Originally created by Dr. Mark Lowenthal, then with OSS.Net, Inc. and since modified, this slide, combined with Graphic: OSINT and Missing Information, depicts the challenge. What most do not understand is these two facts:
1. Open Source Information (OSIF) is not the same as Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). The latter is deliberately discovered, discriminated, distilled, and delivered decision-support tailored to a specific decision. No does this now in the IC that we know of.
2. Humans and Human Minds, not vast unaffordable non-interoperable technical processing farms, are how we cut to the chase. The magic of OSINT, as Dr. Stevan Dedijer stated so clearly in 1992, is to “know who knows,” so as to connect, as Robert Steele stated in Canada in 1994, the source with the consumer. This can only be done with Multinational Engagement, it absolutely will never happen if we continue to insist on US citizens with clearances as the heart of “national intelligence.”
