Overhauling Intelligence

Mike McConnell

From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2007

Summary:  Sixty years ago, the National Security Act created a U.S. intelligence infrastructure that would help win the Cold War. But on 9/11, the need to reform that system became painfully clear. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is now spearheading efforts to enable the intelligence community to better shield the United States from the new threats it faces.

Mike McConnell is Director of National Intelligence of the United States.

Old cultures and practices need to be changed so that today's intelligence community can rapidly exchange information between officers on the ground -- both at home and abroad -- and decision-makers in Washington. Most important, the long-standing policy of only allowing officials access to intelligence on a "need to know" basis should be abandoned. The U.S. intelligence community needs to adopt a mindset guided by a "responsibility to provide" intelligence to policymakers, war fighters, and analysts while still reasonably protecting sources and methods. Significant progress has been made since 9/11, but policy and cultural impediments remain. The challenge now is to convince collectors that they are not data owners so much as data providers.

The way to do so would be to share threat information with state and local officials as well as members of the private sector. The unique contribution made by men and women on the ground is vital to U.S. national security. In 2000, for example, a county sheriff's investigation into a local cigarette smuggling case in Charlotte, North Carolina, uncovered a multistate terrorist cell supporting Hezbollah. In 2005, a local police detective investigating a gas station robbery in Torrance, California, uncovered a homegrown jihadist cell planning a series of attacks in Illinois. State and local partners should no longer be treated as only first responders; they are also the first lines of prevention. Changing mentalities in this way is the responsibility of the program manager for the Information Sharing Environment, which was created by the IRTPA and exists to foster a partnership between all levels of government and both the private sector and foreign partners in order to share terrorist threat information.

Another important area in which mindsets need to change is in hiring practices. Policy barriers have stood in the way of attracting intelligence professionals with the right skills and backgrounds. The responsibility to protect sources and intelligence-collection methods from unauthorized disclosure has heightened some organizations' risk aversion. As a result, intelligence agencies have faced significant obstacles in hiring some of the people they need most: first- and second-generation Americans with fluency in languages ranging from Albanian to Urdu and with unique political, technical, or scientific skills. These men and women possess cultural insights and skills that no amount of teaching can impart. If the intelligence community is going to reach out to native speakers, it must change its recruitment practices, which currently make it difficult to hire such candidates.

STAYING ON THE CUTTING EDGE

Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. intelligence community was at the forefront of technological innovation, be it for weapons systems, computers, or satellite technology. In the last 20 years, its lead has dwindled as innovation has moved from the public to the private sector and technological know-how has spread across the world. Worse still for the United States, its adversaries have been quick to adapt to technological improvements.

The U.S. intelligence community needs to harness the promise of advances in fields such as the biosciences, nanotechnology, and information technology. The new Intelligence Advanced Research Program Agency seeks to do just that, much as a similar Department of Defense program is doing to drive leading-edge technologies to meet defense requirements. One fruit of that effort was the development in 2004 of Argus -- named for the giant from Greek mythology with one hundred eyes -- which monitors foreign news media and other open sources for early indications of epidemics or other serious biological incidents, such as increased absenteeism, failures of health-care infrastructure, and other disruptions of normal life. At the outset of the avian flu outbreak in November 2006, Argus became fully operational and provided rigorous, validated information on the disease. Today, it monitors more than one million reports a day from nearly 3,000 sources in 21 major languages in 195 countries. In the future, Argus may be able to use open-source reporting to more rapidly detect other causes of societal disruption -- especially in closed societies -- such as nuclear accidents and environmental disasters.

Beyond developing technologies, however, it is essential to make sure new tools get from the drawing board to the field. To that end, our Rapid Technology Transition Initiative focuses on invigorating research and development so that ideas can be translated into usable tools quickly and cost effectively. RTTI has already shown its value. Since its deployment late last year, the FBI's Biometric Quick Capture Platform -- a portable database funded through RTTI -- has facilitated the biometric identification of suspects in custody overseas. It has helped users collect and store fingerprint data and perform real-time electronic searches of federal fingerprint databases. These queries can quickly establish links to a person's previously used identities and past criminal or terrorist record. Just two months after the release of RTTI funds to the FBI, the bureau's field personnel were using this tool to identify whether individuals in custody overseas had criminal records or were dangerous threats to U.S. forces.

But moving cutting-edge technologies into the hands of U.S. intelligence personnel means shortening timelines for developing these technologies. In this area, there is still much work to be done. The U.S. intelligence community's European colleagues, for example, are able to build, launch, and operate a new satellite system in about five years and for less than a billion dollars. By contrast, a U.S. spy satellite system, although admittedly more complex than a European equivalent, can take more than ten years and cost billions of dollars to develop. This is due, in part, to the larger number of requirements the United States tends to place on individual systems and its higher aversion to the risk of mission failure, both of which increase the systems' complexity and the demands placed on the technology. If the U.S. intelligence community is to close this gap, it will need a more disciplined, agile acquisition policy. It was to this end that the DNI recently elevated the task of acquisitions to the level of a deputy director of national intelligence (there are four deputy directors).

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

Although the United States is improving the nuts and bolts of its intelligence system, it must not lose sight of the strategic conditions that will determine the ultimate success of those efforts. The United States must comprehend the profound threats of the times and position its institutions to meet those challenges. The intelligence community understands the threats posed by terrorists inside and outside the United States, nuclear proliferators, and rogue and failed states. Now, it must set its priorities to meet these threats.