Mr. Dots

The Defense Intelligence Agency's technology chief has something he wants to share.

As the chief information officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, Michael Pflueger spends a lot of time thinking about dots. Here an intercepted telephone call from one al Qaeda operative to another, there a high-resolution satellite image of a suspected insurgent hide-out. Throw in some tidbits of street gossip picked up by troops in Baghdad. Put it all together, and what, if anything, does it mean? For all the talk about "connecting the dots" that has attended every discussion of intelligence reform since Sept. 11, it's easy to overlook people like Pflueger, who are looking for a way to do it.

Pflueger runs the information-sharing backbone for the military's most secretive intelligence network, the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. JWICS connects all nine unified combatant commands around the world, allowing commanders to share intelligence in multiple media. Pflueger's portfolio is growing. The new director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, will have partial oversight and review of JWICS. Fortunately, Pflueger has been thinking about connecting dots for more than the military.

Pflueger's concept of connection is rooted in a basic understanding of what he's up against-the culture of his own business.

Intelligence professionals, particularly those who collect information, might shudder when they hear the words "information sharing." Often, sharing could mean revealing how and from whom the information was obtained. That's not such a bad idea when you want to prove that your analysis is credible, but when it ends up shutting off your source, what's the point? Consider, for example, what happened in 1998, when press reports revealed that eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency were listening in on Osama bin Laden's satellite telephone calls. After the stories ran, the terrorist leader promptly retired that phone.

Pflueger likes to put a different spin on information sharing. Indeed, he eschews the term. Instead, intelligence agencies need a system that allows "information access," while protecting sources and methods, Pflueger says. For example, rather than ask the NSA to open its files for a CIA analyst to have a peek, why not create a system that lets the analyst see the parts of intelligence reports that don't reveal sources and methods? Why couldn't a report, electronically stored for easy searching and tracking of who is reading it, contain a note if there's more detailed intelligence available that an analyst could see if it was vital to his or her work? The idea isn't Pflueger's alone-a number of software companies are trying to sell products that selectively limit access to data-but he is better-positioned than many in government to put the idea into practice.

Pflueger says he's had success with selective access at DIA, which produces intelligence reports for war planners and troops in the field. But the agency's analysts feel the pain from lack of sharing, too. In the pool of dots that DIA has to work with, about 10 percent comes from the agency's sources. The rest are from collectors skittish about sharing too much-the CIA, NSA and others.

Since DIA analysts are dependent on others' data, they're more eager to share, Pflueger says. They also love open sources of information, which are as available to the public as to highly trained analysts. If you wanted to know the location of various mosques in the world, for example, you could go to a classified report or to a world atlas from Rand McNally, Pflueger says. Intelligence reformers, including the presidential commission that reviewed lapses in the analysis of Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction programs, have called for agencies to make more use of open sources. Pflueger says he would be happy to see DIA become "an open source center of excellence" in the government, a place for analysis of the information and insights on how to use it.

Pflueger says his staff isn't optimistic that other agencies will eagerly embrace his ideas. Of the information access system, he says dryly, "My own folks tell me they'll never do it."

But he might be getting some support. Under a presidential directive issued in June, DNI Negroponte will have "authority, direction and control" over a program manager charged with the creation of an information-sharing regime for all intelligence agencies. The manager's personnel and funds will be controlled by Negroponte's office which, in a possibly fortuitous turn for Pflueger, is opening its temporary quarters in the DIA's main office building on Bolling Air Force Base in southeast Washington.

Technology is unlikely to be the greatest enemy of Pflueger's idea. Rather, he must wrestle with the powerful "need to know" culture that restricts access to intelligence. "You can't just connect networks without a requirement for security," he says.

But finding the right technology won't be easy either, Pflueger cautions. He hasn't yet seen a device that alone can solve the intelligence agencies' information-sharing problems. For example, the Defense Department's Trusted Workstation, which allows sharing of intelligence across different security levels, is a combination of three software products. "When we talk to industry, we say, 'Don't tell us you're the only one' " with a solution, Pflueger says. "Tell us how you'll work with others." DIA is sharing some of its analytical tools with the new National Counterterrorism Center, according to Pflueger, and DIA has created an unclassified Web site that shows which tools have been tested.

Generational barriers also loom. At DIA, he says, the typical analyst is either under 25 or over 45. Newer analytical tools, which might make sharing easier, are easier for younger people, who grew up with the Internet, to use, he explains. Pflueger hopes acceptance of tech tools will become easier as his information technology staff evolves to become partners with analysts. Ultimately, Pflueger would like to see the two become indistinguishable. To him, they already are. "I view our IT professionals as intelligence professionals," Pflueger says.