Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): An Oxymoron?

摘要

In today's world information of all kinds is available to anyone who cares to see it. If that's the case, can such publicly accessible information be considered intelligence? The answer is: "It depends." A conundrum facing U.S. intelligence is the enormous spectrum of information broadly known as "open source." As countless commentators repeat the shopworn claim that the world is changing in ways and at a pace never before seen, have the role and definition of intelligence remained what they were in the last millennium? If not, what makes "OSINT," its sources and its functions, different from what intelligence was during wars from World War II to Korea and Vietnam, in various crises from the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and more recently in light of the 11 September 2001 (9/11) attacks, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the unseasonably short-lived "Arab spring"? While the world has changed dramatically over the last quarter-century, has the explosion of open source information changed the definition and expectations of intelligence?