Approaching the Big Data Singularity

http://www.thebeerbarrel.net/showthread.php?7832-Approaching-the-Big-Data-Singularity

VI. How Satellite Data Paralyzed the CIA

Beginning in the early 1970s the CIA began relying more on global satellite reconnaissance imagery for its intelligence operations. But according to one history, this massive, rich data didn’t accelerate the pace of US intelligence: it slowed it down.

Why? Because confronted with this firehose, CIA leaders attempted to analyze every image, chase every half-formed hypothesis, simply because it was possible. The few good leads were washed out by the many mediocre. The CIA didn’t adjust their decision-making to this new scale, and they were drowned by it.