CIA director orders major shake-up

The head of the CIA is ordering sweeping structural changes he says will allow officials to wield new technological powers and face down threats.

The shake-up amounts to the widest-reaching institutional reforms at the spy agency in years and reflects its transition from relying on traditional espionage tactics to tracking and fighting terrorists around the globe.

{mosads}“If we are to meet the challenges of the current national security environment, we must take some bold steps toward more integrated, coherent and accountable mission execution,” Director John Brennan said in remarks to agency workers.

In the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, some critics have worried that the CIA was losing its ability to obtain reliable intelligence effectively by shifting too many resources to counterterrorism.

As one major part of the shake-up, Brennan on Friday announced a new focus on the “digital revolution” by prioritizing cybersecurity issues and new technology.

To do so, the agency is creating a new office responsible for making sure that workers across the CIA are integrating digital tools into their work.

Brennan also announced the creation of 10 new mission centers. The new offices will reportedly be organized around the globe by geography and specific function, such as counterterrorism. In the process, walls between different agency functions are being torn down, in some cases forcing the operational and analytical workers — the spies and the analysts who make sense of their information — to work alongside each other.

The CIA is also restructuring its upper offices to streamline executive work and adding new training systems to keep officers on their toes.

“Together, we will make sure this extraordinary organization continues to reflect the absolute best this country has to offer and to be indispensable to our nation’s security for many, many years to come,” Brennan said.

While the changes will not need approval from Congress, they appear to be getting positive marks from Capitol Hill.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he supports Brennan taking a “fresh and critical look” at the CIA “with an eye to finding ways to make improvements and keep up with a rapidly changing world.”