CIA Director Leverages New Talent to Track “Digital Dust”
CIA Director John Brennan outlined the 21st century challenges facing his agency and the organizational changes being made to address these challenges at a recent dinner event in front of 500 guests of the Intelligence Community. Among the changes currently being implemented were two key additions to the agency:
- Establishment of the Talent Development Center of Excellence which will promote and improve workforce development of incoming and current CIA employees.
- Standing up of the Directorate of Digital Innovation Directorate which will focus on strengthening expertise and understanding of digital and cyber capabilities, modernize business practices, and integrate the CIA’s mission center capabilities.
Among the most interesting comments, made by Mr. Brennan was that the CIA was attracting and leveraging new talent who grew up with technology and social media and use them to adapt current intelligence gathering methodologies and exploit open source information for use against our adversaries. Mr. Brennan stated:
“Everywhere we go, everything we do, we leave some digital dust, and it really is difficult to operate clandestinely, much less covertly, when you’re leaving digital dust in your wake,.…we need to understand that environment, and rather than fight against it, we need to be able to leverage it to its fullest potential.”
This is not surprising as most agencies (some sooner than others) have realized that in order to remain relevant and productive they have to keep up with current technologies and social trends. However, as a reminder for those that have the technological skills for these types of jobs, you must still meet the security clearance requirements by displaying honesty, trustworthiness, and a willingness to follow laws and regulations.
