Reference: Open Source Agency (OSA) II

About the Idea, Articles & Chapters, Book Lists, Briefings (Core), Defense Science Board, DoD, Hill Letters & Testimony, Legislation, Memoranda, Monographs, Office of Management and Budget
Amazon Page

This book remains the single definitive reference on the Smart Nation Act as developed by Robert Steele in support of Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02).   As pointed out in Hamilton Bean's recently published book,  No More Secrets: Open Source Information and the Reshaping of US Intelligence the Open Source Agency (OSA) has become the subject of competing visions–on one side, those who favor accountability, effectiveness, transparency, and respect for the public…..on the other, those who favor corruption, profitable waste, secrecy, and the exclusion of the public.

The simplified public articles are three:  1995 GIQ 13/2 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information; 2002 TIME Magazine The New Craft of Intelligence and 2006 Forbes Blank Slate On Intelligence.

The back-up book, the one intended to help the Department of Defense transform itself, INFORMATION OPERATIONS: All Information, All Languages, All the Time has since been supplemented by two briefings, 2009 DoD OSINT Leadership and Staff Briefings.

Amazon Page

Most recently, INTELLIGENCE for EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability provides the strategic, operational, tactical, and technical contexts for leveraging both Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and Multinational, Multiagency, Multidisciplinary, Multidomain Information-Sharing and Sense-Making (M4IS2) in order to create a prosperous world at peace–and at one third the cost of what the USA spends on war today.

This book had two pre-cursors, 2002 THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political and 2010 COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace.

That book has since been supplemented by a chapter, 2010 The Ultimate Hack Re-Inventing Intelligence to Re-Engineer Earth, in the just-published book, Counterterrorism and Open Source Intelligence; and by two articles and a monograph from the U.S. Army Strategic Studies Institute, all three found at 2010: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Trilogy Updated.

If an OSA is created–it can only be a success under diplomatic auspices as OMB has twice agreed (provided the Secretary of State asks for it as a sister agency to the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), it could–it should–host the Multinational Decision Support Centre (MDSC) as proposed to DoD and implicitly called for in several Defense Science Board (DSB) reports.  The MDSC  could be located in Tampa, Florida, as the Coalition Coordination Centre has been, but staffed by intelligence professionals instead of logistics professionals.

Put most simply, an OSA restores intelligence and integrity to the entirety of the US Government, and changes everything about how we do policy, acquisitions, and operations.  It restores the Republic.

See Also:

Continue reading “Reference: Open Source Agency (OSA) II”

Reference: Open Source Agency (OSA) I

About the Idea, Articles & Chapters, Briefings (Core), Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Legislation, Memoranda

The Open Source Agency (OSA) was first proposed by Robert Steele to the Open Source Council in 1992, as an Open Source  Center outside the wire.  The rationale was that best in class sources would change constantly, and access was needed to all information in all languages all the time.  CIA and MITRE conspired to substitute instead the Open Source Information System (OSIS), a still-anemic unproductive system with limited sources and no analytic tool-kit worthy of the name.

On this history, see:

Journal: LEXIS-NEXIS OSINT Kiss to CIA/OSC

History of Opposition (15)

Despite the history of opposition, and the fact that the CIA's Open Source Center (OSC) today only deals with eleven countries on a more or less regular basis, while going through the motions with others, a robust multinational network has been developed over time that includes at least 90 countries, some of which have made gains in harnessing the eight tribes of intelligence, some not.  The Nordics, and especially Sweden, have been especially effective, at furthering the concept of M4IS2 (multinational, multiagency, multidisciplinary, multidomain information-sharing and sense-making).

On this progress, see:

Historic Contributions (246)

Search: The Future of OSINT [is M4IS2-Multinational]

There remains a need for an Open Source Agency (OSA) that is under diplomatic auspices as suggested by Dr. Joe Markowitz and endorsed by Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02) and Robert Steele, both writing and speaking on this over the years.  Below are some references that bear directly on the need for and the means by which an OSA might be created.

2010: Human Intelligence (HUMINT) Trilogy Updated

2010 INTELLIGENCE FOR EARTH: Clarity, Diversity, Integrity, & Sustainability

Legislation: Smart Nation-Safe Nation Act of 2009

Memoranda: OSS CEO to DNI One-Pager

Memorandum: $2 Billion Obligation Plan Centered on Defense, for a New Open Source Agency

Memoranda: Creating a New Agency with a New Mission, New Methods, and a New Mind Set

Memoranda: Policy-Budget Outreach Tool

2006 INFORMATION OPERATIONS: All Information, All Languages, All the Time

2006 THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest

2006 Forbes Blank Slate On Intelligence

2002 THE NEW CRAFT OF INTELLIGENCE: Personal, Public, & Political

1995 GIQ 13/2 Creating a Smart Nation: Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information

1995 National Information Strategy 101 Presentation to CENDI/COSPO*

Winslow Wheeler: Analysis of US Bases Abroad

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 10 Security, Budgets & Funding, DoD, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence, Strategy, Waste (materials, food, etc)
Winslow Wheeler
Carlton Meyer, a former Marine Corps officer and editor of G2mil has produced an insightful analysis of US foreign bases to close.  The defenders of the status quo on the bases question like to paint those who want to close foreign bases as “isolationist.”  That sort of guttersnipe-baiting is rendered ignorant by Meyer's analysis.  You can easily see that from his introduction and from his analysis throughout.  In fact, some might become a little nervous that Meyer has an awful lot of American intervention in mind in with the reduced base structure he would advocate for the future.  On the other hand, Meyer is also not a sucker for the dysfunctional war advocacy from the interventionists in Congress and elsewhere.
Contact him directly at editor@G2mil.com.

Reference: USAWC Information Operations Primer

Advanced Cyber/IO, DoD
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Information Operations Primer (USAWC, AY 11, November 2010

This latest revision of the Information Operations Primer provides an overview of Department of Defense (DoD) Information Operations (IO) doctrine and organizations at the joint and individual service levels. The IO Primer begins with an overview of Information Operations, Strategic Communication and Cyberspace Operations. (Note: as the emergent concepts of Strategic Communication and Cyberspace continue to assume increasing importance, the Primer has expanded to include discussion and input of these topics). At each level it describes strategies or doctrine, agencies, organizations, and educational institutions dedicated to the information element of national power. Finally, the document concludes with an IO specific glossary and hyperlinks to information operations, strategic communication and cyberspace operations related websites.

This is a document prepared primarily for use by the staff, faculty, and students of the U.S. Army War College. Wherever possible, internet web sites have been given to provide access to additional and more up-to-date information. The book is intentionally UNCLASSIFIED so that the material can easily be referenced during course work, while engaged in exercises, and later in subsequent assignments.

Winslow Wheeler: Analysis of House Mood on Defense Cuts

03 Economy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 07 Other Atrocities, 10 Security, 11 Society, Articles & Chapters, Budgets & Funding, Commercial Intelligence, Corporations, Corruption, DoD, Government, InfoOps (IO), Intelligence (government), IO Deeds of War, Methods & Process, Military, Misinformation & Propaganda, Peace Intelligence, Policy, Politics of Science & Science of Politics, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy
Winslow Wheeler

Below is an important and interesting analysis of John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World of the “mood” of the House on defense issues.  I do not agree with all of the characterizations or implications (and I agree with some), but I do believe John (whom I have known professionally with respect for almost four decades) has collected some significant information.  From this and other data, I conclude:

1) No one should be surprised at the House' ambivalence on a defense issue like Libya.  It has been the hallmark of Congress for longer than I can recall to permit presidents to do as they please internationally while sniping from the sidelines and avoiding taking responsibility;

2) Congress pats itself on its own back for pretending to support frugality in the Pentagon by taking easy votes such as against the second engine for the F-35 (which SecDef Gates successfully painted as a pork program) and against a piece of the DOD funding for military bands (see below).  The size of the votes on matters that are actually significant, such as the Barney Frank/Ron Paul and the Mulvaney amendments to cut from $8.5 to $17 billion from the 2012 DOD budget, shows a new high-water mark for budget cutting in the Pentagon not seen in Congress since — by my recollection — in the mid-1980s when the so-called Military Reform Caucus and budget cutters like Chuck Grassley were fully active.

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Reference: USA Counterintelligence Glossary

Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), DoD, Intelligence (government)
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Primary Source (USG)

Back-Up Source (OSS)

Phi Beta Iota: This is an extraordinarily good contribution–a virtual compendium of every side of the secret world.  Amusingly it acknowledges that 90% of what we need to know comes from open sources of intelligence without noting the irony that we spend $80 billion on everything other than open sources.  It repeats the US Government mis-conception that open sources are “second-hand,” and it neglects multinational intelligence and counterintelligence precisely because the US Government refuses to be serious about that necessary evolution.  Over-all, an absolute pleasure to read, a serious contribution.