The Blue Planet; Informal International Police Networks and National Intelligence

xxi, [1], 181, [3] pages. Illustrations (color). Footnotes. Bibliography. Index. Foreword by Dr. Jacqueline Ross. Commentary by Dr. Monica den Boer and by Dr. Mathieu Deflem. The author was a multi-decade veteran of the U. S. Foreign Service and the federal law enforcement system. As a Special Agent for the U.S. Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service, he has serviced as a regional security officer at American embassies overseas, as a chief of a transnational criminal investigative section, as a criminal investigator, and as a bodyguard for a Secretary of State. Throughout his long career in security and law enforcement he has worked with all elements of the U.S. national security structure. In 2006 the author was a Research Fellow at the National Defense Intelligence College, working in its Center for Strategic Intelligence Research. This book is a product of that fellowship. Under the shield of The Blue Planet, law enforcement professionals and academics will discover an intricate web of arguments and cases concerning the continuing need for informal international police networks. On the basis of his rich experience, Mike Bayer argues in an authoritative and persuasive manner that the control of transnational organized crime and terrorism can only be successful if informal information exchange is acknowledged as a necessary asset which can complement formal law enforcement bureaucracies. Notwithstanding current developments in the direction of intelligence-led policing, Mike Bayer observes persistent myopia when it concerns conceptions about the separation between information and intelligence. The latter field of activity is steadily being cultivated as typically belonging to the realm of intelligence agencies and secret services. Hence, intelligence is often labeled as "classified" and not capable of being disclosed.