Question 1
There are several agencies that play the role of intelligence, even though they are not part of the Department of Homeland Security. They include:
- U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM)
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives; and Drug Enforcement Administration
- Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (Randol, 2009).
- Department of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)
- United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
- United States Coast Guard
- United States Secret Service (USSS)
- Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
- United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
- The Department of Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence
- Directorate for Management
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
- Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
- National Protection and Programs Directorate
Question 2
I agree with Richard A. Posner that there should be a domestic agency in the USA. As a fact, the USA has the FBI as the primary agency for domestic intelligence. Other countries, such as Britain and Canada, have MI5 and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). Such agencies are mandated to detect terrorism and have no power to arrest criminals (Posner & Kayyem, 2006). In this case, they have the sole purpose of preventing rather than waiting for an attack to occur. The intelligence function should be outside the criminal investigation agency.
FBI, in most cases, investigates crimes that have already been committed. It is not possible to transform the FBI into an intelligent agency since its members are criminal investigators. The FBI, they take intelligence as an adjunct to prosecute and to arrest. More so, success in their case is measured through arrests made. I think success should be measured by how many criminal activities have been prevented. Besides, they arrest a terrorist victim as soon as there is evidence of convicting him or her. This should be done in a different way by domestic intelligence, where they continue with investigation until there is a complete revelation of the terrorist’s plot. Notably, the FBI has not yet developed a sufficient and adequate computer system dealing with intelligence needs. More so, they have not been able to knit police officer into their network for information due to fears that the local police would steal their cases.
References
Posner, R. A. and Kayyem, J. (2006, November 17). Does the United States Need a Domestic Intelligence Agency? The Council on Foreign Relations. Retrieved from http://www.cfr.org/intelligence/does-united-states
Randol, M. A. (2009). Homeland Security Intelligence: Perceptions, Statutory Definitions and Approaches. Congressional Research Service.Retrieved from https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33616.pdf
