ABSTRACT
As the name suggests, counterintelligence is the process of countering the hostile intelligence activities of other states or foreign entities. The Counterintelligence Enhancement Act of 2002 requires counterintelligence to identify, assess, prioritize, and counter intelligence threats to the United States. The US Intelligence Community (IC) is made up of sixteen somewhat independent intelligence agencies, many with semi-autonomous sub-agencies, each of which is responsible for its own counterintelligence.1 A National Counterintelligence Executive (NCIX) exists within the IC, but its function, according to its official web site is to “improve the performance of the counterintelligence (CI) community in identifying, assessing, prioritizing and countering intelligence threats to the United States; to ensure CI community efficiency and effectiveness, and to provide for the integration of the CI activities of the US Government.” Exactly how NCIX does this is not made clear, but it appears up to now that its primary power is hortatory.
