SPECIAL FEATURES

Creating a Smart Nation:Strategy, Policy, Intelligence, and Information

Robert David Steele-Vivas*

In an ae characterized by distributed information, where the miority of theexpertise is in the private sector, the concept of "central inteligence" is an oxymoron.The greatest threat to both national scurity and national economic competitivenessis ignorance-uninformed decion making Intelligence communites are slowlydiscoverng that they should not send a spy where a schoolchild can go, and thatspie are not harnesring the vst distributed intelligence of the private sector.Unfortunately, the culture of intelligene in most countries believe thai ituniqu:neu rests on secets rather than thinking-on producing ecreta rather thaninforming policy. To survive in the 21st century, every nation must become a "manrnatiln" and engage all of ts cittlns-every citizen must be a collector, producer,and consumer of intelilene-and, thus, create the Virtual Intellience Community.To .nigrace and make the best ue of both open-ource intelligene and traditionalcllssfied intelligence, each nation mut establish a National Information Strategywl- :b addresse conmectivity, content, coordination, and computational scurity.

This a: icle outlines both the requirement for, and a recommended approach to, thecreation of a National Information Strategy. Despite the fact that we have leaders inboth ae administration and the legislature who understand the critical importnce ofiafr. ation as the foundation for both nationai security and national competitivenessat dawn of the 21st century, our leadership has failed to articulate a trategy anda .Aicy which integrates national intelligence (spies, satellites), governmentin .rmation, and private-sector information objectives and ruourcea.

D* oi al corrupondscf to. Robert Devd Sim' Yv. . 11005 Lfron Arms Court Okton PLritw221141J07.

Governmet Informadon Quuurty, Vouam L, Number 2, pW 159173.All rlt of rspmodct in an form rNad. LSSN: 074424X,

GOVERNME'T INFORMATION QUARTERLY Vo, 13/No 2/1996

In the Age of Information, the absence of a National Information Strategy istantamount to abdication and surrender-the equivalent of having failed to field anarm) in World War II, or having failed to establish a nuclear deterrent in the ColdWar. This article is both an orientation for citizens and bureaucrats, and a call to armsfor policymakers and legislators. It is a fundamental premise of this article that in theAge of Information, the most important role of government-at the Federal state, orlocal level-will be the nurturing of the "information commons." National securitywill be largely a question of protecting information infrastructue, intellectual property,and the integrity of data National competitiveness will be completely redefined-corporations and individuals are competitive in a global economy-and it is the roleof nations to be attractive" to inveton. How nations manage their informationcommons will be a critical factor in determining "national attrativeness" for investmentin the 21st century. This article addresses and defines the challenge of change; theinformation commons and information continuum; the theory and practice ofintelligence in the Age of Information; the ethical, ecological, and evolutionaryimplications of this approach; the need to reinvent and integrate national intellence(spies and satellites) into a larger network of distributed intelligence largely accesibleto citizens; and, finally, the concrete elements which must comprise the NationalInformation Strategy.

THE CHALLENGE OF CHANGEAs we enter the 21st century, we are faced with several dramatic challenges, confrontedby order-of-magnitude changes that defy resolution under our existing paradigms andorganizational or policy structure,

The most obv ous challenge to government as a whole is the changing nature of thethreat. Since th rise of the nation4tate, with its citizenship, taxation, and standingarmies, the mc fundamental nationl security issue for governments has been thesanctity of its b rders and the safety of its citizen and property abroad. Phyiical securitymaintained b- ihreat of force was easy to understand and easy to implement. Today,we face a w.,rld in which transnational criminal gangs have more money, bettercomputers. I .rter information, and vastly more motivation to act and to act ruthlesly,than most atea. Perhaps even more frightening, we face a world in which we areallowing re. nology and limited policy undersanding to create very significant massesof displss ed and alienated populations-including sizeable elements within our ownborders; the same time, we are ignoring our government's obligations to providefor home , efense, for electronic civil defense, in the private sector.5

There another important change requiring government diligence, and that is thechange -.. the role of information as the "blood" of every enterprise, every endeavor.Three aspects of this change merit enumeration: frst, each citizen, whether consciousof this tact or not, is increasingly dependent on accurate and timely information inorder to be fully functional; second, the "information explosion," like a major climaticchange. is making it difficult for citizen accustomed to slower times and simpler toolsto adjus: to the requirements of life in the fast lane of the information superhighway;and finally, nost citizens, stockholders, and business managers do not realize that wehave national telecommunications, power, and financial networks that have been

160

CMetUng i Smar' Nation

designed without regard to security or survivability.' It is not safe, today, to work andplay in cyberspace, and we do not even have a body of law that requires communicationsand computing providers to assure their customers that their senices and products arcsafe and reliablel s

In brief, we now have an information environment in which every citizen needs tobe a collector, producer, and consumer of "intelligenc," or docision-support; and atthe same time, we have an extraordinarily complex and fragile informationinfras ture which can be destroyed, disrupted, and corrupted by single individualsor small groups now capable of attackin our information infratructur nodes throughelectronic means or simple physical destruction-and able to do so anonymously.

DEFINING THE 'NFORMATION COMMONS"

The "information commons" can be viewed-as the public commons for grazing sheepwas once viewed in old England-as a shared environment where information isavailable for public exploitation to the common good. There are thee majorinformation "industries" that must contribute their fair share to the commons if thecommons is to be robust and useful

The frst, relatively unknown to most citizens, is the U.S. intellignce community,traditionally associated with spies and satellites. In fat, between 40% and 80% of theraw data going into the final products of the intelligence community comes from "opensources"-from public information legally available.' Unfortunately, this S25 billion-dollara-year community buries its open source acquisitions in the "cement overcoat"of classification, with the result that most of the useful public information acquiredby the intelligence community at taxpayer expense is not, in fact, made available tothe citizen-taxpayer.

The second, well known to most citizens as a massive bureaucracy which generatesregulations and imposes taxation, is the government. The government is nor, however,known for making information available to the public, and this is an extraordinaryfailure, for it turns out that not only is the government acquiring enormous stores ofinformation at taxpayer expense on every imaginable topic, but the government alsoserves as a magnet for vast quantities of information which it recives free" from othergovernments, from thinktanks, lobbyists, universities, and every other purveyor of aviewpoint desiring to influence the bureaucrats who comprise the government. In theAge of Information, governments must make the transition from the industrial model(vait bureaucracies attempting to deliver goods and services using a hierarchicalstructure to control mourc) to the "Third Wave" model (small expert nodes nurturingdistributed centers of information excellence). t There are some significant capabilitieswithin government intended to address this issue, including the National TechnicalInformation Service (NTIS) in the Department of Commerce and the Defense TechnicalInformation Center (DTIC) in the Department of Defense, but by and large governmentinformation is out of contro. If the intelligence community is a S25-billion-a-yearindustry, then the U.S. government can safely be assumed to be at least a $250-billion-a-year industry.

The third "industry" capable of contributing to the information commons is the mostimportant, the most diverse, and the most dynamic-it is the private sector. This has

161

GOVERNMENT INFORMATION QUARTERLY Vol. 3/No. 2/1996

extraordinary implications for both governance and enterprise in the 21st century,because of four charactcristics of "knowledge battle" in the 21st century thatgovernmmnts must recognize if they are to do their pat firt, 90%-95% of knowldgeis open, not scrt-governments that continue to believe in secrecy as the paramountelement of executive action will fail; scond, the center of gravity is in the civil ector-governments that continue to rely on their military and their police and exclude fromconsideration the role of private sector capabilities, will fail; third, information todayis distrrbuted-governments that perist in relying upon central inteligence" structurewill fail; and finally, information is multiliual-governments that do not invest inanalysts and observers able to move easily in multilingual environments will faiL If theintelligence community is a S25-billion--year industry, and the U.S. government is aS230-billion-a.year industry, the private sector can safely be assumed to be a S2.5-trillion-a-year industry-there is a pattern here! The national information community,in short, is comprised of three concentric circles of investment which are not, at thistime, contributing a single datum to the "information commons."

THE INFORMATION CONTINUUM

The "information continuum" for any nation is comprised of the nine majorinformation-consuming and information-producing sectors of society: schools,universities, libraries, busineses, private investigators and information broken, media,goverment. defense, and intellience.

It is very important to understand three basic aspects of the information continuum:irst, each organization within each sector pays for and controls both experts and

data that I:ould contribute to the information commons. Perhaps most importantly fromthe taxr .v.er and government point of view, these distributed centers of excellence aremaint;: ed a no cost to the government.

Se. ,d, it is important to undertand that what any one organization publishes forsale : for free, whether in hardcopy or electronically, represents less than 20%-oftenless 'han 10r-of what they are actually holding in their databases or what is knownto their employees.

Third, and here we begin to set the stage for why a National Information Strategyis ssential, it is important for both citizens and bureaucrats to realize that across thisinformation continuum there e iron curtins" beween the sectors, "bamboo curtains"between organizationa in each sector, and "platic curtains" between individuals withinorganizations.

The role of government in the 21st century is to provide incentives and to facilitatethe sharing and exchange of information between the sector, the organizations, andthe individuals that comprise the national information continuum-and to work withother goverments to create an international and transnational information commons.

Schools and universities have both expert faculty and willing student labor as wlla significant electronic storage facilities. They also tend to have multilingualpopulations that can do very fine data riltering and data entry work. Two examplesare the Monterey Institute of Internatioal Studies (MIIS), which uses graduate studentsfluent in Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, and Arabic to maintain the world's bet databaseon the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons; and Mercyhurst

162

Creating a Srrna Nraron 163

Coilege, which uses undersraduate tudents to produce newsletters on narcoticstrafficking and other trends on intrcst to law enforcement agencies. Universities canalso provide technical assistance and project asistance-one very fine example of thiscapability, which provides direct support to local government agencies as well as smalland medium-sized businesses, is the InfoMall developed by Syracuse University.'

Libraries represent 'distributed knowledge" in the best possible way and providecitizens with not only direct access but also with skilled librarians who can srve asintermediaries in global discovery and discrimination. Examples of uniquecontributions in the library arena include the University of Colorado, which createdUncover Reveal to distribute electronically the tables of contents of all journals itprocess; the Special Libraries Assoiation, which brings together corporate andassociation librarians; and the Library-Oriened List Service developed by CharlesBailc', Jr.'

Businesses not only hold sigificant amounts of data that they generate themselves,including customer preference data that could contribute to aggregate industry studies,but they also pay for great quantities of data, such as market surveys, which couldafter a short pasae of time be eligible for sharing with smaller businesses anduniversities. One of the challenges facing nations which desire to be attractive tointernational investors is that of creating "informaion-rich" environments within whichcorporations can be globally competitive. One way of doing this is by developinginformation consoria and protocols for releasing into the information commons suchdata as might have already been exploited by the company that collected it or paidfor it but which could now have a residual value for the larger community. t 0

Private investigators and information brokers are addressed separately because theyplay a unique role in a global economy driven by information, in which informationis--a, \vin and Heidi Toffler have noted-a substitute for wealth, violence, labor,and oital. The capabilities of organizations dedicated to fnding and processingin, :lation can be extraordinary and worth every penny of investment. It is importantte te that one of the most significant changes to occur in relation to governmenti: mation in the past two decades is that the "information explosion" and the freer .;et economy have led to the establishment of private sector capabilities which areis nor to traditional government collection and processing mechanisms. Exampleso! est in class" private sector intelligence" capabilities include Oxord Analytic, with

global network of human experts monitoring political and economic events.orldwide; FIND/SVP, able to acquire any document anywhere; Kroll Asociates, the

world's best corporate investigative firm; Burwell Enterpriss, publisher of the &urweUDirectory of Irnormation Brokers; LEXIS-NEXIS, the premier "fit stop" incommercial online searching and the Institute of Scientific Information, publisher ofthe Science Citation Index and the Social Scimce. Citation Index, both extraordinarymeans of identifying current and emerging knowledge and the experts behind theknowledge."

The utility of media information for policy, economic planning military contingencyplanning, and law enforcement is almost always severely underestimated. In fact,journalists-especially investigative journalists-are extraordinarily talented, energetic,and well-connected individuals who produce very significant and accurate reports whichcan be integrated into fnihed reports on virtually any topic. It is also worth noting

GOVERNMENT INFORVATION QUARTERLY Vo. 13/No. 2116

that mostjournalists publish only roughly 10% of what they know. James Baker, formerSecretry of State, notes in his memoirs that in terms of fine-turning our own work,staying abrwt of the press commntary was particularly important' 2 Colin Powell,in his book, notes that when he was Military Auistant to then-Secrtary of DefenseCuper Weiaberger, he 'preferrd the Early Brd with its compendium of newspaperstories" to the "cream of overnight intlligence" which was delivered to the Scretaryof Defense by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) courier each morning." In a directand practical example, the U.S. Southern Command, working with the Los AlamosNational Laboratory, was able-at very low cost-to exploit Latin Americaninvestigative reporting such that tactical interdiction missions could be planned andexecuted based primarily on media reporting, This is not to say that media sourcesare superior to clusified intelligence, only that they cannot be discounted and areespecially useful to those in the private sector and in much of government who do nothave authorized access to classified information.

Finally, we have the government, including state and local governments and theirinformation holdings, the Department of Defense, and the intelligence community.Thcae are not examined in detail here. However, it bears mentioning that in the absenceof a policy supportive of information archiving and public dissemination-and themeans for implementing that policy-vast stores of information reaching the U.S.government, including information collected and processed by contractors to the U.S.government, are being "buried" each day, needlessly depriving the public of significantinformation resources. For those in government who are overwhelmed by their owninternal "information explosion" and at a loss for how to handle their archiving,Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and the complex iuues of copyright,there is a solution; the National Technical Information Service (NTIS)."

.NTELLIGENCE IN THE AGE OF INFORMATIONHaving explored in general terms the elements of the information commons and theinformation continuum, we now must focus on the specifics of intelligence in the Ageof Information." Among the core concepts that government and private sectorinformation managers must adopt and promulgate ae:

Espionage, whether by governments or corporations, is less cost-effective thanintelligent exploitation of open sources. Unfortunately, most intelligencecommunities are trained, equipped, and organized to do secrets, and they are notwell positioned to collct and integrate open sources-public information-intotheir analysis and production processes. This needs to be changed and is discuaedurther below.

* The best target for the application of intelligence methods (requirements analysis,collection management, analytical fusion, forecasting and visualization ofinformation) is not a competitor organization but rather the customer and theenvironment.

* Decision-upport (intelligence) is the ultimate objective of all informationprocesse. One must carefully distinguish between data, which is the raw text,signal, or image; Itformation, which is collated data of generic interest; and

164

Creaing a Sman Nation 165

intellgence, which is information that has been tailored to support a specifidecision by a specific person about a specific question at a specific time and place.Most government information and so-called intelligence products are so generica to be relatively useless in directing action. Only when information serves asthe foundation for inteligence can its cost be justified.Distributed information is more valuable and yet less expensive than centralizedinformation. The rt of information governance in the 21st century will focus onharnesing distributed center of excellence rather than on creating cetralizedrepositories of information.

* "Just in time" information collection and intelligence production is far lessexpensive and far more useful to the consumer of intelligence than just in casecollection and archiving"

* The value of information is a combination of its content, the context within whichit is being used, and the timeliness with which it is obtained and exploited. Thismeans thai information which has been used by an organization declines in valuewhen taken out of context and after time has passed. This, in turn, means thatthere is every reason for an organization to bater, share, or sell information (e.g.,market research) once its 'prime" value point has passed. This is especiallyimportant to an organization as a means of incrasing its cuisition of newinformation which-in its own context and time-has greater value than whenit was lying falow in the information commons.

* The new paradigm for information acquisition is the "diamond paradigm," inwhich the consumer, aayst, collector, and source are all able to communicatedirectly with one another. The old pardigm the "linear paradigm" in which theconsumer went to the analyst who went to the collector who went to the source,and back up the chain it went, is not only too slow but is also unworkable whenyou have a fast-moving topic with many nuances that are difficult to communicate.Today and in the future, the information managers greatest moment is going tobe when a consumer can be put in direct touch with exactly the right source whocan answer the question directly, at low cost. by creating new knowledge tailoredto the needs of the consumer, at that exact moment.

· The most important information resource is the employee. Every employee mustbe a collector, producer, and consumer of information and intelligence. This iscalled the "corporate hive"1 model, and it is the foundation for creating a "smarnation." If every personnel description does not lit as task number one: 'collctand report information useful to the organiation," and if organizations do notprovide a vehicle (e.g., Lotus Notes) and a protocol for shaing information amongemployees, then by definition the organization is 'dumb."

* Published knowledge is old knowledge. The art of intelligence in the 21st centurywill be less concerned with integrting old knowledge and more concerned withusing published knowledge as a path to exactly the right source or sources whocan create new knowledge tailored to a new situation, in real time."

* The threat (or the answer) changes depending on the level of analysis. The moetfundamental flaw in both intelligence and information today is the failure toestablish, for each question, the daired level of analysis. There re four levelsof anlysis: trtegic, operational, tactical, and technical. These, in turn, are

166 GOVERNMENT INFORMATION QUARTERLY VoL 13/No. 2/1996

influenced by the three major contexts of inquiry: civil, military, and geogphic.A simple example from the military sphere will illustrate the importance of thisissue. Examining the capability of a specific Middle Eastern country in the missionarea of tank warfare, it wu found that while the initial threat assessment (bysomeone unfamiliar with the levels-of-analysis approach) was very high becamethis country had a great many modern tanks, in fact the threat varied significantlydepending on the level of analysis. Only at the technical level (lethality) wa thethreat high. At the tactical level (reliability), the threat was, in fact, very lowbecause the crews were not trained and had poor morak, and the tanks wregenerally in storage and not being maintained. At the operational level(availability), the threat increased to medium because there wer large numbersof tanks widely scattered over the country. At the strategic level (sustainability),the threat dropped again to low because it would be almost impossible for thiscountry to carry out extended tank warfare operations, even on its own terrain.This approach can and should be applied to every question for which intelligenc-tailored information-is to be provided.

ETHICS, ECOLOGY, AND EVOLUTIONOur "Industrial Age" concept of intelligence and information has relied heavily on acentralized, top-down "command and control" model in which the question viruallydetermined the answer, and the compartmentation of knowledge-its restriction to anelite few-has been a dominant feature of information operations. This article suggetsthat the true value of "intelligence" lies in its informative value, a value which increaseswith dissemination, The emphasis within our government, therefore, should be onoptimizng our exploitation of open sources, increasing the exchange of informationamong the intelligence community, the rest of government, and the private sector, andproducing unclassified intelligence. This could be called the "open books' approachto national intelligence.21

As we prepare to enter the 21s century, we must ask ourselves some fundamentalquestions. How do we define national security? Who is the customer for nationalintelligence? What is our objective? There appears to be every reason to dicard oldcocpt of national security and national intelligence and to focus on developingin raed t nationwide information and intelligence networks which recognize thatnational security depends on a solid economy and a stable environment; that the centerof gravity for progress in the future is the citizen, not the bureaucrat; and that ourobjective must be to enable informed governance and informed citizenship, not simplyto monitor conventional and nuclear threats.

I am convinced that the "ethics" of national intelligence requires a dramatic reductionin government secrecy as well as corporate secrecy. After 20 years an intelligenoeprofessional, I am certain that secrets are inherently pathological, undermining reasonedjudgement and open discussion.u Secrets are also abused, used to protect bureaucraticinterests rather than genuine equities. Consider the following statement by Rodley B.McDaniel, then Executive Sectary of the National Security Council:

Cretng a Smat Notlon 167

Everybody who's a real pactitione, and I'm sure you're not all naiv in this regard,realizes that there are two us to which security cluaiflation i put: the legitimatedesire to protect ecret, and protection of bureaucrtic turf. As a practtioner ofthe real world, it's about 90% buucratic turf and 10% legitimate protection ofecret as far as I'm concernod.

A wise man once said: "A ntion's best defense is an educated dtizenry." I firmlybelieve that in the Age of Information, national intelligence-unclasified nationalintelligence-must be embedded in every decision, every process, and everyorganiation. The "ethics" of openness needs to apply to the private sector a well ato the government. Universities should not be allowed to hold copyrights or patentsif they are not able or willing to diseminate knowledge or commercialie technolog'.Corporations should not be allowed to monopolize patents solely to protect archaicproduction processes.

The environment in which we live, in which we hope to prosper and secure thecommon defense, is our most important intelligence target and our most neglectedintelligence target. Our traditional intelligence community and our more conventionalgovernment information community both appear reluctant to take on the hard iuuesof honestly evaluating the larger context within which we export munitions, keep theprice of gasoline under two dollars a gallon, permit unfettered gang warfare andexploitation within our immirant communities, and so on. At what point are we goingto establish an architecture for integrating Federal, state, and local data about thenatural environment and for producing useful strategic analyses about specifc political,economic, and cultural isues? The following paraphrased observation by EllenSeidman, Special Assistant to the President on the National Economic Council, isinstructive:

CIA reports only focus on foreign economic conditions. They don' do dometiceconomic conditions and so I cannot get a ttraeic analysis that compares andcontrasts strengths ad weakneses of the industries I am responsible for. On theother hand, Treasury, Commerce, and the Fed ae terrible at the buiness ofinteligence-they don't know how to produce intlli4ence.3

Taken in combination, what we do out of ignorance to our environment each daythrough our existing energy, trade, defense, housing, transportation, and educationpolicies is far wone than a whole aeries of Chernobyla.

Finally, if the nation is to evolve, if it is to "harness the distributed intellignce ofthe Nation," as Vice President Al Gore ha taken to saying in his many speeches onthe National Information Infrastructure, then we must come to grips with the fact thatwe are "losing our mind" as a nation and that education isthe "boot camp" for nationalintelligence. We must revitalize our educational system, including corporate traininand continuing education programs, and realize that openness is a powerful catalystfor bringing to bear the combined intelligence of every citizen and resident Insteadof "National Intelligence" (spies and satellites) bearing the burden for informing policy,we should rely upon "national intelligence" (smart people) and use our distributednetwork of educated scholars, workers, information broken, journalists, civil servants,

168 GOVERNMENT INFORMATION QUARTERLY VoL 13/No 2/1996

and soldiers as the foundation for smart policy. Upon such a foundation, spies andsatllites can add a decisive value; without such a foundation, spies and satellites areirrelevant.

REINVENTING NATIONAL INTELLGENCENow, we can finally turn to the reinvention of the national intlligence community astraditionally defined, for in reinventinj this community, we can inspire the reinventionof government information and the establishment of a national information commons.u

By and large, the elements of the national intelligence community-the CentralIntelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the NationalReconnaisance Office (NRO), the Defense Intelligene Agency (DIA)i and the FederalBureau of Investigation (FBI)-have all performed to expectations, Where we havegone awry is with our expectations. We focused this oommunity on Soviet srets andwe funded this community to collect and proces Soviet secrets. Everything else wassecondary and, by and large, everything else received-no surprise-virtually noattention.

Unfortunately, the national intelligence community, in developing approaches to"denied area" collection requirements, became obaased with technology and ultimatelyended up substituting technology for thinking. At the low end, an exclusive relianceon the polygraph machine destroyed the ar and craft of counterintelligence. At thehigh end, the billions of dollars spent on satellites capable of collecting images andsignals led to costcutting in other critical ares, with the most unfortunate loser beinganalysis. The community failed to invest in processing technologies, such that fewerthan 10% of the images and signals collected by this technology are ctually processed,and the community went short on analytical expertise, hiring young people just outof college because they were cheap rather than investing modestly (say, 19 of whatis bing spent annually on satellites) in order to hire true expert who have proventhemselves in the private sector over time.

What is to be done? The following are but a few of the major initiatives that couldbe considered, those most pertinent to government information manager as a body.

Firt, we must accelerate the tentative program established by the Director of CentralIntelligence (DCI) to increase intelligence community exploitation of open sources. TheCommunity Open Source Program Office (COSPO) is under fine leadership andmoving in the right direction, but much more could be done, and done quickly. TheNational Foreign Intelligence Board has stated for the record that 40% of the all-sourceintelligence product (products integrating clandestine human intelligence rporu,classified imagery, and classified signals intercepts) comes from open sources at a cosnof 1% of the National Foreign Intellgence Program budget. This is an extraordinaryadmission. The intelligence oommunity should not become a collector of publicinformation-it should instead develop capabilities for exploiting the vast resourosof unclassified information available to the rest of the government and, at the sametime, develop a well-funded and well-managed capability for purchasing from theprivate sector those open sources and srices most pertinent to the intelliencerequirements it is expected to satisfy. Open sources are a foundation for the alsourceproduct; they are not a substitute for spies and satellites. We should not be sending

teating a Smart Naton 169

spys where schoolchildren cn go, and we must at the same time overcome the problemwith spys today, that they only know secrets and cannot validate or evaluate their secretsin the larger context provided by full acess to public information

Second, we must revitalie the CIA by rstori its core competence-strategicanalysis-and stripping away from this organization the extraneou functions that havedepleted its analytic reserves, The existin Directorate of Itelligence should havetransferred to it the Foreig Broadcut Information Service (FBIS) now residet inthe Directorate of Science and Technolog', and the National Collection Division (NCD)now resident in the Directorate of Opentions. The National Intelligence Council shouldbe signifcantly expanded to include a National Intelligence Officer assigned to eachof the departments and principal aencies of the government, as well as AssistantNational Intelligenc Oficers for the traditional intelligence topical areas. COSPOshould be integrated into the DDI u its manement arm and should asumeoperational authority over all intelligen community open source collection capabilitiesand contracts. The Directorate of Operations should be spun off from the CIA tobecome a separate Clandestine Service Agency (CSA), and all of its case officer andother personnel gradually withdrawn from our embassies and placed under completelynonofficial cover. In their place in the embauies we should put small interagency teamsof analysts, s well as open source collection and collection management spealists,to provide the DDI with a tactical collection and a tactical analysis team in direct supportof each ambassador and his or her country team. The Directorate of Science andTechnology and Administration should also be spun off from the CIA, but upgradedto the Office of the Director of Central Intellignce, and charged with mang theirrespective domains for all agencies, not just the CIA. Now cleansed of it nonanalyticelements, the CIA can and should be renamed the National Intellience Agency (NIA).

Other initiatives need not be stressed here but would include the establishment ofa National Imagry and Mapping Agency (NIMA) charged with fully exploitingcommercial imagery before tuking scarce and expensive cluified imagery assets; theexpansion of NSA's charter to explicitly include monitoring of unclassifiedcommunications in cybenpace; the establishment of a new Electronic Security &Counterintelligence Program under the oversight of the FBI and with the private sectoras its primary beneficiary; and the interation of all militry intelligence capabilitiesunder a Joint National Military Intlligence Command.

Having thus put its own house in order, the traditional national intelligenccommunity of the United States would be ready to serve a a full partner with the restofgovernment and the private ecor in makin the United States the first smart nation"in the 21st century. his would, however, require a National Information Strategy, aadthat is where we conclude.

NATIONAL INFORATION STRATEGYThe National Information Infrastructure (Nil) provides the vita element ofconnectivity-including civic networking--without which no program to improve ournational competitiveness could succed, However, there is a larger vision, a largerprogram, where executive leadership must play a vital role: we as a people require aNational Information Strategy. Our national competitiveness, and indeed our national

COVERNMENT INFORMATION QUARTERLY Vol 13/N. 2/1996

scurty in the information ae, require a depth and breadth of commitmnt toinformation as a commodity; to information a a subtitute for time, space, capital,and labor. Information-applied information-is vital to both our defense and ourprosperity.

Connectity ts but one of the four major elemnts of wha must soon become aNational Information Stratqgy. For those counseling the incremental approach,"connectivity today, content tomorrow," one must say: it will be too late. The fngilityof our position in the world, in terms of "brain drain," budget deficit, and electronicsecurity, all require that we establish a four-point integrated program, as outlined below,immediately.

* Connectvity. Such a strategy should build upon the NI' at its technicalfoundation, but provide for three additional element:

* Content. Existing government programs, under the auspices of a NationalInformation Foundation within the White House, should provide incentives forall elements of the information continuum (K-12, universities, libraries, businsses,information brokers, media, government, defense, and intelligence) to put contentonline; only in this way can we establish a robust national "information commons"and give Robert Reich's symbolic aalysts something other than a starvation dietIt is vital that we establish a means of nurturing distributed centers of excellencethroughout our nation in all topical areas, providing all sectors with inentivesto place encyclopedic information into the 'information commons" and, thus,stimulating productivity. Just S1 billion a year invested in this program could yieldenormous productivity and competitiveness gains across our entire private sector.Within government, we should dramatically acclerate NTIS involvement instructuring and digitizing information now in the possession of the governmentbut not .vailable to the public.

* Coordh ation. Using a body aimilar to those now orchestrating Nil technicalissues. focus on resource management across government and private sectorboundaries in both technical and nontechnical (content) arenas. There is no goodreason why hundreds of major organizations should be wasting approximatelyS2 billion a year creating hundreds of variations of a basic multimedia analysisworkstation. There is no good reason why hundreds of corporations and otherorganizations should be wasting enormous sums collecting and processing thesame encyclopedic information about foreign countries, companies, andcapabilities. Presidential leadership would make a diffrence and save the nationbillions of dollars annually, not only within government but across the privateector.

* Communications and Computer Security. We have a house built over asinkhole! The vulnerabilities of our national telecommunications infrastructureto interruption of services as well as destruction, degradation, and theft of dataare such that expers feel comfortable in predicting that-unless we are able toetablish a major Presidential program in tis arena-we will see a serie ofenormously costly electronic attacks on our major financial and industrialorganizations, generally undertaken by individuals who stand to benefit financiallyfrom degraded or interrupted performance. The currcnt generation of systems

170

Crating a Smrnt Naion

engineers was not raised in an environment where securit was a neemsary elementof design. At every level, through very node, we are wide open-and in anetworked environment, one open house contaminties the next

Such an integrated program could be estblihed using exiting rsource. The costsavings from the elimination of rodudant and counterproductive investmentU ininformation collection and information technology acros government departmens andinto the private secor would also make a subrtntive difference against the deficit.2

CONCLUSIONWe are a smart people today, but a dumb nation. Our national security and our nationalattractiveness as a site for international investment which permits our citizens to prosperarc both at risk. We have no alternative but to completely redefine the role ofgovernment to emphasize its responsibility for the nurturing of our national informationcommons, and to redefine national intelligence so as to create a Virtual IntelligenceCommunity in which every citizen is a collector, producer, and consumer of intelligence.To do this, we must have a National Information Strategy.

NOTES AND REFERENCES1. Lee Feisenstei of the Interval Re. rch Corportion s the originaor of the term 'infoAtion

commons." He cau be reahed at (415) 354-0857 or c<ointervaLcom>.2.I am indebted to M. Kuaian Swvnuon, Ph.L of Lund University, who brought to my anantion the

work on "National Security & National Competiivene Open Source Sohrtions" Interedtm y, brviews ae consiet with thous of Secrtary of Labor Robnr Reich, who definU U.S. oompaniu'u tho that employ U.S. citizi ad pay U.S. taxa. Se LAr Oxelheim, "Foroil Dirc Invetacntand the Liberliution of Capial Movements in the Global Rac for Forei Diret nv1 mm,' inProtpctifor iht Futwe, edite by L n Oxdhaim CBerii Sprin'er.V ri, 1993).

3. 'Hacken' an not the thrLt. Ai I hve noted on many oeeio hekenn re a nationau oura buethey c forcag us to al nowied that he empror is nraked. Shery Turkle, in Thf SeoWnd S:Compn es nd the HRwm Spfrt (New York: Simo & Schutu, 1964) CXmin the origin of hacin"A MIT and demortm coehdusni th t h bcker ethic is ideticl to the right uffr associad whthe eaty utronuut-both puh the f the envelope striving for excenlm The icu thnrUM toour naiona information infrutrutm begs with bd endieeri and culminaw prim ly in authoimd

om doiln unsaholrizd thi David leove, Ki Se, and Wlliuam Von Storeh note n ComapraCr&W. A CrmwFngAwe Hwboo (SbastopoL CA O'Reilly A Aseodia, 1995) that oonomic 1amocdatle with oomputrsi an ributed a follow: 55% to humn rror rad 20% to phyiea dcnption

such as nranlI dbatmer or power ftuh (one could ay, poor oomputr dtian 10% to dibonsemployee 9% to dlrmtled employe; 4% to vinur; ad only 1-3% to ouuidur auasd

4. Thb sminal work in thi arm is Winn Scbwsaru, I tormaion Warfr: Chaos on the ecsronkSupwerhway (New York Thundert Mouth Pru 1994). Tbouhtful pape on the vulnerbilty ofspecfic networks include: Mj Gnrtld RL ust, rTakil Down Telecommunicetiomn (School ofAdvanced Airpower Studie, 1993); Mj Thomau E. Orift,. Jr., *Straic Attack of National IleocalSystem" (School of Advacid Airpowr Studies, October 1994); and H.D. Arnold, J. Hyukld J.Keeey, and A Camron, Tarpting Fnanial Systems a Cenmuer of Gravity. 'Low Intensiy' to 'NoIntenity' Confict," Dfier AnWlyas, 10(2, 1994).

S. One major U.S. government atency. xmremelycompetent in computing interapted all ommunicurcoand computing hadware ad softw reacicng it loading docks for a period of one yea. It found00 aparau viru contained in shrink-wrpped products coming triht from the faory.

171

COVERNMENT INFORMATION QUARTERLY Vo. 13/No. 2/1996

6, The Dirctor of the Canadia Security nd lttlipnme Srvice, Waud Eloock, u ated publicly tht80% of the input for fiasbed intellU oe product come from open sourc; the Canadian ecrvio alsomtkes it a point to publish nclaai d inatUite reports. Although the U.S. intelliece cn ommnityonly acknowldlps 40% as the official contribuion of open LocW , the former Director for Science& Technology has stated publicly that the fiurt it actually 7096; it i pouible h mirpoka.

7. Although sverl authorn. including Peer Drucke, hav addred ri revnDtion ad ee ringimperanti in relation to the iformation p, none have done more to elp public undetadian thanAMn and Heidi Tofflr with their books PowrSAW , Kowlwdq . Wealth, and Vlme ra the Sdrof the 21n Cmnary (New York: Banam, 1990) aad W and A i. Wte. Survtl at the Drwn qf Lh2tn Cnrzwy (Borton, MA: Utie Brown, 1993).

I. Point of conta are, re petively, Crfirtopher Fit at (408) 647-193, Robert Heibel at (814) 8&242117,and Geoffrey Fox at (315) 443-1722

9. Poinu of contuat art. rpctily, tBrad Baily at (303) 758-30,, David Beader at (202) 234-470,nd Chrlea Bailey, Jr., at (713) 743-904.

10. Durin an nnual conferem of middle-gsd hcke, populariy known u the Lake Tahoe Conferene,thre wams disuution of wht rtun on invtment one reoeived from volunteering infomation intothe Interet The eneral conenu wm thtt for every pice of informaion that one contribued tothe oommoon, 100 pio; wee rreoivd In rtn, of which 10 were atually ueful Ten4o-o rturnon inven.mct--thi is nlstru.,

11. Poinu ofcontt atr for Oxford Ani yt, Robin Porteut (44 1865) 261-600; for FTN'D/SVPJoeepbCotitore at (212) 64-4500; for Kroll Amodiat Tom Fedork It (212) 593-1000; for Burwl Enterpri,Joane Psolino at (713) 46-3300 xt. 2353; for LEXIS-NEXIS, Jcffy rattenmaker at (513) 85-187; aad for IS, Frank Spiekr at (21S) 380100, extemion 1374.

12. James A. Baker. IU, 71u PodlIti of Diplomacy: Revohlion, War & Poc IPP1992 (tew York:O.P. Putnm's Sons, 1995), p. 154.

13. Colin Powel, My Americn Journy (Rt ndom Houe, I195), p, 293.14. This eciid story, by the principal inv'iator at Los Alamo Nuional Laboratory, i oontained in

Jame. Holden-Rhodes, Sharn the Ser'eu: Open Sowc IA#wUienw and ath War on Drws-(Albuquerqwu Univenity of New Mexico Pram, 1994). The vuous laboratories of the Departmentof Eoerl are, in fact, the nation' m0ot imprtant open ource latellienoe uet, and a very importantexample of why we can no longer afford to compat i cJu ed inteligene apart from 'res of

opverm meu " informtion.15. ?NTS is a Klf-utaininng orpaation under the ov0riSht of the Department of Commere which plays

a siificant role in helping the ederal goveen it incre the dinemination of unaelai dinformation to the private ector. The exiting ard ewiy sciaable global multi-medira demi oncpability, including an innovative panertnhip with Kinkol, is the fit nsp in bring4g 21soseaturyttandardo of accountbillty and aoelbilhy to lovernment record created at taxpyer expese. NTISis a critical playu in helping al elemenu of the Federal governent, on a voluntary bau eutbacce ible and aocountable alectrovic recrds; embed bibilopaphic rucnu in ther records; catabliahao online ptnce through FedWorld; and dramaicaly incaree public c to ueul information.

16. My keynote speech to the Aw ocidao for Olobal Stratc Information (ASI) containd many ofthese operational oaoncpu and b ben reprintd i "Aooea The Theory and Practice of CompetitorIntelliee ," Jornal of A GSf(July 1994). My most developed work in this aa, fnded by the Freghgovernment, is my white paper, "Aoe. Theory and Pratice of Intellience in the Ae of Iformation"(October 26. 1993).

17. Paul van Peters, Executive Diretor of the Coalition for Netwrkod Information, the orinutorof this coaept. He can be rached at (202) 2965098.

18. Kevin Kelly, O of ControL e R bN of Neo-Uoklc CiMkurlon (Readina MA: Addison-Wely,1994), provide a brilliat uxpodtion of why, in a vry oomplex global systea drien by informationorganic lf.bteling ad relativly autonomou elements must be a eptd and nurturd-it impodbleto control complexity in a centralbd pepTlnned faluon. Thoe ooneend about the fralty of owinformation infrutruture would do wl to ad KIlly work, a w ull one prndaing him by 10 yuea.Charl Pwrrow Nomal Acdd,, ts.: ,LMe with Ah-RLs Trclhno (NOew York: Bie Booka, 19S4).Simple syttm have inlP poinu of fair u easy to diasBore. Complex ryute hav multiple poinuof failure dttcuh to diaoe. Today we have a c ontellation of very complex information ystem.

172

Ceating A Smam Naton 173

19. We kp forttiq tha bool wmee g ally writen u dimrtmtion or rWd roughly 10 ymn bdorefinally appearing in print artile anr pnally 10 amorah or so old; and een newpaper noriest leset a day if not 3-10 day old Wlha ncademi dCria, i ih wll-.known that if one Is o reoevlf

the draft of works in prortuu &a tbe prprit, it is u mply not poeiblt to be a aiow oomptitorin the fed.

20. At the tragic r level, L viJ allltu pographic Iocation, a:d miliizry nutainrabilty an nieictL At theopeational Ltvel dvi instabilty, Peophic ouresa, uad miitary availbility are Iportnt At theticksl IcvY civil pchology, ipopphJc trrti, aud mhiury rellbiliy dotdctne outcom. At thetechnical levl. civl infratruur orphic amnophn, uod mifItry lrahslty the foundtionfor pl aniU ad cmployme. ThiS i4 a orinAl anlydi model developed by the author while ervingu the Deputy Dirctor and enior dv itn at the new Maine Corps nteUllire Ceer in Quaoco,Virna. At the tim examinin all product from the Cental Intelliere Apncy and the DefnsInteipnoe Apecy then in bhnd, the author dicovered thi none of th producu ruppornd a rpeifdscton and that none of the produc was relted to any specilc lvel of analyti. Evryttd waseneric, topica, a "etaprhot," virtually usels to a pocymr k or or commamder.

21, Tha sction draws on a rull-kngh articl, E3i: Ethic Ecology, Evolution, and IUtllioe,' publibedin the Whok Erth Rrview (Fll. 1992).

22. Although A and Heidi Toffer hve called me "th rew enemy of secrecy' in the Unhted Stat(in tbeir book W and Ami- W'), th is not quite cornet. I m an enemy of unnrasay cecybecause It coss a ip' dna;-not only in do4lla but alo in tcrm oJ ofppornurAf. My complt viewae s fonbh in my "ettimony uad ComrMnu on Exeutiv Order 1236, 'N&tioal Securitylaformt ion," provided by invitation o the Preeldetial Inter-.Aency Task Fore on Nional SecurityInformuion, Depatment of Justi, June 9, 1993. 1 believe tht wt should all be trong advocatesof no claifiction without jutlfLcaon."

23. He wau ipefin in 1990 to a roup of g eovnmet employmta lected for inocrwd rupoaibility andattending a Harvrd Executive Progam. Cited in Thomu P. Coakky (ed), C'l: Issu of Commandand Control (Natonal Defen. Universty, 1991), p. 68.

24. Seidman wu spekin to the Open Soua Lunch Club on January 11, 1994. Her obwsvation wtresubequently rponed in OSS Noticu 94001 dated Februnry 21,1994.

25. Among my many spwechs aod publiecaion in thi are, the followig re especially pertinent: "NationlIntelligenC StretyN-Needed uiiivu," speech to the NadonIa DIfoes Univanity Poundrton/Natonal Indusri Security Assocition Sympoium on The Global Informaion Exploon: A Thrtto Nauionl Security, May 16, 1995 (with Ain Tomer, Bo Cutter, nunmtt Pag, Robert Johnson,and Bill Studen); 'Natlonal Intellipao-The Community Tomorro.," speech to the SecuityAffin Suppon Ausocation Spring Symposium, Nstiorl Scurity Aency, April 20.1995; "PrivaeEnterpris Intell~neoe: lu Potential Contribution to Nationa& Security." paper preented to theCanadian Intellinct Community Conferance on Intellinoe Analyi and Asocm ent, October 29,1994; and "A Critical Evaluation of U.S. Ntional InteliRno Capablitia," uernat'ional Jonawl ofInu flftnM ed ComrLnteIf#tio (Sumer 1993). I have o provided inviud tatimony to theCommUiston on Iltelinoce and the Houm Perman Select Committee on latellience.

26. One uthority, Paul Strusma entimate tht in formation housekeepinf coat loe S22 bflioncould be saved over seven yeLn. This it apat from policy avinp derived from improved intllitnoeouppor Strsmmann ha been Dirctor of Dfen In formation and Cief Information Offcer of thXerox Coorpoaton and other major oompajiea His books, including The PoUklu of WormuionMAatmrnt. 7Te A siau Veat of Cowpours, amd lqflormaon PeyCff, are all exceptioal.

Open Source Intelligence: STRATEGY Proceedings, 1997 Volume III 6 th International

Conference & Exhibit Global Security & Global - Link PagePrevious PART I. SECRECY & OPENNESS: E3i-Ethics, Ecology, Evolution and Intelligence

Next PART III. VIRTUAL INTELLIGENCE: Conflict Avoidance and Resolution Through Information Peacekeeping (U.S.Institute of Peace Proceedings of the Conference on Virtual Diplomacy, 1-2 April 1997)

Return to Electronic Index Page