looking for help on a research project related to intelligence

[Casimir]

This term's research project has to do with moral dilemmas facing the intelligence community in the near future. I am looking for sources related to this topic, controversial policies, scholarly articles on practices in the intelligence community, personal accounts of morality conflicting with duty, opinions of those in the intel community relating to this kind of stuff, etc.

I understand there are quite a few people on SS with intel experience and a few with advanced degrees in general. I could really use some help on researching this. Not asking for anyone to do the research, but I've never been too good at digging up info like this and could use a few nudges in the right direction.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions and help.

 

[SpitfireV]

IIRC British intelligence used some morally dubious methods in Ireland when it came to HUMINT. I can look through my journal archive and see what I've got.

 

[Casimir]

that would be fantastic, thank you

 

[SpitfireV]

Here's one, seems up your ally. None of my articles are named so it's a long process ha.

 

[Casimir]

awesome, thank you. you wrote this or it's in your collection?

 

[SpitfireV]

And some more. The moral thing seems to manifest itself in Ireland articles for some reason. I haven't found too many more but I can see what else I can find.

 

[Casimir]

thanks man

 

[SpitfireV]

awesome, thank you. you wrote this or it's in your collection?

Ha! I wish I wrote these. I used to just trawl the journal site (I forget what it is now) and pull down things that look interesting to me or that I think would be interesting for mates.

 

[pardus]

Honestly I don't know much about the topic...

Moral dilemmas? Sounds like the teacher is either a liberal or just taking advantage of the NSA thing.
Spying is a necessity, always has been, always will be. nothing immoral about it as a concept, it just is. Nations went into a hypocritical rage when they found out others were doing to them what they were doing to others, and decided to execute people for it. Mainly because it is such an effective tool, one that can cause untold damage to an enemy.

I would look at success stories of spying e.g.

Colonel Penkovsky


Preventing a Nuclear War
In the summer of 1962, the Soviet Union deployed nuclear missiles to Cuba. The Soviets believed that the United States would not detect the missiles until it was too late to take action. Penkovsky provided detailed plans and descriptions of the launch sites in Cuba. Without this information, it would have been very difficult to identify which missiles were at the launch sites and track their operational readiness.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Penkovsky’s information gave the Kennedy Administration technical insights about the Soviet nuclear missiles deployed to Cuba that assisted in the pursuit of an eventual diplomatic solution. Because of Penkovksy, Kennedy knew that he had three days before the Soviet missiles were fully functional to negotiate a diplomatic solution. For this reason, Penkovsky is credited with altering the course of the Cold War.

In addition to information about the missile launch sites on Cuba, Penkovsky passed along information about Soviet plans for Berlin to CIA and MI-6. This information was used by analysts well into the 1980s.

https://www.cia.gov/news-informatio...featured-story-archive/colonel-penkovsky.html

Or...

Operation Mincemeat

Or...

Dr Jomar Brun and Professor Leif Tronstad




At the end say P.S. James Bond is fucking cool!

 

[SpitfireV]

I think you can have moral dilemmas, especially with informant stuff. After all, it is a betrayal of trust that you're after (something that is usually unacceptable within social groups) and then there's the question what what to do with them after? Do you give them a nice little golden parachute, do you bring them over, cut them off cold turkey? Give them up to the other side in order to protect someone else? Lots of little quandaries IMO.

I agree with you that spying in and of itself isn't immoral but sometimes the prosecution of it can raise some questions.