The Open Source Enterprise (OSE) is a

United States Government The Federal Government of the United States of America (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the Federation#Federal governments, national government of the United States. The U.S. federal government is composed of three distinct ...

organization dedicated to

open-source intelligence Open source intelligence (OSINT) is the collection and analysis of data gathered from open sources (overt sources and publicly available information) to produce actionable intelligence. OSINT is primarily used in national security, law enforceme ...

. Initially part of the Office of the

Director of National Intelligence The director of national intelligence (DNI) is a Cabinet of the United States#Current Cabinet and Cabinet-rank officials, cabinet-level Federal government of the United States, United States government intelligence and security official. The p ...

, it is now part of the Directorate of Digital Innovation at the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

(CIA). Former iterations of the organization were the Open Source Center (OSC) and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS).

History

In the fall of November 1992,

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or Legislative chamber, chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the Ancient Rome, ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior ...

David Boren David Lyle Boren (April 21, 1941 – February 20, 2025) was an American lawyer and politician from Oklahoma. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 21st governor of Oklahoma from 1975 to 1979 and thr ...

, then Chairman of the

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (sometimes referred to as the Intelligence Committee or SSCI) is dedicated to overseeing the United States Intelligence Community—the agencies and bureaus of the federal government of ...

, sponsored the National Security Act of 1992, attempting to achieve modest reform in the U.S. Intelligence Community. His counterpart on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was Congressman Dave McCurdy. The House version of the legislation included a separate Open Source Office, at the suggestion of Larry Prior, a Marine Reservist with Marine Corps Intelligence Command experience then serving on the

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

staff. The Aspin-Brown Commission stated in 1996 that US access to open sources was "severely deficient" and that this should be a "top priority" for both funding and DCI attention. In issuing its July 2004 report, the

9/11 Commission The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, commonly known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, to investigate all aspects of the September 11 attacks, the deadliest terrorist attack in world history ...

recommended the creation of an open source intelligence agency, but without further detail or comment. Subsequently, the WMD Commission (also known as the Robb-Silberman Commission) report in March 2005 recommended the creation of an Open Source Directorate at the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

. Following these recommendations, in November 2005 the

announced the creation of the DNI Open Source Center. The Center was established to collect information available from "the Internet, databases, press, radio, television, video, geospatial data, photos and commercial imagery." In addition to collecting openly available information, it would train analysts to make better use of this information. Central to the establishment of the new organization was Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source (ADDNI/OS), Eliot A. Jardines. The OSC absorbed the CIA's previously existing

Foreign Broadcast Information Service The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) was an open source intelligence component of the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Science and Technology. It monitored, translated, and disseminated within the U.S. government openl ...

(FBIS), originally established in 1941, with FBIS head Douglas Naquin named as director of the Center. In response to the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...

and START Treaty, FBIS was tasked with monitoring for clandestine and encoded messages from all nations and coordinating broadcast media contact points who could instantly broadcast urgent messages on "All Channels" and "All Calls" and mutually receive messages in all languages and codings from any foreign broadcast station. This task continues despite the Open Source Center's DNI reorganization. On October 1, 2015, the OSC changed its name to Open Source Enterprise and was absorbed into the CIA's Directorate of Digital Innovation. On December 21, 2022, Randy Nixon was appointed as director of OSE, previously serving as the Director of Digital Futures.

Services

OSE provides material to the

National Technical Information Service The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) is an agency within the United States Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce. The primary mission of NTIS is to collect and organize scientific, technical, engineering, and busines ...

(NTIS) and other government officials through the online news service World News Connection.

Facilities

The headquarters of OSE is located in the Reston Town Center development in Reston, Virginia, in the former headquarters of the FBIS. The construction of the facility sparked some controversy in Reston, a

planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

, due to the presence of a chained linked and barbed wire fence surrounding the buildings. In the late 1980s, the CIA agreed to install a more aesthetically pleasing fence around the buildings. From 1943 until 2017, OSE operated a facility at Caversham Park alongside the UK's equivalent open-source intelligence service,

BBC Monitoring BBC Monitoring (BBCM) is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation which monitors, and reports on, mass media worldwide using open-source intelligence. Based at New Broadcasting House, the BBC's headquarters in central London, it has o ...

. In an information-sharing collaboration at Caversham, BBC Monitoring handled media from 25% of the world while Open Source handled the remaining 75%. The division was closed in October 2017.

History

Services

Facilities

See also

Sources and notes

Further reading