National OSINT Day Proclamation

National OSINT Day Proclamation

The OSINT Foundation, the professional association of U.S. Intelligence Community open-source intelligence (OSINT) practitioners, celebrates the second National OSINT Day, February 26, 2024.

National OSINT Day recognizes the contributions made to the national security of the United States by OSINT practitioners and the OSINT discipline. The date commemorates the formal establishment of the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service (FBMS) by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on February 26, 1941. FBMS became the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service in July 1942, and subsequently the Foreign Broadcast Information Service in November 1946.[1] In addition to broadcast media, early OSINT practitioners also exploited print media in support of the war effort via the Interdepartmental Committee for the Acquisition of Foreign Publications (IDC) of the Library of Congress, which was proposed by Major General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, Director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on December 22, 1941.[2]  The IDC, in partnership with the OSS was instrumental not only in exploiting hardcopy publicly available information, but also helped to restore looted works to affected nations, and greatly expanded the international holdings of the Library of Congress and academic libraries across the nation.

Today’s OSINT practitioners carry on the proud work of the earliest pioneers by acquiring, exploiting, and analyzing publicly available information to answer critical intelligence questions on complex and rapidly-evolving national security threats.

Barbara Alexander, President of the OSINT Foundation remarked, “In recognition of 83 years of continuous vigilance in defense of the nation, we are honored to proclaim February 26, 2024, as National OSINT Day. We salute the professionals across the Intelligence Community who are committed to the highest standards of tradecraft excellence, constantly seeking to enhance the quality, accuracy, timeliness, and relevance of the information collected and OSINT produced, and providing unbiased, objective information while continually respecting privacy, civil liberties, and human rights obligations.”

[1] U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (n.d.). Records of the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service. Retrieved January 9, 2023, from https://lnkd.in/eUnTAAan
[2] Peiss, K. (2020). Information hunters: When librarians, soldiers, and spies banded together in World War II Europe. Oxford University Press, page 39. Central Intelligence Agency Federal Communications Commission Defense Intelligence Agency Army ISR Task Force National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency National Intelligence University Office of the Director of National Intelligence National Security Agency Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA)