Counterintelligence

Definition

CI is defined as any activity related to collecting, understanding, organizing, or responding to intelligence threats from other countries or criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, to avoid [Page 412]sensitive and classified information falling into enemies’ hands. As such, CI has both defensive and offensive aspects. Specifically, CI activities focus on spies, sabotage, attacks, and military activities carried out by countries, terrorist groups, or enemy organizations against military, intelligence, or other security targets. In a general sense, Cl’s ultimate goal is to neutralize enemy intelligence actions and to protect national and military information and procedures from espionage. The military bears the primary responsibility for CI activities in its jurisdiction, including bases and foreign units, while the police and other civilian agencies act outside the military’s jurisdiction. Since the early 20th century, executive power, civilian agencies, and the military have based their decisions related to security issues on CI data, to cancel or counteract enemy actions during both peace and war.

History

In the 20th century, CI became a central activity of U.S. military and intelligence agencies due to the great interest foreign countries and illegal organizations had in accessing crucial security information, including data about security architecture in military zones, weapons technologies, the organization of military units, and so on. To avoid information escaping due to the work of spies and double agents, between the two World Wars selected military personnel were trained to detect infiltration activities in the United States and overseas. During the Second World War, CI functions were divided between the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which acted in the United States and in the Western Hemisphere, and the U.S. Army and Navy special corps, which held responsibility in their own jurisdictions, including bases and foreign territories such as the Panama Canal Zone and Guam. This situation implied a lack of coordination between diverse CI corps, a fact that directly affected CI effectiveness.

After the end of World War II, and responding to this debate, all intelligence and CI services were subordinated to the Central Intelligence Agency. In this way, the military was restricted to act only within the boundaries of its bases and during military operations. This situation frustrated the military during the Cold War, because military jurisdiction was subordinated to other agencies. Despite this fact, during the Cold War, the military did act at home to search for dangerous foreign activities, a situation that interfered with civilian intelligence and CI agencies.

In the post–Cold War era, and particularly during the recent Global War on Terrorism, the military has gained significant autonomy to carry out CI measures to protect military bases and to detect terrorist groups’ activities in the United States and military areas including Iraq and Afghanistan. This situation emerged after the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act (2001), which granted wide license to the military to capture suspected terrorists and to perform CI activities outside the United States.

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