Expertise is Where You Find It

Steven Aftergood’s Secrecy News recently posted about a new intelligence community directive that, on the surface at least, sounds like a good idea. Whether it will actually accomplish anything is quite another matter…

Basically, in a nutshell, the Director of National Intelligence has encouraged members of the intelligence community to “cultivate” relationships with subject matter experts outside the intelligence community. Labeled as “analytic outreach”, the idea seems sound - get fresh perspectives, so to speak, from outside the traditional confines of the intelligence community. Needless to say, this already happens - just not as often as it should. That analysts are being encouraged to develop relationships with sources outside the beltway is good, sure.

But, as Aftergood notes, the whole thing is saddled with restrictions and prohibitions, chief among them being that - in a culture which thrives on classification, and overclassification - sensitive matters can’t be disclosed to experts without the proper clearances. Sure, this is important - but something I’ve noticed over the years is that a lot of “information” gets classified which, to be quite honest, is common knowledge, if only to - wait for it - subject matter experts. This creates a horrible Catch-22: the analyst can’t consult the expert about things the expert is an expert on, because the subject - or some few things relating to the subject - are classified, however arbitrarily or unnecessarily. To be fair, some things - like “sources and means of collection” - should be protected, without doubt. But it’s really amazing - in a sad way - how many things that are “reasonable assumptions” or can be “logically inferred” get classified for no very good reason (”Yes, I can tell you that the new missile has a maximum range of 900 metres, and yes, I can tell you that its maximum flight time is twelve seconds, but, no I can’t tell you it’s speed - that’s classified“), and there seems to be no end to the “Nobody I talked to knew such-and-such, so it must be secret” syndrome. Still, it seems like analysts are being ordered to actively pursue goals that they can only partially achieve, which is dumb.

What I’m also kind of surprised about is that the instructions - as far as I can tell, anyway - don’t include any sort of instructions with regard to protecting the identity of experts called upon by analysts. If an expert with no special access to classified information provides useful input to an analyst, is the identity of the expert eligible for protection as a “source”? Obviously, they can’t be completely anonymous - identity and reputation being important to ones credibility - but I can easily see how a lot of folks would be less than completely willing to provide assistance if knowledge of their cooperation were to get out…

It’s a good start, no doubt about it - and one that’s long overdue. Only in a couple years, though, will anyone be able to measure the true effectiveness of it.

What worries me, though, is this: The directive applies - obviously - to the national intelligence community. The law enforcement intelligence community, however, lags decades behind, yet they are the ones who could make most use of experts beyond the “usual suspects” in law-enforcement circles. The Department of Justice (among others) have been pushing reforms in information-sharing (”fusion centers”, joint task forces, et cetera) but have so far done little to address reforms in information collection. Law enforcement thrives on intelligence, but many agencies seem stuck in a sort of 1970s, criminal-oriented mindset that is of little use in the rapidly-evolving world of, let’s be honest, post-9/11 domestic security. Too many in law enforcement are willing to break with tradition and look outside their ranks for answers. Yeah, it’s not going to be easy in a world where COINTELPRO is a dirty, dirty word, and where anti-law enforcement sentiments are rampant, but, seriously, intelligence reform in law enforcement is long overdue - and reform, in this case, doesn’t just mean making the FBI (quite reluctantly) share with the “locals”, either…

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