CIA goes open source - but repository gets few takers

Here's a story that makes so much sense it's sort of sad. In an article called  "Probing Galaxies of Data for Nuggets," the Post reports:

The CIA now has its own bloggers.

In a bow to the rise of Internet-era secrets hidden in plain view, the agency has started hosting Web logs with the latest information on topics including North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il's public visit to a military installation (his 38th this year) and the Burmese media's silence on a ministry reshuffling. It even has a blog on blogs, dedicated to cracking the code of what useful information can be gleaned from the rapidly expanding milieu of online journals and weird electronic memorabilia warehoused on the Net.

 Well, it only makes sense, doesn't it, in an age where terrorists are supposedly using the net to communicate in chat rooms and Arabic websites, for our spooks to datamine through that haystack.

Unfortunately, it also makes perfect sense that agents turn their nose up at the initiative, called the DNI  Open Source Center.

 "There are still people who believe if it's not top secret, it's not worth reading," said an outside expert who works with government intelligence agencies.

By adding the new center, "they've changed the strategic visibility," said Douglas J. Naquin, a CIA veteran named to direct the center. ". . . All of a sudden open source is at the table." But, in an interview last week at CIA headquarters, he added that "managing the world's unclassified knowledge . . . [is] much bigger than any one organization can do."