"Intelligence analysts conduct these analyses every day, using decades of propriety tradecraft techniques and an arsenal of clandestine information gathering sources, but the resources available are not unlimited. Open source public opinion tools can provide timely and relatively inexpensive methods of understanding fast-moving conditions, acting as a force multiplier to help policymakers have a truly all-source understanding of complex events. By providing analysts with the best practices in survey methodology and nonsurvey methods for gathering data on public opinion, they will be armed with a clearer sense of important shifts in attitudes, elections, and unrest."

"Measuring and analyzing public opinion comes with tremendous challenges, as evidenced by recent struggles to predict election outcomes and to anticipate mass mobilizations. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine publication Measurement and Analysis of Public Opinion: An Analytic Framework presents in-depth information from experts on how to collect and glean insights from public opinion data, particularly in conditions where contextual issues call for applying caveats to those data. "