320 wk2 rlp
Please respond to the following students. Responses should be a minimum of 260 words for each student and include direct questions.
Responses Due: Sunday, by 11:55pm ET
Student 1
Describe the structure of the U.S. intelligence community.
The Intelligence Community is structured with the organization of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) being the oversight of “16 other organizations” in the Intelligence Community (IC) (Logan 2010, 37). The ODNI is headed by the director of national intelligence (DNI) who is an “advisor” to the President, the National Security Council, and the Homeland Security Council “on intelligence issues” (Rosenbach & Peritz 2009). The ODNI provides the IC with four main missions of counterterrorism, cyber threats, counterproliferation, and counterintelligence and security, which must be completed throughout the 16 organizations for the ODNI and IC to be successful in its missions (DNI 2017).
Each of the 16 organizations is specifically in charge of certain intelligence matters for their department, who together, are to fulfill the roles needed to accomplish the ODNI’s stated missions. Structurally, the 17 organizations with the ODNI included, can be broken down and separated into three different groups; “independent agencies,” “Department of Defense elements,” and “other departments and agencies” (DNI n.d). Within the independent agencies, the group includes two agencies, which are the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the ODNI. The Department of Defense elements contains eight organizations which include the services group comprised of the Armed Forces and its four services’ intelligence components, the National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and Nation Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Last but not least, the other departments and agencies group includes seven components which are the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) FBI Counterintelligence and the DEA, Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (DOE), Office of Intelligence and Analysis and U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence (DHS), Bureau of Intelligence and Research (DOS), and Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (DOT). Though the IC and its agencies do, in my opinion, an effective job in their roles for national security, it could be more effective at being efficient.
Is It Effective? Why or Why Not?
The IC has a noticeable problem in its structure that results in it being less effective in its efficiency than it could be. For that statement, effective is used to describe something being productive, for which the structure of the IC is not as productive as it efficiently could be. It is difficult for the IC to be effective in the efficiency of its structure’s current state because it is simply too large. The number of agencies involved within the structure cause a lot of waste of its resources and budget.
There are too many agencies with their hands in the pot that simply waste government money with the overproduction of intelligence, and it results in the agencies burning out its employees due to the mass amount of intelligence they go through. That issue became relevant with the FBI after the Christmas Day Bomber and Fort Hood shooting with its analysts having difficulties going through a massive amount of intelligence prior to the events (Erwin 2013, 5). The Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004 was enacted to reform and change many things within the IC. One change expected was that of eliminating the waste from occurring as imposed by the DNI, but yet the issue still currently exists with the apparent overproduction of intelligence (Erwin 2013, 4). With the 17 agencies in the structure of the IC, the roles involved can also become confusing and hard to clarify, which can be explained about an agency within the IC, “members have sometimes questioned the role and mission of DHS I&A” (Erwin 2013, 11). The structure of the IC can take a new approach to help eliminate waste and clarify roles.
What changes, if any, should be made?
The structure of the IC can take an approach of reorganizing its structure and possibly combining agencies that will direct them to more clear roles. Examples of reorganizing the structure can be assigning and/or combining agencies to a particular type of intelligence (foreign, domestic, counterproliferation, etc.) or even a certain process of intelligence (gathering/collection, analyzing, etc.). Those are examples that would help create better communication amongst agencies with like roles in hopes of reducing same/similar intelligence and have roles defined towards a certain objective. This, in hopes, will allow the IC to become more effective in its structure.
Student 2
Describe the structure of the U.S. intelligence community. Is it effective? Why or why not? What changes, if any, should be made? It is imperative that you have at least a sentence regarding what “effective” means to you.
Where to begin when speaking about the United States intelligence community is mind blowing and can cause one to lose their mind. To start things off the best way possible is to say that there are 17 agencies that are a part of the intelligence community; the first of these agencies is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. This is an office created after September 11, 2001 by Congress to help coordinate gathered intelligence between the other IC agencies. Second to the above agency is no other than the Central Intelligence Agency; this is the most well-known agency in the world and rightfully so. The amount of disruption the CIA causes is immense and has helped shape wars and nations. Wait a second. What does that have to do with intelligence gathering? Well, it has very little to do with this realm anymore besides the occasional collection from an individual and even at that point that information may not be shared. Rounding out the top 3 is the National Security Agency and boy do they have a good track record for the country.
They spied on American citizens and allied head of states. “The NSA is the largest and perhaps most technologically sophisticated of all the intelligence agencies. It focuses on signals intelligence — monitoring, collecting and processing communications and other electronic information — and cracking secret codes” (Agrawal, N). With so much capability this agency should be dominating the field in the IC, but it lags due to leaks and breaches of its own security. At this point it doesn’t seem like the American IC has much of a winning team between an entire agency designed to help make sure the others play nice with one another to an agency that gave us Snowden. Quickly finishing out the top 10 there is the FBI, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, The DEA, Department of Treasury, and the Department of Energy. The last couple make it seem more like a joke or maybe it is the fact that all of them work separately. “Funded by largely classified budgets, it’s difficult to assess how much the U.S. annually spends on these clandestine operations, but one 2012 estimate pegs the cost at about $75 billion” (Szoldra, P). There are of course agencies for intelligence gathering from each of the branches of the Armed Forces and their budgets fall under the DOD budget every year. This form of government in regard to intelligence is nonsense and a waste of money. Yes, the DOD needs a piece of the IC, but why would the treasury and energy department need to be? They do not and that is an answer that does not want to be given. The intelligence community is bloated with multiple agencies that seem to be the same thing, but with different people of interest and for collectors.
The amount of people trying to collect data and then maybe sharing it with others is overwhelming. To be asked if it is effective is naive of everyone because the outcome of product that is given is, well…crap. Seems like every time a agency figures out a solid piece of information another agency swoops and grabs it based of their seniority to that other agency. To fulfil an operation or mission to the fullest extent without gaps in the information is what effective means and anything less than that is detrimental to the nation.
