SEND THEM BACK Act of 2025

— 231 — Intelligence Community AN UNFINISHED EXPERIMENT The Intelligence Community, including specifically the role of the DNI and ODNI, is an unfinished experiment. The envisioned design principle was a conser- vative one: a small, network-centric model for enterprise coordination as opposed to a large monolithic bureaucracy like DHS. The ODNI, however, has reverted in some ways to a bureaucratic and hierarchical model characterized by limited effectiveness. Historically, the CIA has undercut the DNI and maintains primacy in the IC hierarchy, especially regarding the White House. An incoming conservative Pres- ident can right the ship and return the IC governance model to first principles by using a limited but empowered leadership and coordination design to serve the nation’s intelligence and national security needs while reclaiming the public trust with fiscal responsibility, political neutrality, personnel accountability, tech- nological prowess, and necessary human capital needed to counter the immense nation-state and asymmetrical threats facing our country. AUTHOR’S NOTE: The preparation of this chapter was a collective enterprise of individuals involved in the 2025 Presidential Transition Project. No particular policy statement, reform recommendation, or other view expressed herein should be attributed to any individual contributor or to the author. — 232 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise ENDNOTES 1. “Two independent agencies—the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA); Nine Department of Defense elements—the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and intelligence elements of the five DoD services; the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Space Force. Seven elements of other departments and agencies—the Department of Energy’s Office of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence; the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis and U.S. Coast Guard Intelligence; the Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Office of National Security Intelligence; the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research; and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis.” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “What We Do: Members of the IC,” https://www.dni. gov/index.php/what-we-do/members-of-the-ic (accessed March 8, 2023). 2. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, “Mission,” https://www.intelligence.gov/mission#:~:text=The%20 Intelligence%20Community's%20mission%20is,law%20enforcement%2C%20and%20the%20military (accessed February 24, 2023). 3. Abraham Lincoln, Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ documents/second-annual-message-9 (accessed March 6, 2023). 4. Christopher Porter, “Seven Questions the Next President Will Need the Intelligence Community to Answer to Win the Technology Competition with China,” LinkedIn, March 14, 2023, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ seven-questions-next-president-need-intelligence-community-porter/?trackingId=Dl9RF5CnSwWnAO7r9gg HiQ%3D%3D (accessed March 18, 2023). 5. H.R. 2845, Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, Public Law No. 108-458, 108th Congress, December 17, 2004, https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ458/PLAW-108publ458.pdf (accessed March 6, 2004). 6. Testimony of Philip Zelikow, Executive Director, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, in hearing, Assessing America’s Counterterrorism’s Capabilities, Committee on Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate, 108th Congress, 2d Session, August 3, 2004, p. 55, https://ia802906.us.archive.org/31/items/gov. gpo.fdsys.CHRG-108shrg95506/CHRG-108shrg95506.pdf (accessed March 19, 2023). 7. Michael Allen, Blinking Red: Crisis and Compromise in American Intelligence After 9/11 (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2013), p. 155; Interview with Robert Gates, April 19, 2012. 8. Allen, Blinking Red, p. 154; Robert Gates e-mail to Andy Card, January 11, 2005; handwritten note from Robert Gates, January 20, 2005. 9. Interview with John Ratcliffe, December 15, 2022. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. 12. S. 258, National Security Act of 1947, Public Law No. 80-253, 80th Congress, July 26, 1947, https://govtrackus. s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/61/STATUTE-61-Pg495.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). 13. President Ronald Reagan, Executive Order 12333, “United States Intelligence Activities,” December 4, 1981, in Federal Register, Vol. 46, No. 235 (December 8, 1981), pp. 59941–59954, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/ pkg/FR-1981-12-08/pdf/FR-1981-12-08.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). 14. President George W. Bush, Executive Order 13470, “Further Amendments to Executive Order 12333, United States Intelligence Activities,” July 30, 2008, in Federal Register, Vol. 73, No. 150 (August 4, 2008), pp. 45325–45342, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2008-08-04/pdf/E8-17940.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). See also President George W. Bush, Executive Order 13355, “Strengthened Management of the Intelligence Community,” August 27, 2004, in Federal Register, Vol. 69, No. 169 (September 1, 2004), pp. 53593–53597, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2004-09-01/pdf/04-20051.pdf (accessed March 6, 2023). 15. U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, “Trusted Workforce 2.0 and Continuous Vetting,” https://www.dcsa.mil/mc/pv/cv/ (accessed March 9, 2023). 16. 50 U.S. Code § 3093(e), https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3093 (accessed February 24, 2023). 17. 50 U.S. Code § 3093(a). 18. 50 U.S. Code § 3093(a)(4).

— 222 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise forward-leaning in sharing cyber threat intelligence with private-sector partners and the public, emphasizing that the protective nature of such information is of value only if put into the right hands at the right time. Since critical infrastructure and services are overwhelmingly owned, managed, and defended by the private sector in the United States, there has been an increasing emphasis on declassify- ing intelligence and sharing actionable information with private-sector partners, often through industry-specific Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs); regional meetings of government and private-sector experts called InfraGard, run by the FBI; direct public notification from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and (increasingly) the NSA; and more discreet one-on-one engagements led by the collecting agencies. These programs properly recognize the private sector’s role in providing cyber- security for Americans; in practice, however, the intelligence shared by the U.S. government through these venues is too often already known or no longer relevant by the time it makes its way through the downgrade process for sharing. In addition, government-shared information often needs to take advantage of the opportunity to provide contexts, such as attribution, trends, and size of the observed cyber problem. As warranted, additional context should be provided to the private sector as a matter of routine. To continue improving the U.S. government’s ability to defend the country’s most vital networks, the IC must adopt an “obligation to share” policy process, including the capacity for “write to release” intelligence products whereby newly discovered technical indicators, targeting, and other intelligence relevant to cyber defense are automatically provided either to the public or to targeted entities within 48 hours of their collection—which is how counterterrorism intel- ligence has been managed for years when it comes to a “duty to warn.” Under this policy, agency heads should still have the flexibility to withhold intelligence for operational or counterintelligence reasons but would need to report regularly to Congress on the number of and justification for exceptions. This policy would make sharing intelligence and defending networks the default, as it already is in the rest of the cybersecurity community outside the IC, to improve the quantity, relevance, and timeliness of defensive information while ensuring accountability for top leaders when they must withhold this information. One of the most significant challenges within the IC is presented by the need to share information promptly among the 18 elements of the intelligence enterprise. The only long-term solution to the understandable tension between the need to share information and the need to protect intelligence sources and methods is a robust real-time auditing capability that electronically flags unauthorized access. Under an identity management system with real-time audit, even the most sensi- tive information acquired by America’s intelligence agencies can be shared, and the access to and use of that information are appropriately monitored. Establishing — 223 — Intelligence Community a real-time auditing capability is essential to decreasing the risk for the heads of intelligence agencies in meeting their statutory requirements to ensure that they protect sources and methods associated with the classified information their agen- cies collect. Overclassification. There is broad consensus across the U.S. government and among stakeholders that the system for classifying, declassifying, and otherwise marking and handling sensitive information is at a crossroads. Exorbitant amounts of classified data are created daily, and agency personnel often mistakenly choose classification as the default selection to ensure national security. At the same time, the effectiveness of downgraded and carefully declassified information to support foreign policy efforts has been borne out in, for example, alerting the broader world of Russia’s buildup and likely plans for its invasion of Ukraine. Two executive orders principally govern how the U.S. government handles clas- sified and sensitive information. l Executive Order 13526, “Classified National Security Information,” issued in 2009,38 prescribes the classification levels and procedures for declassification. l Executive Order 13556, “Controlled Unclassified Information,” issued in 2010,39 aimed to establish a uniform program for managing all unclassified information that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls. The current system for declassifying classified national security information (CNSI) is extraordinarily analog, requiring experts’ review of individual records. Declassification policies are based on human review of paper and need to con- template and handle the proliferation and volume of digital records created by agencies. The U.S. government will soon reach the point at which manual review is impossible. The declassification of CNSI should support key U.S. national security objectives, reflect mission priorities, and not serve solely as a necessary procedural function. Reforms should include: l Tighter definitions and greater specificity for categories of information requiring protection. l More stringent policies to effect significant reductions in the number of Original Classification Authorities (OCAs). l Stricter accountability measures at the OCA level and more detailed security classification guides.

— 8 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise l Bureaucrats at the Department of Homeland Security, following the lead of a feckless Administration, order border and immigration enforcement agencies to help migrants criminally enter our country with impunity; l Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms; l Bureaucrats at the Department of Justice force school districts to undermine girls’ sports and parents’ rights to satisfy transgender extremists; l Woke bureaucrats at the Pentagon force troops to attend “training” seminars about “white privilege”; and l Bureaucrats at the State Department infuse U.S. foreign aid programs with woke extremism about “intersectionality” and abortion.3 Unaccountable federal spending is the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening. Nearly every power center held by the Left is funded or supported, one way or another, through the bureaucracy by Congress. Colleges and school districts are funded by tax dollars. The Administrative State holds 100 percent of its power at the sufferance of Congress, and its insulation from presidential discipline is an unconstitutional fairy tale spun by the Washington Establishment to protect its turf. Members of Congress shield themselves from constitutional accountability often when the White House allows them to get away with it. Cultural institutions like public libraries and public health agencies are only as “independent” from public accountability as elected officials and voters permit. Let’s be clear: The most egregious regulations promulgated by the current Administration come from one place: the Oval Office. The President cannot hide behind the agencies; as his many executive orders make clear, his is the respon- sibility for the regulations that threaten American communities, schools, and families. A conservative President must move swiftly to do away with these vast abuses of presidential power and remove the career and political bureaucrats who fuel it. Properly considered, restoring fiscal limits and constitutional accountability to the federal government is a continuation of restoring national sovereignty to the American people. In foreign affairs, global strategy, federal budgeting and pol- icymaking, the same pattern emerges again and again. Ruling elites slash and tear at restrictions and accountability placed on them. They centralize power up and away from the American people: to supra-national treaties and organizations, to left-wing “experts,” to sight-unseen all-or-nothing legislating, to the unelected career bureaucrats of the Administrative State. — 9 — Foreword As monolithic as the Left’s institutional power appears to be, it originates with appropriations from Congress and is made complete by a feckless President. A conservative President must look to the legislative branch for decisive action. The Administrative State is not going anywhere until Congress acts to retrieve its own power from bureaucrats and the White House. But in the meantime, there are many executive tools a courageous conservative President can use to handcuff the bureaucracy, push Congress to return to its constitutional responsibility, restore power over Washington to the American people, bring the Administrative State to heel, and in the process defang and defund the woke culture warriors who have infiltrated every last institution in America. The Conservative Promise lays out how to use many of these tools including: how to fire supposedly “un-fireable” federal bureaucrats; how to shutter wasteful and corrupt bureaus and offices; how to muzzle woke propaganda at every level of government; how to restore the American people’s constitutional authority over the Administrative State; and how to save untold taxpayer dollars in the process. Finally, the President can restore public confidence and accountability to our most important government function of all: national defense. The American people desire a military full of highly skilled servicemen and women who can protect the homeland and our interests overseas. The next conservative President must end the Left’s social experimentation with the military, restore warfighting as its sole mission, and set defeating the threat of the Chinese Communist Party as its high- est priority. The next conservative President must possess the courage to relentlessly put the interests of the everyday American over the desires of the ruling elite. Their outrage cannot be prevented; it must simply be ignored. And it can be. The Left derives its power from the institutions they control. But those institutions are only powerful to the extent that constitutional officers surrender their own legitimate authority to them. A President who refuses to do so and uses his or her office to reimpose constitutional authority over federal policymaking can begin to correct decades of corruption and remove thousands of bureaucrats from the positions of public trust they have so long abused. PROMISE #3: DEFEND OUR NATION’S SOVEREIGNTY, BORDERS, AND BOUNTY AGAINST GLOBAL THREATS. The United States belongs to “We the people.” All government authority derives from the consent of the people, and our nation’s success derives from the character of its people. The American people’s right to rule ourselves is the obverse of our duty: We cannot outsource to others our obligation to ensure the conditions that allow our families, local communities, churches and synagogues, and neighbor- hoods to thrive. The buck stops with each of us, so each of us must have the freedom to pursue the good for ourselves and those entrusted to our care.