Restoring Intelligence to the People — Breaking the Deep State’s Hold on America’s Security Apparatus

"Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the intelligence community is incorrect in its assessment that Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is not a proxy force of Nicolás Maduro's government — an argument that has served as a justification for the Trump administration's swift deportation of suspected gang members.

"They're wrong," Rubio said of the intelligence community assessment on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan."y

Kaia Hu

"The National Intelligence Council determined in a report that the Venezuelan government does not direct Tren de Aragua, contradicting the Trump administration's claims used to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, which gives it the power to swiftly remove migrants it identifies as members of the gang."

"Last week, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired the two top officials who were leading the National Intelligence Council, Mike Collins, acting chair of National Intelligence Council, and his deputy, Maria Lagan-Riekhof, CBS News confirmed. NBC News reported those were the officials who oversaw the Tren de Aragua memo."

(Ed note. All three quotes are from the Face the Nation piece by Kaia Hubbard, May 18, 2025)

"With “Los Gallegos,” the Tren de Aragua established a channel for drug trafficking and sexual exploitation, while “Los Piratas” played a key role in the murder of Ronald Ojeda, a strong critic of dictator Nicolás Maduro." Román Lejtman , infobae.com 5/25

(Ed note: South American press has been broadcasting the ties between Maduro and Tren almost since the beginning. It would have been criminally negligent of USInt to say what it did)

What the public wasn't noticing was the obvious fact that the US intelligence cartel was once again making the attempt to "spike the guns" of the Trump administration. There dissenting piece, if it had not been disproven, could have been enpough for SCOTUS to override the Trump Admin's Alien Enemies Act push to remove the Venezuelans from the country.

Add to this the obvious pushback from the famous "Intelligence Letter" on the Huner Biden Laptop, The Russiagate scandal and the associated wiretapping and the aid and facilitation of certain bad actors to shield military troop locations from the Executive Branch and you have the modern day intelligence nightmare that is the US Intelligence Council.

So what to do about it before it causes another war or a serious of "accidents"?

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) was conceived to serve the interests of the American people—collecting accurate, timely, and unbiased information to protect the republic from foreign and domestic threats. Yet in recent decades, and especially since 9/11, the IC has metastasized into a sprawling, fragmented, and frequently politicized complex that often functions more as a self-perpetuating bureaucracy than as an instrument of national service. What was once a tool of national defense has, in the eyes of many, become a pillar of the so-called “deep state”—a constellation of unelected officials, analysts, and career bureaucrats whose policy preferences can undermine the will of the people and those they elect.

To streamline U.S. intelligence and return it to its rightful constitutional role, a reform-driven administration—perhaps under President Trump with a trusted surrogate like Tulsi Gabbard—must pursue a legally grounded, aggressive, and multi-tiered restructuring. This overhaul must not only confront bureaucratic resistance and technological overdependence but also reassert that intelligence must serve the republic, not rule it.

1. Reorganize and Consolidate Intelligence Agencies

The United States currently operates 18 separate intelligence agencies. This fragmentation breeds territorialism, redundancy, and inefficiency. A rational government would reduce this chaos by consolidating functions and clearly defining mission boundaries.

The CIA should return to its core role: foreign human intelligence (HUMINT). The NSA should continue in its signals intelligence mission. The FBI should focus exclusively on domestic counterintelligence and counterespionage—not political policing.

More radically, the U.S. should consider a structural reorganization akin to the UK’s MI5/MI6 model: a single domestic intelligence directorate and a separate foreign intelligence agency. Oversight should be centralized through a reformed Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) with enhanced budgetary and deconfliction authority.

Such changes could be enacted via executive orders under the National Security Act, supported by budgetary and legal adjustments from Congress.

2. Restore and Expand Human Intelligence (HUMINT)

America’s intelligence agencies have become addicted to satellites, metadata, and third-party feeds from foreign partners. This reliance comes at the cost of real, on-the-ground intelligence that provides context, nuance, and reliability. Electronic surveillance cannot see what a human source can hear in a cartel camp or tribal militia meeting.

To restore effectiveness, field operatives and local informants must be redeployed—particularly in areas critical to U.S. security like Latin America, North Africa, and the Middle East. The defense community should re-establish Cold War-style counter-cartel task forces, embedded with U.S. and allied forces to develop deep networks inside syndicates like Tren de Aragua and MS-13.

Excessive funding for bloated satellite systems and redundant databases should be redirected toward clandestine operations and regional language expertise. This rebalancing would refocus intelligence on real-world threats instead of abstract, politicized datasets.

3. Enforce Constitutional Limits on Domestic Surveillance

Perhaps the gravest sin of the modern intelligence state has been its erosion of the Fourth Amendment. The use of warrantless metadata collection, FISA court abuse, and “parallel construction” through third-party surveillance has created a shadow surveillance state in which American citizens are routinely monitored without judicial oversight.

A reformed administration must categorically ban warrantless collection on U.S. persons. It should revise Executive Order 12333 and FISA procedures to ensure constitutional compliance and rein in abuse. Furthermore, a new “Civil Liberties Inspector General” should be empowered to audit and publicize domestic surveillance operations in real time.

Historical precedent lies in the post-Watergate Church Committee reforms of the 1970s. Those reforms must now be reimagined for the digital age.

4. Purge Politicized Personnel and Implement Vetting Standards

Intelligence is only as honest as the analysts and managers who produce it. In recent years, career officials have repeatedly shaped or suppressed intelligence assessments to match partisan goals. The infamous “Intelligence Letter” dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation was just one example of a deep institutional rot.

To purge political bias, personnel vetting must be depoliticized but stringent. A performance-based standard should be implemented—not based on allegiance to any figure, but to transparency, legality, and loyalty to the Constitution.

A nonpartisan vetting board should be established to review all policy-impacting analysts. Early retirement or reassignment should be used to remove ideological operators, not simply political appointees.

5. Audit Intelligence Failures Publicly and Routinely

There is currently no meaningful mechanism for public accountability in the Intelligence Community. The same agencies that failed on Iraq WMDs, Afghanistan withdrawal predictions, and cartel infiltration have never been publicly scrutinized or reformed.

Annual public audits must become law. Civilian-led panels should track the accuracy, biases, and blind spots in intelligence assessments. An “Intelligence Transparency Scorecard,” modeled after DOJ’s inspector general reports, could restore some trust and rigor to a system that currently punishes neither incompetence nor deception.

6. Nationalize the Mission: Align Intelligence with American Sovereignty

The Intelligence Community has clung to a Cold War-globalist worldview even as threats have changed. It obsesses over regime change operations and foreign proxy wars while ignoring border infiltration, criminal cartels, and domestic subversion.

A streamlined IC must realign its mission with U.S. sovereignty:

• Prioritize national industrial security, infrastructure threats, and intellectual property theft.

• Target transnational criminal syndicates as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs), unlocking new authorities and funding.

• De-emphasize ideological nation-building abroad in favor of defending the homeland from cartels, cyberattacks, and covert influence operations.

Conclusion: The People's Intelligence

Reforming the Intelligence Community is not just about efficiency—it is about restoring the constitutional order. No republic can survive when unelected, unaccountable institutions monopolize information and use it to undermine democratic governance.

A future Trump administration—or any reformist White House—must have the courage to confront the intelligence establishment head-on. Through consolidation, constitutional enforcement, depoliticization, and mission realignment, the IC can be returned to its proper role: a servant of the people, not a master over them.

The deep state thrives on opacity and inertia. It is time to dismantle the shadow empire and rebuild an intelligence system that answers to the Constitution and serves the interests of the American citizen—not the preferences of an entrenched elite.

infobae article on Tren: https://www.infobae.com/estados-unidos/2025/05/13/el-tren-de-aragua-se-fortalece-como-organizacion-delictiva-en-america-latina-pese-a-los-esfuerzos-represivos-de-eeuu/

APPENDIX: THE CASE TO RECONSTITUTE THE DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

Strategic Proposal: Upgrading the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as the Central Intelligence Authority in a Reformed U.S. National Security Architecture

Prepared for: Executive Transition Planning CommitteePrepared by: National Intelligence Reform Working GroupDate: May 2025

Executive Summary

This strategic proposal recommends the elevation and structural realignment of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as the lead authority for national intelligence collection and assessment. Given the DIA's operational integrity, military alignment, and limited political entanglement, it presents the optimal nucleus for a streamlined, accountable, and constitutionally grounded intelligence system. This reform would support a new administration’s goals to restore public trust, suppress politicized intelligence manipulation, and focus intelligence on threats to national sovereignty.

I. Rationale for DIA Elevation

1. Institutional Integrity: The DIA has remained largely untainted by recent political controversies that have undermined public trust in the CIA, FBI, and NSA. It maintains a reputation for mission-driven analysis and field-based intelligence collection.

2. Military Discipline and Oversight: Unlike civilian agencies, the DIA operates within a clear chain of command, making it more responsive to elected leadership and less vulnerable to bureaucratic inertia.

3. Operational Capabilities: The DIA houses the Defense Clandestine Service (DCS) for HUMINT, maintains the Defense Attaché System for global presence, and has robust battlefield intelligence capabilities. These assets can be scaled for broader strategic applications.

4. Focus on External Threats: DIA prioritizes foreign adversary monitoring, including state actors and non-state threats like criminal cartels, terrorist networks, and paramilitary groups. This aligns with a national security agenda focused on border control, drug interdiction, and geopolitical stability.

II. Strategic Objectives

• Re-centralize HUMINT and threat assessment under DIA leadership.

• Restructure inter-agency intelligence sharing to reduce redundancy and politicization.

• Reform surveillance protocols to strictly adhere to constitutional protections.

• Integrate counter-cartel and anti-syndicate operations under DIA-led initiatives.

III. Implementation Plan

Phase I: Executive Orders and Appointments (First 100 Days)

• Issue EO designating the DIA as the principal foreign HUMINT authority.

• Appoint reform-aligned leadership to DIA and ODNI.

• Establish the Office of Civil Liberties Oversight for intelligence activities.

Phase II: Legislative Engagement (Months 3-9)

• Propose National Intelligence Realignment Act to:

  • Merge selected CIA and NSA functions into DIA-led directorates.

  • Reform Title 50 (covert action) to enhance oversight and reduce domestic overreach.

  • Transfer select budgetary authorities from ODNI to DoD-controlled intelligence budget committees.

Phase III: Operational Realignment (Months 9-18)

• Expand Defense Clandestine Service with increased recruitment and field placement.

• Establish Regional Threat Task Forces focused on:

  • Latin American cartels and transnational gangs (e.g., Tren de Aragua).

  • Chinese military-industrial infiltration.

  • Cyber-warfare threats from state and non-state actors.

Phase IV: Public Trust Restoration and Transparency (Year 2)

• Mandate annual unclassified intelligence audit reports.

• Launch the National Intelligence Transparency Portal.

• Publicize DIA threat assessments on border security, cartel activity, and geopolitical hotspots.

IV. Anticipated Obstacles and Mitigation

Obstacle	Mitigation Strategy
Resistance from entrenched IC leaders	Use budgetary leverage and personnel reassignment authority
Congressional skepticism	Pre-brief aligned oversight committees and present reform as national security modernization
Legal challenges from civil liberties groups	Maintain strict constitutional protocols and transparency guarantees

V. Strategic Benefits

• Restored civilian control over intelligence.

• Reduction in politicized, agenda-driven assessments.

• Enhanced capability to address modern threats like cartels, FTOs, and cyberattacks.

• Refocused intelligence priorities toward national interest and sovereignty.

VI. Conclusion

Upgrading and repositioning the DIA as the centerpiece of American intelligence offers a rare opportunity to repair a broken system. It allows a new administration to assert strategic, legal, and moral leadership over a sprawling, often unaccountable intelligence state. With proper oversight, funding realignment, and constitutional guardrails, the DIA can become the intelligence backbone of a secure, sovereign, and reformed United States.

Attachments:

1. Draft Executive Order on Intelligence Realignment

2. Legislative Framework for Title 50 Reform

3. Organizational Chart of Proposed Intelligence Command Structure

4. Budget Reallocation Outline (FY2026)

5. Risk Assessment and Compliance Report Template