The
United States Department of the Navy
The United States Department of the Navy (DoN) is one of the three military departments within the Department of Defense of the United States of America. It was established by an Act of Congress on 30 April 1798, at the urging of Secretary o ...
's Multiple Threat Alert Center (MTAC) provides indications and warning for a wide range of threats to
Navy
A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...
and
Marine Corps
Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refl ...
personnel and assets around the world.
Operated by the
Naval Criminal Investigative Service
The United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is the primary law enforcement agency of the U.S. Department of the Navy. Its primary function is to investigate criminal activities involving the Navy and Marine Corps, though its ...
(NCIS), the MTAC utilizes NCIS' worldwide presence and combination of
law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules
Rule or ruling may refer to:
Education ...
,
counterintelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ...
,
intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...
and
security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...
capabilities to identify all available threat indicators. Analysts,
special agents, and
military personnel
Military personnel are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, air force, space force, and coast guard), rank (officer, non-commissioned officer, or ...
work in the MTAC around the clock to produce indications and warning of possible
terrorist activity,
foreign intelligence
Intelligence assessment, or simply intel, is the development of behavior forecasts or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organisation, based on wide ranges of available overt and covert information (intelligence). Assessments d ...
threats and criminal threats that may affect naval operations.
[ MTAC is located at NCIS headquarters in ]Quantico, Virginia
Quantico ( or ; formerly Potomac) is a town in Prince William County, Virginia, United States. The population was 480 at the 2010 census. Quantico is approximately 35 miles southwest of Washington, DC, bordered by the Potomac River to the east ...
.
The MTAC is an outgrowth of the Navy Antiterrorist Alert Center (ATAC). The ATAC was established in December 1983 to address the terrorist threat after the bombing of the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
, Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
, and the murders of Navy officers in Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
by the Revolutionary Organization 17 November
Revolutionary Organization 17 November ( el, Επαναστατική Οργάνωση 17 Νοέμβρη, ''Epanastatiki Organosi dekaefta Noemvri''), also known as 17N or the 17 November Group, was a Greek far-left Marxist–Leninist urban ...
and in El Salvador by the FMLN. As the first 24-hour terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
watch center in the U.S. Intelligence Community, the ATAC successfully supported the Navy and Marine Corps team for nearly two decades.[
The MTAC epitomizes the multi-faceted nature of the NCIS mission by linking terrorism, counterintelligence, intelligence, cyber, criminal, and security information. The MTAC is a unique platform in that it merges intelligence from other agencies with information from NCIS source networks and law enforcement activities worldwide to provide the most relevant operational support to Navy and Marine Corps ]commanders
Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain.
...
.[
]
Jonathan Pollard
Convicted Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
i spy
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
Jonathan Pollard
Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is a former intelligence analyst for the United States government. In 1987, as part of a plea agreement, Pollard pleaded guilty to spying for and providing top-secret classified information to Israel. H ...
was a civilian
Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not " combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". It is slightly different from a non-combatant ...
intelligence analyst
Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context. The descriptions are drawn from what may only be available in the form of deliberate ...
at the ATAC from June 1984 until his arrest in November 1985. Retired Naval Investigative Service/NCIS Special Agent Ron Olive outlines Pollard's espionage activities in the 2006 book ''Capturing Jonathan Pollard''.
USS ''Cole'' incident
A growing appreciation of the changing threat facing the Department of the Navy in the 21st century, culminating with the terrorist attacks against the in Aden, Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...
, and September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
, led NCIS to transform the ATAC into the MTAC in 2002.[
]
In popular culture
A version of the Multiple Threat Alert Center is featured on the hit drama television show, '' NCIS''. However, within the series, it is called the "Multiple Threat Assessment Center" and is located at the Washington Navy Yard
The Washington Navy Yard (WNY) is the former shipyard and Weapon, ordnance plant of the United States Navy in Southeast, Washington, D.C., Southeast Washington, D.C. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy.
The Yard currently serv ...
, where the series takes place.
References
{{Reflist
External links
NCIS website
United States Navy