In 2005, Gijs de Vries, back then the European Union's first anti-terrorism coordinator, told reporters: "You can't get closer to the heart of national sovereignty than national security and intelligence services". De Vries was referring to the incorporation of domestic-security services into Europe's counter-terrorism analysis work.
The thinking is good. Cross-disciplinary and collaborative intelligence analysis work increasingly pays off today outside governments, and De Vries's often cited quote rings true outside the anti-terrorism domain, especially in journalism. A new trend towards a more liberal approach to open-source information allows the public and journalists to take control of what people should know.
Your humble correspondent argued for using open-source intelligence (OSINT) since the start of his tenure as editor and journalist at this magazine and found a sympathetic ear here. Other magazines started seeing...