Outstanding perspective, given the author is an ex-CIA analyst himself. Controversial to the common wisdom of a Project Manhattan type of departamental seperation -- everyone's working to achieve the same goal, whereas no one knows what the others are doing -- there's a growing trend of better analyzing and responding to an intelligence analyst's productivity needs. Watchin' the Analysts greatly descibes the Intelligence Community's efforts to sense and respond to these growing trends of collaboration, in between figuring out how to balance the possible security implications. Great reading, especially the infamous news headline on how the CIA got "hacked" through an internal unofficial communication chat room, one that they were unaware of by the time. The paper discusses LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, Blogs, and highlights the basic truth that "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Meta..", an excerpt :"Analysts interact among themselves, as a complex community web of knowledge. Analysis of those sorts of networks would be worthwhile, and is being done in the commercial sector, through a variety of tools. In the fall of 2000, the CIA shut down a so-called “chat room” operating unofficially over Agency networks; four employees lost their jobs, with other employees and contractors given reprimands. I had left the Agency in 1994, but numerous of those involved were friends and former colleagues. My impression was that what occurred was more embarrassing than threatening, and that agency management ought to understand how and why such virtual communities form—whether they’re facilitated or frustrated by the “official” infrastructure—and appreciate their value. Various network visualization tools would have readily revealed anomalous (at least as far as official business was concerned) traffic, but analysts will want and need an environment that fosters creativity and community, and ought to be given one."
However, there's a certain degree of internal censorship going on, the way employers often have strict guidelines on employees blogging activities, the CIA recently fired an analyst over an internal blog posting related to the Geneva Convention and torture. Risk management solutions, besides visualization are, of course, taking place as well.
Related resources and posts:
Intelligence
Visualization, Intelligence and the Starlight Project
"IM me" a strike order
Covert Competitive Intelligence
India's Espionage Leaks
Japan's Reliance on U.S Spy Satellites and Early Warning Missile Systems
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