VALUE OF SIGINT TO THE US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
It is evident that the communication is essential and is an important part of everyday life; specifically when there is a question of leading the country. It is also true that the World leaders communicate with their people in a number of ways. It is important to know that these types of communication emit a signal that can be further collected. Moreover, the information that has been obtained from these intercepted signals is of significant importance for national security.
Importance of Signals Intelligence:
The (SIGINT) or the Intelligence Community refers to the gathering and further exploitation of signals transmitted from radars, communication systems, and weapon system as signals intelligence (SIGINT). Moreover, the SIGINT is mainly consisting of these basic pillars:
- (COMINT) Communication Intelligence – intelligence and technical information originated from the interception of the foreign communications.
- (ELINT) Electronic Intelligence – the information that has been gathered from the different systems such as radars and other related weapons systems.
- (FISINT) is Foreign Instrumentation Signals Intelligence – deals with the signals that are mainly detected from weapons under development and testing.
It is important to understand that the radar component of the ELINT should not be confused with RADINT. However, the RADINT, ELINT doesn’t require the interception or radar signals. Also, it is to know that the RADINT is a subcategory of MASINT.
SIGINT has been gathered in a number of ways with respect to the type of signals that have been targeted. NSA gathers the raw SIGINT after which NSA cryptologists, translators, experts, as well as other technical analyst, change the raw data into something that this information can be used by the other source analyst.
Signals Analysis:
In the event the NSA has gathered, refined, and assessed SIGINT, it is forwarded to CIA and towards the Intelligence Community experts who utilize it to check details from other resources to generate completed intelligence.
Conclusively, the SIGINT is the most useful resources and can often offer a new and various viewpoints on important intelligence topic for the country’s policymakers that cannot be ignored because it is having a value of SIGINT to the US Intelligence community.
Bibliography
Jeffrey T. Richelson, Jeffrey T. Richelson. The U.S. Intelligence Community, "SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE."Last modified April 28, 1998. Accessed June 6, 2014. http://cryptome.org/jya/usic08.htm.
Knight, Judson. Espionage Information, "SIGINT (Signals Intelligence)." Last modified 2014. Accessed June 6, 2014. http://www.faqs.org/espionage/Se-Sp/SIGINT-Signals-Intelligence.html.
"NSA",. National Security Agency, "Central Security Service." Last modified Jan 15, 2009. Accessed June 6, 2014. http://www.nsa.gov/sigint/faqs.shtml.
"Intelligence.gov",. Intelligence.gov, "Signals Intelligence (SIGINT)." Last modified 2014. Accessed June 6, 2014. http://www.intelligence.gov/mission/data-gathering.html.
