In new 500-day plan, ODNI previews the future

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued its follow-up 500-day plan detailing nine core and 33 enabling initiatives among the six primary focus areas.All the initiatives build upon the 100-day plan ODNI issued April 11. The new initiatives, wrote Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, will help “deepen integration of the community’s people, processes and technologies.”ODNI will continue to work on these six areas from the 100-day plan:What the 500-day plan does is expand the specifics of each of those six areas through the core and enabling initiatives.McConnell said the core initiatives, which include areas of focus such as enhancing intelligence information sharing policies, processes and procedures, and updating policy documents clarifying and aligning the intelligence community’s authorities, will help senior leaders focus on the “most critical transformational efforts.”The enabling initiatives, which offer more specifics, such as milestones and metrics, will help the government “achieve our vision of an integrated intelligence enterprise,” McConnell wrote.“The idea of the plan is the elements are reflective of benchmarks from which we can measure progress by,” said Maj. Gen. Dale Meyerrose, ODNI chief information officer, at a recent luncheon sponsored by the Industry Advisory Council.Under information sharing, the milestones include updating the intell information sharing policy, improve access to sensitive compartmentalized information and implement a “responsibility to provide” pilot for mission managers.Another core initiative is to establish a national intelligence coordination center. The plan states through the NIC-C the “DNI can direct and integrate collection activities of national, defense and domestic intelligence organizations…”But at least one former intelligence community official questioned the new center.Frank Blanco, executive vice president for the Intelligence and National Security Alliance and a former executive director at the National Security Agency, said he was perplexed about what the NIC-C would do. “We don’t need to add another layer to the process.”Blanco said overall the strategy was a good thing because it provides a snapshot of what the future intelligence community could look like.