Licensing Restrictions
The question of whether an OSINT collector should ignore or abide by licensing restrictions on critical intelligence sources is a complicated one. On the one hand, it could be argued that the collector has a responsibility to follow the law and respect the intellectual property rights of the source site. On the other hand, it could be argued that the collector's primary responsibility is to obtain the intelligence needed to fulfill their mission, and that any legal concerns should be secondary (Shim et al., 2021). Ultimately, the decision of whether to ignore or abide by licensing restrictions must be made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the specific circumstances of each situation. In some cases, it may be necessary to break the law in order to obtain critical intelligence; in others, it may be possible to find alternative sources that do not have such restrictions. Whatever decision is made, it is important to weigh all factors carefully before taking any action.
For a journalist or law enforcement officer, it is the same. There are pros and cons to both choices. On one hand, abiding by the licensing restrictions ensures that you are using information from a credible source. However, if the information you need is only available on a restricted site, you may not be able to get the full picture of what is going on (Salzmann et al., 2021). On the other hand, ignoring the licensing restrictions may give you access to critical intelligence that you would not be able to get otherwise. However, this choice could also lead to problems if you are caught using restricted information. Unfortunately, it really is a Catch-22 situation: laws are set up to safeguard such data, and yet national security might require that one go over those laws. There is no easy option for how to draw that line. Ultimately, it should be a case by case judgment rather than a blanket rule applied to all people in all cases.
References
Salzmann, A., Guribye, F., & Gynnild, A. (2021). Adopting a mojo mindset: Training
newspaper reporters in mobile journalism.Journalism, 1464884921996284.
Shim, W., Shin, H., & Hwang, Y. H. (2021). On Data Licenses for Open Source Threat
Intelligence.IEEE Security & Privacy, (01), 2-16.
