Not Just Joining the Dots But Crossing the Borders and Bridging the Voids: Constructing Security Networks after 11 September 2001

Abstract

Widespread concerns and controversies have erupted in the wake of 9/11 in relation to the structures and processes by which states acquire intelligence with respect to security threats. More specifically, the controversies have centred on the issue of “failure”: first, to what extent did the 9/11 attacks reflect an intelligence failure on the part of US and other intelligence services and, second, how did most western intelligence services fail to identify the destruction or disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction after 1991? Strenuous efforts have been underway since 2001 to develop more effective security governance both within and between nations. This article discusses these efforts to construct security intelligence networks with particular reference to developments in the US and UK, the main carriers of the so-called “global war on terror”.

Keywords:

• Security
• Intelligence
• Networks
• Terrorism
• Oversight

My thanks to the other participants and the journal's referees for their helpful comments.

Notes

The initial version of this article was presented to the ESRC Seminar “Networks, Mobilities and Borders in the Global System”, Oxford Brookes University, January 2005.

1. “Information” is normally defined as oral, visual or written materials that are gathered or received while “intelligence” is what is produced once those materials have been analysed or evaluated (Gill, 2000: 211).

2. In the literature on “intelligence”, the term is used in a number of closely related ways: to describe a process, the product of the process and the people/institutions who produce it; in what follows the precise sense of the term will, hopefully, be clear from the context.

3. An interesting example is provided by Portland, Oregon where the Mayor and municipal Police Commissioner insist that they be security cleared to a level that will enable them to oversee the work of their officers involved in Joint Terrorism Task Forces (Portland Communique, 23 March 2005).