Introducing HUMINT

HUMINT is an acronym that stands for human intelligence. It is one of the most difficult and prized ways the U.S. intelligence community collects information and protects the country. Even in the age of Artificial Intelligence, no technological development will ever render this form of intelligence obsolete. And as some spies enjoy saying, “It’s the world’s second oldest profession.” 

What you’ll find here on my HUMINT Substack are human stories in the realm of intelligence and national security. Spies. Wars. Hostages. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. Disinformation and influence campaigns. But also power, pain, regret, longing, humor and humility. What makes us human, for better and for worse. 

These stories are the culmination of years as a journalist… for places that include NPR, National Geographic and Smithsonian. For the past 4.5 years, I was the national security correspondent for a national TV network called Scripps News. I took viewers inside a Chinese police station hiding above a ramen shop in New York City. I walked them through the grounds of a secret medical laboratory in California which I tied to China’s Communist Party. I penetrated Russia’s “ghost” nuclear forces with an American who worked with them. I interviewed a Russian spy who spoke of a dangerous unit targeting Americans abroad. I uncovered former CIA/NSA/FBI working at TikTok as well as FBI agents reporting Anomalous Health Incidents in Florida and D.C. And I honored a veteran source who took his own life as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, after he struggled to get his former interpreters to safety. That’s just a few.

It all began for me in 2015, after Russia illegally seized Crimea. I was an aspiring journalist then, working inside the U.S. State Department. Suddenly, I was assigned to a small unit tasked with countering Russian disinformation. Eventually I left that job. I chose to walk out in a canary yellow dress, mimicking the canaries historically used to detect toxic gas in mines. 

I’m going to warn you of the dangers, the complexities, one human story at a time. I'll try to publish once a week for you.

Welcome to HUMINT.