This comparative analysis of the sometimes fraught process of achieving democratic governance of security intelligence agencies presents material from countries other than those normally featured in the Intelligence Studies literature of North America and Europe. Some of the countries examined are former Communist countries and several in Latin America are former military regimes. Others have been democratic for a long time but still experience widespread political violence. Through a mix of single-country and comparative studies, major aspects of intelligence are considered, including the legacy of, and transition from, authoritarianism; the difficulties of achieving genuine reform; and the apparent inevitability of periodic scandals. Authors consider a range of methodological approaches to the study of intelligence and the challenges of analysing the secret world. Finally, consideration is given to the success – or otherwise – of intelligence reform, and the effectiveness of democratic institutions of control and oversight. This book was originally published as a special issue of Intelligence and National Security.

After a long time of neglect, Artificial Intelligence is once again at the center of most of our political, economic, and socio-cultural debates. Recent advances in the field of Artifical Neural Networks have led to a renaissance of dystopian and utopian speculations on an AI-rendered future. Algorithmic technologies are deployed for identifying potential terrorists through vast surveillance networks, for producing sentencing guidelines and recidivism risk profiles in criminal justice systems, for demographic and psychographic targeting of bodies for advertising or propaganda, and more generally for automating the analysis of language, text, and images. Against this background, the aim of this book is to discuss the heterogenous conditions, implications, and effects of modern AI and Internet technologies in terms of their political dimension: What does it mean to critically investigate efforts of net politics in the age of machine learning algorithms?

These days, it's rare to pick up a newspaper and not see a story related to intelligence. From the investigations of the 9/11 commission, to accusations of illegal wiretapping, to debates on whether it's acceptable to torture prisoners for information, intelligence—both accurate and not—is driving domestic and foreign policy. And yet, in part because of its inherently secretive nature, intelligence has received very little scholarly study. Into this void comes Reforming Intelligence, a timely collection of case studies written by intelligence experts, and sponsored by the Center for Civil-Military Relations (CCMR) at the Naval Postgraduate School, that collectively outline the best practices for intelligence services in the United States and other democratic states. Reforming Intelligence suggests that intelligence is best conceptualized as a subfield of civil-military relations, and is best compared through institutions. The authors examine intelligence practices in the United States, United Kingdom, and France, as well as such developing democracies as Brazil, Taiwan, Argentina, and Russia. While there is much more data related to established democracies, there are lessons to be learned from states that have created (or re-created) intelligence institutions in the contemporary political climate. In the end, reading about the successes of Brazil and Taiwan, the failures of Argentina and Russia, and the ongoing reforms in the United States yields a handful of hard truths. In the murky world of intelligence, that's an unqualified achievement.

This abbreviated English edition of the book Democratización de la Función de Inteligencia-El Nexo de la Cultura y la Inteligencia Estratégica (NDIC Press, January 2009) presents that book's introductory material in translation, along with essays by three U.S. and Canadian authors. Essays by the editors and by a Peruvian observer, which make up the introductory material, provide the reader unfamiliar with Spanish or Portuguese an overview of all essays in the original edition. The original book features essays by 28 authors who represent 14 countries in the Western Hemisphere plus Spain. The book aims to educate officials as well as students about the vicissitudes that accompany the development and execution of the government intelligence function. The authors demonstrate that national, strategic intelligence in any country of the Hemisphere can experience episodes of devolution as well as positive evolution, at the same time that the culturally modulated practices of government professionals can oscillate between periods of repression and democratic observance.

This abbreviated English-language edition of the book Democratización de la Función de Inteligencia-El Nexo de la Cultura y la Inteligencia Estratégica (NDIC Press, January 2009) presents that book's introductory material in translation, along with essays by three U.S. and Canadian authors. The book aims to educate officials as well as students about the vicissitudes that accompany the development and execution of the government intelligence function. The authors demonstrate that national, strategic intelligence in any country of the Hemisphere can experience episodes of devolution as well as positive evolution, at the same time that the culturally modulated practices of government professionals can oscillate between periods of repression and democratic observance.

The book aims to educate officials as well as students about the vicissitudes that accompany the development and execution of the government intelligence function. The authors demonstrate that national, strategic intelligence in any country of the Hemisphere can experience episodes of devolution as well as positive evolution, at the same time that the culturally modulated practices of government professionals can oscillate between periods of repression and democratic observance.

"It was well known to the Greeks that the phenomenon of vagueness in natural language gives rise to hard problems and paradoxes, yet more than two millennia passed before Philosophy began to pay any degree of concerted attention to the challenges of vagueness to match the effort expended, for example, on the Liar paradox and its kin. This situation changed dramatically in the last quarter of the twentieth century, when the Sorites paradox in particular began to provoke a dramatic intensification of research and publication. Crispin Wright has been in the international vanguard of the resulting modern debates that have attracted some of the most distinguished contemporary philosophers of logic and language. The Riddle of Vagueness collects together fourteen of Wright's highly influential publications in this field. The chapters together encompass almost half a century of evolving thought on the central problems and challenges which vagueness poses: what exactly is vagueness, what does its pervasiveness in natural language show about the nature of language mastery, is it desirable to modify classical logic and semantics in the face of the Sorites and, if so, what form should the modifications take? Richard Kimberly Heck contributes a substantial introduction to the volume, providing an invaluable summary of these fundamental issues, and an overview and evaluation in depth of the evolving course of Wright's ideas about them."--Publisher's description

Artificial intelligence (AI) stands out as a transformational technology of the digital age. Its practical applications are growing very rapidly. One of the chief reasons AI applications are attaining prominence, is in its design to learn continuously, from real-world use and experience, and its capability to improve its performance. It is no wonder that the applications of AI span from complex high-technology equipment manufacturing to personalized exclusive recommendations to end-users. Many deployments of AI software, given its continuous learning need, require computation platforms that are resource intense, and have sustained connectivity and perpetual power through central electrical grid. In order to harvest the benefits of AI revolution to all of humanity, traditional AI software development paradigms must be upgraded to function effectively in environments that have resource constraints, small form factor computational devices with limited power, devices with intermittent or no connectivity and/or powered by non-perpetual source or battery power. The aim this book is to prepare current and future software engineering teams with the skills and tools to fully utilize AI capabilities in resource-constrained devices. The book introduces essential AI concepts from the perspectives of full-scale software development with emphasis on creating niche Blue Ocean small form factored computational environment products.