The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
This is the slide that grabbed General Peter Schoomaker, USA (Ret), the ONLY Army flag officer that has ever understood OSINT in detail. General Schoomaker's intelligence and integrity are the sole reason the U.S. Government has today exactly ONE serious OSINT capability as represented by J-23 at the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). Everything else is fluff, lip service, and broken promises.
General Schoomaker and Congressman Rob Simmons understood each other. The letter below, from Congressman Simmons to General Schoomaker, was intended to give General Schoomaker an opportunity to instruct LtGen Keith Alexander, then Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence , as to his duties. A change in Army doctrine resulted, and separate Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)doctrine was developed, but developed very badly. The Army G-2 mafia never took OSINT serioiusly as a separate discipline, and together with the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) never growing past its broadcast monitoring role, was a severe impediment to progress in this arena. LtGen Alexander, today the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) understood how to use OSINT in support of ABLE DANGER and in support of NSA missions, but he never understood the urgency of making OSINT a discipline in its own right that could be used to support all of the Army's mission areas, Whole of Government inter-agency planning, programming, and campaign execution, and even less so, coalition and multinational multifunctional operations with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), such as the Defense Advanced Programs Agency (DARPA) has consistently supported with its annual STRONG ANGEL exercise.
When Congressman Simmons lost by 80 votes in 2006, in large part because two newspapers in his District did not do their homeword and turned against him for not having “big ideas”–nothing could have been further from the truth–the Army G-2 mafia immediately down-graded OSINT, relegating it to contractors who know nothing of OSINT and refuse to sub-contract experts who do. With the exception of the OSINT unit at the US Special Operations Command, Army OSINT is totally hosed today, and much in need of a G-2 that understands both “full-spectrum” HUMINT and “full-spectrum” OSINT. They have no bench from which to find such a person.
General Peter Schoomaker, USA (Ret), brought back from retirement to be Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, was among a tiny handful of seniors who understood the importance of moving ahead with Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), having himself created the first modern “full spectrum” OSINT unit at the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in 1997. In the below exchange led by Congressman Rob Simmons of Connecticutt, the two are executing a public “dance” that moves OSINT up the priority ladder.
This Foreword, the first one done by Congressman Rob Simmons of Connecticutt for any handbook or book in the larger Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) arena, would be revised and used for others publications, but in its time, in 2004, this was the first-ever deep high-level statement of both need and opportunity with respect to OSINT as a separate discipline.
Oops 2004: The most critical challenge ahead for DOD is making the GIG a reality. While DOD has taken steps to define its vision and objectives for the GIG on paper and in policy and is beginning to make a heavy investment in the GIG as well as systems that will be heavily dependent on the GIG, it is not fully known how DOD will meet these objectives. For example, it is not known which investments should take priority over others and how these decisions will be enforced. Moreover, it is not known how DOD will assess the overall progress of the GIG and determine whether the network as a whole is providing a worthwhile return on investment, particularly in terms of enhancing and even transforming military operations. According to DOD officials, the enhancements DOD is making to its planning and budgeting processes are meant to begin addressing these questions. Until DOD implements an investment and oversight strategy for the GIG as a whole, it is at risk of making investments that do not fit DOD’s vision for the future.
DOC (10 Pages): the-osint-story-2-1
OSS.Net, Inc.
25 June 2004, Version 2.1
MEMORANDUM
Continue reading “2004 Modern History of Public Intelligence and the Opposition”
