Congressman Rob Simmons got into the Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) arena in 1995, and grew to understand vastly more than those serving in the U.S. Government, then or now. He was among the first if not the only Member to recognize that Information Operations (IO) was the totality of the information and intelligence spectrum, encompassing not just “intelligence” but also logistics, friendly force information, and all other information. He understood the Special Operations Command point of view: “Secret intelligence is 10% of All-Source Intelligence; and All-Source Intelligence is 10% of Information Operations.” Below is his Foreword to the first book on IO to be written from an intelligence foundation but with a World Brain perspective.
Doug Naquin, the senior Central Intelligence (CIA) officer responsible for Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and for the Open Source Center (OSC), the half-baked replacement for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), is a good person trapped in a bad system. He not only does not know what he does not know, but is held in multiple strait-jackets by CIA security, CIA legal, and CIA culture.
In November 2005 we recognized the severe damage that Doug Naquin–with the best of intentions–was doing to the US military, and we tried to stop him. Below is the letter that was sent to the Deputy Director of National Intelligence, General Michael Hayden, USAF. He ignored the letter.
Naquin is still doing damage. Apart from misrepresentations to the Combatant Commanders (COCOMs), the personnel exchange is sending unqualified FBIS/OSC people out to the military where they not only have no clue, but they also try to spin everything to CIA's advantage. The Department of Defense (DoD) needs to realize that the OSC is not a “full-spectrum” OSINT shop; that it can barely handle CIA's own internal requirements (and by some accounts, is considered argely worthless among the CIA analysts as well)
This letter was on target. It is still on target. It is time for Doug Naquin to do what he does best: stay on campus at CIA and stop messing up the US military with misprepresentations, failures to perform, and exported personnel that are not worth the C Rations it takes to feed them.
Representative Rob Simmons (R-CT-02) Obtains 417 House Votes In Favor of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) as Essential Part of Reform Effort
WASHINGTON, June 26 /PRNewswire/ — According to Robert David Steele Vivas, CEO of OSS.Net, Inc., a global commercial intelligence corporation, “Representative Rob Simmons is going to be a vital contributor to Congressional deliberations on reform of the U.S. Intelligence Community.” The House of Representatives passed by a vote of 417 to 1 his amendment to bolster our national security and strengthen our nation's intelligence capabilities. The Simmons amendment directs the Director of Central Intelligence to focus on the importance of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), and report to Congress in six months on the progress being made in using this under-utilized intelligence discipline. The lawmaker's amendment was incorporated into H.R. 4548, the “Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005,” which passed the House by a vote of 360-61. According to Steele, “The Simmons amendment enables a conference discussion on OSINT, and makes possible the establishment of a national OSINT program as part of the final legislation. We who have advocated OSINT reform since 1988 are explicitly seeking $125 million per year for an independent field activity of the Department of Defense, with $10 million per year multinational OSINT collection centers in each theater of operations.”
“The ‘information explosion' has dramatically increased both the quality and quantity of the information available in the public sector,” Simmons said. “Because this information is unclassified, it can be shared quickly and freely, and acted upon. Unfortunately, our country's intelligence service has under-utilized OSINT. The time has come to revisit the importance of Open Source Intelligence. It not only saves time and money, it saves lives.”
ABOUT CONGRESSMAN ROB SIMMONS: Congressman Rob Simmons served 37 years in the U.S. Army, starting as a Private and retiring in 2003 as a Colonel. He earned two Bronze Star Medals for his service in Vietnam. He is one of only two Members of Congress with clandestine experience, serving ten years in the CIA's Directorate of Operations. He worked with Senator Barry Goldwater and with Bill Casey from 1981-1985, while Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is a member of the House Armed Services Committee. His press representative is Meghan Curran, who can be reached at (202) 225-2076.
This bill was NOT introduced, it was a variation of a much simpler bill created by Congressman Rob Simmons' staff. A version went into the book THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest that enjoys a Foreword from Congressman Simmons, and there is today a 2009 version of the Act that has facotred in the needs of Homeland Security and the opportunities in Civil Affairs and in Multinational Information-Sharing and Sense-Making.
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.
