1
Posted to 29 September 2004
FROM AUSTRALIA
I thought you would be interested in a couple of other intelligence-related developments since we last communicated.
The main event was the release of the Flood Report. This classified and unclassified report (full title - Report of the Inquiry into Australian intelligence Agencies, July 2004) was commissioned by the Prime Minister and prepared by Mr Philip Flood. The report's terms of reference were to look ino the Australian Intelligence Community, its effectiveness and its division of labour (and do this in reference to WMD, Bali etc). Flood is a former Director-General of ONA and not surprisingly his report recommended
the doubling of the resources and size of ONA. Flood doesn't really understand intelligence and is predisposed towards covertly obtained information - he is a diplomat by training rather than an intelligence professional. But one of his other interesting recommendations is to move the small Open Source Unit operating at DFAT to ONA, giving some prominence to OSI as an issue within the overall report.
In my last message to you I mentioned that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute ( has recently published a short Strategic Insights paper by Peter Jennings titled ''The Agenda for Intelligence Reform'. The paper recommended that Australia establish an agency-wide open source strategy. The driector of ASPI, Hugh White, is expected to move to the prestigious Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. Peter Jennings is then expected to replace Hugh White
as the Director of ASPI.
OSS COMMENT:
Under no circumstances should OSINT be part of ONA. MFAT has not done as well as I would have liked, no doubt for good reasons having to do with all the obstacles I have encountered here over the past sixteen years, but it is a better alternative to ONA.
The *best* alternative would be an independent federal agency, perhaps associated in some way with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Attached are the views of Congressman Rob Simmons on this matter. He tell me he intends to authorize a Defense Open Source Information Program (DOSIP) in the 9-11 House Armed Services Committee bill, and several of us are working to make that $125M, which will easily fund a Pacific Rim OSINT Centre in Singapore (multinational manning on rotation, US dollars). No assurance, but I do believe that OSINT is now on the table and will not be taken off anytime soon. Our big problem now is getting Colin Powell and Rich Armitage to pay attention--the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an
independent federal agency under State auspices (so as to be pure and be able to do information treaties with one and all) is our model for the Open Source Agency, which probably will not happen this go around.
I will tell you now that if I have anything to say about it (a doubtful prospect at this time), and the Americans end up funding OSINT for the world, none of the money will go to any intelligence agency. OSINT must be in the NGO domain, part of public diplomacy--responsive to intelligence, but not tainted by intelligence.
Intelligence is a consumer of OSINT, not a proper collector of OSINT.
I have proposed that we create OSIS-X (Open Source Information System--External) to make their excellent protocols available to the 90% of the world that does not wish to deal with CIA or FBIS. Our intent is to propose that the first two test cases be in Australia and in Sweden where the OSS-InfoSphere portal resides. Idea is to offer OSIS services to UN agencies, Red Cross, corporations, diplomats and chambers of commerce from all countries, etc., and over time to create a truely global open source information "exchange" that includes audit trails, copyright clearance, compensation in micro-cash, etc.
DOI: 29 September 2004