Director of National Intelligence

Before the DNI was formally established, the head of the Intelligence Community was the director of central intelligence (DCI), who concurrently served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The 9/11 Commission recommended establishing the DNI position in its 9/11 Commission Report, not released until July 22, 2004, as it had identified major intelligence failures that called into question how well the intelligence community was able to protect U.S. interests against foreign terrorist attacks.

Senators Dianne Feinstein, Jay Rockefeller and Bob Graham introduced S. 2645 on June 19, 2002, to create the director of national intelligence position. Other similar legislation soon followed. After considerable debate on the scope of the DNI's powers and authorities, the United States Congress passed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 by votes of 336–75 in the House of Representatives, and 89–2 in the Senate. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law on December 17, 2004. Among other things, the law established the DNI position as the designated leader of the United States intelligence community and prohibited the DNI from serving as the CIA director or the head of any other intelligence community element at the same time. In addition, the law required the CIA Director to "report" his agency's activities to the DNI.

Critics say compromises during the bill's crafting led to the establishment of a DNI whose powers are too weak to adequately lead, manage and improve the performance of the U.S. intelligence community.[4] In particular, the law left the United States Department of Defense in charge of the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).[5]

The first Director of National Intelligence was U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte who was appointed on February 17, 2005, by President George W. Bush, subject to confirmation by the Senate. It was reported that President Bush's first choice for DNI was former Director of Central Intelligence Robert M. Gates, who was serving as president of Texas A&M University, but who declined the offer.[6] Negroponte was confirmed by a Senate vote of 98 to 2 in favor of his appointment on April 21, 2005, and he was sworn in by President Bush on that day.

On February 13, 2007, John Michael McConnell became the second Director of National Intelligence, after Negroponte was appointed Deputy Secretary of State.

Donald M. Kerr was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence on October 4, 2007 and sworn in on October 9, 2007. Kerr, from Virginia, was most recently the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office and previously the duty director for science and technology at the CIA. Earlier in his career, he was Assistant Director of the Justice Department's FBI.

Declan McCullagh at News.com wrote on August 24, 2007, that the DNI site was configured to repel all search engines to index any page at DNI.gov. This effectively made the DNI website invisible to all search engines and in turn, any search queries.[7] Ross Feinstein, Spokesman for the DNI, said that the cloaking was removed as of September 3, 2007. "We're not even sure how (the robots.txt file]) got there" – but it was again somehow hidden the next day. Another blog entry by McCullagh on September 7, states that the DNI site should now be open to search engines.[8] This explanation is plausible because some software used for web development has been known to cause servers to automatically generate and re-generate robots.txt, and this behavior can be difficult to turn off. Therefore, if the web developers working for the DNI had tried to solve the issue by simply removing robots.txt, it would have looked like it worked at first, but then fail once the server had undergone a self-check for the robots.txt file.[9] robots.txt has been configured to allow access to all directories for any agent.

In September 2007, the Office of the DNI released "Intelligence Community 100 Day & 500 Day Plans for Integration & Collaboration". These plans include a series of initiatives designed to build the foundation for increased cooperation and reform of the U.S. Intelligence Community.[10]

On July 20, 2010, President Barack Obama nominated retired Lt. (three-star) Gen. James R. Clapper for the position. Clapper was confirmed by the Senate on August 5, and replaced acting Director David C. Gompert. The prior DNI was retired Navy four-star admiral Dennis C. Blair, whose resignation became effective May 28, 2010.[11]

The ODNI leadership includes the director, principal deputy director and chief operating officer.[17] In addition, the Director of Defense Intelligence reports to the DNI.

There are four directorates, each led by a deputy director of national intelligence:[17][18]

• Enterprise Capacity Directorate
• Mission Integration Directorate
  • National Intelligence Council
• National Security Partnerships Directorate
• Strategy & Engagement Directorate
  • Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity

There are four mission centers, each led by a director of that center:[17][18]

• Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center
• National Counterproliferation Center
• National Counterterrorism Center
• National Counterintelligence and Security Center

There are also four oversight offices:[17][18]

• Office of Civil Liberties, Privacy and Transparency
• Office of Equal Employment Opportunity & Diversity
• Office of the Intelligence Community Inspector General
• Office of General Counsel

• List does not include Acting Directors.

a.^ Hallman's and Wiley's title is Principal Executive. The duties are the same as those of a Principal Deputy Director.[20]