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Born at the Crest of the Empire

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

You've got a friend

If you ever thought that all your blogging was just going off into the ether unread, take comfort from this.
President Bush and U.S. policy-makers are receiving more intelligence from open sources such as Internet blogs and foreign newspapers than they previously did, senior intelligence officials said.

The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin.

"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere else," Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.

See, the CIA is reading your stuff. Now, don't you feel better?

6 Comments:

  • Hello Mr. CIA man! Thanks for stopping by.

    By Blogger Kathy, at 1:03 PM  

  • Yeah, Kathy, every once in awhile I just put up a post with every key phrase I can thing of just to get them to stop by.

    Also, notice that this is an open CIA program, so, like with everything else, the worse abuses are taking place behind a barrier of classification.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 1:21 PM  

  • At first blush, you'd think the story is one of personal privacy and CIA snooping. But the real story is that instead of effectively tracking down international terrorists, the CIA is pissing away valuable resources and time obsessing over the rantings of schmucks like us in blogosphere!

    One investigation after another has reported that the problem with our intelligence was that we failed to "connect the dots." This administration -- in an example that servers as a model of their incompetence -- drew the conclusion that to solve this problem what they needed was more dots! As far as doing the actual connecting dots, their reliance on data mining (can you say "total information awareness") has produced a frightening amount of wheel-spinning wasted effort chasing down bogus "threats."

    So what have we learned? That squelching political dissent takes precedence over preventing terror threats.

    By Blogger -epm, at 2:27 PM  

  • Argh! I hate typos! I feel so stupid.

    By Blogger -epm, at 2:28 PM  

  • epm,

    What's up with your self esteem today? That's the second self deprecating comment you've left today. Let it go. You're doin' just fine.

    And, I would add to what you've said that it is telling that they're looking to amateurs for intel analysis.

    Mike

    By Blogger mikevotes, at 4:23 PM  

  • As harshly as I judge those with whom I disagree, I tend to save my harshest judgement for myself. It's like a blend of Jewish guild and Catholic shame.

    Needless to say I blame my parents... :)

    By Blogger -epm, at 9:13 PM  

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