Intelligence Community: A Qualitative Analysis

In the intelligence community, there are some collection challenges, redundancy is one of the issues always to be mentioned. Redundancy can affect the core of the intelligence work ethics, resources management, budging, work force, future planning, and development methods. Also, the capability of the intelligence agencies and departments to predict attacks, analyze the indications and warning (I&W). The congress oversight of the intelligence community and the operations of the sixteen agencies imbedded in the community, to regulate the funds and allocate proper budget, also to monitor that the rights of US person are not violated in any collection method.

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

Good evening to all. I hope all is well this week. As many of you have stated, I thought I had a descent grasp of the United States Intelligence oversight. However, to my surprise I found that I actually did not have as good of an understanding as I thought. My shortcoming was in understanding just how convoluted the system is. The system has evolved over the years just as many things do. However, the system still has a long way to go before it’s as effective as it could be. Former Under Secretary Charles Allen noted that “virtually any terrorist attack on the homeland that one can imagine must exploit a border crossing, a port of entry, a critical infrastructure, or one of the other domains that the department has an obligation to

The 1776 united States of America Declaration of Independence contain the words that succinctly describe our national objective, strategy, and message, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” In today’s United States of America, the world acknowledges American’s as the preeminent owner of individual freedoms, holding and promoting these three basic principles for some 240 years. During these years, the U.S. has employed the use of intelligence to shape its objectives and strategies, and then in times of war used the same intelligence to shape strategic messages against foreign powers. However, as hostilities decline and give way to the restoration of relative peace, the use of intelligence for strategic messages against foreign powers ceases. Under these circumstances, the void created by secession of U.S. messages, provides a communication opportunity to foreign powers for transmission of anti-U.S. messages. Attempts have been made to reinstate the offices that during war countered these anti-U.S. messages to a comprehensive reorganization of the U.S Government intelligence community. This paper does not support creation of a new agency or department to utilize existing strategic intelligence.

2). Domestic terrorism is usually committed by citizens of the United States, and documentation of terrorist activities on American soil have dated back to the 1950s. The 1970s heighten domestic terrorism by a “rash of skyjacking”, that is, taking a commercial airline hostage (Sauter & Carafano, 2012). Skyjacking incidents compelled the FBI and CIA to develop undercover strategies to enforce terrorist groups; however, these tactics lead to civil right violations. The federal agencies covert tactics and aggressive intelligence collection, “prompted congressional hearings and led to dramatic restrictions on domestic intelligence operations, including the creation of a bureaucratic wall between intelligence gathering and law enforcement” (Sauter & Carafano, 2012, p. 25). The “wall” that was previously stated halted information sharing between the intelligence community and local law enforcement. Communication and information sharing prevents redundancy in high priority investigations, and it could also provide first responders advance notice in life threatening

The shocking tragedy on September 11, 2001 altered the course of American national security. Prior to the 9/11 attacks, homeland security was rarely debated as a hot topic, even within the small circle of policy elites (Kamarck, 2013, p. 34). The only prior homeland attack on America was Pearl Harbor and this was not on U.S. mainland. Many Americans were shocked that such a tragedy could occur on American soil and they are still shocked to this day. People are still recovering from this tragic event. The government knew that the country’s enemies still posed an enormous threat to the nation’s security. In response to the events that took place on 9/11, the United States Congress passed the USA/Patriot Act, which intensified the surveillance powers held by the federal government through the National Security Agency (NSA) and other federal agencies. This act increased national airport security procedures, metro security in most major U.S. cities, and extended the government’s capacity to spy on citizens.

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 9/11 attacks opened the avenue for a scrutiny of the performance and ability of the intelligence community to detect any threats to the safety of the United States. The media, politicians, reformists and other interested parties would not comprehend how such an attack would happen without the knowledge of the intelligence community. However, it is important to consider the fact that the attack was one of its kind and could not be approached with the resources and expertise used in other initiative such as the cold war. Therefore, the need to restructure the intelligence community arose from the view that it was still operating in the mindset and spirit of the cold war even in the modern era that had seen a revolutionary change of warfare

The author poses a question: “Should the law treat investigations involving national security differently than other criminal inquiries?” (Solove, 2015, p. 155). The text cites both aspects of this question, saying the Fourth Amendment and ECPA apply differently between domestic and foreign cases. One view pertains

The 9/11 attacks provided new insights to security agencies, especially in their role of detecting and thwarting terrorist activities. Of particular interest was the association of various racial groups, especially those from the Muslim community with terrorism. Therefore, security agencies invested in isolating these racial groups as suspects of terrorism due to their associated connection with terrorism. However, this racial profiling cannot be justified as a counterterrorism measure since it is a flawed line of reasoning. For instance, it is not always the case that some racial groups are always responsible for terrorism. In fact, the 9/11 events would not have been possible without collaborators inside the United States who are not necessarily

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.

The Patriot Act comprises of communication tools against terrorism such as information sharing across law enforcement agencies in the United States, and new investigative tools used to find and prevent terrorism. These tools provided in this act aid to national security by finding, and terminating terrorists and terrorism conspiracies. Information sharing between Federal agencies, and state and local agencies allows state and local law enforcement to understand what terrorism entails and how to prevent and look for terrorism acts in their communities. In the same sense intelligence officers can discuss anti-terrorism efforts with federal law enforcement. They can now improve the way they coordinate how to prevent terrorism and how to appropriately stop a known plot.

In preparation for my debate on the topics of intelligence-led policing and Compstat policing, I have discovered the many advantages and disadvantages of using intelligence-led policing and Compstat policing. According to Carter & Carter (2009), intelligence-led policing is the collection of and analysis of data relating to crime, used by law enforcement in “developing tactical responses to threats and/or strategic planning related to emerging changing threats” (p. 317). When applied correctly, intelligence-led policing is a tool used for information sharing in identifying threats and developing responses to prevent those threats from reaching fruition (Carter, 2011). One of the advantages of using intelligence-led policing is its incorporation of data analysts. The role of the data analyst in the context of intelligence-led policing allows them to take specially trained analysts to take raw data from information found in reports and translate it into useful information for the officers, allowing the police to deploy resources more effectively and efficiently (Griffiths, 2016). Another advantage is its application through preventative and predictive policing (proactive policing), in which law enforcement take data and identify crucial variables such as terrorism or the emergence of criminal organizations, in hopes of stopping the problem at its roots (Carter, 2011). Terrorism is especially important and emphasized after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centers in

The United States Intelligence community draws on advanced technology and analytical techniques. An intelligence process that sets objectives, collects, analyzes, and report findings, with feedback loops integrated throughout. Explicitly, the intelligence community advantages technology and tradecraft within a proscribed process. However, estimation of threats and decision-making are outcomes of human thinking. Analysts and policymakers create mental models, or short cuts to manage complex, changing environments. In other words, to make sense of ambiguous or uncertain situations, humans form cognitive biases. Informed because of personal experience, education, and specifically applied to intelligence analysis, Davis

In most cases these INTs community compete among each other to provide needed intelligence information to policy makers to justify their budgetary allocations (Lowenthal, 2014). However, intelligence collection can be divided into five main categories referred to as “intelligence collection disciplines” or the “INTs”. These include Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Signals Intelligence