2 Questions: Do You Write An Intelligence Blog and What's Your Favorite?

[SteveMetz]

Interesting thread - and thanks for all mention (SMC), both favorable and less so. An interesting offshoot to this thread might be crappy self-proclaimed IBs.



We'd love to pull a dissonance dissipating pic-SWAP at SMC for that particular post if a decent surrogate pic can be suggestedby other. Just remember, vice is a slippery slope so be ye careful with thoust placating suggestions unto us.

Several of our/my fav IB's have already been mentioned here. Off the beaten path, and perhaps not quite a blog, is SAAG

Sheila told me she is taking flak from some of her fellow anthropologists over the monograph. The same old "blah blah" about being a "sell out." I really find that group of that profession nauseating. They have elected to make themselves irrelevant by adopting an old, tired, discredited leftist ideology, then they throw tantrums like a three year old because the world recognizes their irrelevance and pays no attention to them.

Not that I'm angry or anything!

[Jedburgh]

Intel Dump is not just strictly intel but a good read >> http://www.intel-dump.com/

Again, not an "intelligence" blog, oriented or focused. Another example of a blog using a title that is not reflective of its actual content is JIOX-Intelligence Tradecraft and Analysis. Plenty of useful links, not much commentary, and absolutely nothing to do with the lable chosen - aside from all the external links.

It may seem petty, but the frequent and common misuse of the term intelligence is a pet peeve of mine. Just because someone throws together a bunch of articles, commentary and links related to various aspects of the COE does not make it "intelligence". Cutting and pasting news articles is not equivalent to producing OSINT. There are hundreds of those types of sites out there - the vast majority are truly amateurish crap - and a few do a really worthwhile job of finding a specific focus, producing well-crafted entries with useful links, as well as putting together a decent presentation of the blog itself. Many of the good ones have been mentioned here. None of'em are "intelligence". Commentary and opinion is not analysis.

Of course, there are plenty of members of the newly emergent community of so-called "intelligence analysts" at DHS and the Bureau (as well as at state/local level) who are guilty of exactly the same thing, but with pretenses of being professional members of the IC. They cut and paste open source articles into a bulletin, add a generic statement or paragraph about potential threat and maintaining vigilance yadda yadda, and then tack on FOUO/LES and distro the thing. In most cases, they are of a far lower quality than a blog entry in one of the better blogs that have been mentioned in this thread. Hell, there was a recent joint DHS-FBI bulletin whose sole source was a Debka article. Those "analysts" should have been fired on the spot.

[selil]

It may seem petty, but the frequent and common misuse of the term intelligence is a pet peeve of mine. Just because someone throws together a bunch of articles, commentary and links related to various aspects of the COE does not make it "intelligence".

So, how do you feel about Treverton's book "Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information?

[JeffC]

It may seem petty, but the frequent and common misuse of the term intelligence is a pet peeve of mine. Just because someone throws together a bunch of articles, commentary and links related to various aspects of the COE does not make it "intelligence". Cutting and pasting news articles is not equivalent to producing OSINT. There are hundreds of those types of sites out there - the vast majority are truly amateurish crap - and a few do a really worthwhile job of finding a specific focus, producing well-crafted entries with useful links, as well as putting together a decent presentation of the blog itself. Many of the good ones have been mentioned here. None of'em are "intelligence". Commentary and opinion is not analysis.

I guess this is partly my fault. I asked about "Intelligence blogs" without defining what I mean't. I didn't mean blogs that generate analysis ONLY. I also mean't blogs that discuss news and issues related to the IC. IntelFusion isn't an analysis blog, for example, but I do cover data fusion issues faced by the IC. Besides, collection and collaboration can also be legitimate aspects of an "Intelligence" blog, while analysis can be completely excluded. I would include all of those under the general umbrella of "Intelligence" blogs. I think that blogs that focus on generating analysis would be a specific subset of that.

[SteveMetz]

I guess this is partly my fault. I asked about "Intelligence blogs" without defining what I mean't. I didn't mean blogs that generate analysis ONLY. I also mean't blogs that discuss news and issues related to the IC. IntelFusion isn't an analysis blog, for example, but I do cover data fusion issues faced by the IC. Besides, collection and collaboration can also be legitimate aspects of an "Intelligence" blog, while analysis can be completely excluded. I would include all of those under the general umbrella of "Intelligence" blogs. I think that blogs that focus on generating analysis would be a specific subset of that.

While it's not a blog, what about oss.net?

[M1]

Greetings, M1 !



Although I'm just across the 'pond'

Thanks Stan. Ya beat me to the punch on the invite. Was going to suggest the same thing to you when I saw that your profile had you shacked up in Estonia. Last time I was in Sweden a month ago I headed over to Riga for a few days. Decided then to make Estonia my next excursion when back in Sweden...which i now am for a few more weeks.

Sheila told me she is taking flak from some of her fellow anthropologists over the monograph. The same old "blah blah" about being a "sell out." I really find that group of that profession nauseating. They have elected to make themselves irrelevant by adopting an old, tired, discredited leftist ideology, then they throw tantrums like a three year old because the world recognizes their irrelevance and pays no attention to them.

Not that I'm angry or anything!

Naw, you don't sound too angry, or reactionary at that, at all, Sir Steve.