Open Source Publishing

Open Source Publishing, according to Dr. Joseph Markowitz, Director of the Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO), is "chartered under a Director of Central Intelligence directive,and as part of that directive there is an official definition. The directive explains in detail what it is we do, and has a definition of open source in two parts: one part says that it's publicly available information, that is any member of the public can access it -- it need not necessarily be widely distributed. In other words, it could be information like a corporate report that has a more limited audience but nonetheless if the public wanted it, there would be ways members of the public could receive it. That's the first part of the definition, the second part of the definition is really more unique to us. It has to be information we can use in an unclassified intelligence context and so it has to be information which we acquired in a very straightforward way so it doesn't betray a source or a method as we say in this business. That's open source -- two parts to the definition." --

Other Related SourceWatch Resources

 * Central Intelligence Agency