"WASHINGTON -- U.S. spy agencies will share more intelligence with U.S. companies, nongovernmental organizations and academia under a new strategy released this week that acknowledges concerns over new threats, such as another pandemic and increasing cyberattacks.
The National Intelligence Strategy, which sets broad goals for the sprawling U.S. intelligence community, says that spy agencies must reach beyond the traditional walls of secrecy and join with outside groups to detect and deter supply-chain disruptions, infectious diseases and other growing transnational threats.
The intelligence community "must rethink its approach to exchanging information and insights," the strategy says.
The U.S. government in recent years has begun sharing vast amounts of cyber-threat intelligence with U.S. companies, utilities and others who are often the main targets of foreign hackers, as well as information on foreign-influence operations with social-media companies.
The last National Intelligence Strategy was released in 2019 under the Trump administration, before the Covid-19 pandemic and events in Ukraine.
"There's so much that's changed in the threat landscape, and in the world that we're operating in today," Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in an interview.
She sketched out a broader, more institutionalized information exchange on a wider array of topics with the private sector, ranging from academia to local governments.
Illustrating the changing threats, a senior U.S. official said that the daily intelligence briefing prepared for President Biden and his top advisers -- once dominated by terrorism and the Middle East -- now regularly covers topics as varied as China's artificial-intelligence work, the geopolitical impacts of climate change, and semiconductor chips.
The new strategy is meant to guide 18 U.S. intelligence agencies with an annual budget of about $90 billion whose work Haines coordinates.
The 16-page document, which contains no budget or program details, also says spy agencies must support the U.S. in its competition with authoritarian governments such as China and Russia, particularly in technological arenas.
On transnational threats such as financial crises, narcotics trafficking, supply-chain disruption and infectious diseases, the document calls on intelligence agencies to strengthen their internal capabilities to warn U.S. policy makers of looming threats.
A report last year by the House Intelligence Committee, at the time led by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, concluded that three years after the Covid-19 pandemic began, U.S. intelligence agencies still hadn't made the changes needed to provide better warnings of future global health crises.
Haines said that the intelligence community has strengthened its focus on global health. Her office, she said, now has a senior official whose responsibilities include coordinating intelligence work on global health issues, has invested more resources and has strengthened outreach to organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But the government, she said, also needs to rely on outside experts.
Haines' office brought in scientists and other specialists outside the government to help investigate the origins of the Covid pandemic and the health incidents affecting U.S. personnel abroad known as Havana Syndrome.
Such exchanges can be tricky. Many academics don't want to be associated publicly with the intelligence community, said Haines, who has resisted efforts by Republican lawmakers to disclose the names of those consulted on the Covid question.
The emphasis on greater intelligence sharing is part of a broader trend toward declassification that the Biden administration has pursued." [1]
1. U.S. News: Spy Agencies Will Share More Secrets --- Outreach to private sector comes as new cyber and other risks alter strategy. Strobel, Warren P.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 11 Aug 2023: A.2.
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