Does This Sound Familiar?Discussing the way intelligence worked in the Pre-Revolution Boston:
The American system of intelligence was organized in the opposite way, from the bottom up. Self-appointed groups such as Paul Revere's voluntary association of Boston mechanics gathered information on their own initiative. Other individuals in many towns did the same. These efforts were coordinated through an open, disorderly network of congresses & committees, but no central authority controlled this activity in Massachusetts--not the Provincial Committee of Corrrespondence, or any small junto of powerful leaders; not Sam Adams or John Hancock, not even the indefatigable Doctor Warren, and certainly not Paul Revere. The revolutionary movement in New England had many leaders, but no commander. Nobody was truly in charge. This was a source of weakness in some ways. The system was highly inefficient. Its efforts were scattered and diffuse. Individuals demanded a reason for acting before they acted at all. They wrangled incessantly in congresses, conventions, committees and town meetings. But by these clumsy processes, many autonomous New England minds were enlisted in a common effort--a source of energy, initiative, and intellectual strength for this popular movement.From
Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer.
