I mentioned in Google+ Ripples: Revealing How Posts are Shared over Time that topic maps could be used to find the leaker’s of information about the killing of Osama ben Laden.
I did not mean to leave the impression that topic maps can only be used to find leakers. Topic maps can be used to find people with access to information not commonly available. Or to find people inclined to share such information. Or the reasons they might share it. Or those around them who might share it.
Leaked information, to be valuable, often must be matched with other information, from other sources. All of which is as much human judgement as the development of sources of information. Nary a drop of logic in any of it.
And the hunting of leakers isn’t a matter of deduction or formal logic either. I really don’t buy the analysis that Peirce would have said in the Wikileaks case: “Quick! Look for someone with a Lady GaGa CD!” (I will run down a reference to Peirce’s retelling of his racist account of tracking down stolen articles. It involves a great deal of luck and racism, not so much formal logic.)
How you choose to use topic maps, as a technology, is entirely up to you.