Intel gatherers e.g. Police, the CIA could learn a thing or two from journalism

Cross post from Adrian Monck "How journalism could save the CIA."..

Journalism sounds worthy and old-fashioned, says Adrian, But relabel it Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and it holds a new fascination for governments.

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My response
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Hi Adrian

I have had a cursory interest in this from past stories e.g. interviewing fomer CIA boss James Woolsey and attending Chatham House talks.

Regular TV pundit and Intel Analyst Glenmore S. Trenear-Harvey alerted me to a news piece concerning the CIA's recent findings on Iran.

The copy read the it'd come by its intel through pics of a couple of journalists, on assignment shooting away probably unaware of the significance of what they had.

Some years back I met Robert D Steele, a veteran Intel officer and founder of Open Source Solutions.

He made the point that some huge percent of what intel gathers is in the public domain; a significant waste of public finance he quiped for those using elaborate intel gathering means when the infos all there in the open.

The Net offered a solution, a sort of secretless society - I'm over simplifying, but here's the vid and write up that went with that.

Journlists showing intelligence gatherers a thing or two?

In Norway at there annual gathering for investigative journalists a couple of journos cracked the home address and location of the chief of police in minutes - all using open source stuff.