The phenomenon of terrorism is also fought with Open Source Intelligence (Osint). However, the current application methodology of collecting information from open sources would require an extra gear: the analysis of the first embryo of public opinion that could develop into terrorism over time. The challenge is very timely and of crucial importance for the state. Terrorism, being an activity carried out by men aimed at men, is subject to continuous and sudden changes both in terms of the ability to adapt to various cultural and social models and as a strategic and tactical orientation for criminal purposes. The task of the intelligence is not to be caught unprepared and above all to fight it. The evolution of the Osint system could go through the analysis of public opinion.
The Osint is taking up more and more space in the intelligence community. Its operational specificity is well suited to the multimedia world which by now has a decisive weight in the life of peoples. The speed of dissemination of news, the simplicity of being informed and the anxiety of people to have more and more timely information now make Osint an intelligence specialty of considerable interest. The intelligence community therefore analyzes and collects data from all available open sources trying to find the interesting data in the gigantic amount of free information available. In the collection and analysis processes, everything is based on operational protocols that allow a standardization of the final product. This simplifies the operation but at the same time stiffens it because it does not allow to understand the evolution of the problem at birth, or before the obvious manifestation of the problem itself. In essence, data can be collected that also allow us to understand that something is in progress, but do not give the exact cross-section of the orientation of public opinion on that particular topic. Terrorism falls into this specific category. Evaluating the terrorist phenomenon only on the basis of a collection of information from open sources with the models currently in use does not guarantee a correct analysis of the psychological, logistical and opinion support that terrorism requires. All human activities of a certain importance and the organization that follows from them pass through the more or less broad consensus of strata of the population and it is precisely this consensus that delimits and determines the strength and weight of social cohesion. The approach to be taken, therefore, to combat an increasingly aggressive, mediatic and invasive terrorism of our society is increasingly scientific.
Secondo Aldous Huxley «There are three types of intelligence: human intelligence, animal intelligence and military intelligence»1. From this it can be assumed that even the terrorist falls into the category of military intelligence. As is well known, every terrorist organization always tries to adopt operational procedures and a solid logistic structure that in some way makes it fit into the military, which is why it necessarily reasons with military intelligence. To effectively combat the phenomenon, therefore, we need a leap forward from the community Osint intelligence trying to intercept information where they can still be in nuce and before the terrorist phenomenon has taken place operationally.
The challenge becomes strategic because it is second Henry Truman "Ninety-five percent of the secret information is published by newspapers and magazines2»But the current problem of analysts OSINT is to find that percentage of information needed to be processed and then conveyed very quickly and at low cost and the collection scheme and operating methods are the classic ones that the extensive manual available provides plenty of details. But the times have changed and the current world overflows with information easily found in the various channels of vehiculation so the company becomes difficult with high costs and with results that are not always up to standard.
This rock is trying to circumvent it through sophisticated computer programs that plumb the websites looking for information. Although this aspect is halfway between theOSINT el 'infowar, however, it remains a partially solved problem because to get to the resolution you need to add an extra piece in theintelligence: the evaluation of public opinion. The step forward of the community intelligence it is precisely that of knowing how to evaluate, through the use ofOSINTalso the orientation of public opinion because terrorism is the most formidable form of propaganda existing in the world and the aim is precisely to impress the public opinion through the bloody actions implemented.
It is therefore necessary to make a correct assessment of the terrorist phenomenon under examination and to understand to which terrorist category belongs the group under observation, because it is an extremely complex world. Terrorism is divided into categories and sub-categories: international, internal, state, revolutionary, independence, war, colonialism3. Each category therefore deserves some special attention especially as regards the topics of its proclamations and the resulting debates on the media and at the same time constantly monitoring the moods of public opinion. But the study to be effective must start even before the terrorist group has revealed itself to the world, because once it has become visible, in fact, it has already had its first victory. For the State then it becomes strategic to understand the ferments at an embryonic level and to do this the approach of information collection in the field ofOSINT it must be substantially modified trying to find a national road that takes into account the studies previously made by native scholars and not to take as "cast gold" only foreign manuals that are operationally based on structures that may have considerably higher budget availability. Therefore, the analyzes should be seen in parallel between the collection of information from open sources and the control of the orientation of public opinion, because only the two things put together offer a vision adhering to reality.
To overcome the ever more pressing problem for the stability of the social framework, it is therefore necessary to broaden the horizons and refine theOSINT. An interesting model to study thoroughly is an all-Italian science that is called demodoxalogy, according to which from the practical point of view the costs would be reduced to the bone because every man belonging to FFAA is potentially an operator OSINT, even if he does not perform the role of analyst. The classic example is a Navy officer who reads daily the local newspaper of the locality where he serves. The mechanism itself is very simple and within everyone's reach and this would amplify the power of FFAA analysis that would shift from a small number of analysts to thousands.
The analysis therefore starts from the media examined through the understanding of who really is the owner of the Media itself. Understanding who owns the stock control package of the head, pushes the analyst to ask a series of questions that will act as a filter for the evaluation of the article on the topic of interest. This fundamental aspect should be treated in detail for any type of media.
What is read in the newspapers, seen on TV or in Internet, does not always have the effect desired by terrorists on public opinion, because there are mechanisms that act on the psyche, but only if applied correctly lead to the desired effect. So knowing how to evaluate it would lead to a saving of time and greater precision in the collection and selection of information really useful for the purpose. For questions of practicality both to understand the phenomenon of terrorism and to contrast it is essential to immediately give an overview of the meanings of crowds, public, propaganda, advertising, communications and information, because they are closely related to the analysis of the phenomenon.
When individuals of any plurality are uniformly differentiated, for causes that affect in a fleeting and almost equal manner on each individual, that plurality constitutes a crowd. When individuals of any plurality are uniformly differentiated, for causes that affect persistently and almost equal on each individual, that plurality constitutes an audience. In the crowd a spatial connection is implicit among the elements that compose it; in the public it is not necessary. For the Italian model the "public" is a plurality of individuals not necessarily linked to one another by temporal or spatial or temporal-spatial circumstances; but necessarily from one or more modal circumstances. This condition can be objective, subjective, virtual or objective-subjective, objective-virtual, subjective-virtual, objective-subjective-virtual at the same time.
Terrorist propaganda aimed at a crowd becomes efficient only if it manages to sketch its own audience from the crowd itself; otherwise it would remain vox clamans in the desert. But it is not believed if there is no credibility. Therefore information, propaganda and advertising are believed to the extent to which they are authoritative, objectively or sub-objectively. The substantial problem of communication, propaganda and advertising is to create the conditions of credibility coming from an authority, that authority which, by inspiring a "credit", gives direction and impulse to the conduct of the masses. This relationship between belief and authority leads us to a further observation: that in the long run opinion is itself a creator of authority. And indeed, authority does not consist simply in giving but also in receiving (influence, support, etc.). Which can result in another observation: authority is a surrogate, and often the only, of criticism, judgment and appreciation of the masses, which are either too ignorant, or too lazy, or lacking practice or sufficient means to appreciate and judge independently.
It is a fact that the market of ideas offers only determined goods and that the mass quickly convinces itself, under the pounding pressure of propaganda disguised as communication, which does not have anything else to do with those ideologies or goods or services and, consequently, , address those data problems. The belief therefore grows with its diffusion in space but also with the spread over time. As in the diffusion in space the force of novelty benefits, in time the strength of habit, the so-called stereotypes, is beneficial.
In the opinion a double language flows: one is that of surface, which is given by the multiplicity of emotions, feelings, ideas, fantasies, etc. adapting to the cultural sphere, education and character of each; the other is of depth, which while expressing itself through the first, communicates its particular vibration to this, which can be given and dictated by the external and internal environment. Public opinion is the reaction of a mass to certain ideas, judgments and tendencies and this reaction takes place either in a consensual sense, or in the opposite direction, or in the sense of indifference.
The essential methodological principle used by terrorists is therefore to give the public the impression that they are saying just what they want to hear or read because the arguments of terrorists also pass through the use of syllogisms and a valid syllogism has a disruptive force. In fact, if his premises are accepted as true, his conclusion is accepted without batting an eyelid.
Now the terrorists have the press offices because they know very well that the newspaper, for example, and even more the TV, is a product that sells with an emotional type of language. The reader thinks more about emotion than with the critical sense. Projection and identification are the psychological mechanisms that have replaced the verification.
The task of the terrorist propaganda is to create the pre-judgment, a favorable attitude that will then accept as true all the news that that source will give; if the pre-judgment is based on a "clean" aspect the propaganda is "good" otherwise it is manipulation. With propaganda, myths are created: images that make people dream and push towards action (myth of progress, myth of the new, myth of revolution), with the anticipatory participation of happiness, where "I sacrifice everything to arrive at myth", is the reward of current sacrifices. Of course, the opinion of one is important leader (of an expert) for the formation of an opinion of a group.
But at this point we can ask ourselves the following question: what is the difference between propaganda and terrorist advertising?
There are ideas in propaganda. It is more veiled, is aimed at the public good in the broadest sense of the place under examination, also calls for sacrifices for a future or collective good, is a long-term investment. In advertising there is the product. It is more explicit, the most direct language, it addresses the good of the individual, he can be controlled at any moment.
Paradoxically, terrorists can do their propaganda well because they know how to be heard and distinguished. They know how to satisfy a concrete need and use a concrete language. They stimulate the emotionality that always affects, even if it runs out soon. They are simple and direct: so they get selection and synthesis. They use repetition with elements that remain and which are recognized without boring. But above all they are topical because they use references to the present and not to the past.
So the terrorist basically adopts the rules of public opinion: 1) public opinion is very attentive to the relevant phenomena; 2) the relevant events cause a pendulum reaction: we move on the opposite side immediately and then we go back but not by much. Great investments are needed to quickly change public opinion, but if lasting change is to be achieved, long-term action must be taken; 3) public opinion moves more thanks to the facts than to the words (in the communication give the flavor of the facts); 4) is easier to insert when people do not yet have an opinion on a given topic; 5) the topic must be of interest. The opinion is proportional to the interest. It is difficult to create public opinion on subjects that are not of interest; 6) is essential to leverage on desires and needs; 7) place yourself within the consolidated culture of that time.
So we can ask ourselves the following questions: how strong is terrorism and how long is terrorism?
After having determined which category the terrorist phenomenon in question belongs to, as previously reported, we analyze the intrinsic power of the terrorist group starting from the concept that terrorism always refers to groups of people who try to live in invisibility, if this data were to come missing is called guerrilla or something else. Returning to terrorism, the assessment of the war and organizational potential passes through a series of grids and reasoning.
Terrorist problems are, by their nature, a consequence of the terrorist phenomenon itself. With the expression terrorism refers to any type of illegal struggle with the use of means deemed appropriate from time to time to achieve the purpose of bending under his own will the current political course.
Terrorism is not in itself the ultimate goal of an ongoing political conflict, although this may be misleading, especially when there are racial or economic religious wars, but it should be considered only as a transition that starts from a demonstration political dissent to get to the overthrow of the current course by establishing a new one. Often many analysts and journalists remain stunned by the speed with which the transition from dialectics to armed struggle takes place. Even if it is true that this suddenness exists, almost all of them neglect that the sedimentation of the humus of the triggering causes has long lasted.
Therefore, it is the duty of the State to be found equipped and prepared in defense against the dangerous emerging phenomenon aiming at the consolidation and possibly the development of the potential intelligence national with the strategic objective of effectively countering the phenomenon depleting its war-logistical potential to the maximum.
Each terrorist group has its well-defined war-logistical potential that leads to offensive-defensive capacity (understood as invisibility) given by spiritual-material factors that act as a pedestal to the armed struggle to avoid annihilation and achieve victory. Fundamentally terrorism is composed of human beings (who seek other human beings to proselytize) a conglomerate in itself to be framed from the demographic and spiritual point of view.
The demographic field is divided into quantitative factors: males, females, births, nuptials, mortality, etc .; qualitative: age classes, average age, robustness, health, degree of civilization, temperaments, family, civic, justice, etc. feelings; while in the distributive factors we have: professions, trades, residences, standard of living, migrations, population density, super population, frequency and consistency of demographic centers, etc.
The spiritual field is divided into moral and intellectual. Moral: religion, feelings of humanity and of race, of state, of nationality, of social class, of family, of friendship, rectitude, litigiousness, etc; intellectuals: average level of culture, orientation and professional selection, proportion of graduates and graduates, aspirations of groups, scientific, artistic, historical, technical heritage, current traditions, organization and impact of multiform audiovisual media for information and training of public opinion, relationships private with foreign countries etc. Natural and social factors are also of interest. Natural factors are divided into geographical and economic. Social factors in political and military.
It is very evident that theOSINT therefore, it must pay more attention to the human factor on all other factors of the terrorist potential and the analysis should be extended to the entire population of a state directly or indirectly affected by the phenomenon of terrorism or potential, because the measurement of compactness or the sentimental and ideological dissociation of all members of the national community (from children to interdicts, because even the weakest categories have a formidable influence on the moods of those around them, including terrorists) are equivalent to added value in terms of support and of impetus, the dissociation to a swamp with the quicksands that makes every hope of success wavering and destines it to fade.
Today it is crucial to focus on the human factors that must therefore overwhelm as important all the other factors of the terrorist potential in the broadest sense of the term.
How to get to know people's thoughts thoroughly?
We need a sample survey carried out according to the criteria of the school of demodoxalogy because it differs from other methods of observation, investigation, survey or sampling, as it does not use "universes", "scales with their socio-economic variables", "styles" of psychographic life ", etc. but it seeks the cohesion of the aspirations of pre-determined public (objectives or subjective), starting from the assumption that the opinions of a particular social group (identified as public) can be investigated through a reasoned choice of the people to be interviewed (qualitative survey) as significant bearers of the group's opinion (information analysis). In practice, the survey examines only i leader of opinion "measuring the difference in social weight" that exists between two or more differing aspirations in comparison, over a fixed period of time. Where, of course, for leader we do not mean only the horizontal or vertical opinion-holders, but also, and above all, the mass-media, as information vehicles and, at the same time, of training, therefore representative of opinions and specific interests. For example, in controversial political measures or mass media press campaigns (by measuring the breadth given to the subject, the tone and the social weight of the newspaper) results are obtained on the outcome, comparing the results of the measurements made.
Obviously, upstream of the investigation, there will be a philosophy of the work that springs from the general beliefs on the evolution of science and the relationship between it and public opinion, as an expression of human expectations. Especially in the survey aimed at highlighting the trends of the company, the survey will aim to verify the hypotheses that the researcher has made around the problem; hypothesis arising, in fact, from a vision of things and history. In the conviction of the repetitiveness of the cycles, we will try to identify in which cycle, and at which point of the path, the aspiration of the requested human plurality (the public) can be placed, to see if a turning point is imminent and if this is in consonance with the historical path of the group and of the environment where this plurality is inserted: it will first investigate the state of satisfaction of the need for survival, then of security and finally of satisfaction. This is the reason why this type of survey is not aimed at samples extracted from the population (statistical method) but only to samples chosen from that particular public examined, in the conviction that the conceptual references of the respondents are univocal and therefore heuristic. This data collection, therefore, can be done either with interviews aimed at various characters or by analyzing the interviews given to the media by the same characters. The difference is that in the first case you make certain questions, in the second you have to choose the answers that are suitable for the questions that you wanted to ask.
I leader of opinion (both personalities and mass-media) are not strangers to disinformation (for political, cultural, social, economic reasons) but still create opinions giving, often, to intend to do only information. There are no press offices and no public relations. Any "communication" (oral, written, multimedia) contains the, and "that" message that the Issuer wants to make known to the Receiver; if the information (apparently innocuous) is not interpreted according to a heuristic method, the public risks endorsing the "culture of disinformation". For this reason, in the analysis of social communication, this type of investigation is independent of the "who" said to favor "what", "when" and "where". The temporal parameter "when" and the spatial one "where" will give the key to understand the why of the "thing". To return to the polls, in seeking the aspirations it is necessary to make a clear distinction between those plausible and in a short time and those that are impossible or still in a nutshell. Just as it is necessary to distinguish between the aspirations of an audience and the emotions of a crowd; between aspirations that will result in events in a very short span of time (with riots or incidents resulting from crowd gatherings) or situations that will mature (awareness of audiences working in this direction). Thus it is necessary to distinguish between majority and minority public opinions; among those destined to win and those destined to succumb, even if all the opinion holders believe they are on the winning side. It is the "weight" of a public opinion compared to the other that will give us the key to reading.
All information, therefore, goes to create on the individual recipient of the message a suggestive psychic pressure that is summarized in the formula of Kurt Lewin, the father of social psychology:
O = f ()
where O = Opinion, f = function, Ac = Cultural Scope, E = Education, C = Character, and are unknown exponents. The opinion will be given by the combined moment of exteriority and interiority. However, the cultural sphere, education and character can not be considered separate terms but in turn depending on the external and internal influential data on Ac, E, C. So: Ac, E, C = f ()
where Ae = external environment, Ai = internal environment, are unknown exponents.
Naturally, the formula changes when we speak of multitude, because one or more audiences, gathering together, are likely to become crowds for a short period of time; a crowd can hardly become public and, in any case, it would always require gradual steps. In a crowd the individual components are suggested in proportion to their number and their vivacity up to a limit given by the visual and auditory range of action.
According to the formula of Professor Michele del Vescovo ove S it is the force of suggestion of a crowd, n its numerical strength, v the pulses of vivacity, this force of suggestion, would increase the pulses of vivacity in geometric progression of its numerical force.
With the 'OSINT integrated, as proposed new model, it is possible to have very detailed and adhering to the reality of the facts. A counter-test occurs with the example of the Libyan crisis, which ended with the fall of the regime of Gaddafi. In that particular period almost all the media claimed that the dismissal of the dictator was very close, a matter of a few days immediately after the beginning of the revolution, but in contrast the articles-analysis, then written with theOSINT modified, demonstrated the opposite and was also highlighted that the leader Libyan would have given a lot of trouble. The analysis, as a whole, turned out to be perfectly coherent and adherent to reality with the developments that then took place4.
To get the best result theOSINT must therefore take into account all types of existing open sources and not analyze only those written or video transmitted from the purely journalistic point of view. The oral ones or the artistic manifestations must be taken into consideration in all its forms such as musical, visual, literary and poetic arts up to acting. The importance of this approach consists in the potentiality of the collection of the most humorous and opinion-oriented aspects that occur in that particular period of time examined. It must be considered that artists, in general, have a strong personal sensitivity which makes them particularly precise in identifying the indicators of the ferments in nuce of the possible developments of certain topics. They are able to capture the malaise, the moods, the aspirations of the people and to give them voice and form through their artistic manifestations and representations. An example of an all-Italian textbook is the singer-songwriter Alberto Fortis. The artist has managed to anticipate the economic and political rise of China for several decades. Fortis, without many turns of words, wrote a song called China.
From what has been described, we can analyze the national and global events reported by the media on a specific event and understand whether or not there are the conditions for any emergent public opinion groups in favor of unrest and acts against democracy. The key to understanding if there is the possibility that a specific terrorist group may be formed or even if a specific terrorist group may have the upper hand on another terrorist group and perhaps co-opt it, thus becoming an even more aggressive, powerful and extended. On the other hand, it is also necessary to specify that the rule for judging the actuality of a fact is not given above all by the small number of minutes, hours or days that separate the event itself from its publication, but from the psychological link between the event in question and the interest of the final user of information.
Given the complexity of the subject, it immediately stands out how terrorism must be fought and won by taking away its lifeblood: public opinion in favor of crime. To achieve this, the intelligence community responsible for studying and combating the terrorist phenomenon is inevitably forced to go deeper and deeper, in collecting information from open sources, trying to get as close as possible embryonic to the germ that could create the prerequisite for the development of support for terrorist activity. Of course the challenge is not impossible, even if it is difficult.
Footnotes
- JM MATHEY, Understanding the strategy, Asterios Delithanassis Publisher, Trieste 1999, pag. 7;
- A. PUJOL, Dictionary of espionage, Longanesi & C., Milan 1968, p. 9;
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L. BONANATE, International terrorism, Giunti, Prato 1994, pag. 17;
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F. BERGAMO, The forecasts are coming to a head, Economic and Social Information Agency, http://www.demodossalogia.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6..., (last access: 6 July 2015).
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