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The Future of Intelligence:Not Federal, Not Secret, Not Expensive

Robert David Steele<bear@oss.net>

Fall 2004

A Nation’s best defense is an educated citizenry. Thomas Jefferson

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9-11: Systemic Failure

THE ONLY THING THAT WORKED RIGHT ON 9-11 WAS INFORMED CITIZENS COUNTER-ATTACKING ON THEIR OWN.

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Conclusion First

• Local cops are key to spotting/neutralizing terrorism at home• Local observation & collection is one-half to two-third of the

preventive policing answer—bottom-up intelligence• Community Intelligence Centers, $30M per state per year at FOC,

are the hub of the “seven tribe” wheel• Open Source Agency, $1.5B at FOC, is the one “transformative”

tool we can deploy right now• Done right, we can redirect $30B/Year from secret collection to

state & local & regional intelligence, and $200B/Year from a largely useless heavy metal military to “soft power” capabilities.

• It’s not going to happen until Governors & Mayors raise hell.• Now, in the second term with a majority on the Hill, is our time.

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Seven Intelligence Tribes:The Way Ahead

Military

Law Enforcement

Business

Academic

National

NGO &Media

Religions& Clans

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State of the Tribes Today

0102030405060708090

100Objective

National

Military

Business

Academic

NGO-Media

Religious

• National 50%• Military 40%• Business 30%• Academic 30%• Law Enforcement 20%• NGO-Media 20%• Religious 20%

We have much to do.

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TIME IMPACT SHORT

TIME IMPACT

LONG

MULTI-CULTURAL & TRANS-NATIONAL

EQUITIES

SINGLE-CULTURE SINGLE-ORGANIZATION

EQUITIES

LEADERS DECIDE

PEOPLE DECIDE

TOP-DOWN COMMAND & CONTROL

SECRET SOURCES & METHODS

BOTTOM-UP INFORMATION-SHARING

OPEN SOURCES & METHODS

OBVIOUS DETAIL

OBSCURE DETAIL

OLD

NEW

Bottom-Up and Peer-to-Peer

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Future is NOT Federal

TODAY (Per Year)

• $50B/Federal

TOMORROW (Per Year)• $5B/International• $5B/Regional• $20B/Federal• $5B/State• $5B/Local• $10B/Non-State Actors

Bottom Line: All levels of government have major role to play.

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Future is NOT Secret

• $50B for secrets, $250M for open sources, yet open sources answer 40% of the need.

• Imagine $5B for open sources displacing $30B for secrets, the balance then available for distribution.

• From terrorism to proliferation to illegal immigration to disease, 90% of what we need to know is not secret—we simply have to pay attention 24/7 in 29+ languages.

• We also have to share easily, without baloney.

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Future is NOT Expensive

• Leadership is free—you just do it.

• Sharing is free—you just do it.

• Thinking is free—you just do it.

• Keys to victory are:– Bottom-up police empowerment– Seven tribes harnessed at every level– Nail Congress now, before Christmas

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“Shockingly Dysfunctional”

• IC: $50B a year in waste & mismanagement

• Collect 10% of what we need to know

• Lose 80% of that in processing failures

• Analysts young, isolated from reality

• Management guilty of “bureaucratic treason”

• Political process extremely corrupt

• Public interest has been betrayed

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History of Failure

• 1947 Flawed by design—Pentagon opposed

• 1949 CIA, State, Pentagon fighting daily

• 1955 CI & Language bad, OSINT bad

• 1961 Failures in planning, coordination

• 1971 Grotesquely expensive, duplicative

• 1976 DCI needs budget power, OSINT bad

• 1992 DCI needs budget power, OSINT bad

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Digital Analog Oral/Unpublished

EnglishLanguage

ForeignLanguages*

*29 predominant languages, over 3,000 distinct languages in all.

NSA FBIS UN/STATE

Cascading Deficiencies:1) Don’t even try to access most information2) Can’t process hard-copy into digital3) Can’t translate most of what we collect

CIA/DO

NRO

Collection FailureBreakdown in Coverage and Language Access

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50% Less CostlyM

ore

Sat

isfy

ing

SIGINT

OSINT

0% 50%

HUMINT

IMINT

MASINT

STATE

Does Not Exist

Processing FailureBreakdown in Exploitation, Dissemination

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Analysis FailureBreakdown in Thinking & Mindset

• Analysts end up with 2% of the relevant data

• Analysts have no historical, cultural, or religious context

• Analysts can safely be ignored because their findings are secret

• Managers are weak

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Leadership Failure

• From Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney defeating intelligence reform in 1992, to a series of DCI’s refusing the implement the Aspin-Brown recommendations of 1996, our last fifteen years are marked by leadership that focuses more on protecting their budgets than protecting the Nation.

• Current IC leadership continues to resist

®Shit Flows Home…

23 LIC+, 79 LIC-, 175 VPC

Source: PIOOM (NL), data with permission © 2002 A. Jongman

GREEN SPOTS—WESTERN CIVILIZATION—UNDER SIEGE

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Global Threats to Local Survival

*State of the World Atlas (1997), ** Marq de Villier (Water), John Heidenrich and Greg Stanton (Genocide), Michael Klare et al (Resources), all others from PIOOM Map 2002

Complex Emergencies32 Countries

Refugees/Displaced66 Countries

Food Security33 Countries

Child Soldiers41 Countries

Modern Plagues*59 Countries & Rising

Water Scarcity &Contaminated Water**Ethnic Conflict 18 Genocides Today**

Resource Wars, Energy Waste & Pollution**

Corruption Common80 Countries

Censorship Very High62 Countries

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Military Cannot Defend USA

• $500K = $500B cost• $1 = $1M cost to us• Terrorists can keep

this up forever– Exploding ships– Exploding tunnels– Exploding buildings– 50 caliber bullets into

• Power generators• Pipelines

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Four Different Threats to America:Require Four Different Security Approaches

PHYSICAL

STEALTH,

PRECISION

TARGETING

NATURAL

STEALTH,

RANDOM

TARGETING

CYBER -

STEALTH,

DATABASE

TARGETING

IDEO -

STEALTH,

MASS

TARGETING

GUERRILLAWAR

CULTURALWAR

HIGH TECH

BRUTES

(BIG WAR)

LOW TECH

BRUTES

(GANGS)

HIGH TECH

SEERS

(HOME)

LOW TECH

SEERS

(POOR)

MONEY--RUTHLESSNESS

POWER BASE

KNOWLEDGE--IDEOLOGY

TERRORISMECONOMICWAR

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10%

50%

25%

15%

State vs State

State vs Nation

Inter-Ethnic Tribal

Gang Wars, Genocide,Decolonization

Taxpayer Dollars Focused on 10% of the Threat

®New Strategy: 1 + iii:

Need huge increase in “soft power” capabilities

50% 15% 20% 15%

250B vs. 500B 75B vs 20B 100B vs. 20B 75B vs. 36B

CINCWAR CINCSOLIC CINCPEACE CINCHOME

Strategic NBC Small Wars State/USIA Intelligence

Big War(s) Constabulary Peace Corps Border Patrol

Ground Truth Economic Aid Port Security

1 ii i

Electronic

Reserve

Reserve Environment

Public HealthReserve

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New Craft of Intelligence

I

Lessons of History

II

Global Coverage

III

National Intelligence

IV

Spies & Secrecy

China, Islam, Ethnic, Etc.

Cost-Sharing with Others--Shared Early Warning

Narrowly focused!

Harness distributed intelligence of Nation

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Leveraging Best Practices:The Generic & The Esoteric

Generic to All Tribes• Open Source Collection

• Multi-media processing

• Analytic toolkits

• Analytic tradecraft

• Operations security

• Defensive counterintelligence

• Leadership skills

• Training & culture skills

Unique to Some Tribes• National clandestine & covert

collection, offensive CI

• Military targeting, mobility

• Police arrest & interrogation

• Business fiscal accountability

• Media attention-getting skills

• NGO humanitarian values

• Religious faith-based insights

• Ethnic blood-based insights

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Localizing Intelligence:Transfer resources & process

• Community Intelligence Centers

• Community Information Commons

• Community Open Decision Networks

• Digital Marshall Plan to every corner of globe– Empowers local population with global access– Makes local information digital at least cost– Converts “neighborhood watch” into global watch

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Globalizing Intelligence:A Geneva Convention for Information

• International convention on open source software and transparent stable Application Program Interfaces (API)

• XML Geo is fundamental--every datum in every medium, every language, every device

• ISO standards for generic intelligence collection, analysis, counterintelligence, covert action

• ISO standards for data security & privacy that empower software and marginalize hardware

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OPG VPN

Weekly Review

Expert Forum

Distance Learning

Virtual Library

Shared Calendar

Virtual Budget

Shared 24/7 Plot

Shared Rolodex

Local Hubs & World Brain:Web-Based Virtual Intelligence Teams

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Focus of Global Effort

Strategic Forecasting10% Need, 40% Cost

Primary Research & Experts on Demand20% Need, 30% Cost

Help Desk (Tell Me More Right Now)30% Need, 20% Cost

Daily/Weekly Reports40% Need, 10% Cost

Shared Among Tribes

Partial Sharing

Tribal Secret

Top Secret

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U.S. Intelligence ReformCan’t Have Smart Spies in a Dumb Nation

• XML Geo and XML Security Standards• National Analysis Agency (CIA Re-Focus)• National Processing Agency (NSA Re-Focus)• National Collection Agency (NRO Re-Focus)• New Clandestine Service Agency• New Homeland Counterintelligence Agency• New Community Intelligence Centers (Each State/City)• New Open Source Agency ($1.5B/Yr)

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Based on Appendix A of Steve Emerson, AMERICAN JIHAD::The Terrorists Living Among Us (Free Press, 2003), at Amazon.com. Created 8 Feb 03 by Robert David Steele, posted at www.oss.net.