ISIS
Introduction
As terror organizations and individuals keep emerging, the counterterrorism,combat and intelligence techniques to keep evolving as well. This paper will explore the techniques of intelligence data collection as well as the strategies employed to counter the threat of ISIS against the United States. The recent times have seen ISIS prop up as a major international terrorist organization and a threat to world peace and stability. The terrorist group has extended its tentacles far and wide to source recruits from all over the globe and expand at a highly unprecedented rate. This fact, therefore, calls for global governments and specifically the United States to formulate both intelligence and combat strategies against this dangerous group.
Intelligence and Data Collection
Some of the best data collection programs which can be employed by the necessary government agencies, but specifically, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) includes Big Data analytics, Metadata program, PRISM program, Terrorist Surveillance Program, Wiretapping program, call database technique, undersea cable tapping, and much more. But the above are some of the most tried and tested programs, proved to be effective and efficient that can help with data collection of ISIS terrorist groups.Metadata program is one of the programs which has worked well before and need to be reviewed so that it can work against the plans of the ISIS terrorist group. The program was part of the act (Patriot Act). The Act allowed the National Security Agency (NSA) to conduct surveillance through sweeping of individual’s phone records, and many other electronic communications devices (McDougall, Stone, & Abrams, 2015). Therefore, the NSA can try to find out if the owners of this information collected on phones are in any way related to the ISIS terror group.
The program aids the NSA in getting metadata on both mobile and landline phone calls, plus the time and place the calls were made. The data can help to pin point the position and locations of the different ISIS groups. Reviewing of the Act can help track the terror group plans, especially now that ISIS has openly stated its intentions to carry out attacks against the United States and its western allies, already actualized recently with the terror attacks against Belgium and French cities (McDougall, Stone, & Abrams, 2015).Big Data Analytics can also be a vital method of data collection that can aid in fighting ISIS terroristorganization (Woodie, 2014). After the terror attack in summer, the U.S shifted into using drones and smart bombs to hit some the ISIS terror group’s hideouts. With this, we can be sure that the U.S. defense analysts and cyber-warriorsare using big data, analytical techniques to get insights about the ISIS group as well. Big data involve collecting, storing, joining, and interpreting multiple streams of unstructured and structured data. Getting such information about ISIS terror group using big data can help prevent the terror attacks that are currently being experienced (Woodie, 2014).The PRISM program has also proved to work well with the National Security Agency (NSA) in getting raw intelligence information.
This data …
