more on New US intelligence center to exploit publicly available information

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [IP] New US intelligence center to exploit publicly 
available information]
Date:   Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:11:51 -0800
From:   Ross Stapleton-Gray <amicus () well com>
To: 	dave () farber net, "johnmac's living room" 
<johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>



[resend with a URL for the creation of COSPO, back in 1994... everything 
old is new again...]

At 09:13 AM 11/24/2005, David Farber wrote:
> Douglas Naquin, the [Open Source C]enter's director, said it will build on 
> the work of the
> CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which once monitored and
> translated foreign radio brodcasts but has since expanded its reach to other
> media.
> He said a key difference will be that the center aims to spread its findings
> and expertise across the US intelligence community, which consists of 15
> agencies.
> ...
> The FBIS' strength has been in tracking media trends that show, for
> instance, how foreign publics are responding to particular US policies.
> But in recent years a group at the FBIS also has been applying data mining
> techniques to analyze massive volumes of informaiton on the Internet or
> commercial databases, Naquin said.

FBIS was my first job out of college, as a CIA grad fellow... my 
understanding is that it actually predated the CIA, having been originally 
formed during WW II to collect and report on Nazi radio broadcasting.

But this is something of a second coming for Open Source for the 
Intelligence Community.  In my last IC job, I served on the Intelligence 
Community Management Staff, which supported the Director of Central 
Intelligence (DCI) wearing his IC coordinator hat.  And around then (c. 
1994), CMS was host to a new "Community Open Source Program Office" 
(COSPO), to do what's being described here for the new OSC.  Here's the DCI 
Directive, in fact, that created it... NB the similarities with the 
newly-announced OSC: http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/dcid212.htm

Certainly "open source intel" (so-called "OSINT") had been used for many 
years before that (and not just FBIS' collection... I remember when 
Lexis/Nexis was the exciting new wave, and was one of the early Internet 
agitators, especially after a presentation by Cliff Stoll, who was on a 
book tour for "The Cuckoo's Egg," and spoke at both NSA and CIA... he 
nearly broke an overhead projector glass with a yoyo).

Some time after I left, in 1994, COSPO got shuffled around, then pushed 
down the org chart to live in the CIA's Directorate of Science & 
Technology, where FBIS is located.  I believe that there was something of a 
merger, given the common focus.

So this new thing is more a repeat of something that was done once 
already.  And what had been the DCI's Community Management Staff now 
reports to Mr. Negroponte, since he (as Director of National Intelligence) 
wears the primary IC coordination hat, so I presume they may have a hand in 
what this new Center does, as well.

What they'll find is a reluctance, from some quarters, to much dignify 
"open source intelligence" as its own "INT"... "We deal with *classified* 
intelligence... that's just *information*..."  Though, of course, as a 
former intelligence officer who's worked without clearances for more than a 
decade, I can vouch for the value all of the rest of us place on "plain old 
information." ;-)  I'm fascinated by the gulf between the "classified" and 
"unclassified" world (and am in fact doing some work now on how some 
classified information can be "written down" for use by uncleared 
researchers, e.g., redacted, dithered, or otherwise lessened in 
sensitivity).  And I think it's to the significant detriment of many in the 
classified world that they can't move as easily as those of us outside of 
it, through the oceans of information now increasingly open and available.

Ross





-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/