ABSTRACT
Writing more than 300 years ago, Thomas Hobbes likens intelligence agents both to spiders’ webs and to rays of light.1 Spiders’ webs consist of ‘incredibly fine threads spread out in all directions’ that ‘convey outside movements to the spiders sitting in their little cavities inside’.2 The image is effective and revealing. The spider is, of course, meant to represent those who exercise sovereign power – those who, for Hobbes, are burdened with the task of protecting the citizens of the state. The threads, or intelligence agents, together form an intricate web with which these rulers surround themselves and upon which they depend: ‘Without intelligence agents’, Hobbes observes, ‘sovereigns can have no more idea what orders need to be given for the defence of their subjects than spiders can know when to emerge and where to make for without the threads of their webs’.3 Lest one take from this metaphor that Hobbes views intelligence agents or the activity of gathering intelligence as in any way lacking in virtue, it should be read alongside his other chosen image. ‘Reliable intelligence agents’, Hobbes asserts unequivocally, ‘are to those who exercise sovereign power like rays of light to the human soul.’4 Elaborating on his position, Hobbes makes it clear that intelligence gathering is not only beyond reproach, but suggests that for the sovereign to fail to engage in it would be morally reprehensible.
