Dr. Tim Thomas, a CIA agent specializing in "open source" data mining, will begin a two-year stint as an officer-in-residence at the University of Washington's Institute for National Security Education and Research (INSER), which is financed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The office is an umbrella organization for groups such as the U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the CIA. The University will benefit from the program by means of a $2.5 million in grant money over the next five years.
INSER focuses on so-called "open source" intelligence - gathering information from publicly available documents, newspapers, TV shows, online communities, chat rooms, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs in other countries. Under Thomas's tutelage, students will learn the fine art of data mining and intelligence gathering, and discuss U.S. foreign policy and the strategic differences between the cold war and the war on terror in as much as could be gathered for existing open sources.
While INSER focuses more on information retrieval and intelligence gathering than espionage, the University has kept the program fairly quiet. INSER has been around since January 2007, but faculty members - including University of Washington spokesman Norm Arkans - were unable to provide many details about the program since data on it is masked in the curriculum database and to view the online offering you must understand steganography.
Data Mining(DM) is nothing new but has been around since the beginning of time. DM is the second oldest skill still used today, shown to be true by Dr. Tim Thomas. Dr. Thom at the University of Washington INSER is using his knowledge of the first oldest skill to fill his coffers with government funding. Intelligence gathering is a joke. To prove that the CIA had no advance notice of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S.A..
I have first hand knowledge and experience how Intelligence works in the agencies. I attended Fort Devens, Massachusetts USASA Army Security Agency and obtained a TS. What came of the education? I well known to every domestic agency and some others.
Would I give up my freedom to be part of the intelligence community again? NO!!!!