ABSTRACT
This chapter has its empirical grounding in the widespread attention given to the nature of intelligence and intelligence agency organisation in relation to 9/11 and its continuing legacy in counter-terrorism intelligence work in the USA and the UK. Thus, this chapter concentrates on intelligence as a counter-terrorism tool of Western states directed against terrorism perpetrated by non-state Islamist-type actors such as identified groups (on proscribed lists by established by the UN, the EU, the UK and the USA), loose networks and those the UK counter-terrorism (CT) policy CONTEST called ‘radicalized individuals’ (HM Government, 2009). It is a task which contains two challenges for intelligence agencies; first, because intelligence gathering is partly a human resource-intensive activity, the counterterrorism focus entails opportunity costs in terms of other parts of an intelligence agency’s remit; and, second, post-9/11 intelligence agency ‘failures’ will receive extensive media coverage and scrutiny through parliamentary, judicial and other forms of formally constituted accountability mechanisms (on these mechanisms, see, for example, Council of Europe, 2007; Müller-Wille, 2006).
