Comparing The National Intelligence Program

Paper 1: What are the capabilities and limitations of intelligence in supporting homeland security efforts?

For most citizens there is some confusion in regards to what is the difference between law enforcement intelligence and national security intelligence. While there are some similarities in their responsibilities especially in regards to information sharing, overall law enforcement intelligence is quite different from national security intelligence.

The CIA, otherwise known as the Central Intelligence Agency, is a federal agency that is independent and has the responsibilities of providing the country of the United States with national security intelligence. The CIA is in charge of gathering information that is going on from other countries in order to help our own national security to become stronger, and to be able to protect the citizens of the United States better. However, what happens when the CIA tries to protect it’s citizens by screwing over other countries? What happens when the CIA is responsible for destroying other countries’ governments or placing leaders where we do not belong as a country to try and control politics that we should not even be involving ourselves in. While the CIA is meant to have good intentions for providing our country with national security, a lot of times the United States is responsible for meddling in affairs we never belonged in which cause harm, devastation, or death to the countries we force ourselves upon.

The National Foreign Intelligence Program prevents foreign espionage with investigating foreign cases within the U.S. borders. Also the Intelligence Program is involved with threats, weapons in mass destruction, including the nation’s critical infrastructures such as communications, banking systems, and transportation systems.

In this paper the subject of interest is the role of congress in the oversight of strategic intelligence, or the lack there of. Does congress have a proper role in the oversight of strategic intelligence? If not what should the proper role be? These are the questions best answered by looking at the history of congressional over sight and where it is at today. The next few pages will cover the topics above and shed light on what it is congress calls oversight.

The DNI has modestly more power than the old Directors of Central Intelligence (DCIs), but not enough to give the ODNI/AIS real clout. “Herding cats” remains a decent description of the ODNI’s basic role. The DNI has several duties and responsibilities, but for the subject of improving intelligence information sharing the focus will be directed towards: Improving Analytics, Improving Information Security, Improving Foreign Liaison Relationships, and the end state of Improving Information Sharing.

Since 2010, integration has been the vanguard initiative of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). This initiative has been successful in several areas to include: the creation of National Intelligence Managers (NIM) for all primary geographic regions and functional areas; enhanced transparency; and the focus on the negative impacts of over classifying documents. However, not all efforts to integrate the intelligence community (IC) have been successful. For instance, the ODNI did not succeed at creating a comprehensive sharing environment, and has not fully integrated federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies. Although, these failed areas of integration can be mitigated in the future through the appropriate initiatives taken by the ODNI.

After World War II American intelligence had the need to be transformed. The inexperience along with bureaucracy and poor coordination among American intelligence officers obligated the United States intelligence community to change dramatically in order to confront the new challenges that emerged after the end of WWII. From Early America through WWI the intelligence system of the United States of America was involved in operations in which they had to construct intelligence systems virtually from scratch (Andrew 1995). Human intelligence was already developed, but with certain limitations and other intelligence disciplines were underdeveloped and very seldom sophisticated. After WWI America recessed and settled in a period of peace. The

Perhaps the most important change in how the federal government was reorganized after September 11th is the creation of both the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) position and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in 2004 with the passage of the same IRTPA that created TSA. This concept had been first suggested in 1955 after a study by Congress then and was recommended time and again but only became a reality after the September 11th attacks drove the need for major intelligence reform home and the 9/11 Commission continued the push for the creation of such a position (ODNI, n.d., paras. 1-5). As one can see from the mission and vision of the ODNI, the importance cannot be overstated. The mission includes leading intelligence integration while having the IC produce the most insightful intelligence products possible and the vision is fully integrating the IC thus making the nation more secure (ODNI, n.d., paras. 1-2).

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks was among the agencies that associated the 9/11 attacks with lack of coordination among agencies (Best, 2015). This prompted the Congress to enact a legislation that established a centralized intelligence leadership, popular as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). However, the legislation only helped to increase tension between different agencies, especially on how to approach funding. The legislation was not clear regarding the boundaries between the activities of the DNI, and their interaction with the mainstream intelligence agencies. The congress debated these concerns and later established the framework for the working of the DNI and relationship with different intelligence agencies. Most importantly, this legislation focused on one element of reorganization, which was enhancing coordination of activities between different

Intelligence in this day in age is a vital component of a countries security. The newest proposal increases intelligence spending between 2 and 3 billion dollars, a total adding to nearly $35 billion. In addition to military enhancement, the FBI and other law enforcement/intelligence agencies will also be included in this proposal. A new system has been proposed by President Bush that all information be shared among all agencies. DoD, FBI, and the Department of Counterterrorist Center have drawn closer together to create a Terrorist Threat Integration Center to evaluate information blended from all sources associated with terrorism and to act upon those findings accordingly.

This Act also requires the Director to ensure that all National intelligence-based information is passed on to, first the President; all heads of departments and agencies of the executive branch; the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior military commanders; and the Senate and House of Representatives and congressional committees. The Director of the Intelligence National Investigation has an office-specific for him full of employees and staff members to help and discover the information needed to make the decisions regarding any and all terrorist attacks. The staff, in general, includes the Community Management Staff; Co-Location is not allowed to locate anywhere else with any other intelligence agencies; Deputy Directors assists the Director and is next in line if the Director is not able to fulfill their duties; National Intelligence Council is established by the Office of the Director; General Counsel. The Director can also establish the General Counsel, Civil Liberties Protection Offices, Director of Science and Technology, National Counterintelligence Executives, and Inspector Generals. The Director has the authority to assign these positions as well as take them away as long as the individual is Senate-approved.

intelligence, he briefs the President, has authority to develop the budget for the national intelligence effort and manage appropriations made by Congress, and, to some extent, can transfer personnel and funds from one agency to another.3 I believe that the creation of the DNI position had been on the table for a few years, but the intelligence failures of communication between the agencies and being able to connect the dots to see the events leading up to 9/11 was the last drop in the bucket. I do not think that this organization has worked out all there kinks along with the other organizations in the Intelligence Community completely being open with them, however, I do feel that their roles and placement in the chain is a much needed

Intelligence collection and apprehension of criminals have occurred for many years; however, with the exception of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, these actions were performed by different organizations. Nonetheless, roles and responsibilities have changed since the attacks on September 11, 2001. Intelligence-led policing and the National Criminal Intelligence Sharing program were incorporated, and fusion centers were established to help gather intelligence from different levels of the government. Although law enforcement at the local, state, and tribal levels aid in intelligence collection, it is important to ensure that intelligence gathered to protect national security and law enforcement

Intelligence is one of the first lines of defense used by the United States to protect the Country against both foreign and domestic threats (Johnson, 2010). There are many ways and methods of intelligence collections employed by the intelligence community such as “spies, eavesdropping, technical sources, and openly available materials” etc (Clark, 2013). Method used also depends on many factors such as available resources, time, agency involved, and intelligence collection source. U.S Intelligence agencies use different collection and analytical method that suit their collection function, structure and pro¬cess. For example, DNI/OSC relies on open source (OSINT), CIA uses human intelligence (HUMINT) tactic, DIA uses measurements and signatures intelligence (MASINT), NSA employs signals intelligence (SIGINT), and NGA utilizes imagery intelligence (IMINT) techniques for their intelligence collections (Clark, 2013).