Redacted Senate Intelligence Committee report highlights China, Russia and more as foreign intelligence threats

A new Senate Intelligence Committee report built on two years of research identified numerous threats to American security and called for reforms.

Redacted and released by Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) and Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-FL), the bipartisan report concluded, among other things, that China and Russia are some of the nation’s official adversaries, along with regional and minor powers aligned with them. Ideologically motivated groups and transnational criminal organizations were also named, and their tools are legion – but on the national side, the report warned that foreign intelligence entities are actively assailing both the public and private sectors, trying to steal information at all levels.

“The United States faces a dramatically different threat landscape today than it did just a couple of decades ago,” Warner said. “New threats and new technology mean that we have to make substantial adjustments to our counterintelligence posture if we are going to protect our country’s national and economic security.”

Nontraditional human, cyber, advanced technical, and open source intelligence operations aimed at U.S. plans and policies, sensitive technology, personally identifiable information, and intellectual property are now more readily available than ever and in many forms. The diversity of tools has also allowed these adversaries to influence U.S. officials and inflame social and political tensions now more than in the past. Unfortunately, the report also made it clear that U.S. counterintelligence efforts are not currently aligned to most effectively confront these threats.

“Foreign adversarial governments, including the People’s Republic of China, are now targeting all sectors of U.S. society,” Rubio said. “This Committee aims to ensure that the American public, industry, and academia are aware of this, and also to ensure that the Intelligence Community has the authorities and resources necessary to effectively confront these new counterintelligence threats.”

According to the investigators, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) lacks a clear mission despite helming U.S. response to foreign intelligence threats. The agency also lacks sufficient and well-defined authorities and resources to respond. The report concluded that national and economic security is in jeopardy without reforms.

As such, it recommended that Congress, the White House, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence jointly develop a consistent counterintelligence definition to span the federal government and address actual, modern threats, as well as conduct revisions to NCSC’s role in traditional, strategic and offensive counterintelligence operations – though change may be difficult and time-consuming, the authors said.