"US-CERT's mission is to improve the nation's cybersecurity posture, coordinate cyber information sharing and proactively manage cyber risks to the nation while

"US-CERT's mission is to improve the nation's cybersecurity posture, coordinate cyber information sharing and proactively manage cyber risks to the nation while protecting the constitutional rights of Americans. US-CERT vision is to be a trusted global leader in cybersecurity - collaborative, agile, and responsive in a complex environment." From: http://www.us-cert.gov/aboutus.html http://www.us-cert.gov/aboutus.html Certainly sounds like intelligence (and counterintelligence) is one of the main aspects of their work. Agree, they don't sound like _human_ intelligence gatherers... but I'm fairly certain that US-CERT would know plenty of information about hackers, hacking, pirates, and so on.