Intelligence Agencies: Collaboration within the United States

The term intelligence broadly refers to information assessments concerning potential security risks that are used in national security policy decisions and action. Intelligence agencies gather, archive, and analyze intelligence information to combat a variety of transnational security threats, including terrorism, the narcotics and arms trades, human trafficking, cybercrime, and weapons proliferation. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, placed increased emphasis on national security threats that emanate from ubiquitous transnational sources and the need for increased coordination, collaboration, and communication between intelligence agencies at regional, national, and international levels. According to the former chief intelligence officer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Donald Van Duyn, combating transnational crime and terrorism threats to the United States increasingly requires coordination between law-enforcement and intelligence agencies throughout ...