Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive
Encyclopedia
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...
(CI) for the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
government
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
and is responsible to the Director of National Intelligence. The Office was established on January 5, 2001 by a directive from President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
which also established the National Counterintelligence Board. It replaced the National Counterintelligence Center, which was created in 1994 in response to the arrest of CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
mole
Mole (espionage)
A mole is a spy who works for an enemy nation, but whose loyalty ostensibly lies with his own nation's government. In some usage, a mole differs from a defector in that a mole is a spy before gaining access to classified information, while a defector becomes a spy only after gaining access...
Aldrich Ames
Aldrich Ames
Aldrich Hazen Ames is a former Central Intelligence Agency counter-intelligence officer and analyst, who, in 1994, was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia...
.
The ONCIX facilitates and enhances US counterintelligence efforts and awareness by enabling the CI community to better identify, assess, prioritize and counter intelligence threats from foreign powers, terrorist groups, and other non-state entities
Non-state actor
Non-state actors are categorized as entities participating or acting in the sphere of international relations; organisations with sufficient power to influence and cause change in politics which are...
; ensuring the CI community acts efficiently and effectively; and providing for the integration of all US counterintelligence activities. The Office characterizes its mission as: "Exploit and defeat adversarial intelligence activities directed against American interests; Protect the integrity of the US intelligence system; Provide incisive, actionable intelligence to decisionmakers at all levels; Protect vital national assets from adversarial intelligence activities; Neutralize and exploit adversarial intelligence activities targeting the armed forces."
The National Counterintelligence Executive chairs the National Counterintelligence Policy Board, the principal inter-agency mechanism for developing national CI policies and procedures, and heads the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive.
On August 7, 2006, Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte appointed Joel F. Brenner to serve as National Counterintelligence Executive and Mission Manager for Counterintelligence.
On 21 September 2009, Robert "Bear" Bryant was appointed as the National Counterintelligence Executive.