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 (U) On the analytic lines of the ICA, the Committee concludes that allanalytic lines are supported with all-source intelligence, although with varying substantiation. The Committee did not discover any significant analytic tradecraft issues in the preparation or final presentation of the ICA.

 (U) The Committee found that specific intelligence as well as open source assessments support the assessment

Volume IV: Review of Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Since the COVID-19 pandemic has forced some members of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) to change the nature of their work into a more open environment, it is an opportune time to not only learn how to operate therein, but better determine the true attributes of open source information in a more reflective manner. This valuable exercise could directly meet a suggestion posed in the 2007 Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report for Congress titled Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): Issues for Congress, and mimic the same progression that occurs across every other type of intelligence to this day.

There are some that believe that open source information, a key and expanding source of intelligence used significantly by its officers for decades, is now the preeminent type of information we should exclusively gravitate toward as professionals. It is not and should be carefully tested instead as an integral piece on a larger chessboard. Open source is easily the most voluminous and accessible type of information available, but it is also becoming the most corruptible and misleading as a result.
Simultaneously, all-source intelligence of which open source is a component and the appropriate (evolutionary) application of analytic tradecraft therein, seems more significant now than ever before. This importance was explicitly reinforced this year in the fourth U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report in the committees bipartisan Russia 2016 presidential election interference investigation, and is referenced throughout this article.
Whats in a Source? An Analytic Review
All-source analysis is the fusion of multiple sources of intelligence, each serving as a form of evidence, used to build a claim reached by a process of reasoning. Analysts will often use different types of intelligence to test a hypothesis for weaknesses, knowing full well their conclusions are rarely flawless, and their sources perfectly reliable. Good all-source intelligence analysts fundamentally realize the strengths and weaknesses of each of their collected sources of information, or intelligence. Every -INT has them, which is why all-source analysis is so imperative.
For example, human intelligence (HUMINT) can be used to gain an individual leaders hidden intent, but suffers from questions of asset motivation and access; signals intelligence (SIGINT) can be used to gain targeted, clandestinely obtained conversations, but suffers from translation and contextual discrepancies; measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) can be used to gain scientific evidence of a specific activity, but suffers from noise and platform limitations. In each case, there are methods our adversaries use to deceive our collection systems and effect confidence in our assessments. Those methods can be neutralized or mitigated through the secretive penetration of our adversaries network using multiple collection techniques.

(U) The analytic line on new normal serves as both prediction and warning, and the Committee notes that IC and open source reporting has revealed much evidence to reinforce the ICs 2016 assessments.

Volume IV: Review of Intelligence Community Assessment, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence