IRTPA Essay Sample for Your Inspiration

What was IRTPA attempting to change?

The IRTPA was founded to change the intelligence failures that lead to both strategic and operational defeat. The latest case study of the failure in intelligence was the inability to detect or hinder the terrorist attacks on 11th September 2001. The Intelligence Community (IC) failure to curb the 9/11 terrorist attacks and errors in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's arsenals of destruction program led to widespread calls for reforms. In 2004, Congress passed the bill of intelligence reform into a law that resulted in the most substantial reorganization of the IC in years to come. The IRTPA reform was centered on various agencies and department that fabricate the U.S intelligence army (Sullivan, 2017).

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The IRTPA was attempting to change the poor central leadership that existed before 2004. Firstly, the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) lacked the budgetary authority to guide, direct and coordinate initiatives across the IC. Hence the IRTPA was focused on improving the fiscal power on facilitating efforts across the IC. Secondly, the IRTPA was striving to change the issue of information sharing. Bureaucratic structures and sophisticated policies impeded, even hindered, sharing of substantial intelligence among the IC and other government parastatals. This prompted the need for these communities to revolutionize from a 'need-to-know' to 'obligated' society. Thirdly, the IRTPA was attempting to change the topic of priority setting. The IC did not adequately link and facilitate intelligence gathering requirements to wider national security measures. Fourthly, the IRTPA was attempting to change the issue of poor collection and analysis of intelligence. Various investigations disclosed weakness in the IC's human intelligence collection measures and highlighted the need for further integration of analysis and gathering disciplines. Lastly, the IRTPA was striving to change the low level of human capital. The number of individuals working in intelligence had reduced after the cold war. Whereas well-positioned for a rival such as the Soviet Union, the profile of general information had not revolved demographically, culturally, or linguistically to target the variety of threats in a new setting (Negroponte & Wittenstein, 2010).

In which areas does IRTPA directly affect intelligence support?

i. Expansion of the FBI's Powers

One of the most controversial changes in Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) entailed changing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) to enable the FBI to get wiretaps and carry out secret searches on personal terrorist suspects that lacked linkage to an overseas power. Many members of Congress have been agitating for the change in latest years, facilitated by revelations that the FBI did not get a FISA wiretap on alleged conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui before the attacks as the lawyers did not have faith that there was enough information to link him to an overseas power. FBI officers backed up the change, emphasizing that there is a rising danger from single actors who might feel pity for the more significant causes of formal criminal organizations and take actions accordingly, in spite of their link to these groups.

ii. Prosecuting Terrorists

IRTPA changes the Title 18, Section 2339, of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Section 2339A views a crime to offer resources that a financier knows will be utilized in relation with a terrorist law. Section 2339B forbids 'knowingly' offering resources to companies chosen as 'overseas terrorist organizations.' As described by this act, 'material support and resources" constitute communications equipment, financial assets, training, safe buildings and physical assets. The USA PATRIOT Act made changes to this statute including the "expert advice and assistance" to the list of forbidden forms of support.

According to Best (2010), IRTPA adds to the act by making it a criminal felony to 'knowledgeably receive' military-oriented training from a chosen criminal organization. Earlier, even if an individual confessed to knowledgeably attending an ISIS training camp, this would alone not have been presumed a prohibited act. The new IRTPA provision is especially crucial in the face of American intelligence projected that tens of thousands of people received training from the ISIS camps (Best, 2010).

What additional topics still need to be addressed beyond IRTPA?

The Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 bolstered the Department of Homeland Security from all catastrophes irrespective of whether they are natural or artificial. The reform was made after the United States was caught unaware by the Hurricane Katrina, the biggest natural disasters in the latest American history hit the Gulf Coast. The insufficient reaction by the entire levels of government to this calamity has underestimated the want to better prepare for both natural disaster and terrorist attacks. The Committee released the only a bipartisan congressional report on the catastrophe know as, 'Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared.'

The SAFE Port Act of 2006 was legislation which bolstered the security of U.S's ports by launching an active port security grant program. The congress implemented the chemical security law in October 2006 which built the Committee's work to enable the Department of Homeland Security to start controlling the country's most significant hazardous chemical plants.

References

Best, R. A. (2010). Intelligence Reform After Five Years: The Role of the Director of National Intelligence. DIANE Publishing.

Negroponte, J. D., & Wittenstein, E. M. (2010). Urgency, Opportunity, and Frustration: Implementing the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. Yale Law & Policy Review, 28(2), 379-417.

Sullivan, E. M. (2017). Beware the Terror Gap: Closing the Loophole between the US Terrorist Watchlist System and the Right to Bear Arms. Cornell L. Rev., 103, 205.