An idea to help former/retired Intelligence Community personnel that is along the same lines as the NOIR concept. Excerpts highlighted below; read the full article here. Comment by Dr. David Charney: Finally, a clear-minded statement about a pervasive shortfall within the intelligence community. Caruso’s article parallels my work as a psychiatrist who has studied these…
By John Irvin “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is…
By John Irvin “If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.” —Albert Einstein While this is a genuine Einstein quote, he is often misquoted as having said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a…
By John Irvin One of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, American journalist H. L. Mencken, once wrote, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” Decades have passed since Mencken offered that insight, yet we continue to address complex issues with self-assured opinions that are somehow…
By Dr. David Charney I have a friend who is a senior executive in an important Intelligence Community agency who commented on my latest white paper focusing on Prevention. Here’s what he wrote: “I am very intrigued with the “broadness” of the psychology as you described. I am finding that the “psychological perfect storm” and…
Michael Morell, former acting Director of the CIA, interviewed Dr. David Charney on the CBS News Radio podcast “Intelligence Matters” on what drives people to commit espionage. Listen on iTunes or here: This episode will post Wednesday. All will find it fascinating. From a man who has interviewed, extensively, real world spies, including Robert Hansen. If…
Dr. David Charney was interviewed by Jeff Stein in Newsweek about the NOIR concept. In the article, the former head of FBI counterintelligence, Frank Figliuzzi, said of the concept: “I tried hard to find holes in Charney’s concept because I initially had a strong visceral reaction against the notion of leniency for a traitor. Yet…
Watch Dr. David Charney’s presentation on “Insider Spies: New Ideas to Counter the Threat” at the Institute of World Politics on February 8, 2019:
Dr. David Charney will be giving a lecture about his new NOIR White Paper, Prevention: The Missing Link for Managing Insider Threat in the Intelligence Community, at the Institute of World Politics graduate school in Washington, DC on Friday, February 8, 2019 from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Dr. Charney’s lecture, “Insider Spies: New Ideas…
By John Irvin Those who have served in the military, especially those who served at a time when World War II-era buildings were still widely in use, are probably familiar with the concept of “painting rocks.” This was originally born out of the common practice to line either side of the walkway leading to a…
By John Irvin It seems a part of US culture to believe there are technological solutions to virtually all of our problems. That belief has a long history dating back at least to the Nineteenth Century; and who could argue that our individual lives haven’t been extended and our quality of life improved by technology?…
The BBC interviewed Dr. David Charney about the psychology of spying for this article on Kevin Mallory, a former CIA officer who was arrested for spying for China. This in-depth article gives good details about his life and the spiral that led him to espionage. Kevin Mallory: The churchgoing patriot who spied for China (BBC)…
By John Irvin The popular axiom “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” – attributed to none other than Benjamin Franklin – attests to the fact that taking action beforehand to prevent a problem from arising is considerably more cost-effective than being forced to dedicate greater resources toward fixing the problem in…
by John A. Irvin Sometimes being able to say I told you so just isn’t that satisfying. Sometimes it’s downright depressing. An article by myself and Dr. David Charney appeared over two years ago in the 25 March, 2014 issue of POLITICO Magazine titled “Stopping the Next Snowden.” It argued that the US government’s tendency…
“The foundation of a counter-insider threat program needs to start with recognizing there is a person at the other end,” says Keith Lowry, former Chief of Staff to the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Human Intelligence, Counterintelligence and Security at the Pentagon in this article on ZDNet: Fighting the person should be cybersecurity best practice When…