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For years, government officials, commissions, and think tanks have warned that the U.S. intelligence community has blinded itself to enormous sources of intelligence, simply because the information is publicly available. In other words, the intelligence community would prefer to rely on billion-dollar classified satellites and intelligence-collection programs rather than to gather unclassified information on the internet for free.

Examples are rife. Russia conducted a strategic misinformation campaign to influence the results of elections in multiple countries, including the UK, Ukraine (PDF), France, and, eventually, the United States (PDF), and they did it on social media in view of everyone, except the intelligence officers who only look at classified sources. Despite the signals that were available, U.S. elected officials (PDF) described not being adequately warned.…

The remainder of this commentary is available at defenseone.com.

Cortney Weinbaum is a senior researcher specializing in intelligence and national security at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. She is a former intelligence officer.

This commentary originally appeared on Defense One on April 9, 2021. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.