Intelligence Revolution
Intelligence revolution
After the 911 terrorist attack, the American intelligent was seen to have failed due to its failure to prevent the incidence. However, a lot of resources have been allocated by the federal government since the end of cold war to improve security alert in the United States. The large investment by the United States government has been as a result of fear created in the Cold War and the high rising terrorist threat all over the world. Moreover, with the rise in technology, many private security agencies and the public are able to access technology which was previously available to the state security agencies only therefore creating a need for more sophisticated security information handling technology. For the national intelligence community to be able to access and analyze security information effectively, they need better technology compared to what is available to the public.
One branch of the national intelligence is the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a civilian agency concerned with security intelligence all over the United States and in some parts of the world outside the United States. During the Second World War, Central Intelligence Agency was known as the Office of Strategic Services. Its main mandate was to coordinate surveillance between different arms of the US military involved in the war. It was the first intelligence agency in the United States and was created to provide intelligence services during the Second World War. CIA was formed through a National Security Act of 1947 shortly after the end of the Second World War. In 1948, its mandates were increased to cover intentional damage of property and evacuation measures. It was also mandated to provide assistance to anti communist groups in different countries, refugees, revolution movements and guerrillas movements (George Kline, 2006).
After its formation, there was need to increase its mandate due to the increasing threat in the world by hostile states and allies. There was also need to support foreign governments which were friendly to the United States in order to provide favorable environment for their establishment. The agency was later mandated to use secret procedures and operations while exempting them form limitations such as the amount of money they spent on their operations. They were also free from disclosing information about their employees or functions and structures. They were also given powers to handle special cases of immigrations which could result into security threat in the country. The Central Intelligence Agency was also allowed to borrow special services from other forces in the country although they had their own forces (Shulsky Schmitt, 2002).
In 1970s, the Central Intelligence Agency was faced with abuse of office in the Watergate scandal. The institution of the presidency and its executive powers were also threatened by the congress. There were revelation of harmful acts and plans by the Central Intelligence Agency such as elimination of leaders of other countries. The accusation of planed assassination of Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro by the CIA officials and illegal scouting of the United States citizens brought about a lot of debate which called for the supervision of the CIAs activities (Frum, 2000). The involvement of CIA officials in the Watergate scandal and its involvement in the obstruction of FBI investigation on the matter raised questions about the mandates of the CIA. The Smoking Tapes destroyed the good reputation of the Central Intelligence Agency when they were made public. The Family Jewels scandal also revealed the misuse of powers of the agency when the illegal operations by the agency such as murder of foreign leaders who were considered unfriendly were made public. The Family Jewel report also revealed how the states agency had illegally spied on thousands of Americans illegally who were thought to have been involved in movement to oppose wars (Trahair, 2004).
Due to these allegations, a commission to investigate the agency was formed in 1995 through the Church Committee in the Congress and the Pike Committee in the House of Representative. An executive order was also issued by President Gerard Ford which prohibited elimination of foreign leaders by any federal agency. Despite the band image of the agency in the eyes of the American public, the president tried to defend his administration claming that his officials were not involved in the illegal activities. Two decades later, the Intelligence Authorization Act was enacted in 1991 following the arms smuggling incidences in the well published Iran Contra Affair. The act clarified the issues of secret missions abroad by the federal intelligence agencies and established a chain of command in the intelligence agencies to ensure that there was timely briefing of the agencies operations to the president (Hulnick, 1999).
Today, the Central Intelligent Agencys main function is to gather information about different states, government agencies and citizens from other countries and advising the Federal Government on the necessary policies to be implemented. CIA carries out secret operations in different parts of the world and manipulates states around the world using its special activities division. Before 2004, the Central Intelligent Agency was the main intelligence agency in the United States. It was responsible for all security intelligence and coordinated the activities of all other member agencies of the intelligence community in the nation. This is the year when a marked change in the structure of the intelligence community was implemented with the establishment of the position of a Director of National Intelligence who took over coordination of intelligence communitys activities. He is responsible for consolidating the opinion of the all intelligence agencies and reporting or making recommendation to the president.
Among the recent changes in the nation intelligence agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency and FBI is outsourcing and privatization of some of their activities. This is seen to have negative impact on the reliable members of staff who would have to leave their job to occupy the same position in the private sector at doubled or tripled wages. Senior staffs in the intelligence agencies are also likely to resign and go into private intelligence service where they will make more money than the federal government can pay them. Privatization and outsourcing has also created security worries among the public due to free movement of information between the Central Intelligence Agency or FBI and private security agencies.
In the world of technological advancement, the field of intelligence has not been left behind. In the past, what could have taken intelligence officer days or weeks to move from one office to another or homesteads to collect information can now be easily obtained from the database using a computer within a very short time. In the past, some officers would collect the information while others waited for the raw data to analyze. Today, any officer in the intelligence agency can collect the information and analyze it within a short time on a computer. This is a very essential development in the field of intelligence since it makes work easier and is time efficient.
However, technology provides a hard time to the intelligence agencies since it is available to every one in the world. Any person in the world can access a wide range of information provided he has the required technology. A teenager can prepare a comprehensive profile of several people he or she knows within hours if he can access a credit card and a computer. There are no laws to prohibit the access of information about individuals in many countries including the United States. This provides a great challenge to the intelligent community since criminals can access information about their targeted victims easily. Moreover, information that used to be held by the intelligence agencies only is now accessible to any body. Today, all over the world, any privacy of information can be breached and there are no laws that can protect the intelligence agencies from unauthorized search by the public. The risk of sensitive or classified information and data getting into the wrong hands is even higher considering the number of foreign agencies and private intelligence agencies. The federal agencies such as the CIA and FBI are sharing information through the use of technology. Private agencies collect intelligence data and sell to the federal agencies through the internet where many people can access the information.
Intelligence and other security operations are today based on technology. Even in the absence of real security threat, the American intelligence has been very vigilant in the last three decades especially after cold war and the rise of Islamic terrorist insurgent in the Middle East which is a threat to the world security. The vigilance by the intelligence agency is based on the world wide perception that the world will be safe if the American security systems take the necessary precautions. As a result, the American intelligence has acquired enormous data on personal information about different individuals in the United States and around the world even though the individuals do not present any security threat.
Some intelligence officials who came up with the ideas of having a large database of innocent citizens include John Poindexter. These officials believe that a large data base will enable the intelligence agencies to monitor the terrorist plans. These ideas have been criticized by many people based on the argument that by having a large data base, the probability of getting a hint of planned crime becomes low. The collection and management of the large data has cost the federal government a lot of resources and some people argue that the resources could be directed to better intelligence programs. One of the most published expenses in the aim of developing a data base was immediately after the 911 terrorist attack where John Ashcroft directed federal intelligence to develop a profile of over five thousands Muslims in the United States. This move scared the Muslims in the country and did not contribute significantly to the intelligence. By scarring the Muslims, the FBI officials destroyed one of the most useful devise used by intelligence agencies, the free will to cooperate and give any information about terrorism. The FBI was later able to realize their blunder and was more careful when dealing with Muslims in the United States (Pyle, 2009).
After the terrorist attack, the biggest mistake by the federal intelligence agencies was to detain almost five thousand Muslim immigrants for minor charges. The detention was not of any intelligence value because the agencies were busy interrogating the members of the public and it took months for them to have time to interrogate the detainees. These innocent Muslim immigrants were mistreated in the prisons since they were mistaken by the prison guards for hardened terrorists. However, due to the lessons learnt from their reaction to the 911 terrorist attack, the American intelligence have became less arrogant in order to encourage more informants to give information voluntarily. This will also improve the public image of the agencies as institutions that respect people and their dignity.
Torture has been used by intelligence agencies for many years and has always worked but in the modern world of technology and human rights activism, its use has decreased. The use of digital cameras and other sophisticated surveillance equipment put the integrity of the agencies at a risk incase they continue using torture to get information from suspects. By the intelligence agencies proving to be friendly to the Muslims and ensuring they are not harassed by the security agencies is seen as a good strategy to the fight against terrorism and international crimes because more people will volunteer information. This also applies to the American troops in other countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. If the troops harass the public, they may have bad perception about Americans and may not give the much needed information.
The fear of terrorist has transformed the intelligence agencies and the way they carry out their investigations. They have been accused of infringing basic rights and scaring potential informers into silence. This scaring of the public and the large data base held by the intelligence agencies has distracted investigators in their correction and analysis of information. Many people in America today do not consider the proportion of the public who are potential terrorists. The only response against terrorism in the United States is the security agencies in the country. The intelligence estimates that the number of potential terrorist in among the United States to be over one hundred thousand using computer algorithms. If these statistics are any thing to go by, the public needs to be involved in intelligence even if it means militarizing the society.
The demand for more people to be prosecuted as terrorist by United States citizens and politicians is enough evidence that there is great fear of terrorism in the world. The American intelligence agencies have recruited many workers in the past decade to compile lists of terrorist suspects by analyzing the profiles developed on computer algorithms. Prior to 911 attack, the American intelligence agencies estimated the number of terrorist suspects to be about sixty thousand in the whole world. The number today is unimaginable and may reach the cold war situation where any person you are traveling with becomes a potential terrorist.
The large volumes of statistics in the intelligence agencies offices are enough evidence that the agencies are at work. The security agencies have installed many surveillance cameras in all cities and airports. To ensure the safety of the information held by the intelligence agencies, tight security in the vicinity of intelligence premises has been observed in the last few years. However, most of the information held by the intelligence agencies is either useless or inaccurate and therefore may not have any intelligence value. This is very disturbing if we consider the impact of inaccuracy in the intelligence to our security. If the intelligence agencies are one percent inaccurate, it means one terrorist will not be detected and is likely to attack if there are one hundred terrorist in the United States. If there are one thousand terrorists, ten will get away and if there are more than one hundred thousand of them as claimed by the security agencies, more than one thousand of them who will not be detected. Therefore, a simple mistake in the intelligence analysis like one percent inaccuracy is very costly because it means that the intelligence has inaccurate information for over 2.8 million in the United States alone. The figure is more worrying when the whole data held by the intelligence agencies is considered (Pyle, 2009).
The government proposal to construct a fiber optic cable to link all the federal intelligence agencies is one of the moves by the federal administrators to modernize the intelligence agencies. It will also link the agencies with foreign governments and security agencies all over the world. However, this system is susceptible to sabotage by criminals and makes intelligence mistakes about a suspect even more costly. It will be very difficult to correct information which has erroneously gotten into the systems and the person accused wrongly may have to live with the accusation. Imagine of a situation where a person in France or Australia by mistake brands you as a terrorist and enters your profile into the system. You may not be allowed to fly in an airplane or the worst could happen when you are stopped on the street by security personnel who countercheck your profile on his blackberry.
The language barrier among the intelligence officers has limited the effectiveness of the Americans security systems for many decades. From the cold war era to the end of the 20th century very few intelligence agent could use another language other than English. Very few of them could understand Arabic during the Afghanistan invasion after the 911 attack though they were expected to provide intelligence services to the American troops. However, the disgrace has reduced with more intelligence agents enrolling for foreign languages degrees. Moreover, more linguistic students are studying foreign languages. More agents who can speak foreign languages will reduce the delays in interrogation of foreign suspects and will eliminate the need for an interpreter. It is also clear that a lot of information involving foreign suspects have been lost in the past though the process of translation of interviews. The security agencies have tried to speed up security clearance of foreigners willing to work in the intelligence agencies to reduce the language gap. The agencies have also employed translators not only in Arabic which was previously considered to be terrorist language but also other languages. The education system where the only foreign languages taught were French and Spanish have changed and other languages are becoming part of the public education system.
For many years, many people have believed that the United States requires a larger, incorporated and bureaucratic intelligence to solve security problems threatening Americans in the modern world. In the past years, the politicians have demanded for the creation of integrated security agency which led to the formation of department of homeland security. Although, the American intelligence has been faced with many scandals including the famous Watergate scandal where CIA and FBI were involved, some politicians have proposed the formation of intelligence agency similar to MI 5 in England. After the 911 attack, the commission established to inquire and make recommendations on the incidence together with the senate intelligent committee proposed the creation of the office of intelligence tsar. The tsar would have cabinet status and will have increased bureaucracy in the intelligence framework to support the office.
However, it is in doubt whether introducing old bureaucracy system in the modern intelligence agencies is the real solutions to the modern security threats facing the United States. It is evident from history that creating more bureaucracies has never been a solution to the problems but instead creates more problems. Bureaucracy has preset solutions to problems and does not provide room for invention of new problem solving methods which is inevitable in the modern world. For example, due to the increased threat of terrorism and events that took place after the 911 attack, many intelligence agent from FBI and CIA were deployed to the counter terrorist investigation from other areas of intelligences such as illegal drugs laws enforcement. Some critics to these moves have suggested that the Americans need to have courage to recruit the better placed Muslims into the intelligence agencies to fight terrorism effectively. They are not limited by language barrier and can freely interact with the Muslim community without being suspected.
In the recent past, there have been many cases of the local security departments mystifying some protest groups in the United States as would be terrorists. These security departments have claimed some grants to intensify their operation in flushing out these potential criminals. There have been also attempts to return the military intelligence to the civilians. The army has advertised for positions of intelligence analyst to counter terrorism. However, these attempts have been criticized by many people who believe that it is not worth creating situations which will result in mistakes such as ones experienced in the past (Pyle, 2009).
Over the years, the United States intelligence agencies have undergone numerous transformation since it establishment after the Second World War. The intelligence community has received many challenge during the Cold War and after the 911 terrorist attack. The involvement of intelligence agencies in the Watergate scandals and other illegal activities such as assassination of foreign leaders and illegal spying on Americans destroyed the face of the American intelligence. However, the greatest impact on the intelligence which has led to revolution of the intelligence is technological development and the rise in terrorism threat in the world.
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