Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (2020 Presidential transition)

Book 3 - Organization Overview
Entire 2020 DOE Transition book As of October 2020

The Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (IN) contributes to multiple DOE missions and is a critical contributor to policy and national security decisions, despite its relatively small size (i.e., relative to other Intelligence Community (IC) agencies). Not only does IN provides unique insights on foreign nuclear capabilities and activities, but it has a role in the Department’s efforts to promote energy security, protect critical infrastructure, and support interactions with DOE’s National Laboratories. In addition, the Office provides counterintelligence and cyber intelligence to protect the people, facilities and intellectual property throughout the DOE complex, as well as assist the Department in its mission to protect the energy sector, which is largely in private hands.

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Parent Organization

With roots in the Manhattan Project’s intelligence effort to understand the progress of the German nuclear program, the Office is DOE’s embedded intelligence element. IN is DOE’s primary interlocutor with the IC, and it maintains strong connections to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), as well as the other 17 partner IC agencies.

On a day-to-day basis, IN draws on the resources of the entire IC to provide the Department’s senior executives with intelligence support and analysis on the key foreign issues about which they must make decisions. The Office frequently addresses such issues as foreign nuclear programs and a diversity of energy security and science/technology (S&T) topics, as well as foreign intelligence targeting of DOE personnel, facilities and systems. Without these important contributions, decisions by DOE leaders would lack essential inputs regularly available to senior officials at other agencies. DOE brings to the national security policy making community several unparalleled capabilities other agencies and Departments cannot replicate. The Department also presents some unique cyber and counterintelligence vulnerabilities; IN plays an important role in emphasizing the Department’s strengths and mitigating its cyber vulnerabilities.

Scientifically Informed Analysis

Analysts at the National Laboratories and DOE Headquarters specialize in employing scientific and technical expertise, including experimentally- verified analysis, to tackle the most difficult challenges facing our country’s national security leaders. IN’s scientific and technical intelligence expertise concentrates on a focused—but vitally important—range of issues to support customers within the Department and throughout the U.S. Government. Whether in support of the Department’s senior leaders, other senior U.S. Government policymakers, or other agencies, IN analyses shape the Nation’s understanding on key issues listed below. IN analysis is deeply rooted in National Laboratory expertise, draws from diverse fields of technical expertise, and provides important context and details on enduring and emerging threats in the following areas:

Foreign nuclear weapons and fuel cycle programs
Nuclear material security and nuclear terrorism
Counterintelligence issues
Energy security
Cyber intelligence
Strategic scientific and technological developments and trends

The Counterintelligence Challenge

Because of new laws and policies designed to protect sensitive technologies in the DOE National Laboratory complex, IN is meeting new challenges to identify foreign threats to some of the nation’s most important defense resources and technologies. Operating from 15 field offices at DOE facilities nationwide, counterintelligence professionals work closely with experts and managers from across the Department to protect vital national security information and technologies, representing intellectual property of incalculable value. Our partnerships with the IC and law enforcement assist in fortifying the defense of the Department’s laboratories, plants, sites, intellectual property, and technologies.

Cyber Security’s Evolving Role

Cyber security and defense is a rapidly evolving and broad set of research, operations, and implementation activities. The Department and its laboratories are leaders in the cyber field. IN’s cyber work benefits from a staff with expertise that ranges from basic research and cyber intelligence threat analysis to information technology support and tools development, including incomparable expertise in simulation and modeling and advanced supercomputing. These cyber experts cooperate with other agencies and programs to support the full spectrum of national security missions including: nuclear weapons stewardship, critical infrastructure and cyber threats.

The National Laboratories and the Intelligence Community

Central to this work is the enduring excellence in innovation present in the 12 Field Intelligence Elements (FIEs), located at the National Laboratories. The National Laboratories have been essential to accomplishing our decades- old missions and are crucial to anticipating and understanding new trends. They remain at the heart of our distinctive mission capabilities. IN oversees all aspects of the Strategic Intelligence Partnership Program’s reimbursable activities which provides IC partners with access to the scientific expertise of the National Laboratories. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 directed the Secretary of Energy to make these resources available to the Intelligence Community (IC); and these experts will continue to excel in providing unparalleled capabilities unavailable to the IC anywhere else.

Mission Statement

Identify and mitigate threats to U.S. national security and the DOE Enterprise and inform national security decision-making through scientific and technical expertise.

Budget

IN’s budget is classified and can be provided at a classified briefing with individuals with appropriate security clearances.

Human Resources

IN’s human resource allocation is classified and can be provided at a classified briefing with individuals with appropriate security clearances.

History

Intelligence and counterintelligence have been foundational activities of DOE and its predecessors dating back to its earliest days. The Office is older than the Central Intelligence Agency. Just as the Department traces its roots to the Manhattan Project, IN has its origins in a WWII program code- named ALSOS, established to deploy scientists and intelligence officers to Europe in order to discover the extent and nature of German progress on nuclear weapons. In addition, counterintelligence officers at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge uncovered some of the earliest incidents of nuclear espionage against the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

Throughout the various organizational transitions in the interceding years—from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) to DOE— the Department has maintained intelligence and counterintelligence functions. These elements have combined, split and recombined several times over the years but have coalesced around an indivisible, overarching counterintelligence and intelligence mission to inform DOE policymakers and protect DOE personnel, facilities and systems. Since a final combination of functions in 2006, IN has served has the exclusive DOE representative to the IC and is an active contributor to both the mission of the Department and the IC through the provision of experimentally validated and technically informed analysis and investigations. Today, the Director of IN serves as DOE’s Senior Intelligence Officer and represents DOE at senior levels in the IC across all key intelligence disciplines, in addition to authorizing the intelligence activities at the DOE national laboratories and sites.

Functions

IN performs a number of unique activities for the Department. In general, these actions fall into the below categories:

Deconfliction, coordination, and integration of all intelligence activities involving the Department. No intelligence activities should take place in the Department outside of these authorized channels.
Foreign intelligence analysis and collections support on issues affecting DOE equities.
Counterintelligence analytic and investigatory activities, to include cooperation and coordination with relevant law enforcement and IC partners.
Cyber intelligence analysis in support of cyber defense work and support to the private energy sector
Facilitation of IC access to the DOE Laboratories through the Strategic Intelligence Partnership Program, a complementary part of the Department’s Strategic Partnership Program (non-intelligence).

In addition, IN performs several additional, specific functions:

Routine/daily intelligence support to the Secretary (S1), the Deputy Secretary (S2), their staffs and several other senior leaders throughout the Department.
Ad hoc intelligence analysis/expertise on specific subjects for travel and meeting support.
Management and issuance of Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) access for DOE employees and contractors.
Management of the DOE Intelligence Operations Center, which provides 24/7 TS/SCI-level communications across the U.S. Government, specifically with the White House.
Accreditation of all Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) located across the DOE Complex.
Intelligence inputs to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) process.
Support to specific aspects of the Foreign Visits and Assignments program.
Reviews of all Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) and Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) involving foreign entities prior to signature.
Exclusive DOE representation on IC councils, groups, organizations, and other fora.

Recent Organization Accomplishments

Highlights regarding recent accomplishments will be provided separately due to classification considerations

Leadership Challenges

Descriptions of leadership challenges will be provided separately due to classification considerations

Critical Events and Action Items

Critical events and actions will be discussed separately due to classification considerations.<ref>DOE. (2021). Transitions 2020: Organizational Overviews. US Department of Energy. <ref>

Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (2020 Presidential transition)

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