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(U) Intelink, Then and Now
FROM:
and
Customer Response (S12)
Run Date: 10/19/2004
(U//FOUO) Did you ever wonder how Intelink got its start, or where it's headed?
(U) One of the "lessons learned" from the first Gulf War was that more needed to be done to
promote cross-agency and national and tactical sharing of intelligence information. In response,
the Defense Department and the Intelligence Community jointly commissioned an Architecture
Framework Panel in late 1993 to try to find a solution. After studying the matter for about four
months, the Panel had written a lengthy document that enumerated many high-level
requirements for improving connectivity. But rather than expecting people to read the
document, the Panel searched for ways to show senior DOD and IC officials what was really
needed.
(U) World Wide Web technology was new and answered about 60% of the requirements. It was
also free, a major selling point at that point in the fiscal year. So about 10 organizations agreed
to host web servers on JWICS -- the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System -- a
Top Secret SI/TK NOFORN network and called the service "Intelink." They hosted examples of
multimedia reports, music, video footage, and text reports that would show the broad range of
capability that was needed to address many of the problems exhibited during DESERT SHIELD
and DESERT STORM. By August 1994, the DCI and Deputy Secretary of Defense declared that
Intelink was the strategic direction for intelligence dissemination.
(U//FOUO) NSA was one of the original agencies to participate in Intelink. At the time of the
initial prototype, NSA's sole contribution to Intelink was the SIGINT Digest, a predecessor to
today's Global SIGINT Highlights, and which included maps, graphics, and images. It proved
that anyone could, indeed, share multimedia-based reports and that customers could see them
in all their intended glory.
(U//FOUO) Intelink was declared operational on 1 December 1994. In January 1995, NSA began
offering 45-days' worth of openly sharable SIGINT product online-searchable through serial, TAG
line, and keyword in title. That offering was enhanced through the addition of topics of high
interest that allowed customers to click on a topic to see a list of SIGINT that responded to those
topics.
(U//FOUO) Over the years, NSA has gradually expanded its Intelink offerings to encompass a
year's worth of searchable SIGINT product online, all fully-sharable multimedia products,
information about services NSA offers, a whole line of Information Assurance products and
services, information to support war fighters, information on NSA, and so forth. In 2001, portal
technology was incorporated into NSA's Intelink service, allowing customers to subscribe to
information as it is published.
(U//FOUO) Soon after Intelink was declared operational, it became apparent that a TS SI/TK
NOFORN Intelink did not solve the national/tactical intelligence-sharing problem, because the
bulk of the tactical users were cleared only for SECRET. Since SECRET-cleared personnel were
unable to access JWICS and Intelink, another version of Intelink was created on the SECRET
Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNET) that is referred to as Intelink-S.
(C//SI) NSA has contributed as much SIGINT to Intelink-S as possible, but classification
restrictions and sanitization rules have restricted what could be placed on the NSA Intelink-S
site. With the advent of the Global War on Terrorism, however, NSA made a concerted effort to
increase the amount of actionable SIGINT available to tactical customers by extracting the
tearline portions of terrorism-related products, removing all association with NSA and placing
them on the Defense Intelligence Agency's Intelink-S server. This effort was expanded to
include Iraqi-related information, as well. In cooperation with the Army's Intelligence and
Security Command (INSCOM), in Spring 2004 NSA began pushing Iraqi-related tearlines directly
to tactical units in Iraq, with the tearline reports attributed to DOD Special Unit Number One
(DODSPECONE).
(U//FOUO) The hallmark of NSA's success in Intelink has been its customer focus. NSA's Intelink
sites are all organized based on how a customer would look for the information rather than
based on what organization within NSA produced the information. From the first day of
participation, NSA has provided feedback links seeking customer input on new services offered
and on the content provided. Feedback on SIGINT reporting is automatically loaded into PLUS,
SID's product metrics database.
(U//FOUO) The future for NSA's Intelink services remains bright. As transformation programs
deliver new capabilities, NSA's Intelink services will provide increasingly sophisticated search and
retrieval tools to facilitate customer access. Efforts to transform the underlying technology upon
which the Intelink services run today will continue. This will result in subscribers being able to
harness the vast power of information NSA offers in conjunction with that of other organizations
throughout DoD and the IC.
"(U//FOUO) SIDtoday articles may not be republished or reposted outside NSANet
without the consent of S0121 (DL sid_comms)."
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DERIVED FROM: NSA/CSSM 1-52, DATED 08 JAN 2007 DECLASSIFY ON: 20320108