Technology transfer and the terrorist threat: Science has a key role to play in counter-terrorism

Science and technology offers new potential for countering terrorist threats, from suicide bombers to cyber-terrorism and chemical, biological and radiological terrorism, says intelligence expert Sir Richard Mottram

This is an edited version of a lecture delivered by Sir Richard Mottram, Former UK Permanent Secretary for Intelligence, Security and Resilience, at the Euroscience Open Forum Conference in Barcelona, July 18 - 22.

“The role of science and technology in helping to counter terrorism is very important and of significant potential value. But science also potentially contributes to the problem.

For example, there is the awkward fact that scientists, engineers and doctors play a considerable role as terrorists; there is a risk that inadequately regulated scientific activity and the unconstrained dissemination of scientific knowledge may significantly enhance the terrorist threat in its most severe forms; and there is the risk that scientific and technological solutions, for example,  developments in sensors, and in biometrics, information handling and communications, could have significant impact on the character of the free society we are seeking to sustain against the efforts of terrorists to undermine it.

Conversely the contribution of science is potentially a very rich one including, helping more effective intelligence gathering, the disruption of terrorist activity and forensic support for the criminal justice system. Science can also help to neutralise or mitigate the effects of terrorist attacks, and can help improve the protection of infrastructure.

One clear lesson to be drawn from the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction episode is the importance of ensuring that intelligence analysis and assessment draws on expert scientific advice and more broadly on the skepticism at the heart of the scientific method.

One policy conclusion is the importance of maintaining deep scientific expertise within the intelligence community.

There are a number of areas where the science and engineering community has an important part to play in countering terrorism. One example is the role of social sciences in gaining a better understanding of drivers of extremism.

Another is in covert intelligence and police work where there is increasing scope to exploit advances in sensor technology and increasingly powerful vision processing and data mining capabilities. Increasingly agencies concerned with human intelligence are huge data exploitation businesses, drawing on private sector lessons in the development of social network analysis.

With these changes come substantial issues about possible infringement of civil liberties.

Science can also help with the development of enhanced physical protection against bomb attacks, for example through the development of blast-free materials, and work to protect borders against movement of suspect people and suspect materials. For the future there needs to be an increasing focus on how security can be designed into places and structures.

And sophisticated, science-based capabilities are required to monitor, identify and respond to attacks, whether of a conventional kind, or involving chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear kind.

There are many dimensions to science and terrorism, and I think this is a very difficult area for governments to tackle for a number of reasons. Firstly, there is uncertainty over the likelihood and consequences of the component risks. Intelligence is uncertain. Assessments based on theoretical capabilities that might be deployed, risk being excessively worst case.

Then, the terrorist threat is both domestic and international, linked together in complex ways. The policy response involves nearly all government departments, local government, security agencies, the police, the private sector and individuals. Coordinating and orchestrating this effort is a massive problem generally.

On top of this, individual organisations within the mix have their own science and technology strategies, some of long-standing. But developing a government-wide science and technology strategy for counter-terrorism has proved difficult in the UK, and I suspect elsewhere. And the policies reside at the centre of government, or in other departments, that unlike Defence, are not science- and technology-dominated organisations.”