Foreign Policy, Summer 1996: "Information Age Intelligence." by Bruce D. Berkowitz, a former CIA analyst and staff member for the Senate Intelllgence Committee. Excerpts of 14-page essay: During most of this century, the intelligence community led the world in developing information technology. Intelligence organizations were deeply involved in the development of telegraph and telephone networks, modern computers, and space-based communications and surveillance systems. The intelligence community also established new forms of analysis and areas of expertise. Yet several signs suggest that the intelligence community is no longer the leader in the information world, and it may have fallen behind significantly in some respects. The underlying problem is that the intelligence community has failed to keep up with changes in how modern society uses information and how information technology develops in modern society. As a result, our model for intelligence is out-of-date. This reality is what current efforts at intelligence reform are failing to recognize. The intelligence community needs to move as fast as information businesses do to capture markets, but the traditional organization is not up to the task. Today's model for intelligence -- how it is organized and how it operates -- is an artifact from an earlier age. Even the name "Central Intelligence Agency" is reminiscent of the New Deal era, when large, powerful, national bureaucracies were the accepted way of getting things done efficiently. It makes less sense in a world moving toward fluid, distributed, networked information organizations. As the capabilities of the private sector improve, the intelligence community will need to move on to the next frontier of technology or expertise that the private sector has yet to fill. While one challenge for intelligence reform is to keep up with these changes, fundamentally the greater challenge will be to establish an organization that can adapt with the times. One reason why the intelligence community cannot deal effectively with the Information Revolution is that intelligence requirements and the intelligence community's comparative advantage are both fluid, but the traditional intelligence bureaucracy remains static. In addition, organizations responsible for developing and applying technology, such as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRC)) and the National Security Agency (NSA), have created organizational dogma, and dogma always resist change. Once such organizations carve out a place for themselves (and their technologies) in the budget, they can be difficult to dislodge. The fact that these organizations often operate at a classified level further insulates them. As a result, the intelligence community often locks into specific technologies, even when new and possibly better ideas have come along. http://pwp.usa.pipeline.com/~jya/fpintel.htm ----- Our Web site was hosed clean today, so this article may not survive. If not there, send us e-mail with the subject: FPI_ntl