Vast amounts of resources have been used to reinforce the U.S. intelligence systems post 9/11 through to the Boston Bombing, with the efforts proving futile. The U.S. has experienced numerous other attacks, both homegrown and from external terrorist groups. Some of these attacks include NYC bike path vehicle incidence, Pulse, and Parkland attacks. Despite the tremendous resources allocated to Homeland Security, questions about the safety of the American people continue to emerge (“ Frontline | Top Secret America,” 2011 ). Debates on the intelligence collection, dissemination, and prevention of attacks are now synonymous with the American populace at all levels, including in the scholarly world (“ White House” 2018 ). Post 9/11 measures such as the creation of the office of the DNI, restructuring of the FBI focus, and enactment of the Patriot Act have not been sufficient to identify subsequent attackers. In some of these attacks, the perpetrators have shown clearly indicated their intentions, but the intelligence agencies failed to thwart their heinous acts. Such shortcomings indicate that there is significant intelligence pieces analysis missing that allow new attacks to emerge without prevention. Fully integrating technologies such as A.I. and streamlining communication and information flow among the intelligence agencies will be central in detecting and preventing future terror attacks.
After failing to detect the 9/11 and other terrorist attacks such as the Boston Bombing, intelligence agencies are continuously reinventing themselves for new attacks. However, attacks continue to happen on U.S. soil although of low magnitude. The gap lies in how the intelligence agencies conduct the detection, intervention, and prevention of such attacks. In several past terrorist attacks, there has been actionable intelligence that the relevant agencies have failed to act upon (“ White House” 2018 ). A fundamental discrepancy is how the agencies leverage on technology to streamline their analysis endeavors. Artificial intelligence (A.I.) can boost the efforts of the agencies in detecting and preventing attacks. The intelligence agencies should fully capitalize on A.I., which will help them label imagery and shift through the vast troves of data, thus detecting actionable signals in the noise. Fully leveraging on technology is a requirement that will help agents unravel future attacks before they materialize (Ganor, 2019). Similar to the San Bernardino attack, terrorists in the future will leave their footprints on the internet, which will be buried in vast amounts of noise data. It will be necessary for the U.S. intelligence community to analyze information faster and accurately and immediately act on it.
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After relying on technology to pinpoint possible indicators of terror activities from the vast internet environment, intelligence agencies should consider improving their collaborative capacities. Intelligence is a multiagency sector that has been adversely affected in the past by unnecessary divisions between the agencies (“ Frontline | Top Secret America,” 2011 ). From reports churned out by technology, human analysts should focus on the needs of decision-makers who are spread across different agencies (“ Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow,” 2011 ). From 9/11 to the Boston Bombings, two attributes are common to all attacks are evident, coordination problems, and inadequate information sharing within and across agencies. Improving information sharing within the intelligence community is a crucial hindering factor to thwarting attacks on U.S. soil. One cannot criticize the importance of different intelligence agencies since they are highly specialized ( Vogel & Tyler, 2019 ). Nevertheless, the agencies create stovepipes with boundaries that hamper collaboration and information flow. For instance, the need for ownership of information and, thus, secrecy is a barrier that can affect the operations of the intelligence community.
From 9/11 to the Boston Bombings, the U.S. intelligence community has been caught flatfooted. In some of these terror attacks, the agencies have had reliable information, but they have failed to act upon. Currently, the gaps are failure to integrate technologies such as A.I. and poor information sharing. Technology can allow the intelligence community to pick security pointers in the vast amounts of internet data. Today, people in the U.S. are connected, and they will definitely use the internet for various reasons. In the process, they will drop hints on what they intend to do in the future. After gathering and analyzing such information, the agencies should swiftly share amongst themselves for faster implementation.
References
Frontline | Top Secret America – 9/11 to the Boston Bombings | Season 2011 | Episode 13. (2011). Retrieved 12 April 2020, from www.pbs.org/video/frontline-top-secret-america-911-boston/
Ganor, B. (2019). Artificial or Human: A New Era of Counterterrorism Intelligence?. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 1-20.
Intelligence Analysis for Tomorrow: Advances from the Behavioral and Social Sciences (2011). (2011). Retrieved 12 April 2020, from www.nap.edu/read/13040/chapter/3#17
Vogel, K. M., & Tyler, B. B. (2019). Interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaboration in the U.S. intelligence community: lessons learned from past and present efforts. Intelligence and National Security , 34 (6), 851-880.
White House. (2018). National Strategy for Counter-terrorism of the United States of America . Washington, D.C.: White House. Retrieved from www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/NSCT.pdf
