A US Intelligence Service -- DNI - Essay Example

The U.S. intelligence service – DNI Introduction The U.S. intelligence service – DNI as defined in the U.S. intelligence budget (2013), is a federation of different states in the United States. That works exclusively, together and separately for the main purpose of, gathering intelligence that is considered necessary to enable the different states, to maintain a stable national security, and for the benefit o maintaining good international relations for the United States. The U.S. intelligence service-DNI encompasses different activities such as, the military intelligence and civilian intelligence based on one controlling body called the national security department. The role of the director of federal intelligence (DNI is to report to the president on virtually all matters that relate to national security, both personally and through issue papers (Hachet and John, 2013). This research paper will conduct an in-depth analysis of the proposed research problem (The U.S. intelligence service – DNI), based on the different perspective. In order to help the director of the department to make informed choices about the matter, the issue paper will provide the pros and cons o the proposal, outline the implication of the proposal, its implementation, and provide recommendations that should be considered and the rationale for adopting the proposal. Thereafter, the researcher would make a conclusion based on the literature reviewed and his opinion concerning the subject matter. The implication of the proposed proposal The U.S. intelligence budget 2013 contends to the reality that, adopting this proposal would have a significant impact on different departments and activities, some of the activities that would be affected include. One, the sourcing and analysis industry- the main challenge of implementing this proposal is based on the ability of the state, being able to maintain the secrecy of their information, despite the fact that they will buy from third parties. For instance, the federal state, suffered from terrorism attacks from Osama Hussein. Because of leakage of information about the operations of the intelligence service, in virtually all its processes such as, outsourcing and procurement, that eventually led to the emergence weapons of massive destruction that were used against it. The problem can, however, be overcome through single sourcing, and controlling the companies where the state procures from. This is apparent, when the government had to take total control in Motorola that produces communication devices for the U.S. intelligence services (Hacket and John, 2013). According to Mathews (2013) in order to ensure that the outsourcing and analysis of IC are done in a proper way, the DNI has come up with IC-wide requirements and standards. Geared towards allowing the stakeholders, to have a wider view when evaluating, the variability of different outsourcing outlets, by making it mandatory, for outsourcing companies to highlight the opportunities and threats that are expected if the state outsourced from their companies. Two, accurate daily presidential briefs (DPB – adopting this proposal would ensure that, the president receives accurate daily briefs from the IC. This is because the briefs would contain the net judgment and decisions of the entire IC. For instance, unlike past IC approaches that relied on information from one source that would be biased, the modern approach has a wide geographical coverage which eventually translates to gathering of more information and intelligence. The accurate information is usually associated with the creation of the A-space where different security agents can share intelligence concerning similar intelligence missions or projects (Hacket and John, 2010). The implementation strategy For the proposal to be effective, the following implementation strategies should be adhered to 1. Leadership and organizational structure The IC should be governed by a national security act (federal security act of 1947), and should be amended by executive order. The act came into being because of the review of the terrorism prevention and intelligence act of 2004. Even through, the IC is considered to be a federation to its member states. In reality, it is a confederation because of lack of unified and well-defined leadership structure. Therefore, a clear governance structure should be spelled out for the IC, by enabling the director of federal intelligence (DCI) to head. The director should have supreme authority in virtually all the IC processes including budget making and formulation (Mathews, 2013). Among other roles, the DCI should be responsible for activities such as, the control of the budget and other national intelligence programs. Establish the priorities, objectives and guidelines for the IC and manage the production, collection, dissemination and analysis of national intelligence. However, in order to ensure that the whole process works effectively. The DNI should not be allowed to have significant control over the IC except its staff. This implies that the DNI has no authority to fire or hire personnel who work in different departments (U.S intelligence budget, 2013). 2. Interagency collaboration Unlike in the past decades where collaboration and free flow of information were hindered by some policies that ensured that information was pooled to a centralized entity, because of the security and confidentiality of information handled. The current proposal requires interagency collaboration because the IC platform requires all agents to be open-minded of the cultural, procedural and technological barriers that promote the sharing of intelligence among all the agents. Therefore, it is of significant importance to create different department such as, the intelligence-sharing center, federal intelligence center among other centers in order to decentralize information sharing centers (Matt Delong, 2013). 3. Oversight In order to ensure that the IC is reviewed appropriately, oversight roles should be distributed among the legislative and executive bodies. The executive oversight is usually performed by the president and his advisory council such as the office of the intelligence council and office of general inspector. On the same breath, U.S. intelligence budget (2013) alludes to then reality that, legislative oversight should be performed by the congress and the senate. Legislative oversight is usually performed during the budget preparation process, where the senate authorizes the budget for the IC, whereas the homeland security committee in the senate is responsible for, passing legislation on intelligence reforms (Hacket and John, 2010). 4. Budget According to the U.S. intelligence budget (2013) in order to ensure that the proposal works effectively, adequate funds should be allocated to the IC. The budget plays an integral role in helping the IC to acquire new equipments, contract for special facilities among other functions. However, the different functions that the budget was used in should be kept secret and confidential because any disclosure on the equipments that were procured would harm national security. Mathews (2013 further emphasizes that, most of the money allocated to IC is usually spent in activities such as purchase of aircrafts, electronic sensors, paying spies, computer software’s and analysis of intelligence. The pros of the proposal There are four major benefits of using the IC approach in the U.S. intelligence service. The pros have played an important role in shaping and developing sophisticated technology geared towards fighting crime and terrorism in general. Some of these benefits include; 1. Creation of a library of federal intelligence – unlike the past approaches that fell short in highlighting whether the IC approach being used is effective in promoting federal intelligence. The modern IC proposal will create a respiratory of knowledge concerning virtually all the intelligence requirements of the state. Therefore, the proposal will make it simple for the stakeholders to determine adequately whether the interagency intelligence objectives are aligned to achieving one predetermined federal intelligence objective. By the year 212, more than 20,000 intelligence products had been gathered in the federal intelligence library (U.S. intelligence budget, 2013). 2. Creation of a common A-space – the goal of the A-space is to create a common platform where the different interagency bodies that are responsible for gathering intelligence can work together. The A-space encourages agents from the diverse background and geographical locations to work together simultaneously and n real time. The A-space enables the interagency spies to post emerging information in the cause of the work. Thereby making it possible for other agents to have access to the information and make access to the work in progress, of other intelligence agent by the year 2010; A-space had more than 9,000 users (Hacket and John, 2013). 3. The creation of Intellipedia – the function of Intellipedia is to create an annotated version of online Wikipedia or dictionary, for online and highly sensitive information concerning intelligence. A good example of the Intellipedia is the top secret Noforn. The role of Intellipedia is to enable policymakers to make their valuable contributions, to security and intelligence matters. By the year 2010, more than 300,000 active pages had been opened by policymakers on the Intellipedia (U.S. intelligence budget, 2013) 4. The creation of analytic recourse directory or yellow pages (ARC) – the function of the ARC is to keep tract of virtually all the basic data of all the interagency intelligence personnel. The role of the ARC is to create a new approach of sharing information among people who are working on the same subject matter. By the year 21, the ARC had more than 20,000 IC personnel (Mathews, 2013). All these pros are good indicators of the progress that the NDI is making towards achieving the goal of improved intelligence sharing among stakeholders and interagency intelligence personnel alike. In addition, any obstacles that are faced in any of the IC process are learning processes for prosperity and improved success in future (Matt Delong, 2013). The cons of the proposal According to Hacket and John (2013), there are four major cons that are associated with adopting this proposal. These cons are discussed further beneath. The IC proposal emphasizes more on the presidential briefs (PDB – just like previous IC approaches, the present proposal also does not address the problem of presidential briefs. Therefore, the IC approach will skew intelligence that is collected from diverse geographical locations to one location or person thereby creating the arms-length obstacles. Delayed and disappointing intelligence estimates – according to Mathews (3013) the IC approach would result to delayed and disappointing intelligence estimates, being made by the different interagency intelligence bodies, thereby making it difficult for policy makers to adequately evaluate the records in order to come up with a valuable position that would benefit the government as well as oversight the whole intelligence process. Inadequate deep country knowledge – because, most o the personnel who work in the different interagency intelligence bodies come from diverse cultural and political background. There is a high possibility that they only know the political and social-cultural implication of intelligence with relation to their country alone. Therefore, relying on the same people to produce reliable information about the security constraints of another country would be a challenging task for them. In addition, the U.S intelligence budget (2013 outlines that, there are risks involved in relying on interagency intelligence, because different some countries can influence intelligence gathering, and disseminating through their spies who work in the interagency intelligence bodies. The IC does not provide adequate training to policy makers – according to Hacket and John (2010) contends to the reality that, even though the IC and interagency personnel are given constant training. Policymakers are left out of the process, according to them, this is a major risk to intelligence because they will tend to have little knowledge on how to interpret different intelligence issues, as well as fail to provide adequate oversight because they are not aware of the implications that their decisions would have on intelligence. Recommendations The recommendation to this proposal falls under three broad spheres which are, 1. Improving the capability of the IC 2. Improving the utility of IC for policy-makers 3. Improving the capability of policy makers to formulate high-quality IC standards 1. Improving the capability of the IC As noted earlier, the proposed proposal would play an integral role in impacting IC capabilities in different ways which include. One, recruitment – the proposal suggested that the recruitment to the federal intelligence should be based on specialization and unique skills. The recruitment of people from based on their level of expertise guarantee multiple benefits to the U.S. intelligence service (U.S. intelligence budget, 2013). The recruitment process that has been suggested in this proposal is based on recruiting highly motivated and self-driven people with unique skill and capabilities. These people also have unique skills that fit with the contemporary environment that rely on the use of ICT in virtually all its processes. Therefore, the recruitment of this people would play an integral role in tackling modern crimes such as cyber crimes and online terrorism (Hacket and John, 210). According to Matthews (2013) concerns have been raised concerning the efficacy of the recruitment exercise merely because of the uncertainty about how the opposing intelligence body will be conducting their recruitment process based on risk and vulnerability. This is because recruitment of people who are secretly working for a foreign intelligence body would produce a devastating effect to the country. Second, for the proposed intelligence service to be successful it requires constant training of intelligence officers in order to fully equip them with unique skills and knowledge, that would enable them to enhance the capability of the IC, as well as build on the past accomplishes. The training should enable the intelligence officers to improve their communication, craftwork and leadership skills. To ensure that high-quality training is achieved, there is a need to start an intelligence University that has significant control in the design and development of training programs (Mathews, 2013). The University would play an integral role in enhancing the cohesion and professionalism of national intelligence. The significance of the University in the promotion of federal intelligence should not be underestimated because it would play an integral role in conducting IC research (U.S. intelligence budget, 2013). Improving the utility of IC for policy-makers The importance of the proposal to stakeholders cannot be underestimated because; the proposal will play an integral role in helping different stakeholders to have insightful knowledge about the limitations and capabilities of the IC program. This would also benefit stakeholders because they would have knowledge on what the IC would generate, and how to effectively utilize the products that are associated with the IC program (Mathews, 2013). Stakeholders would also benefit from the suggested program because; a person will be employed in the intelligence department who acts as an in-house briefer. The role of the person is to act as a liaison between the IC and stakeholders, thereby enabling the stakeholders to have first-hand information of the IC and vise versa. Policy makers are expected to benefit from the program because; they will be given regular briefing in different meetings about look-ahead intelligence as well as get feedback information about previous intelligence meetings (Matt Delong, 2013). Improving the capability of policy makers to formulate high-quality IC standards In order to ensure that the proposal is effective, the approach should encourage or allow stakeholders to give their insights. And be constantly briefed and be given the opportunity to suggest different ways on how to make the IC program more effective (Hacket and John, 2013). Allowing policy makers to give insights on how to integrate new ideas into the IC program, is a good step in the right direction. They usually have insightful knowledge on how other states run their intelligence programs through the different seminars and knowledge fairs that these policy makers attend. In addition, the policy makers should be made aware that, limits do exist in virtually all the suggested IC activities, and such limits should be adhered to because of public interest (Hacket and John, 2010). Other recommendations Allow the IC proposal to have regular feedbacks, in order to allow policymakers to evaluate the performance of analysts – having regular feedbacks play an integral role in making the analysts to understand, the policy standards that should be adhered to as per the policy makers requirements (U.S. intelligence budget, 2013). Provide formal and constant briefing, to new policy makers concerning the IC limitations and capabilities – it is important for new policy makers, to be informed about these aspects because in most occasions, whenever they join new organizations they have different misconceptions concerning what the IC is able to achieve and vice versa (Mathews, 2013). Whenever recruiting, give first priority to people in their mid-twenties and early thirties- the importance of this is based on the reality that. These people have significant life experience, and their own country experience cannot also be underestimated (Hacket and John, 2013). The rationale Mathews (2013 contends to the reality that, the importance of studying this research problem should not be underestimated, because even though over the years the federal state has invested heavily in the promotion of an ideal IC program. The whole process has not been successful because of different factors that affect the workability of the IC strategy. Therefore, this research proposal paper sought to highlight the defects in implementing past IC approaches, by highlighting how to effectively implement the IC approach, in order to ensure that the results eventually would benefit the policy makers and interagency bodies involved in intelligence gathering and handling. The past failures in the IC concerning the gathering of intelligence, this should be used as a lesson that should be used to restructure, and reshape the current IC in order to make it more effective and reliable. The existence of the young generation of well trained and talented youth in the society would play a significant part in reshaping the IC until it achieves its full potential. The existence of policy makers will further propel this cause since they have the expertise, knowledge and skills on how to develop an effective IC (U.S. intelligence budget, 2013). Conclusion According to the U.S. Intelligence budget (2013), the rising cases of insecurity should be dealt with in an appropriate manner. In order to ensure this happens, the intelligence bodies and departments in general, should be focused on developing a program that has the ability, to counter the intelligence failures that have been reported over the past decade. The proposed U.S intelligence service is an appropriate platform of introducing new approached tackling national insecurity because it emphasizes on the use of IC and modern technology in tackling intelligence failures. Some of the recommendations that have been highlighted in this research paper, such as the development of an intelligence institution, require the collaboration of all stakeholders and secrecy in order to be fruitful to the state, the training of intelligence officers and ensuring that they have the necessary expertise, through transferring them to different workstation. This is an appropriate way of ensuring that the intelligence officers are specialized and well rounded to carry out their roles of intelligence gathering (Matt Delong, 2013). Policy makers and other concerned entities within the department of security are required to identify loopholes within the proposed intelligence framework. They should be cognizant of the reality that, major factors within the proposed framework, would require more time in order to gel and flourish. They should therefore come up with different recommendations on how; roles and responsibilities should be distributed among the major players in the industry. In order to ensure that the whole process flourishes with regard to other CI players such as, the NIC, CIA, INR to mention a few. As outlined in the report, the role of transforming the U.S. intelligence is not limited to the CI alone. But rather requires the cooperation of other stakeholders who provide guidelines on how to effectively implement the proposal (Hacket and John, 2010). REFERENCES  Hacket and John F. (2010) "FY2006 National Intelligence Barton Gellman and Greg Miller (29 August 2013). "U.S. spy network's successes, failures and objectives detailed in ‘black budget' summary". The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 August 2013 Matt DeLong (29 August 2013).”inside us intelligence service”. The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 August 2013. Matthews, Dylan (29 August 2013). American secret intelligence budget and service. The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 August 2013. U.S. intelligence budget (2013) Additional resources". The Washington Post. Retrieved 31 August 2013. Read More