Open Source Homeland

Interesting unclassified reports below…

The review of our security and intelligence systems following the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day has been completed. The President spoke two days ago about “the urgency of getting this right,” and the identification of failures in this review, along with the immediate ordering of reforms and corrective steps both today and in the days since this incident, are a recognition of that urgency. This review is also a recognition that while there is no place for partisanship and the old Washington blame game in dealing with Al Qaeda and the threat they represent, keeping American safe depends on honest and direct accountability.

• Read the summary of the security review (pdf).
• Read the President’s Directive on corrective actions (pdf).

Release of the Security Review Conducted After the Failed Christmas Terrorist Attack | The White House.

C.I.A. Revives Data-Sharing Program With Environmental Scientists - NYTimes.com.

The trove of images is “really useful,” said Norbert Untersteiner, a professor at the University of Washington who specializes in polar ice and is a member of the team of spies and scientists behind the effort.

Scientists, Dr. Untersteiner said, “have no way to send out 500 people” across the top of the world to match the intelligence gains, adding that the new understandings might one day result in ice forecasts.

“That will be very important economically and logistically,” Dr. Untersteiner said, arguing that Arctic thaws will open new fisheries and sea lanes for shipping and spur the hunt for undersea oil and gas worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Best to examine them outright:

The CIAs Biggest Bloopers - Fact Checker
So the CIA got it wrong on Irans nuclear program in the last National Intelligence Estimate, back in 2005. But does that mean they have got it right this time? Not necessarily. The history of the CIA is littered with spectacular intelligence mistakes. Sometimes, the correction of one error can lead to a new error, as analysts atone for past mistakes by moving too far in the opposite direction.

In the spirit of caution and skepticism, here is the official Fact Checker list of the CIAS Biggest Bloopers, over six decades of intelligence-gathering. I have compiled it with the assistance of researchers at the indispensable National Security Archive, a non-profit group that has published more than half a million government documents. A disclaimer: the Agency has had some successes too, but I will let their public relations operation draw up that particular list.

We need more of this. All you need is the right language skills, some rudimentary technology, and a desire to make money.

S.C. mom scoops al-Qaida with its videos - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON - Once her son is off to school, Laura Mansfield settles in at her dining room table with her laptop and begins trolling Arabic-language message boards and chat rooms popular with jihadists.

Fluent in Arabic, the self-employed terror analyst often hacks into the sites, translates the material, puts it together and sends her analysis via a subscription service to intelligence agencies, law enforcement and academics.

Occasionally she comes across a gem, such as when she found a recent Osama bin Laden video — before al-Qaida had announced it.

“I realized, oh my gosh, I’m sitting here, I’m a fat 50-year-old mom and I’ve managed to scoop al-Qaida,” said Mansfield, who uses that name as a pseudonym because she receives death threats.

Please, God, let this all make a difference some day. At the very least, these projects seem the opposite of this mouthful that seems to have gone nowhere.

Logged in and Sharing Gossip, er, Intelligence - New York Times
In December, officials say, the agencies will introduce A-Space, a top-secret variant of the social networking Web sites MySpace and Facebook. The “A” stands for “analyst,” and where Facebook users swap snapshots, homework tips and gossip, intelligence analysts will be able to compare notes on satellite photos of North Korean nuclear sites, Iraqi insurgents and Chinese missiles.

A-Space will join Intellipedia, the spooks’ Wikipedia, where intelligence officers from all 16 American spy agencies pool their knowledge. Sixteen months after its creation, officials say, the top-secret version of Intellipedia has 29,255 articles, with an average of 114 new articles and more than 4,800 edits to articles added each workday.

A separate online Library of National Intelligence is to include all official intelligence reports sent out by each agency, offering Amazon.com-style suggestions: if you liked that piece on Venezuela’s oil reserves, how about this one on Russia’s? And blogs, accessible only to other spies, are proliferating behind the security fences.

“We see the Internet passing us in the fast lane,” said Mike Wertheimer, of the office of the Director of National Intelligence, who is overseeing the introduction of A-Space. “We’re playing a little catch-up.”