E-Mail 'Guest Article: Maps and Pins Won’t Save You, Part 2, by Kit Perez' To A Friend

7 Comments

1. Good information. Thank you.

2. Good description of information versus intelligence. One of the things I use to pinpoint the relevant information from all the data is the use of what is called Essential Elements of Information or EEIs. All group members should know what your EEIs are and when they learn about this provide that information to the Intel officer or person in charge of Intel. We have a general set of EEIs and then a set for specific events such as tornadoes, ice storms, and chemical spills.

   1. Great point about EEIs. One thing to remember about EEIs are they may constantly be changing based upon the commander’s intent and mission purpose. The EEIs for a Scout may be completely different than those of a Humint collector, and though the broad stroke EEIs are pretty well established, such as unit composition, size, activity, resupply capabilities; there are often more detailed EEIs that make sense of the big picture. I am glad your group has the big plan as well as focused plans for your Most Likely threats… too often I see groups in the desert simply reprinting the FM 21-76 and including Tsunami Evacuation plans or how to get water from a clam, or folks in small communities on the Left Coast including plans more relevant to an East Coast megalopolis situation.
      Great comments. Scouts Out!

3. So, we can learn from this: We are given truckloads of “information” about “climate change”, but barely a thimbleful of it is “intelligence”. So all the media space devoted to it is there to waste our time, and we don’t get news about things that we could actually “do something” about. And what other pop-culture issue news is sprayed at us this way, Hmmmmm?

4. Your comments are well presented and well informed. One might believe you have some relevant experience in the field of tactical intelligence! One of the biggest takeaways I hope the readers get from your series is: gossip is not intelligence. In fact, counter-intelligence operations exploit the tendency for people to engage in gossip.
   Also, that deep-cover source that every prepper “intel” person seems to know cannot be truly a valid source if they are willing to compromise their job, their oath, and their future access to information. Any time someone tells me they got their so-called ‘hot intel’ from an active LEO or Fed, I immediately push that information to the back of the stack.
   The examples you gave of rumors and gossip NOT being intelligence material are so perfectly placed in this discussion. Any leader or coordinator of a group should view such information with distrust and suspicion unless there are facts presented with the info. Photos, web pages, recordings, and personal interviews are possible facts to support ‘rumors’, but even those must be considered for timeliness, relevance, context and possible ulterior motivation before being considered gospel.
   I was an active-duty Humint Collector in a past life and even though I had full faith in the interrogation reports, community observations, and other evidence I presented, I still understood and expected my reports to be vetted and cross-referenced against other supporting and concomitant information by detached analysts before inclusion in a final intelligence product to the command staff. Don’t let the ego override the brain power we all have to fully consider ‘information’ before declaring it ‘intelligence’. There is a yuge difference!

5. One time while attending my daughters volleyball game at a city school i came out to find that someone had backed into my car door and drove off. Luckily a good samaratin left a license plate to which the police provided me a name. They went to the home and there was denial of course. I looked on the team roster for a matching girls name which i found and like to my surprise her facebook page was open and unprotected and mentioned a bad night and “incident”. As i researched a little found out her dad was a prominent buisnessman and son was going to the police academy. Turned this info over to authorities where dad had a little change of heart after a chat with family. Sometimes a little gum shoe work is worth the effort.

6. Best takeaway- collapsible personality. Great term to describe who we need to be aware of and interact with accordingly.
   Enjoyed the article and will ponder many of its points.

Comments are closed.