Promoting United States Leadership in Standards Act of 2025

— 218 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise NATIONAL COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY CENTER (NCSC) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) has taken a keen inter- est in possibly updating the codified language underpinning much of the nation’s counterintelligence apparatus. “Spy vs. spy” threats continue to exist, but the rise of China and (to an extent) Russia’s machinations move beyond the governmental sphere to technological, economic, supply chain, cyber, academic, state, and local espionage threats at a level our country has never seen. The asymmetric threat includes cyber, nontraditional collection, and issues involving legitimate busi- nesses serving as collection platforms. Barring statutory changes that could occur before 2025, a future conserva- tive President should further empower and resource the IC by executive order or through suggested changes in the Counterintelligence Enhancement Act (CEA) of 2002.32 NCSC was given some authority for outreach efforts on behalf of the IC for counterintelligence education, insider threats, and broader U.S. government best practices, but there remain significant deltas between Title 50 and non–Title 50 entities’ protections. Primary operational elements should remain at the FBI and CIA, with the Bureau and NCSC collaborating on nongovernmental outreach. While there is no need to create a separate agency, a future President and DNI should amplify NCSC’s authorities and roles with respect to counterintelligence strategy, policy, outreach, and governance, including supporting necessary Joint Duty Assignments (JDA) for FBI and CIA personnel. At the same time, the FBI requires significant additional resources and legal authorities to fulfill its statu- tory role as the lead operational counterintelligence agency in dealing with the ever-growing threats posed by our adversaries. The CEA should be updated to include foreign espionage efforts aimed at universities. Corporate America, technology companies, research institutions, and academia must be willing, educated partners in this generational fight to protect our national security interests, economic interests, national sovereignty, and intellectual prop- erty as well as the broader rules-based order—all while avoiding the tendency to cave to the left-wing activists and investors who ignore the China threat and increasingly dominate the corporate world. Reinstitution of the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board and the National Security Business Alliance Council should be prioritized with leadership from the NCSC, the FBI, or a com- bination of both entities. When the CCP steals at least $400 billion–$600 billion in intellectual prop- erty each year, it is time to devote some strategic thinking to exactly how and to what degree counterintelligence efforts can help to protect America’s commercial endeavors. If Chinese strategic technology gains are happening almost entirely in transnational commercial space, for example, and the private sector is also gath- ering and analyzing some critical intelligence, these essential data points should assist in national-level counterintelligence efforts. — 219 — Intelligence Community The NCSC was created in the aftermath of 9/11 as the Terrorist Threat Integra- tion Center (TTIC), which later became the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) pursuant to President George W. Bush’s Executive Order 13354.33 The NCTC was an organization of approximately three dozen detainees from across the U.S. government with a mandate to integrate counterterrorism intelligence and missions, including terrorist screening. Eventually: In November 2014 the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) established NCSC by combining [the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive] with the Center for Security Evaluation, the Special Security Center and the National Insider Threat Task Force, to effectively integrate and align counterintelligence and security mission areas under a single organizational construct. The Director of NCSC serves in support of the DNI’s role as Security Executive Agent (SecEA) to develop, implement, oversee and integrate personnel security initiatives throughout the U.S. Government.34 NCSC has added value in such areas as fusing cross-community intelligence for terrorism watchlisting purposes and improving information sharing while carrying roughly half of the overall cadre for the ODNI. An incoming Administration should focus NCTC on integrative tasks, many of which cannot be carried out elsewhere in the IC, but should not use personnel and resources for redundant analyses that duplicate the work of such other IC entities as the FBI and CIA. ADDITIONAL AREAS FOR REFORM Analytical Integrity. The “tradecraft” of intelligence analysis is mostly a col- lection of lessons learned over decades about what works and does not work in a profession whose high-stakes work is performed by thousands but that also bears little outside scrutiny and provides few metrics by which to gauge success or failure on a regular basis. These lessons have accumulated from: l The perceived misuse of intelligence by consumers as was the case with respect to war-related assessments in the Johnson and Bush Administrations; l Failures such as the failures to warn of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the specific threat of 9/11; l Successes in piecing together tactical and often technical puzzles such as estimates of Iranian nuclear program maturation; and l Strategic victories such as anticipating critical geopolitical developments that have been years in the making.

— 218 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise NATIONAL COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY CENTER (NCSC) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) has taken a keen inter- est in possibly updating the codified language underpinning much of the nation’s counterintelligence apparatus. “Spy vs. spy” threats continue to exist, but the rise of China and (to an extent) Russia’s machinations move beyond the governmental sphere to technological, economic, supply chain, cyber, academic, state, and local espionage threats at a level our country has never seen. The asymmetric threat includes cyber, nontraditional collection, and issues involving legitimate busi- nesses serving as collection platforms. Barring statutory changes that could occur before 2025, a future conserva- tive President should further empower and resource the IC by executive order or through suggested changes in the Counterintelligence Enhancement Act (CEA) of 2002.32 NCSC was given some authority for outreach efforts on behalf of the IC for counterintelligence education, insider threats, and broader U.S. government best practices, but there remain significant deltas between Title 50 and non–Title 50 entities’ protections. Primary operational elements should remain at the FBI and CIA, with the Bureau and NCSC collaborating on nongovernmental outreach. While there is no need to create a separate agency, a future President and DNI should amplify NCSC’s authorities and roles with respect to counterintelligence strategy, policy, outreach, and governance, including supporting necessary Joint Duty Assignments (JDA) for FBI and CIA personnel. At the same time, the FBI requires significant additional resources and legal authorities to fulfill its statu- tory role as the lead operational counterintelligence agency in dealing with the ever-growing threats posed by our adversaries. The CEA should be updated to include foreign espionage efforts aimed at universities. Corporate America, technology companies, research institutions, and academia must be willing, educated partners in this generational fight to protect our national security interests, economic interests, national sovereignty, and intellectual prop- erty as well as the broader rules-based order—all while avoiding the tendency to cave to the left-wing activists and investors who ignore the China threat and increasingly dominate the corporate world. Reinstitution of the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board and the National Security Business Alliance Council should be prioritized with leadership from the NCSC, the FBI, or a com- bination of both entities. When the CCP steals at least $400 billion–$600 billion in intellectual prop- erty each year, it is time to devote some strategic thinking to exactly how and to what degree counterintelligence efforts can help to protect America’s commercial endeavors. If Chinese strategic technology gains are happening almost entirely in transnational commercial space, for example, and the private sector is also gath- ering and analyzing some critical intelligence, these essential data points should assist in national-level counterintelligence efforts.

— 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).