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Steven Aftergood: US Intelligence Challenged by Foreign Technological Innovation [and Everything Else…]

US Intelligence Challenged by Foreign Technological Innovation “The increasing pace and adoption of global scientific and technological discovery heighten the risk of strategic or tactical surprise and, over time, reduce the advantages of our intelligence capabilities,” according to a new report on U.S. intelligence research and development programs prepared by a congressionally-mandated Commission. “Foreign countries’ …

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Steve Aftergood: CIA’s Mind-Set of Misadventure & Impunity

The CIA “Family Jewels,” Then and Now EXTRACT: In 1973, the Director of Central Intelligence ordered CIA officials to prepare a descriptive account of all CIA activities that were “outside the legislative charter of this Agency,” which is to say unauthorized or illegal.  The purpose of the exercise was to identify operations that had “flap …

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Stephen Aftergood: What Is Overclassification?

WHAT IS OVERCLASSIFICATION? When people criticize overclassification of national security information, what exactly are they talking about?  Is it too much secrecy?  The wrong sort of secrecy?  Classifying something at too high a level?  Oddly, there is no widely-accepted definition of the term. But since the solution to overclassification, if any, will naturally be shaped …

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Steve Aftergood: CIA Halts Public Access to Open Source Service

CIA HALTS PUBLIC ACCESS TO OPEN SOURCE SERVICE For more than half a century, the public has been able to access a wealth of information collected by U.S. intelligence from unclassified, open sources around the world.  At the end of this year, the Central Intelligence Agency will terminate that access. The U.S. intelligence community’s Open …

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Steve Aftergood: To Fix US Intelligence, Shrink It

TO FIX U.S. INTELLIGENCE, SHRINK IT? Criticism of U.S. intelligence takes many forms:  Intelligence agencies are too secretive, or they are too leaky.  They over-collect, or they under-perform.  Or all of these, and more besides. Many of the criticisms can be reduced to a single argument: The U.S. intelligence community has become too large to …

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Steve Aftergood: Court Finds CIA in Contempt on FOIA Abuse

COURT CURBS CIA USE OF A FOIA EXEMPTION The Central Intelligence Agency tried to make “inappropriate” use of an exemption from the Freedom of Information Act to withhold information that was not subject to the exemption, a federal court ruled last month. In a significant interpretation of the Central Intelligence Agency Act, Judge Beryl A. …

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Steven Aftergood: POLICY RESPONSE TO INTELLIGENCE REVELATIONS LAGS

POLICY RESPONSE TO INTELLIGENCE REVELATIONS LAGS The end of the government’s fiscal year 2013 is just weeks away, but an intelligence authorization bill for fiscal year 2014 is nowhere in sight.  In past years, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees typically reported intelligence bills in late spring or early summer for House-Senate conference and floor …

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