Resources

Read/review the following resources for this activity:

• Textbook: Chapters 13, 14
• Lecture 1, 2
• Link (website): Church Committee Reports Archive
• Link (website): The CIA’s Family Jewels
• Link (website): Spying in a transparent world, ethics, and intelligence in the 21st century
• Link (website): The Operation that killed Bin Laden
• Link (website): U.S. National Intelligence: An Overview
• Link (PDF): The 9/11 Commission Report (Chapter 13)
• Link (PDF): National strategy for information sharing and safeguarding
• Link (website): The WMD Commission Report
• Link (website): ‘Curveball’: I Lied about WMD to Hasten Iraq War
• Link (PDF): The Worldwide Threat Assessment

Introduction
Efforts to improve, alter, or reorganize the intelligence community are as old as the

community
itself. The use of the word “reform” remains problematic in that it can imply that something that needs fixing, as opposed to simply being improved. (Lowenthal, 2017)

Initial Post
What are the human elements that can complicate intelligence reform? Can you find past examples that support your position from past accounts in a journal article or newspaper? You may also find some useful information in the resources section above.

Secondary Posts
Read postings provided by your instructor or fellow students. Read and respond to the conclusions drawn by your classmates. Remember to read the feedback to your own major postings and reply throughout the week.

Writing Requirements

• In addition to one initial post, respond to at least two peers.
• Initial Post Length: minimum of 250 words
• Secondary Post Length: minimum of 200 words per post
• Using APA format, provide at least one citation with corresponding references page and use appropriate in-text citation(s) referring to the academic concept for the initial post.

student 1: “Humans and their expectation of not being taken advantaged of are always getting in the way of intelligence advancements. I mean it is just a little water boarding, what is the big deal… Of course that was sarcasm, but there is the issue of human rights overall that play a big role in the intelligence world. There have been studies that have suggested that torture does not provide accurate information and intelligence. It has been suggested that most people will say what they think you want to hear, just to get torture to stop. One of the issues is also not so much that the CIA engages in torture, but “The CIA and some of the other intelligence agencies have been notorious for encouraging (or otherwise associating with) those committing gross human rights atrocities—i.e. torture, ill-treatment, disappearances, and extrajudicial executions—or similar violations of the laws of war” (Salinas,1997, para 7).

When this type of situation presents itself, and the U.S. intelligence

community
hides behind the methods and sources protection theory, it opens itself up for scrutiny and objections from the public. When we lose the faith of the public we lose the ability to do the job we need to do within the intelligence community. When this happens enough times we end up with situation like Snowden and Manning that decided that they are going to spread information that they feel is damaging. This not only hurts us here at home, but it damages us abroad as well. We work with foreign countries all over the world as allies. When it is leaked that we were collecting information on our allies, it destroys the trust they have in us and could lead to major conflicts down the road.

Salinas, C. (1997) Human Rights and Intelligence Reform. Institute for Policy Studies. Retrieved

From: https://ips-dc.org/human_rights_and_intelligence_reform/

student 2:”As we have learned from our reading this week in Lowenthal and our class lectures, often in the intelligence

community
, when there is a significant failure in intelligence, there are significant reforms of our intelligence communities (Korsog, 2019; Lowenthal, 2017).

After the events of 9/11 and the failure of the intel community, several bipartisan and independent commissions were developed to review the condition and actions of the intelligence community. Most of them came to the same conclusion and identified several areas of reform — many of these dealt with the human element of intelligence. Two human aspects were identified as most vital for reform (Rosenbach and Peritz, 2009).

The first was collection and analysis. Several of the committees found there was a critical weakness in the intelligence communities’ human intelligence (HUMINT) collection efforts. The investigations found the need for greater integration of analysis and collection disciplines (Rosenbach and Peritz, 2009).

Secondly, it was in human capital itself. According to the various committees, a number of people working in the intelligence world had become complacent since the Cold War era. The members of the intel community were well-positioned to combat an enemy like the old U.S.S.R.. However, the average intelligence analyst had not evolved- culturally, demographically, or linguistically. This lack of evolution made them ill-equipped to target the diverse modern threats in the post-Cold War era and today’s environment of non-state sponsored terrorist groups (Rosenbach and Peritz, 2009).

The findings from these investigations and the desire from Congress to make reforms in our nation’s intelligence-gathering led to the most drastic change in the intel community since its creation. In September 2004, Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA). The IRTPA addressed several of the human aspects identified by the post 9/11 investigations (Rosenbach and Peritz, 2009).

Some of the most prominent aspect to reforms with the human element was to implement a five-year strategic human capital plan that would broaden the intelligence communities talent pool and compensate employees according to their performance. The act also called for a 12-month rotation in other agencies as a prerequisite for promotions to

senior
ranks and added more cultural training to the program. It also made changes to improve the process of obtaining security clearances. The legislation also addressed changes to the evolving and transnational nature of HUMINT and instituted collaboration on information sharing amongst the intel community (Rosenbach and Peritz, 2009).

I recently read an article in the Federal News Magazine that shows fifteen years after the IRTPA was passed, the intelligence community is still facing issues with regards to the human element. The article noted that there are still issues with intel agencies being able to hire recruited employees due to problems with obtaining a security clearance. One disqualifying factor, for obtaining specific clearances, can be financial

debt
because a bad actor can potentially use that as leverage to compromise an intel agent. This becomes a problem when today’s students can graduate with large sums of student debt. The article stated the average debt is $45,000 for potential hires (Moges, 2019)”.

I think just the nature of the intelligence community will always be faced with issues regarding the human aspect.

Korsog, K. (2019). Week 7 – Lecture 2 Slides. Retrieved from https://online.tiffin.edu/course/view.php?id=19308

Lowenthal, M. (2017). Intelligence: from secrets to policy. Los Angles, CA: CQ Press.

Moges, A. (2019, November 22). IC faces human capital challenges like any component of government. Federal News Network. Retrieved from https://federalnewsnetwork.com/intelligence-commun…

Rosenbach, E., and Peritz, A. (2009, July). Confrontation or Collaboration: Congress and the Intelligence Community. The Intelligence and Policy Project of Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/intellige…