Analysis of Intelligence Services in the USA

Among the most important changes that took place following the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission report, was the abolition of the position of the Director of Central Intelligence. This was replaced by the position of the Director of National Intelligence. The changes were contained in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. A key requirement of the position of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is that one should not be a Director of the Central Intelligence Agency or a head of another element of the intelligence community. The office of the DNI should also not be located in the Executive Office of the President. The authorities granted to the DNI include development and execution of the budget, transfer and reprogramming of funds, organization of personnel through transfers, tasking and analysis, personnel management, and protection of sources and methods of classification of intelligence. The DNI also has authority to liaise with foreign intelligence services and giving the president recommendations on principal DNI, head of CIA, and head of different intelligence communities.  

Before the 9/11 attacks, the provisions of federal law received an interpretation that limited the ability of intelligence investigators to communicate with federal law enforcement officials and also the ability of intelligence officers to share terrorism-related information. Following the 9/11 attacks, the changes in the law required the President to establish an Information Sharing Environment (ISE) aimed at enabling sharing of terrorism information among the necessary Federal, State, Local, tribal, and private sector entities. This was to be enhanced through the use of policy guidelines and technologies. Efforts by the government have seen a virtual reorganization in dealing with the answers to the threats of terrorism. This shift in the manner of thinking has enabled the reforms in the level at which agencies and people collaborate and communicate. A result of this improved sharing of information has seen the killing of top al-Qaeda leaders and prevention of new attacks. There has been a change of “need-to-know” culture to a new paradigm of “need-to-share.” This has allowed information to flow freely, enabling greater collaboration between federal, state, and local agencies. Information has become more decentralized and distributed. The government is able to function in different networks, which has seen the empowerment of people at different agencies and eliminated the hierarchical pyramids (Budinger & Smith, 2011). 

The presence of the National Counterterrorism Center and Fusion Centers all over the nation engages teams from different parts of the government. The fusion centers are key components of the intelligence community in the United States. The fusion centers are comprised of two or more agencies working collaboratively to leverage on their expertise and resources to facilitate the identification and intervention in criminal and terrorist activities. These fusion centers have different sizes and capabilities. The goals addressed by the National Network of Fusion Centers (NFFC) include addressing partnership with public, addressing the needs of the community within each center’s area of responsibility, exploit the synergy of different fusion centers through network collaboration, and build greater strategic national asset to add on the capacity and capability of the federal agencies (McGhee, 2015).

Another important element of the intelligence community in the U.S. is the Joint Intelligence Community Council. This is chaired by the DNI with other members being the Secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, Energy, Homeland, and the Attorney General, and any other officer who may be appointed by the United States. The function of the council is to advise the DNI on the development of requirements, come up with budgets, financial management, and to monitor and evaluate the performance of the intelligence community (Collins, 2004).

From my personal perspective about the effectiveness on intelligence environment, I would start by first making an observation that the attack on 11^th September led to the transformation of the intelligence environment. The commission report about the intelligence community highlighted the shortcomings in the intelligence environment, and an Act of Parliament was established to amend these shortcomings. The efforts in realizing the transformations suggested have been successful. I believe that the intelligence community is better placed in terms of numbers and capability required for achieving its mission of creating domestic preparedness against terrorism in the country. Information sharing is one of the key areas that I believe that the intelligence community has highly scored. There have been remarkable achievements in the war against terrorism, most notably the killing of al-Qaeda leader, Osama Bin Laden. It is clear that the post 9/11 intelligence community had a shift in their priorities, different management and deployment of resources, a different structure, a transformed recruitment and training process, and a unique information architecture. I believe this has been a reason behind the success in the prevention of attacks in the U.S. The Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which brings together different stakeholders and partners, has seen a huge increase in resource and scope of effort. This, I believe will be important in improving the effectiveness of the intelligence community in preventing terrorists’ attacks. I believe the current configuration of the intelligence community in the United States, will be effective in handling different terror threats, which are changing each day. The intelligence community has proved that collaboration and sharing of information are among the greatest weapons in the war against terror.

References

Budinger, Z. B., & Smith, J. H. (2011). Ten Years After 9/11: A Status Report on Information Sharing. Statements before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Collins, S. (2004). Summary of Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. United States Senate Committee and Governmental Affairs.

McGhee, S. (2015). Impacting the Evolution of Information Sharing in the Post-9-/11 United States. The Police Chief.The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks. (2004). The 9/11 Commission Report.