The Application of Social Bookmarking Technology to the National Intelligence Domain

That the intelligence agencies of the United States need to change the way they do business has become almost a truism in the past few years. A string of ruinous intelligence failures has exposed the inadequacies of traditional intelligence structures and analysis in a contemporary context dominated by disparate threats and information overload. Creating a more robust national intelligence system continues to be a “wicked problem,” whose solution will no doubt involve the adroit transformation of personnel, policies, and institutions. New technologies, while hardly a panacea – and at best capable of addressing only part of the problem – will nonetheless be a key component in improving national intelligence. The most likely candidates are technologies rooted in dynamic approaches such as emergence, tools that can be leveraged to help intelligence analysts deal with the highly complex and inundating flows of information they currently face.