The United States Intelligence Community was formed in 1981, and it currently consists of sixteen government agencies that collaborate to facilitate national security and manage international relations in which the U.S. is involved (Nerneth 117). Particularly, the measures taken to prevent and address the incidences of terrorism, maintain the homeland security levels high, and promote the development of state intelligence need to be listed among the primary areas of concern of the organization. Even though at present, the U.S. Intelligence Community is funded extensively by both private and public organizations, the effects that the private sector has on USIC is considerably greater than that one of the public ones (Neef 230). As a result, the private sector allows USIC to explore its potential fully. Nevertheless, the number of extraneous factors that affect the identified cooperation negatively is very large. For instance, the gravity of the disruptive technology deserves to be mentioned among the primary reasons for concern. Unless private organizations design and use the tools that will allow them to receive the relevant information faster than any third party does, the threat to the well-being of the U.S. citizens will be imminent (Lewis 70).
One must admit that the idea of expanding the role of the private sector in the development of the USIC and the further improvement of its services have great potential that must not be squandered. Therefore, it is imperative to make sure that USIC should take every possible opportunity offered by collaboration with private companies. Therefore, the prevention of the issues associated with the lack of control over the data that can be retrieved with the help of innovative technologies, primarily, with drones and digital media tools, should be viewed as the primary area of concern at present (Kraft and Marks 161). The disruptive technology that helps gather the necessary data and evidence within a relatively short amount of time and transfer it to the parties involved immediately clearly needs to be controlled tighter by the USIC. However, being one step ahead in the application of innovative technologies, especially in the era of IT innovations, clearly is a challenging task even for the respective private organizations. The identified factor can be considered the primary area of concern as it may impede the successful development of relationships between the USIC and the companies operating in the private sector (Hathaway 11).
It should be noted, though, that the specified issue can be handled by focusing on the change in legal regulations as the means of controlling the effects of disruptive technology on the levels of security in the U.S. For instance, the idea of licensing drones should be listed among the primary tools for addressing the technology issue. As long as the regulations allowing for tighter control over data acquisition, processing, and retrieval with the help of innovative technology are established, the threat to the community will be minimized, and the USIC will be capable of securing the well-being of American citizens (Duyvesteyn et al. 39).
Therefore, even though the collaboration between the USIC and private companies has been in existence for quite a while, new challenges lie ahead. The technological progress and its toll on the levels of security should be viewed as one of the factors that may affect the security levels negatively. Consequently, new and improved strategies must be incorporated into the process of data management carried out by both USIC and the private organizations with which it collaborates.
Works Cited
Duyvesteyn, Isabelle, et al. The Future of Intelligence: Challenges in the 21st Century. Routledge, 2014.
Hathaway, Maria. Best Practices in Computer Network Defense: Incident Detection and Response. IOS Press, 2015.
Kraft, Michael, and Edward Marks. U.S. Government Counterterrorism: A Guide to Who Does What. CRC Press, 2016.
Lewis, Ted G. Critical Infrastructure Protection in Homeland Security: Defending a Networked Nation. John Wiley & Sons, 2014.
Neef, Dale. Digital Exhaust: What Everyone Should Know About Big Data, Digitization and Digitally Driven Innovation. Pearson Education, 2014.
Nerneth, Charles R. Homeland Security: An Introduction to Principles and Practice. CRC Press, 2016.