Defense Daily Network Special Report, posted 5 May 1998 at
Executive Summary
DoD policy, acquisitions, and operations can be greatly enhanced and advanced through the use of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). Several aspects of post-Cold War politico-military issues lend themselves to an increased use of OSINT to assist DoD policy-makers, acquisition program managers, and operational commanders:
(1) Contingencies tend to arise in lower Tier nations (per PDD-35) where U.S. classified capabilities are least applicable or largely unavailable.
(2) Warning of these crises has not required classified collection.
(3) These issues have required increased reliance on international organizations and non-traditional allies with whom information must be shared, which is difficult if not impossible with classified sources.
(4) The "information explosion" has increased the amount of available information, while also creating a new "intelligence gap" between what needs to be known, and what can be processed and exploited.
OSINT, like all other intelligence sources, is more than information. It represents a careful sifting, selecting, analyzing and presenting of open source material on a timely basis. OSINT should be a valuable contributor to "all source" intelligence, although it continually gets short shrift throughout the intelligence and policy communities.
Properly developed and implemented, the OSINT support process for DoD should include SI/TK buffers and full security assurances, proper attention to copyright compliance, access to all foreign language sources as well as automated translation technologies, very strong emphasis on source validation, and full access to supporting materials by DoD analysts and action officers.
OSINT can help DoD in two ways: (1) crisis support; and (2) support to on-going operations, bringing to bear in both cases the best and most relevant open sources to respond to established DoD needs with OSINT rather than just information. OSINT includes global geospatial data and global logistics information.
Bureaucratic misperceptions notwithstanding, OSINT is not free to current users and is not being supplied by the Intelligence Community to DoD in any significant way. However, a modest investment by DoD elements in OSINT can significantly multiply the effectiveness of current classified intelligence capabilities while simultaneously improving general intelligence support to DoD policy makers, acquisition managers, and warfighters.
Open Source Intelligence: Private Sector Capabilities to Support DoD Policy, Acquisitions, and Operations(1)
By Mr. Robert D. Steele(2) President, OSS Inc., and
Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal(3) , President OSS USA
"…the concept of UN intelligence promises to turn traditional principles on their heads. Intelligence will have to be based in information that is collected primarily by overt means, that is by methods that do not threaten the target state or group and do not compromise the integrity or impartiality of the UN."(4)
"If it is 85% accurate, on time, and I can share it, this is a lot more useful to me than a compendium of Top Secret Codeword materials that are too much, too late, and require a safe and three security officers to move around the battlefield." (5)
Introduction: DoD and Open Source Intelligence. Faced with ever-increasing requirements for intelligence support--particularly in Tier III and Tier IV countries where classified capabilities have not been focused and operational funds have not been pre-programmed--the U.S. military has discovered the unique value of commercial imagery and developed EAGLE VISION and JOINT VISION. Commercial imagery is one small portion of the remarkable range of open sources that can support DoD policy-makers, acquisition program managers, and operational commanders. This paper proposes that DoD develop a concept of operations for providing open source intelligence (OSINT) to all elements of DoD, in both CONUS and OCONUS.
OSINT is uniquely suited for support to DoD operations because OSINT relies exclusively on information and expertise obtained through legal and ethical means. This gives OSINT greater utility and flexibility in working with Congress, with foreign coalition partners, and with civilian agencies not routinely cleared for classified information. There are three primary reasons for this:
First, contingencies have tended to arise in lower Tier countries (as defined by PDD-35)--such as Haiti or Somalia--where the United States is paying much less attention overall and where national collection resources are least likely to provide much useful information, especially at the outset of a crisis. These are also areas where analytical expertise has been cut back into order to meet demands within the top Tiers and the Hard Targets. As DCI Tenet himself has observed, the Intelligence Community cannot now cover the hard targets and also provide global coverage.
Second, the lead-ups to these issues have not relied on highly classified intelligence as was often the case during the Cold War. Many of these situations -- physical conditions in Somalia, the existence of a junta in Haiti, Milosevic's early statements of his intentions re Bosnia, refugee flows into Goma, Zaire -- have been evident from unclassified sources.
Third, these issues have emphasized recourse to international organizations and broad diplomatic and military coalitions beyond the bounds of the United States' traditional allies and intelligence partners. These are not instances in which much classified intelligence can be easily used, given the increasing need to share information across a broad spectrum of partners.
Fourth, The "information explosion" has increased the amount of available information, while also creating a new "intelligence gap" between what needs to be known, and what can be processed and exploited. Both producers and consumers of intelligence are being flooded with information of mixed value, and both lack the expertise and tools to filter, distill, summarize, visualize, and digest the "nuggets".
OSINT has the advantages of providing a great deal of the intelligence that DoD would find useful as soon as the crisis breaks; of being available to DoD independently and without waiting for the DCI and CIA to sort out their own priorities and needs; and of being more easily used within DoD in terms of sharing it with politico-military partners or coalition forces not cleared for classified.
The Characteristics of OSINT -- Intelligence, Not Information. OSINT, also known as unclassified intelligence or, in the business community, as "decision support" or "business intelligence", must be carefully distinguished from open source information (OSIF), which is acquired in support of both the OSINT process carried out by the private sector, and the all-source process carried out by the U.S. Intelligence Community. OSIF consists of volumes of multi-media and multi-lingual information gathered for further processing and consideration. OSINT, in sharp contrast, integrates world-class human expertise with an integrated human-technical process to produce only "just enough, just in time" intelligence--information tailored to support a specific decision...
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