It’s an open secret that the US intelligence community has its own classified, highly secure Internet. Called Intelink, it’s got portals, chat rooms, message boards, search engines, webmail, and tons of servers. It’s pretty damn cool… for four years ago.

Wired Magazine’s Kris Alexander recently discussed that many of the amazing tools introduced to a broad swath of the Internet community over the last two years - think blogs, bulletin boards, podcasting and wikis - have not yet made it to Langley. And that’s a huge mistake.

Alexander, a military intelligence officer in the US Army Reserve, points out that “the 15 agencies of the community - ranging from the armed services to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency - maintain separate portals, separate data, and separate people. The bad guys exploit the gaps, and your safety is on the line.” His proposal is to “encourage blogging on Intelink.”

When I Google “Afghanistan blog” on the public Internet, I find 1.1 million entries and tons of useful information. But on Intelink there are no blogs. Imagine if the experts in every intelligence field were turned loose - all that’s needed is some cheap software. It’s not far-fetched to picture a top-secret CIA blog about al Qaeda, with postings from Navy Intelligence and the FBI, among others. Leave the bureaucratic infighting to the agency heads. Give good analysts good tools, and they’ll deliver outstanding results.

And why not tap the brainpower of the blogosphere as well? The intelligence community does a terrible job of looking outside itself for information. From journalists to academics and even educated amateurs - there are thousands of people who would be interested and willing to help. Imagine how much traffic an official CIA Iraq blog would attract. If intelligence organizations built a collaborative environment through blogs, they could quickly identify credible sources, develop a deep backfield of contributing analysts, and engage the world as a whole. How cool would it be to gain “trusted user” status on a CIA blog?

All this is possible with resources that currently exist. It won’t require a complete overhaul of intelligence services, or the creation of a cabinet-level “intelligence czar.” (Has the drug czar won the war on drugs?) Intelink blogging would immediately improve the information being used in the war on terror. AKO has managed to connect nearly 2 million members on an annual budget of about $30 million - that’s chump change compared with the cost of a day’s operations in Iraq. You do the math. Read the full article…