FAS Intro: The following press release issued by Robert Steele of Open Source Solutions, Inc., outlines a proposed intelligence budget framework that would give due emphasis to open source intelligence.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OSS Inc. Provides Plan for One Third Cut in U.S. Intelligence
Community Budget--Reduces Deficit by $10 Billion Per Year

Contact: Mr. Robert D. Steele, President
OPEN SOURCE SOLUTIONS, Inc.
[email protected] or (703) 242-1701

After twenty years of service in the U.S. Intelligence Community, including years of experience in three of the four Directorates of the Central Intelligence, years as a military intelligence officer, and a culminating period as the founding Deputy Director of the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Center, Mr. Robert D. Steele turned to open sources--to publicly and legally available information--as the best foundation for a national intelligence community. The Commission on Intelligence agreed with him, castigating the U.S. intelligence community for being "inexplicably slow" to provide its analysts with access to open sources, labeling this a "critical deficiency", and stating in no uncertain terms that open sources should be "a top priority for the DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] and a top priority for funding". It is in this light that the recent decision of the Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, where primary responsibility for open source access and exploitation lie, must be considered: the de facto dismantling of the Community Open Source Program Office planned for 1998, and the draconian reductions of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a precious national resource, also planned for 1998.

Mr. Steele, the leading advocate for creating smart nations by providing unclassified intelligence support to government decision makers, corporate leaders, public diplomacy partners, coalition military allies, and citizens, today released the following memorandum and an explicit budget which identifies savings goals that would reduce the U.S. intelligence community budget from $30 billion a year to $20 billion a year by the year 2000, while realigning one billion dollars a year to a National Knowledge Foundation under the oversight of the Vice President--the "content" element which has been absent from the National Information Infrastructure.

In releasing this proposal, Mr. Steele's intent is to ensure that the forthcoming hearings to confirm the nomination of the new Director of Central Intelligence are undertaken in full awareness of the urgent need to radically alter the balance between spies and scholars while creating an unclassified "virtual intelligence community" which is responsive to the needs of the public and public diplomacy.

FOR THE RECORD

The memorandum which follows, based on contributions from highly qualified experts (not myself) has been distributed recently to key Administrative and Legislative decision-makers--it proposes specific measures for reducing the U.S. Intelligence Community budget from $30B a year to $20B a year, while simultaneously ear- marking $1B a year for a robust open source intelligence (OSINT) program.

Sadly, despite strong efforts by myself and many others since 1992, the U.S. Intelligence Community has decided to completely ignore the recommendations of the Commission on Intelligence regarding the critical nature of its deficient access to open sources, at the same time that the President has chosen to avoid confronting the U.S. Intelligence Community and indeed has in his neglect allowed an unheard-of turnover rate of one per year for five years in the critical position of Director of Central Intelligence.

There is no one now in the Intelligence Community, and no one known to me outside the Intelligence Community, poised to bring to the position of Director of Central Intelligence the unique combination of brains, brass, vision, and character necessary to ensure that we enter safely and prosperously into the 21st Century. I therefore choose to publish this memorandum, as my contribution to the dialogue and in the hopes that a candidate for the position of Director of Central Intelligence can emerge-- a candidate who is committed to informing governance and the public, not simply collecting secrets for secrets' sake.

If the U.S. Intelligence Community does not radically alter its spending patterns, and dramatically increase its exploitation of both open sources and world-class experts without security clearances, then the day will come when the President and other key members of the government will testify to Congress that they do not use classified intelligence, they do not need classified intelligence, and they will not pay for classified intelligence. On that day, we will find ourselves in the worst of all possible conditions: deluged by open sources of mixed reliability, and completely bereft of the unique and necessary perspectives which can only be offered by an all-source intelligence community capable of secretly collecting "the hard stuff" while providing its world-class multi-lingual analysts with the broad contextual and encyclopedic contributions which only open sources can offer readily and at very low cost.

This memorandum (below) is very real--if radical change is not forthcoming, this memorandum represents a "best case" scenario, rather than the now-more-likely scenario of more severe cuts without rationalization, and without an appropriate investment in open sources. I have given up on the U.S. Intelligence Community, and I now turn my attention to teaching government consumers of intelligence how to help themselves to OSINT.

Signed
Robert D. Steele, OSS CEO, 13 Dec 96

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RIGHTSIZING INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES

The evolving international environment, on-going commercial and technological developments, and recent public policy initiatives make it an ideal time to rightsize the intelligence budget and streamline the intelligence community for the 21st Century. Some of the major trends affecting US intelligence are:

• the absence of a dominant foreign adversary; -- an apparently larger number of smaller, more diverse, and less predictable threats;
• an increasing reliance on coalition peacekeeping and joint warfare operations;
• the greater availability, accessibility, and reliability of open source information;
• exploding commercial communication capabilities and a rapidly maturing Internet;
• increasing government reliance on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies - a trend reinforced by widening technological advantages for many commercial systems;
• the increasing technical capabilities of rapid reaction smallsats;
• fiscal and political pressures to downsize and streamline government; and
• emphasis on more responsive and performance-oriented government functioning.

A downsized intelligence community of approximately two-thirds the size of the current $30B enterprise that is attuned to and confirms with these trends appears both attainable and desirable.

The major steps that would need to be taken to realize these goals are:

1. Infrastructure and support services (about 25% of the intelligence budget) should be commercialized and postured to take advantage of technological developments. For example:

• Dedicated intelligence communications, a necessity 30-50 years ago, should be drastically curtailed in favor of widely available international commercial communications, including direct broadcast satellites, that are increasingly robust and more technologically innovative and adaptable to changing environments. (SAVINGS GOAL BY 2000: $500M per year) [NOTE: all savings estimates are on an annual basis for year 2000]
• Costly printed product production and distribution - dailies, reports, compendia, maps, images, etc. - should be markedly reduced in favor of electronic information dissemination and storage. (SAVINGS GOAL: $300M per year)
• Dedicated, government-owned launchers and launch facilities should, as far as possible, be commercialized, a step in tune with the trend of decreasing military and increasing commercial launches. (SAVINGS GOAL: $1.0B per year)
• Specialized computer hardware and software should be limited to government0-unique applications, and increased use of COTS in many intelligence applications should become the norm. (SAVINGS GOAL: $500M per year)
• Commercialize many other support services, such as background investigations, facility security, transportation services, facility and equipment maintenance, supply services, etc. (SAVINGS GOAL: $500M per year)

Many of these changes would provide a short-term double benefit because past investments in dedicated government capabilitiese would continue to be utilized without replacement and the transition to contract commercial services would occur gradually.

2. Conventional human source collection, both overt and clandestine - about 10% of the budget - should be drastically reduced in favor of increased open source exploitation.

• Downsize significantly large elaborate overseas stations (both CIA and military) and establish single fully integrated country cells composed of CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, and FBI under-cover operational officers to supplant the current disparate, often competing and uncooperative overseas cadre. (SAVINGS GOAL: $500M per year). [OSS Inc. modifies this element to propose a 50% reduction in CIA clandestine personel and a doubling of law enforcement clandestine personel, with retention of sufficient financial resources to provide for fully non-official cover operations and a global presence.]
• Foreign Broadcast Information Service and document procurement and translation operations should be privatized. (SAVINGS GOAL: $200M per year). [OSS Inc. modifies this element to retain FBIS, together with the National Collection Division and a community- wide controller for External Research & Analysis funds, as a lean but very powerful element reporting directly to the DCI and serving as the source of first-resort for the National Intelligence Council, in full collaboration with the National Knowledge Foundation to be established OUTSIDE the intelligence community and under the direct oversight of the Vice President of the United States.]
• Service HUMINT activities should be folded in with single CIA/DIA/NSA/DEA/FBI cadre. (SAVINGS GOAL: $300M per year)
• An off-setting increase in open source exploitation should be explictly funded with a goal of reaching $1.0B by 2000. [OSS Inc. modifies this element to specify that a combination of a strong internal intelligence open source element at the Community level, and the transfer of $1.0B to the Vice President for use in funding the National Knowledge Center as the content element of the National Information Infrastructure, is the only means by which we can in fact "harness the distributed intelligence of the Nation". Schools, universities, businesses, the media, and others, both domestic and internationally, must deal with a nurturing non- intrusive, non-intelligence foundation if the concept of a "virtual intelligence community" is to succeed. Funding for the procurement of commercial imagery by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency is specifically excluded from this arrangement UNLESS they adopt and fulfill the requirements of the EARTHMAP Report and strive to meet the needs of the non-defense Departments.]

3. The increasing availability of commercial satellite and other non-intelligence (open skies, NASA's MTPE and SAR) imagery, image processing and geographic information processing and production should be allowed to supplant previous dedicated intelligence capabilities (about 20% of the intelligence budget).

• Pause imagery and infrared warning satellite procurement for three years (tentatively 1998-2000) to allow drawdown of existing satellite inventories, promote increased development/use of non- intelligence imagery capabilities, and re-engineer to smaller, more flexible payloads for some mission needs. (SAVINGS GOAL: $2.0B per year).
• Increase acquisition/support for commercial imaging (funded in open source above). [OSS Inc. modifies this element to suggest that the national space summit must finally come to grips with the integration of intelligence, non-intelligence, and commercial space capabilities as a whole, and should look explicitly to France and Canada as key partners in developing a government- driven mesh of commercial imagery including radar which relieves classified capabilities--which should be shared more liberally with allied governments--of wide area and other general requirements.]
• Downsize intelligence image processing and increase reliance on commercial processing and software for data exploitation to better adapt to rapid changes in the volume and character of demand. (SAVINGS GOAL: $250M per year)

4. Re-engineer the US SIGINT system - about 35% of the intelligence budget - for rapid, selective response/reaction vice massive, worldwide volume collection and processing.

• Descope on-going NSA conventional SIGINT operations to conform to more diverse, decentralized threats. (SAVINGS GOALS: $1.0B)
• Stretch procurement of replacement satellites in light of inventories and create a centralized ground architecture of ground stations utilizing evolving sat-to-sat communications capabilities; posture for quick reaction low-earth-orbit supplements in crises. (SAVINGS GOAL: $1B per year)
• Stretch some advanced high volume collection initiatives in favor of small rapid response collection packages. (SAVINGS GOAL: $1.0B)

[OSS Inc. modifies this element to sanction the NSA focus on information warfare but to require that the service information warfare centers and the Defense Information Systems Agency be fully integrated into a National Electronic Defense Office which is co-equal to the newly-established Federal Bureau of Investigation's Electronic Security and Counter-Intelligence Program--DoD should be charged with realigning $1.0B per year to the FBI for the latter program.]

5. Substantially reduce the standing armies of intelligence production personnel and other resources - about 10% of the intelligence budget - in favor of increased reliance and support on commercial and contract analytical services. (SAVINGS GOAL: $1.0B).

6. Increase international data sharing and intelligence collaboration in all phases of collection and production in anticipation of the continuing need for and reliance on coalition operations.

• Establish explicit division-of-effort agreements in intelligence with NATO (or a portion thereof), Korea, Japan, and Australia/New Zealand for selected targets/areas of mutual interest. (SAVINGS GOAL: $750 million per year)
• Experiment with more limited agreements with Latin America, Middle East, and African countries in areas of common interest. (SAVINGS GOAL: $250M per year).

[OSS Inc. modifies the above element to note that open source burden sharing agreements--as opposed to clandestine and technical burden sharing agreements--do not exist today, and to observe that the single most promising area for global intelligence cooperation between governments and in support of the United Nations is in the open source arena; hence, in addition to sharing the load on the classified side, the U.S. should aggressively pursue open source burden sharing agreements which include hard-copy document acquisition, digitization, and translation.]