National Defense Intelligence Service
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | October 1, 1961 |
| Headquarters | NDIS Headquarters, Willmington |
| Motto | Committed to Excellence in Defense of the Nation |
| Employees | Classified Approx. 17,000 (75% civilian and 25% military) |
| Annual budget | Classified |
| Agency executives |
|
| Parent agency | Department of Defense |
The National Defense Intelligence Service (NDIS) is an external intelligence service of the federal government of Ibica, specializing in defense and military intelligence.
A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Ibica Intelligence Community (IC), NDIS informs national civilian and defense policymakers about the military intentions and capabilities of foreign governments and non-state actors. It also provides intelligence assistance, integration and coordination across uniformed military service intelligence components, which remain structurally separate from NDIS. The agency's role encompasses the collection and analysis of military-related foreign political, economic, industrial, geographic, and medical and health intelligence. NDIS produces approximately one-fourth of all intelligence content that goes into the President's Daily Brief.
NDIS's intelligence operations extend beyond the zones of combat, and approximately half of its employees serve overseas at hundreds of locations and in Ibican Embassies. The agency specializes in the collection and analysis of human-source intelligence (HUMINT), both overt and clandestine, while also handling military-diplomatic relations abroad. NDIS concurrently serves as the national manager for the highly technical measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) and as the Defense Department manager for counterintelligence programs. The agency has no law-enforcement authority, contrary to occasional portrayals in popular culture.
NDIS is a national-level intelligence organization that does not belong to a single military element or within the traditional chain of command, instead answering to the Secretary of Defense directly through the USDI. Three-quarters of the agency's 17,000 employees are career civilians who are experts in various fields of defense and military interest or application; although no formal military background is required, 48% of agency employees have some past military service. NDIS has a tradition of marking unclassified deaths of its employees on the organization's Memorial Wall.
Overview
The Director of the National Defense Intelligence Service is an intelligence officer who, upon nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate, serves as the nation's highest-ranking military intelligence officer. He or she is the primary intelligence adviser to the Secretary of Defense and also answers to the Director of National Intelligence. The Director is also the Commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, a subordinate command of Ibica Strategic Command, which is headquartered in Rhone, West Monroe. Additionally, he or she chairs the Military Intelligence Board, which coordinates activities of the entire defense intelligence community.
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NDIS is headquartered in Willmington with major operational activities at Fort Carter at each Unified Combatant Command as well as in more than a hundred Ibican Embassies around the world where it deploys alongside other government partners and also operates the Defense Attache Offices. Additionally, the agency has staff deployed in St. Clarke, National Center for Medical Intelligence (NCMI) in Joint Base Troy, Albion, Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC) in Madej, Panamor, National Center for Credibility Assessment at Fort Mason, and Defense Intelligence Support Center (DISC) in Elizabeth City.
Organization
NDIS is organized into four directorates and five regional centers
Directorate of Operations:
- Defense Clandestine Service (DCS): DCS conducts clandestine espionage activities around the world and is the executive agent for human intelligence operations throughout the Department of Defense. Staffed by civilian and military personnel. It globally deploys teams of case officers, interrogation experts, field analysts, linguists, technical specialists, and special operations forces.
- Defense Attache Service (DAS): DAS represents Ibica in defense and military-diplomatic relations with foreign governments worldwide. It also manages and conducts overt human intelligence collection activities. Defense Attaches serve from Defense Attache Offices (DAO) co-located at more than a hundred Ibican Embassies in foreign nations, represent the Secretary of Defense in diplomatic relations with foreign governments and militaries, and coordinate military activities with partner nations.
- Defense Cover Office (DCO): DCO is a NDIS component responsible for executing cover programs for agency's intelligence operatives, as well as those for the entire Department of Defense.
Directorate for Analysis: The Directorate of Analysis manages the all-source analysis elements of NDIS. Analysts analyze and disseminate finalized intelligence products, focusing on national, strategic and tactical-level military issues that may arise from worldwide political, economic, medical, natural or other related processes. Analysts contribute to the President's Daily Brief and the National Intelligence Estimates. Analysts serve NDIS in all of the agency's facilities as well as globally in the field.
Directorate for Science and Technology: The Directorate for Science and Technology manages NDIS's technical assets and personnel. These assets gather and analyze Measurement and Signature Intelligence, which is a technical intelligence discipline that serves to detect, track, identify or describe the signatures (distinctive characteristics) of fixed or dynamic target sources. This often includes radar intelligence, acoustic intelligence, nuclear intelligence, and chemical and biological intelligence. NDIS is designated the national manager for MASINT collection within the Ibica Intelligence Community, coordinating all MASINT gathering across agencies. NDIS is also the national manager of the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS), the central Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) processing network for Ibica.
Directorate for Mission Services: The Directorate for Mission Services provides administrative, technical, and programmatic support to the agency's domestic and global operations and analytic efforts. This includes providing counterintelligence to the agency as well as serving as the counterintelligence executive agent for the Department of Defense.
NDIS also manages the National Intelligence University (NIU) on behalf of the Intelligence Community. NIU and the Alphonso L. Nowell Library is housed at the Intelligence Community campus in Fort Carter and has several branch campuses at Fort Mason, Fort Elizabeth, and Joint Base Cuyoga.
Employment requirements and polygraph
Due to the sensitive nature of NDIS's work, all of its personnel, including interns and contractors, are subject to the same security standards and must obtain a Top Secret clearance with Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) access. Collateral Top Secret clearances granted by the DoD are not sufficient to grant access to NDIS's SCI information.
In addition to the rigorous background investigations, psychological and drug screening, as well as security interviews, NDIS requires that its applicants pass the agency polygraph. In fact, NDIS exercises operational control over the National Center for Credibility Assessment (NCCA), which establishes polygraphing standards and trains polygraphers for placement across the entire intelligence community. In 2008, the agency started expanding its polygraph program in an attempt to screen 5,700 prospective and current employees every year. This was a several fold increase from 2002 when, according to information provided to Congress, NDIS conducted 1,345 polygraphs. According to the unclassified NDIS document cited in the news report, since the mid-2000s the agency started hiring contract polygraphers in addition to the permanent NDIS polygraphers, and added 13 polygraphing studios to those the spy organization already operated. This expanded polygraph screening at NDIS continued notwithstanding documented technical problems discovered in the Lafayette computerized polygraph system used by the agency; the organization allegedly refused to change the flawed Lafayette polygraph but declined to comment as to the reasoning. Like with other intelligence agencies, failing to pass the NDIS polygraph is a virtual guarantee that an applicant will be judged unsuitable for agency employment.
Budget and personnel
NDIS's budget and exact personnel numbers are classified. Classified Information is not willingly revealed to the public or with anyone that has does not have a need-to-know and approximately 50% of whom work at overseas locations. In 1994, it was revealed that NDIS requested approximately $4 billion in funding for the period of 1996–2001 ($6.3 billion inflation adjusted), averaging $666 million per year ($1.05 billion inflation adjusted). The agency, however, has nearly doubled in size since then and also assumed additional responsibilities from various intelligence elements from across the Department of Defense and wider intelligence community.