{"id":764,"date":"2010-01-26T10:33:30","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T17:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.harvardnsj.com\/?p=764"},"modified":"2014-11-14T14:31:29","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T19:31:29","slug":"a-response-to-connecting-the-dots-and-the-christmas-plot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/2010\/01\/a-response-to-connecting-the-dots-and-the-christmas-plot\/","title":{"rendered":"A Response To ‘Connecting the Dots and the Christmas Plot’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nathan A. Sales –
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long after 9\/11 for the conventional wisdom to crystallize.\u00a0 The devastating terrorist attacks were almost immediately, and almost universally, chalked up to the intelligence community\u2019s failure to share information.\u00a0 Yet if al Qaeda\u2019s attempt to down Northwest flight 253 is any indication, the feds still haven\u2019t learned how to connect the dots.<\/p>\n

The Christmas plot is shaping up to be an information-sharing epic fail.\u00a0 As early as last fall our spies began picking up alarming signals that something big was afoot.\u00a0 The clues should have been circulating widely throughout the intelligence community.\u00a0 And the system, according to former FBI counterterrorism official Ali Soufan, \u201cshould have been lighting up like a Christmas tree.\u201d<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t, and it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Why not?<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is that intelligence officials have powerful incentives to hoard data from one another.\u00a0 As I argue in a forthcoming law review article<\/a>, information sharing threatens to undermine two of the things agencies value the most\u2014influence and turf.<\/p>\n

Intelligence officials want to maximize their sway over the President and his advisors.\u00a0 In particular, they want the White House to rely on their judgment more than it relies on their rivals\u2019.\u00a0 And agencies know that handing over data to bureaucratic competitors can cause their influence to shrink.<\/p>\n

If the FBI gives CIA a piece of information that turns out to be the silver bullet, CIA will get the credit for the resulting intelligence breakthrough.\u00a0 From the Bureau\u2019s perspective, that\u2019s a pretty raw deal.\u00a0 Influence is a zero sum game; if the President is listening to CIA more, he\u2019s listening to the FBI less.<\/p>\n

Intelligence officials also want to protect their turf, and sharing makes it harder for them to run their operations as they see fit.\u00a0 If the FBI tells CIA what it\u2019s up to, there\u2019s a chance the Agency might muscle in and take control.<\/p>\n

These fears may have been at work in the aftermath of the Christmas plot.\u00a0 The FBI apparently decided to seek criminal charges against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab without first consulting the Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security, or the National Counter Terrorism Center.\u00a0 One reason they may have been kept in the dark is because the Bureau feared losing control over the investigation\u2014i.e., turf.<\/p>\n

So what can be done?\u00a0 If policymakers want to improve data exchange, they need to weaken intelligence agencies\u2019 existing incentives to hoard and create new incentives to share.<\/p>\n

One way to encourage good behavior would be to reward officials who routinely share information.\u00a0 Exemplary employees could be promoted, handed choice assignments, and given cash rewards.\u00a0 By contrast, those who continue to hoard could be reassigned to dead-end jobs, demoted, or even fired.<\/p>\n

Another possibility would be to adopt new performance metrics.\u00a0 Like professors who are up for tenure, intelligence officials could be evaluated partly on the extent to which others cite their reports.\u00a0 Other analysts can\u2019t rely on your work if they don\u2019t know it exists, so tying career prospects to citation count would create strong pro-sharing incentives.<\/p>\n

Finally, reformers should consider ways to restructure the incentives at the agency-wide level.\u00a0 One option would be to establish a compensation scheme that allows sharing agencies to recoup at least a portion of the benefits that accrue to recipients.\u00a0 If agencies can internalize some of these positive externalities, data exchange would no longer hurt their bottom lines.<\/p>\n

Solid intelligence represents our best chance to stop the next Abdulmutallab before he sets foot on a plane.\u00a0 And widespread information sharing is an essential building block of an effective intelligence system.\u00a0 Yet the intelligence community isn\u2019t going to start sharing simply because Congress and the President say please.\u00a0 It\u2019s not enough for our nation\u2019s lawmakers to tear down the wall; intelligence agencies need to be given reasons to climb over the rubble.<\/p>\n

–Nathan A. Sales is a law professor at George Mason University. He served in the George W. Bush administration at the Justice Department and as deputy assistant secretary of homeland security for policy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click here to read as a PDF<\/a><\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Homepage image courtesy NECN<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nathan A. Sales – It didn\u2019t take long after 9\/11 for the conventional wisdom to crystallize.\u00a0 The devastating terrorist attacks were almost immediately, and almost universally, chalked up to the intelligence community\u2019s failure to share information.\u00a0 Yet if al Qaeda\u2019s attempt to down Northwest flight 253 is any indication, the feds still haven\u2019t learned how to connect the dots. The Christmas plot is shaping up to be an information-sharing epic fail.\u00a0 As early as last fall our spies began picking up alarming signals that something big was afoot.\u00a0 The clues should have been circulating widely throughout the intelligence community.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZtUX-ck","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/nsj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}