Please discuss the various limitations involving the efficiency of the intelligence cycle.

250 words agree or disagree

Please discuss the various limitations involving the efficiency of the intelligence cycle. Do not make all your points about just one of the readings. Please ensure that you make appropriate use, in-text citation, and reference to available source information to support your perspective (be sure to include why you consider these issues important).

Intelligence Cycle

The Central Intelligence Agency (2013) has describe the intelligence cycle as the following:

Planning and Direction – essentially understanding what to do and how to do it

Collection – Collecting information overtly or covertly through different means

Processing – Put the collected intelligence into a report

Analysis and Production – Read and analyze the information and understand what is needed and what isn’t and produce a product in a way that will be easily read and understood by the customer (give assessments)

Dissemination – Give the final product to the requestor / customer and ensure that those who need to know receive it

National standards and guidelines vs policies and procedures of agencies

Carter, Chermak, McGarrell, Carter, and Drew (2012) indicated in their findings that

…respondents indicated that they were familiar with national standards and guidelines, they also expressed the belief that the policies and procedures within their agency have yet to reconcile with these requirements. Similarly, the respondents noted they were aware of the threats, but identified a need to build a capacity to better identify these threats and noted shortages in resources and personnel in accomplishing these goals. Also, they were aware of key civil rights and privacy issues, but respondents reported there is considerable work that needs to be done in their agencies to ensure agencies are fully compliant

Because of these setbacks, the intelligence cycle cannot be 100% efficient due to analysts attempting to understand which sets of policies to follow (will it be their respective agency’s ones or the national standards?). Also, this would also come into question as to there being any backlash if one set is followed but not the other due to the different policies. As well as agencies ensuring that civil rights and privacy issues are being protected.

Acts, Laws, and Entities

Due to different laws that exist, the efficiency of the intelligence cycle to collect information is hindered. Such acts and laws would include the USA PATRIOT Act, USA FREEDOM Act, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Law enforcement agencies before were able to wiretap conversations and obtain records regarding calls, telephone numbers, etc. that could be viable into stopping terrorist plots and gave LE agencies more tools to conduct counterintelligence (FBI, n.d.). However, due to the population not liking that LE agencies could conduct such activities, more laws and acts were passed to limit LE agencies ability to conduct such activities and required them to obtain warrants and other permissions from federal judges and the FISC to collect intelligence. This hinders the efficiency of the intelligence cycle due to analysts not being able to get the products to their intended audiences quickly and causing delays which could enable terrorists to go forth with their attacks and not be stopped and prevent the loss of human life.

Carter, D, Chermak, S, McGarrell, E, Carter, J, and Drew, J. (2012). Understanding the intelligence practices of state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies. Michigan: Michigan State University

Central Intelligence Agency. (2013). The intelligence cycle. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/kids-page/6-12th-grade/who-we-are-what-we-do/the-intelligence-cycle.html

Federal Bureau of Investigations. (No date). Intelligence Branch. Retrieved from https://www.fbi.gov/about/leadership-and-structure/intelligence-branch

Critical Cultural Analysis: Exploring and Explaining Society

Magazines, movies, video games, billboards – these are just some aspects of popular culture that replicate and influence social “norms” of being and behavior. Choose one component of popular culture and become a sociologist seeking insights about social norms. This is not merely an opinion paper – each of your conclusions must be supported with textual evidence from your topic of analysis.

In a four-page essay, address the ways in which the subject of your analysis demonstrates the existence of social standards and ideas, as well as the way it reinforces and/or alters those standards and ideas. Your declarative statement regarding the social ideology affected by your topic of analysis will serve as your thesis and will be the thread that ties your areas of analysis together.

Social Ideology: A norm that is created and maintained by society. For example, commonly accepted and expected ways of dressing or communicating in a particular part of the world.

Learning goals for this assignment:

• Generate and organize your ideas on a specific subject through advanced topic selection and exploration.
• Effectively locate the relationship between visuals/words and the concepts/ideas they represent.
• Locate and evaluate the construction of social information and the impact it may have on society.
• Explore and clarify your thinking on an abstract concept through the writing process.
• Use a tentative thesis and rough outline to guide you in your writing, allowing both to evolve as you write.
• Support your ideas and statements through effective elaboration, explanation, and example.

 

The subject of your analysis will be a specific element of popular culture, which provides an opportunity for you to choose a medium and topic that is interesting to you. Here are some examples: a popular movie or movie series, a television series or type of series (i.e. “reality” TV, cop shows, news shows, etc.), a magazine or type of magazine (fashion, travel, cars, parenting, etc.), a popular book or book series, a certain band or type of music, advertisements on TV or in magazines, newspapers, etc. If you have an idea that you are unsure about, let me know and we can discuss it. This is just a starting list…

Possible Areas of Analysis:

• Race (stereotypes, representations of certain minorities)
• Ethnicity (language, traditions, cultural practices, stereotypes)
• Class (economic, education, lifestyles)
• Power (who has it, how it is obtained, hierarchies)
• Gender (spectrum, power/control, objectification, traditional roles/stereotypes)
• Sexuality (heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, androgyny, sex as a commodity)
• Religion and Spirituality (ritual, organized practice, underlying ideology)
• Age ( young, middle, old)
• Disability (physical, mental, developmental)
• Region (accents, dialect, North/South stereotypes)
• Nationality (ethnocentricity, patriotism, “melting pot” issues)

Ideas for the Thinking and Writing Processes:
Once you have settled on a subject for analysis, brainstorm for ideas and take notes while watching, looking at, or listening to your topic. Think about how each of the categories above is represented by your subject and what that representation demonstrates about the social ideology you are exploring. Also, what “messages” does your subject put forth regarding these categories that reinforce and/or attempt to alter the social ideology?

Once you have taken notes on the above categories, begin to group your ideas together. You do not have to address every one of these categories in your paper; instead, use the ideas in your notes to find 3-4 main ideas on which to focus. There may be many ideas you come up with initially that will not be included in the final paper you generate – this is normal. Brainstorm first – then manage information through organization, elimination, and elaboration.