Abstract: An information hierarchy is defined to allow automatic collection, monitoring and categorization of information about a subject and the subject's social network. The subject may be, for example, an individual or an organization. The information is automatically collected from a broad range of sources and automatically monitored to generate targeted alerts. The information hierarchy includes an intelligence task that defines an objective for collecting and analyzing the information. The hierarchy also includes indicators corresponding to the intelligence task and triggers corresponding to the indicators. The triggers, when detected, indicate the likely occurrence of one or more of the indicators. Intelligent agents collect the information so it can be analyzed with respect to the information hierarchy. The analysis includes the discovery of direct and indirect relationships between entities. Thus, users can review and predict underlying threats imposed by the relationships.