Review: Improving CIA Analytic Performance–Four Papers by Jack Davis

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Misappropriated without Attrribution–Free Online, March 4, 2010

One Star for lack of ethics on the part of the publisher. Beyond five stars for content, free online as with all of Jack Davis's stuff. Upgraded to 3 stars for proper pricing (after Amazon's cut, publisher only makes roughly 3 dollars per book, which is totally fair).

This product was misappropriated from Jack Davis, dean of the intelligence analysis scholar-practitioners. While materials created within the US Government by US Government employees are generally not copyrighted because the taxpayer funded their creation, they are a) available free online; and b) generally considered off-limits to sleaze-bag publishers that troll for stuff (this happens to all of us, in my case with my monographs for the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), all free online).

It's nice that Jack's work is respected and made available on Amazon, a truly global service.

It is very troubling that Jack Davis, who just asked me to find out who did this, has not been contacted by the publisher and offered both courtesy copies of his own work, and some modest recognition.

Buy this book. Or search for the pieces online. Just know that it is offered by a publisher completely lacking in modern ethics. Jack would have been very happy with a request for his blessing and several copies of the book to hand out at the national intelligence university. The publisher still has the option of doing that, since technically this gives Jack a book credit, but the dishonorable manner in which the book has been published precludes Jack from acknowledging the book as his own.

Most of Jack's stuff is free online and especially accessible at Phi Beta Iota the Public Intelligence Blog. You can also search for “analytic tradecraft” on the web, that is his signature term of art.

NOTE TO PUBLISHER: The minute Jack tells me you have made nice, I will revise this to a “rave” review. You could also talk to Jack about what else merits this kind of treatment, and offer him 20% after costs covered. We are now on Web 2.0 publishing rules, it's time you figured that out.