Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Collaboration and Security – Necessary Elements in MISO

Today’s posting addresses some of the components of MISO that are not taught in schools. As usual the media offers some fodder as articles and commentary about the latest information leaker (see http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-heritage-foundation-editorials-debates/2410213/) about the NSA leaker, Edward Snowden. (Also the Photo Source)

MISO is an especially interesting and challenging field because it involves art, science and people sense. This trio represents the core of MISO. We need art to create, science to help figure out what to create and the people sense to see if our brilliant ideas pass the “BS” factor test.

One of the highlights of my military career was to serve at the NATO SFOR HQ in Bosnia. The reason I enjoyed it so much was I had the unique opportunity to work with colleagues from a variety of nations in many different ways. Collaboration with others who do not necessarily share the same views with you is a Socratic way of learning more about the subject at hand.

However, it is fair to say that each nation approaches the Alliance with their own national goals and priorities, some of which they would rather not share. Knowing how to balance collaboration with your nation’s secrets is part of the job.

As military professionals (and contractors of course) we are bound by our legal and moral obligations. The legal obligations with respect to protection of classified information are clear. The line between sensitive and not sensitive is a bit more blurred but still such information has a classification.

While we may have complete creative freedom to design and implement MISO campaigns IAW our missions, we don’t get to decide if a piece of protected information should be released to one of our non-cleared colleagues simply because we trust him or her and think it’s a good idea.

1 comment:

John said...

IF Snowden's leak of those documents to the mainstream media would be a well arranged MISO by NSA/other agency, what is most likely - Snowden is into every detail of the process? Or he was picked as a potential leak and fed with information to be disseminated?

Anyway - are there any facts/signs in the information being reported by media that tells us that Snowden CANT'T be a designed MISO?