Chapter 3.4: OSINT and the US Intelligence Community: Is the Past Prologue?

This chapter will discuss the definition and history of open source intelligence (OSINT) within the US intelligence community, and the various cultural factors that have shaped its acceptance there. It reviews the US intelligence community’s use of and attitudes to OSINT, and demonstrates that despite stating a commitment to OSINT, and setting up institutional arrangements for this, the sector has often been less enthusiastic about it than might be expected, with intelligence practitioners frequently preferring intelligence derived from classified sources. Finally, the chapter considers how the growth of digital technologies and publicly available information is putting pressure on the US intelligence community to change its working relationship with OSINT, and details ways in which it might do this.