The Open Information Opportunity for Greater U.S. Information Power
Abstract
Information power could be the tonic to cure our economic, educational, and poverty malaise. How? National assistance, like the TVA Rural Electrification Act, could drive the price and user friendliness of personal computers and software to commodity levels and install them in every U.S. school. This could become a national confidence-building program that provides immediate Jobs and business stimulus, moves us from smokestack to silicon-and-information industry, and provides vital education and heroes to every grade school American as an investment in sustaining U.S. superpower. One possibility is to focus new efforts through the Department of Commerce (DoC) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) by creating a Critical Information Division (NIST CID) assisted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) computing consortia. A nationally guided, commercially executed program has the potential to use information power, open source information, domestically as well as internationally and generate millions of points of light. The U.S. Congress is interested in reorganizing the U.S. intelligence community under a new Director of National Intelligence. A sweeping revision could create a Director of National Information, consolidating closed-source information under the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in DoD, moving the remaining Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) functions and special legislative authorities of the National Security Acts of 1947 and 1949 into DIA, and consolidating open-source information under the DoC Critical Information Division (DoC CID). The DoC CID would answer to the Secretary of Commerce and DIA would still be under the Secretary of Defense, but the new Director of National Information would advocate, coordinate, and ensure the U.S. Government maximum use of open and closed source information and analyses.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 23, 1992
- Accession Number
- ADA437120
Entities
People
- Gary R. Harmon
Organizations
- National War College