The Intelligence Community Of The United States - 1619 Words

Throughout the years, the intelligence community in the United States have worked diligently to provide a sense of security for the millions of Americans living in our great nation today. From the FBI to the CIA, these government agencies work around the clock to find and eliminate threats that maybe detrimental to our country. However, one event that took place 14 years ago reshaped not only the way Americans think of the intelligence community, it also reshaped the policies and procedures of institutions such as the CIA, FBI, DOD, etc. The event that caused the remodeling of our government agencies was the event that took place on September 11, 2001 or known throughout the U.S. as â€Å"9/11.† A total of 2,977 Americans lost their lives to a†¦show more content†¦However, the one thing these institutions have in common with each other is that they failed to make terrorism a top priority because each of these organizations had different approaches to the subject. For example, when Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1978, many of the agents that worked for the FBI misunderstood the purpose behind the act. FISA was created in order for a â€Å"search to be approved only if its primary purpose was to obtain foreign intelligence information† (69). However, FBI agents misinterpreted the law and believed any information gathered concerning foreign intelligence they could not share with any outside agency. The FBI had a communication failure. Nothing limited or prevented the FBI from pursing terrorism they failed to communicate to their agents in the field the purpose of FISA, which caused Intel to be keep secret. The same could be said for the National Security Agency’s approach to providing Intel to other institutions. The NSA’s primary function is to â€Å"interpret and analyze foreign communications and break codes† (70). The NSA, just like the FBI, was never limited or prevented from making terrorism a priority before 9/11 there problem was they had the information to stop rising threats they just didn’t share the information. The 9/11 report clearly states that â€Å"while the NSA had the technical capability to report on communications with