This course may not be right for you. This course is not meant to manipulate, trick, take advantage of, or convince anyone to do anything against their best interests. However, you can positively influence those around you, be better with people, understand others better, and make mutually beneficial deals to better your quality of life.

The intelligence discipline of HUMINT can teach you the skills to achieve these goals.

Put very simply, America’s Central Intelligence Agency defines HUMINT (or Human Intelligence) as “any information that can be gathered from human sources.” HUMINT requires an Intelligence Officer to convince a human source to conduct espionage on behalf of that officer. It is a dangerous proposition and requires the absolute highest amount of salesmanship.

How is HUMINT gathered?

To a certain extent, HUMINT intelligence is closer to the pop-culture idea we have about spies than SIGINT might be, but more often than not, it doesn’t come with a license to kill. Intelligence officers may gather HUMINT through direct engagement with sources, or through leveraging local assets (people) to directly gather information for them. Everything from friendly conversation to interrogation can be seen as a means to gather Human Intelligence.

The CIA defines HUMINT collection practices as:

Clandestine acquisition of photography, documents, and other material

Overt collection by people overseas

Debriefing of foreign nationals and U.S. citizens who travel abroad

Official contacts with foreign governments