Please join the Rafik Hariri Center & Middle East Programs and the Scowcroft Center‘s Forward Defense program for our latest Future of DHS project event on September 6 at 11:30 a.m. ET in a timely conversation with Kenneth Wainstein, US Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary for Intelligence & Analysis, discussing the current challenges facing the homeland security intelligence enterprise. The Office of Intelligence & Analysis (I&A) is one of the most important, newest, and least-understood parts of the US Intelligence Community. I&A is the bridge between the highly classified world of foreign intelligence, the vital role of federal law enforcement in national security, and the front lines of state, local, tribal, and territorial governments responsible for keeping all Americans safe and secure while respecting civil rights, civil liberties, and the privacy that is enshrined in the US Constitution. This makes I&A’s work vital—and controversial.

Under Secretary Wainstein is leading I&A through a major reorganization, the first after a series of controversies in the summer of 2020 over I&A’s domestic authorities. At the same time, DHS is increasingly reliant on its intelligence arm for analytical support on DHS’s wide-ranging security and economic portfolios, including cybersecurity, nation-state threats like China, Russia, and Iran, domestic and international terrorists, and challenges at the southwest border. Congress has only a few weeks to consider whether to change I&A’s authorities to collect information directly and what I&A’s future budget and missions should be.