4. What percentage of your workforce has desktop access to the open unclassified Internet? Access to the open unclassified Internet is generally available to the CIA workforce at large. About 30 percent of the staff and contractor workforce have been issued accounts to the Agency's Internet Network. If 5. Does your agency ever communicate classified information to state and local law enforcement organizations? so, by what means is this information communicated and typically to whom? Classified information is not usually released to state and local law enforcement organizations. The CIA will send classified material in secure channels to cleared personnel at the FBI, the Office of Homeland Security and other government agencies. The CIA will send unclassified versions of information that can then be disseminated to the public. In a national crisis, the FBI and the Office of Homeland Security will determine if the classified information should be released to uncleared personnel and the public. If the release is to be made, they will notify the originating agency of the requirement to do so. Typically they release a sanitized version. 6. What are the key policy and technical impediments to implementing an effective information architecture that facilitates information sharing between agencies? The Intelligence Community System for Information Sharing (ICSIS) is the DCI's information technology enterprise architecture and enabling infrastructure that will provide for the sharing of critical intelligence information across all elements of the IC and the dissemination of intelligence information to both traditional and non-traditional customers, including the homeland security community. ICSIS Phase One will include the following common infrastructure enablers: DCID 6/3-compliant authentication and auditing of users accessing intelligence information, encrypted cross-Community email, secure cross-Community collaborative environments, and trusted controlled interfaces for the exchange of information across security domains. The Intelligence Community Chief Information Officer (IC CIO) will work with IC organizations to deploy priority IC databases and applications using the infrastructure and its associated ICSIS enablers for ubiquitous access to authorized users across the IC and its supported Communities. CIA supports the ICSIS architecture. ICSIS represents the most balanced approach to sharing and protecting classified information. We support the expanded use of digital certificates to facilitate the exchange of information among appropriately cleared IC partners, customers, and colleagues. Moreover, the CIA is actively engaged in several, ICSIS-compliant projects and programs aimed at improving our ability to share information between agencies at various classification levels. On 1 October 2002, Mr. Louis Andre provided testimony before the 9-11 Joint Congressional Inquiry on information sharing between federal agencies and between federal and state and local agencies. On 6 November, the Joint Inquiry forwarded several Questions for the Record the responses to which were to facilitate its inquiry into the terrorist incidents of 11 September. Vice Admiral Jacoby, Director of DIA, has reviewed the responses to those questions and is herewith providing them for inclusion into the official record of the proceedings. DIA Response to QFRS (U) Wan Flande WILLIAM R. GRUNDMANN 1. Former DIA Director, Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, told the Joint Inquiry Staff that he was never sure that he received all available intelligence information. He also said that senior Defense officials received intelligence information that his analysts did not receive. Further, the Admiral questioned what good it did for him to be aware of intelligence information that his analysts did not receive. a. What impact, prior to 9/11, did the withholding of some intelligence information from analysts have on DIA's ability to do all-source analysis and, when necessary, provide warning reports? The impact is impossible to quantify. Terrorism intelligence information is fragmentary and ambiguous by its very nature; relevant data is imbedded in both traditional intelligence streams and the surveillance and investigative activities of law enforcement/security elements. Missing fragments may or may not improve the fidelity of a particular analytic assessment. Analysts essentially make assessments based on three broad categories of information: Information that has been observed, collected, and reported ("evidentiary"), We know of no instance where a reporting agency deliberately withheld information that it b. What agencies, in particular, tend to withhold intelligence information? All agencies that originate ('own") information withhold some categories of intelligence, either because of operational security concerns or because it does nor meet established reporting thresholds. c. How has that practice changed, if at all, since 9/11? Reporting thresholds for information related to terrorism have been lowered across the community. When confronted by ambiguous information, originating agencies err on the side of disseminating rather than holding the information. Significant progress has been made toward the goal of full information sharing, including breaking down compartmental barriers imposed by operational security needs. Despite this progress, we believe there remain instances when information relevant to the analysis of the terrorist threat is withheld or distribution is limited to senior, non-analytic leadership due to reporting |