CIA to Adapt for Future, Digital Threats

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The CIA must adjust itself for a future that includes pursuing evolving terrorist networks across multiple continents amid sweeping technological changes, the agency’s director said recently.

John Brennan, speaking at the agency’s first-ever public conference at Georgetown University, said that despite vast technical achievements that have aided intelligence gathering over the years, nothing replaces the insight of well-connected, human sources.

“We must focus our efforts on uncovering secrets that only human sources can acquire; those that are typically locked inside the inner circle of an adversary,” he said. “These are the hardest of hard targets, but they are ones that CIA is especially well-equipped to pursue.”He was quoted in Defense News. The agency is still providing information and analysis through human intelligence that social media, news organizations and foreign intelligence services cannot, Brennan said.

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

“Given the number of threats and foreign policy challenges facing our country, and how difficult they are to track, I would argue that the CIA has never been more important to the strength and security of our republic,” he said. The CIA must also figure out how to “take advantage of the opportunities” in cyberspace and remaining relevant in the “digital information age,” Brennan said.

Information readily available on the Internet gives terrorists the ability to study bomb-making, case targets remotely and coordinate among associates spread out over vast distances. This, and cyberattack threats, pose problems for the intelligence community, expanding the number of threats the government most monitor, specifically in the digital realm, Brennan said.