To Battle New Threats, Spy Agencies to Share More Intelligence With Pvt Sector
Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “There’s so much that’s changed in the threat landscape, and in the world that we’re operating in today," Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said in an interview. She sketched out a broader, more institutionalized information exchange on a wider array of topics with the private sector, ranging from academia to local governments.
Illustrating the changing threats, a senior U.S. official said that the daily intelligence briefing prepared for President Biden and his top advisers—once dominated by terrorism and the Middle East—now regularly covers topics as varied as China’s artificial-intelligence work, the geopolitical impacts of climate change, and semiconductor chips. The new strategy is meant to guide 18 U.S.
intelligence agencies with an annual budget of about $90 billion whose work Haines coordinates. The 16-page document, which contains no budget or program details, also says spy agencies must support the U.S. in its competition with authoritarian governments such as China and Russia, particularly in technological arenas.
On transnational threats such as financial crises, narcotics trafficking, supply-chain disruption and infectious diseases, the document calls on intelligence agencies to strengthen their internal capabilities to warn U.S. policymakers of looming threats. A report last year by the House Intelligence Committee, at the time led by Democratic Rep.
Adam Schiff, concluded that three years after the Covid-19 pandemic began, U.S. intelligence agencies still hadn’t made the changes needed to provide better warnings of future global health crises. Haines said that the intelligence community has strengthened its focus on global health.
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