PressEthic

A new intelligence agency is being formed the Open Source Center according to the New York Times. The agency will garner unclassified information from a range of sources, including internet sites, t-shirt slogans and newspaper reports. The Open Source Center will take over the roles of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (a branch of the CIA), which was responsible for translating foreign news broadcasts.

The establishment of this center, once again demonstrates the increasing importance of the internet as a source of the news. Monitoring foreign blogs, for example, will surely help intelligence agencies better understand the cultural/social/political climates of certain countries’ of interest. Monitoring general feelings of a country towards the USA, through its news media and other cultural artifacts, is surely invaluable intelligence.

Bagidikan, in his book, The New Media Monopoly, makes the point that before 9/11 Americans were unaware of the pervasive anti-US sentiment that was held through certain parts of the globe. This may not have been the case in intelligence circles, but this new agency does demonstrate that anyone can have access to global political information. If the government plans to use unlcassified informaition, so can anyone. One does not have to rely on the information on foreign issues painted by the domestic media. Anyone with access to the internet can compare news accounts from around the globe.