Excerpted from ENN Daily Report - Friday, November 29, 1996 Vol. 2 - No. 334

A POSSIBLE NEW ROLE FOR U.S. INTELLIGENCE ...
By Steve Macko, ENN Editor

Some experts are saying that it may be time for the U.S. intelligence community to recognize new customers for its products. These new customers may actually be the general public. Ever since World War II ended, intelligence has been designed to support and inform the President and senior officials of the Executive Branch. But today, the world is a much more complex place.

Many of the people who read this publication can be considered to be individual citizens who pursue information on international political, social and economic objectives that are independent of government. Many are retired from government service. As a whole, we are not sure how much of the government is now reading the information that ENN provides -- but most of our indications suggest that it is substantial and growing every day.

The Emergency Response and Research Institute may be considered a "public agent" and we only deal with what is considered to be "open source" material. Our strength is in our ability to gather, analyze and disseminate it. We know that various parts of the intelligence community are using the information that we are providing and that's where the transformation is now taking place.

The private community is furnishing the intelligence community with vast amounts of data and information. Some say, now, that's it's time for U.S. intelligence to return the favor.

The intelligence community does, in a way, disseminate information to the public. A good example of such a product is exemplified by the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service. This service collects, translates and publishes thousands of foreign media reports on a daily basis.

But as readers of this publication can attest to, U.S. intelligence provides more interesting information on the opposite end of the spectrum in the form of Indications and Warning intelligence that concerns imminent threats to national security that is aimed at informing the commander-in-chief and his military advisors.

In between those two extremes is where the ENN DAILY REPORT is situated and where U.S. intelligence can better serve non-governmental interests -- of which, some say, the public has a legitimate claim.

Richard F. Kaufman, the former chief counsel of the congressional Joint Economic Committee, said, "Given the volume of material they're producing, you have to wonder who in the Executive Branch is even reading this stuff. Here is this very valuable resource. It's been paid for. There are all these experts sitting there. And who's benefiting? There's a lot of fertile ground here, where the intelligence agencies are grinding out reports on all kinds of subjects that are not reaching the Congress and the public."

Intelligence officials do testify before congressional committee hearings on a regular basis and there are a variety of reports that are published by the intelligence community -- but these represent only a drop in the bucket compared to what is actually collected and produced. Experts, such as Kaufman, say that the information could benefit the public and have no adverse impact to national security or even in divulging how the information was collected.

The late former CIA director William Colby also agreed with providing more information to the public. He drew an analogy between intelligence and journalism by saying, "Deep Throat's identity remains a secret, but the nation has benefited from his information." Colby added, "Intelligence substance can be disseminated to the public while its sources are kept secret."

Colby thought designing intelligence for public consumption could also enrich the intelligence community itself. Many CIA analysts are said to appreciate feedback on the reports that they write because they so rarely hear from the end consumers that they write for.

In 1978, Colby wrote: "Intelligence must accept the end of its special status in the American government and take on the task of informing the public of its nature and its activities. By far the most effective manner of accomplishing the task ... is by letting the public benefit directly from the products of intelligence, its information and assessments."

(C) EmergencyNet News Service, 1996. Redistribution without permission is prohibited.