Blogging Intelligence Agency

The New York Times reports that the top U.S. spy agencies are behind the times, and while many of the tech-savvy agents relish the opportunity to dabble in blogs and wikis to collaborate between agents and agencies, in spite of some success they have already experienced, some of the top brass are reluctant to embrace it, fearing unfettered access to unapproved and unfiltered information will lead to poor intelligence, which could result in mistaken leads and quickly mushroom out of control. Says the Times:

The resistance comes from the “iron majors” — career officers who occupy the enormous middle bureaucracy of the spy agencies.

I certainly do understand the concern. This is an area we can't afford to go on wild goose chases. But as the Times observed, the threat we are dealing with today is quite different from the threats we faced during the Cold War.

Al Qaeda operatives organized their plots in a hivelike fashion, with collaborators from Afghanistan to London using e-mail, instant messaging and Yahoo groups; rarely did a single mastermind run the show. To disrupt these new plots, some intelligence officials concluded, American agents and analysts would need to cooperate just as fluidly — trading tips quickly among agents and agencies. Following the usual chain of command could be fatal.

Contrary to what DIA deputy director Russ Travers believes, I don't think the biggest threat is that everyone would be likely to follow a mistaken lead. Not only can controls be built into place to minimize such things, but the professional blogosphere is largely self-policing anyway, as the bloggers do not enjoy the same anonymity as personal bloggers. So long as comments, trackbacks, and perhaps a few scores of monitors are enabled, the intelligence community could utilize blogs and wikis quite effectively.

I would instead be afraid that the wrong people getting their eyes on confidential and secret information. The "need to know" policy was instituted for valid reasons, and with the proliferation of media leaks -- which have been perpetuated by the Times itself -- I'm not so certain we've outgrown the need for it.

However, the ever-changing nature of the enemy, as well as the communications failures that led to our particular vulnerability on 9/11, should probably cause the higher ups to at least consider the  benefits that blogs and wikis can bring. Instead of dismissing them as tactically impossible, they should figure out a way to build in their very structure the safeguards they need to protect against the flaws they fear.

They have to get over their blogophobia, first. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Polar Bear]

Think of the disinformation possibilities in all of this!