AFCEA’s Professional Development Center (PDC) and the Intelligence & Security Academy, LLC have entered into a strategic relationship based on the highly complementary nature of their respective course offerings.  We are pleased to announce that the Intelligence & Security Academy is an AFCEA Preferred Provider in Education & Training.

The PDC is part of the AFCEA Educational Foundation and offers courses on a wide range of topics that support AFCEA International’s guiding vision to advance knowledge in the fields of communications, information technology, intelligence and global security.  The Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to providing educational incentives, opportunities and assistance for people engaged in information management, communications and intelligence efforts and fostering excellence in education particularly in the “hard science” disciplines related to C4ISR.  The Foundation offers a range of scholarships, fellowships and grants and actively promotes opportunities for persons from groups under-represented in its fields of interests.

The Intelligence & Security Academy^® is one of the leading providers of courses on intelligence – the role of the Intelligence Community, introduction to analysis, the intelligence budget process, and many others – and a wide range of national security topics, including cyber, homeland security, and counter-terrorism finance, among others.  Since 1999, the Intelligence & Security Academy^® has taught courses in almost every agency of the U.S. Intelligence Community and in each of the military services.  The Academy teaches across the United States and overseas.  These courses are offered on a client basis and twice a year there are courses open to individual enrollment in its Open IntellAcademy^®.  All Intelligence & Security Academy^® courses are overseen by Dr. Mark M. Lowenthal, former Assistant DCI for Analysis & Production; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence; and Staff Director, House Intelligence Committee.  Dr. Lowenthal is the author of the standard college textbook on intelligence, Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy, (4^th ed, 2009).   Dr. Lowenthal is the course coordinator for the PDC’s popular course The U.S. Intelligence Community: Who Does What, With What, For What?

By marketing its courses together the AFCEA PDC and the Intelligence & Security Academy^® can offer their respective communities, clients and AFCEA members a much wider range of successful and proven course offerings from highly technical courses to broader policy courses.  AFCEA members will receive a 10% discount on all Open IntellAcademy^® courses.   AFCEA PDC and the Intelligence & Security Academy^® courses are all taught by highly experienced practitioners, each of whom typically has over 25 years of experience in their subject.

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Host Debra Roth explores these questions from different perspectives with Mark Lowenthal, President and CEO of The Intelligence and Security Academy, Richard Wilhelm , Executive Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton, and Jason Collins of the FBI Intelligence Analysts Association.

Listen to the interview here!

The successful operation that eliminated Osama bin Laden has been widely praised for bringing together a vast array of intelligence resources to meet a single vital goal. This success highlights the need for robust congressional oversight to ensure that we learn from our successes, just as much as we need to learn from the past failures that gave rise to modern congressional intelligence oversight.

There is tension between our open society and the need for intelligence. The American people demand transparency in their institutions. Yet secrecy is critical to the work of gathering intelligence and protecting the country. By providing strong and effective oversight, the congressional intelligence committees act as the trustees of all Americans.

That strong and effective oversight is difficult, if not impossible, without an annual intelligence authorization bill. Congress must get back in the habit of passing that bill every year — and that needs to start now, with the 2011 bill.

The oversight committees were created in the 1970s, in the aftermath of a series of troubling revelations about intelligence activities — ranging from covert programs to assassinate foreign leaders to collecting information about the political activities of U.S. citizens. After these scandals, Congress and the American people lost confidence in our intelligence community and in the previous congressional oversight system.

The House and Senate intelligence committees were created to rebuild that trust. They now must take on an equally strong role to reinforce our reinvigorated operations.

With their unique access to some of the most sensitive activities in our government, these committees have multiple roles. They are watchdogs, making sure past abuses do not recur. Just as important, the committees work to ensure our intelligence agencies do everything they can to protect us and spend the taxpayer dollars in their classified budgets wisely.

The annual intelligence authorization bill is the committees’ most important tool for conducting meaningful oversight of the intelligence community’s sensitive activities on behalf of the American people. It provides a unique opportunity to review and to make changes in the spending plans and activities of all U.S. intelligence.

The bill is the essence of the “power of the purse” that Congress uses as a check and balance on executive power. Unfortunately, from 2005 until 2010, Congress failed to pass an intelligence authorization bill.

To be sure, the intelligence agencies still received their funding from Congress, via the annual appropriations bill but without the policy guidance and oversight that come in the intelligence authorization bill — essentially, money with no strings attached.

Every year that Congress failed to pass the annual intelligence authorization bill, the intelligence committees’ authority diminished and intelligence oversight suffered. This lapse came at the worst possible time. The 9/11 Commission’s report, while noting the importance of congressional intelligence oversight, described it as “dysfunctional.”

In the 2004 intelligence reform bill, Congress made comprehensive, historic changes, including the creation of the director of national intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center. But it then failed to pass an intelligence authorization bill for six more years.

The DNI and NCTC are large organizations with complicated jurisdictions and legal authorities. As with any new government agency, Congress should have weighed in to adjust the law governing those authorities — as inevitable unanticipated conflicts and challenges arose during implementation.

Instead, the DNI, the NCTC and the rest of the intelligence community have been muddling through with informal accommodations and arrangements. The result was less than ideal.

Congress can’t leave six-year gaps if the law is to keep pace with new threats and changes in technology. Reviewing intelligence performance on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, the Robb-Silberman Commission noted that meaningful intelligence reform to reduce the likelihood of similar intelligence failures requires sustained oversight from outside observers — like the congressional intelligence committees.

The committees also must identify what went well, like the bin Laden operation — and ensure that we can repeat those successes. The intelligence community must keep pace with the ever-changing threats and challenges to our national security.

In the middle of fast-moving events, it is sometimes difficult to step back and look at the larger intelligence program or to give some thought to where we want intelligence to be several years from now. Taking this broader and longer look is one basic function of the annual intelligence authorization bills.

An annual intelligence bill is all the more important as we enter a period of fiscal austerity. The intelligence committees, which are Congress’s experts on intelligence, must play the leading role to ensure that budget cuts do not endanger our intelligence mission.

Congress should have completed its 2011 authorization bill last year. And because there are only six months left in the 2011 fiscal year, some argue that Congress should focus on the 2012 bill instead. This is misguided. Congressional oversight of intelligence cannot wait another six months.

With the 2011 bill coming to the House floor Thursday, Congress has a chance to get the annual congressional intelligence authorization process back on track. We must pass that bill through the House and Senate and get it to President Barack Obama’s desk for signature — and get back in the habit of doing it every year. We can’t go another year without an intelligence bill.

Mark M. Lowenthal served as staff director of the House intelligence committee and as an assistant director of central intelligence. He is now president of the Intelligence & Security Academy, which provides education and training for intelligence and national security issues.

By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus will be taking on familiar challenges when he arrives at the Central Intelligence Agency this summer: the terrorist threat from Yemen and Pakistan; the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan; the Arab uprisings and their uncertain outcomes.

Those are among the C.I.A.’s major preoccupations, and they are what General Petraeus has lived and breathed in his last three jobs, first as commander in Iraq, then overseeing all of the Middle East and South Asia as head of Central Command, and finally as commander in Afghanistan. He knows military, intelligence and political leaders across the swath of the world that most worries the Obama administration. He has long been a voracious consumer of C.I.A. intelligence.

But in the four decades since he entered West Point, General Petraeus, 58, has thrived in the singular world of the American military. At the civilian intelligence agency, the four-star general will find a far less deferential culture, a traditional resentment of the Pentagon and a history of making trouble for directors who do not pay sufficient respect to local folkways.

“One thing he’ll find is C.I.A. doesn’t do the hierarchy thing very well at all,” said Michael V. Hayden, C.I.A. director from 2006 to 2009. “That’ll be a bit of an adjustment.”

Mr. Hayden should know; he arrived at the agency’s helm as a four-star Air Force general, retiring from the military in 2008. He said General Petraeus, who is also expected to give up his uniform, would find “a familiar values system,” including an emphasis on loyalty and service. But C.I.A. officers, including the free spirits of the clandestine service and the more bookish analysts, are more willing than military officers to challenge their bosses, Mr. Hayden said.

“On the analytic side, everyone thinks they are tenured faculty,” he said.

Mark M. Lowenthal, a former assistant director of the C.I.A., said that the agency “doesn’t really like having a military officer in charge,” and that Mr. Hayden got a pass because he was a career intelligence officer, unlike General Petraeus. A key issue will be whether the new director arrives with a substantial entourage, Mr. Lowenthal said.

“If he comes in with a lot of his own people, it will put the agency on edge,” he said. Mr. Hayden brought a single military aide and is generally viewed as having been successful in winning over the workforce. His predecessor, Porter J. Goss, a former member of Congress, installed his Capitol Hill staff in high-level positions at the agency and had a rougher tenure.

One area of potential conflict: C.I.A. analysts have generally taken a far more pessimistic view of the American-led war effort in Afghanistan than has General Petraeus. Entering his new job as American troops begin heading home, he will become the boss of analysts who have been skeptical of his assertions about the success of the counterinsurgency strategy he has championed.

But General Petraeus, who holds a Ph.D. in international relations from Princeton, has a reputation for negotiating Washington’s political currents with skill, courting Congress and the news media, and thriving under two very different presidents. His wife, Holly, recently began work at the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, overseeing efforts to prevent exploitation of military service members and their families.

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 2, 2010; 8:55 PM

NEW ORLEANS – Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. said Tuesday that he has won a “conceptual agreement” to remove the $53 billion national intelligence budget from Pentagon control and place it under his purview by 2013, as part of an effort to enhance his authority over the U.S. intelligence community.

“To me, it’s a win-win,” he told an audience at the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation conference here. Clapper’s deal with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would take “$50 billion off the top line” of the Pentagon budget and give the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) “more authority and oversight” of the budget. The $27 billion military intelligence budget would remain under the Defense Department, Clapper said.

Proponents of intelligence reform have complained that Congress did not give the ODNI enough control over spending and other levers of power. Officials said placing the national intelligence budget under Clapper’s control would make it easier for him to ensure that funds are being spent in accordance with presidential and congressional priorities.

But one congressional aide urged caution. “This is an issue that does not involve only the executive branch,” said the aide, who works for the Senate Armed Services Committee, which authorizes the money in the intelligence budget.

Clapper, in an interview after his remarks, said the move would not change anything “in the oversight” relationships with Congress but would give him administrative control over the national intelligence budget, which includes money for the CIA and the National Security Agency.

“Historically, the national intelligence budget has been buried in the defense budget for security reasons,” he said, referring to the practice of keeping secret the size of the intelligence budget.

Now that the intelligence budget top lines – both military and non-military – are public this year for the first time, that is no longer necessary, he said, adding that the details will still be classified.

The move would mean “we don’t have to go through the [military] services to find someplace on the DOD tree to hang money in order to give it to an intelligence agency,” Clapper said. The change would bring more internal “transparency” to the budget so he can more easily see where money is, he said.

Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior CIA official and former staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, said the move would increase Clapper’s authority over the intelligence budget.

“If it’s in the defense budget, he doesn’t have total control over it,” Lowenthal said, because defense officials can say, “Please find somewhere else to hide your money.” Now that there is no need to hide the top-line number inside the defense budget, he said, the lines of authority can be clear. “The national intelligence budget belongs at the DNI, and there’s no question about it.”

The CIA referred questions about the budget change to Clapper’s office.

Clapper told the audience he was consolidating the traditionally separate collection and analysis missions under one deputy, Robert Cardillo.

With his trademark wry humor, he also said he is bringing back “a certain unnamed intelligence officer from Afghanistan” who wrote a report critical of intelligence gathering there; this officer will help improve intelligence sharing among federal agencies and with state and local agencies. “Hey buddy,” Clapper quipped, “you can help me fix it.” The “buddy” is Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who wrote his report for the Center for a New American Security. He will become an assistant director at the ODNI.

Clapper said he is collapsing the roles of national intelligence officers and mission managers under “a single template” to eliminate duplication. There will be 14 or 20 intelligence managers who will be responsible for regional or subject areas, including a new national intelligence manager for cyber-security to “clarify” the intelligence community’s role. “I do not believe that the intelligence community is responsible for cyber-security of all the country,” Clapper said.

Lowenthal said Clapper is “trying to slim things down” at the ODNI. “There’s a lot of unnecessary clutter,” he said.

The moves amount to “tweaks” of his office, said Clapper, who is known for restructuring agencies. “I don’t do reorganizations anymore,” he said. “I do tweaks.”

A Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee most likely means battles over priorities set early in the Obama administration.

Within two days of taking office, Obama announced his plans to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center, move most of the suspected terrorists to the United States for trials in civilian courts and severely restrict the CIA’s interrogation and detention program. Those decisions did not sit well with Republicans.

While it is still unclear who will be the next chair of the intelligence committee since the current ranking Republican is retiring from Congress, the two likely candidates have been firmly opposed to many of the administration’s terrorism-related policies.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the outspoken ranking Republican on the committee who never lost an opportunity to slam those policies, is leaving Congress. His replacement is up to Rep. John Boehner, who’s expected to become the next House speaker. Current and former intelligence officials believe Rep. William “Mac” Thornberry of Texas and Rep. Michael Rogers from Michigan are the two front-runners.

One former intelligence official believes Rogers might have the upper hand, because he is believed to have a better relationship with Boehner.

Thornberry has questioned the decision to limit CIA interrogation techniques to those in the Army Field Manual.

“Terrorists know what those methods are and know they have little to worry about,” he has said.

Rogers doesn’t mince his words either when it comes to challenging the president. He doesn’t think the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility should be closed. Rogers wants suspected terrorists to be considered enemy combatants, who would not be protected by Miranda rights and would be put on trial before military tribunals.

Rogers has accused the administration of treating terrorism as “lawfare” instead of warfare.

“We do not need Eliot Ness on the battlefield; what we need is Gen. George S. Patton,” said the lawmaker.

A former House Intelligence staff director, who also worked at the CIA, says ranting about Gitmo and detention policies is not productive because those issues are now on the back burner.

“A lot of the things that President Obama was adamant about while campaigning have dropped off the charts,” said Mark Lowenthal, adding that, “Gitmo isn’t closing anytime soon and they haven’t figured out how to do trials yet.”

“The Obama administration has stepped back from a lot of their earlier positions on intelligence,” Lowenthal said in an interview.

He maintains that the critical issues for the new chairman will be passing an intelligence authorization bill each year, something that has been done only once in the past six years.

“That’s their main function and I think they have lost sight of that over the past several years,” said the former staff director.

Lowenthal also believes the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee will have a lot of independence.

“The choice of the chairman in this case will matter, because the speaker will be much busier on the economy, what he wants to do about health care, things like that.”

No matter what course Thornberry or Rogers would pursue, nothing concrete will happen unless their Senate counterparts are on the same page. Unlike its House counterpart, the Senate Intelligence Committee tends to be far more bipartisan.

However, ranking Republican Kit Bond, who had a very good working relationship with committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, is retiring from the Senate. There’s no front-runner to fill his shoes and Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell has not indicated who he intends to appoint to the position.

That could ultimately impact how unified the committee remains. But as Lowenthal points out, the Democrats had trouble reaching consensus on intelligence legislation even when they controlled both committees.

“There is a chance here to be on a more cooperative basis. When both sides were held by Democrats, it wasn’t working,” said Lowenthal.

“It shows a refreshingly new way of thinking about what this job is about,” said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior CIA official. “I’m upbeat about this job for the first time since it was created. It’s our last chance to get it right.”

Clapper also took note of what he called in his presentation the “we-be” factor, the notion that there will always be “a cadre of people whose attitude is, ‘We be here when you show up, and we be here when you leave,’ ” Lowenthal said.

“He has no power, no leverage. He can’t make anything happen. He doesn’t control anything of significance in the [intelligence] community,” says Mark Lowenthal, former deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence and president of the Intelligence and Security Academy.

“He is just there to try and get people to listen to him and co-ordinate. He can’t. I think we have proved that to everyone’s satisfaction.”

…

There is a case for returning to the structure that existed before Mr Blair’s post was created, Mr Lowenthal suggests.

Then the job of co-ordinating the intelligence community fell to the director of central intelligence, who also ran the CIA.

“It worked better when the DCI [had the role]. He knew the analysts that produced the papers,” says Mr Lowenthal, who was assistant DCI for analysis.

…

But is there an argument that – in the absence of major bomb attacks – US intelligence is actually performing fairly well?

“We have been very successful,” says Mr Lowenthal. “The fact they are attacking in ones is a sign of success. The unspoken standard is perfection.”

Mark Lowenthal, an intelligence veteran, views Blair’s departure as a wake-up call. “We can’t tinker around the edges anymore,” he said. “I think it’s time for a brutally honest conversation about whether the job is working — not just make marginal fixes and try to muddle through.”

“The job is not built for success,” said Mark Lowenthal, who was staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

“You’ve had three high-powered, highly intelligent individuals in that job, and you’ve had three of them in five years, and now we’re about to have a fourth one? That strongly suggests there’s something wrong with that job,” said Lowenthal, who also served as an assistant director of central intelligence and vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council. “The DNI is given a great deal of responsibility and very little authority to make it happen.”