Homeland Security forum responses

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Steven Arnold

Today, intelligence is one of the most vital pieces of the US military and its support organizations. Intelligence has been around for quite some time now however, with its roots being traced back to the Revolutionary War. Now even though it was used during that war and used during the Civil War and WWI, it was not a fully developed organizational priority till WWII. With that being said, for a long time gathering intelligence was done by spies of sorts that would be sent to gather information about the enemy. It wasn't until 1861 though that intelligence really got its big break. That was the year of the first aerial intelligence gathering accomplished by balloon. Along with that case the first official government agency responsible for collecting intelligence. Now this organization which was called The Bureau of Military Intelligence was founded by General Joseph “Fightin’ Joe” Hooker in 1963 (Moore, 2010). Although this organization was disbanded after the war, it opened a whole new perspective on intelligence and its importance. From that point on a lot happened withing the intelligence community including the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, which at the time was actually just called the Bureau of Investigations. There were a few events that have had a tremendous impact on our intelligence community. The first would be the formation of the CIA, the first real intelligence agency that had its primary focus just on intelligence gathering. The CIA has played a major role over the years and had a huge impact on intelligence gathering during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After that event happened, there was a few decades of calm and a ton of legislation passed to tighten the control of intelligence. The two biggest pieces include the Hughes-Ryan Amendment in 1974, the Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986 which named the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) as combat support agencies. After these the most significant impact came with the 9/11 attack on the United States. As a result of the attacked more reorganization of agencies happened and the Department of Homeland Security was formed. Another result was the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence or ODNI. All of these events and actions have all had a hand in shaping the relatively short history of the United State intelligence community. Im sure in the coming years many more changes will happen as well for the better.

Logan, K... (2010). Homeland Security and Intelligence. Retrieved from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/apus/reader.action?docID=10399189&ppg=16