Open Source Methods to Investigate the Organized Crime - Report Example

Critically discussing the practical, legal and ethical issues involved when using open source methods to investigate/research in organized crime Student’s name Instructor Course Date of submission Table of Contents 1.0.Introduction 3 2.0.Practical issues involved in using open source methods to investigate crime 4 2.1.Digital information verification of findings 5 2.2.Limited usefulness that lacks actionable intelligence 6 2.3.Inadequate information on OSINT subject by intelligence officers 6 2.4.Indifference for foreign languages and culture by Americans 7 2.5.Lack of unclassified information-management architectures 8 2.6.Warms, viruses, and other malware 8 3.0.Ethical issues involved when using open source methods to investigate organized crime 9 3.1.Misrepresented intent 9 3.2.Conflict of obligation 10 3.3.Conflict of interest 11 3.4.Questionable Interrogation techniques 11 4.0.Legal issues on the use of open Source Intelligence in investigating organized crime 12 4.1.Lack of acceptable OSINT metrics 12 4.2.Issues of copyrights 13 4.3.Human rights, privacy and data protection 14 5.0.Conclusion 15 6.0.Reference list 18 Critically discussing the practical, legal and ethical issues involved when using open source methods to investigate/research in organized crime 1.0. Introduction The main goal of criminal investigation is to identify the perpetrator. However, tracking perpetrators requires evidence for necessary conviction to bring the suspect to justice. Evidence could be physical like fingerprints, DNA or Deoxyribonucleic Acid, or blood; possession of evidence from scene like fibre or hair; physical identification like deformities, tattoos; and descriptions of eye witnesses which tend to be unreliable especially when the witness does not know the suspect(Osterburg & Ward, 2010, pp. 4-6). However, the work of modern day police is becoming more and more challenging especially given the presence of constantly evolving use of social media and internet(Peterson, 2005). Consequently, each day exposes criminals to advanced methodologies and technology to assist them in planning and committing crime. In response to these evolved crime perspectives, investigative work by law enforcers has become more sophisticated with more agencies deploying analysts to assist in solving puzzles involved in complex investigations. The employment of analysts to resolve organized crime by criminal intelligence units have led to the dependence on information sources of open, closed and classified nature. Open source intelligence or OSINT involves gathering criminal information from publicly available sources(United Nations, 2011, p. 12). The most common subset of open source information is “grey literature” comprising of technical, research and economic reports; white papers; documentation, thesis, dissertations, and newsletters that are subject related. Closed sources of intelligence information comprise information gathered for specified reasons and with restricted access and public availability. This information is present in the form of structured databases. Classified intelligence information is gathered through explicitly tasked convert that includes both technical and human resources. The focus of this study is to critically discuss the practical, legal and ethical issues involved when using open source methods to investigate or research organized crime. However, it is essential that the intelligence analyst has to become all-source analysts whose information selection is more inclined to selecting information sources for their relevance other than availability or accessibility. The implication is to avoid becoming dependent only on classified and closed sources of data but to embrace additional credibility on final report as a result of including open sources. According to United Nations (2011, p. 17), serious and organized crime requires proactive means of identification and response mostly in form of targeted operations by devoted units and a response preventative in nature on national basis. This is because organized crime normally operates nationally and internationally and law enforcement has to ensure there is safety for the community, reduction in crime, and control of crime and disorder. 2.0. Practical issues involved in using open source methods to investigate crime Practically open source intelligence is intended to gather information from sources that are publicly available to meet specified intelligence requirements. This information can be free or subscribed to both offline or online. However, according to Best & cumming (2007), OSINT issue raises a hot debate where proponents recommend it a way of obtaining information that could trigger greater understanding of an issue and should not be ignored. However, opponents highlight numerous practical issues that give more credibility to the classified and closed types of intelligence information. Some of the practical issues linked to OSINT include reliability, impact of growing information volume; dampening the effect of certain community security practices; the analytic tools necessary to effectively and efficiently collect and shift, analyze and disseminating the vast volume of publicly available information; and training issues associated to open source technology and techniques(Best & cumming, 2007, p. 4). 2.1. Digital information verification of findings For tens of millions of users online, the internet is a new frontier where people have a new playground, and a place where government or new businesses conduct most of their operations(Appel, 2011, pp. 237-238). As a result of too much exposure to the internet, most users are not aware of the need to remain responsible for their behaviour and thereby end up engaging in illegal, unethical, illicit, and socially unacceptable conduct, while investigators are at increased risk of dealing with large scale pranks and fantasy online. Since investigations often centre on organizations or individuals so as to determine the nature of their online behaviour. However, the greatest challenge is in verifying findings given that false traffic to and content ratings could direct investigators to fake websites thereby preventing access to the illegal websites. Unlike traditional intelligence agencies, the presence of publicly available information to some extent compounds the difficulty of filtering the signals from the noise. According to Mercado (2007), open source intelligence information filtration is getting more and more difficult and time consuming and no matter the hope from technology vendors, the analytical effort needed from human beings for competent OSINT information cannot be replaced. The end result is that too many analysts will be needed to come up with reliable information for use in investigations(Mercado, 2007). Additionally, the accuracy of information new agencies is not determined by the number of agencies reporting the news. This is because the non-state and government actors are also at the risk of broadcasting inaccurate or misleading information for depending on open source intelligence. Consequently, OSINT information is on occasions subject to verification against classified information sources to public misleading(Appel, 2011, pp. 238-240). 2.2. Limited usefulness that lacks actionable intelligence Further, the use of open source information is limited in its usefulness since it does not offer actionable intelligence on operational or tactical level(Pallaris, 2008, p. 2). According to Pallaris (2008), OSINT provides valuable information on the grievances of and motivations of Al-Qaida but fails to reveal the exact location of Osama Bin Laden. Additionally, OSINT fails to offer tactical information required to get hold of Osama or other terrorists given that militants and organized crime associations tend to be aware of the digital footprint thereby opting to remain offline hence below the radar. Correspondingly, OSINT fails to provide real time handy exchanges of Iranian scientists’ information despite successfully providing information on the nation’s nuclear program. 2.3. Inadequate information on OSINT subject by intelligence officers Best & cumming (2007, p. 4) argue that lack of sufficient subject matter expertise on OSINT is also an obstacle in OSINT application. In order to efficiently and accurately analyse OSINT information, intelligence analysts are expected to have linguistic and cultural knowledge of their target, as well as strong analytical experience and skill in thinking critically. Mercado (2007) reveals the lack of linguistic and cultural knowledge is attributed to Americans’ general unresponsiveness to foreign ideas and languages thereby resulting to an overall lack of interests in learning other languages or knowing what lies outside American borders. However, most analysts lack these requirements and thereby dampen intelligence compilation or result to intelligence failure to appropriately analyse OSINT. For information collected this way, Best and Cumming (2007, p.4) argue that some analysts do not believe since lack of careful vetting as undercover gathered intelligence makes it less credible hence of less value to policymakers. The obstacle of lack of expertise paves way for the need to offer training to intelligence analysts on targeted subject matter to allow for research, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence timely and precisely and this means additional cost and resources to train foreign language and culture expertise(Mercado, 2007). 2.4. Indifference for foreign languages and culture by Americans Mercado (2007) also reveals that nations like the United States lack the education foundation needed to develop future competent intelligence officers. Comparatively low numbers of Americans enrol to pursue foreign languages from secondary schools through college and university levels while numerous university language students pursue course in Romantic or German for professor of linguistics professions. As a result, the nation has to invest in crash courses for adults. Additionally, there is notable coldness on foreign languages and foreign sources translation thereby reducing the value of OSINT for the US mass media. Mercado (2007) reveals that most American journalists have remained ignorant of the countries where they have reported and cannot read translations of the North Korean news by foreign broadcaset information service or read a foreign menu thereby resulting to a tightly controlled press for information on foreigh relations. Further, US publishers are also considered to have failed for not introducing foreign books in translation which then reduces open sources present for americans and a futile struggle for the nation to sustain global hegemony. Foreign information reaching the United States curently has also declined since the end of the cold war given a reduction in the pool of able applicants ready to utilize foreign information in dialect. Mercado (2007) highligts that some studies that have grievously suffered include Russian studeis where funding and enrollement has fallen drastically. This is attributed to the fact that most US companies prefer sending monolingual employees to Moscow over teadhing Russian to monolingual experts. 2.5. Lack of unclassified information-management architectures Best and Cumming (2007, p. 2) also reveal that the use of OSINT is limited by the fact the currently available information-management architectures for processing, intelligence have all been classified including those used for information dissemination to the commander. As a result, unclassified information’s efficient routing has limited capability let alone collection. The implication is a reluctance tendency by military operators in nations like United States and United Kingdom to assume primary responsibility for OSINT information collection and processing. As a result, nations like US and UK are focusing on defining means of directly acquiring and exploitin OSINT while bypassing intelligence society as a way of offering direct access to OSINT to action officers and commanders(Best & cumming, 2007, p. 2). 2.6. Warms, viruses, and other malware During information collection online, intelligence analysts are faced with prevalent viruses, worms, and other forms of malware(Appel, 2011, p. 160). Malware and viruses pose as intelligence material but pose a threat to the system and files in the computer used to search for online information. When infected by viruses or other malware, informatio stored in such a computer may become corrupt hence rendered useless for crime investigation. Additionally, online websites contain offensive images like porn while others offer illicit and illegal drug prescriptions, softare and gabling with distractions designed with very off-colors. When encourntered with portn or off-colored pictures that could be offensieve remotely, intelligence officers choose not to capture.(Appel, 2011, p. 160). 3.0. Ethical issues involved when using open source methods to investigate organized crime During OSINT collection, intelligence analysts are expected to adhere to OSINT ethics. This is because OSINT collected using ethical methods can be used legal proceedings with almost zero-risk of exposing sensitive intelligence information(Pallaris, 2008, p. 2). However, most OSINT collection procedures are marred with lots of ethical issues competitive intelligence professionals have to think of better ways of dealing with them. The emphasis on ethical OSINT collection is attributed to sustaining competitive profession’s image publicly especially in the presence of a scandal-hungry media(Trevino & Weaver, 1997, p. 2). Despite the presence of clear cut competitive intelligence profession standards, intelligence analysts face numerous ethical issues including theft, misrepresentation, covert surveillance, and attempts to influence judgement of the persons delegated confidential information. Some of the ethical issues of concern during Open source Intelligence collection include omission sins; taking advantage of other people’s mistakes like eavesdropping; conflict of interest; responsibility to sources; and intent misrepresentation. 3.1. Misrepresented intent According to Trevino & Weaver (1997, p. 6), intent misrepresentation involves omitting relevant information to gather information from one of the subscribed or free online or offline sources of relevant OSINT. For instance, an intelligence analyst can omit relevant information to find information and win contests by blocking or manipulating relevant information. Through the use of Global Positioning System or GPS, intelligence analyst can conceal relevant information to track opponents and arrest them especially in the case of tracking terrorist with hostages and demanding for ransom from families to release them(Duyvesteyn, et al., 2014). Additionally, some analysts crawl into social media to obtain personal information about other people without representing their actual identities for use in their investigation in organized crime. Additionally, some journalists fail to identify their real identities while researching on an issue in order to have obtained information from persons who would have otherwise not shared information with them. 3.2. Conflict of obligation Conflict of obligation is another ethical issue linked to intent misrepresentation during OSINT collection(Trevino & Weaver, 1997, p. 10). Additionally, intelligence officers may at one point be required to gather information from criminal groups thereby engaging in illegal and ethical activities to penetrate the group(Goldman, 2010). Considerable ethical issues result from when the agents acting on behalf of the state intentionally engages in illegal activities with the main aim of gaining information. Further, when dealing with informers, intelligence agencies assume numerous ethical obligations in respect of the individual involved. In this case, the third party is obliged to protect the intelligence agency and is expected not to reveal the identity of the person or company that hired them to conduct the investigation. Ethical concerns in this case arise on intent misrepresentation, where the third party declines to reveal the client they are representing but instead reveals that the information being collected is used for industry analysis or other purposes.(Appel, 2011). As a result, intelligence agencies have to ensure that their selection of third party promotes its valuable public image and not overly sullying it with over-aggressive conduct. Additionally, intelligence agencies have the obligation to protect human sources by ensuring that the identity of the source remains secret and that the source and their families are physically protected where needed. 3.3. Conflict of interest Conflict of interest for consultants arises when one uses Consultant Company or informers in foreign and domestic levels for intelligence collection(Goldman, 2010). To obtain relevant intelligence, intelligence agencies have to develop relationships with group or individuals that deal with criminal activities. When an informer or consultant group works for competitors, ethical issues arise given that critical information could be shared with the competitor. In such situations, the consultant may be tempted to edit work that has been done before hence working a vertical. During investigations, third parties are required not to work for competitors except for instances where the consultant has a long term contract with the competition company. According to Trevino & Weaver (1997, p. 13), intelligence analysts are not permitted to issue a competitor with documents that have been generated for a company within their industry. 3.4. Questionable Interrogation techniques According to Goldman (2010, p. 45), interrogation techniques during OSINT collection have resulted to situations of questionable ethics. In some situations, intelligence analysts require potentially critical information from a given person to the extent of using torture or other enhanced interrogation techniques to fight against terrorism. The decision to use torture over other enhanced interrogation techniques results to ethical issues since torture is considered to be against absolute moral principle. In case torture, the profession’s agenda and honour is undermined. However, delivering torture to individuals with information that could save lives is held to be viable and justifiable. According to Goldman (2010, p. 46) torture in such case is justified by the fact that expected gains outweigh the harm that would have occurred. 4.0. Legal issues on the use of open Source Intelligence in investigating organized crime For the military and other defence institutions, OSINT is a significant potential source of support in terms of policy development, indications and warnings, security assistance, contingency planning, joint and coalition operations, weapon acquisition, and tactical operations on upcoming priorities like proliferation. However, the attainment of accurate and reliable OSINT collection is governed by numerous laws, regulations and legislations. This way, OSINT practitioners define their scope of methods of information collection, sources of intelligence, processing, and dissemination of intelligence. Some of the regulations include metrics for open source use, copyright issues, data protection Act and Human right Act. Legal issues in OSINT arise as a result of violation of these laws. 4.1. Lack of acceptable OSINT metrics Despite much advocacy for the use of open source intelligence, there is still no widely acceptable metrics or measurement(Best & cumming, 2007, p. 20). For most of the intelligence community managers, there is intensified search for a quantifiable measure of day-to-day intelligence administration. As a result, only counts are made on the number of times the President’s Daily Brief has included open source analysis. Additionally, open source centre publishes other open source information which is disseminated to analysts and external experts for further investigations. Further, inasmuch as classified information is connected to open source information and used by all-source analyst, it is not possible to quantify how much OSINT contributes to a given intelligence product. Consequently, OSINT’s quality of analysis is the ultimate metrics for the intelligence community. 4.2. Issues of copyrights For intelligent officers, the issues of copy rights are inevitable during acquisition, analysis, and dissemination of open source information within the government(Best & cumming, 2007, p. 21) since such responsibilities have to be done within law provisions governing copyrights. Although much of OSINT is obtained from public domain intelligence agencies with no copyright claims, and commercial databases providing information by contract in according to legal procurement procedures, some copyright information is obtained without authorization. Best and Richard (2007, p. 22) argue that unauthorized use of copyright information is governed by fair use found in Copyright Act of 1976. However, most intelligence use of unauthorized copyright information does not meet the requirements on amount and character of use; the status of the copyright work; amount copied subject to the entire copyrighted work; and the impact of copying on potential market of the copyright material. Since the copyright holder has the right to defend the copyright, the government may be sued for using such information only to pay hefty fines. Further, complications when using unauthorized copyright material arise when the works used are published in foreign nations whose government do or do not adhere to Berne convention for the protection of Literary and Artistic work that offers the universal protection and for materials with copyrights. As a result, the government ends up paying copyright holders for illegal use of their products. Best and Cumming (2007, p.22) reveal that some people have argued that there is dire need for the congress to amend the copyright law to allow for the efforts of open source intelligence agencies. Although this move would facilitate the widest possible use of open source information by public officials and eliminate uncertainty of copyright extent, such a move could infringe copyright holders’ legitimate rights. Such legitimate rights include profits that such holders could make as a result of selling copies to government offices. 4.3. Human rights, privacy and data protection According to Eijkman & Weggmans (2012, p. 285), human rights work is founded on access to accurate information and advocacy activities and organization reputation on abuse reporting are guided by collection and presentation of violation evidence. The responsibility of ensuring credible human rights monitoring has remained under the jurisdiction of controlled organizational structures whose effectiveness is currently challenged by proliferation of information technology. The evolution of internet has made massive information available including personal information that can be retrieved by a click of the mouse. This personal information is posted by people in social media sites, blogging, or apps. Additionally, digital information shared by individuals online is stored as digital data in the cloud or databases and OSINT strategies should employ proper checks and balances for use and sharing between law enforcement agencies and security agencies. According to Eijkman & Weggmans (2012, p. 287), personal Open Source information is attainable from online news pages, weblogs, chat rooms, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and apps like Whatsapp or Wechat. These sources Eijkman & Weggmans reveal are potential sources of valuable intelligence information on the lives of millions of people. The presence of this information has resulted to the dillema of creation of virtual personal identities by others or falsification of the state regading control. As a result, security agencies and police are called upon to be more careful on personal information thereby calling for more expertise. Additionally, processing of information gathered from social sites faces storage issues given that there are large data sets holding large digital personal information. When profilling such data to develop risk profiles, most people are not aware that there are being profiled and this raises the issue of privacy and data protection. On human rights, Eijkman & Weggmans (2012, p. 291) highlights that intelligence officers and other people dealing with accessible personal information violate intelligence ethics by using such data. This is because, online personal information is subject to data protection and privacy and such information is owned by the person represented. Intelligence officers must understand that by having information about an individual publicly accessible does not mean that everyone has a right to distribute, aggregate, or scale such information. As a result, data minign of security site violates privacy by all means. Additionally, atomotic data processing profilling poses lots of risks as Eijkman & Weggmans (2012, p. 292) reveal the data of a person could be produced as a result of data of others and this implies that a priori is incapable of suspecting the presence of correlation proceses that might result to some attributes of others to be attributed to them based on probality computations. For instance, a spectator detained in a football pitch and jailed for alleged violence could affect other people who have updated the their status with the words related to the jailed person and subsequently be treated as risks. The implication here is that profilling benfits dilute reliable information regarding implicit personal attributes that considerably recognized potetial violence fanatic. 5.0. Conclusion This paper critically discussed the practical, legal and ethical issues involved when using open source methods to investigate or research in organized crime. The paper has defined open source intelligence or OSINT has been defined as information readily available to the public through the internet, broadcast media, radio and journals amongst others. Additionally, personal open source information has increasingly been on the rise as thereby posing ethical issues of concerned. From the paper, the main aim of investigations is to bring the suspect to justice using the right evidence. However, this work by intelligent agents has constantly faced challenges of criminals gaining access to advance methodologies and technology that assist them to plan and commit crime, especially in the presence of ever growing use of social media and internet. Additionally, crime investigation has resulted to the use need to shift from traditional intelligence information in closed or classified intelligence to increasingly adapt open source intelligence or OSINT. OSINT collection involves numerous benefits including less expensive and increased availability of information. However, there are numerous issues that still affect the use of OSINT investigations on organized crime and these are classified as legal, practical, and ethical issues. Practical issues focus on factors that almost makes it impossible to deploy OSINT in organized crime investigation and include verification of findings; lack of actionable intelligence; Inadequate information on OSINT subject; indifference for foreign culture and language by Americans and lack of information-management architectures for unclassified information; and inversion by warms, viruses, and other malware. Ethical issues include misrepresented intent; conflict of obligation; conflict of interest; and questionable interrogation techniques. The identified legal issues include lack of acceptable OSINT metrics; copyright issues; and human rights, and privacy and data protection. The recommendations proposed to manage the OSINT in the investigation of organized crime include training of existing intelligence officers on how to collect, analyze and disseminate OSINT. Collection of OSINT requires critical thinking such that one can easily conduct tailored searches on open search engines like Yahoo, Bing, Google, amongst others. With the right training and the right information search techniques, the analyst possesses critical thinking and analysis skills that promote intelligence and collection technique. Additionally, proper training will involve the introduction of foreign language courses that will promote the development multilingual officers who can accurately and confidently collect, analyze, and provide relevant information from foreign language sources. Additionally, credible and high quality intelligence information is readily attainable through compliance with legal limitations, policies and guidelines and other associated regulation, derivatives and instructions. 6.0. Reference list Appel, E. J., 2011. Internet Searches for Vetting, Investigations, and Open-Source Intelligence. United States: CRS Press. Best, R. & cumming, A., 2007. Open Source Intelligence or OSINT Issues in congress, Washington DC: CSR Report for Congress. Duyvesteyn, I., Jong, B. D. & Reijn, J. V., 2014. The Future of Intelligence: Challenges in the 21st Century. Illustrated ed. United States: Routledge. Eijkman, Q. & Weggmans, D., 2012. Open Source Intelligence and Privacy Dillemas: Is It time to Reasses State Accountability?. Security and Human Rights, Volume 12, pp. 285-296. Goldman, J., 2010. Ethics of spying : a reader for the intelligence professional. v. 2. illustrated ed. Lanham, Md: Lanham, Md. ; Plymouth, UK : Scarecrow Press, 2010.. Mercado, S. C., 2007. Sailing the Sea of OSINT in the Information Age: A Vulnerable Source of New Era. [Online] Available at: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no3/article05.html [Accessed 25 May 2014]. Osterburg, J. W. & Ward, R. H., 2010. Criminal Investigation : a Method for Reconstructing the Past. Burlington: Elsevier Science. Pallaris, C., 2008. Open Source Intelligence: A Strategic Enabler of National Security. CSS analysis in Security Policy, 3(24), pp. 1-3. Peterson, M. B., 2005. An Analytic Approach to Investigations. The Police Chief, December, 72(12), p. online. Steele, R. D., 1997. Open Source Intelligence: What is it? Why is it important to the Military?. United states, Open Source Solutions Inc. Trevino, L. K. & Weaver, G. R., 1997. Ethical Issues in Competitive Intelligence Practice: consensus, Conflicts, and Challenges. Competitive Intelligence Review, 8(1), pp. 1-23. United Nations, 2011. Criminal Intelligence Manual for Analysts. Vienna, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Read More