The CIA discovers Web 2.0

TIME has a new article out on the use of Web 2.0 tools by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Apparently Intellipedia, a classified version of Wikipedia, has been “transforming the way U.S. spy agencies handle top-secret information by fostering collaboration across Washington and around the world.”

Here’s what I think is the money quote from the article:

The first time chlorine was used in an improvised explosive device in Iraq, someone created a wiki page asking what intelligence officers and others in the field should do to collect evidence of the usage. “Twenty-three people at 18 or 19 locations around the world chimed in on this thing, and we got a perfectly serviceable set of instructions in two days,” says Tom Fingar, who headed the National Intelligence Council from 2005 to 2008. “Nobody called a meeting, there was no elaborate ‘Gotta go back and check with Mom to see if this is the view of my organization.’ “

Intellipedia now consists of 900,000 pages, has about 100,000 users, and receives around 5,000 page edits a day. Hey, if the deeply paranoid folks at the CIA can do this Web 2.0 stuff, can’t schools?