a flexible ethical framework / Ross Bellaby -- Truth-seeking and the principles of discrimination, necessity, proportionality and reciprocity in national security intelligence activity / Seumas Miller -- The technoethics of contemporary intelligence practice : a framework for analysis / David Omand and Mark Phythian -- Espionage -- Ethics in the recruiting and handling of espionage agents / David Perry -- The rights of foreign intelligence targets / Michael Skerker -- Digital sleeper cells and the ethics of risk management / Kevin Macnish -- Intelligence sharing among coalition forces : some legal and ethical challenges and potential solutions / David Letts -- Bulk data collection and analysis -- Privacy, bulk collection and "operational utility" / Tom Sorell -- Surveillance, intelligence and ethics in a COVID19 world / Jessica Davis -- Covert operations -- Ethics and covert action : the "third option" in American foreign policy / Loch Johnson -- Jus ad vim : war, peace, and the ethical status of the in-between / Nicholas Melgaard and David Wetham -- Accountability -- Reaching the inflection point : the Hughes-Ryan Amendment and intelligence oversight / Genevieve Lester and Frank Jones -- Congressional oversight of US intelligence activities / Mary DeRosa -- Accountability for covert action in the United States and the United Kingdom / Mitt Regan and Michele Poole / Future directions -- GEOINT and the post-secret world : who guards the guards? / Robert Cardillo -- Evolving chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) terrorism : intelligence community response and ethical challenges / Patrick F. Walsh -- Reflections on the future of intelligence / Gregory Treverton.

This book starts from the proposition that the field of intelligence lacks any systematic ethical review, and then develops a framework based on the notion of harm and the establishment of Just Intelligence Principles. As the professional practice of intelligence collection adapts to the changing environment of the twenty-first century, many academic experts and intelligence professionals have called for a coherent ethical framework that outlines exactly when, by what means and to what ends intelligence is justified. Recent controversies, including reports of abuse at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, allegations of extraordinary rendition programmes and the ever-increasing pervasiveness of the ‘surveillance state’, have all raised concerns regarding the role of intelligence in society. As a result, there is increased debate regarding the question of whether or not intelligence collection can be carried out ethically. The Ethics of Intelligence tackles this question by creating an ethical framework specifically designed for intelligence that is capable of outlining under what circumstances, if any, different intelligence collection activities are ethically permissible. The book examines three of the main collection disciplines in the field of intelligence studies: imagery intelligence, signals intelligence and human intelligence. By applying the ethical framework established at the beginning of the book to these three important intelligence collection disciplines, it is possible to better understand the ethical framework while also demonstrating its real-life applicability. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, ethics, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR.