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Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is an intelligence gathering discipline that involves collecting information from open sources and analyzing it to produce usable intelligence. In the intelligence community, the term "open" refers to overt, publicly available sources (as opposed to covert or classified sources); it is not related to open-source software. OSINT includes a wide variety of information and sources:

Media - newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and computer-based information.
Public data - government reports, official data such as budgets and demographics, hearings, legislative debates, press conferences, speeches.
Professional and academic - conferences, symposia, professional associations, academic papers, and subject matter experts.
Most information has geospatial dimensions, but many often overlook the geospatial side of OSINT: not all open source data is unstructured text. Examples of geospatial open source include hard and softcopy maps, atlases, gazetteers, port plans, gravity data, aeronautical data, navigation data, geodetic data, human terrain data (cultural and economic), environmental data, commercial imagery, LIDAR, hyper and multi-spectral data, airborne imagery, geo-names, geo-features, urban terrain, vertical obstruction data, boundary marker data, geospatial mashups, spatial databases, and web services.

The caricature of an open source analyst or practitioner is often of one who crawls the net reading reports and news articles (unstructured data). Most of the geospatial data mentioned above is integrated, analyzed, and syndicated using geospatial software like a Geographic Information System (GIS) not a browser per se.

OSINT is distinguished from research in that it applies the process of intelligence to create tailored knowledge supportive of a specific decision by a specific individual or group.

OSINT is defined by the Department of Defense (DoD), as "information of potential intelligence value that is available to the general public".

OSINT is, as of 2005, defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget under the category of "Forces And Direct Support" and specifically for the DoD under Commercial Code M320 as

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Collection/Processing

A wide variety of vendors sell information products specifically within this category.

Value

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The secret intelligence world, which has resisted any significant expenditures on OSINT for the past fifty years, is finally beginning to slowly adapt to the modern world. According to the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction report submitted in March 2005, OSINT must be included in the all-source SECRET intelligence process for the following reasons (as stated in the report):

The ever-shifting nature of our intelligence needs compels the IC to quickly and easily understand a wide range of foreign countries and cultures. - … today’s threats are rapidly changing and geographically diffuse; it is a fact of life that an intelligence analyst may be forced to shift rapidly from one topic to the next. Increasingly, IC professionals need to quickly assimilate social, economic, and cultural information about a country—information often detailed in open sources.
Open source information provides a base for understanding classified materials. Despite large quantities of classified material produced by the IC, the amount of classified information produced on any one topic can be quite limited, and may be taken out of context if viewed only from a classified-source perspective. Perhaps the most important example today relates to terrorism, where open source information can fill gaps and create links that allow analysts to better understand fragmented intelligence, rumored terrorist plans, possible means of attack, and potential targets.
Open source materials can protect sources and methods. Sometimes an intelligence judgment that is actually informed with sensitive, classified information can be defended on the basis of open source reporting. This can prove useful when policymakers need to explain policy decisions or communicate with foreign officials without compromising classified sources.
Only open source can store history. A robust open source program can, in effect, gather data to monitor the world’s cultures and how they change with time. This is difficult, if not impossible, using the snapshots provided by classified collection methods.

Process

Information collection in OSINT is generally a different problem from collection in other intelligence disciplines where obtaining the raw information to be analyzed may be a major difficultly, particularly if it is to be obtained from non-cooperative targets. In OSINT, the chief difficulty is in identifying relevant, reliable sources from the vast amount of publicly available information. However, this is not as great a challenge for those who know how to access local knowledge and how to leverage human experts who can create new tailored knowledge on the fly.

History

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In the fall of 1992, Senator David Boren, then Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, sponsored the National Security Act of 1992, attempting to achieve modest reform in the U.S. Intelligence Community. His counterpart on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was Congressman McCurdy. The House version of the legislation included a separate Open Source Office, at the suggestion of Larry Prior, a Marine Reservist familiar with the MCIC experience and then serving on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence staff.

The Aspin-Brown Commission stated in 1996 that US access to open sources was "severely deficient" and that this should be a "top priority" for both funding and DCI attention.

In issuing its July 2004 report, the 9/11 Commission recommended the creation of an open-source intelligence agency, but without further detail or comment. Subsequently, the WMD Commission (also known as the Robb-Silberman Commission) report in March 2005 recommended the creation of an Open Source Directorate at the CIA.

Following these recommendations, in November 2005 the Director of National Intelligence announced the creation of the DNI Open Source Center. The Center was established to collect information available from "the Internet, databases, press, radio, television, video, geospatial data, photos and commercial imagery." In addition to collecting openly available information, it would train analysts to make better use of this information. The Center absorbed the CIA's previously existing Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), originally established in 1941, with FBIS head Douglas Naquin named as director of the Center.

In December 2005, the Director of National Intelligence appointed Eliot A. Jardines as the Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source to serve as the Intelligence Community's senior intelligence officer for open source and to provide strategy, guidance and oversight for the National Open Source Enterprise.

The Director of National Intelligence's Chief Information Officer, MG Dale Meyerrose, USAF Ret., has broken with the past and sponsored both an open forum on open standards for information sharing, and a major conference open to foreigners, to discuss all aspects of the U.S. Intelligence Community's Intelink program for sharing and making sense of all sources of information. Note: the original Open Source Information System (OSIS) has been re-named Intelink-SBU.

In February 2006 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld seems to have acknowledged the importance of open media as a component of national security in the information age.

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Government

Activities distinct from research & development in that they focus on decision-support.

Generic monitoring and other activities associated with the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, to take one prominent example of open source information capabilities, are not considered OSINT unless--as FBIS has done--they are directly supportive of specific needs such as the hunt for Bin Laden.

The Library of Congress sponsors the Federal Research Division (FRD}.

The Congressional Research Service produces useful compendiums that support legislative decision-making.

Military

The Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Dr. Stephen Cambone told the Security Affairs Support Association (SASA) in January 2004 that he required universal coverage, 24/7, and the sub-state level of granularity. Encouraged in part by the Defense Science Board reports on Strategic Communication and Transition to and From Hostilities, he created the Defense Open Source Program (DOSP). As of 5 July 2006 executive agency for this program has not been assigned.

Within the U.S. military, there are a number of important OSINT activities, including:

US Army Foreign Military Studies Office
US Army Asia Studies Detachment
Open Source Branch, Joint Intelligence Center, U.S. Special Operations Command
Foreign Media Monitoring in Support of Information Operations, U.S. Strategic Command

Law enforcement

Law Enforcement OSINT applies Open source intelligence (OSINT) to the prediction, prevention, investigation, and procecution of criminals including terrorists.

Examples of successful law enforcement OSINT include Scotland Yard OSINT; Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) OSINT.

INTERPOL and EUROPOL experimented with OSINT units for a time, but they appear to have atropied with the departure of their individual champions.

New York Police Department (NYPD) is known to have an OSINT unit.

Academia

Academic OSINT is best represented by the Institute of Intelligence Studies at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsyvania.

Increasingly universities are finding that in addition to traditional research into the frontiers of science and social science, they can compete for contracts and grants to produce Open source intelligence. An example of one successful academic OSINT enterprise focused on agricultural insurance fraud and other detectable patterns of abuse, is the Center for Agribusiness Excellence at Tarleton State University in Texas.

Business

Business OSINT encompasses Commercial Intelligence, Competitor Intelligence, and Business Intelligence.

In the course of collecting and exploiting relevant information for business purposes, Information Brokers and Private Investigators may be used.

References

Lowenthal, Mark M. "Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy," 2nd Ed. (Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2003) p. 79.
USA Department of Defense definition supplied by About
FAIR Act Inventory Commercial Activities Inventory Function Codes
(The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities, 378-379). Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
See page 413 of the 9-11 Commission Report (pdf).
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. "ODNI Announces Establishment of Open Source Center". Press release, 8 November 2005.
Ensor, David. "The Situation Report: Open source intelligence center". CNN, 8 November 2005.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence "ODNI Senior Leadership Announcement". Press release, 7 December 2005.
"New Realities in the Media Age: A Conversation with Donald Rumsfeld". Council on Foreign Relations. February 17, 2006. Retrieved 2006-07-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

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