Harnessing Open Source: Social Media and the CIA

Wednesday, 21 October 2009 11:36

The CIA’s investment arm recently bought a stake in a company developing software that monitors social media conversations. What else has the U.S. Intelligence Community done to harness social media and the Web?

Visible Technologies, a self-described “leading provider of social media analysis and engagement solutions,” recently announced its partnership with In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Va., that works to keep the CIA and U.S. Intelligence Community equipped with the latest technology.

The investment in Visible is part of the CIA’s effort to better harness “open source intelligence”—intelligence that’s publicly available through television or the Web, but that is easily buried by each day’s deluge of information.

In early 2008, Doug Naquin, director of the Director of National Intelligence Open Source Center, admitted that U.S. spies were using social media outlets like YouTube to stay current. “We’re looking at chat rooms and things that didn't exist five years ago, and trying to stay ahead.” In this context, one can see the recent move toward a service like that provided by Visible, which simplifies the process of monitoring the Web’s disparate and ever-changing social media sites, as a more concerted effort to stay ahead of the curve (or at least to stay on its heels).

The CIA recognized the potential value of social networking sites in 2006 when it began recruiting candidates for the agency on Facebook.

Read more: Dulcinea 21 Oct 2009