Category: References

I will not replicate all that is at www.oss.net and to a much lesser extent, www.earth-intelligence.net, but do want to recognize a handful of extraordinary individuals by isolating their especially meritorious contributiions to the long-running debate about national intelligence reform and re-invention.

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2008 Defense Science Board Report on Integrating Sensor-Collected Intelligence

Defense Science Board, Military

There are five bottom-lines on remote sensors, this report addresses four of them:

1.  Managing sensors together adds value that cannot be achieved from advances in technology.

2.  Meta-tagging the data at source (something we recommended in 1988) enables a huge jump in both sensor processing and inter-sensor sense-making.

3.  All satellites are vulnerable to laser attacks generally, Chinese attacks specifically.

4.  Close-in matters more as hard targets get harder, deepeer, and more nuanced.

The report does not appear to address the complete lack of “full spectrum” processing.  We excel at “one of” multi-media integration efforts, we still cannot integrate all information in all mediums all the time, and especially not in near-real-time.

Sensor Data Integration
Sensor Data Integration
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Review: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy

5 Star, Commissions, Democracy, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy

The Single Best Examination of Secrecy Costs, October 16, 2008

Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I testified to this Commission, both publicly and also in a private session in the office of Daniel Patrick Moynihan (RIP).

This is the single best non-partisan overview of the costs of unnessary secrecy, as well as the imperatives of providing proper definition and protection of necessary secrets.

I note with appreciation that my testimony led him to include the words “open source” in his cover letter of transmittal to the White House.

See also:
Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life
Secrecy: The American Experience
Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

For a sense of the logical implementation of the findings of this Commission, see THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest.

For a sense of how we must radically alter the “closed circle” of national intelligence to embrace the entire Nation and indeed the Whole Earth, see Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace.

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Reference: Intelligence Community Directive (ICD) 205 Analytic Outreach

Analysis, Director of National Intelligence et al (IC), Methods & Process
ICD 205

This is an excellent directive that is being ignored across the entire U.S. Intelligence Community, and most speciicially is being violated by the unpressional narrow and unresponsive (and largely ignorant) behavior of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Open Source Center (OSC) which is supposed to be a service of common concern but has obstinantly refused to modernize since this matter was first brought up with its predecessor, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) in 1992 by the US Marine Corps.  For a critique of FBIS's rotten approach to open sources at that time, see 1992: USMC Critique of CIA/FBIS Plan for Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).  For the broader history of opposition see 2004 Modern History of Public Intelligence and the Opposition.

Analytic Outreach will not happen until the analysts themselves, and their branch chiefs, are given virtual “chips” they can cash in within a national and a defense open source intelligence program.  Long ago we called for $100,000 per year for each analysts, and $1 million per year for each branch chief, to support discretionary outreach, more often than not to uncleared foreign nationals and experts in the US wanting nothing to do with the secret world.  We specifically exclude “body shops” like CENTRA from consideration–if the individual analyst does not know specifically who is best in class and who to hire, they have not done their homework.  See the “cell” we first recommended to the Defense Intelligence Agency, note the financial individual able to execute credit card and other small contracts without further approvals, within the individual, branch, and division budgets.

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Reference: VISION 2015: A Globally Networked and Integrated Intelligence Enterprise [Suddenly Popular]

Director of National Intelligence et al (IC)
Great Hat, No Cattle
Great Hat, No Cattle

This is a brilliantly organized report with many stellar insights, all of which are undermined by the complete inability of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to accept the fact that 80%–at least– of what we need to know is not secret, not in English, and not owned or controlled by the U.S. Government.

Phi Beta Iota Editorial Comment (DOI: 11 August 2009)

This is perhaps the finest document in recent history to emerge from the U.S. Intelligence Community (US IC) for public study.  It ranks with Computer Aided Tools for the Analysis of Science & Technology (CATALYST) in its gifted–uteerly gifted–high-level description of the challenges and opportunities.  Everything in this document is both needed and achievable.

HOWEVER:

Continue reading “Reference: VISION 2015: A Globally Networked and Integrated Intelligence Enterprise [Suddenly Popular]”

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

Budgets & Funding, Memoranda

This is the budget created to support Col Vincent Stewart, USMC, then the action officer for surveying Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) reequirements and capabilities across the Department of Defense (DoD).  This amount–not necessarily these specific priorities–was offered to the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), which continues to have the only full-spectrum OSINT capability in the USA, but turned down by subordinates to the Combatant Commander who did not understand that the Long War is a war of both ideas, and universal coverage at the neighborhood level of granulaty, as Dr. Stephen Cambone so wisely called for in January 2004.

If $1.5 Billion is added to this budget for 50 Community Information-Sharing and Sense-Making Networks, a total of no less than $3 billion a year, and ideally $3.5 billion a year, is recommended.

$2B for OSA
$2B for OSA
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2008 Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power–Army Strategy Conference of 2008 Notes, Summary, & Article

Articles & Chapters, DoD
Draft JFQ Article
Article as Document

The Army Strategy Conference is generally the best and most serious show in town when it comes to thinking about its topic–strategy.  In 1998 the conference nailed the future, but the Services remained beholden to their budget share wars and contractor-driven bells and whistles for profit strategies–they betrayed the public interest.  In 2008 the conference again nailed it, and here is the draft article in both document form (click on the image) . The military talks about “we can't do it all” but the military leadership is still not serious about enabling inter-agency planning, programming, budgeting, and campaigning.

At the very bottom, following the full-text online, Frog left is the full detailed notes from this conference, and Frog right is the summary article of the 1998 conference.

 

 

2008 Notes
2008 Notes
1998 JFQ Article
1998 JFQ Article