U.S. Intelligence Community



U.S. Intelligence Community

Introduction

This paper discusses the reasonable action that U.S. Intelligence Community should take in order to mitigate the foreign intelligence threat. It will include the points discussed in chapter 15 of the book “The US intelligence community”. The paper will discuss the recommendation made to the U.S intelligence community along with taking into account the differences between unclassified, open source information and classified information.

On September 11, 2001, the U.S. suffered a devastating series of attacks when terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and used them as missiles. In the wake of the attacks, most Americans agreed on the need to strengthen the nation's defenses against terrorism. As a result, public opinion soared in support of the federal government.

Types of Information

Classified information is a type of information sensitive is restricted by laws or adjusted for particular classes of people. Formal qualification is required to manage security and access documents classified. There are usually four degrees of "sensitivity" of information, each with different security clearances. This sort of hierarchical system of discretion is used by virtually all governments' nationals.

In the open-source intelligence, the collection of information is generally different from the collection in other areas of intelligence, where obtaining the raw data for analysis can be a major challenge, especially if you have to get it non-cooperative targets. For information on open sources, the main difficulty is to identify relevant and reliable sources in the considerable amount of information publicly available. Obtaining the information itself is comparatively easier since it is, by definition, publicly available. Technically, unclassified information is not the classification of information, but this level is used for government documents whose sensitivity level does not match one of the classified or open source information. These documents can be read without specific authorization.

Discussion and Analysis

National systems articulating the relationship between intelligence from military or police, criminal police, and justice are heterogeneous and depend on the history of each country. The seniority of its democracy, relations between executive, legislative and judicial branches, how to conduct the investigation and rules of procedure in court, the autonomy (or not) granted by the politicians to the police, and services military intelligence. It also adds the presence or absence of a national intelligence services doing work, and used to working internationally with their counterparts.

The terms of democratic control over the activities of intelligence services also vary greatly. These terms are often ...