Intro

I'm stuck hallway through a masters program in Intelligence Studies (spy, not IQ). Last year I shared some work that I had done. I'm not really sure where I left off, so I'm restarting to publish this work at the end of the first course. I'll start the next course from here.

I'm likely not to publish much more than this series. I am sure you are all tired of hearing about my stupit arm. I know I am.

The elephant in the room

I doubt there is anybody left in the country that has any trust at all in the IC. I certainly dont, and that sometimes show up in my work.

I do think there is still value to you the reader here. Espionage is like informationwar or a gun. it is a tool to use when necessary. While the every day Hiver doesnt have a tax-filled bag of taxpayer money to support their own agency, there has been a lot of education that is valuable to me (and I think to you). Part that if you can explain where the IC has fallen from where it should be, your arguments against it, or for its reform or foe its disbandment will carry more weight.

And on to the show

WHITE PAPER: THE USE OF PRIVATE CONTRACTORS IS A HINDRANCE TO EFFECTIVE COLLECTION BY THE UNITED STATES’ INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY

Introduction

The United States intelligence community is serviced by approximately 800, 000 private contractors who do not swear an oath of office to the united States. The impact of this sub-community has a negative effect on effective on intelligence collection efforts. The use of contractors has reached a plateau in which intelligence operations would suffer greatly without their participation, yet a deeper look at their inclusion into the intelligence community reveals a set of problems that are more fundamentally dangerous to the United States than a temporary degradation of capability.

Background

After the terror attacks of 9/11, an American government and it’s intelligence community were caught off guard. An immediate ramp up of intelligence capabilities, including collection, was started utilizing private contractors to offset gaps. This was a contingency planned for by prior Congressional action. Voelz (2006) provides the legislative background:

“A key recommendation of a 1996 House Permanent Select Committee investigation of the nation’s intelligence capabilities called for the creation of a dynamic surge capacity for crisis response. The Committee concluded that such resources “need not be self-contained within the IC,” but must be quickly marshaled “without undue concerns about who owns the assets.”

Problems

The first, and primary issue with this model of employment is a lack of control. Tim Shorrock, the author of "Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, argues that the increasing role of private contractors is directly linked to the rise in security failures (Kulwin, 2017). Priest and Arkin (2010) point out that “The ODNI doesn't know exactly how many reports are issued each year, but in the process of trying to find out.” Sanchez (2010) paints “a portrait of a sprawling intelligence-industrial complex drowning in data they're unable to effectively process, and choked by redundancy.“ Priest and Arkin (2010) suggest a possible cause for the lack of control, that relations between contractors and the IC have turned into a “self-licking ice cream cone”. Senator Akaka (Intelligence community contractors: Are we striking the right balance?, 2011) refers to “the movement between government and contracting firms [THAT] raises a risk that decisions made within the IC could be influenced by conflicts of interest.”

The second issue is a matter of foundation of law; government services should be run from within the government. A CIA audit (2012) refers to "inherent1y governmental functions "as defined by law. This same report also found private contractors performing such functions (returning us to the lack of control). Shorrock (2017) argues that “Without legal and financial accountability, the only way to strengthen security is to restrict high-level national security work to civil servants sworn to protect the Constitution.”

This leads us to the third issue, the oath of office that private contractors do not take. Foust tells Congress (Intelligence community contractors: Are we striking the right balance?, 2011), “I have encountered situations in which contractors are put in charge of life and death decisions, either in targeting analysis shops, running drones programs, and similar situations. This makes me deeply uncomfortable, and I would be more comfortable seeing employees that have taken an oath on the Constitution making life and death decisions in the Intelligence Community.”

A fourth issue is the matter of expense. Priest and Arkin (2010) point out that “They did this to limit the size of the permanent workforce, to hire employees more quickly than the sluggish federal process allows and because they thought - wrongly, it turned out - that contractors would be less expensive.” Timothy Dinapoli , the Director, Acquisition and Sourcing Management with the GAO told Congress (The intelligence community: Keeping watch over its contractor workforce, 2014) that:

“We found a number of limitations, including changes to the definition of ‘core contractors,’ inconsistent methodologies for estimating the number of core contractors, errors in reporting contract costs, and poor documentation, that, when you put them all together, undermined the utility, comparability, accuracy, and consistency of the inventory’s information.” And going beyond the issue of higher cost is the idea that the intelligence community is outbid for it’s own experts; the ODNI (2006) notes that “We find ourselves in a war for talent, often for the most arcane and esoteric of skills,sometimes between ourselves and/or with our own contractors.“

Finally, in considering the negative characteristics of the use of private contractors, it can be seen that the postive reasons for using such services actually becomes an overall negative. Voelz (2006) argues that “any effective and efficient design for intelligence support to operating forces must provide for their use.” As the intelligence community relies so thoroughly on private contractors that it becomes impossible to curtail that activity, then in effect the intelligence community has lost control over security functions for the United States, and thus, the government of the United States has lost control over it’s primary duty.

Solution

There is a range of options that could resolve this issue. Immediate elimination of contract support, phased integration of contract support, or continue with status quo. As noted, simply eliminating contract support for the intelligence community would also result in an immediate degradation of collection ability. A phased integration could identify contractors who perform "inherent1y governmental functions" and offer them a chance to swear the oath while providing time to recruit and train other assets. The required resource for this option would be time. Continuing with the status quo is not a valid option considering the legality, expense, and lack of control that has been demonstrated.

Conclusion

Resources have always been a consideration in any government planning, and intelligence resources can be scare. The use of private contractors for intelligence support was intended to remedy this issue, but can be seen to create a series of worse issues. A possible resolution for this issue would be a phased integration of contractors into the government as sworn officers.

References:
Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Inspector General. (2012). Report of audit: The use of independent contractors (No. 2010-0028-AS). Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/upload- document?archive_doc=310650920

Intelligence community contractors: Are we striking the right balance? Hearing before the Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia Subcommittee of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. United States Senate. (2011).

Kulwin, N. (2017, March 10). WikiLeaks’ CIA document release will probably be traced back to private contractors. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from Vice website: https://www.vice.com/ en_us/article/gyd7dq/wikileaks-cia-document-release-will-probably-be-traced-back-to-private- contractors

Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (2006). Strategic human capital plan. Retrieved from https://fas.org/irp/dni/humancapital.pdf

Priest, D., & Arkin, W. M. (2010, July 19). Top Secret America—A Washington Post Investigation: A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control. Washington Post. Retrieved from http://secure.afa.org/edOp/2010/Washington_Post_Intelligence_Series.pdf

Sanchez, J. (2010, July 19). The Washington Post Looks at “Top Secret America.” Retrieved November 18, 2019, from Cato Institute website: https://www.cato.org/blog/washington-post-looks-top-secret-america

Shorrock, T. (2017). Analysis | Why does WikiLeaks keep publishing U.S. state secrets? Private contractors. Retrieved November 18, 2019, from Washington Post website: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/16/the-reason-wikileaks-receives- so-many-u-s-state-secrets-private-contractors/

The intelligence community: Keeping watch over its contractor workforce. Hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, United States Senate. (2014).

Voelz, G. J. (2006). Managing the Private Spies: Use of Commercial Augmentation for Intelligence Operations: (Discussion Paper Number Fourteen). https://doi.org/10.21236/ADA476310