Inside the IC: Recent Episodes
Federal News Network | Hubbard Radio
Inside the IC explores how U.S. intelligence agencies are adapting to 21st century challenges. The show features interviews with intelligence community leaders and experts about their most pressing issues involving technology, workforce, and management.
The personnel vetting process is a major drag on the government's hiring ambitions. It can often leave candidates confused and in the dark, even before they start the lengthy background investigation process. So what if the government focused more on the "candidate experience," similar to the ever increasing focus on "customer experience" at many agencies? A new RAND report (link below) takes an extensive look at that question and offers some interesting recommendations. I spoke with Dave Stebbins, a political scientist at RAND and one of the lead authors on the report. Report link: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1990-1.html
In a June 30 memo, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed Pentagon officials to take a range of actions to tighten access to classified information. The directive stems from a review of security procedures Austin ordered earlier this spring in reaction to the Discord leaks, allegedly by 21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira. What do these new actions mean for security clearance applicants and holders? To dive more into that question, Inside the IC spoke with Dan Meyer, a security clearance attorney at Tully Rinckey.
The intelligence community has a new data strategy. The 2023-2025 IC Data Strategy lays out the steps all 18 intelligence agencies will take to develop a more data-savvy workforce, and set the groundwork for the IC to use artificial intelligence tools. For an update on the early implementation of the strategy and how the new document came together, I sat down with Lori Wade, the IC's chief data officer, along with my colleague and host of All about Data, Jory Heckman.
A declassified National Intelligence Council Assessment from April 2020 says "China and other authoritarian governments are using cyber espionage, attacks and influence operations to extend the coercive reach of their ideological enforcement and political control efforts beyond their borders."
How are cyber threats evolving? And how is cyber threat intelligence changing to keep up? I spoke with Jim Richberg, the former national intelligence manager for cyber, to discuss those issues and others.
The intelligence community has made strides in recent years across a range of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility metrics. But the IC's latest demographic report shows that intel agencies still lag behind the broader federal workforce when it comes to the hiring and retention of minorities, women, and persons with disabilities. I spoke with Stephanie La Rue, the IC's first-ever chief of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, about how she's trying to bolster DEI&A across intelligence agencies.
Congress is out-of-town for the mid-term elections, but when they come back, the annual intelligence authorization bill could get passed. There are a number of key provisions in this year's bill, including one that would allow more industry employees top receive clearance. Another would conduct a study of how agencies and industry utilize classified facilities. To break it down, I spoke with Larry Hanauer, vice president for policy at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.
The theme of this September’s National Insider Threat Awareness Month is is "critical thinking in digital spaces" I spoke with Rebecca Morgan, deputy director of the National Insider Threat Task Force, about how new forms of social engineering, misinformation and phishing are increasingly being used to target the federal workforce and others.
The National Counterintelligence and Security Center is among the many federal offices looking to shore up the security of U.S. supply chains. Jeanette McMillian is the NSCS's assistant director of supply chain and cyber. "Everything from software to semiconductors, pipelines to peanut butter, malware to meat packing, we have seen it all with regards to how global supply chains have impacted our lives," McMillian told me in today's show.
The National Background Investigations Services program, or NBIS, has been described as the "lynchpin" to the federal personnel vetting reform efforts. The massive software project is aimed at both replacing legacy IT systems with modern functionality, institutionalizing new processes like continuous vetting, and bringing many personnel vetting systems together into one IT environment. To get the latest on the program's developments, I spoke with Jeff Smith, the executive program manager for NBIS at the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.
The zero trust security concept has been around for more than a decade, but it's turned into a major buzzword in recent years. The federal government now has a zero trust strategy. The National Security Agency is also embracing the concept. I spoke with Kevin Bingham, the zero trust lead at the NSA, about what this whole zero trust thing really means.
Open source intelligence, or OSINT, is often treated as an afterthought in the U.S. intelligence community compared to other forms of intel. Now, a group of former intelligence leaders are trying to change that. They are forming a new OSINT Foundation to help elevate the tradecraft, establish standards, and build a community around open source. I spoke with two of the foundation's leaders, Barbara Alexander and Eliot Jardines.
This episode features part two of an interview with Larry Hanauer, vice president for policy at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. Larry discusses INSA's ideas for how the intel community can improve how it recruits and clears people with foreign connections.
The security clearance process often poses a challenge for both government and industry when they want to move people around and bring new personnel onboard. That's especially true for the highest levels of clearance, where polygraph requirements and other inconsistent policies can bog things down for weeks and months. To break down the issue, I spoke with Larry Hanauer, the vice president for policy at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, and Greg Torres, the director of personnel security at Booz Allen Hamilton, about INSA's new paper, "Improving Security Clearance Mobility: How to Save Time and Resources and Enhance Mission Outcomes."
Trusted Workforce 2.0 is the government's wholesale reform of the security clearance process. The idea is to make it easier for employees to move in and around government and industry, while also improving security. For more, I spoke with Heather Green, the assistant director of vetting risk operations at the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency. DCSA handles security clearance investigations for the vast majority of government, and it's taking a lead role in implementing Trusted Workforce 2.0.
Brett Holmgren is the assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or INR, is unique in that it delivers intelligence analysis to advance diplomacy. And that principle has been central to the intelligence community’s efforts to downgrade and in some cases declassify intelligence about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to share it with partners and allies. We talked to Holmgren about INR's history, its role during the conflict in Ukraine, and INR’s new strategic plan.
Nancy Morgan spent the last three years as the intelligence community's chief data officer. In that time, the amount of information both collected and produced by intelligence agencies has grown exponentially. The IC is now rewriting its 2017 data strategy to help guide spy agencies in all aspects of how they use an ever growing amount of data.
Morgan retired at the end of April, but first, she sat down with Justin Doubleday, as well as Jory Heckman, host of "All About Data," to discuss the IC's evolving data strategy, and why she thinks data isn't just a field for highly trained data scientists.
On today’s show, we take a look at how intelligence agencies are approaching open source intelligence or OSINT. There’s a rapidly expanding world of social media feeds, commercial satellite imagery, cell phone videos and other Internet-derived information that allow professional and amateur analysts alike to investigate events happening around the world.
Organizations like Bellingcat have used this kind of information to extensively document Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, mapping incidents of civilian harm, debunking Russian disinformation, and investigating the use of cluster munitions and other weapons.
But the intelligence community has been slower to adopt new open source tools and information. A January report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that the community has struggled to even define OSINT beyond the classic definition of publicly available media and press reporting.
Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and synthetic biology are offering new possibilities for how intelligence agencies carry out their missions. But rapid advances in technology, especially in commercial industry, also present challenges to the IC's technology adoption processes. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is now seeking feedback on its new five-year S&T investment plan. John Beieler, the director of science and technology at ODNI, sat down with Inside the IC to discuss the new strategy.
It’s been four weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, and despite expert predictions, there has yet to be a significant cyber campaign against the U.S. and its allies. But the White House is now warning it has “evolving intelligence” suggesting the Russian government is preparing cyber attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure. This comes at a time when the U.S. government’s relationship with the private sector on cybersecurity seems to be taking a turn toward better collaboration.
To break it all down, we spoke with Tim Kosiba, the former head of the National Security Agency’s elite offensive cyber group, the Tailored Access Operations Unit. Tim is now CEO of bracket F, a subsidiary of the cybersecurity company Redacted.
In this week's episode, we speak with former National Geospatial Intelligence Agency Director Robert Cardillo about a recent chapter he authored in the CIA's quarterly journal. The chapter, titled "GEOINT and the post-secret world," posits that "we are fast approaching the time in which technology will enable a continuous sensing of all of the world’s activity." What does that mean for privacy and national security?
You can read the full chapter here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003164197-22/geoint-post-secret-world-robert-cardillo
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is leading a new mandate for the intelligence community to turn to commercial sources of GEOINT first. NGA's new commercial strategy is being led by Dave Gauthier, director of commercial and business operations at the agency. Gauthier spoke with "Inside the IC" about efforts to forge a tighter relationship with the growing commercial space industry, and NGA's development of a new "commercial supplier matrix."
In the inaugural episode of Inside the IC, we look at how the National Reconnaissance office is trying to take advantage of a fast growing commercial satellite market. Pete Muend, the director of the National Reconnaissance Office's Commercial Systems Program Office, explains why the secretive agency is trying to work with new and innovative companies in areas like synthetic aperture radar. We also talk to Angie Petty, a senior principal analyst with Deltek, about how intelligence agencies are spending more on cloud computing, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.