In my previous life, I worked alongside several incredible intelligence professionals. We ran a few confidential informants or sources together. Most of our collection was obtaining human intelligence (HUMINT) to satisfy national security intelligence gaps.
What is a “national security intelligence gap”? First, national security, from a US perspective, is information relating to protecting America, her secrets, and her national assets. An intelligence gap, on the other hand, is a set of topics decided by the executive branch. For instance, a possible intelligence gap that exists now might be information about the Proud Boys. Intelligence collectors would then ask their sources for any information relating to Proud Boys. This information is collected, analyzed, and used to inform decision makers on policies and operations. Make sense?
When running sources, my colleagues and I used a direct approach to collect HUMINT. We would typically ask our sources for information. We did not usually utilize deception or special techniques.
There is a technique known as the Scharff technique, named after World War II interrogator Hanns Scharff (1907-1992). Scharff was known for being friendly in his interrogation.
During his work, he identified three counterinterrogation strategies:
1) ‘I will not tell very much during the interrogation’;
2) ‘I will try to figure out what they are after, and then make sure not to give them what they want’; and,
3) ‘It is meaningless to withhold or deny what they already know.’
He then sought to counteract these strategies.
In a 2014 study, researchers (Oleszkiewicz, Granhag, & Kleinman) applied the direct approach and two variants of the Scharff techniques to obtain HUMINT in an empirical research setting. The researchers used the Scharff confirmation and disconfirmation/confirmation technique as the variants. The former is where potentially accurate information is provided to the source, and the source is given a few moments to comment (confirm or deny whether it is accurate). The latter is where a known incorrect claim is provided in order for the source to negate or disconfirm.
Ultimately, the researchers found that the participants in the confirmation condition provided more information than participants in other conditions. This was interesting, especially given my former experience. And, this goes to show that no matter how secretive or classified a process may be, science can make it better.
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