Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Interestingly, the name for intelligence derived from analyzijng public information (rather than spying) is "open sources".
Note the trailing "s".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Can you imagine if they got into an edit war with Osama on Wikipedia?
"Due to increased intelligence gathering online, we have come to believe fighters in Iraq have developed some sort of animal growth hormone, capable of increasing fertility exponentially. What they plan to do with it is unknown, but the fact stands, the elephant population in Africa has tripled over the past six months!
Trivia:
* African elephants are not normally found all over Africa
* Elephants have been in many films, and tend to be used as trucks"
"I pulled facts from the public domain and fit them together into a well-researched report with accurate citations". Booooring.
"I'm presenting this report because I know you're cleared, and I believe you have the need to know. It's TOP SECRET, Compartmentalized, Code Fushia". Sex-ay!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
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?
Seriously. Most spying is not covert at all. Most of our spies work openly, either here or in embassies in other nations, simply reading the local press and other local public information. This is called "official cover", but the spies aren't in any way covert (it now US law that if a memebr of, say, the CIA has ever been posted overseas with official cover, they can never do covert work - because CIA managers tried to get cute and lots of people died).
The one thing a CIA employee will never do is directly collect secret information from a forieng government - they're not sneaking into government buildings at night photographing secret documents with tiny cameras, or planting bugs, or etc. Overt agents just read the press (and get the mood on the street). Covert agents recuit trusted locals to do any sneaky stuff (often posing as a memebr of some other nation's covert intelligence arm - whatever nation the source is sympathetic to).
There was a time when the overt data colection would get you executed as a spy, so there's a historical reson for our overt agents to pose as State Department officials, but it's not exactly a secret these days (anyone in an American embassy is just automatically assumed to be a spy), and most useful and trustworthy information comes this way.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This is not news. Intelligence gathering has been from two types of operations. Covert is the stuff spy movies are made of with wire taps, break-ins, etc. Less glamorous is the overt gathering of info which is still a huge part of any intelligence operation. This is classic observation of publicly exposed information. Overt intelligence is still kept under wraps as it is not a good idea to reveal just what you are looking for.
Overt intelligence includes reading local newspapers, picking up over the air radio traffic, including encrypted (who and how much traffic is important even without breaking the code) and simply watching train, ship, truck traffic. A train load of military vehicles doesn't need covert operations to notice. The fact you noticed is often classified. A fishing boat using lots of encrypted radio traffic is of interest for example, but watching ports and keeping track of where it visits is an overt operation, but what is found out is kept under wraps from the public for good reason.
Watching train watchers, and other sets of eyes online is the only new angle in addition to picking up local newspapers and watching trains arrive and leave. It saves on manpower and may pick up something of interest.
Understanding what happened to the nuclear core of the Trogan Nuclear plant does not require covert ops to know the core was loaded on a boat and shipped up the Columbia River. If it headed out to sea instead, it would have been noticed without covert ops.
The truth shall set you free!
Now we know why the CIA etc has been so often completely off base -- they've been getting their information from Slashdot!
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.
Funny thing is, all that takes is getting someone else to do the actual spying/bribing. Also interesting, it's thanks to this exact situation that is why canada has some of the best covert ops and communications interceptions people in the world.
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.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
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