Can United States intelligence community analysts telework?
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RYFWQBHUVHEQT2VGNRN2/full?target=10.1080/02684527.2020.1767389
by David Gioe, Joseph Hatfield and @WWIPhD

Great read and strong recommend!

I'm still sad we have to make the case for #intelligence analysts to use #OSINT and it's 2020.

I ran an intel shop for several years where the vast majority of our customers didn't have security clearances, so we made the decision to primarily rely on unclassified information.

The results were excellent!

For analysts, that forced them to find and evaluate academics, researchers, journalists, & others with expert and detailed knowledge within their portfolios and in some cases, develop professional relationships with them.

We found that our analysis often came very close to that of our IC counterparts who were relying primarily on classified information

In retrospect, I think I'd recommend analysts start in the OSINT realm: to learn good research, evaluation & interaction skills

On the other hand, I remember deploying to Afghanistan in 2003 and my command saying "Everything you need is on SIPR...you can do 100% of your job at behind a terminal."

That was, of course, completely ridiculous.

Anecdotally, our IC counterparts seemed to appreciate it, as many were trying to engage w/the private sector but couldn't share too much. They could recommend us and our products as being in line with their assessments.

Our goal became "IC quality products for non-IC audience"

How did we develop expertise? Coincidentally, mush as the authors suggest. Every analyst had to maintain an unclassified wiki of their portfolio items that was THE reference on the subject for the whole organization & write literature reviews twice a year on their portfolios

Also, we got analysts out of the office. I'd send analysts to academic conferences, author talks, visits to other shops. Particularly useful: @isanet, @START_UMD, @VOX_Pol and @CTCWP but everyone is close to a local university...get on the phone!

To answer the "I don't have time" or "I don't know where to start" questions, I gave new analysts an beginning template of questions and subjects to begin their search. Then, I gave them time...usually 2-4 weeks initially and at least 2 one week increments annually

That time was up to them to dig into the research. Other analysts would cover their desk for routine efforts (if something critical popped up, of course we'd pull them back). They'd often have a backlog of things to read but it also allowed them to search for new stuff

Of course, we're not talking about all types of intelligence here. Some have to be done at the classified level. But it is hard to overstate how much information is overclassified and how much unclassified information goes unexamined.

Another reason to support some sort of remote work for intelligence professionals is that physical space influences mental processes. You sit in a cube farm, organized hierarchically, where folks have similar professional outlooks and you might be limiting your imagination.

And while the article argues for analysts doing strategic analysis, researchers like @bellingcat and various anti-nazi/white supremacist researchers have done some impressive tactical intelligence work. It certainly wouldn't work for all cases, but there's a LOT that can be done