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Denise Howell is a seasoned appellate and intellectual property litigator based in Los Angeles. Denise writes one of the first and most popular law-related blogs, Bag and Baggage, coined the term "blawg" and helped pioneer podcasting for lawyers. Microcontent obsessed since 2001, she is frequently quoted in the media on legal issues involving intellectual property and technology law. "Sound Policy" is Denise's show at IT Conversations, and it's also what she hopes results from the briefs she submits to court. Email Denise at dhowell@gmail.com.

Dennis Kennedy is a computer lawyer and legal technology expert based in St. Louis, Missouri. An award-winning author, a frequent speaker and a widely-read blogger, he has more than 300 publications on legal, technology and Internet topics, many of which are collected in his e-books. Dennis has been described as someone who knows almost every rock song in existence and, more importantly, how they apply to technology and law. Email Dennis at his gmail address.

Tom Mighell is Senior Counsel and Litigation Technology Support Coordinator at Cowles & Thompson in Dallas. He has published the Internet Legal Research Weekly newsletter since 2000 and blogged about the Internet and legal technology at Inter Alia since August of 2002. With Tom's singing, Ernie on guitar and Dennis' encylopedic knowledge of rock music, we may have the beginnings of a good band, if this whole blog thing doesn't work out. Email Tom at tmighell@swbell.net.

Marty Schwimmer left a partnership in the largest trademark practice in the world and founded Schwimmer Mitchell, a full-service IP micro-boutique in Westchester County, New York, where he represents owners of famous and not yet famous trademarks. He founded The Trademark Blog, the first IP law blog and the one with the most pictures. He is the first to come in and the last to leave in his firm. Email Marty at marty@schwimmerlegal.com.

Ernest Svenson practices law with a mid-sized law firm in New Orleans, specializing in business-related lawsuits. Most of his practice takes place in federal court, especially the Eastern District. He is best known for his weblog Ernie the Attorney, which he started as an experiment. Like many experiments it got out of control. Nevertheless, he continues to practice law and, occasionally, to seek enlightenment. Email Ernest at esvenson@gmail.com.
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January 7, 2006

Open Source Intelligence Analysis?

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Posted by Dennis M. Kennedy

Andrew Sullivan writes about a Stephen Hayes article on terrorist training camps in Saddam's Iraq. In the Hayes article, we learn that of approximately two million seized documents, only 50.000 have been translated and analyzed in the last few years, causing growing levels of exasperation in the U.S. government and intelligence community.

It goes without saying that this state of affairs again raises the "are we safer now?" question and, if you read the entire article, you'll wonder where priorities really lie in the current bureaucratic approaches.

HOWEVER . . .

In the middle of Hayes' article comes one of the most intriguing, even innovative ideas we are likely to see in the field of intelligence analysis.

Consider this quote:

Following several weeks of debate, a consensus has emerged: The vast majority of the 2 million captured documents should be released publicly as soon as possible.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon's role in expediting the release of this information. According to several sources familiar with his thinking, Rumsfeld is pushing aggressively for a massive dump of the captured documents. "He has a sense that public vetting of this information is likely to be as good an astringent as any other process we could develop," says Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita.

Fascinating stuff. Surely putting thousands of eyes onto these documents must be better that storing them in boxes. It would also be interesting to see what cutting-edge scanning and analytical tools used in electronic discovery could do with these materials.

I encourage you to read the article and draw your own conclusions. I find this story quite troubling and think that it would be a good idea to "open source" this material rather than to keep it in closed boxes. A public debate over the issue would also be worthwhile. Consider this approach in contrast to John Robb's recent comments on the problems of isolated decision-making.

Comments (2) + TrackBacks (1) | Category: Open Source | Provocations | eDiscovery


COMMENTS

1. Robert Steele on January 7, 2006 5:52 PM writes...

Anyone interested in Open Source Intelligence is encouraged to take advantage of the 30,000 free pages of information (including the NATO OSINT Handbook) at www.oss.net, and to consider attending IOP '06 16-20 January 2006 in DC area. Scholarships as well as discounted seats and exhibits are still available. Conference URL is http://www.oss.net/IOP. A related briefing on the googlization of intelligence is at http://www.oss.net/Hackers (download to view Notes).

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2. Robert Steele on February 18, 2007 12:54 PM writes...

Two new guides have been posted, both with hotlink.

www.oss.net/BASIC is a single page of links organized to provide quick access to historical, contextual, and best practices information as well as best of the best media and other reports.

www.oss.net/LIBRARY is the comprehensive list of ALL papers by all authors and speakers presenting at the 15 years of conferencing, and is both searchable and sortable. See especially all the training entries.

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TRACKBACKS

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Open Source Intelligence Analysis?:

Open vs. Secret: What is prevailing in intelligence affaires today? from Knowledge Research Open Source Solutions
In Corante, there is an article about open source intelligence analysis? [Read More]

Tracked on January 8, 2006 3:42 PM

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