The FBI lacks a plan to strengthen the academic and private sector partnerships it depends on to counter non traditional intelligence collectors, the Government Accountability Office reported. Such collectors are individuals whose day job is not intelligence work, for example researchers or students, who actively or passively collect sensitive US information on behalf of foreign entities, and who operate independently of established intelligence organisations.
The investigative problem is structural. FBI officials told GAO that collectors are hard to identify and investigate because their activity may not break the law until information is actually transferred to a foreign entity, and that cultural differences with academia impede communication: universities promote free exchange of information and do not want to be seen turning over their students. The bureau relies on tips from academia to identify potential collectors, which makes the quality of those relationships an operational variable, not a courtesy.
Responsibility inside the FBI sits with the Office of Private Sector and the Counterintelligence and Espionage Division, working through national and field office counterintelligence task forces. Field offices told GAO that relationships with universities are stronger at some institutions than others, and academic associations said outreach could improve, but the bureau had not identified a plan for strengthening the partnerships.
The finding lands in the middle of the wider research security build out, alongside export controls on research technology of the kind China extended this week. The US instrument here is not a control list but a relationship, and GAO’s point is that the relationship has no owner and no plan.