Collaborating with the private sector remains “a work in progress” for the U.S. government and intelligence community, but prioritizing that effort is crucial to protecting national security, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Thursday.
Reaching out to the private sector is a “daunting task,” the U.S.’s top spy said, because it “is as big as all outdoors.” The intelligence community has made “a lot of headway” on improving information sharing, although there is still much to be done in that area, Clapper said.
“This is a work in progress,” Clapper told attendees at a joint Business Executives for National Security and Intelligence and National Security Alliance event at the U.S. Capitol. “It is not as mature, frankly, as foreign intelligence business which we have been at a lot longer. But I’ve seen huge improvements since 9/11.”
“Not to say we’ve achieved nirvana, absolutely not… and we’ll continue to work it,” he added.
In a panel following Clapper’s keynote, Brad Brekke, the FBI’s director of the Office of Private Sector said an important step the government is pursuing is the “move from information sharing to collaboration.”
“You have to co-create, co-construct, the solution, which is a shift culturally. We like the control, we like to dictate what happens, but we’re looking at how do we do that with the private sector, how do we co-create their solution,” Brekke said. “And quite frankly, it actually works better, the iterations we have tried, because they have better data, better technology, and they can do things much faster.”
Beyond the discussion of private sector partnerships, Russia’s alleged hacking of U.S. political party organizations and effort to interfere in the election campaign featured prominently in Clapper’s address. This marks a “new aggressive spin on the political cycle,” he said.
“Regardless, this election will happen on November 8th,” he said. “And also, by the way, we asses it would be very difficult for someone, anyone, to alter actual ballot counts or election results with a cyber intrusion, particularly since voting machines aren’t connected to the internet.”
As for the statement he jointly released earlier in October with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, officially accusing Russia of the hacks targeting U.S. political organizations, Clapper said one of the reasons “we waited for as long as we did to make a statement was to ensure that we had “sufficient evidence, both forensic and otherwise, to lead us to the conclusions we reached.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has repeatedly said that it is unclear who was behind the operation, despite the formal accusation attributing the attacks to Moscow. During Wednesday night’s presidential debate, Trump said Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton “has no idea whether it's Russia, China, or anybody else.”
“Our country has no idea,” he said.
The joint Clapper-Johnson statement said “these thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. … We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities.”
“The statement speaks for itself,” Clapper said Thursday.
During his speech, Clapper also discussed the challenges terrorist organizations pose in the cyber realm, particularly in using the internet to reach out to potential followers.
“When it comes to groups like ISIS, Daesh, the real problem isn’t their cyber hacking capability, it’s how the Internet enables them to recruit and inspire people all over the world,” Clapper said. “And we can monitor and maybe even infiltrate terrorist groups, but it’s very difficult to expunge the Internet of the ideology and their toxic ideas.”
Balancing civil liberties and privacy with the need to protect the nation is a critical factor for the U.S. government and intelligence community, Clapper noted. “I’ve witnessed a lot of teeth gnashing about people committing acts of terror when the FBI had previously investigated and cleared,” he said.
“We cannot continuously monitor Americans who have done no wrong. That’s not who we are,” he said. “So domestic security, particularly in the CT [counterterrorism] realm, is a difficult problem. And better integration of our intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security communities is critical to our national security. And that too is a work in progress and that too will continue to improve long past when I’m fully ensconced in assisted living.”
Mackenzie Weinger is a national security reporter at The Cipher Brief.
