Intelligence Oversight Revisited

This paper examined the changes in the terrorist threat in the United States (US) and questioned if these changes warrant a revision of intelligence oversight (IO) limitations on military counterintelligence (CI) agencies in order to provide greater security for military bases. The paper demonstrated that the terrorist threat in the United States increased. Using the Department of Defense (DoD) methodology to assess terrorist threat level and applying publicly available information, the terrorist threat in the US should be assessed as Medium. Most terrorism experts agree there will be a terrorist attack in the US in the future. Even taking into account the objections of the General Accounting Office, most experts agree that a terrorist group will employ weapons of mass destruction, probably in the US and possibly against the military. These two assumptions demonstrated that the risks of failing to prevent a terrorist attack are greater than ever.