It’s a Brave New Something or Other

EU diplomats to benefit from new intelligence hub

Filling roles and checking boxes as one seemed to be expected to, the EU is working on celebrating with stunning fanfare and admiration, the development of an Intelligence Centre to (as always,) attempt some sort of force multiplication scheme, by gathering up the product of member states’ spook outfits. The problem with the calculus is that the denominator is zero, and they just aren’t that sure what to do with a kickoff that started with a press announcement that seems to have already declared a success of the thing that doesn’t really exist, save for:

a cell of secret service agents seconded from EU capitals. The cell, headed up by a French agent, pools classified information sent in by member states and drafts occasional four-to-10-page-long reports on topics ranging from terrorism to, for example, Iran's diplomatic contacts with neighbouring countries.

A huge improvement on a rough start. Their information assets on 9-11 amounted to:

SitCen started out as "a piece of A4 paper, a telephone and a pool table," according to one anecdote. When 9/11 struck in 2001, the commission's phone lines and internet crashed due to heavy traffic, leaving it cut off and triggering the creation of the Crisis Room. "There was one TV set in the building. We were crouched round a telephone listening to the TV at the other end of the line," another EU official said

SitCen is a butch, and possibly involved-in-something way of saying “Situation Center,” with a bold, movie-like ring.

So world-beating and representative of the a font of usefulness, its current products include something you can hire a few college punks part-time to do.

SitCen also runs a round-the-clock alert desk which uses open sources, such as BBC Monitoring or photos taken by commercial satellites, and sends emails and SMSes to selected EU diplomats two or three times a day.

Speaking of bold, the forgone success has the following bold, assertive stuff going for it:

The details of the EAS' new intelligence branch are still up in the air.

It is unclear where it will be situated and who will be in charge. But the current head of SitCen, former British diplomat William Shapcott, is the top candidate due to his friendly ties with member states' secret services.

The mandate for the new department also remains to be written.

Look out world! Here they come!

SitCen already sends staff to visit the EU's foreign police and military missions to gather information and has a mystique due to the secretive nature of its work.

Which is stunningly unsecretive, featuring software audio-scanning features that compare favorably to the new smartphone I bought a few weeks back.

But the new EAS branch will not have undercover operatives in the field on the model of member states' intelligence agencies. "Belgium and Austria proposed this [creating an EU secret service] after Madrid. But we are still light years away from it,"

Lucky for them, Teheran isn’t a light year away, in fact, it’s in missile range.Which sure justifies a title like:>

EU diplomats to benefit from new intelligence hub

The key to which is, beside reading the newspapers, is using good information security and discipline.

Meanwhile, the best classified information is often shared through informal channels

However, eclipsing the usual amateur night antics, we find the very well practiced and professional antics of Eurotopian policiana:

"The French are worried that the EAS will be dominated by British people," one EU official said.

The familiarity of a announcement of that sort must be rather comforting in these troubled times where MEPs try to create a security organization without being able to say out loud what it’s mandate should be, in favor of the usual bland, bullshit that makes everything they do reek of a UN spouses and kids gunny-sack race.

Some EU diplomats would like it to make policy recommendations as well as analytical reports. Others are posing questions about its ethos: "Will it be used to aggressively pursue member states' national interests or for common goals, such as peace-building and crisis relief?" one EU official asked.

On the face of it, I wonder about the “some that don’t part,” and applaud them for not throwing in a ‘Climate Change’ mandate in there, as one would expect from Pavlov’s dog. Oops! Hold the phone!