
Introduction to Intelligence Studies104
Open source material is clearly valuable. Indeed, anyone reading this
book could become an open source analyst. However, care must be taken.
In the rst place, the sheer volume of material available today is overwhelm-
ing; one must develop a clear collection strategy to access the “wheat” while
avoiding the “cha.” Second, it is dicult to gauge the credibility of open
source data. Something may sound plausible when, in fact, it is entirely o
base. Open source information is especially vulnerable to denial and decep-
tion—consider all the “information” that makes its way to the Internet with-
out scruti ...