Another one of the presentations that I’d like to highlight from the Personal Democracy Forum is the one by Mark Pesce, who is currently an honorary professor at the University of Sydney.  I was glad that Pesce decided to make the trip because his speech was by far my favorite of the two-day forum.  A great written version of the speech can be found on his blog here, so I will save you the summary and simply discuss the fun facts that I found most intriguing.

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Gary sent me a link this morning that made me laugh (cry?) out loud.  Apparently, a US government agency has begun using Wikipedia as a source of basic intelligence information.  No kidding.

Via Secrecy News:

The collaboratively written online encyclopedia Wikipedia, created in 2001, has steadily grown in popularity, credibility and influence to the point that it is now used and referenced in U.S. Government intelligence products.

A March 19 profile of Indian Congress Party Leader Rahul Gandhi prepared by the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of Director of National Intelligence is explicitly derived from "various internet sources including wikipedia.org." A March 21 OSC profile of Rajnath Singh, president of India's Bharatiya Janata Party, is likewise "sourced from wikipedia.org."

An OSC report last year on the leader of the terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Prabhakaran, noted that he and his wife "have two children, a girl and a boy. According to wikipedia.com, the boy is named Charles Anthony and the girl, Duwaraha."

Let's take a step back here for a second.  Secrecy News claims that this Wikipedia-supported report was written by the OSC for the Director of National Intelligence.  According to its website, this is what the DNI does:

The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) serves as the head of the Intelligence Community (IC). The DNI also acts as the principal advisor to the President; the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council for intelligence matters related to the national security; and oversees and directs the implementation of the National Intelligence Program.

The OSC provides support to policymakers with media analysis and reporting.

If this rumor is true, I find it incredibly shocking (disappointing?) that key US intelligence agencies would use Wikipedia for such basic information about foreign officials.  Secrecy News notes that it's a "healthy development" for the government to be paying attention to "unorthodox" sources like Wikipedia.  I see the author's point here: there is definitely value in the fact the government is paying attention to the information accessible by everyday Americans.  However, does this information have a place in formal intelligence?  I don't think it does. 

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