SEN

Posted to www.oss.net 14 September 2004. 1 SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME). ...The massacre of the innocent school children in Beslan and of innocents in Bali, Istanbul, Madrid, Jerusalem, Jakarta, and so many other place reminds us that terrorism has both a global reach and an unlimited capacity for cruelty. [OSS Comment: A recurring theme throughout the hearing was the need for global coverage and most likely vice worst case scenario development. The Open Source Agency (hereafter, OSA) is the cheapest fastest means of providing a foundation for such coverage.} SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME). ...we must preserve the competitive analysis of the 15 members of our intelligence community. [OSS Comment: OSA is the cheapest fastest means of establishing a foundation for competitive analysis, one with the added advantage of being shareable with all Members of Congress, all state & local officials, foreign government officials, and the public, both US and international.] SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME). ...the reform we undertake must be designed to meet the needs of both consumers and producers of intelligence. [OSS Comment: OSA is unique for being able to directly address pressing intelligence needs of the consumers—policymakers, acquisition managers, logistics managers, operational commanders and their staffs—while also being able to relieve and support classified intelligence collectors and producers.] SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT). The commission also envisioned the Department of Homeland Security playing an important role in a new information sharing network by ensuring, among other things, that state and local governments and the private sector are brought into the network. [OSS Comment: The 50 Community Intelligence Centers or state/commonwealth intelligence centers proposed by Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02) specifically address this need by providing DHS with the “missing link”—generic intelligence centers and an Open Source Information System-External (OSIS-X) that can also handle SECRET or “State/Commonwealth Sensitive” information.] SEN. TED STEVENS (R-AK). I think there are people who have not been heard yet, and I intend to have the Appropriations Committee be a forum to listen to those people who are really on the edge of what you’re doing… [OSS Comment: Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) has been “on the edge” since 1988 when it was made an issue by the U.S. Marine Corps, since 1992 when it was made an issue by the HPSCI and OSS. None of the hearings have heard from the iconoclasts— the published practitioner-authors who broke with the decrepit intelligence community leadership mind-sets in order to go public with their concerns. The OSA is the perfect vehicle for ensuring that iconoclasts—most of them brilliant private sector parties with no desire to be subject to the nonsense that goes with the existing clearance process— get a full and proper hearing in the councils of government.] Based on the Hearings of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, as held 13 September 2004. Prepared by Robert David STEELE Vivas, CEO OSS.Net, Inc., (703) 242-1700. Posted to www.oss.net 14 September 2004. 2 SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. Diplomacy is both offensive and defensive in its application. At the State Department, we are the spear point for advancing America’s interests around the globe. We are also our first line of defense against threats from abroad. As such, our efforts constitute a critical component of national security. Our efforts cannot be seen as an afterthought, to be serviced by the intelligence community only if it can spare priorities and resources from other priorities which they consider higher. Madame Chairman, the old adage of an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure describes what I am implying to a T. Our needs are as great as any other consumers of the United States government. [OSS Comment: The OSA is the cheapest, fastest means of providing for a “minimal mandatory” open source intelligence (OSINT) supplement to what Embassies can discover and analyze with their existing limited manpower and non-existent budgets for purchasing legal ethical local knowledge.] SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. In that regard, there are a few critical considerations that should be borne in mind as we, the administration and the Congress, design an intelligence establishment. First, as Secretary of State, I need global coverage all the time. This does not mean that the intelligence community should cover Chad as robustly as it covers North Korea. But it does mean that I need intelligence on developments in all countries and all regions. [OSS Comment: Emphasis added above. This is consistent with the DCI Tenet was told in the report, “The Challenge of Global Coverage” delivered to him in July 1997, a report that he ordered locked up because “we only do secrets.” The OSA is the cheapest, fastest means of ensuring a “minimal mandatory” overt intelligence capability to do global coverage in all languages (at least 33 not now competently covered by the classified community) on a 24/7 basis.] SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. We must deal on a daily basis with problems that range from the impact of instability in Venezuela or Nigeria on world oil prices to ethnic, religious, regional and political conditions that challenge our values, spawn alientation and terrorists, threaten governments friendly to the United States, and impede or facilitate the export of American products. Many times in my career I have found myself dealing with a crisis in a country that was on no one’s priority list until the day the crisis hit. That’s why we have to think comprehensively and not set aside any part of the world or any of the countries as not being of interest to us. [OSS Comment: Emphasis added above. Embassies are staffed by diplomats who are in a minority in their own facility, and who have no budget for buying local knowledge legally and ethically—unlike the spies, who have an unlimited budget for buying and stealing information, but gain access to less than 10% of what we need to know. The solution is the OSA, which will provide for regional multi-national and multi-lingual open source information collection, processing, and first-echelon analysis facilities that are fully responsive to *all* of the agencies and departments of the U.S. government (e.g. Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, etc.) while also providing a foundation for a common international and public understanding of regional issues of common concern, and a context for classified collection and analysis, which need be done only when the OSA fails to satisfy with its lower cost and more timely collection and production.] SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. The intelligence community we now have provides fantastic support to the military, both planners in Washington and commanders in the Based on the Hearings of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, as held 13 September 2004. Prepared by Robert David STEELE Vivas, CEO OSS.Net, Inc., (703) 242-1700. Posted to www.oss.net 14 September 2004. 3 field, and it should do that. In many cases its organization, priorities, allocation of resources and mindset have evolved specifically to support military planning and operations. Worst-case scenarios are prudent and are often sufficient for my colleagues in the military—and I certainly remember the days when I got these kinds of analyses and the were useful—but they are generally not quite as useful to the conduct of diplomacy. I need to know what is most likely to happen as opposed to just the worst case. What will influence the course of events? What will it take to change the course of events, and how much diploamtic capital and other landishments will it take to achieve the foreign policy goals of the president in specific circumstances. What usually happens, or what you must deal with is something often far short of the worst case. [OSS Comment: Emphasis added above. Secretary Powell is very elegant in his subtle criticism of the military-intelligence axis, and this lends added credence to the prospects of the OSA as both a halfway house for overt intelligence, and a means of facilitating a transition from a Cold War “worse case” intelligence community to a “new world disorder” intelligence community that is agile and adept on all topics.] SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. The needs of diplomacy require more than a good ability to imagine the worst; they require real expertise, close attention and careful analysis of all-source information. To be helpful to me and my colleagues in the Department of State, many of whom are extremely knowledgeable about the countries and issues they cover, the intelligence community must provide insights and add value to the information we already collect through diplomatic channels. When the intelligence commujnity weights in with less than this level of expertise, it is a distraction rather than an asset. …to do my job I need both tailored information support responsive to, indeed, able to anticipate my needs, and I need informed competitive analysis. Precisely because my intelligence needs differ from those of the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of Homeland Security or the Secretary of Energy, not to mention the unique requirements of our military services, I am not well served, nor are they, by collectors and analysts who do not understand my unique needs or who attempt to provide a one-size-fits-all assessment. [OSS Comment: Emphasis added above. Secretary Powell continues his subtle criticism. It is widely known that classified intelligence is now widely derided as “classified information” with no value added and little relevance to specific decisions facing key policymakers. Indeed, in a crisis, secret “intelligence” is the first thing to drop off most policymakers’ reading lists. At the same time, because all the money is in the secret world, and clearances are required to receive money from the secret world, most of the world’s experts, and especially those of foreign citizenship or residence who are truly well-versed in the minutia of foreign cultures, we have in essence “shut out” 90% of the knowledge. The OSA will rapidly identify the top 100 experts in the world on any country, any topic, and harness this knowledge as a multi-cultural “competitive analysis” baseline for both direct support to all Cabinet departments and agencies, and to the classified intelligence community, which cannot be considered “all source” due to its continued disregard for open sources. Even more importantly, because of its global coverage and global network of experts, the OSA can create “virtual centers of excellence” on any country, any topic, each tailored to the specific needs of an intelligence producers or intelligence consumer.] Based on the Hearings of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, as held 13 September 2004. Prepared by Robert David STEELE Vivas, CEO OSS.Net, Inc., (703) 242-1700. Posted to www.oss.net 14 September 2004. 4 SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. …we need to take advantage of complementarities, synergy, competitive analysis and divisions of labor. While it is imperative to have more than one analytical unit covering every place and problem, it is not necessary nor sensible for everyone to cover everything. [OSS Comment: The OSA provides an Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) baseline against which the classified intelligence producers, and the all-source intelligence consumers, can determine how best to allocate their special capabilitiesl.] SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. The intelligence community does many things well, but critical self-examination of its performance, particularly the quality and utility of its analytical products, is too often not one of them. [OSS Comment: Right on. The OSA needs to be independent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as shown on page 413 of the 9-11 Commission Report, and also independent of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) as a whole, precisely because those elements of the IC, such as the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) are so completely inadequate at understanding what they do not understand.] SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. As you know, President Bush has issued an executive order to improve the sharing of information on terrorism. We need to extend its provisions to intelligence on all subjects. In this regard, simple but critical guidelines would include separation of information on sources and methods from content so that content can be shared widely, easily, and at minimal levels of classification. For this to work, collectors must have clear ways to indicate the degree of confidencfe that the information is reliable, and user friendly procedures for providing additional information to those who need it. [OSS Comment: U.S. Special Operations Command, among others, has pioneered the use of OSINT as a means of sharing key content without revealing “black” sources and methods. Indeed, Dr. Joseph Markowitz, the only truly competent practitioner of OSINT in his former capacity as Director of the now-defunct Community Open Source Program Office that the Community Management Staff and the DDCI/CM—then Joan Dempsey— stupidly destroyed, distinguished between OSINT produced by the private sector, and validated OSINT, OSINT-V, that can be “chopped” by USG all-source analysts for sharing with coalition partners and state or local officials, giving the OSINT a special cachet without risking sources or methods.] SECRETARY COLIN POWELL. Similarly, decisions on who needs information need to be made by agency heads or their designees, not collectors. Every day I am sent information that can be seen only by a small number of senior policymakers who often cannot put the reports in the proper context nor fully comprehend their significance. Intelligence is another name for information, and information isn’t useful if it does not get to the right people in a timely fashion. [OSS Comment: The OSA addresses this problem in two ways. First, it provides daily OSINT alerts that can be used at all levels, and can if desired trigger a request for classified follow-up. Second, when a sensitive classified report is seen that needs to be communicated more widely, an OSINT “alternative” can be commissioned.] SECRETARY POWELL, RESPONDING TO SEN. LIEBERMAN. I would—I think others should talk to the—to whether or not there’s a need for all of these centers. But he one Based on the Hearings of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, as held 13 September 2004. Prepared by Robert David STEELE Vivas, CEO OSS.Net, Inc., (703) 242-1700. Posted to www.oss.net 14 September 2004. 5 caution I would offer is that there are just so many experts and analysts around. So you can create all kinds of structures—in the military we’d say you can create all kinds of spaces—but there are a limited number of faces with the expertise needed for these spaces. So be careful about creating any structures that might not really be necessary if all your’re going to end up doing is competing to get the best people from organizations that are doing good work now to fill those new spaces. [OSS Comment: Both the IC—especially CIA and FBI and NSA—and USSOCOM are suffering from the excessive authorizations of funds and spaces that have resulted in an unintended outcome. Contractors are luring U.S. government employees from government service, where their competency was properly placed, and moving them to other jobs where the clearance, rather than the competency, is the primary factor in the contractor getting paid. The resulting instability cannot be understated. The OSA would provide an alternative paradigm—a means of creating SECRET and unclassified networks or “virtual” centers of excellence for any number of countries and topics. We can avoid creating unique fixed centers for everything, and instead create a very agile network of networks that can include both SECRET level US Citizen networks of experts on any given topic, as well as unclassified but vetted networks of international experts whose views are often not fully appreciated by an intelligence community obessed with clearances rather than insights.] SENATOR CARL LEVIN (D-MI). …I’m also determined that we’ve got to do something to promote independent and objective analyses. Too often we’ve not received independent objective analyses from the CIA, and that’s been true for a very long time. This is not the first time. [OSS Comment: The OSA must be independent of CIA and independent of the CIA precisely because to have it any other way would subject the OSA to undue influence from managers of classified intelligence fearful of embarrassment. OSINT by an independent OSA will raise the bar. It will force classified collectors and all-source analysts to demonstrate their value-added against what is cheaply and rapidly available from a full range of international overt sources and experts. It will provide any Member of Congress and any policymaker or acquisition manager or commander with a comparison of what can be known by open sources, and the best judgement of a diverse group of international experts, and what is being put forward by the classified intelligence community. The OSA is, in brief, an insurance policy, a safety net, and a baseline for restoring integrity and diversity to our intelligence process. SEN. NORM COLEMAN (R-MN). Post 9-11 there has been a shift, and the shift in focus obviously, with good cause, is counterterrorism. But the result of that is that in other areas—some of the economic analysis, some of the things that you talked about that are essential for the kind of long-term relationships that we have with this country, and I would conclude for the long-term security of this country are still fundamentally important. But the question is, are we—are the resources shifted into one area? Do we have the resources to then still do the things that have to be done in these other areas, the economic analysis, the resource—all the things that you and our ambassador have to take into account? [OSS Comment: Although a National Intelligence Director—we thing the DCI should still be the DCI with the NID responsibilities, and convert CIA into a National Analysis Agency with its own Director—would address some of the resource balancing concerns, the reality is that classified sources and methods and insufficient and ineffective in dealing Based on the Hearings of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, as held 13 September 2004. Prepared by Robert David STEELE Vivas, CEO OSS.Net, Inc., (703) 242-1700. Posted to www.oss.net 14 September 2004. 6 with economic issues and other such matters. The Aspin-Brown Commission found our access to open sources “severely deficient” and recommended in 1996—as ignored by three DCI’s in succession—that this be a top priority for funding, precisely because they found that open sources of information could answer as much as 95% of the need in economic and other related issue areas. The OSA will ensure that all of these vital issues where classified sources and methods are not the most cost-effective means—or not available—receive a “minimal mandatory” degree of attention, and where necessary, a major commitment of resources that will not detract from the ability of the classified capabilities to continue to do what they do best against hard targets not susceptible to open source approaches.] SECRETARY TOM RIDGE RESPONDING TO SEN. MARK PRYOR (D-AR) AND SEN. THOMAS CARPER (D-DE). Again, the one challenge, it would be wrong to assume that we’ve got the system of sharing the information the state and local worked out. … So it would be wrongt to assume that with this configuration [the National Counterterrorism Center] we’ve solved all the problems. We still have, I think, a very critical dimension to be discussed—and it may or may not be dealt with in the legislation—as to the points of access from the state and locals, to the kind of information that can be appropriately distributed to them. I think that’s very important from a homeland security perspective. [OSS Comment: LtGen Pat Hughes, Assistant Secretary for Intelligence at DHS, is focusing on the benefits to DHS of the 50 state intelligence centers proposed by Congressman Rob Simmons (R-CT-02), as well as the related initiative to create an Open Source Information System-External (OSIS-X) to accelerate the inclusion of both county-level and diverse state officials not eligible for the existing internal Open Source Information System (OSIS), and of private sector parties essential to bottom-up homeland security intelligence and counterintelligence. The OSA solves two big problems at once: it solves the problem of low-cost responsive Global Coverage underlying the unique value-added of classified collection and analysis; and it simultaneously, if funded to include the state intelligence centers, provides for a twoway street to the state & local and non-aligned nations communities. We give them OSINT funded with the OSA and the related DoD OSINT Program, and they give us “bottom up” citizen intelligence and “local knowledge” not available online.] SEN. JOHN WARNER (R-VA). The need for intelligence by our president and our military is daily, seven days, seven nights, constant. We just can’t turn off the spigot with this new piece of legislation, hope to put in place all the pieces, and then go back and whatever period of time lapses and turn it back on to function. So some thought has to be given to the transition from the present system to the new system, and I wondered if you’d given any thought as to how that transition could best be achieved. And do you see that we should focus on it because those enemies wishing to inflict harm will view this transition process as possiblyh a time of America’s weakness? [OSS Comment: The OSA is precisely suited to play a vital role in the transition, allowing the classified community to gradually migrate from the past to the future while meeting urgent daily needs for Global Coverage in all languages. The OSA is also well suited to providing a “soft landing” for IC employees affected by the reform legislation, providing a job-neutral and revenue-neutral means of relocating displaced employees while also increasing the economic value of intelligence for the private sector, with whom open source intelligence can now be shared.] Based on the Hearings of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, as held 13 September 2004. Prepared by Robert David STEELE Vivas, CEO OSS.Net, Inc., (703) 242-1700.