Military intelligence outsourced to commerical contractors

It has been well known for some time that average-Joes can go to Iraq and Afghanistan and shoot guns for a good pay via companies like Xe (former Blackwater), Dyncorp or Triple Canopy. A new thing on the radar is that hopefully above-average-Joes have an opportunity to work as producers of intelligence for decision support for US military forces overseas. See the recent articles below, as well as this job ad, and also this job ad.

Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants
By DEXTER FILKINS and MARK MAZZETTI of New York Times, Published: March 14, 2010
A Defense Department official set up a private network of spies in Pakistan and Afghanistan to gather intelligence on insurgents, according to officials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/world/asia/15contractors.html

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Off-the-Books ‘Jason Bournes’ in Afghanistan?
By Nathan Hodge March 15, 2010
Here’s the short version: Dexter Filkins and Mark Mazzetti of the Times tell the story of Michael Furlong, a defense official reporting to U.S. Strategic Command who may have hired private security contractors to serve as his own personal “Jason Bournes” to collect targeting intelligence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/off-the-books-jason-bournes-in-afghanistan/

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Pentagon probes alleged ad hoc spy ring
By Barbara Starr, CNN, March 17, 2010
The Department of Defense has launched an investigation into whether a $24 million contract to gather information about developments in towns and villages in Afghanistan and Pakistan may have been inappropriately used instead to run an ad hoc spy ring.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/03/16/spy.probe/

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When the CIA’s intelligence-gathering isn’t enough
By David Ignatius, Thursday, March 18, 2010
The starting point for understanding this covert intrigue is that the U.S. military has long been unhappy about the quality of CIA intelligence in Afghanistan. The frustration surfaced publicly in January in a report by the top military intelligence officer in Kabul, Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031602625.html

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Danger Room Explainer: Outsourced Intel in Afghanistan
By Nathan Hodge March 17, 2010
On Monday, the Times ran a story about Michael Furlong, the Defense Department official being investigated over an ad hoc spy ring. The piece raised more questions than it answered, and Washington Post intelligence columnist David Ignatius is now filling in some of the blanks.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/03/danger-room-explainer-outsourced-intel-in-afghanistan/

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Processing challenges: Intellipedia has growing pains

Collection can be hard work, but Processing is harder.

Established in 2005, Intellipedia, now managed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,  has approximately 100,000 user accounts. Open to anyone with a US government e-mail account, it has social bookmarking tool, a document repository, a home page for each user, and collaboration spaces.

The growth of the collective intelligence site so far largely has been fueled by early adopters and enthusiasts, according to Chris Rasmussen, a social-software knowledge manager and trainer at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. Other problems include:

• Out of the fear of the unknown, many people are doing the same [work] two or three times
• Contributors tag their articles in ways that can be too agency-centric. Contributors need to learn to accept “an agency-neutral non-ownership” stance
• Participating agency employees still tend to work in more classified spaces than necessary
• For true change to occur, agencies must use Intellipedia as their official conduit, for its official records, rather than using it as a duplicate or shadow system

Government Computer News, February 18, 2009

http://gcn.com/Articles/2009/02/18/Intellipedia.aspx

BORENE: More than espionage – Washington Times

Andrew M. Borene is a manager with LexisNexis in Washington. He is a former associate deputy general counsel at the Department of Defense and teaches courses on intelligence policy at the University of Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.

In this article in The Washington Times from January 27, 2010, he argues for the use of OSINT in the US Government intelligence community:

OSINT tools and sources are considerably less expensive than traditional means of collecting intelligence, such as covert human sources, satellite collection and signals exploitation. OSINT also does not raise the specter of foreign and domestic political risk that can accompany other means of intelligence-gathering. The result could be a nonlinear increase in the effectiveness and efficiency of Intelligence Community operations.

BORENE: More than espionage – Washington Times.