Within the national Intelligence Community what are the primary legal restrictions to comprehensive integration? For example, can federal law enforcement share criminal information with the DoD? Use outside sources in developing your response. Additionally, what ethical concerns confront an analyst in the modern joint/inter-agency era.
Several primary legal restrictions hinder comprehensive integration of the Intelligence Community (IC). After the 9/11 terror attack, the Intelligence Community has been keen in reordering its key priority areas and refocusing on the best methods to handle intelligence matters.
It is not erroneous for members of the public to anticipate a lot from the Intelligence Community. According to Pfaff and Tiel, “governments likewise have duties to their citizens, one of which is a duty to be prepared to defend the rights of their citizens” (2006, 4). The Congress is also demanding change as the media continue to criticize the performance of the whole IC team.
As much as the IC has been labeled as an effective team, the existing legal barriers should be blamed. The importance of sharing intelligence information is duly recognized by intelligence organizations and law enforcement agencies. Nonetheless, the current artificial and legal boundaries are major setbacks.
Conventionally, external intentions and capabilities are supposed to be gauged by professionals in the Intelligence Community (Bellaby 2012, 98). On the other hand, domestic prosecution should be supported by information gathered via law enforcement organizations.
However, surveillance of Americans is against the law according to the constitution’s Fourth Amendment. In addition, the domestic law enforcement agencies are not supposed to receive intelligence information from foreign sources according to directives and regulations. The capability of the US to fight terrorism is inhibited by poor integration between local communities, state and federal governments.
It is indeed factual that there is need for the Department of Defense to share criminal information with the federal law enforcement agencies. However, this is not the case owing to current legal restrictions. Some improvements are already underway to ensure seamless integration among agencies. For instance, “the establishment of an intelligence fusion center would give the President and Director of OHS the tools needed to fuse intelligence gathering and analysis at the federal level” (Bellaby 2012, 98). This will be a major step in the right direction towards comprehensive integration.
Although there is a lot of hope bestowed at the fusion center, some intelligence pundits argue that it will partially solve the current challenges being faced by the Intelligence Community. When the Homeland Security’s office was established, it managed to function well owing to an executive order. The intelligence fusion center can hardly fulfill all the objectives of this directive (Office of the director of National Intelligence 2007, 8).
Effective sharing of criminal information is still a dream pipe. The local, state and federal organs are actually supposed to work as a single streamlined unit even though the situation on the ground does not allow such a working scenario. Unless vertical barriers that impede integration are completely eliminated, information sharing between agencies will take a long time to come into effect.
Needless to say, information sharing should take place both horizontally and vertically in order to accomplish the process of integration (Office of the director of National Intelligence 2007, 7). Another hindrance towards integration was witnessed back in the year 2000 when some police officers were threatened by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Some police officers attempted to offer assistance in the investigation surrounding 9/11 hijackers. It can be recalled that the same FBI agency has always pronounced its support for police personnel to assist in matters related to homeland security. It is a paradox to learn that an agency like FBI can impede the process of information sharing.
References
Bellaby, Ross. 2012. “What’s the Harm? The Ethics of Intelligence Collection.” Intelligence and National Security 27, no. 1: 93-117.
Office of the director of National Intelligence. 2007. “Intelligence Community Directive Number 200”. Management, Integration and Oversight of Intelligence Community Analysis. Web.
Pfaff, Tony, and Jeffrey Tiel. 2006. “The ethics of espionage.” Journal of Military Ethics 3, no. 1: 1-15.