In today’s Washington Post there is an article about the State Department using Google to identify Iranians to sanction for their role in developing the country’s nuclear capability. This article is an example of the poor application of Internet searching, and the potential application of the results of said poor searching is a cause for concern. If you’re going to use the Internet as part of your sourcing strategy it is worth your time to learn how to do it right.
Frustrated, the State Department assigned a junior Foreign Service officer to find the names another way — by using Google. Those with the most hits under search terms such as “Iran and nuclear,” three officials said, became targets for international rebuke Friday when a sanctions resolution circulated at the United Nations.
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An initial Internet search yielded over 100 names, including dozens of Iranian diplomats who have publicly defended their country’s efforts as intended to produce energy, not bombs, the sources said. The list also included names of Iranians who have spoken with U.N. inspectors or have traveled to Vienna to attend International Atomic Energy Agency meetings about Iran.
The potential for open source secondary research for government intelligence and security research is significant. That potential is only going to realized if you apply appropriate techniques in your searching and then conduct the appropriate analysis to place your results within the context of the situation or subject.
Technorati Tag: Competitive Intelligence
