Robert David Steele

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert David Steele Vivas (b. July 16, 1952 New York City), is known for his promotion of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT).^[1] He is a former Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years and was the second-ranking civilian (GS-14) in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988-1992.^{[citation needed]} Steele is a former clandestine services case officer with the Central Intelligence Agency.^[2]^[3] He is the founder and CEO of OSS.Net, Inc. as well as the Golden Candle Society.^[4] Steele also was a member of the Adjunct Faculty of Marine Corps University in the mid-1990s.

1 Career
2 Books by Steele
3 Film Appearances
4 Sources and notes
5 External links

[edit] Career

He spent his early years, two decades, resident in Latin America and Asia as the son of an oil company executive. Steele has an BA in Political Science; an MA in International Relations; and an MBA in Public Administration. He resigned from the military in 1993.

He is commonly associated with the Open source intelligence (OSINT) movement and coined the terms "virtual intelligence" and "information peacekeeping." He argues that U.S. intelligence reform is needed, and that the private sector can perform a high percentage of U.S. open source intelligence needs and reduce cost to the U.S. Government. He advocates for "collective intelligence" or "the wisdom of the crowd" (what Howard Rheingold calls "smart mobs") and for hackers as a national resource.

Steele, an international proponent of OSINT^[5], argues that both reports, while recent, still ignore his decades of advocacy for a proper national focus on OSINT from 1988 to date. He further argues that the Central Intelligence Agency has refused to take open source information seriously for decades, and shouldn't be charged with developing new capabilities that are totally outside its existing culture of secrecy.

[edit] Books by Steele

On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World (2000) OSS International Press, ISBN 0-9715661-0-0
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political (Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Ignorance) (2002) OSS International Press, ISBN 0-9715661-1-9
Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time (2006) OSS International Press, ISBN 0-9715661-3-5

[edit] Film Appearances

Steele volunteered to be prominently featured in the 2007 documentary, American Drug War: The Last White Hope.

[edit] Sources and notes

^ Wired article How to Restore Spies Credibility: Go Open Source published December 14, 2007
^ Agee, Philip. Inside the Company: CIA Diary. Penguin Books, 1975. ISBN 0-14-004007-2 p. 528
^ Robert D. Steele. "Amazon.com forum post", 2008-03-29. Retrieved on 2008-03-29.
^ US Intelligence Upside Down and Inside Out, Less Than 20% Effective
^ Winn Schwartau (1996), Information Warfare ISBN 1-56025-132-8 p. 142: Schwartau notes that in one of his talks at a lecture on Information Warfare at a seminar on OSINT (which was organized by Steele) he was surrounded by a sizeable number of intelligence workers who wanted more information on Information Warfare, as they had never been exposed to the 'big picture' before, by policy.