Spy Agencies Turn To Online Sources For Info

palegray.net sends us to US News and World Report for an article about increased spy agency use of online sources. Turning to well-known destinations such as NPR and Wikipedia, folks in the intelligence world are increasingly filling their reports with information gleaned from the public domain. "A few days ago, a senior officer at the Pentagon called his intelligence officer into his office. The boss had heard a news report about China while driving to his office and wanted some answers. It wasn't a tough assignment, given the news coverage, but there was a hitch. 'There was plenty of information in the public domain about the topic,' recalls the intelligence officer, a 10-year veteran. 'And yet, if there wasn't some classified information cited in my report, the boss would never believe it was accurate.'"

Comments

How naive can people get?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Spy Agencies Turn To Online Sources For Info

How naive can people get? Even I spy on my friends and neighbors this way and have done so for years. Professionals have been doing it for much longer.

Re:How naive can people get?

[cdrguru]

There was a time when the overt data colection would get you executed as a spy,

Where have you been hiding? China imprisons such people even when they are clearly not working for anyone outside China. Many Middle East countries will certainly execute people that are reading the newspapers a little too closely.

When was the last time that an American was imprisoned or executed? It has been a while, at least back to the 1980s or so.

Re:How naive can people get?

[causality]

Actually one of the more interesting bits i've run into concerning modern espionage is based exactly on what you're describing there. Between the restrictions on covert operatives and the restrictions on us "officials and ambassadors" usually the actual black-mask stuff is outsourced to a foreign power. This allows the US to state they did not authorize whatever it was, deny that their agents had anything to do with it (carefully), and also show that they didn't break the statute that US officials and ambassadors cannot bribe foreign nationals.

Amazing how that works, isn't it? This is a completely hypothetical scenario: If you kill someone, you are charged with murder; if you contract a thug to kill somebody for you ... you are charged with murder. If you're a US official and you conduct the "black-mask stuff", you are breaking the law. If you're a US official and you conduct the "black-mask stuff" by proxy, why, that's fine and good and you get to enjoy doing so with impunity. Isn't that wonderful?

I seem to be in a tiny minority because I believe that government officials should be held to a stricter standard and punished much more severely when they break the law, because when they do it and especially when they either get away with it or receive a slap on the wrist, it's a threat to the entire concept of rule of law. The fevered egos who want political power are easily replaced -- if any are legally removed from power by means of due process and convicted of a crime, there are plenty more where they came from. The concept of rule of law is not so easily replaced.

Re:How naive can people get?

[HungryHobo]

Oh there are Special Circumstances. Times when actions not normally allowed must be taken. Drop a daisy cutter on the town to stop a viral outbreak, shoot the suspect who you think is about to set off a bomb, tap the phone of the guy you suspect has access to some terrible weapon.
There need to be mechanisms to decide when it was justified to break the law.

But when it's all over, the disease is contained, the bomb plot finished or foiled, the suspect found guilty or exonerated it all needs to be draged into the light.

The general who decided to break a law and bomb the town should have to stand before the people and show that what they did saved lives. Not investigated by a closed military court where his mate from boot camp is the judge and his golf friends are the jury.

The cop who shot the suspected bomber should stand before a public court, not a closed internal police investigation. Everyone should see the evidence, let the members of the society that's being protected decide if they are willing to accept such actions for the sake of more safety or if they can't tollerate them.

Let the agent who tapped the phones of suspects stand up and explain exactly why what he was doing was so important that he was willing to break the law. If the people decide if he was ultimatly justified.

But instead we get closed hearing, classified documents and amnesties for politicians friends.
There needs to be strict short limits for how long government documents can be kept secret with careful controls on extensions. If some operation needs to be kept secret for more than a few years or months then let them explain why to the supreme court (closed court sessions like this should be kept to a minimum).

Otherwise you get stories like this:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/07/09/alharamain_lawsuit/print.html

The name for this...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Interestingly, the name for intelligence derived from analyzijng public information (rather than spying) is "open sources".

Note the trailing "s".

better than using "curveball"

[Presto Vivace]

Truly everyone researches online, why would intelligence agencies be any different?

Re:better than using "curveball"

[Anonymous Coward]

It comes down to trust.

If you think everyone should trust what they read on the Internet, then God help you.

are you joking?

[commodoresloat]

It would be incompetent for them NOT to use the public domain resources available. The military is not and should not be in the business of "scooping" the media. Are you seriously suggesting that the military should ignore what is published in the media about a subject and only focus on private databases?

Re:are you joking?

[KGIII]

As are non-traditional media outlets. Everyone on the planet is biased. *gasp* Find me ONE media outlet, traditional or non-traditional, that only offers factual information and offers all the facts pertinent to the story without any commentary.

Go on...

I'll wait...

Re:Holy wiki batman... is it just me or.....

[dbIII]

The government is not as omnipotent as you think due to policies that make little sense. US Intelligence comes in for a lot of criticism due to a lot of it being done by people that fly in and out, don't even speak the language, and get everything from some form of remote sensing that removes context or tip offs from petty criminals which removes context. The British method was to have people living in the place for years that spoke the language and were completly loyal instead of a temporary bribe.

The major problem with US Intelligence from what we can see on the outside is the incredibly large number of unskilled political appointees and the ridiculous amount of petty infighting. They also took the fall for outright fabrication of intelligence that made the USA a laughing stock at the United Nations. I would not be suprised if most of the competant people left in disgust after that.

Re:Holy wiki batman... is it just me or.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the competent people were fired by Jimmy Carter. Unfortunately, that meant that only the incompetent political hacks were left. It will take the rest of my lifetime for that to be fixed.

China's interest in manipulating the public domain

[PhoenixHack]

I hardly find it surprising the senior officer wanted a second opinion to "news" derived from the official spin put out by Chinese government officials.

Re:public domain?

[TubeSteak]

What makes them think that material from Wikipedia and NPR is in the public domain?

Don't be daft.
"Public domain" does not only mean "no longer under copyright".

When intelligence agencies say "public domain" they mean "not-private" or "not confidential".

Re:DUH!

[CodeBuster]

That's not intelligence. It's what everyone already knows.

Obviously you have never worked in the intelligence business. The public domain is the first source of information for any intelligence agency and it generally contains a lot of useful information. As you yourself have said, a great deal of information can be gleaned using basic search techniques, cross-checking, and comparison of publicly available sources and it is relatively cheap too. So before you devote time, money, and resources to developing more information on a particular subject by non-public means, wouldn't you want to devote some time to reading Google news and checking basic facts with a few well placed queries? At the very least it would help you to decide what cases merit the time and effort of a more thorough investigation. Even the most powerful and pervasive intelligence gathering agencies do not have unlimited resources after all.