Open Source Intelligence (Old article...)

[American Patriot]

ON POINT: Open-Source Intelligence

Nov 1, 2004 By: Scottie Barnes GeoIntelligence

Does secrecy always equal security? Not according to Senator J. Robert Kerrey of New School University in New York. Speaking to a riveted audience at the GEOINT 2004 Symposium in New Orleans, Kerrey — who served 12 years in the U.S. Senate and was a member of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (otherwise known as the 9/11 Commission) — explained his misgivings about the value of obfuscation. "During the Clinton administration, we had several opportunities to get Osama bin Laden," explained Kerrey, "but the administration said the American people wouldn't support it. President Clinton argued that, if we told the American people about bin Laden and went after him, that would only give him publicity. That was wrong. In this case, secrecy produced insecurity." Clearly, some intelligence should never find its way into the public domain. So how can an administration educate the public about complex foreign policy issues without comprising security? According to Kerrey, open-source intelligence (OSINT) is one of the answers — and one with a proven track record. During World War II, for instance, agents scrutinized the Japanese press, monitored short-wave radio, and gathered publications abroad. These open sources helped to weave an intricate mosaic of intelligence, said Stephen Mercado, an analyst in the Directorate of Science and Technology at Central Intelligence ("Sailing the Sea of OSINT in the Information Age," in Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 48, no. 3). Mercado contrasted the relative ease of such OSINT activities today. "Collecting intelligence these days is at times less a matter of stealing through dark alleys in a foreign land to meet some secret agent than one of surfing the Internet under the fluorescent lights of an office cubicle to find some open source," Mercado explained. "Mouse clicks and online dictionaries today often prove more useful than stylish cloaks and shiny daggers in gathering intelligence required to help analysts and officials understand the world," he continued. Does this create an opportunity in which amateur analysts can miscalculate and misinform? It can. But it can also lead to some highly informative findings that can be freely shared. Take, for instance, a recent demonstration by a GIS technician at the GEOINT 2004 Symposium. The technician searched open sources on the Internet to analyze development of uranium enrichment facilities in Iran. Using only OSINT, he created a time series of transportation network maps and commercial remote sensing imagery that revealed construction locations and methodologies. Swiping the time series enabled him to demonstrate — for an awe-struck audience — the techniques used to obscure construction. This included sorting top soil and vegetation during excavation, then returning it to its exact point of origin atop newly built subterranean structures — all easy to see with OSINT. As fascinating as these findings were, he wasn't through yet. The technician then used GIS analysis to search for other possible sites under construction. Again, using nothing but open-source data, he searched the country for areas sharing a unique set of characteristics: new roads capable of carrying heavy traffic being built in areas with little population and no recorded seismic activity. The search revealed such an area. He downloaded new commercial remote sensing imagery of the identified area, and, lo and behold, the imagery revealed ongoing construction in the same pattern as the first site. When the world faces international crisis and a populace is struggling to understand issues, such analysis can quickly shed light on a situation without compromising classified intelligence. And, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Of course, OSINT is a double-edged sword. Adversaries could clearly enlist such skillsets to analyze vulnerabilities on U.S. soil. And that threat demands that we look at OSINT from the opposite perspective. For more on that topic, turn to Open Forum.

[American Patriot]

I posted this article because of the unnecessary BS I got on Anomalies when I would mention things like "90% of all intelligence is obtained through open, unsecured sources". Invariably, I'd get some smart-assed leftist who would pooh-pooh my statement, saying the only way for anyone to get information was to spy.

Truth is much different from TV. When are the liberals going to learn this?

We'd have gotten Bin Laden already, had we NOT had a liberal President in office who let such insecurities occur, which ultimately led to the attacks on September 11th, 2001.

Hindsight is 20/20, they say, and we certainly, without question know more now publically than we did privately back then. In other words, somewhere along the way a massive amount of data that wasn't public then is now, and we know more now with the changes in Homeland Security (the creation thereof) than we probably even knew in the Administration of the day.

And yet, even now there are Brits and Americans as well as other people in other countries who "believe" American deserved the attacks.

It is a pity that those people still have not awakened to find themselves in a "Brave new world" -- not one of their choosing, but one of the chosing of terrorists and murderers. Each day, those same people spend their time saying how, "There is no terrorism problem" or "Why haven't we been hit again?" and "Why hasn't Bush gotten Bin Laden?"

Their brave, new world is one where they are no longer brave, but only the terrorists are. It is a world where the rest of us who are in the know realize that a day is coming when America WILL be hit again by terrorists and it will be US -- the people who KNOW, who will be prepared, but completely unable to do anything about it to stop it from happening.

We'll be the ones to say "We told you so" on that day.