A nearly three-year old intelligence group within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is spearheading a number of efforts to bring together public and private sector stakeholders in the aviation community to improve information sharing and collaboration to better manage threats to aviation, the lead intelligence official said this week.

James Clapper
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper this week said at AVSEC World that the threats facing civil aviation are “myriad,” including “threats to aviation and threats enabled by aviation.”

In September the Air Domain Intelligence Integration and Analysis Cell (ADIIAC) was stood up at the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) facility in Annapolis Junction, Md., providing a center where “public and private sector aviation analysts and security personnel come together to share aviation related information, threat information and intelligence in as real-time as possible at all classification levels,” Tina Gabbrielli, director of the Air Domain Intelligence Integration Element (ADIIE) within ODNI, said on Monday at the annual AVSEC World conference hosted by the International Air Transport Association in Washington, D.C. She said the stand up of the ADIIAC is limited at the moment and that initial operating capability is expected later this year with the completion of a dedicated space.

Gabbrielli is a National Intelligence Manager for aviation matters reporting to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who earlier on Monday said the capabilities of the ADIIAC will grow over time (Defense Daily, Oct. 28).

Gabbrielli and Clapper said the ADIIAC has been helpful in sorting through information about the ongoing Ebola crisis. Gabbrielli also said the center has been helpful in dealing with other aviation threat issues, demonstrating that the public and private sector working “in a joint fashion really does bring value.”

The ADIIAC also provides government analysts an opportunity to better understand the aviation industry and community, Gabbrielli said, highlighting its complexity given its various components such as civil and general aviation, cargo, equipment manufacturers, airports and others, with each consisting of multiple business models. There is also a benefit to the aviation community in understanding the intelligence side of the equation, she said.

“I believe it will advance aviation security by collectively advancing all of our stakeholder situational awareness and leveraging existing partnership capabilities and enhancing both the understanding of the aviation and the intelligence operating environments,” Gabbrielli said.

The ADIIE unit that Gabbrielli heads within ODNI first began within the Department of Homeland Security in May 2012 as the Service of Common Concern, which she said was “sort of like an executive agent for” Clapper. In 2013 Gabbrielli’s office was transferred to ODNI and she was made the de facto NIM for the air domain, making her the senior most official in the intelligence community for dealing with aviation matters.

She said the ADIIE stood up with three primary goals to address, including developing the global air domain, improving aviation intelligence and information sharing and dissemination, and advocating for intelligence analysis and collection.

The air domain essentially “covers all civil aviation interests,” Gabbrielli said.

In addition to the ADIIAC, the ADIIE has also worked on other initiatives to better enhance the aviation community for intelligence purposes. She said her office has partnered with DHS and the FBI, the private sector and state, local and tribal governments in several “collaborative virtual environments,” essentially web portals that take advantage of existing federal information networks.

Two of the portals rely on the DHS Homeland Security Information Network (HISN). The first is the Critical Infrastructure Air Domain Awareness portal that has over 4,000 users and is growing “exponentially,” Gabbrielli said. This portal “provides sort of an aviation enterprise solution to assist in decision making, expand intelligence analytic capability, and allow access to additional intelligence resources,” she said. And air domain awareness bulletin is also distributed through the portal, she said.

The other collaborative portal that uses the HISN for air domain issues connects with the dozens of state and local fusion centers around the country, Gabbrielli said. The third portal is through the FBI’s Law Enforcement Online portal, called the Special Interest Group Air Domain Awareness Portal, and gives access to state and local law enforcement authorities who prefer this channel, she said.

Another effort includes the stand up in August of the Air Domain Intelligence Strategy board, which consists of representatives of all agencies that make up the intelligence community as well as others in the federal government that have aviation responsibilities, such as the intelligence offices of the TSA and Federal Aviation Administration, she said.

She also said that her office has participated in pilot efforts and tabletop exercises domestically and internationally and “we’ve created directories on various aviation-related topics like resources, training” and other resources used by the aviation community.

Yet another effort is a program between the ODNI and DHS that Gabbrielli said is called the Intelligence Community Private Sector Partnership, which is an annual effort that brings together analysts in the intelligence community and private sector to examine various issues. Last year the air domain awareness was one of the subject areas, she said, and the effort led to a report related to information sharing, where to make improvements and find gaps. The partnership led to the production of an information sources guide for aviation analysts that is being used throughout the aviation community and for training with fusion centers, she said.

This year unmanned aircraft systems are being explored within the ODNI and DHS partnership, she said.

Cyber attacks, which are also considered a threat to civil aviation, are also being discussed, Gabbrielli said. In the spring the ADIIE hosted a workshop with public and private sector participants on the issue, she said, which led to follow-up visits by intelligence community representatives to aviation sector facilities. This in turn resulted in one “entity” within the private sector making an effort to focus on flight operation information systems, she said. There will be additional cyber related forums, she added.