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Distillation. This is the essence of "intelligence" in that it combines research judgements which first discover and discriminate, and then it adds expert subject matter knowledge to distill the broader effort into "just enough" intelligence-intelligence being information which is tailored to the needs of the policymaker and tightly focused on helping the policymaker with a specific decision at a specific time and place. o
Dissemination. Often the timing, length, and even the format of the delivered product can be decisive in determining whether the intelligence contained in the document (or oral presentation,
or video, or electronic mail, or whatever) is received
by the intended policymaker, absorbed, and compelling enough to support action. There is far more to dissemination than simple delivery.
The above is not intended to make a case for the use of open sources from the private sector to the exclusion of either unclassified information or classified information from government sources. Indeed, the ideal situation emerges when both the policymaker and the intelligence community use open sources
to the fullest extent possible, but with intelligence methods applied to produce open source intelligence,
then task the classified systems for such information
as is truly critical, and finally utilize open sources to protect classified findings but inform those who require information support but to whom classified information cannot be disclosed.
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