Who Will Follow Up On This?

Granted, the bulk of the documents that Wikileaks has obtained are largely speculative and need further investigation, one segment that Wired is reporting on merits some follow-up.

according to one of the WikiLeaks logs, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security got a tip about the man at the very top of the most wanted list: Osama Bin Laden himself. The informant said that Bin Laden “had been transported to Peshawar hospital in Pakistan for treatment, where he has died.”

“NDS stressed that this was a single source report and had not been verified,” the log added. No other document in the WikiLeaks trove appears to corroborate this. So it looks like just another piece of RUMINT in a war full of it.

RUMINT is short for "rumored intelligence". But even rumors of this sort need to be looked into, especially considering that Benazir Bhutto, a woman with intimate knowledge of the happenings in her region, stated back in 2007 that Bin Laden had been murdered.

Let's postulate on why this piece of intel wasn't seriously researched. Firstly, it would put a massive dent into the Bush administration's desire to continue fighting in Afghanistan, even though his tenure would end less than 2 years later. Secondly, and more than likely most importantly, the Bush administration couldn't possibly admit that a foreign country had accomplished something that he had loudly and all too often boasted about American forces doing.

There have been theories and rumors that Bin Laden had died much earlier than 2007, but none had been substantiated by anyone of prominence like Benazir Bhutto. All previous speculations were framed in the context of tin-foil hat nutjob nonsense. As for me, this needs to be seriously reviewed and have proper context be revealed to the American public. After all, this is the most wanted man in the world we are talking about. But considering how this has been completely ignored since 2007, there's going to have to be a great deal of explaining why so many have been so silent.

Crowdsourcing Intel

After reading this, I'm wondering if this means that average Americans will be able to contribute and parse information that will help assist our intelligence agencies that are literally overflowing with data?

It seems that this is the idea.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa, just released its budget for the upcoming year. And, as you might expect from the Pentagon’s way-out science and technology division, there are some wild new projects on tap.

Military analysts are already overwhelmed by too much information. Instead of training more analysts or handing data over to computers, Darpa wants to improve how the military uses its intelligence info by turning it into an open call for contribution. The $13 million dollar project, called “Deep ISR Processing by Crowds,” looks “to harness the unique cognitive and creative abilities of large numbers of people to enhance dramatically the knowledge derived from ISR systems.”

Crowdsourcing is already used among businesses and other government agencies, to generate more innovative ideas that draw on as many sources as possible. Darpa wants that innovation to take over individual analysis and decision-making.

And while Crowdsourcing works well across other platforms, one has to wonder how intel could be corrupted with so many other voices adding their input. Then again, the more input you have into a project, the more innovative it can become.

Should this project get off the ground and have successful field tests to show, it will be interesting to see how some within the conservative realm view this new era of intelligence analysis. Will this be used by them as a tool to prevent progress in the intel world? Will they say that this would end up aiding the terrorists? We will most certainly see.

Intel Failure Or Intel Overload

I've been thinking about how, since our intelligence sources were purportedly going to start communicating with one another after Sept. 11th, there could be such a massive breakdown of communication.

Prior to Sept. 11th, agencies like the CIA had little to no contact with the others like the FBI, and that was one of the alleged reasons why none of the hijackers were intercepted. Conversely, it would seems that a massive overload of intel-gathering caused the process to effectively slow/stall in some instances, therefor preventing adequate communication.

Is this a realistic way of looking at this? Are we gathering up more intel than is necessary? Are we creating an unworkable situation in order to keep up this "feeling" of safety rather than focusing on actually "being" safe?

What A Difference A New Administration Makes

All this twitching and shrieking about Pelosi claiming the CIA mislead her is starting to sound a bit disingenuous.

Newt Gingrich at the 2007 CPAC



House Minority Leader John Boehner, in an interview regarding his own questioning of the intelligence communities motives:

QUESTION: [I]n 2007 — I just looked at the transcript — you had accused the intelligence community of greatly misleading the nation by changing their national intelligence assessment about the…

BOEHNER: We’re mixing apples — we’re mixing apples and oranges here.

QUESTION: Why is that different?

BOEHNER: Because when the National Intelligence Estimate came out with regard to Iran, it — it contradicted most everything that I had been told in the six months leading up to it. … I was questioning how this National Intelligence Estimate could — could vary and contradict a lot of information that I’d been told for the six months coming up to it.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra wrote a letter to George W. Bush in 2006 accusing the intelligence agencies from misleading Congress.



And this is not the first time Hoekstra has accused the intelligence agencies in America of misleading him and Congress.

Rush Limbaugh even had some choice words for the CIA in regards to the 2007 NIE on Iran's nuclear program.

Now, say it with me....

Hypocrisy.

That's right.

Intelligent Intelligence

For some reason, I'm reminded of the slogan that I used to see on event-staff shirts at concerts:

Polite But Firm

The intelligence-transition team is led by former National Counterterrorism Center chief John Brennan and former CIA intelligence-analysis director Jami Miscik, say officials close to the matter. Mr. Brennan is viewed as a potential candidate for a top intelligence post. Ms. Miscik left amid a slew of departures from the CIA under then-Director Porter Goss.

Advisers caution that few decisions will be made until the team gets a better picture of how the Bush administration actually goes about gathering intelligence, including covert programs, and there could be a greater shift after a full review.

The Obama team plans to review secret and public executive orders and recent Justice Department guidelines that eased restrictions on domestic intelligence collection. "They'll be looking at existing executive orders, then making sure from Jan. 20 on there's going to be appropriate executive-branch oversight of intelligence functions," Mr. Brennan said in an interview shortly before Election Day.

The early transition effort is winning praise from moderate Democrats. "He's surrounded himself with excellent people -- an excellent bipartisan group," said Rep. Jane Harman, a California Democrat who is chairwoman of the House homeland-security subcommittee on intelligence.

More at The Wall Street Journal

To me, this is one of the key ways that President Obama is going to seperate himself from Bush. He needs to surround himself with knowledge that transends party affiliation.