Overhauling Intelligence

[zenpundit]

One DCI after another proved incapable of providing objective leadership to the entire community. Not because they were jerks, but because the system sucked

Unless you can fire people or zero out budgets, you are not the boss. Perhaps the corollary might be, the more complicated the title, the less power you actually will have ( "Hey, anybody hear much about the "Drug Czar" or the "War Czar" these days ?).

[Tom Odom]

Unless you can fire people or zero out budgets, you are not the boss. Perhaps the corollary might be, the more complicated the title, the less power you actually will have ( "Hey, anybody hear much about the "Drug Czar" or the "War Czar" these days ?).

Yes the Czar and his entire family were "disappeared"

[Old Eagle]

So get over it.

There is/will be any time in the near future no monolithic intel community. Nor should there be. We keep each other honest by our separate lines of operation. The system sucks and can be streamlined, but not amalgamated.
I have never been an analyst, but when I worked with the anal community, they often spoke of "constructive dissonance" in putting products together. That is, because a bunch of smart guys disagreed, they all worked harder to evaluate their own analysis (or something like that). More sharing and cooperation is great -- think we call it synergy.

I've heard the personnel and resources call before also. Once again -- great idea that ain't going to happen. "I think that Lt Schmedlap from the Air Intel Center, who wrote such a great report about the Iranian nuclear program ought to move to DIA as a major."

The current senior leadership, with 2 non-career CIA guys at the top of the intel community is about as honest as we're going to get. The residual problem is still how a coupla techies manage the dirty day-to-day operations of HUMINT.

[Stan]

Threats Watch, 05 March - The ongoing fight over what the US intelligence community is allowed to do under pending revised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) legislation has been clouded by suspicion, hyperbole, and a lack of knowledge regarding the intelligence business.

The Way Forward

Regardless of the political party in executive power, the need to detect and monitor the communications of our enemies will not abate and neither will the technical and legal problems. Passing a revised FISA law that focuses on people – those who need protecting and detecting - and not a given technology or physical boundaries will help reduce the chances that we will have to fight this battle again in the future.

Political operatives do not implement intelligence policy: career professionals do. As someone who has conducted foreign intelligence eavesdropping missions, I cannot stress enough just how seriously the privacy of Americans is taken. The government’s career foreign intelligence eavesdroppers would sooner walk off the job en masse than “spy on Americans,” but there is no serious effort to explain just how strongly and how often intelligence officers are cautioned about our duty to our fellow citizens and the law. Clearing what is essentially administrative material for public release could help assuage concerns about the seriousness with which US intelligence agencies handle privacy issues.

While the protocols in place that are designed to avoid gross violations of the law are generally successful, the reality that mistakes are possible necessitates strong and vigilant oversight capability is essential for the protection of civil rights. The fact that the Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board is effectively defunct and legislative oversight of intelligence in general has not been what it could be needs to be addressed in the pending legislation. Boosting oversight committee staff or allowing the GAO authority to act on behalf of oversight committees would show that the privacy and security are not mutually exclusive goals.

The long war against terrorism is primarily an intelligence-driven war, and the US needs to equip itself in the best manner possible if it is going to succeed.