In my deepest, darkest fantasies of managing my small computer business I dream of the day when every communication made relating to my business is accessible and searchable online.

For example, I want every telephone conversation in to and out from my business recorded and transcribed.

I want every conversation in the store recorded and transcribed. Every e-mail, text, message board note, comment on social media, and posting collected, centralized, and indexed. I want it all indexed by the need enunciated and products quoted.

Then I would know even better than my customers what they want before they themselves know it. That, I tell myself, is the ultimate cure to the high volume, low margin business I have inexcusably wedded myself to. Total control of the universe of conversation about the business horizon is my ticket to riches.

Or so I want to believe.

These dreams sprung to mind reading Amy B. Zegart’s excellent if sometimes turgid analysis of the challenges confronting the US intelligence community in the 21st Century and beyond.

What was once thought to be the precinct of tactical intelligence agencies is now thrown open to any yahoo with enough computing power to plumb the depths of data, and propaganda, and information design.

Governments have so much access to the universe of information, they could beat me to it. And if they can, so can the cyber criminals.

Cyber threats are the new frontier of Cold War. It is active now and growing exponentially. How governments confront the new challenge may ultimately determine which nation-states rise and which fall.

Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extent of government snooping in the public information highways sewed a new sense of what initiatives governments are now taking to corral the Tsunami of information.

More recent revelations about Russian interference in US elections, of Israeli/US involvement in the Stutznet worm attack on Iran centrifuges, the NotPetya attacks on the Ukrainian power grids, shows that the war is active.

And what makes it feel crazy is that even now the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable info spying are blurry.

Watching the destruction of Ukraine from afar leads us to ask: “When and why did this war begin?” It didn’t start in February when Russian troopers crossed the boundary into western Ukraine. And it didn’t start when Russia occupied Crimea or when “little green men” flooded into the eastern regions of Ukraine.

It began as a concerted cyberwar against Ukraine years before, even though world leaders — perhaps even Ukrainian leaders themselves — ignored the telltale signs of aggression.

This identification of the new war scape by the international community is sadly missing. And this is what the Intelligence Community, not only of the United States, but all states need to establish fast.

The vastness of the information landscape, the crossing of real and cyber borders, identifying cyber culprits quickly, the viability of punishing state-sponsored and non-state cyber actors, all rise in importance.

Today we are seeing how and why these actors hack and minds not only machines, how they expose the weak links between the people and trust in their governments.

Zegart also explains the difference between conventional and cyber weapons. A tank is a tank is tank. But a cyber weapon, like a zero-day exploit, once cracked can be shut down forever.

She also spends very useful time exposing the organizational weakness inherent in the construction and management of the US Intelligence Community. During the study of the post-9/11 attacks, legislators learned how siloing information led to missing the imminent threats. Excessive secrecy and classification of information also keep important people from seeing the threats from abroad and from the potential for illegal spying at home.

She shows how American legislators are poorly equipped to evaluate their intelligence investments and how the US system of government minimizes the incentives for members of Congress to want to spend time on these issues. Congressional oversight is weak in the US, and I, as a Canadian, can vouch that government oversight of intelligence operations are no better in Canada.

Undoubtedly, oversight in many jurisdictions falls way short.

Finally, it should not escape notice that private corporations exert enormous influence on the information landscape. They wield power that governments can hardly contain. When corporations get hacked they cry foul, but corporations are hacking us. Big time.

Should the biggest businesses be censured or broken up and classified as cyber-mafias?

Thus the challenge of cyber to the spys and spy catchers in this world is extremely worrisome. Chinese spying on corporations and the US government is big. But the threat of big data is that other players can do equally big damage with open source and not so open source materials. ( )

Amy B Zegart's book helps its reader determine fact from fiction in the past, present, and future, of American espionage; from the early days, even as the American colonists fought to become the United States of America, telling us how George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, started and continued throughout the conflict using a wide-ranging spy network that often fooled the British redcoats. The examples of cloak-and-dagger endeavors are brought through American, and sometimes World History, up to present day, "where nefarious actors employ deception, subterfuge, and advanced technology for theft, espionage, and information warfare" (from flap jacket) using satellite imagery, drones, and cyber-attacks. It details overt, and now-known covert instances that were successful, and some not so successful (exp, Bay of Pigs operation of 1961) giving the political and military objectives. It highlights the intelligence and CIA plan to capture Osama bin Laden (killed in raid, May 2011) and gives an explanation on laws against assassination and the debate that goes along with those type of actions. With only 10 chapters, titled and packed with info on--I'm paraphrasing here--Congressional Oversight, Cyber Threats, and Google Earth World sleuthing, this is an insightful and factual book that's well worth the time of anyone interested in the world of intelligence and espionage. I highly recommend. ( )

American intelligence is not an easy world for an outsider to understand. For starters, there are 18 different agencies or departments of the US federal government which conduct intelligence. This includes every branch of the military, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, the DEA and more. All these different organizations have different objectives and skill sets. They are nominally organized under the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Collectively they are referred to as the Intelligence Community.

In Spies, Lies and Algorithms author and academic Amy Zegart provides an overview of American intelligence. Her book is a guide to understanding what intelligence is. It delves into the various agencies that engage in it, and the types of intelligence they gather. It discusses the challenges to effective intelligence, counterintelligence, and the growing relevance and importance of cyber intelligence.

Ziegart is a Stanford professor and Senior Fellow at both the Hoover Institution and Stanford’s Institute for International Studies. She is a contributing writer for The Atlantic, and has at times been a consultant to US intelligence agencies. She has long been interested in, and studied US intelligence. She is the author / editor of two previous books on intelligence. She is well positioned to write this primer.

Zegart starts out by clarifying that intelligence work is not James Bond or Jason Bourne. Intelligence is information gathering and analysis of that information. Later in the book she covers the rise of covert operations within intelligence agencies. Covert operations differ from intelligence. Intelligence produces analysis for policy makers to take action. Covert ops are secret actions taken to advance US interests while giving deniability to the government. Both intelligence and covert operations have had successes and often failures. (Think 9/11 and Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, among others). The author delves into the history of failures and also the “seven deadly biases” that can contribute to them.

There is quite a bit of history throughout the book, but the main focus is on explaining the world of intelligence. The chapter on congressional oversight is a good example. While historical context is given, the emphasis is on explaining what good oversight is and is not.

Finally Zegart turns her attention to the future of intelligence and the growing importance of cyber warfare. This section delves into both the history of cyber threats and the need for better cyber actions on the part of the US government. The picture she paints here is not pretty.

Cyber is a fast changing world, and the understanding of cyber threats is rapidly evolving. In Zegart’s telling the Intelligence Community has so far been behind the curve in anticipating and countering these threats.

Coupled with cyber threats is the rise of OSINT, or Open Source Intelligence. Today, anyone with an internet connection can take part in information gathering and analysis. Many private citizens and groups are. The ideas and perceptions they bring to light can draw the Intelligence Community’s attention and focus away from their work. Many of those ideas and perceptions have proven to be misinterpretations of the available information. Others may prove to be extremely valuable (see this article on TikTok in the current Ukraine crisis).

The gap between Silicon Valley and the intelligence agencies is another challenge. Effective cyber intelligence will rely on a solid working relationship between the two. What can and will be done to bridge that gap is still to be determined.

Spies, Lies and Algorithms is an excellent guidebook to US Intelligence. It’s well worth a read by anyone interested in a better understanding of Intelligence. Four stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐.