Reference: CRS 2010 Intelligence Issues for Congress

Congressional Research Service

29 Pages Online

Tip of the Hat to Gary Price at LinkedIn.

Phi Beta Iota: This is of passing interest as an overview of what people are thinking about at the shallowest possible level in relation to the Wall Street/Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC).

STRIKE ONE: The document still does not understand that overt Human Intelligence (HUMINT) is 90% of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), or that OSINT is a discipline in its own right as well as an interactive element of any properly-managed classified discipline (none are).

STRIKE TWO: The document fails to represent the near-total failure of the US Intelligence Community to meet the needs of all consumers below the level of President, and does not appear to recognize the sharp negative assessments of General Tony Tiny (4% “at best”) or General Mike Flynn (“irrelevant”).

STRIKE THREE: The document fails to present Congress with the deeply documented alternatives to unilateral top-down very expensive technical-collection driven secret intelligence, and it especially fails to outline the immediate possibilities of the Open Source Agency (OSA) as called for in the 9-11 Commission Report on pages 23 and 423 (but under diplomatic auspices), or the integrated elements of that agency, the Strategy Center advocated by General Tony Zinni and the Multinational Decision Support Centre proposed by comprehensive architect Robert Steele.

Reference: Congressional Research Service Report Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Issues for Congress

Congressional Research Service

Below is the 2007 report on Open Source Intellience (OSINT).  It was a hugely mediocre effort through no fault of the junior author, Al Cumming, who is now the senior author for intelligence at the Congressional Research Service (CRS).  A former Staff Director of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Mr. Cumming is a bit more inquisitive, integrative, and evaluative, all necessary in helping Congress understand emerging capabilities that are still resisted by the mandarins of secrecy while not well understood by the intellience consumers who should be doing their own OSINT but do not.

CRS OSINT

Click on the Frog to read a vitrolic angry critique by OSS CEO Robert Steele, possibly the last angry document closing out 20 years of blind opposition from the secret world.  This battle is OVER.  The good people of America have won.  Public intelligence in the public interest is here to stay, and we anticipate a growing demand to cut the secret intelligence budget in half so as to properly fund OSINT, education, and research essential to restoring the competitiveness of the USA.

OSS CEO Critique
OSS CEO Critique