There is some minor fear and paranoia rippling through the blog world because intelligence analysts may now be reading blogs.
Deep breath, people. This is a good thing.
From the article: "News and intelligence is about listening with a critical ear, and blogs are just another conversation to listen to and evaluate. They also are closer to (some situations) and may serve as early alerts."
Right. It kind of surprises me that people don't understand that this is a validation of the success of blogs. Intelligence analysts are just information-processors, just like bloggers. They read covert information, of course, but they also read overt sources - like newspapers, economic data, and now ... blogs. If I were an analyst responsible for tracking Iraq, for example, I would damn sure make time every day to read Juan Cole. He might put two pieces of information together in a way I hadn't thought of. Enough bloggers like that, and my ability to deliver good reports is significantly improved.
Note also that this observation applies to a whole host of other information-processing jobs: business analyst, lawyer, and scientific researcher, for examples. As the technology develops more people will use the widely-distributed data that blogs produce as inputs for their decisionmaking.
I agree. Most intel jobs are indistinguishable from academic positions in a university or think tank except that the toys are cooler and your employer gets to run your life through an electron microscope before hiring you.
Posted by: mark safranski | April 29, 2004 at 11:31 AM
Most intel jobs are indistinguishable from academic positions in a university ...
Complete with academic politics? *shudder*
your employer gets to run your life through an electron microscope before hiring you.
Which, of course, is why they declined to hire me. I have "security risk" tattooed on my forehead.
Posted by: Mithras | April 29, 2004 at 12:55 PM