Remarks and Q & A by Director of National Intelligence Mr. James Clapper MS. JOAN DEMPSEY: Our first speaker this morning is just an amazing leader, an amazing intelligence professional. He retired in 1995 as a lieutenant general from the U.S. Air Force. He had served more J-2 roles than any other individual, and I think he still holds that record today. He was the Air Force assistant chief of staff for intelligence. He was the director of DIA, where I had the great honor of working for him, and where, as I recall, he wrote a letter saying that he thought the combination of NPIC and DMA was dumber than dirt. (Laughter.). So that might be one of your questions: how he feels about that combination, consolidation today.
He also served as the director of NIMA and was responsible for NIMA becoming NGA, because he believed that NGA would take its position alongside the other three-letter agencies, NSA, CIA, and really be at the forefront of U.S. intelligence. And he was the one who began to execute that vision.
He became in August of this year the fourth director of National Intelligence, with an unenviable job of now bringing that position and that role to the forefront of the U.S. intelligence community. And I have absolutely no doubt that he’s up to it.
He – anybody who has worked for Jim Clapper has heard him say that one of the senior members in the Air Force told him one time that if he waited to start a change agenda on the second day after he was in a new job, it’s too late. Change has to start on the very first day.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure we’ll hear this morning about the change agenda that he has for U.S. intelligence. If you would, please join me in welcoming the fourth director of National Intelligence, the Honorable James R. Clapper Jr. (Applause.)
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DIRECTOR JAMES CLAPPER: Well, thank you very much. Reminds me of the old line about my mother would have believed that, and my father would have enjoyed it.
So anyway, it’s great to be here, back in New Orleans. And as Stu was recounting, the first time we did this, I guess, was 2004, and we wondered: Would this catch on. And it certainly has in a big way. And for me, it’s kind of a homecoming, I guess, back to GEOINT and all that – all that goes with it. So it’s very special to be here, for me.
And I certainly want to add my thanks and appreciation for Stu Shea’s leadership and Keith Masback and the foundation. And I’m very, very proud of the way the foundation has matured and the number of activities that have mushroomed around the symposium, and all very possible because of the foundation.
And of course, it’s good to be back for lots of reasons here in New Orleans.
I thought today as normal, when I’ve done these things before – is, you know, say a few things and then just open up for questions, which is always the fun part. Of course, I have to be careful; I have to very circumspect now. And I have a new public affairs officer who I’m sure is very nervous right now – (Laughter) – about what I’m going to say. And, of course, I’m up here with no notes. (Laughter.)
We had an exciting weekend with the air cargo bomb plot. Having watched and participated in all that over the weekend, I think it’s – it was a remarkable amalgam of intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security, which, in this instance, worked very well. But that’s not to say that we can expect that seemingly flawless thwarting of a very nefarious, devious attack all the time. We’re not going to bat a thousand, all the time like that.
As well, great coordination and partnership with our foreign interlocutors, also quite remarkable, I think a testament to the recognition of the globalization of the threat. And as the gentleman counted – (inaudible) – having much of the history of this, we have truly, I think, come miles since 9/11.
So a couple words on, what I am pushing at ODNI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence. I think, in a word, it’s integration. As you may know, those of you who follow these sort of things, I’m in the process of making a few tweaks. (Laughter.) I don’t do reorganizations anymore. I gave that up. I just do tweaks.
So the major tweak here is putting together the heretofore separate aggregations - collection and analysis – previously, and for the life of the ODNI, managed as separate endeavors. So I’m – we’re in the process of integrating those, putting those under one man’s hat. And I drew out – kidnapped, I guess, is a better word as far as DIA’s concerned – to put that together. And I don’t want to miss an opportunity to salute Lt. Gen. Ron Burgess, the director of DIA, who, in one of the greatest gestures of team and what’s best for the community, gave up Robert after having selected him as – as his deputy to replace Tish. And he hadn’t been installed in that office for 33 days.
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So without hesitation, when I laid out what I wanted to do to Ron, and he says, you want Robert, you got him. I just think Robert’s uniquely qualified for this, somebody I’ve worked with and mentored for the last 10 years, run analysis and production at NGA, ran source NGA, ran analysis and production at DIA. The first-ever civilian J2 from JCS and did a marvelous job in that capacity, so I thought that Robert was uniquely qualified to bring this off.
So what we’re doing is sort of combining the best features of the classic national intelligence officer that we’ve always had in the community for decades and with a resident subject-matter expert for a given region or area. And then a new convention that actually came out of – or recommendation that came out of the WMD commission.
So I’m having what’s called mission managers, and these are people who, if we’re given a problem, are designated to sort of work the alpha to omega of a given intelligence target, meaning have expertise and knowledge of the analysis domain, the collection domain, and be responsible for its integration.
So what we’re putting together is a single standard organizational template that combines the best features of NIOs and mission managers into what we’re calling national intelligence managers for. And we will have somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 or 20; still – this is a work in progress, of course – 15 or 20 of these. Will report to me through Robert and be responsible for either the regional areas that will be divided along more functional problems. And we’re having, by the way, a national intelligence manager for cyber, which is desperately needed.
And so we’re going through the process of getting ready on that right now. And of course, like any such change, this has, you know, angst and concern to the people involved. Kind of reminds me a little bit of the Congress saying, "We have to cut defense, but not in my district," or, "Change is okay as long as it doesn’t affect me." So you know, having been through this sort of thing before, that’s kind of where we’re going.
I think that theme, though, of integration – intelligence integration, particularly at the level of the ODNI, where in the prior arrangement the first place that analysis and collection came together at that level was in the Office of the DNI itself, and that is a little late for that to happen. And I think it puts too much burden on the DNI.
And I also intend for this to be – have an enterprise outlook, not just focusing – although it’s hard not to get drawn into this – you know, what’s going on in the Beltway and serving only policymakers.
Another new thing we intend to do is establish – we’ll have a series of what I call enabler ADNIs, assistant directors for, and a new one we’re going to establish is one for what we’re calling partner engagement. And my intent here is to bring back a certain unnamed Army intelligence officer from Afghanistan who wrote an article about what’s wrong with intelligence. So hey buddy, come back here and help me fix it. (Laughter.) So he’s going to be in charge of partner engagements.
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And my rationale there was that it’s work that he’s done and led over the last year-and-a-half on forging collaboration and sharing arrangements among a very multitudinous, 43-nation coalition, would apply it as well in virtually any other context, be it state, local, tribal or private sector or within the federal government.
So I’m going to count on him to be kind of a bully pulpit for collaboration and sharing, and apply those same principles anywhere in that context, and make him the steward or mother hen for the DNI reps at each of the commands, with the services, JCS, et cetera, as well as work that’s going on now – you know, I think we’ve made a lot of progress in NATO intelligence reform. So I’ve sort of designed a portfolio – portfolio specifically to fit his experience and credentials.
Well, let me stop with that and move on, I think, briefly to a little – a couple comments on GEOINT. I was watching, in the green room, I guess they call it in show biz, Stu’s discourse on the history of GEOINT. And I’m thinking, you know, when Stu’s back here 25 years from now doing the same thing, we’re going to have to block out about three hours going through, you know, each year. (Laughter.)
But it did bring to mind a vignette, historical vignette, that I think is worth repeating. And this specifically was – I took over at NIMA two days after 9/11, a sporty time to do that. And we were really humping then, as you can imagine. Of course, the big focus then was getting into Afghanistan. So about January of ‘02, we decided to take a breath and retire to Camp Perry, the West Point of New York, and have an off-site and kind of think about where we were and where we wanted to go with NIMA and what we were going to find. And I thought, I’m not too much on doing off-sites, touchy-feely things, but this one I thought was particularly useful because we kind of came together and decided that maybe it was time to stop singing "Amazing Grace" at the wake of DMA and NPIC and sort of put this thing together, which led to the name change to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the embracing of the discipline that GEOINT.
And so I think that’s an important vignette in the history of the agency and this visit. I couldn’t be more proud of Tish now as director, first woman director of any major intelligence agency. Very proud of that, the fact that – you know, Tish and I had been friends and had a mentoring relationship with her, so – and had a little bit to do with her selection. (Laughter.) So I’m very, very proud of that.
So I think when Tish talks to you – she did give me a kind of sneak preview of what she’s going to talk about – I think what you’ll hear is kind of taking this business to the next level.
Stu mentioned some of the – and then just informal breakout sessions you’re going to be having here, where the discipline – the potential for the discipline, you know, using the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum that’s available, the full range of technologies that can be applied in the context of GEOINT.
And I would cite ODIR as a – as a case in point, and the impact that’s having on the discipline, GEOINT. By the way, I do like the new term. I always think it’s better to call something by what it is than what it isn’t. And ONIR, Overhead Non-Imaging IR. I was around when they coined that term. It was all politics. So we finally got the name changed.
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So anyway, I think, for lots of reasons, I’m very proud of this gathering and the people that contribute to make this work – corporate sponsors, the exhibitors, and I do hope to get around to visit some of the exhibits later today. That’s a very important attribute and very important part of this whole thing. Of course, it’s a fantastic networking opportunity.
So with that, I think I will stop. And Joan will come back, I guess, and hopefully do some filtering of some of the tough questions. And this is when my public affairs officer really gets nervous.
Thank you. (Applause.)
MS. DEMPSEY: The first question is on the possibility of reductions in intelligence spending in the continuing economic uncertainty in the country. Do you see this translated into budget cuts in the near term? And if so, how will your office and your role play in those reductions?
MR. CLAPPER: Well, as we like to say on the Hill, thanks for the question. (Laughter.)
Yes, I think – I think this is inevitable. And this is not unusual. You know, Joan will recall in the early ‘90s we had sort of the same thing happen. We had the big peace dividend by virtue of the fall of the wall, the end of the Cold War. And we were told, mandated by the Congress, to reduce by 22.5 percent, which we continued to do through the ‘90s.
So everything was on a downward slope through the ‘90s, and all of which came to a screeching halt with 9/11, and then we up-sloped. And of course, the way you upslope quickly – in the intelligence community, at least, actually throughout the government – is contractors. And so we’ve had, you know, accelerated growth of contractors and contractor support. And to use Secretary Gate’s term, you know, the gusher of money is probably going to get capped – no pun intended here next to the Gulf of Mexico.
And so I’ve embarked on an effort, planning effort, to try to lay out a strategy for how we can reduce and tail off this – and we are going to have to do some streamlining, reduction, particularly with our contractor support. That’s just – the handwriting’s on the wall.
Now, what I’d like to do is profit from what happened to us in the ‘90s and lay out a strategy for this and absorb the pain smartly and do it over a period of two or three years. But in the interest of candor, I need to say to this audience that we are going to have to do this.
Now, I would also hasten to point out that in the tradition that charity begins at home, I’m starting with the ODNI staff. So I had a meeting Thursday or Friday – or this week, earlier – Monday as a matter of fact – before I was to come down here – on decisions on triming – either cutting or moving out of ODNI some functions that either can be done on the basis of executive agency, which I’m a big believer in. We don’t have to do everything on the ODNI staff – migrate a number of functions out. Again, we’re not going to do this overnight, we have to do some reprogramming, and Congress is involved in this. And of course it has to get the agreement of the recipients of this stuff to move.
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But the short answer to the question, yes, we’re going to have to do this, but it being my intent, as much as I can influence this, to do it rationally and smartly, not one-size-fits-all, which it doesn’t, and lay out a plan for how we’re going to do this over a period of two or three years.
MODERATOR: Thank you, Gen. Clapper.
A number of questions having to do with the office of the ODNI. There’s been considerable discussion in the media and around town about the size of the office. Do you think it’s too large, too big, or just about right?
And secondly, what do you see – every DNI has put their own stamp on their relationship with the White House. What do you see as the appropriate role for the DNI to play in that arena.
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, that’s two very good questions, two big questions.
Well, there has been a lot of debate and discussion in the media, and certainly on the Hill, about the size, the bloat of the ODNI staff, and to a certain extent that’s true, although if you start to parse out all the functions, a lot of what ODNI does are mandated in law or were inherited from predecessor organizations, that sort of thing. The issue, of course – and there has been, frankly, a tendency to use the ODNI Christmas tree to hang balls on – if you don’t want to put something someplace else, let’s stick it in ODNI. So that’s – what I’ve been doing is going through kind of, you know, like Sherman through Georgia, I guess, trying to parse out what exactly by law or some other mandate we absolutely must do. What is it we can either reduce or move someplace else in the community. So I said that I am doing that, and basing decisions recently on how we’re going to lay those out.
With respect to a relationship with the White House, actually, that – you know, that’s quite important. And it gives rise to what I’m finding personally is my biggest challenge, which is time management. And the issue is – the issue – the key to this, of course, is supporting the customer, number one, and those around him, and as well as responsibilities and obligations I think the DNI has for managing and leading the enterprise. Those are two very – each are very demanding in their own right, and finding the right balance between those two has been a challenge, and frankly, I’m not quite there yet.
My intent with the principal deputy when we get her aboard is to use that position as a chief operating officer to actually run the staff. Then having Robert focus purely on substantive intelligence issues, meaning analysis and collection, which hopefully will free up myself, as I now occupy the position, to kind of do more outreach things that I think a key responsibility of the DNI – outreach within the community, outreach with partners and customers and outreach with foreigners, et cetera.
So by this tweaking of the staff as opposed to the top three officials essentially replicating each other, I want to make a separate and discrete responsibility for each position, which I think then would help with this time management problem.
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I – a little inside baseball, I guess. I did – in one of my discussions with the president, I told him, you know, frankly, Mr. President, at my age and station in life – I’ve got a month with assisted living. (Laughter.) And he’s got a great sense of humor, and his rejoinder was, well, I don’t either. (Laughter.)
And I said, you know, I certainly want to ensure that you’re served; obviously, that’s, you know, kind of job one, I guess. But at the same time, I’ve got an obligation for running the enterprise. And so the system we’ve adapted right now is that Robert and I kind of spell each other, every other day, down at the Oval Office, or, you know, discussions and brief us so that – (inaudible). So that’s why I’m here today and I’m able to do that sort of thing.
So that’s the place in my approach that I’m going to try to manage this very demanding time management problem.
MS. DEMPSEY: Gen. Clapper, there’s a sense – or Director Clapper, sorry – there’s a sense that the intelligence community inconsistently applies conflict of interest rules across their – across the different agencies, and those different rules affect industry in different and challenging ways. Do you see, then, an issue between performing companies, companies that actually develop capabilities and install and support capabilities and the services industry, and how – what’s your attitude towards OCI? And do you intend to implement consistent OCI policy?
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, the – actually, that’s sort of – this is good input. As many – well, not many of you know, all of you know – there were a lot of additional ethics conflict-of-interest rules imposed by the new administration. The point, though, I do want to take – kind of take for action is, the question infers or implies or states that there is an inconsistency in how conflict of interest rules are administered across the IC and between and among the agencies.
I’ll take a note on that and we’ll certainly look into that. So I appreciate that.
MS. DEMPSEY: All right.
DIR. CLAPPER: But, do I intend to enforce them? I guess I’d better. (Scattered laughter.)
MS. DEMPSEY: A number of questions related to the differences between the way government brings technology into the government workspace the way industry does it, and also questions related to whether or not you intend to re-look at the – some of the security challenges that keep technology out of the workplace, and also whether you intend to re-look at classification guidance and levels for partner sharing for DNI.
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, it’s kind of a couple questions there. On, the security inhibitions to bringing in technology, I’m not exactly sure what that alludes to, although there is a growing concern to me is just with, cyber-related equipment that – and software programs and what their pedigree is – where they actually come from.
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That is a growing concern of mine as sort of a carryover from my last job as USDI and the organization that I oversaw was the Defense Security Service, and this whole business of foreign involvement, foreign ownership of U.S. companies. And the command was overseeing that. And I’ve kind of carried that over in this job, particularly kind of leaning on "Bear" Bryant who runs the – who is the National Counterintelligence Executive, on just how we do this thing.
Of course, there is a, as you all understand, a trade-off here between the fusion of really cool technology and the security of, you know – particularly with respect to its pedigree. As far as collaboration and integration is concerned, absolutely, I’ve always been a big pusher for that to be – for example, with the Commonwealth.
Now, I have focused a bit more on the domestic side of that, chairing with the stakeholder private sector, and we’re going through a number of, you know, policy agonies right now. I’m trying to police this up, but I will tell you, frankly, that, you know, WikiLeaks and the continued hemorrhaging of leaks in the media don’t do much to support the notion of integration and collaboration.
So I personally think that the sweet spot, the balance here has to be achieved between the need to share and the need to protect, and we have to do, for one, a much better job of auditing what is going on, on any – at least any IC computer. And so if somebody’s downloading a half million documents and we find out about it contemporaneously, not after the fact.
MS. DEMPSEY: A number of questions related to – and I would extract these sort of competing ideas – of the need for geospatial intelligence but also the need for NGA in particular to use cross-functional information fusion and digitalization. It seems to be among the audience a conflict over what is the greatest role for GEOINT. Can you address that?
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, I think I – my spiel when I was director of NGA was that – and it’s still my conviction – and speaking of integration, by the way – that GEOINT, I believe, is the most integrative of all disciplines, since it is the foundation that provides the, you know, the foundational layer over which other forms of intelligence or information can be overlaid. And I still believe that is true.
The question implies there, you know, is some finite – perhaps some finite boundary for geospatial intelligence, which I don’t think is the case at all because geospatial intelligence has the added strength, I think, of being able to portray and visualize like no other discipline can and can assist, buttress, strengthen and portray those disciplines by doing so graphically because that’s how people – humans actually can see things, is through the visual dimension.
So I think, for example – and I would – certainly haven’t sorted it out myself, but I just – I think there’s a bejillion applications with cyber. I think the use of GEOINT in the CT – the counterterrorism context has been absolutely phenomenal. And it’s – the other – and it is a great interaction for the – for the other disciplines, where you bring the strengths – complementary strengths and attributes of human and SIGINT, bring it to bear, that always that common – that common operating picture of the Earth, because when you think about it, everybody and everything has got to be someplace.
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MS. DEMPSEY: I’ll give you an easy one. What do you see as the appropriate role of IARPA?
DIR. CLAPPER: Of what?
MS. DEMPSEY: IARPA.
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, I didn’t know much about IARPA, frankly, until I came to ODNI. And I’ve actually been very impressed with IARPA and Dr. Lisa Porter’s work, who runs it. And I think her laser focus on technology, future technology that can be brought to bear in an intelligence context is right on the money. And one of the things I have not done yet, I regret to say, is get up to College Park and actually visit her and her staff.
But I do think there – I thought, well, maybe we could form some kind of alliance or something with the department. But I decided that, in looking for things that I could, you know, shuck off the ODNI staff, but I decided not to do that. I believe that it is a fundamentally important responsibility of ODNI and the DNI to be a steward for and advocate of advanced technology that specifically applies to the IC.
MS. DEMPSEY: Can you talk more about the new cyber position, what role they’d be tasked with, what will their responsibilities be, and how will they liaison with the other military, government, cyber offices and jobs?
DIR. CLAPPER: I think you’re referring to this national intelligence mission manager for cyber. Well, first of all, it gives me an opportunity to sort of clarify where I see the IC’s role in cyber. I do not believe that the intelligence community’s responsible for the cyber security of the country. I do believe that the intelligence community needs to provide the classical intelligence support for cyber security.
And I – one of the things that I’m sort of driving, responsible for personally, is what I would call the common operating picture for cyber. That is, what – from whatever source, be it the cyber domain directly or from human or other sources, if we discern, you know, threats anywhere – not only to the government, you know, dot-gov, but to the larger infrastructure, that is, I think, a core responsibility of the drive towards helping create a common operating picture. And so that is – the role of the national intelligence manager for cyber will be in that context and in that theme.
MS. DEMPSEY: What’s the biggest obstacle you see in sharing information in the domestic environment between intelligence agencies and law enforcement? And how can we overcome this obstacle?
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, the people ask me about – and I had a couple real smart whizzes come up to me last night and tell me they’ve got the ultimate solution – the technical solution to sharing information and conveying and all that. And the problem isn’t technical. It’s policy.
And so I’ve gotten into the specifics of this, and we’re still working off some issues related to the aftermath and lessons learned from the Christmas bomber. And the greatest inhibitor we have right now is the protection of data and the handling of data that pertains to U.S. PERSONS.
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And I frankly had not appreciated previously the complexity of the legal policy issues associated with this. And again, there’s a balance between security and civil liberties. So we’re rather painstakingly working through these issues. And there is, I can assure you, a very finite balance there to figure out a, you know, a way ahead.
I was in Orlando briefly and I had a superb meeting with the board of governors of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. And these are great people, by the way, who know what they’re doing and understand intelligence and its value and all that. And they are certainly attuned to and worried about this problem. And I got some homework assignments from that session.
And, you know, seeing what we can do – I think Karen Wagner will speak later; I’m sure she’ll have some thoughts on this as well. But, you know, we made – we made progress. We’re a lot better than we were before 9/11. But we still have a lot – a long way to go here on a more responsive, agile system for the dissemination of relevant intelligence to particularly private sector, and the key nexus here is this handoff between law enforcement and intelligence.
I think the FBI, who has, I think, done a marvelous job as to the transformation – and I think the FBI does understand and possess where it really comes together in our system, law enforcement intelligence with the FBI. And I think they’ve done a lot of thinking about this and how to handle this. And what we need to do is, you know, get this out and figure out ways to ensure the information is conveyed but protect the privacy data of US PERSONS.
MS. DEMPSEY: A number of questions on education of intelligence professionals. Several of them relate to, how can we – what does academia need to do to make sure that we have qualified people in the future; specific questions about whether you see virtual or distance learning, web-enabled learning inside the intelligence community. Can you speak to your thoughts on where –
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, I think this is – this is huge. You know, with the infusion of young people into our system in the intelligence community, their education and training is crucial. There are a growing number of academic institutions that offer courses in intelligence and in its subspecialties, to include geospatial intelligence. And I’m all for encouraging as much as we possibly can. We do have a great community outreach program with academe, and we need to continue that.
On ODNI staff, I’m trying to focus on professional development of our people from a community perspective. Acknowledging and respecting of what each of the agencies do to train and educate its workforce is crucial.
And I’ve sermonetted about the term "stovepipes," which is often used pejoratively. But stovepipes are good, and the great – and a great strength of our system, because they are the reservoirs, the harbors for our trade professionals. There are certain unique skill sets it takes to do SIGINT; there are certain unique skill sets, as you know, to do GEOINT. And I look to the agencies and their directors as the functional manager lead for the broader communities that they are provided for to ensure that that tradecraft is nurtured, protected in advance. And that’s very crucial.
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In my case, at ODNI, I think I need to do cross-training, forced knowledge– if you will, and particularly with respect to professional development and leadership training for our people of all grades. I’m a big proponent of; I belonged to the Army career for example, say, the captain major equivalent at, among our civilians or troops.
Distance learning and all that – this is the wave of the future. It’s what our young people are used to, so we need to ensure that we can provide the accurate outlets and opportunities for them to take advantage of that.
MS. DEMPSEY: A number of questions related to the future of GEOINT. Let me get through a few of these and then you can choose which ones you want to answer. Can you please provide a few specific examples of what enable the intelligence technologies and capabilities you envision as essential to the new era of GEOINT? What three technologies do you see growing the fastest within the community? And then a more specific one: Do you believe the IC is ready to exploit full motion video as it has with static imagery? And if not quite, what other changes need to be made? And then finally, how should the DOD and intelligence community address human geography? And should it include a whole-of government approach?
DIR. CLAPPER: How much time do we have? (Laughter.)
MS. DEMPSEY: You’re the director; you have as long as it takes. (Laughter.)
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, – I mean, where do I start with that? Well, I kind of alluded to that in my earlier remarks about, you know as far as forecasting, you know, which technology will give you the corporate leg up or something, which technology is going to accelerate the fastest, I don’t know.
I just – I would just say – make a general commentary or comment that I think it is inherent – it’s very important to exploit all forms of the phenomena along the electromagnetic spectrum whatever form that takes. The other forms are extremely important here and as we refine the capability, it was also my intent when I was the director of NGA, and I’m sure that’s continued to have the line analysts think holistically about the whole range of things and not just as sort of in the historical condition, focusing exclusively on panochromatic imagery. That’s the thing that’s, you know, sexy because it’s literal, it’s what people will gravitate to. But we need to form – we need to use holistically these other forms of injury, again, holistically..
Let’s see, what else is there? I forget. I’m getting old now.
MS. DEMPSEY: (Chuckles.) I think you’ve covered –
GEN. CLAPPER: I can remember the – (inaudible).
MS. DEMPSEY: The technologies that you see exported into the rest of the intelligence community.
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DIR. CLAPPER: Well, I don’t know – you know, exported into the rest of the community, I think, at least it comes to mind from reading that is still – is still flourishing, which is the collaboration particularly between SIGINT, NSA and the NGA. I think it’s not so much in exporting the technology as much as exploiting them as using them together in a complementary way.
I mean, it almost struck me when I was contemplating becoming the director of NIMA - I had just – I grew up in the SIGINT business. I spent 4 years on the NSA advisory board. What struck me is the similarities and the complimentarity between the two agencies and the two systems. They’re not competitive, functionally, but can be very complimentary when the two are brought together. So I was a big proponent of the product, and I would trust that would continue.
I think, not to steal Letitia’s thunder, but I think she’ll speak to this more – obviously, it’s been a theme before, but I think, just to take this to the next level, is making this available ubiquitously to users so that we get as much out there so users can play with GEOINT to their heart’s content. Where the agency then is forging ahead looking for new technologies and new applications that then can be transported to users. So there’s something for – for them to use as they see fit for whatever purpose. And this is one tremendous advantage or great strength of GEOINT, I think, over others.
How do we manage that, archive it. We’re not quite there yet, but, again, I think a lot of progress has been made. One of the things that I was trying to push when I was USDI was kind of built around the newness of DCPDS that we call it – I think there’s another name for it, but that’s what we all know it as – and use that as kind of the standard framework and bring that – as many standard tools and applications into as possible, which I think will promote commonality.
MS. DEMPSEY: Can you tell the audience how you are interacting with the SECDEF’s efficiencies reviews, interacting with – participating as the intelligence community broadly in those reviews?
DIR. CLAPPER: Yes. Before I left the Pentagon, a year before I left, I talked to the secretary and we agreed to kind of join at the hip. And so we are participating with the USDI and are working together with them, given the fact that much of the National Intelligence Program is part of DOD.
So having been twice Whip-sawed between 2 camps– the CMS or whatever it was – from all sides, see if you can’t agree on a same set of business rules, and particularly given the admixture of the national intelligence program or military intelligence program. So we’re trying to work through these together.
Now, in candor, probably we won’t end up doing exactly the same thing as DOD is trying to do. But I think then, you know, I see we got a pretty stout methodology and a pretty logical approach for how we’re going to do this. But we are trying to stay in touch with DOD.
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MS. DEMPSEY: The GEOINT community has embraced the international GEOINT community possibly more than other agencies have embraced their international partners.
What do you see as the future role of international partners with the director of intelligence?
DIR. CLAPPER: Well, I think it’s huge. This is – this is an area where, you know, we’re still lingering somewhat under Cold War policies and rules, particularly with respect to our second parties. And of course, as we’ve seen, there’s hardly any military bases around the world where we’re not going to be engaged in that.
And so I ended up a proponent for learning each other’s footprint, a much more fulsome, open transparent relationship with Kabul.
The other thing I try and do is to rationalize all the various fora in which we engage in this commonwealth. We have this plethora of committees and bodies and commissions who do this. And it’s okay with us because we can, you know, overwhelm them, we’re so big. But for their commonwealth, they’re kind of small. And it’s the same folks over and over again.
So I’m trying to do this with, see if we can put together what goes on with defense intelligence, in relationship with our forums and our allies and partners. And what we do at ODNI , see if we can’t rationalize this into a simple – a simpler structure.
But I think this is quite important. We’re seeing this in spades in Afghanistan and the importance of relying on our partners – we just have to go third-party. And we need to be, I think, much less risk-averse and much more into risk management than we have been.
MS. DEMPSEY: Under the headline, no good deed goes unpunished, you are an advocate of giving the new Director of National Intelligence position sufficient authorities to carry out the job. Do you have the authority that you need, and if not, what traditional authorities do you see?
DIR. CLAPPER: The first thing is it depends on where you sit. Actually, I do think that the DNI does have a lot of authority, either explicit in the law, specifically the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, or implicitly. And I think, you know, the challenges – the art form – that authorities exert. And so I’ve been asked by – was during my confirmation, on – if I had ideas and, you know, things that I thought that I would want legislatively to enhance the authority of the DNI. So you know, I’ll take the votes, I guess, but right now I think it’s – definitely important.
One thing I am doing, I’ve secured at least a conceptual agreement with the secretary of Defense to take the National Intelligence Program out of the Defense budget. And we plan to do – try to do that in 2013. I mention that because I think that’s a – one specific way that we’ll accrue more authority actually is through ODNI, and the oversight and the execution of that funding.
And to me, it’s kind of a win-win, because – oh, we can probably just say it. It’s been $50 billion off the top line of the DOD. And it certainly gives, I think, ODNI a lot more authority and insight and transparency over that number. So that’s one thing I am doing to enhance – specifically to enhance the chain of command.
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MS. DEMPSEY: Director Clapper, thank you so much for speaking to us today, and for answering all of these questions. We appreciate it, and we wish you the best of luck.
DIR. CLAPPER: Thank you. (Applause.)
(END)
2010 Geospatial Intelligence Symposium
Moderator:
Ms. Joan Dempsey,
Senior Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton
New Orleans, Louisiana
November 2, 2010
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