Intelligence Update 20161124 – James Clapper toasts the Intelligence Community (IC), “Corporate Product – coming to a consensus in Intel analysis, Pentagon plagiarizing Wikipedia for Congressional reports, and more.
Clapper Makes a Toast. The OSS Society [1] recently held a function that was attended by a number of present and past senior intelligence officials. James R. Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, was one and he offered a toast to the intelligence community which you can view in this short (2-min video). He leads in with a pretty good joke so worth watching! See Toast to the Intelligence Community by The Hon. James R. Clapper, The OSS Society YouTube.com channel, November 10, 2016.
“Corporate Product” in Intelligence Analysis. The end result of intelligence analysis is a briefing or document. Generally the information contained in these products are developed through a consensus process where the impact of the analysis is sometimes watered down – with dissenting views sometimes not presented. Read more in “Giving Intelligence Analysts Their Voices Back: The case for analyst perspectives”, by Derek Grossman, War on the Rocks, October 20, 2016.
Pentagon Relying on Wikipedia. The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee questioned Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work about a document submitted to the committee “. . . with information directly copied from Wikipedia, an online open-source encyclopedia.” (The Hill, Nov 17, 2016).
Footnotes:
[1] OSS = Office of Strategic Services, a WWII special operations and intelligence organization established by the United States early in the war. The OSS was the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Army Special Forces.
