Inside the IC

The intelligence community has laid out new priorities for the cloud, AI, cybersecurity and more in a new "Information Technology Roadmap" released in late May. The IC's Chief Information Officer, Adele Merritt, joined the show to explain the goals of the new strategy. "This roadmap really provides a unified vision for where the IC needs to go over the next five years," Merritt told me.

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On the heels of a new intelligence community-wide open-source intelligence strategy . . . the State Department now has its own OSINT strategy. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) uses OSINT to inform U.S. diplomacy, a unique role in the intelligence community. And one of the big goals of the new strategy is to better serve U.S. diplomats across the world by generating more unclassified assessments.

I spoke with Brett Holmgren, assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, about the goals of the new strategy and what INR will be doing to better serve U.S. diplomats using OSINT.

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Leaders of top U.S. intelligence agencies have signed onto a plan to centralize and take better advantage of open source intelligence, or OSINT. The new OSINT strategy aims to make open-source an “the INT of first resort.” Those words, in the title of the strategy, are a tacit recognition that spy agencies have traditionally favored gaining intelligence from highly secretive sources – human intelligence, spy satellites, and electronic signals – rather than open-source data. 

I spoke with Jason Barrett, the open-source intelligence executive at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and Randy Nixon, the director of the open source enterprise within the CIA's Directorate of Digital Innovation, about the strategy's goals. They include centralizing OSINT data across the IC, cultivating a world-class OSINT workforce, and harnessing new AI and machine learning tools.

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Women make up about 40% of the intelligence community's workforce, a percentage that ranks behind both federal workforce and civilian labor benchmarks. That's according to the latest demographics report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And women are even more underrepresented in the leadership ranks throughout the IC.

But agencies aren't ignoring the issue. The National Security Agency's "Future Ready Workforce" initiative has already led to several changes that will likely make the NSA a more attractive employer for all employees, including women. And NSA leaders are also investing in education and other programs that encourage girls to get involved in STEM.

I spoke with three women leaders at the NSA about the past, present and future for women at the agency. They are Morgan Adamski, chief of the NSA's Cybersecurity Collaboration Center; Kristina Walter, director of the NSA's Future Ready Workforce Initiative; and Tahira Mammen, acting director of the AI Security Center, which is housed within the Cybersecurity Collaboration Center.

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The Standard Form-86, a long-used questionnaire for government positions requiring security clearance, is set to be phased out after the White House Office of Management and Budget approved a new form replacing the SF-86 and several other legacy forms.

I spoke with John Berry, a security clearance attorney at Berry and Berry PLLC law firm, about some of the big changes new "Personnel Vetting Questionnaire," including questions around marijuana use, mental health history, and foreign connections.

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The Defense Intelligence Agency runs the federal government's top-secret IT network. DIA is in the middle of a major modernization of that network. And in addition to running new routers and switches, DIA also wants to upgrade to more network automation and help lay the groundwork for the intelligence community to leverage AI. Cybersecurity is also essential, both to defend against outside hackers and prevent insider threats. For the latest, I spoke with DIA Chief Information Officer Doug Cossa.

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More than three years ago, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency launched a “neurodiversity” hiring pilot program. The idea was to make it easier to recruit individuals with differences in brain functioning, such as people with autism, who could contribute to the mission, but may have difficulty navigating the traditional hiring process and workplace environment. Now, NGA is looking to build off its initial pilot program with a broader effort. For the latest, I spoke with Jen King, a senior GEOINT analyst and program manager for the neurodiversity program at NGA. 

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Gen Z , or those born between the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s , will likely comprise at least one-quarter of the global workforce by 2025. In order to tap into that younger generation of talent, U.S. intelligence agencies are trying to be more flexible with their hiring and retention practices.

For an in-depth discussion on the IC’s workforce strategies, I spoke with Cynthia Snyder, the assistant director of national intelligence for human capital.

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The vast majority of employees across the intelligence community work out of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, or "SCIFs." These are essentially highly protected office spaces with restrictive rules, including a ban on cell phones and other devices. The Intelligence and National Security Agency's latest white paper, "Reimagining the SCIF Life," considers how spy agencies could make life inside a SCIF a little bit better, while also giving employees more flexibility in terms of when they need to work out of a SCIF. Here's a link to the white paper: https://www.insaonline.org/docs/default-source/uploadedfiles/2023/insa-reimagining-the-scif-life.pdf

For more on the recommendations, I spoke with INSA's Executive Vice President John Doyon.

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The Army is making a strong push into open source intelligence. Earlier this year, the Army published its first OSINT strategy. The service's goal is to "professionalize" its OSINT workforce and use OSINT as an intelligence discipline "of first resort," Lt. Gen. Laura Potter, the Army's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, tells me in this week's show. Also joining the show is Dennis Eger, the Army's senior open source intelligence advisor.

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