News brief on repositioning the useful FBIS (Foreign Broadcast Information Service), available these days through World News Connection, among others. A great tool to read non-English and non-US journals, CIA is apparently looking to better leverage OSI (open source intelligence). The WashingtonPost, back in 25 November 05, (ok, so I’ve got a backlog) noted:
By the 1990s, the office [FBIS] had fallen on hard times. Some advocated abolishing FBIS, saying it was irrelevant in the age of 24-hour cable news. It survived, but had its personnel slashed 60 percent, according to Naquin. Sept. 11 gave it new purpose, as “open source” became an intelligence buzzword. Across government, policymakers began to debate how to find the nuggets of genuine information hidden in the Internet avalanche.
Other interesting news in the article, but mostly old news as far as an institutional appreciation of open vs clandestine sources. Reading Silent Warfare, For the President’s Eyes Only, Imperial Hubris, or a myriad of other books will confirm information flow “issues” in the intelligence services (not just in the CIA).
You say ‘among others’ … do you know others web services that give access to FBIS ? Thank you !
You’re right, just World News Connection (or direct if you have a government account it seems at https://www.fbis.gov/). My error. Thanks for the catch.