OPSEC Denies Information to Enemy

  • Published
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Plans
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  With the constantly developing world, it is important for Travis personnel to change their social media habits.

The use of social networking sites is useful to us and definitely to the nation's enemies because open-source intelligence is very convenient and free.

An al-Qaeda training manual recovered in Afghanistan contained the following statement: "Using public sources openly and without resorting to illegal means, it is possible to gather at least 80 percent of information about the enemy."

Because of the apparent ease that the nation's enemies can, at times, gather information to use against it, Operations Security was developed.

During the Vietnam War, the term OPSEC and associated processes were developed to specifically deny critical information to the enemy, information that the enemy had acquired and used against U.S. forces.

The goal of OPSEC is to identify information and observable actions relating to mission capabilities, limitations and intentions in order to prevent exploitation by adversaries.

A key point is that the information is generally unclassified. In the OPSEC analytic process, units need to identify critical information about their operations and plans that adversaries could use. Once identified, each member needs to know what their CI is and minimize discussion of this CI over nonsecure means.

Thus, even unclassified information, if identified as CI, should only be discussed either in person or via secure phones, fax or Secure Internet Protocol Router network. U.S. adversaries are monitoring information on key operations. It is up to all of us to practice good OPSEC by limiting discussion of CI over nonsecure means in order to protect people and resources.

Remember, it is not the critical information list that needs protecting. It is the information the CIL identifies that needs protecting.

For more information, questions or concerns, contact a unit OPSEC coordinator or the installation OPSEC program manager at 424-4356.