The intelligence community faces challenges in balancing civil liberties and national security when conducting domestic intelligence activities. They must collect information within the US to counter threats, but do not have a dedicated domestic agency and must preserve citizens' privacy. The Patriot Act expanded agencies' collection authorities after 9/11 but is criticized for potentially violating civil liberties. Intelligence aims to balance security, secrecy and transparency, but achieving the right balance through constant reform is an ongoing challenge.

1. What are some of the challenges the intelligence community
faces in supporting the Homeland Security enterprise (such as
the balance of civil liberties and security)?
Provide evidence from the weekly readings to support your
arguments via APA parenthetical citations.
Other sources (if used at all) must be subordinate to your
understanding of the readings presented in the class.
Instructions: Your initial post should be at least 350 words.
Lesson
Introduction
Earlier in this class, you explored several misperceptions about
the field of intelligence. Movies and popular literature, along
with personal experiences, all contribute to these
misunderstandings.
A final misperception about intelligence is that intelligence is
only gathered on actors outside the borders of the United States.
However, an unfortunate reality is that threats to the United
States do not all originate from outside the nation. In fact, many
threats to this country come from within its borders.
To guard against the full range of threats, the U.S. must engage
in domestic intelligence activities and collect information and
intelligence within the country.
However, unlike many countries around the world, the U.S.
does not have a dedicated domestic intelligence agency and the
many approaches to collection are unique. There is also a strict
need to preserve the civil liberties of United States citizens and
maintain a critical balance between intelligence transparency
and secrecy.
Domestic Intelligence
The United States is very unique in that it does not have a
dedicated agency responsible for domestic intelligence. Instead,
this mission is part of the overall goal of the IC and is
implicitly and explicitly stated in the mission and objectives of
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

2. As you learned in earlier lessons, ODNI was established by the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.
Within that act, very specific authorities were granted to the
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that directly support the
gathering of domestic intelligence (ODNI 2015).
Authority 1
Ensure that timely and objective national intelligence is
provided to the President, the heads of departments and
agencies of the Executive Branch, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff and senior military commanders, and the
Congress.
Authority 2
Establish objectives and priorities for collection, analysis,
production, and dissemination of national intelligence.
Authority 3
Ensure maximum availability of and access to intelligence
information within the Intelligence Community.
Authority 4
Develop and ensure the execution of an annual budget for the
National Intelligence program based on budgetary proposals
provided by IC component organizations.
Authority 5
Oversee coordination of relationships with the intelligence or
security services of foreign governments and international
organizations.
Authority 6
Ensure the most accurate analysis of intelligence is derived
from all sources to support national security needs.
Authority 7
Develop personnel policies and programs to enhance the
capacity for joint operations and to facilitate staffing of
community management functions.
Authority 8
Oversee the development and implementation of a program
management plan for acquisition of major systems, doing so

3. jointly with the Secretary of Defense for DOD programs, that
includes cost, schedule, and performance goals and program
milestone criteria.
Patriot Act
Within the IC, the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) is the
federal agency primarily responsible for domestic intelligence.
However, that is not to say the the Department of Homeland
Security does not play a critical role in collections and overall
intelligence activities, as well.
In fact, to help bolster all agency’s abilities to collect and
coordinate domestic intelligence, President George W. Bush
signed into law the Uniting and Strengthening America by
Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct
Terrorism Act of 2001, better know as the USA Patriot Act.
This act has been, and remains, the subject of intense criticism,
especially for specific provisions that allow for the collection of
phone and business records. This Act has been accused of being
unconstitutional and many groups very publicly demand
reforms. While the act has been reauthorized, it is not for an
indefinite period of time. The USA Patriot Act continues to be
reviewed, debated and evaluated for infringements of U.S.
citizens civil liberties.
Civil Liberties
First, it is important to clarify exactly what is meant by civil
liberties. In the United States, civil liberties are the basic rights
and freedoms as expressed, directly or indirectly, in the Bill of
Rights and the Constitution. Some civil rights have evolved or
have been interpreted for exact meaning though court decision
and other legislative bodies. In the context of intelligence, the
basic civil liberties that are discussed are typically those
associated with the right to privacy.
The IC tries to aggressively balance their activities and
American civil liberties. All individuals that work as
professionals in the intelligence community are required to take
an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United
States. The National Intelligence Strategy of the United States

4. includes the following quote, “The Intelligence Community
must exemplify American values operating under the rule of
law, consistent with Americans expectations for protection of
privacy and civil liberties, respectful of human rights, and in a
manner that retains the trust of the American people“ (ODNI
2015).
Also, several federal departments, such as DHS and DOJ have
offices dedicated to the protection of civil liberties during the
execution of departmental missions. Additionally, the Civil
Liberties and Privacy Office (CLPO) of ODNI performs this
function for the entire IC.
The Concepts of Intelligence Secrecy and Transparency
The debate between the need for transparency and secrecy
regarding various types of government activities is not a new
discussion. However, this debate is most frequently associated
with the intelligence field. Early in the nation’s history, most
intelligence activities were primarily focused on foreign
military capabilities and as such received really no domestic
attention.
However, as intelligence budgets grew, a more formalized and
robust IC structure was put in place and the need to conduct
aggressive domestic intelligence operations materialized, a
demand for simultaneous secrecy and transparency occurred.
With rare exception, the desire for secrecy comes from the
agencies and departments responsible for U.S. intelligence
activities, while the demand for transparency comes from the
American public, who are often shielded from the details of
such activities. This is not an easy balance. The questions at the
crux of this debate are: How much can realistically be shared
with the public without compromising the security of the U.S
and conversely how can the ethical implications be monitored if
information about such activates isn’t shared?
The last several weeks have seen a series of reckless disclosures
of classified information about intelligence activities. These
disclosures threaten to cause long-lasting and irreversible harm
to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing

5. our Nation. And because the disclosures were made by people
who did not fully understand what they were talking about, they
were sensationalized and led to mistaken and misleading
impressions. I hope to be able to correct some of these
misimpressions today.
My speech today is prompted by disclosures about two
programs that collect valuable foreign intelligence that has
protected our Nation and its allies: the bulk collection of
telephony metadata, and the so-called “PRISM” program. Some
people claim that these disclosures were a form of
“whistleblowing.” But let’s be clear. These programs are not
illegal. They are authorized by Congress and are carefully
overseen by the Congressional intelligence and judiciary
committees. They are conducted with the approval of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and under its
supervision. And they are subject to extensive, court-ordered
oversight by the Executive Branch. In short, all three branches
of Government knew about these programs, approved them, and
helped to ensure that they complied with the law. Only time will
tell the full extent of the damage caused by the unlawful
disclosures of these lawful programs.
Nevertheless, I fully appreciate that it’s not enough for us
simply to assert that our activities are consistent with the letter
of the law. Our Government’s activities must always reflect and
reinforce our core democratic values. Those of us who work in
the intelligence profession share these values, including the
importance of privacy. But security and privacy are not zero-
sum. We have an obligation to give full meaning to both: to
protect security while at the same time protecting privacy and
other constitutional rights. But although our values are
enduring, the manner in which our activities reflect those values
must necessarily adapt to changing societal expectations and
norms. Thus, the Intelligence Community continually evaluates
and improves the safeguards we have in place to protect
privacy, while at the same time ensuring that we can carry out
our mission of protecting national security.

6. Secrecy
This fact is simple: Intelligence agencies simply cannot
function without secrecy. Secrecy is at the very heart of what
they do and how they protect and ensure the security of the
United States. It would be impossible to make all the IC
techniques and intelligence transparent because doing so would
render the information useless. However, there must be a
balance with transparency because the IC must be accountable
for their actions and the commitment to an ethical standard.
Among the many types of information that are classified by the
government in the name of national security, it is possible to
distinguish three general categories: genuine national security
secrecy, political secrecy, and bureaucratic secrecy.
Genuine national security secrecy pertains to that body of
information which, if disclosed, could actually damage national
security in some identifiable way. Of course, this begs the
crucial questions of what "national security" is, what constitutes
"damage" and how the meaning of these terms may change over
time. Without attempting to conclusively define national
security-- a worthy subject for a separate examination--
common sense suggests that this category would include things
like design details for weapons of mass destruction and other
advanced military technologies, as well as those types of
information that must remain secret in order for authorized
diplomatic and intelligence functions to be performed. The
sensitivity of this kind of information is the reason we have a
secrecy system in the first place, and when it is working
properly this system positively serves the public interest.
The second category is political secrecy, which refers to the
deliberate and conscious abuse of classification authority for
political advantage, irrespective of any threat to the national
security. This is the smallest of the three categories but it is
also the most dangerous to the political health of the nation.
Perhaps the most extreme example of political secrecy in
intelligence historically was the classification of CIA behavior
modification experiments on unknowing human subjects, as in

7. the MKULTRA program. To guarantee the permanent secrecy of
this activity, most MKULTRA records were destroyed in the
early 1970s, although the CIA continues to classify many such
records today.2 But this category also includes more petty
abuses like the classification of the intelligence budget, which
serves to limit official public discussion of intelligence
priorities and performance, but does nothing to enhance the
security of Americans.
The third category is what may be called bureaucratic secrecy.
This has to do with the tendency of all organizations to limit the
information that they release to outsiders so as to control
perceptions of the organization, as classically described by Max
Weber. Bureaucratic secrecy appears to be the predominant
factor in current classification practice, accounting for the
majority of the billions of pages of classified records
throughout the government.
Last year, for example, the Central Intelligence Agency
specifically denied a Freedom of Information Act request from
the Federation of American Scientists for intelligence budget
information dating back to 1947. Whatever the term "damage to
national security" might mean, no sane person would argue that
fifty year old budget numbers could damage national security
today.3 Nor is there any political advantage to be gained by
insisting on the classification of old intelligence budgets,
particularly since they have already been declassified in large
part by other agencies without the CIA's knowledge or consent.
There is inevitably a subjective factor in the assignment of a
particular unit of information into one of the three categories of
secrecy. The borders of the three categories may sometimes be
blurred in practice. Furthermore, information that falls in one
category at one moment will often belong in another category at
some later date. Responsible classification management-- i.e.,
the elimination of all but genuine national security secrecy--
therefore depends to a large degree on the good judgment and
the good will of the managers. Failing that, it depends on the
steadfast advocacy of congressional overseers. And when that

8. fails, responsibility reverts to the public.
The mixture of legitimate secrecy, self-serving abuse of
classification authority, and bureaucratic insularity has been
with us in more or less its present form for nearly 50 years. But
it appears to be reaching a crisis point whose outcome will help
determine the security policies of the early 21st century.
Transparency
Without a doubt, the concept of transparency is an essential
element of intelligence activities. The United States is a
democracy, governed by the principles set forth in the
Constitution. As such, citizens are granted certain rights that
cannot, and must not, be infringed upon. However, in the quest
to keep the nation safe from devastating acts, it can become
difficult for the IC to “self regulate” their actions. This is not to
suggest any purposeful unlawfulness on the part of the IC, but
rather that the criticality of what they do can challenge the
balance between security and citizen rights. Therefore,
transparency allows Americans to help to ensure accountability
in the IC and to help determine what actions are truly needed
for national security. To aid in this endeavor, ODNI issues
statistical transparency reports for each year regarding the use
of National Security Authorities.
You may also be familiar with very public releases of
information from within the IC community. Without arguing the
merits or necessity of individuals electing to release, or make
public, guarded information, most people agree that this method
is not a productive form of transparency. Transparency does not
imply that guarded information is just released as individuals
deem necessary. It is a control process, to balance the need for
secrecy.
Intelligence Reform
Make no mistake, the field of intelligence is constantly subject
to reform measures. In fact, intelligence reform is a significant
process that has been ongoing for more than 30 years. It has
caught the attention of the public as a result of media reports
largely because of unlawful intelligence gathering behavior.

9. The most notable contemporary intelligence reform was the
Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004
(IRTPA). You have already studied this in-depth in previous
lessons. What is most important to note here, however, is that
the IRTPA was never intended as the final step in reform.
Legislators, member of the IC, American citizens and other
stakeholder groups are still actively engaged in debates about
reform. This is not necessarily indicative of systemic problems,
but rather that the field of intelligence is dynamic. All dynamic
environments require constant evaluation and assessments to
ensure that the intent, mission and methods remain aligned to
combat the ever evolving threats.
Conclusion
This course provided a holistic examination of the field of
intelligence and explored many essential processes, legislative
actions and concepts. With the completion of this course, you
have established a strong understanding of the fundamental
concepts of intelligence upon which you can continue to build
and expand your thinking.
Congratulations on successfully completing HLSS320!
Resources
Aftergood, S. (1996). Three categories of secrecy. Secrecy and
accountability in U.S. intelligence. Federation of American
Scientists. Retrieved from https://www.hsaj.org/articles/147
Burch, J. (2007). A domestic intelligence agency for the United
States? A comparative analysis of domestic intelligence
agencies and their implications for homeland
security. Homeland Security Affairs 3, 2. Retrieved from
https://www.hsaj.org/articles/147
Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
(n.d.). Organization. Retrieved from
http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization
Federal Bureau of Investigations. (n.d.). Our responsibilities to
protect civil liberties. Directorate of Intelligence. Retrieved
from http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/intelligence/liberties
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (n.d). Principles

10. of intelligence transparency for the intelligence community.
Intelligence Community. Retrieved from
http://www.dni.gov/index.php/intelligence-
community/intelligence-transparency-principles
Department of Justice. (n.d.). The USA PATRIOT Act:
Preserving life and liberty. Highlights of the USA Patriot Act.
Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm
Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (n.d.). Who we
are. Civil Liberties and Privacy Office. Retrieved from
http://www.dni.gov/index.php/about/organization/civil-liberties-
privacy-office-who-we-are</
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