In 2023, an FBI intelligence product intended for internal use only was leaked to the public. The piece received criticism from some outlets for its content, but also for its sources. The problem with its sources came down to two issues: the product used popular magazines as a primary means of support for its premises;Continue reading “Strong, Neutral Sources: The Foundation of A Defensible Analysis”
Category Archives: Researching
Content Moderation: The Case Against It
The early 2020s saw a trend of content moderation, the throttling or blocking of “misinformation” from news and social media sites. The proponents argued that containing misleading or false information is necessary for the public good. Whether it benefits or harms the consumer is a matter for another forum. However, from an analytical perspective, reducingContinue reading “Content Moderation: The Case Against It”
Open Source Intelligence: Good, But Use With Caution
Open source intelligence sites, such as .gov, .org, .edu, and many .com sites, used to be acceptable choices for research for both finished and raw intelligence. They might not always have been neutral, but their biases were generally discernible and could be filtered from the final product. But the trustworthiness of publicly available data isContinue reading “Open Source Intelligence: Good, But Use With Caution”
The Diligent Researcher Equal To Subject Matter Expert
Subject matter experts (SMEs) are sought for their mastery of a topic, but political science writer Philip Tetlock in his book, Expert Political Judgment, found diligent researchers, who applied critical thinking to a problem, performed equally as well or slightly better than SMEs when it came to forecasting political outcomes. This phenomena applies equally wellContinue reading “The Diligent Researcher Equal To Subject Matter Expert”
Data Sources and Focus Of Intelligence Analysts
Data sources for intelligence analysts may come from within their home agencies, compiled in support of their agency’s mission, or else from external sources, such as from data sets compiled by government and private entities. There is a function in analysis for projecting uncertain futures, however, the role of the intelligence analyst is most oftenContinue reading “Data Sources and Focus Of Intelligence Analysts”