By Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Microsoft Federal
I recently attended an interesting session at the Gov 2.0 Expo entitled “Open Source Spying: 2010” which detailed the current state of information sharing within the intelligence community. Microsoft’s own Lewis Shepherd (@lewisshepherd) was on the panel, joined by New York Times Magazine reporter Clive Own, Chris Rasmussen (U.S. Intelligence Community) and Matthew Burton (formerly of the Defense Intelligence Agency). Back in 2006 Clive wrote a story on how the technology limitations within the U.S. intelligence community were hindering the exchange of crucial data, featuring Matthew’s experience at DNI in 2003. Matthew was accustomed to using real-time social media technologies like wikis, blogs and instant messaging in professional communications, but found that very few of those tools were being used within the Intel community, and when they were connections were typically siloed by individual agency – NSA, CIA or DNI.
Information sharing is key for any organization, but within the intelligence community it’s absolutely essential. Web 2.0 technologies hold incredible promise for “connecting the dots”, and Wednesday’s panelists all agreed that it’s time to leverage them as part of a radical shift in daily operations. Intellipedia, the intelligence community’s comprehensive wiki, is a great resource, but in practice panelists say that it’s not being trusted for actual analysis. Social media tools simply aren’t being used to vet “truth”, and the information they produce isn’t being relied upon as actionable intel.
It’s understandable why this might be the case. Intelligence agents deal with the most highly classified and sensitive information in the world, and have been using processes to protect that information for years. Chris called it the “three-ring binder intelligence culture” - largely paper-based and operating on the assumption that if information wasn’t stolen, it isn’t valuable. He called it the “finished intelligence process”, and it’s extremely time consuming - with each agency producing individual reports like an independent newspaper. Web 2.0 resources could further the shared knowledge based of the entire community, rather than duplicating disparate efforts. There is some cultural resistance to new methods and technologies, but inaction might be the most dangerous option at this point. 9/11 showed how important information sharing amongst all levels of government can be, and our intelligence apparatus must have a communications infrastructure that connects all stakeholders. Panelists were strongly in agreement that a great first step would be having the three major intelligence agencies report to a central command, and mandating that IT systems are connected and able to communicate.
As we saw with the recent Iranian political protests, social media networks can be an extremely powerful information resource for governments around the world. In addition to using Web 2.0 technologies for internal analysis, intelligence agencies must find ways to gather valuable public information that exists on social media networks and analyze it out on the Web. The good news is that there is hope for major positive change. As Wyatt Kash of 1105 Media detailed in his recap of the session, the panel felt that shrinking budgets may actually push intelligence leaders to “do more with less”, and become more open to the incredible promise of “living intelligence” and and mashups. The work that intelligence analysts do on a daily basis is critical to our national security, and by incorporating tools like wikis, instant messaging and shared data resources, we can help them do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.
BLUF: The problem isn't the tech or the will, it's the culture and the top-down requirements. It's as easy to change as simply putting emphasis on developing what's there.
The problem is not that the resources aren't out there, it's just that they are underemphasized by leaders who could use them. You have individual analysts that are required to do things the conventional way, and it's so resource intensive that there is little time left over to update things like intellipedia or work on open-source collaborative efforts.
I think one pervasive problem is the method of rating the value of an analyst, which is either in the number of reports, or the impact (which is usually measured in a highly bureaucratic fashion) of the reports that analyst produces, so in taking the time to work in a collaborative environment, that analyst is actually lessening their value on paper. A leadership culture that emphasizes updating Intel 2.0 tools over conventional intel products, and a reduction in conventional intel production requirements would go a long way towards energizing and validating the Intel 2.0 community.
Another problem to address is the one in the mind of the analysts. You would not believe the number of analysts that when approached with the concept of collaborating openly with other analysts on a problem of interest, somewhere in the conversation is, "and how can we lock it down or password protect it?". I want to just say - from who? and why would you not want it to be discovered and improved upon by someone else that is interested in that topic? Seriously, there is a real problem there, and I don't know any other way to force discussions into collaborative spaces other than to take away their own individual production processes and have their leadership direct them to use open, shared production lines that are accessible across the IC. Intellipublia for example, a web based production capability that is available across the entire IC, why not a service like that one? There are others, but by forcing the discussion into the open, more interested parties can work on it, improve it, and make it better. Is that not what decision makers would like to have to make decisions with? Not biased by agency politics?