The Butler Review and the Era of OSINT: Open Source Intelligence and Civil Society in the Early 21 st Century

The prominence of Open Source Intelligence (“OSINT”) as a public practice can be attributed in part to two inter-related developments in the first decade of the 21st century. The first is the upsurge in public discourse around the practices of intelligence analysis occasioned by the Iraq War; the second is the rapid adoption of new information and communication technologies across society. Taking these developments as a starting point, and using the Butler Review as a lens, it is possible to trace the rise, fall and (possible) future of OSINT as an idealistic endeavor on the part of civil society. From this flow two requirements: for a stronger model for the public use of open-source intelligence, and for the intelligence community to take on a didactic role vis-à-vis civilian OSINT practitioners and wider society.