Inside the IC

For this episode, I speak with Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, about NPEC's influential paper, "Over-classification: How Bad Is It, What’s the Fix?" The over-classification of national security information has been a long simmering issue in Washington policy circles. But that debate was cast into the spotlight after 21-year-old Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was arrested in April for allegedly leaking reams of highly sensitive documents on the Internet. In May, members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence introduced legislation aimed at reining in over-classification. NPEC's paper published earlier this spring - two years in the making, and released weeks before Teixeira's arrest - has a wealth of information and examples of over-classification challenges, as well as recommendations for addressing them. So can Washington come together to address its secrets obsession? "Part of me is optimistic, part of me is, I wouldn't say cynical, but skeptical," Sokolski said.

A new Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency project is looking to use psychology to thwart would-be hackers. Many cyber attacks these days use basic human psychology to get people to click on a link, for example, as part of a "phishing" exploit. But IARPA thinks it can flip that paradigm on its head and embed the "cognitive biases" of hackers into network defenses. For an overview of the effort, I spoke with Dr. Kimberly Ferguson-Walter, the program manager for IARPA's Reimagining Security with Cyberpsychology-Informed Network Defenses (ReSCIND) program.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is in the early stages of making major upgrades to the federal government's top-secret network, the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System (JWICS). DIA's "customers" - other federal agencies and military units -- increasingly want high-bandwidth, low latency digital services to be a part of JWICS. So DIA will be "expanding the highway" of JWICS by embedding cloud computing and other modern technologies into the top-secret network. For the latest, I spoke with Johanna “Jojo” Leasiolagi, senior technical advisor for DIA.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's "Tearline" project is a unique "open source" endeavor in the intelligence community. And its efforts aren't going unnoticed: Tearline recently won the inaugural "OSINT Unit of the Year" award from the OSINT Foundation. I spoke with Chris Rasmussen, the Tearline's founder and program manager, about the project's origins, what it's been up to lately, and its future as a potential OSINT trailblazer for the U.S. government.

Compensation for individuals with security clearances increased by 7% in 2022. More than half of all cleared workers now make six figures, according to ClearanceJobs' annual Security Clearance Compensation Report. I spoke with ClearanceJobs President Evan Lesser and Senior Editor Jill Hamilton about the latest report, which also shows an uptick in remote and hybrid work opportunities for cleared talent.

The National Security Agency's Cybersecurity Collaboration Center opened nearly two years ago to help the defense industrial base and other critical organizations better secure their networks. The organization works with a couple hundred of companies today, and it wants to scale that to "thousands" this year, according to Kristina Walter, chief of DIB defense at the center, my guest for this week's episode.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is in charge of maintaining the federal government's top-secret network. That global system is on the cusp of a major overhaul. I spoke with DIA Chief Information Officer Doug Cossa about his agency's plans to modernize the IT network and how the intelligence community needs to adapt, in many ways, to modern technological realities. Highlights include: 0:40: JWICS modernization 17:27: The role of cloud computing for JWICS and DIA 22:30: Risks in global telecom standards and opportunities for wireless tech in the IC 29:45: Desktop-as-a-service and telework 34:55: Artificial intelligence and machine learning

A declassified National Intelligence Council Assessment from April 2020 says "China and other authoritarian governments are using cyber espionage, attacks and influence operations to extend the coercive reach of their ideological enforcement and political control efforts beyond their borders." How are cyber threats evolving? And how is cyber threat intelligence changing to keep up? I spoke with Jim Richberg, the former national intelligence manager for cyber, to discuss those issues and others.

The intelligence community has made strides in recent years across a range of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility metrics. But the IC's latest demographic report shows that intel agencies still lag behind the broader federal workforce when it comes to the hiring and retention of minorities, women, and persons with disabilities. I spoke with Stephanie La Rue, the IC's first-ever chief of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, about how she's trying to bolster DEI&A across intelligence agencies.

Congress is out-of-town for the mid-term elections, but when they come back, the annual intelligence authorization bill could get passed. There are a number of key provisions in this year's bill, including one that would allow more industry employees top receive clearance. Another would conduct a study of how agencies and industry utilize classified facilities. To break it down, I spoke with Larry Hanauer, vice president for policy at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.