STORY SUMMARY

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is not your sleek, button-down spy chief.

Clapper has recently taken steps that forced the NSA to accept greater transparency and stopped the military agencies from wasteful spending on duplicative satellite imagery.

Clapper is using management powers that were muddled under the confusing 2004 law. Rather than look over the shoulders of his 16 client agencies, as previous DNIs tended to do, Clapper has instead pushed more collaboration – something that’s easy to talk about but hard to do in an intelligence culture that rewards protection of secrets.

One example is Clapper’s pressure on NSA to disclose more about its surveillance programs.

Clapper ignored NSA and Justice Department protests, including to the White House, and backed Litt’s less-redacted version.

The White House has generally deferred to Clapper, letting him broker deals within the intelligence community rather than try to impose its own management.

Read more: http://dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2013/Oct-24/235564-on-top-of-the-secret-empire-can-be-a-bureaucratic-nightmare.ashx#ixzz2iiNC2C2W
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)