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Intelligence Integration Across the Community
Since 9/11, there has been a lot of discussion about the need for the United States Intelligence Community to change. Remove silos, increase integration and information sharing, and enhance collaboration with state, local and international partners. But just what does that mean?
It means that we are evolving the way we do business to meet the demands of a changing world. This includes ensuring that we do what it takes to recruit and retain our most important assets – the intelligence professionals who keep our nation safe. If reading this grabs your attention, we just may have the job for you.
You wake up in the morning and turn on the news. While you were sleeping, a bomb intended for a senior foreign government official is detected and diffused. UPS operations have ground to a halt throughout the Middle East and Western Europe while the international intelligence community tracks down suspicious packages around the world before the devices reach their intended targets. Several men were arrested while plotting to conduct terrorist attacks in the U.S.
These are all real-world examples that illustrate the results of effective grassroots intelligence collection and analysis paired with high level multi-national interagency collaboration and integration. Thanks to the work of talented and dedicated intelligence professionals around the globe, hundreds of lives were saved.
However, key questions remain even in the aftermath of a successful interdiction. Were these events the acts of lone wolves? Were they part of a larger synchronized campaign by a newly emerging splinter group of known terrorist group? Will there be more attacks? Will the next attacks occur on U.S. soil?
It is crucial to acquire accurate and timely answers to these questions. And it is even more critical to see the bigger picture of what is happening in global terrorism today and tomorrow so we can detect and deter attacks.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), created in April 2005, integrates the efforts of the men and women of the intelligence community’s 17 elements in order to more effectively address the many threats we face from rogue states, terrorist groups, and disenfranchised individuals. The ODNI unifies the way the intelligence community does business. In 2009, the ODNI released the National Intelligence Strategy which puts unprecedented focus on cybersecurity, counterintelligence, and the impact that problems such as pandemic disease, climate events, failed states, and scarce resources have on global stability. It recognizes the role of intelligence in identifying common interests and defusing threats, including those related to energy, trade, drug interdiction, and public health.
Under the guidance of Director James Clapper – a career intelligence professional with over 40 years of experience – the ODNI is transforming and integrating the business practices of the intelligence enterprise. These changes are enabling a more integrated U.S. Intelligence Community whose number one priority is to protect the United States from foreign adversaries.
How, you may ask, does the ODNI improve the nation’s ability to protect its citizens? Director Clapper believes that a skilled and impassioned work force is the most important weapon in the government’s arsenal. The US Intelligence Community is always searching for talented, creative people with passion and dedication to achieving the mission of keeping our nation safe. We employ the skills of new graduates, former members of the U.S. military and professionals in career transition from all disciplines to gain and maintain our strategic advantage. Recruiting people who have expertise in the emerging sphere of cybersecurity, for example, will allow us to leverage cutting edge technology to gain real time access to crucial intelligence data on finances, operations, etc.
There is high demand for wide ranging educational and cultural expertise. There are many exciting opportunities for graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. For those who possess cultural knowledge and foreign language expertise, your skills can provide mission critical support for global operations.
Our enemies work around the clock to adapt to our counterintelligence practices and equipment and to learn how to manipulate emerging technology to facilitate their objectives. At all hours of the day and night, around the globe, our intelligence professionals are collecting, analyzing, synthesizing, and integrating information from all sources. They cross-check newly discovered data with existing knowledge databases, and share and collaborate in real time with their state, local, and national counterparts throughout the world so that we – the American people – can not only live, but live safely.
Will you join us?
Explore IC Careers
Apply to the Intelligence Community agency of your choice for a career within the IC.
Find Jobs
Visit our member agencies’ websites to view current job postings
Helpful Resources & Links
Visit the links below to learn more about the Intelligence Community.
- Director of National Intelligence
- Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
- Download Adobe Acrobat Reader to Read PDF Files
