Abstract
This article argues that “open source intelligence (OSINT)” is a fundamentally incoherent concept that should be abandoned. It does so in two steps. First, by challenging the underlying criteria used to demarcate it as a separate “INT” among its more traditional peers. Second, through a historical critique that argues that “OSINT” as a conceptual category served a transitionary stage that has long passed. That is, it helped intelligence practitioners and scholars appreciate the influx of valuable unclassified information made newly available by the World Wide Web in the 1990s, but the advantages gained from this notion have now declined, and the concept is now a liability. By discarding the term altogether, and recategorizing openly derived sources of information back into their traditional homes, significant conceptual and analytical benefits can be attained.
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