Theorizing Citizen Learning of Open Source Intelligence as Tradecraft Training

Digital networks of citizen practitioners are emerging on the Internet/Web due to the amount of openly available global information that drives time-sensitive goals in the political, civic and security communities. The Al Qaeda's attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11) offered impetus for citizen practitioners who have applied a certain counter-intelligence tradecraft, albeit rare, to collaborate on national security issues using Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). The problem this project helped solve is the neglect of a pragmatic source of operational counter-intelligence expertise in the form of self-determined citizen practitioners using OSINT and other resources as skilled tradecraft. The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyze the processes by which citizen practitioners acquire special counter intelligence skills despite the absence of overt instruction in these skills and to discover a theory that explains this processes. A three-stage Straussian grounded theory method was used to theorize new learning constructs related to the identified citizen practitioner phenomena as current literature had not provided a theoretical perspective of the process. To support the analysis and interpretation, two instruments from Scott and Howell were implemented. The population of interest included 27 documented situations of the only two known citizen practitioners who had learned OSINT as a tradecraft skill in national security issues. The initial stage, a situation sample of 575 pages, was derived from two citizen practitioner autobiographies. The next stage of theoretical sampling was used on the remaining 25 practitioner documents and on one audio file to advance and organize 83 open codes into 13 higher-ordered categories. The final stage included a theoretical sample of 11 comparative documents from noncitizen practitioner subject matter experts in OISNT and intelligence tradecraft to reach theoretical saturation of the phenomenon. The unobtrusive data for the study was collected through observations documented in openly available sources and researcher memos. Data analysis resulted in the emergence of a two module substantive theory, (a) active pursuit intelligence by, (b) core saturation. Recommendations for practice included deploying volunteer citizen practitioners, and employing lawfare. Recommendations for future research included expanding study sample and study type to test the theory.