Caryn Wagner
Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis
Chief Intelligence Officer
Department of Homeland Security

Caryn A. Wagner was confirmed on February 11, 2010, as the under secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Department of Homeland Security.

Wagner served as an instructor in intelligence community management for the Intelligence and Security Academy from October 2008 to October 2009. She retired in 2008 from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), where she served as budget director and cyber security coordinator. Prior to that, she served in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as an assistant deputy director of national intelligence for management and the first chief financial officer for the National Intelligence Program. She accepted this position after serving as the executive director for intelligence community affairs, where she was responsible for the Community Management Staff, which provided strategic planning, policy formulation, resource planning, program assessment and budget oversight for the IC.

Wagner’s previous position was that of the senior Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) representative to Europe. She served as liaison for the DIA director to U.S. European Command and to NATO from April 2003 to April 2004. From October 2000 until April 2003, Wagner served as DIA deputy director for analysis and production.

From 1996 to 2000, Wagner headed the director, Military Intelligence (DMI) staff, where she conducted military intelligence community planning and was responsible for development and management of the General Defense Intelligence Program.

Other previous positions included serving as staff director of the HPSCI Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, and as an associate at Booz-Allen and Hamilton. Wagner also served as an Army signals intelligence and electronic warfare officer.

Wagner received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and history from the College of William and Mary, and a Master of Science degree in systems management from the University of Southern California.

Caryn Wagner was interviewed by GIF Editor Harrison Donnelly.

Q: What is your mission as under secretary of homeland security for intelligence and analysis [I&A]?

A: The department has what I consider to be a very compelling vision statement, which is that our job is to provide a safe, secure and resilient homeland, where American interests, aspirations and way of life can thrive. My job is to provide the intelligence support to enable the department to fulfill that vision. We have a very broad intelligence mandate in I&A, so we’re helping not just to ensure the safety of Americans, which is what most people would think about—the counterterrorism issue in particular—but also security in general, including cybersecurity and resilience to national disasters and acts of God. We provide intelligence support across the full realm of all of those missions and responsibilities. So it’s a pretty exciting job.

Q: How would you rate the current effectiveness of your office in serving as the interface between the intelligence community and state and local government and others?

A: My office is relatively new. The department itself is only seven years old, and my office in its current iteration is even younger than that—it’s about three years old. So we have had our share of growing pains, but I think we’re doing a good job now of fulfilling the key mission of being the nexus between the intelligence community, the law enforcement community, state and local consumers and the private sector. We have lots of areas where we can continue to improve, and we’re going to do that. But I think we’re making progress in broadening and institutionalizing the two-way flow of information between I&A and our state, local, tribal and territorial partners. We provide them a wide range of products and information, from unclassified For Official Use Only kinds of things to Secret-level products that are shared via our I&A analysts that are located in most of the state and local fusion centers. We hope to soon have I&A representatives in all of the state and local fusion centers. We also cultivate relationships and make phone calls when needed to tip people to things. It’s a robust and maturing relationship.

We are working to put in place even more information sharing mechanisms. For example, we’re working closely with the FBI, which is the executive agent for the Suspicious Activity Reporting initiative. We expect that the state and local fusion centers are going to be key players in identifying suspicious activity and reporting it back up to where the national law enforcement and intelligence community elements can possibly make use of that information and connect it with other things. We’re also working with the fusion centers to do other types of reporting of information that would be of value, at the same time that we’re trying to provide them information that we can glean from the intelligence community, and put it out at an unclassified or a lower classification level where it can be useful.

Q: In your Senate confirmation testimony, you identified three key areas that you would focus on. Could you address each, beginning with improved information sharing?

A: I’d go back to what I said in the previous question, although I was addressing only one of our customer sets, our state, local, tribal and territorial partners. We also have information sharing responsibilities within the department. There are 22 components of the department, which have interesting and diverse operational missions. A lot of these components pre-dated the establishment of the department, and have their own proud traditions, as well as their own information systems. So it’s been interesting weaving all that together.

The other thing this department has is a lot of data. We have data on every encounter with every individual trying to enter this country, for whatever reason, all of which goes into a variety of data stores. Some of them, for example, are huge, 40-year-old databases like the Treasury Enforcement Communication System. So information sharing, not just between the components but also between those data stores, and providing that information to the intelligence community, where appropriate, is one of my challenges as well. We’re working it within the department, and we’re also figuring out how we can use these useful stores of data lawfully, and provide that information when warranted to the intelligence community so it can be combined with other sources of information that they have that we’re not privy to, to help address the terrorism issue. There are our three main customer sets—the state and local folks, the departmental components and the intelligence community—and I&A sits in the middle of all three, trying to keep the information flowing, in accordance with laws and regulations.

Q: What is your vision of the role of the DHS chief intelligence officer, and does that represent a change?

A: My predecessor, Charlie Allen, was the first chief intelligence officer, so I am building on the foundation that he created for an intelligence collaborative group within the department. I talked about the information sharing challenges, and that’s a part of it, but it’s more than that. It’s how we make sure that we understand each other’s joint requirements and priorities, that we are mutually supporting each other between the components, and that we are seeking ways to improve standards, such as reporting standards. We have an effort going on now to standardize and improve the process by which we put out Homeland Intelligence Reports. Everyone is doing it a bit differently, and we’re trying to make sure that we’re reporting on the right things, that the information we’re reporting is valuable to a customer somewhere, and that we’re getting it out quickly enough to make a difference. We’re doing that across the DHS enterprise. We’re taking it to the next level of developing professional standards, and I think we have a great group of intelligence professionals in the components. We’ve got a good collaborative environment going on, and I think we can make some progress.

Q: What initiatives have you undertaken to improve management of your organization?

A: When I gave my confirmation testimony, I mentioned the three key areas—information sharing, building the DHS intelligence enterprise, and improving management and internal processes. My organization has had some growing pains. If you’ve read the testimony from the Hill, there are lots of questions about how we’re going to improve that. I actually feel that that’s one of the strengths I bring to this job: the organizational experience of running a large analytic organization, which I did at the Defense Intelligence Agency. So I’ve been working hard to focus on one of our main challenges, which is hiring. We have a lot of vacant billets, and we use a lot of contractor support— which is not necessarily bad, but the Hill believes that we may have gone a little overboard, and that our ratio of contractors to government employees is not exactly what it should be.

I’m focusing hard on bringing people onboard, and we’ve instituted a lot of procedures to track this process down so that we know where every hiring action is in the pipeline. I’m hounding my managers, and we’re starting to see some improvement.

It’s difficult to do this broad range of missions if you don’t have enough people to get critical mass in each of these areas. So we really need to do that. We also have put in place a policy board so we can put out some policies for the organization in a more transparent way, so people understand what’s expected of them, and then we follow through and actually do what we say in the policy statement. Basically, I’m looking to put internal controls in place, to create transparent policies and to build up the work force and bring onboard some more talent that we can apply to these mission areas.

Q: What role do you see for fusion centers in homeland security intelligence? Are there any changes or new initiatives you would like to see in how they are set up and operate?

A: The fusion centers are critical to homeland security intelligence because what we’re growing is basically a homeland security enterprise made up of not only national players, but also this whole network of state and local fusion centers, which then reach out and have their own networks with local law enforcement, public health and other communities. That will be critical to us not just in the counterterrorism arena, but in all kinds of preparedness and response scenarios. We need the fusion centers to have situational awareness, domain awareness of what’s going on in their areas, and share that with us, so that we can operate as a team. I think we’re growing that capability and it’s working very well.

I want to make clear, however, that the state and local fusion centers belong to the state and local governments, so it is not for me to mandate how they should operate and exactly what they should do, except in as much as we share with them collegial desires and goals on what capabilities they should all have, and help them get there. They’re all a little bit different, because they are set up by their respective governments. Some of them are focused only on counterterrorism, and some are focused on what we call ‘all crimes all hazards.’ They’re all unique, and we’re trying to establish relationships and bring everyone up to a baseline level. We’re guided by a document that was put out by the program manager for the information sharing environment, which was established by the White House to address information sharing across the government in the wake of 9/11. The baseline capabilities document lays out the minimal capabilities we think everyone should have. But it’s a suggestion, and our job is to work with them to achieve those mutual goals.

Secretary Napolitano has said that she wants the fusion centers to be ‘centers of analytic excellence,’ and for them to grow to the point that they can add value to the information they hold and then share that with the network and everyone else. We’re working toward that as well. We provide a lot of training to the fusion centers, because that’s one area in which we can really help. We train them in analysis, reporting and protecting the civil rights and liberties of Americans, to make sure that everything that is done at the fusion centers is in accordance with the law, and that everyone understands how to protect constitutionally protected activities. We take that very seriously, and that’s one of the main services that we can provide.

Q: Especially since the Christmas Day 2009 attempted airline attack, there has been a lot of talk about “connecting the dots.” What is your overall approach to this goal, and what roles do you see for both technology and policy/culture/organization?

A: First, I will say that I don’t know anyone in the intelligence community who doesn’t hate the phrase ‘connecting the dots.’ It’s well-meaning, and it has become shorthand for something that we all understand, so I don’t expect that people will stop using it. But many of us think that it trivializes the problem that we’re facing. I think that the challenges are technology, policy and legal, and cultural/organizational, and they have to be addressed through a combination of those things. A lot of the commentary around this issue seems to be based on the assumption that there is such a thing as perfect security, and I’m not sure that there is, even given all the best efforts in the world. We’re working very hard with our colleagues, including the National Counterterrorism Center, on terrorism that has a foreign nexus, and with the FBI, on domestic terrorism and homegrown extremists who don’t necessarily have a foreign nexus or inspiration. I have a set of customers, of whom the secretary is one of the most important, whose requirements I need to make sure are being met. I don’t have to necessarily meet them myself, with my fairly small organization, but I have to make sure that I am articulating my requirements and following up with the people who are doing the analysis to make sure they get met.

We have a small organization in my office, the DHS Threat Task Force, that is made up of people from my organization and representatives from the major components, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, and Customs and Border Protection [CBP]. Their job is to keep an eye on the evolving threat streams and the information that is being shared with us, and make sure that where there is any kind of a possible homeland nexus, that is being followed up on. Ninety-nine percent of the time it is, but every once in a while we find that someone hasn’t been nominated for watch-listing, for example. So we’re going to do it. We’re the insurance policy, looking at what everyone else is doing and making sure that all of the homeland-related issues are being addressed. If no one else is addressing an issue, we will do our own original analysis to support our customers. That’s our contribution to connecting the dots, and we’re also integrated into the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI to work with them on all these issues. We’ve institutionalized this, to make sure we have an ongoing effort focused on the near-term threat stream.

Q: What role do you see for geospatial technology in homeland security intelligence?

A: We use more geospatial technology than people might think, because we have such a broad range of missions. We use a lot of imagery and remote sensing technology to support the Coast Guard mission and the CBP’s operation on the Southwest border, looking at illicit smuggling routes. Probably our best-known use of geospatial technology is in response to natural disasters, such as hurricanes. We also leveraged a lot of geospatial support for our work in Haiti, which was a huge help. The other thing that we do—because it is helpful analytically—is to provide a geospatial reference for information and reporting. We’re looking at ways that we can increasingly provide what the military would recognize as a common operating picture, where a lot of information that we’re dealing with can be plotted geospatially, and we can look at trend analysis and see what that tells us. In particular on the Southwest border, we’re trying to explore more ways of capturing information from all those different elements down there and seeing what analytic use we can make of it. So situational awareness and common operating picture kinds of things are areas where we’re already using geospatial technology, but will we increase that.

Q: How can industry better support your office and the overall goal of improved homeland security intelligence?

A: We’re already getting a lot of support from industry. We have substantial contractor support and excellent contractor analysts. We’re exploring some of the new tools, both geospatial and other kinds, to help us improve our efficiency and workflow. We’re looking for better ways to do request for information management. As we’re growing, and particularly as we’re trying to manage this distributed homeland security enterprise, consisting of all the fusion centers, we need to have technology to make sure we’re keeping track of what we’ve deployed where, what their requirements are and what reports we’re getting, so that we can monitor the health of the enterprise. Those are some of the areas where I expect that we will be having dialogue with industry in the future. We don’t do a lot of big systems acquisitions in homeland security; we’re mostly focused on services and tools to help us do our jobs.

Q: How has your extensive intelligence experience, including uniformed service and with the DIA, shaped your approach to your current position?

A: If you’re in the Army for more than about a day, it leaves a real impact on you, and you internalize a lot of that. I’m a ‘mission first, people always’ kind of person, which was the Army mantra when I was there. That’s important, especially in a place like Homeland Security, where we have such an interesting and demanding mission. You have to step back and remember that people have lives, and you have to support them in meeting their personal goals. I try to make sure that people get training and a little time off periodically. But I’m big on accountability, integrity and chain of command, and all of those came from my early military experience. That’s the way I try to run my organization.

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

A: I’ve been in this job for just a few months, and I’m learning more and more about the department. I wish Americans understood more about the Department of Homeland Security, because it is a fascinating organization. A friend of mine at the University of Maryland says that if you go back in history to find an analogy to the formation of DHS, probably the only thing that is close is when the Department of Health, Education and Welfare was established back in the 1950s. If you compare how DHS has done compared with how that went, we’ve been a resounding success, and I think we have been. We have a lot of diverse components, and they are really good at what they do. They’re very professional, and they touch people’s lives every day in ways that I don’t think people realize. It’s a fascinating place to work—it’s fun to figure out how to better support the department and the secretary with intelligence. Anyone who wants an interesting, fun job—even if they have to experience a few growing pains—should come work here. I have vacant billets! ♦

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