DIA consolidates open source, media exploitation organizations

The Defense Intelligence Agency has consolidated organizations responsible for open source intelligence and media exploitation, as DIA looks to maximize its investments in artificial intelligence and data analysis.

DIA recently combined the National Media Exploitation Center and the Open Source Intelligence Integration Center. Scott Kirkpatrick, the director for science and technology at DIA, said both organizations were “very IT heavy, very data driven and, in some cases, making collaborative investments.”

But Kirkpatrick, speaking during a recent webinar hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, said the two organizations were not making “integrated investments in AI/ML, in data dissemination and sense making.”

“So we’ve combined those two organizations into the National Digital Exploitation and Open Source Center, and that is already paying off in great dividends,” Kirkpatrick said.

The consolidation came about as DIA navigated both workforce reductions under the Deferred Resignation Program and an “efficiency” review that Kirkpatrick said identified redundancies in some technical support areas.

“We’re doing a lot more in-depth analysis on collected and exploited material inside the new NDOC, because we’ve integrated those teams and are gaining the synergies you would expect from having very smart people who are doing things separately come together and do together,” Kirkpatrick said.

The National Media Exploitation Center was established in 2001 as a hub coordinating FBI, CIA, DIA and other agencies’ efforts to analyze the documents, photographs, video and other media collected by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and other war zones.

By 2021, officials were debating how to reposition the NMEC to refocus on China.

“We are in the process right now of trying to define what it looks like for NMEC to succeed, when its primary focus is no longer on a terrorist hiding in a cave in Afghanistan,” John Kirchhofer, then the DIA’s chief of staff, said in November 2021 during an INSA event. “We are reducing the size of NMEC, and we want what’s left of it to be really hyper-focused on strategic competition.”

Meanwhile, DIA established the Open Source Intelligence Integration Center in recent years as the intelligence community more broadly rekindled an interest in prioritizing OSINT as an intelligence discipline.

In addition to leading DIA’s OSINT activities, the center has also spearheaded the agency’s role in coordinating and synchronizing OSINT activities across the Defense Department.

The consolidation of the two organizations comes as DIA deepens its use of AI and machine learning. Last year, the agency initiated “Task Force SABRE,” which was charged with providing DIA with “foundational, enterprise-wide Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities while accelerating adoption.”

Kirkpatrick said DIA is now transitioning the task force into a “digital modernization accelerator” with a “hub and spoke model.”

“So spokes into the directorates and the operating organizations, [and] a hub to harvest success of AI activity, so we can adopt them at scale, standardized testing and validation, and then again provide that governance,” Kirkpatrick said.

DIA uses a “quality assurance framework” to ensure any AI it uses is “explainable” and meets the agency’s tradecraft requirements, according to Kirkpatrick.

He said putting AI systems through that framework can help “get through the hesitancy” of using the evolving technology.

“The goal is to arm our analysts, our exploiters, our technicians, with the understanding they need to use AI responsibly, to get to the answers that will deliver the intelligence that a decision maker can use to act on at that speed,” Kirkpatrick said.

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