An example being the recent terrorist attacks in india. Now I am sure George bush was notified by his aids very quickly something happened how did they find out? I am sure their are people who monitor news sources but what is usually the case? Terrorist attack in india, our consulate there knows about it and calls home? How does intelligence like this sort work?
Abridged: How does the government find out about stuff?
All sorts of ways, obviously.
But to shed some light, several years ago I had the contract to provide media monitoring and analysis for FEMA. It was my team’s job to compile all information published about disasters, FEMA, and such commentary Monday through Friday. Simple enough.
Then Katrina happened. We went from compiling 30 pages or so of content per day to 350 or more per day. And they kept coming to us with new sources and stories that they needed us to track in almost real-time. So, for that crisis period, we were the ones providing news and information about the disaster to the communications people at FEMA.
I worked in a 24-hour Operations Center for a cabinet department. It was a very good day when we had something and could brief the Secretary before it was on CNN, BBC, or the other 24-hour news services we had on the screens at all times. Sometimes a govt. source from someplace pretty far off the beaten track would call in with something that hadn’t hit the news yet, and sometimes we would get stuff from the intelligence community or from other departmants’ 24-hour centers, but those times were pretty rare.
Jonathan Chance, would you be able to give any more details about your team?
I suppose so. It was pretty straightforward. What sort of details do you want?
The Presidents Daily Brief is updated with international information most of us are not privy to. President's Daily Brief - Wikipedia