The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
From where we sit, outside the wire, we went wrong at multiple levels, all matters of balance and perspective:
1. Favoring secrecy over openness
2. Favoring technologies constant stare (mostly unprocessed) over engaged human brains with eyes on
3. Demanding unilateral collection, processing, and analysis instead of a multinational foundation
The philosophical and leadership issue that has not been seriously addressed within the US and many other secret intelligence communities is this: are we in the business of secrets for the Presidet or are we in the business of informing statecraft at all levels? Until we have a political and policy leadership that demands the latter, our policies will continue to be uninformed and disengaged from the larger reality that will never, ever, ignore us.
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.”
Click on Graphic to reach the Briefing. Based on Chapter 15, “New Rules for the New Craft of Intelligence” as first published in THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political (OSS, 2002).
Click on Graphic to reach the Briefing. Based on Chapter 15, “New Rules for the New Craft of Intelligence” as first published in THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political (OSS, 2002).
