Processing
Perhaps no feature of intelligence in the democracies is more conspicuous than the outpacing of data collection over what the secret agencies are able to absorb, translate, and understand. Every four to six hours, the NSA collects a volume of material equivalent to the entire holdings of the Library of Congress.5 The democracies face the proverbial search for the needle in the haystack, with the needles and the haystacks growing exponentially in number. The solution will come only with breakthroughs in information sorting, as the democracies become smarter about what to collect and faster at finding the needles in the haystacks (the “signals” rather than the “noise”). These advances depend on improvements in information technology (IT), as well as better methods for producing accurately translated foreign language texts and messages.
Analysis
Vital to better performance in the cerebral domain of analysis is the recruitment to the intelligence services of the best brain-power the democracies can muster: men and women well trained in the array of university curricula relevant to understanding world affairs – which, today, includes courses in just about every academic discipline. As with case officers responsible for asset recruitment, especially valuable will be individuals proficient in the world's so-called “strategic languages” spoken in hot spots around the world from North Korea to Iraq, such as Arabic, Farsi, and Pashtun.
As a way of encouraging all-source fusion, a greater commitment to the joint training of analysts from different agencies will help to engender the kinds of lasting collegial bonds that result in better interagency communications and data-sharing throughout the Intelligence Community. So will more regular transfers of personnel between agencies – circulating the intelligence workforce – as a part of any successful officer's career advancement. While these steps have already been initiated, they remain too limited in their reach. Further, within agencies, “co-location” deserves more support (as the CIA has recently understood and moved to adopt more energetically): knocking down the barriers between operatives and analysts so they can work more closely together to create accurate assessments of foreign events and conditions that draw upon both their “ground truth” and “library” knowledge. Also of high priority must be the encouragement of critical reviews of intelligence draft reports, through the use of Team A–Team B exercises and other critiques of preliminary assessments that can provide an acid bath by objective, outside experts in academe and the think-tanks. Moreover, analytic dissent needs to be clearly flagged for the attention of decision-makers. As the “slam dunk” experience with DCI George Tenet and President George W. Bush illustrates, the virtues of dissent are sometimes discarded in Washington in a rush for good news and group consensus.
Dissemination
Then comes one of the toughest assignment of all for the intelligence officer: in the midst of building the rapport so necessary for access to policymakers and to enhance the flow of information from the field into the mind of the decision-maker, the analyst, the liaison officer, the PDB and NIE briefer, the D/CIA, the DNI – whatever the intelligence position – must remain absolutely neutral in providing data and insights. Rapport, yes, even friendship; but the intelligence officer must maintain an ability to step back from Washington politics, to understand the importance of the bright line of honesty and neutrality that should exist between the producer and the consumer of intelligence. Crossing that line can transport the intelligence officer into the domain of politicization – the “cooking” of intelligence to please the political objectives of an administration. Staying on the proper (non-policy) side of this demilitarized zone is the cardinal rule of intelligence. When that line is crossed, the guilty intelligence officer becomes simply another policy advocate – of which there is already an abundance in the democratic capitals of the world.
Covert Action
As American decision-makers ponder the adoption of covert action methods, they should keep former DCI William H. Webster's set of guidelines close at hand. In Judge Webster's prescription (Chapter 3), these controversial secret operations should honor an adherence to U.S. law, remain consistent with foreign policy objectives and traditional values, and – should they become public – make sense to the American people. Further, in congruence with the spirit of a democratic alliance against the enemies of open societies, covert actions should not be directed against fellow democratic regimes. In the same spirit, the democracies should join together when possible for covert actions against common threats.
Above all, the democracies should move up the ladder of covert action escalation toward highly intrusive operations only with the greatest circumspection, mindful that wise observers over the years have counseled that the “third option” should be adopted only when absolutely essential – as a last measure when every other policy option has been found lacking. Leaders in the democracies should be sensitive to the fact, too, that the highest rungs on the ladder are anathema to the values extolled by the open societies, threatening the great moral advantage enjoyed by the democracies over the “anything goes” attitude of terrorists and dictators who fear the ethical standards raised high by the open societies. Only ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the most intransigent of the Taliban armies should be targets of high-rung covert actions, and even then the democracies should reject operations that risk the death of innocent civilians, destroy animal and plant life, or cause Western intelligence officers – whether interrogators or paramilitary soldiers – to descend into the kind of barbaric behavior displayed by the terrorists.
Counterintelligence
Success in the world of counterintelligence depends on the vigilance of fellow workers inside the secret agencies. Intelligence officers and their managers can best spot suspicious activities, excessive drinking, or lavish lifestyles among their colleagues that might be a tip-off to outside funding by a foreign intelligence or terrorist organization. The Americans and the Europeans have learned a great deal from CI failures over the past several decades and have taken steps to tighten their defenses, such as more careful monitoring of the bank accounts of employees in the aftermath of the Ames treachery at the CIA. Although no doubt there will be another Ames or Kim Philby some day, what one hopes for is that – as a result of greater attention to security and counterespionage – future traitors will be quickly detected.
National security intelligence and the importance of accountability
The experiment in intelligence accountability is here to stay in most, if not all, of the democracies; but it has displayed unsettling signs of backsliding. In the United States, one could see this most obviously in the Iran–contra affair; in the failure of Congress to examine the preparedness of the Intelligence Community to discover and thwart a terrorist attack in the years leading up to 9/11; in the warrantless wiretapping, metadata collection, and torture techniques adopted by the second Bush Administration after the terrorist attacks; and in the lethargy that settled over the SSCI and HPSCI oversight panels during the first decade of the twenty-first century. The cycle of shock and reaction repeated itself time and again, without sufficient attention by members of Congress to the dedicated, high-intensity police patrolling on Capitol Hill that might have served as a circuit-breaker. Nevertheless, even though the New Intelligence Oversight has sometimes proved disappointing in practice, the level of congressional (as well as executive and judicial) accountability over intelligence operations still remains vastly superior to what existed before 1975.
In the United States, a starting place to correct a drift backwards toward weak intelligence accountability is to straighten out the tangled lines of jurisdictional responsibility among the oversight committees on Capitol Hill. The committees on the Judiciary, Foreign Relations, Armed Services, and Appropriations already have full plates; SSCI and HPSCI should be given sole jurisdiction for almost all intelligence activities (with the Judiciary Committees helping out with the FBI and the FIS Court). The outcome would be clearer lines of responsibility.
The great
est challenge, though, is to bring out the guardian instincts of lawmakers serving on SSCI and HPSCI. This feat will require a fresh set of incentives on the Hill that reward the serious practice of guardianship with the perks of office, as well as greater recognition and praise for oversight work. The public, however, will be the ultimate arbiter of whether lawmakers pay attention to their oversight duties. If citizens direct their votes toward candidates who are dedicated to the guardian role; if journalists cover sterling acts of oversight by lawmakers; if academicians teach about the central place of oversight in America's form of government, as spelled out in the Federalist Papers; if presidents and DNIs explain how accountability actually strengthens national security intelligence by engendering debate within the hidden councils of government, then lawmakers will be more likely to gravitate toward the guardian role.
These steps toward genuine intelligence accountability may prove quixotic. Perhaps there is just not enough gumption on Capitol Hill to make the necessary changes. Perhaps money has such a grip on the American system of government that fundraising for re-election, along with lobbying by the military-industrial-intelligence complex, will keep lawmakers frozen in the posture of an “ostrich” or uncritical “cheerleader.” Perhaps a cycle of feckless police patrolling, followed by vigorous firefighting, is the fate of the United States and the other open societies. Ultimately, it is up to the citizens of the democracies to demand more of their public servants.
A citizens intelligence advisory board
The challenges examined in this volume demand a renewed sense of determination by the democracies to strengthen their national security intelligence capabilities (see Table 6.1), including improved accountability procedures. Congress, like the parliaments in the other democracies, needs help in supervising the spy agencies. This is not to say that lawmakers have abjectly failed in their efforts to hold the secret agencies accountable. Since the days of the Church Committee, as we have seen, members of Congress have managed to craft several laudable oversight laws and guidelines. It is the case, however, that those in Congress are unable to fully handle the duties of intelligence accountability by themselves; the pressures for re-election simply make too large a surcharge on their time. Despite these campaign pressures, members of SSCI and HPSCI have displayed a respectable (though uneven) record of accomplishment; still, the Intelligence Community is too large, and its activities too complicated and dispersed, for lawmakers to monitor these agencies unaided. Those serving on SSCI and HPSCI need a helping hand from a newly created, independent, and permanent intelligence review board.
Table 6.1 National security intelligence: a reform agenda for the United States
FocusPrimary proposals
Organization Provide the DNI with full budget and appointment powers; expand internal intelligence liaison services; expand bilateral and multilateral liaison among the democracies; expand “co-location” practices
Missions
Collection and analysis
Planning Improve formal and informal dialogue between producers and consumers of intelligence
Collection Expand humint, especially NOCs
Processing Improve “horizontal” interagency computer compatibility, as well as “vertical” connections to state and local law enforcement and intelligence officials; improve data shifting
Analysis Establish more competitive analysis; highlight dissent (including within the executive summaries or Key Judgments); increase production of research intelligence
Dissemination Market intelligence more effectively; focus on niche intelligence; educate analysts and managers about the dangers of politicization and call attention to its practice wherever spotted
Covert action Practice greater discrimination, adopting this approach only when absolutely essential; avoid operations against fellow democracies; reject extreme options
Counterintelligence Pay more attention to this neglected mission; redouble emphasis in training, at the time of recruitment and steadily thereafter; constantly upgrade computer firewalls against cyberattacks; tighten security checks for all personnel
Accountability Improve incentives for “guardians” engaged in intensive “patrolling”; insist on full and timely (normally, ante facto) reporting to SSCI and HPSCI on all important intelligence activities (as stipulated in the 1980 Intelligence Oversight Act)
The Senate Intelligence Committee has divided its duties into four categories: responding to daily events, confirmation hearings, drafting legislation, and taking on major reviews and investigations. The members and staff of SSCI and HPSCI can cope with the first three obligations, even though lawmakers are torn by their other legislative duties and fundraising sirens. Where the Committees need an oversight partner is with the fourth category: major reviews and investigations, time-consuming special inquiries like the Joint Committee probe into 9/11, or the extensive research associated with the Senate Torture Report.
In the United States, a Citizens Intelligence Advisory Board (CIAB) could provide the necessary extra oversight assistance.6 Such a board could have, say, nine members, aided by a staff of a dozen specialists. The members could be chosen in this fashion: two by SSCI (one by the majority party, one by the minority party, each of whom would also continue to serve on SSCI); two from the House (under comparable arrangements); two private citizens selected by the Supreme Court (one chosen by the Chief Justice and one by the senior judge appointed by the opposite party from that of the President who appointed the Chief Justice); two selected by the President; and a staff director picked by a majority vote of the deans at the top five ranked schools of international and public affairs in the United States (with the balloting supervised by the Intelligence Oversight Board in the White House). The term of service for each CIAB member could be five years, with the possibility of an additional five-year term. The Board would be coordinated by a chair elected from among, and by, CIAB members.
The CIAB membership positions would be full time – except for the four lawmakers, who would serve part time as they fulfilled their responsibilities in Congress as well. The congressional members would have to be a special breed with an abiding interest in intelligence matters to sustain this double duty – an Aspin, Hamilton or Mazzoli – and from a reasonably safe constituency. Congressional participation in CIAB activities would be important, as a means of providing a connection and continuity to the organization that funds the Intelligence Community: the U.S. Congress. Nothing so attracts the attention of intelligence bureaucrats as the congressional power of the purse.
The CIAB, SSCI, and HPSCI, along with the Government Accountability Office, would work together as an intelligence oversight team. The CIAB chair along with the SSCI and HPSCI chairs, would serve as the Board's managing triad. The purpose of the CIAB would be to supplement the work of the Intelligence Oversight Committees, not to duplicate or interfere with their agendas; and when SSCI and HPSCI are, at certain times in their history, captured by ostriches and cheerleaders, the Citizens Intelligence Advisory Board – a neutral, nonpartisan entity – could take up the slack in intelligence guardianship.
The CIAB would issue annual reports to the public, as well as classified reports to SSCI, HPSCI, the congressional leadership, and the White House. It would also hold hearings (with at least a few each year in open session); conduct formal inquiries when necessary (with full subpoena powers, along with the leverage of contempt citations that accompany them); take on special research projects that SSCI and HPSCI do not have time or inclination to consider (say, an analysis into the appropriateness of various kinds of intelligence reporting mandated by Congress, which the Committee itself may be unable to evaluate fairly); and disclose to the public any espionage activities that violate the laws of the United States or taint the nation's societal norms.
The CIAB may sound like an elaborate structure, but liberty and privacy in the United States are worth careful protection. Should operations like CHAOS, COINTELPRO, SHAMROCK, and MINERET, as well as torture a
nd unbridled metadata programs, be stopped in their tracks before they begin? Should the likes of the Bay of Pigs and other questionable covert actions have been subjected to closer scrutiny? How about the poor analysis associated with the 9/11 attacks and the question of WMD in Iraq? In each case, clearly the answer in a democracy is a resounding yes. This will simply not happen, though, with SSCI and HPSCI acting alone, however well intended and hard working its members and staff may be. The proposed CIAB should not be an overly complex new system that would excessively burden the Intelligence Community, but rather a way of separating out from SSCI and HPSCI the extraordinarily demanding tasks of special reviews and investigations – tasks that frenetically busy lawmakers are ill-equipped to handle.
Citizen responsibilities
Students often say, “I don't care if the government spies on me; I have nothing to hide.” They – and every American citizen – need to reevaluate that philosophy of governance, so anathema to the founding principles of this nation. All of us must remember Operation CHAOS, COINTELPRO, SHAMROCK, MINARET, and the more recent examples of overreach displayed in post-9/11 operations of the NSA, as well as the CIA's embrace of harsh interrogation methods. These overzealous intelligence initiatives should impress upon every American citizen that even our democratic government has in the past, and could in the future, use its secret agencies to counter lawful protest, possibly ruining the lives of citizens because some bureaucrat (in the case of COINTELPRO, J. Edgar Hoover) doesn't like the way they look, or what they say or write – the content of their political belief, moving, as Tom Charles Huston put it, “from the kid with the bomb to the kid with a picket sign, and from the kid with the picket sign to the kid with the bumper sticker of the opposing candidate.” Part of the responsibility of living in a democracy is to take an active role in demanding the protection of fundamental constitutional freedoms, electing only those presidents, senators, and representatives who vow to take seriously the question of intelligence accountability. Americans, as well as citizens in other democracies, must either fight for their liberty – or see it vanish.
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