Review: Seeing the Invisible–National Security Intelligence in an Uncertain Age

5 Star, Intelligence (Commercial), Intelligence (Government/Secret), Intelligence (Public)

Seeing the InvisibleFirst Rate Primer for New World of Open Policy-Intel Deliberations,

April 7, 2007

Thomas Quiggin

The publisher, who has an office in the US, has very foolishly listed this book as being available only from Singapore, so a $25 book at this time is only available for $60 from the one person willing to claim they can ship it who will in fact buy it only when they are paid double for it. I have encouraged the author to prevail on the publisher to distribute the book from their office in New Jersey, so that well-intentioned Americans who wish to heal their Republic may acquire this excellent work directly from Amazon.

It was my good fortune to receive a copy of the book in galley form, and below I offer the same remarks that appear on the back of the book. The book describes Singapore's success with the Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS) program. I heard this program briefed in Canada by a Singapore Police Deputy Commissioner, and was enormously impressed. Singapore is doing everything right: emphasis on open sources of information, emphasis on open and inclusive analysis, emphasis on tools for processing instead of wasting billions on secretly collecting the 5% that is relevant, and so on. Here is what I was pleased to provide for the back jacket:

“This is one of the most original, broad-ranging, and indeed exciting books to emerge in the new era that juxtaposes asymmetric and non-traditional threats with distributed and innovative combinations of open sources and methods. Tom Quiggin fully understands that in the age of distributed infromation the concept of ‘central intelligence' is not only obsolete, but that effective intelligence cannot be achieved without the full cooperation of all organizations–governmental as well as non-governmental.

“This work is in my view the first major work in the new generation of intelligence and national security studies and will inform those who have to make the decisions and carry out the work, not only in government, but in the private and non-profit sectors where much of the innovation is occurring.

“With the author being most persuasive to the effect that ‘connecting the dots' for discrete event predictions is not within the capacity of the existing (secret) strategic intelligence community, anticipatory warning systems such as horizon scanning must not only be implemented for all forms of threat including communicable diseases, but they must be created with the full participations of all elements of society.”

The jacket identifies me as CEO of OSS.Net, Inc. but does not mention that I was the senior civilian responsible for creating the Marine Corps Intelligence Command in 1988, and served six tours in the clandestine service of the Central Intelligence Agency, including three overseas tours under cover, and three tours dealing with counterintelligence, advanced information processing, and future imagery and signals collection systems. I mention this because in my view the secret intelligence community as it now exists must be destroyed. We must start over working from outside in and rightside up. Instead of spending 99% of the funds on the 5% we can steal (but not process), we need to take the US intelligence budget of $60 billion a year, and break it into three parts:

1) Free online education in all languages available by the call to the five billion poor, who receive free cell phones as part of the deal.

2) Earth Intelligence Network done right (I have created the non-profit version of this together with Jim Turner's Transpartisan Policy Institute, as a stop gap pending a moral intelligent transpartisan Congress and Executive team being elected in the USA).

3) A mix of cladestine and technical secret intelligence collection, most done in collaboration with host governments and focused strictly on transnational crime including multinational corporate corruption, theft, and money launders, and on terrorism, with half the money spent on properly integrating all known information both open and secret.

The Game is ON. For those who wish to prosper in the newly-appreciated national security environment that this book by Thomas Quiggin addresses, I also recommend the books on Ecological Economics, Natural Capitalism, and Capitalism 3.0. If we all commit to informed democracy and moral capitalism, the future will be bright for all of us, including the five billion poor at the bottom of the pyramid, whom we must empower so that they can create wealth as C. K. Prahalad suggests in “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.”

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution
Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons (BK Currents)
Ecological Economics: Principles And Applications
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid

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Government Archive on Public Intelligence (1992-2006)

Government
Archives 1996-2006
Archives 1996-2006

2006

SA

Government Yekelo African Early Warning

2002

US

Government FSMO Foreign Military Studies Office

2000

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Government Steele Spies and Secrecy in an Open World

1999

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Government Coile Information Overlay for Preparing & Coping with Local Disasters

1999

CA

Government George OSINT: Islamic Unrest in China

1999

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Government Heidenrich Genocide Web Sites (At the Time)

1999

US

Government Heidenrich Sample Daily Briefing on Genocide

1999

UN

Government Marks Proposal for Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

1999

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Government OSS Proliferation Web Sites (At the Time)

1999

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Government OSS Sample Daily Briefing on Proliferation

1999

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Government Reserved OSINT: Foundation for Co-Ordination and Information Sharing

1999

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Government Sanz Nuclear Terrorism Literature Since 1992

1999

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Government Sovereign Information Sharing for the Lower End of the Spectrum

1999

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Government Steele Relevant Information: New Approach to Collection, Sharing, Analysis

1999

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Government Steele Web-Based Concept for a Global Information Sharing Environment

1999

CA

Government Stout & Quiggin OSINT: High Resolution Imagery for Anyone

1999

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Government Wing Optimizing Open Source Information Sharing in Australia

1999

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Government Wing OSINT in Australia: The Report

1998

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Government BVD Annual Report of the National Security Service

1998

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Government Cailloux Belgian Observations on Intelligence Oversight

1998

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Government Cailloux Report of the Intelligence Oversight Committee

1998

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Government Clerc Economic Intelligence

1998

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Government Dearth Government and the Information Marketplace

1998

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Government Hughes FBIS 1995-1998: Transition and Transformation

1998

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Government Lee Letter to HPSCI Urging Attention to Commercial Mapping Technology

1998

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Government Leijonhelm OSINT  and Information Sharing Between Government & Industry

1998

S. Africa

Government Mti OSINT, the African Renaissance, and Sustainable Development

1998

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Government Schlickman Ensuring Trust and Security in Electronic Communications

1998

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Government Steele INFORMATION PEACEKEEPING: The Purest Form of War

1998

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Government Steele Strategic Issues in National and Regional Intelligence & Security

1998

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Government Steele Clandestine Human Intelligence Successes, Failures, Possibilities

1998

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Government Steele (in French) Strategic Intelligence in the USA: Myth or Reality?

1997

UK

Government Andrew Presidents, Secret Intelligence, and Open Sources

1997

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Government Carroll CENDI Information Managers Group

1997

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Government Haakon Commercial Imagery Options and Trade-Offs

1997

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Government Hodge CENDI: Help!  Impact of the Internet on the Consumer

1997

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Government Johnson National Technical Information Center

1997

US/UK

Government Kerr & Herman Does the Intelligence Community Have a Future? (Two Items in One)

1997

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Government Robideau Department of Energy Technical Information Program

1996

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Government Kalil (NEC) Leveraging Cyberspace

1996

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Government Lucas (COSPO) The Open Source Information System

1995

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Government Markowitz Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO), Report on the Program

1995

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Government Peters INADEQUATE ANSWERS: Bureaucracy, Wealth, & Mediocrity (US IC)

1994

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Government Carroll Harsh Realities: S&T Acquisition Costs, Obstacles, and Results

1994

AU

Government Chantler Producing Intelligence in Australia: H National Open Source Foundation?

1994

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Government Devost Digital Threat: United States National Security and Computers

1994

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Government Wiener The Intelligence Community: An Outsider’s View

1993

SE

Government Heden & Dedijer The State of the National Intelligence and Security Community of Sweden

1992

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Government Cotter NASA Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities (Slides)

1992

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Government Cotter NASA Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities (Text)

1992

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Government Johnson NTIS Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities

1992

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Government Keyworth Government as a Customer in the Digital Age

1992

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Government McConnell Planned Revisions to Circular No. A-130

1992

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Government Molholm The CENDI Paradigm: How Some Federal Managers Have Organized

1992

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Government Mortimer LC FRD Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities

1992

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Government Riddle FBIS Open Source Intelligence Requirements & Capabilities

1992

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Government Steele Information Concepts & Doctrine for the Future

1992

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Government Studeman Teaching the Giant to Dance