The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
This is a righteous piece of work out of the National Defense University (NDU) by Mr. Adrian (Zeke) Wolfberg of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), entitled “To Transform into a More Capable Intelligence Community: A Paradigm Shift in the Analyst Selection Strategy.” Published April 21, 2003, this is still valid and of course still ignored.
Continue reading “Reference: Transforming How We Hire Analysts”
EU-UN Cooperation in Peacebuilding: Partners in Practice?
Gourlay C.
November 2009
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More Than Espionage: Open-source intelligence should be part of solution
By Andrew M. Borene
Here's some food for thought: White House policymakers and Congress can help develop an increasingly robust national intelligence capacity by investing new money in the pursuit of a centralized open-source intelligence (OSINT) infrastructure.
Phi Beta Iota: In 1992 it was the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and The MITRE Corporation that destroyed the emergent Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) movement. CIA refused to deal with OSINT unless everyone associated with it was a U.S. citizen with a SECRET clearance (we do not make this stuff up), and MITRE misled the US Government in such a way as to promote their Open Source Information System (OSIS) that ended up providing analysts mediocre high-side access to six open sources (LEXIS-NEXIS, Oxford Analytics, Jane's Information Group, Predicast and two other non-memorable sources). The US Marine Corps, which was the proponent for OSINT based on the lessons learned in creating the Marine Corps Intelligence Center (MCIC), argued for an outside the wire center of excellence that would have access to all sources in all languages (in part because the “experts” flogged by contracting firms may have been expert once, but are not “the” expert on any given topic for any given day–for that we prize European and Chinese and Latin American graduate students about to receive their PhD).
During his tenure as Director of the Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO), Dr. Joe Markowitz, the only person ever to actually understand OSINT within CIA, closely followed by Carol Dumaine, founder of the Global Futures Partership, tried four years in a row, with the support of Charlie Allen, then Deputy Director for Collection (DDCI/C), to get an OSINT program line established. Four years in a row, Joan Dempsey, then Deputy Director for Community Management (DDCI/CM) refused. The secret IC is incapable of creating an Open Source Agency (OSA) as called for by the 9-11 Commission, and any money it puts in that direction will be wasted unless the Simmons-Steele-Markowitz recommendations briefed to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) are respected.
Dr. Markowitz is also the author of the OSINT portions of vital Defense Science Board reports such as Transitions to and from Hostilities, and is unique within the CIA alumni for understanding both the needs of defense and the possibilities of OSINT. COSPO was an honest effort–CIA/OSC is not.
CIA and LEXIS-NEXIS still do not get it–they both want a monopoly on a discicpline they do not understand and cannot monopolize. The US Government is a BENEFICIARY of OSINT, not its patron, and any endeavor that is not outside the wire, transparent, and under diplomatic and civil affairs auspices, is destined to fail, just as CIA/OSC has failed all these years, just as LEXIS-NEXIS, Oxford Analytica, and Jane's Information Group have failed on substance all these years. They profit from government ignorance, they do not profit from actually connecting the government to sources that are largely free, not online, and not in English.
Continue reading “Journal: LEXIS-NEXIS OSINT Kiss to CIA/OSC”
Warning: Your Cell Phone May Be Hazardous to Your Health (GQ)
Christopher Ketcham
Ever worry that that gadget you spend hours holding next to your head might be damaging your brain? Well, the evidence is starting to pour in, and it's not pretty. So why isn't anyone in America doing anything about it?
Phi Beta Iota: This is “old” news that is still news because neither the government nor the public actually pay attention. We've known since the 1980's that Soviet emission controls were ten times tougher than ours, and now in Afghanistan as we find UAVs and all other devices conflicting with each other across old “dumb” (assigned) spectrum, we are learning, AGAIN, why spectrum consciousness matters. Open Spectrum and smart devices are the way to go, along with public truth-telling about electromagnetic emissions as part of the “true cost” of all devices.
Chavez Calls Sentence in CIA's Online Almanac “A Declaration of War” Against Venezuela
If you've ever been curious to know any country's GDP, literacy rate, languages, etc., at a glance, the CIA's online World Factbook is the place to start.
And evidently Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been Googling his own country lately, because he's taken serious issue with the sort of government-issue Wikipedia's summary description of the South American nation.
From the CIA World Factbook:
“…For most of the first half of the 20th century, Venezuela was ruled by generally benevolent military strongmen, who promoted the oil industry and allowed for some social reforms. Democratically elected governments have held sway since 1959. Hugo CHAVEZ, president since 1999, seeks to implement his “21st Century Socialism,” which purports to alleviate social ills while at the same time attacking globalization and undermining regional stability. Current concerns include: a weakening of democratic institutions, political polarization, a politicized military, drug-related violence along the Colombian border, increasing internal drug consumption, overdependence on the petroleum industry with its price fluctuations, and irresponsible mining operations that are endangering the rain forest and indigenous peoples.”
The text above constitutes, according to Chavez this past week, “a declaration of war.”
Phi Beta Iota: Chavez is right, CIA is wrong. A World Factbook is not the place for subjective politicized “judgments,” and if one wishes to speak about the Open Veins of Latin America–Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, the CIA should cut its own throat first or to use another metaphor, not throw stones when it lives in a glass house. CIA is no longer the destructive monster it used to be, but perhaps worse, Clowns in Action or Contractors in Action, take your pick. CIA should remove the offending words and surprise Venezuela with a printed corrected copy of the book, and a letter of apology–and it can apologize for its last bungled coup attempt while its at it. Newsflash for CIA: imperial globalization bad, indigenous self-determination good. Duh.
See also:
The Homegrown Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland (ARI)
Lorenzo Vidino
ARI 171/2009 – 18/12/2009
EXTRACT 1: All these plots are very diverse in their origin, degree of sophistication and characteristics of the individuals involved. Yet they all contribute to paint the picture of the complex and rapidly changing reality of terrorism of Islamist inspiration in the US. Moreover, they smash or, at least, severely undermine an assumption that has been widely held by policymakers and analysts over the last 15 years. The common wisdom, in fact, has traditionally been that American Muslims, unlike their European counterparts, were virtually immune to radicalisation.
EXTRACT 2: The wave of arrests of the last months of 2009 has contributed to shedding light on a reality that is significantly more nuanced, showing that radicalisation affects some small segments of the American Muslim population exactly like it affects some fringe pockets of the Muslim population of each European country. Evidence supporting this view has been available for a long time, as the cases of American Muslims joining radical Islamist groups date back to the 1970s.[12] According to data collected by the NYU Center on Law and Security, for example, more than 500 individuals have been convicted by the American authorities for terrorism-related charges since 9/11.[13] Most of them are US citizens or long-time US residents who underwent radicalisation inside the US.
Phi Beta Iota: Recommended by Contributing Editor Berto Jongman.
Pentagon’s Gitmo Recidivism Claims Don’t Add Up
Researchers at Seton Hall and New America Foundation track the Pentagon's claims that released Guantanamo detainees ‘returned to battle.'
Phi Beta Iota: Government claims 1 in 5 and counts those who speak to the press against USG and Guantanamo. Researcers find 1 in 25 at best and observe that the USG is simply not able to get the same story told in the same way more than once.
Appeal Hearing on Guantanamo: Main Issues
On January 26, 2010, a panel of military officers will hear the historic first direct appeal from the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay. Oral argument in the case of United States v. al Bahlul will focus on three constitutional issues that reach beyond military commissions and terrorism trials. The main issue in the case asks whether the war on terrorism justifies the censorship of foreign media. [Emphasis added.]
A new study suggests that viewers worldwide turn to particular broadcasters to affirm — rather than inform — their opinions. It's a notion familiar to those dismayed by the paths blazed by cable news networks FOX and MSNBC — although the study finds one (perhaps unlikely) network may actually foster greater intellectual openness.
The study in the December issue of Media, War & Conflict by Shawn Powers, a fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and Mohammed el-Nawawy, an assistant professor in the department of communication at Queens University of Charlotte, found that the longer viewers had been watching Al Jazeera English, the less dogmatic they were in their opinions and therefore more open to considering alternative and clashing opinions.
