US President Donald Trump’s administration has asked intelligence officials to compile a single database of all alleged foreign spies and potential recruiting agents, the New York Times writes.
In recent months, the National Intelligence Service, which coordinates everything, has called for the creation of such a base. In contrast, the FBI and CIA question this idea.
Until now, employees of these departments cannot agree even on basic issues: how to create this list, who should be included in it, and how to store it.
According to the newspaper’s sources, some officials fear that such a rule would jeopardize ongoing operations and investigations. Information about suspected spies and people they wish to recruit as agents is closely guarded and available to a limited circle of employees, even within the departments themselves.
Supporters of the idea, in turn, believe that a single database will allow US authorities to track suspects in real time.
Intelligence officials also have concerns about how the National Intelligence Service handles such sensitive information.
Currently, the duties of the US Director of National Intelligence are temporarily performed by Bill Bolt, the Director of US National Intelligence. He has no intelligence experience.
In addition, Bolte is a political ally of Trump. After his appointment to the intelligence service, members of Congress feared that Bolte would exploit his position to target critics of the US President. It had previously used confidential mortgage loan data in a similar way.