"And The Winner Is..." (DNI Open Source Innovation Challenge)

As many regular readers of this blog already know, the Mercyhurst College team of Mike Butler, Shannon Ferrucci, Ray Wasko, Drew Brasfield, Dan Somavilla and Chris Hippner (sponsored by MCIIS Director Bob Heibel) won the DNI's Open Source Innovation Challenge last week at the OSINT Conference in DC. The Mercyhurst answer is embedded below:

MCIIS DNI OSINT Challenge -- Winning Entry - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: MCIIS DNI OSINT Challenge -- Winning Entry

A few quick notes on the doc. First, it is uploaded to Scribd, so you can download it there. Second, the document here is a PDF. The submission was in MS Word which meant that the embedded video worked directly in the doc. With the PDF version, you have to click on the link in the caption to see the video in the document on YouTube (or you can just watch the embedded version below:



In addition to the 3 page (max) document, the team had to put together a six slide presentation in case they won. The team's presentation is actually a slide show, complete with narration, animation, music and embedded videos and other do-dahs and knick-knacks. Very cool but bandwidth hungry. Don't try watching the video of the entire presentation below unless you are on a fast connection.




Final Notes From The Open Source Conference:

• I understand that iJet, the other team that won the challenge, had at least one Mercyhurst alum, Bradley Perry, on their team. Congratulations to them and to him as well!
  
• There are several great blog posts out there about the conference if you missed any of it. The DNI's blog has, presumably, the official word but HOTS provided an extensive series of notes and Cryptome did a great job with pictures of the conference. I suspect that there are others that I have not seen. If you know of any, please post them to the comments.
• Speaking of posts about the conference, you have to feel sorry for this guy....

Congratulations once again to the team for their excellent performance!

We -- All Of Us -- Won! (DNI Open Source Conference)

According to the DNI's official blog for the Open Source Conference going on in DC right now, Mercyhurst College had one of the two winning entries in the Conference's Open Source Innovation Challenge!

As most of you already know, the challenge was to tackle one of two analytic questions using only open sources and to do it in one week. The Mercyhurst team consisted of Mike Butler, Ray Wasko, Shannon Ferrucci, Dan Somavilla, Drew Brasfield and Chris Hippner and was sponsored by the Director of the Institute of Intelligence Studies here at Mercyhurst, Bob Heibel. They addressed the question: "Using the best open sources to inform your answer, is Al Qaeda a cohesive organization with strong and centralized control, intent and direction?" The other winning entry came from iJet Intelligent Risk Systems but I don't have any additional details.

The students involved were all unpaid volunteers and gave up their Labor Day holiday and the week before classes started in earnest to participate in the challenge. Their ability to self-organize, manage the collection effort (more on that in a minute), synthesize and analyze the vast amount of information that streamed in and produce an innovative and original document amazed both the faculty and their peers.

(Note to employers: One of the biggest advantages of hiring a Mercyhurst grad as an entry level analyst is also one of the most difficult to explain: By coming here and staying in the program, these students self-select to become analysts. Typically they do so because they really like doing intelligence analysis. They like the time pressure, they like difficult problems and they shoulder the responsibility of "getting intelligence right" very well. We told these students at the outset that the competition would be fierce and that their chances of winning were slim. We knew that this would not matter because we have 350 more students here just like them...)

One of the cooler things this team did, of course, was to crowdsource their efforts. I helped them put out the call for input right after Labor Day and many thanks to HOTS, IntelFusion, Soob and all the other bloggers that picked up the call and re-broadcast it. Also thanks to the members of IAFIE, INTELST, all of the alumni and all of the friends of the program for all of their help getting the word out and contributing to the process. I have not yet seen the list of all of the contributors but I have been told it is lengthy. If, as the DNI's new Vision 2015 document tells us, commitment, courage and collaboration are the core values of the intelligence community then everyone who offered a bit of advice, analysis or information without any expectation of reward deserves some of the credit, in my opinion.

On the analytic side, the team was clearly standing on the shoulders of giants. They benefited enormously from a wide variety of previous authors on the topic and their meticulously sourced document gives full credit to them. I also think they benefited from the expertise of Mercyhurst's own experts, Bob Heibel, former deputy director for counter-terrorism at the FBI and Steve Marrin, who had many, if not all, of these students in his terrorism class last year.

The presentation of the products and the slide show they put together along with it are due to be presented later today at the conference. Sometime after that, I will post both the document and the slide show here for anyone interested in the results.

DNI's Official Open Source Conference Blog Up And Running (DNI)

The DNI has a top secret blog (no links from the main conference site to the blog that I could find) and a couple of staffers (presumably) roped into live blogging the events at the ongoing Open Source Conference in DC. If you are interested in the conference but were not able to attend, the live-bloggers are doing a reasonably good job of keeping up with the content. Comments are enabled as well so it is a good way to be there without being there...

Puttin' The Open Into Open Source: MCIIS Innovation Challenge Team Looking To Do Some Collaborating!

The ODNI's Open Source Innovation Challenge set off a brief wave of excitement here at Mercyhurst late last week. There were a lot of pumped up students ready to take on the two challenge questions (Really -- they live for this kind of thing). Then everyone realized that you had to have a registered conference attendee on the team to submit an entry and registration was already closed...

The students set up one team anyway (under the sponsorship of Bob Heibel, our only registered attendee) and have been hard at work on their submission since then. Realizing that there was a ton more good open source info out there than they could possibly get at in a week, and taking full advantage of the rule that sets no size for the teams, the students have adopted an "innovative" approach to the problem: crowdsourcing.

They have asked me to help them get the word out that they are looking for anyone with anything relevant to the Al Qaeda challenge question: "Using the best open sources to inform your answer, is Al Qaeda a cohesive organization with strong and centralized control, intent and direction?"

You can send any info you think might be relevant to mciis.innovationchallenge@gmail.com, their group account, but they need the info ASAP as they have to submit their final report by 5 SEP 08.

Specifically, they are looking for reliable open source information from any source (academic studies, think tank reports, social network analyses, first hand observation, whatever...) that is relevant to the question of AQ and the level of centralization in its command and control. They have a few specific collection requests as well for anyone out there who might have something or know of something:

1. Instances of documented conflict between Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and other al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist groups.
2. Instances where ties with Bin Laden’s al Qaeda existed but terrorist groups were documented as autonomous and conducted independent acts of terrorism.
3. Instances of terrorist groups taking Bin Laden’s al Qaeda propaganda techniques and adopting them for their own purposes.
4. Instances of self radicalized terrorists forming independent self generated terrorist groups (other than the London and Madrid bombers).
5. Instances of groups that had sworn their allegiance to Bin Laden’s al Qaeda shifting to pursuing their own agendas that may have even run contrary to the wishes or mission statement supported by Bin Laden and al Zawahiri.
6. Links to quantitative lists of attacks by al-Qaeda and affiliated groups/splinter groups etc.
7. Differences in standard operating methods and tactics between Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and splinter groups.

Many readers of this blog are already working on their own entries, I know, but if you are one of those people who got closed out of registration or aren't going to get to go to the conference for other reasons, you can still play by helping the students out (they will give full credit to everyone that submits something). If you can't help but you know someone who can, don't hesitate to refer them to this post.

Win or lose, they have also agreed to let me post their final product here on SAM when the results are in, so stay tuned...

37,000 Contract Employees In IC; Cost 66% More Than Government Employees

Dr. Ronald Sanders, the Associate Director Of National intelligence for Human Capital, held a conference call (transcript of that call here) yesterday to discuss the recent results of an inventory of core contractor personnel. Based on the information in the call (and a little math) it appears that there about 100,000 military and civilian personnel in the US national security intel community along with about 37,000 (or 27% of the total 137,000 workforce) contract employees (Note: The numbers were pretty confusing and there was a lengthy, somewhat disconcerting discussion concerning algebra near the end of the conference but I came up with 37,000 based on what was written and so did the Post, so I feel better). Dr. Sanders went to great pains to explain that this was only the core contracting requirements of the IC. He was not including guys contracted to seal the asphalt at Langley, for example...

Dr. Sanders also quoted a number of interesting reasons for using so many contracted personnel. The number one reason (56%) was "to provide unique expertise to IC missions and functions." Specifically mentioned were scientific and engineering expertise, foreign language and regional and cultural expertise. 11% were hired because of the way the budget was structured. The IC wanted to hire permanent government employees but couldn't but had money to hire contractors. 10% of the contractors were hired because it was more cost effective, in some way, to hire them under contract and 8 percent were hired due to surge or non-recurring projects. (Note: I am not sure I understand all these numbers. For example, if you are hiring someone for "expertise" and it is a recurring requirement, then why isn't that person also someone you would want to bring on permanently?).

It also appears that these contractors cost the government 66% more than the average government employee ($207,000 per year vs. $125,000 per year). These numbers appear to be based on full life cycle costs including salary, benefits while in service, pension costs, health benefits into retirement, etc.

The total number of contractors on the payroll from 06-07 was "essentially a flat line" according to Dr. Sanders. Interestingly, the DNI didn't collect data on the numbers of contracted personnel prior to 2006 and can't speak to the exact trend in hiring though he did admit, "We know – you know there’s been a sharp increase in the number of U.S. government civilian employees in the intelligence community."

Who Are The Female Candidates For DNI? (CQ Politics)

Jeff Stein, writing for CQ Politics, has an interesting article about potential female candidates for DNI after the elections this year. He lists quite a few names including Frances Townsend, Joan Dempsey, Maureen Baginski, Mary Margaret Graham, Jami Miscik, Jane Harman, Sue Myrick and Valerie Plame. The article seems to suggest that Mary Margaret Graham (pictured here) is the top candidate among the female contenders.

It is not clear to me that the DNI will necessarily change after the elections, however. Obama has indicated that he favors a fixed term for the DNI (sort of like the Chairman of the Federal Reserve) and both Obama and McCain might see the value of consistency in the DNI position.

DNI's Brand New Page (DNI via Threat Level)

Wired's Threat Level gets credit for first noticing the DNI's brand new website. Very slick! My favorite part is the inclusion of RSS feeds. My least favorite part is that there is no single aggregate RSS feed that allows all of us DNI junkies to track all things DNI without checking five individual feeds.

118 Days, On Average, To Get Clearance (WSJ)

The Wall Street Journal reported last Friday (Thanks, Victoria!) that the average time it took to get a clearance had increased from 106 days last year to 118 days this year but that plans were in the making to shave 44 days from the process by the end of next year. The article also indicated that Pentagon employees receive their clearances in and average of 104 days while outside contractors take 151 days to complete.

DNI Mike McConnell has been complaining about the delays in processing security clearances since before he was the DNI and began his tenure as DNI with calls for reform in the process. In fact, modernizing the security clearance process is a core initiative of the DNI's 500 Day Plan. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (which the 500 Day Plan adopts as its metric) calls for the community to have 80% of its clearances complete within 120 days. The DNI has to be concerned that the trend is moving in the wrong direction and that there are still substantial, identifiable groups where the time frame is well outside the 120 day window (For a recent GAO report on progress in security clearance reform, click here).

Annual Threat Assessment Of The Director Of National Intelligence (Senate Testimony)

DNI Michael McConnell testified in front of the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence on 5 FEB 08. The full transcript of the report can be downloaded here. The full text is worth the read but in case you don't have time, I have excerpted some of the highlights here (Three notes of interest: The full text is 47 pages long so I left out a ton of good stuff (plus some of the stuff that everyone already knows like al-Qaeda still wants to attack the US) from the summary below. Second, the level of agreement and disagreement on a number of issues in this document with the Davos "NIE" (discussed here) makes for a fascinating comparative analysis exercise. Third, the boldface, comment and hyperlinks are mine):

On Al-Qaeda and Terrorism:

• "Increased security measures at home and abroad have caused al-Qa’ida to view the West, especially the US, as a harder target, we have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas [of Pakistan] since mid-2006."

• "We assess that al-Qa’ida’s Homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the population."
  

• "I will discuss the success we are having against al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) as part of the larger discussion of the Intelligence Community’s analysis of the Iraq situation, but here I would like to highlight that AQI remains al-Qa’ida’s most visible and capable affiliate. I am increasingly concerned that as we inflict significant damage on al-Qa’ida in Iraq, it may shift resources to mounting more attacks outside of Iraq."
  

• "It probably will continue to devote some effort towards honoring Bin Ladin’s request in 2005 that AQI attempt to strike the United States, affirmed publicly by current AQI leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri in a November 2006 threat against the White House."
  

• "AQI tactics, tradecraft, and techniques are transmitted on the Internet, but AQI documents captured in Iraq suggest that fewer than 100 AQI terrorists have moved from Iraq to establish cells in other countries."
  

• "We judge al-Qa’ida will continue to attempt attacks in the Arabian Peninsula, particularly in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain."
  

• "The Intelligence Community (IC) assesses al-Qa’ida associated groups and networks in Lebanon pose a growing threat to Western interests in the Levant. In East Africa, the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia disrupted al-Qa’ida in East Africa (AQEA) operations and activities, but senior AQEA operatives responsible for the 1998 US Embassy bombings and the 2002 attacks in Mombassa, Kenya, remain at large. The IC assesses Jemaah Islamiya (JI) in Indonesia and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines—which have historic links to al-Qa’ida and have killed over 400 people—are the two terrorist groups posing the greatest threat to US interests in Southeast Asia. The IC assesses that Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT) and other Kashmir-focused groups will continue attack planning and execution in India."
  

• "The brutal attacks against Muslim civilians unleashed by AQI and AQIM and the conflicting demands of the various extremist agendas are tarnishing al-Qa’ida’s self-styled image as the extremist vanguard."
  

• "The spread of radical Salafi Internet sites that provide religious justification for attacks, increasingly aggressive and violent anti-Western rhetoric and actions by local groups, and the growing number of radical, self-generating cells in Western countries that identify with violent Salafi objectives, all suggest growth of a radical and violent segment among the West’s Muslim populations. Our European allies regularly tell us that they are uncovering new extremist networks in their countries."
  

• "While the threat from such homegrown extremists is greater in Europe, the US is not immune. The threat here is likely to be fueled in part by propaganda and mischaracterizations of US foreign policy as harmful to Muslims, rather than by any formal assistance from al-Qa’ida or other recognized groups."
  

• "A small, but growing portion of al-Qa’ida propaganda, is in English and is distributed to an American audience—either in translated form or directly by English-speaking al-Qa’ida members like Adam Gadahn, the American member of al-Qa’ida who, in early-January, publicly urged Muslims to use violence to protest the President’s Middle East trip."
  

• "To date, cells detected in the United States have lacked the level of sophistication, experience, and access to resources of terrorist cells overseas. Their efforts, when disrupted, largely have been in the nascent phase, and authorities often were able to take advantage of poor operational tradecraft."
  

On Iran's Nuclear Ambitions:

The section on Iran was largely about Iran's nuclear program and the words used to describe it were identical to the Iran National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). It is interesting to note the type of language that was used by McConnell to deliver the testimony. It followed essentially the same rules as pre-Iran NIEs with the exception of this section on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Assessments of analytic confidence were notably lacking from all the other sections of the testimony except for this section. It gave me the sense that many of the assessments in the testimony had been essentially cut and pasted from NIEs that have not been made public. For more on the way in which the Iran NIE was constructed and how that differs from previous NIEs, see this series of blog posts)

On North Korea:

• "While North Korea’s military almost certainly could not defeat South Korea, it could inflict hundreds of thousands of casualties and severe damage on the South."
  

• "Pyongyang probably views its [nuclear] capabilities as being more for deterrence and coercive diplomacy than for warfighting and would consider using nuclear weapons only under certain narrow circumstances."
  

• "The regime appears stable, but persistent economic privation and natural disasters—such as the severe floods last August—and uncertainty about succession arrangements create the potential for domestic unrest with unpredictable consequences."

On Pakistan and India:

• "Although both New Delhi and Islamabad are fielding a more mature strategic nuclear capability, they do not appear to be engaged in a Cold War-style arms race for numerical superiority."
  

On the Safety Of Pakistan's Nukes:

• "We judge the ongoing political uncertainty in Pakistan has not seriously threatened the military’s control of the nuclear arsenal, but vulnerabilities exist."
  

On US Cyber Security:

• "The US information infrastructure—including telecommunications and computer networks and systems, and the data that reside on them—is critical to virtually every aspect of modern life. Therefore, threats to our IT infrastructure are an important focus of the Intelligence Community."
  

• "Over the past year, cyber exploitation activity has grown more sophisticated, more targeted, and more serious. The Intelligence Community expects these trends to continue in the coming year."
  

• "We assess that nations, including Russia and China, have the technical capabilities to target and disrupt elements of the US information infrastructure and for intelligence collection. Nation states and criminals target our government and private sector information networks to gain competitive advantage in the commercial sector. Terrorist groups—including al-Qa’ida, HAMAS, and Hizballah—have expressed the desire to use cyber means to target the United States. Criminal elements continue to show growing sophistication in technical capability and targeting, and today operate a pervasive, mature on-line service economy in illicit cyber capabilities and services available to anyone willing to pay."

On Afghanistan:

• "Although international forces and the Afghan National Army continue to score tactical victories over the Taliban, the security situation has deteriorated in some areas in the south, and Taliban forces have expanded their operations into previously peaceful areas of the west and around Kabul."
  

• "The death or capture of three top Taliban leaders last year—their first high level losses—does not yet appear to have significantly disrupted insurgent operation."

• "Despite improved eradication and investigative efforts, poppy cultivation increased again last year. Opium poppy cultivation remains at or near 2004 record levels with over 200,000 hectares of land under cultivation in 2007."
  

• "Drug money is an important source of income, especially at the local level where some Taliban commanders accrue their own operational funding."
  

On Iraq:

• "The security situation in Iraq continues to show signs of improvement."
  

• "We judge these security gains are the result of a combination of factors, including the success of tribal efforts in combating AQI, expanded Coalition operations, and the growing capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF)."
  

• "Security in southern Iraq probably will remain fragile in the coming months as rival Shia groups continue to compete violently for political power and economic resources."
  

• "Iran––primarily through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force––continues to provide weapons, funding, and training support to certain Iraqi Shia militants despite reported commitments by senior Iranian officials to stop such support. "
  

• "Approximately 90 percent of all suicide attacks in Iraq are conducted by foreign terrorists with 50 to 80 foreign terrorists entering Iraq each month, although that number appeared to decline in the last part of 2007. Seventy to eighty percent of the foreign terrorists gain final entry into Iraq through Syria, many through the Damascus international airport."

On Iran:

• "During the next year Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Iran’s various conservative factions, despite some differences and infighting, are expected to maintain control over a politically stable if economically troubled Iranian state."
  

• "Iranian leadership perceptions of a favorable environment are driving its foreign policy to expand Tehran’s influence and leadership in the region and the Islamic world and to undermine US influence, which it perceives as inimical to Iran’s clerical regime. To achieve its regional aims and mitigate threats, Iran seeks to develop a sphere of influence based on diplomatic and economic relations, religious affinities, and shared anti-US sentiments."
  

• "In Afghanistan, Iran likely will continue to focus on political activities, reaching out to alternative power centers, and challenging the US-led Coalition. Iranian officials probably will increase contact with various militias, political oppositionists, and religious leaders in Afghanistan and continue to provide lethal aid to groups and individuals who might be able to influence events in Iran’s favor should the Karzai government falter or turn against Iran. We assess Iran has provided weapons to some Taliban commanders."

On Prospects For Peace in Palestine:

• "Despite progress toward initiating formal peace talks made in Annapolis last November, concern persists over the Palestinian Authority’s ability to deliver the security demanded by Israel and to win popular support for its positions."

In Saudi Arabia:

• "In Saudi Arabia, the long-term challenge from Islamic extremism has been checked for now, and the government benefits from steady, oil price-driven economic growth."

In Russia:

• "We judge the Russian economy will continue to expand under a new leadership, although at a slower rate than over the last eight years, given capacity constraints, the slow pace of institutional change, the impact of real ruble appreciation, and developments in the international economy."
  

• "Other elements of Russian national power—from trade and energy, to diplomatic instruments and military and intelligence capabilities—are on a path to grow over the next four years."

In Kosovo and Bosnia:

• "Inter-ethnic violence that brings about intervention by NATO-led forces, is possible once Kosovo declares its independence, and any violence could spill over to neighboring states."
  

• "We judge the probability of inter ethnic violence is low absent a move by Bosnia’s Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, toward secession. Any violence would put pressure on US and NATO forces in the region to assist."
  

In China:

• "As a result, China’s global engagement is not driven by Communist ideology or military expansionism, but instead by a need for access to markets, resources, technology and expertise, and a desire to assert its role in the international community."

• "Indeed, Chinese officials consistently emphasize the need to seek cooperative relations with Washington, because conflict with the United States would risk derailing China’s economic development. They also seek to alleviate international concerns about China’s strategic intentions. As China’s influence grows, however, Beijing probably will increasingly expect its interests to be respected by other countries."
  

• "Notwithstanding China’s external goals, the leadership is focused on threats to domestic stability."
  

• "China’s impressive economic growth—it is the world’s second largest economy—masks significant distortions and risks, including a rigidly controlled currency that contributes to excess liquidity, wasteful investment; government policies that favor exports over domestic consumption; and a state-run banking system slowly recovering from a series of credit problems. China’s demographic problem of an aging population, high incidence of chronic and infectious disease, environmental degradation, and an increasing energy crunch are likely to slow economic growth over the long term. A sudden and sharp slowdown in China could exacerbate vulnerabilities in the global economy; hardest hit would be its neighbors who sell about 50 percent of their goods to China and commodity producers who have enjoyed high prices and expanding export volumes because of China’s rising demand for raw material, metals, and food." (Comment: My students have done a number of analytic projects on China. They have looked at short and long term implications, regional and national issues and even at very focused industry level studies. In every case, they wind up highlighting these exact same issues and in many of these analyses, they indicate that the period after the 2008 Olympics is the watershed. Obviously neither I nor my students are Chinese experts but it occurs to me that we ought to be giving a bit more attention not to the coming domination of the world by China but to forecasting and mitigating its possible collapse.)
  

In Latin America:

• "Inspired and supported by Venezuela and Cuba, leaders in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and—more tentatively—in Ecuador are pursuing agendas that undercut checks and balances on presidential power, seek lengthy presidential terms, weaken media and civil liberties, and emphasize economic nationalism at the expense of market-based approaches. Moreover, each of these governments, to varying degrees, has engaged in sharply anti-US rhetoric, aligned with Venezuela and Cuba—and increasingly Iran—on international issues, and advocated measures that directly clash with US initiatives."

In Venezuela:

• "We judge Chavez miscalculated public opposition to such moves as seeking indefinite re-election and greater discretionary authority over expropriating private property."

In Cuba:

• "We judge Raul’s most likely approach will be cautious, incremental steps to make the agricultural sector more productive, to allow some private sector expansion through the creation of more small-scale enterprises, and to attract new foreign investment. If Raul moves forward, he probably will take pains to ensure elite consensus. Senior Cuban officials have made clear that there are no plans to permit competitive elections or otherwise alter the Communist Party’s monopoly of power. Indeed, the determination of the Cuban leadership to ignore outside pressure to carry out significant economic and political reform continues to be reinforced by the more than $1 billion net annual subsidy that Venezuela provides to sustain Cuba."
  

In Mexico:

• "The overall picture in Mexico is positive. President Felipe Calderon’s strong start in his first year in office featured an aggressive counternarcotics offensive, forging a working relationship with elements of the opposition, securing a limited revamping of the government pension system, and pushing through Congress a high-priority fiscal reform package. The public has supported most of Calderon’s policies, and sustaining this momentum will be an important task as the midterm election season approaches in 2009."

In Nigeria And Africa:

• "Persistent insecurity in Nigeria’s oil producing region, the Niger Delta, poses a direct threat to US strategic interests in sub-Saharan Africa. Ongoing instability and conflict in other parts of Africa pose less direct though still significant threats to US interests because of their high humanitarian and peacekeeping costs, drag on democratic and economic development, and potential to get worse."

In Kenya:

• "Kibaki probably will do everything he can to hold on to power. Kenya is likely to enter a period of increased social tension and instability, which could affect its willingness and ability to cooperate with the US on regional diplomatic and counterterrorist matters."

In Mali and Niger:

• "Fledgling insurgencies among nomads in Mali and Niger are likely to remain confined to the remote and sparsely populated Sahara desert but nonetheless are a strain on the security forces of these two impoverished democracies."
  

In Zimbabwe:

• "Serious threats to Zimbabwean President Mugabe have yet to materialize despite hyperinflation, economic decline, and political uncertainty."

On Oil Prices:

• "Despite a slowdown in the global economy, robust demand from major developing country consumers has not eased and other dynamics feeding high prices appear likely to endure."

On Global Food Prices:

• "Global food prices also have been rising steadily over the past two years driven by higher energy prices—which push up input costs—weak harvests, historically low stocks, and robust demand. Wheat prices were up over 60 percent in 2007, and are at a 20-year high. Other foodstuffs such as vegetable oils also are near records. There is little near term relief in sight because production increases in several countries, including Australia, are hampered by water shortages and land constraints."
  

On Bioterror And Pandemics:

• "While we do not currently see this level of technical sophistication in terrorist groups—isolating a virulent strain is difficult—the possibility cannot be ruled out; therefore, we will continue to use our intelligence resources to try to help detect any such preparations to use a virus as a terrorist weapon."
  

Open Source Intelligence: Issues For Congress (CRS)

The good people at OpenCRS have made a December 5, 2007 report on OSINT available to the public on their website. The report contains quite a bit of good background info including a summary of the debate on the value of open source to the intelligence community. According to the report, while "Intelligence professionals generally agree that open source information is useful", there are three main positions within the community with regard to the true value of open source information:

• "The first holds that policymakers simply derive less value from such information than from clandestinely-collected secrets."
• "The second view asserts that open source information should be viewed not only as an important contextual supplement to classified data, but also as a potential source of valuable intelligence, in and of itself."
  
• "Proponents of the third view adopt a “middle-ground” position, arguing that open source information probably will never provide the “smoking gun” about some issue or threat, but that it can be instrumental in helping analysts to better focus or “drive” clandestine collection activities by first identifying what is truly secret. Open sources therefore should be viewed as an analyst’s “source of first resort.”
  

Also of interest are the laundry list of current obstacles to analysts trying to using open source and the recent history of criticism of the community's failure to use open source more extensively (it is a lengthy parade of horribles...). Probably of most interest is the list of things the CRS mentions that Congress could do to help the open source movement. These include, according to the report:

• "One way is to examine specific budget areas in which spending on open source currently can be identified."
• "Another opportunity occurs when the DNI submits to congressional intelligence committees an annual report reviewing analytical products. Arguably, these annual reports should address the use of open source information. However, oversight committees could ask for additional information on open source utilization if needed."
• "...an approach that might be considered in some situations would be a request for an alternative analysis of a specified topic solely based on open sources in order to compare it with all-source analyses." (Note: I'll do it!)
  
• "Some may argue that Congress should consider an amendment to copyright law that would cover the open source efforts of intelligence agencies. Removing uncertainty of the extent of copyright would facilitate open source efforts and facilitate the widest possible use of the information by public officials."
• "Some have proposed making the Open Source Center a component of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) while essentially retaining its current roles and missions."
• "The advantage of placing the NOSC directly under the DNI would be to enhance the prestige of the open source discipline by raising its profile, fencing the funding, and ensuring its independence from shifting priorities within the CIA where human intelligence collection inevitably makes heavy and continuing demands on senior officials."
• "Placing the NOSC within the ODNI could also facilitate the NOSC’s ability to support law enforcement agencies and state, local, and tribal entities." (Note: Good point.)
  
• "A more radical, approach would be to establish an Open Source Agency completely outside the Intelligence Community (in addition to the existing Open Source Center). The goal would be to provide open source information not just to intelligence analysts but to all elements of the Federal Government including congressional committees." (Note: The basis for the PIA -- Public Intelligence Agency. Where do I sign up?)
  

Nada Nadim Prouty: Inevitable

There has been a good bit of coverage in the press about the case of Nada Nadim Prouty and her ability to slink past both the CIA and the FBI counterintelligence efforts over the last eight years. There is still an ongoing discussion as to how much damage Prouty has actually done but there seems to be a growing belief in the op-ed pages that such a mistake is the result of incompetence.

Whether there was incompetence involved or not, such cases are increasingly inevitable. They are a mathematical function of the size of the intelligence community and the impossibility of a perfectly efficient clearance system.

Consider the numbers: There are approximately 100,000 people in the intelligence community. Out of this 100,000, how many are spies? It has to be more than 0 but it is likely less than 1000 (which is only 1% of the population of the intelligence community, BTW...). It can't be 1000. If it is 1000 or more, I think we can all agree that we are sunk anyway.

Let's say it is 100. That is not only a nice round number but also means that just one in 1000 people you might meet in the halls of the CIA, DIA or NSA is a spy. If you look at the number of spies caught over the last few years and compare it to the size of the community (roughly), the number 100 actually starts to make a lot of sense. Its not a perfect number by any means but it is a good place to start.

What then, is our ability to catch spies? Well, no one knows that but lets say it is 99%. In other words, every year we catch 99% of the spies in the intel community. Now 99% is probably way too high. I don't think anyone thinks we are doing that well catching spies. Let's give people the benefit of the doubt, though.

If we are catching 99% of the spies each year and we have 100 spies in the community then, at the end of the year, we will catch 99 and one will slip through the net. It is mathematically inevitable.

There are two additional consequences to this line of reasoning. First, it pretty much proves that either we don't have a system that is capable of catching 99% of the spies every year or we have a lot more than 100 spies in the system. Prouty worked in the community for 8 years and to be that lucky in the face of a system that capable of catching spies each year is stretching reality. If you jump the number of spies up to 1000 (still only 1% of the workforce) then you are looking at 10 spies getting away each year and the odds that Ms. Prouty could go about her business unmolested by the CI types for eight years goes up as well. Since we already decided that the total number of spies in the community couldn't realistically be 1000 spies (that's nearly 63 spies in each of the intel community's 16 agencies), it pretty much has to be that the spy catching ability is less than 99%. Far less. Which means that there are likely lots of spies (say 100?) running around. It is, as noted, a mathematical consequence of a large community and a less than perfect system for catching spies.

The second consequence is a result of what scientists call false positives. Virtually all testing systems generate some level of false positives -- where, in this case, the system says someone is a spy but, in reality, they aren't. What if only 1% of the cases within our hypothetically 99% accurate system are false positives ? Out of 100,000 people, that is still 1000 people. 1000 people currently employed by the intel community that are accused of being a spy when, in fact, they are not. They would falsely lose their clearance and their job and may even face jail time.

It is very difficult to imagine that the false positive rate is only 1%. That rivals the rates in systems much more amenable to verification than a system that involves humans. It is also hard to believe that the intelligence community fires or imprisons 1000 people a year for being spies. First, I think we would have heard about it and, second, imagine the morale problems such dismissals would cause.

Which means the system is lying to itself.

With 100,000 people in the community, false positive rates at anything higher than 1% would cause thousands to come under suspicion. These thousands of cases would have to be resolved, mostly by dismissal of the case, otherwise the morale and effectiveness of the intel community would come under serious attack. There is no way out. Either dismiss lots of people as an inevitable result of a nearly but not quite perfect system or dismiss lots of cases in order to preserve the morale and effectiveness of the community.

The real negative impact of this case may not be in the information Prouty may or may not have stolen and passed to Hezbollah but in the chilling effect it will have on diversity hiring. The DNI has recently stated in his 500 day plan that one of the major goals is to "Improve Recruiting, Hiring and Retention of Heritage Americans (1st and 2nd Generation Americans)". The intent behind this goal is to "employ, develop, and retain a dynamic, agile workforce that reflects diversity in its broadest context — cultural background, language capability, ethnicity, race, gender, and expertise." How much more difficult will it be for Arab-Americans, for example, to get a clearance as a result of this case? How many Arab-Americans will willingly go through the clearance system (background checks, polygraph, etc.) as a result of this case? How will this impact other ethnicities and their perception of the intelligence community? How will this impact the security clearance process in general? The realistic answers to these questions do not look promising if one is concerned about meeting the goals of the 500 day plan.