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| United States Department of Defense (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
September 13th, 2012 by Steven Aftergood
A new U.S. Army publication provides an
introduction to open source intelligence, as understood and practiced by the
Army.
“Open-source
intelligence is the intelligence discipline that pertains to intelligence
produced from publicly available information that is collected, exploited, and
disseminated in a timely manner to an appropriate audience for the purpose of
addressing a specific intelligence and information requirement,” the document
says.
“The world is being
reinvented by open sources. Publicly available information can be used by a
variety of individuals to [achieve] a broad spectrum of objectives. The
significance and relevance of open-source intelligence (OSINT) serve as an
economy of force, provide an additional leverage capability, and cue technical
or classified assets to refine and validate both information and intelligence.”
The new manual is
evidently intended for soldiers in the field rather than professional analysts,
and it takes nothing for granted. At some points, the guidance that it
offers is remedial rather than state of the art.
For example, “if
looking for information about Russian and Chinese tank sales to Iraq, do not
use ‘tank’ as the only keyword in the search. Instead, use additional defining
words such as ‘Russian Chinese tank sales Iraq’.”
But the manual
reflects the ongoing maturation of open source intelligence (OSINT), and it
contains several observations of interest.
“The reliance on
classified databases has often left Soldiers uninformed and ill-prepared to
capitalize on the huge reservoir of unclassified information from publicly
available information and open sources,” the manual states.
Classification can
also be a problem in open source intelligence, however, and “concern for OPSEC
[operations security] can undermine the ability to disseminate inherently
unclassified information.”
“Examples of
unclassified information being over-classified [include] reported information
found in a foreign newspaper [and a] message from a foreign official attending
an international conference.”
Therefore, pursuant
to Army regulations, “Army personnel will not apply classification or other
security markings to an article or portion of an article that has appeared in a
newspaper, magazine, or other public medium,” although the resulting OSINT
analysis might be deemed “controlled unclassified information.”
Curiously, the new manual itself is blocked from access
by the general public on Army websites (such as this one). But an
unrestricted copy was released by the Army on request.
Somewhat relatedly,
the Department of Defense this week published a new Instruction on DoD Internet Services and Internet-Based
Capabilities, DODI 8550.01, September 11, 2012.
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