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Transition Team Restricted—Internal Routing Only

9 January 2001

MEMORANDUM FOR THE VICE-PRESIDENT ELECT

Subject: Creating an Open Source Information Program (OSIP) in Support of National Security Decision-Making, with Emphasis on Third World/Non-State Threats

  1. Objective. To establish a concept, architecture, resource strategy, and implementation plan that leads to consistently superior knowledge-based decision-making on international issues. There are six sub-objectives:
  1. To provide the President and his team with relevant open source information that can be used to educate the various public constituencies and to achieve consensus on our evolving foreign affairs, defense, and international economic strategies.
  1. To establish senior focal points for developing a consistent government-wide approach to identifying, acquiring, processing, and sharing open source information on international issues.
  1. To inventory existing capabilities and shortfalls with respect to open source information collection on international issues relevant to Executive decisions.
  1. To establish an Internet-based solution for global information-sharing protocols with non-state actors that is cooperative, comprehensive and scaleable.
  1. To create "Information Age" capabilities within selected national security entities that provide the knowledge, access, funding, and security parameters for tapping into global expertise irrespective of location, nationality, or price.
  1. To facilitate the "internationalization of education" (as called for by Senator David Boren (D-OK), now President of the University of Oklahoma, and David Gergen) by providing free access for our schools, with appropriate copyright protection arrangements, for this government-acquired open source information.
  1. Discussion
  1. The old intelligence paradigm required deductive reasoning from a limited number of secret sources about one main target. The new intelligence paradigm requires inductive reasoning drawing on a vast quantity of mixed-quality sources, 97% of which are international multi-lingual open sources, about a constantly changing range of targets. The existing Intelligence Community (IC) is adamant that it will not fund either an internal or a national open source information or intelligence program….it wants to focus only on compartmented secrets.
  1. The bi-partisan Aspin-Brown Commission on the Roles and Missions of the U.S. Intelligence Community championed by Senator John Warner (R-VA) had two findings that are still relevant to international policy, acquisition or assistance, and military operations decision-support:

(1)The U.S. Intelligence Community is "severely deficient" in its access to international open sources; this should be a "top priority" for attention and a "top priority" for funding.

(2)It is the responsibility of the end-user, the consumers of intelligence, to resolve their own intelligence questions when these can be addressed "predominantly" by open sources of information.

  1. The out-going Administration did not act upon the bi-partisan Aspin-Brown recommendations. The U.S. Intelligence Community has a ten-year old track record of not wanting to support the discipline of open source intelligence (OSINT). At the same time, traditional collectors of open source information, the Departments, have seen their capabilities in this arena erode to the point that some authorities recommend the U.S. Intelligence Community assume responsibility for all international information collection.
  1. The dynamic and often non-state nature of the threat in the 21st Century requires a much wider information collection strategy than can be executed by the classified intelligence community acting alone. Open sources of information, if discovered, discriminated, distilled, and delivered to principals in a structured and highly responsive manner, can add a 10-40% margin of improved information input.
  1. The logical power centers on international information issues, other than the Office of the Director of Central Intelligence (O/DCI) are the Department of State with its universality of interests and greater overseas presence, the theater Commanders in Chief (CINC) with their strong regional concerns; and the Library of Congress with its Federal Research Division (FRD). Each has limitations and biases that appear to prevent any one of them from serving effectively as the executive agent for addressing this challenge.
  1. Recommendations
  1. That a Vice Presidential staff position be dedicated to the management of an internationally-focused Open Source Steering Group (OSSG) and an attendant highly responsive Open Source Information Program (OSIP).
  1. That the Department of State be invited to chair the Steering Group, with senior participation from O/DCI and the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
  1. That CINC Joint Forces Command, responsible for joint experimentation, be the day-to-day execution authority for the OSIP.
  1. That an OSIP campaign plan and a proposed OSINT budget (to be funded from within existing allocations) be prepared for your consideration within 90 days.

Respectfully submitted,

PERSONAL FROM ROBERT D. STEELE, OSS CEO

Post Office Box 369, Oakton, Virginia 22124

Voice: (703) 242-1701Fax: (703) 242-1711