CIA Tracks Public Information For The Private Eye
Quote:
Secrets: the currency of spies around the world. The rise of social media, hash-tags, forums, blogs and online news sites has revealed a new kind of secret — those hiding in plain sight. The CIA calls all this information "open source" material, and it's changing the way America's top spy agency does business.
NPR recently got a rare behind-the-scenes look at the CIA's Open Source Center. It operates on the down-low, even though they deal with public material. We aren't allowed to tell you where the Open Source Center is. All we can say is that it's housed in an unmarked and unremarkable office building just off a nondescript, busy street.
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/22/145587...he-private-eye
Cheaper, faster, not always reliable
Back in the day, DIA would gain far more hard evidence and get it for nothing.
Open sources to some were a mixed blessing with little to no knowledge of the local culture and language. For some of us those sources were either a joke or the missing piece to the puzzle.
25 years later someone comes up with a basement full of newspapers :D
Most of the AID and State message traffic (5 copies of each) ended up as french fry paper right across the street from the embassy :rolleyes:
I'm really glad I shredded everything with our evac and draw down.
