Web Logs as a Medium for Intelligence Sharing

Intelligence skills, particularly in the field of open source intelligence, are essential to organizations that manage nuclear materials. The same analytic skills used by national security, law enforcement and business intelligence organizations can significantly increase the efficiency of nuclear materials operations. In this sense, all intelligence gathering organizations need a way to communicate information with decision makers in real time while receiving immediate feedback, analysis, and direction. The ideal medium for this vision of intelligence sharing is the web log format (often written as “weblog” and increasingly shortened to the simple “blog”). Blogs allow for effective and efficient communication between interested parties regardless of their location. This paper details the ins and outs of blogs for intelligence sharing as illustrated through a hypothetical International Atomic Energy Agency inspection in a developing country with a minimal or restricted communications infrastructure.