Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): merged thread

[SWJED]

9 Nov. New York Times - Intelligence Center Is Created for Unclassified Information. Excerpt follows:

"Top intelligence officials announced on Tuesday the creation of a new agency, the Open Source Center, to gather and analyze information from the Web, broadcasts, newspapers and other unclassified sources around the world."

"The premise of the center, announced as part of the restructuring of the nation's intelligence agencies by the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, is that some critical information to understand threats to national security requires neither spies nor satellites to collect."

"This 'open source' information can include anything from sermons broadcast from radical mosques in the Middle East to reports in the provincial Chinese press of possible avian flu outbreaks. Such material has often been undervalued by government policymakers, in part because it lacks the cachet of information gathered by more sensitive methods, intelligence officials said..."

Moderator's Note

Six threads have been merged here. Note there is separate one on Google Earth, which remains untouched.