Inside the IC

Jan 24 2025 40 ep. 31 mins 34
Inside the IC Podcast artwork

Inside the IC explores how U.S. intelligence agencies are adapting to 21st century challenges. The show features interviews with intelligence community leaders and experts about their most pressing issues involving technology, workforce, and management.

  Government
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‘Still work to be done’ on security clearance reform efforts

Jan 24 2025 28 mins  
The Intelligence and National Security Alliance has a slate of recommendations for the incoming Trump administration. They touch on how the IC could make progress on hiring, personnel vetting (security clearances), AI skills and open source intelligence, among other areas. Inside the IC spoke with John Doyon, INSA's executive vice president, to dig into the suggestions ahead of the

The intelligence community has a big new tech strategy

Jun 27 2024 27 mins  
The intelligence community has laid out new priorities for the cloud, AI, cybersecurity and more in a new "Information Technology Roadmap" released in late May. The IC's Chief Information Officer, Adele Merritt, joined the show to explain the goals of the new strategy. "This roadmap really provides a unified vision for where the IC needs to go over the next five years," Merritt tol

The State Department has a new OSINT strategy

May 28 2024 24 mins  
On the heels of a new intelligence community-wide open-source intelligence strategy . . . the State Department now has its own OSINT strategy. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) uses OSINT to inform U.S. diplomacy, a unique role in the intelligence community. And one of the big goals of the new strategy is to better serve U.S. diplomats across the world by generating mor

Inside the IC's new open source intelligence strategy

Apr 24 2024 35 mins  
Leaders of top U.S. intelligence agencies have signed onto a plan to centralize and take better advantage of open source intelligence, or OSINT. The new OSINT strategy aims to make open-source an “the INT of first resort.” Those words, in the title of the strategy, are a tacit recognition that spy agencies have traditionally favored gaining intelligence from highly secretive so

The women leading at the NSA

Mar 13 2024 35 mins  
Women make up about 40% of the intelligence community's workforce, a percentage that ranks behind both federal workforce and civilian labor benchmarks. That's according to the latest demographics report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And women are even more underrepresented in the leadership ranks throughout the IC. But agencies aren't ignoring the issue

Goodbye SF-86? White House approves 'Personnel Vetting Questionnaire'

Feb 23 2024 23 mins  
The Standard Form-86, a long-used questionnaire for government positions requiring security clearance, is set to be phased out after the White House Office of Management and Budget approved a new form replacing the SF-86 and several other legacy forms. I spoke with John Berry, a security clearance attorney at Berry and Berry PLLC law firm, about some of the big changes new "Personn

DIA CIO on cybersecurity, zero trust and AI

Jan 26 2024 33 mins  
The Defense Intelligence Agency runs the federal government's top-secret IT network. DIA is in the middle of a major modernization of that network. And in addition to running new routers and switches, DIA also wants to upgrade to more network automation and help lay the groundwork for the intelligence community to leverage AI. Cybersecurity is also essential, both to defend against

NGA looks to build on ‘neurodiversity’ hiring effort

Jan 10 2024 21 mins  
More than three years ago, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency launched a “neurodiversity” hiring pilot program. The idea was to make it easier to recruit individuals with differences in brain functioning, such as people with autism, who could contribute to the mission, but may have difficulty navigating the traditional hiring process and workplace environment. Now, NGA

An interview with the intelligence community's top HR official

Nov 30 2023 34 mins  
Gen Z , or those born between the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s , will likely comprise at least one-quarter of the global workforce by 2025. In order to tap into that younger generation of talent, U.S. intelligence agencies are trying to be more flexible with their hiring and retention practices. For an in-depth discussion on the IC’s workforce strategies, I spoke with Cyn

How to improve the 'SCIF life'

Oct 05 2023 26 mins  
The vast majority of employees across the intelligence community work out of Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, or "SCIFs." These are essentially highly protected office spaces with restrictive rules, including a ban on cell phones and other devices. The Intelligence and National Security Agency's latest white paper, "Reimagining the SCIF Life," considers how spy agenc