Robert Steele deserves our admiration and our focused attention for bringing the idea of open source information to the fore. His passion to serve the nation by developing this new approach to better understanding the conditions and circumstances we are faced with daily - is exemplary. Steele's advocacy and efforts have led the way toward an enlightened and informed public. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for the sacrifices he has made to drag us - kicking and screaming - into the modern information age. Patrick Hughes, LTGEN, USA (Ret) THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest Foreword by Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02) Sponsor, The Smart Nation Act Robert David Steele (Vivas) MA, MPA, NWC, USMC, CIA, OSS OSS International Press Oakton, Virginia Copyleft © by OSS.Net, Inc. All revenue rights reserved. May be translated and shared without asking permission. One copy of each translation should be provided in electronic form to address below. This permission extends to the previous books also. This book and others in the series are available at quantity discounts for group or class distribution. Books come 20 to the box. Please communicate with the publisher. OSS International Press is the book-publishing arm of OSS.Net, Inc., publisher of Proceedings of the Global Information Forum (annual), OSS Notices (occasional series), and the ten-book series ON INTELLIGENCE. Visit www.oss.net. Published by OSS International Press (OSS) September 2006 Post Office Box 369 Oakton, Virginia 22124 USA (703) 242-1700 Facsimile (703) 242-1711 Email [email protected], Web: www.oss.net Cover graphic: The view of Africa, Antarctica, the Indian and Atlantic Oceana from 23,000 miles out in space as the last Apollo flight coasted to the moon, December 1972. Original photo credit NASA 1989. Available in sticker form as item Apollo 17(E). Correspond with EarthSeals, POB 8000, Berkeley, CA 94707 USA. The orange square around the globe represents the Earth at a tipping point in relation to the ten threats. Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Steele, Robert David, 1952- THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest/ Robert David Steele p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-9715661-3-2 (alk. paper) 1. Intelligence service.. 2. Military intelligence.. 3. Law enforcement intelligence. 4. Business intelligence. 5. Internet. 6. Organizational change. 7. Strategic planning. 8. Leadership. 9. Information Technology. 11. Economic forecasting. 12. Business forecasting. 13. Knowledge, theory of. 14. Power (Social sciences). 15. Information science—social aspects. 16. Competition. 17. National security—management of. 18. Political planning. 19. Gaming & Scenarios. 20. Decision-support. I. Title. JK468.I6S74 2006 327.1273—dc21 00-029284 THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest New Players We are entering a period of turbulence and innovation. Here is an illustration of where we think the world is going regardless of what the three branches of the Federal government decide to do or not do. This book puts forward ideas for creating a “Smart Nation” in which the Federal level is both fully informed about global reality, and able to provide to all statehouses, schoolhouses, chambers of commerce, and social clubs, a very strong and sustained exposure to global reality. OSINT Emerging Pentagon of Public Influence & Intelligence The American public now has the same power to do good that networked terrorists have to do bad. It will be up to Congress to decide whether or not to nurture this emerging pentagon of public influence & intelligence. St. i THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest ii THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest iii THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest iv THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest Table of Contents Foreword by Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02) 1 Preface: Something Congress Can Do For America Without Delay 7 Part I: Climbing the Policy Curve 9 CH 1: “The Smart Nation Act,” High-Level Documentation (2006) 11 CH 2: Forbes.com, “Reinventing Intelligence” (2006) 27 CH 3: Time.com, “The New Craft of Intelligence” (2003) 31 CH 4: Creating a Smart Nation (1996) 37 Part II: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest 57 CH 5: Terms of Reference for 10 Threats, 12 Policies, 8 Challengers 59 • Threat #1 Poverty 61 • Threat #2 Infectuous Disease 63 • Threat #3: Environmental Degradation 65 • Threat #4: Inter-State Conflict 67 • Threat #5: Civil War 69 • Threat #6: Genocide 70 • Threat #7: Other Atrocities 74 • Threat #8: Proliferation 76 • Threat #9: Terrorism 79 • Threat #10: Transnational Crime 80 CH 6: The Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Story, 1988 to date 85 CH 7: Intelligence Affairs: Evolution, Revolution, or Reactionary Collapse? 101 CH 8: Intelligence in Denial: Need for an Independent Open Source Agency 105 CH 9: Open Source Intelligence: The Strategic Value to America 115 Part III: OSINT Honors & References 151 CH 10: OSINT Honors: 12 Lifetime Awards, 140 Golden Candle Awards 153 CH 11: OSINT References: 25,000 Pages, 25,000 Practitioners 183 CH 12: Briefing on “The Failure of 20th Century Intelligence” 237 CH 13: Briefing on “Bin Laden, National Intelligence, and How NOT to 243 Spend the Taxpayers’ Treasure” Epilogue: Creating a Smart Nation to Save Ourselves, and the World 255 Appendix: The Other Books 257 v THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest vi SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest Foreword In the mid-1990s, it was my honor to command the 434th Military Intelligence Detachment (MID), a U.S. Army Reserve unit associated with Yale University and located in New Haven, Connecticut. Our unit wrote the first handbook for Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) for the U.S. Army. In 1994, our unit was honored with the Golden Candle Award presented by Open Source Solutions in recognition of its “unusual dedication and persistence … in preparing a primer, Open Source Intelligence Resources for the Military Intelligence Officer, which is of value to all joint and coalition personnel.” The following year the Reserve Officers Association gave the 434th MID its “Outstanding USAR Small Unit Award” for 1995-1996, due in no small part because of its contributions to OSINT. In 1997 General Peter Schoomaker, USA then Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), was briefed on OSINT, understood its value, and ordered the creation of an OSINT support cell within the Special Operations Command Joint Intelligence Center (SOCJIC). Today that small unit, for a negligible amount of money, is responsible for satisfying 40% of the all-source intelligence requirements generated by all elements of USSOCOM. In 2000, General William F. Kernan, USA, then serving as both the ranking flag officer of the Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) and as the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic (SACLANT), agreed to a suggestion by Brigadier General James Cox of Canada, then the Deputy J-2 at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), validated by General Kernan’s Deputy at the Atlantic Command, Admiral Sir James Perwone of the United Kingdom, and commissioned three study guides for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): the NATO Open Source Intelligence Handbook, the NATO Open Source Intelligence Reader, and (NATO) Intelligence Exploitation of the Internet. All three of these documents remain valid and useful today. In the years between 1994 and today, over 40 countries have developed some form of OSINT Center or Cell, most of them for military use. The United 1 SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest States, however, was slow to focus on OSINT across the board, and on 11 September 2001, we were attacked on our homeland by a terrorist group whose intentions had been amply documented in both secret and open sources. What we have learned since 9/11 is that Information Operations (IO) is the primary means of both understanding and of stabilizing the world. Belief systems in all languages, and an understanding of those belief systems in the context of their own history in their own language, their own sermons today in their own language, are the absolutely essential foundation for national security and national competitiveness in the age of globalization. OSINT is an integral supporting element of IO. Robert Steele has done more than any other person to promote the effective use of OSINT in support of policy, acquisition, operations, logistics, and all-source intelligence, and with this book—his fourth book—he brings to Congress and the public carefully developed arguments and supporting documentation for the Smart Nation Act. The Open Source Solution refers to both OSINT and to open source software.1 As I reflect on all that I have learned since being Staff Director to Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ), then Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI); as an Army officer; and as a Congressman with responsibilities on both the House Armed Services Committee and as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment of the House Homeland Security Committee, I find myself seeing four areas where we can improve our Nation’s prospects for the future: First, it is clear, as this book suggests and as Dr. Cambone has demanded, that we must be able to access all information in all languages, all the time. Secret intelligence is a fraction of what we need to know to defend America, collaborate with allies, and enhance the prosperity of all countries. It is no longer enough to have spies and diplomats—we are engaged in a 100-year six-front Global War, and nothing less than universal information coverage will 1 Open Source Software, sometime called Free/Open Source Software, is not necessarily free of price, but rather free of the cumbersome restrictions that come with proprietary software.