National Security Intelligence and Ethics
This volume examines the ethical issues that arise as a result of national security intelligence collection and analysis.
Powerful new technologies enable the collection, communication and analysis of national security data on an unprecedented scale. Data collection now plays a central role in intelligence practice, yet this development raises a host of ethical and national security problems, such as privacy; autonomy; threats to national security and democracy by foreign states; and accountability for liberal democracies. This volume provides a comprehensive set of in-depth ethical analyses of these problems by combining contributions from both ethics scholars and intelligence practitioners. It provides the reader with a practical understanding of relevant operations, the issues that they raise and analysis of how responses to these issues can be informed by a commitment to liberal democratic values. This combination of perspectives is crucial in providing an informed appreciation of ethical challenges that is also grounded in the realities of the practice of intelligence.
This book will be of great interest to all students of intelligence studies, ethics, security studies, foreign policy and international relations.
Seumas Miller holds research positions at Charles Sturt University, Australia, TU Delft, the Netherlands and the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
Mitt Regan is McDevitt Professor of Jurisprudence and Co-Director of the Center on National Security and the Law at Georgetown University Law Center, USA. He also serves as a senior fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy.
Patrick F. Walsh is a former intelligence analyst and Associate Professor of intelligence and security studies at Charles Sturt University, Australia.
Studies in Intelligence
General Editors: Richard J. Aldrich and Christopher Andrew
The CIA and the Congress for Cultural Freedom in the Early Cold War
The limits of making common cause
Sarah Miller Harris
Understanding Intelligence Failure
Warning, response and deterrence
James J. Wirtz
Intelligence Elites and Public Accountability
Relationships of Influence with Civil Society
Vian Bakir
Intelligence Oversight in the Twenty-First Century
Accountability in a changing world
Edited by Ian Leigh and Njord Wegge
Intelligence Leadership and Governance
Building Effective Intelligence Communities in the 21st Century
Patrick F. Walsh
Intelligence Analysis in the Digital Age
Edited by Stig Stenslie, Lars Haugom, and Brigt H. Vaage
Conflict and Cooperation in Intelligence and Security Organisations
An Institutional Costs Approach
James Thomson
National Security Intelligence and Ethics
Edited by Seumas Miller, Mitt Regan, and Patrick F. Walsh
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Studies-in-Intelligence/book-series/SE0788
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2022 selection and editorial matter, Seumas Miller, Mitt Regan, and Patrick F. Walsh; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Seumas Miller, Mitt Regan, and Patrick F. Walsh to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Miller, Seumas, editor. | Regan, Milton C., Jr., 1952 editor. |
Walsh, Patrick F., 1964 editor.
Title: National security intelligence and ethics / edited by Seumas Miller,
Mitt Regan, and Patrick F. Walsh.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2022] |
Series: Studies in intelligence | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021030190 (print) | LCCN 2021030191 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367758318 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367758325 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003164197 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Intelligence serviceMoral and ethical aspects. |
National securityMoral and ethical aspects.
Classification: LCC JK468.I6 N374 2022 (print) | LCC JK468.I6 (ebook) |
DDC 172/.4dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021030190
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021030191
ISBN: 978-0-367-75831-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-75832-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-16419-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003164197
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of contributors
SEUMAS MILLER, MITT REGAN AND PATRICK F. WALSH
PART IThe just intelligence model
1 Intelligence and the just war tradition: the need for a flexible ethical framework
ROSS BELLABY
2 Truth-seeking and the principles of discrimination, necessity, proportionality and reciprocity in national security intelligence activity
SEUMAS MILLER
3 The technoethics of contemporary intelligence practice: a framework for analysis
DAVID OMAND AND MARK PHYTHIAN
PART IIEspionage
4 Ethics in the recruiting and handling of espionage agents
DAVID PERRY
5 The rights of foreign intelligence targets
MICHAEL SKERKER
6 Digital sleeper cells and the ethics of risk management
KEVIN MACNISH
7 Intelligence sharing among coalition forces: some legal and ethical challenges and potential solutions
DAVID LETTS
PART IIIBulk data collection and analysis
8 Privacy, bulk collection and operational utility
TOM SORELL
9 Surveillance, intelligence and ethics in a COVID-19 world
JESSICA DAVIS
PART IVCovert operations
10 Ethics and covert action: the Third Option in American foreign policy
LOCH JOHNSON
11 Jus ad vim: war, peace and the ethical status of the in-between
NICHOLAS MELGAARD AND DAVID WHETHAM
PART VAccountability
12 Reaching the inflection point: the Hughes-Ryan Amendment and intelligence oversight
GENEVIEVE LESTER AND FRANK LEITH JONES
13 Congressional oversight of US intelligence activities
MARY B. DeROSA
14 Accountability for covert action in the United States and the United Kingdom
MITT REGAN AND MICHELE POOLE
PART VIFuture directions
15 GEOINT and the post-secret world: who guards the guards?
ROBERT CARDILLO
16 Evolving chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) terrorism: intelligence community response and ethical challenges
