I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
- Walt Whitman,
Song of Myself
Stephen C. Mercado, an analyst in the CIA Directorate of Science and Technology, recently published a professional article -- a put- your-ass-on-the-line analysis of CIA intelligence philosophy -- on the CIA's web site.
In "Reexamining the Distinction Between Open Information and Secrets," Mercado addresses his colleagues and superiors in frank terms, but he is keenly aware -- and no doubt hoping -- that the rest of the world might listen in.
He skewers his employers for valuing secrecy over content. Open source intelligence, he argues, is substantially more valuable. Surf web sites and read newspapers and you'll get more accurate, timely and valuable intelligence than playing Spy vs. Spy.
Open sources often equal or surpass classified information in monitoring and analyzing such pressing problems as terrorism, proliferation, and counterintelligence.
Mercado uniquely articulates a huge lesson this dKos community has been learning during the 13-14 months I've been here, which inspired this late night not Plamegate meta diary about how the world is changing dramatically before our very eyes.
Mercado's open source logic is drum-tight:
There are far more bloggers, journalists, pundits, television reporters, and think-tankers in the world than there are case officers. While two or three of the latter may, with good agents, beat the legions of open reporters by their access to secrets, the odds are good that the composite bits of information assembled from the many can often approach, match, or even surpass the classified reporting of the few.
Ask yourself this. If you worked for the government of China and your job was to gauge the American resolve for, say, military defense of Taiwan, you might want to know what Scooter Libby is thinking about tonight but you damn sure want to know what the people at dKos and a dozen or so other web sites are debating.
Mercado's argument is about money. CIA management wants to consolidate OSINT (open source intelligence) resources in a single center. Mercado argues the CIA should double its open source budget and decentralize. The CIA would be stupid not to follow his advice.
Putting all the meager OSINT offices together in a single center, without added funding, would be analogous to a poor man combining several small bank accounts into one--he would still be poor. With greater resources, perhaps a doubling of OSINT spending to roughly 2 percent of the intelligence budget, we would see an impressive increase in intelligence available to all in government.
Try to imagine a CIA that's dedicated to keeping America safe anf furthering the idea of democracy throughout the world, not the cadre of Blackwater wanabees on Cheney's cell phone index. Such a CIA might be possible by late 2009, and certainly some parts of the CIA think that's what they are now.
Regardless, the more attention the CIA might pay to what people write on blogs, and say on local TV, and the less on what government insiders want the CIA to hear, the better our intelligence will be -- the more forthright and organic and authentic.
Second, a national intelligence effort aimed at open source would do well to look at the dKos community for expertise and experience. Imagine what fun & fulfillment you'd experience blogging and reporting from Barbados or Burundi.
I can't help but think that a CIA that focused on open source intelligence - of the sort that proliferates here at dKos and presumably at hundreds of enthusiastic community websites from China to Iraq -- would be a more honest and effective CIA.
The proof of Mercado's thesis ought to be evident to just about everyone here. The vast collective brain that evolves within an active, enthusiastic community like this is sometimes frustrating, but it always reminds me of Walt Whitman. From Song of Myself again:
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)