The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is launching a sweeping reorganization aimed at enhancing the spy agency's cyber abilities and plugging gaps in its espionage operations.
CIA Director John Brennan said in an announcement Friday that the move comes after outside experts spent months analyzing the agency's management structure.
He said the agency is adding a new top level position, "Directorate of Digital Innovation," to focus on cyber technology advances that have changed the way espionage is conducted.
"Our ability to carry out our responsibilities for human intelligence and national security responsibilities has become more challenging'' in today's digital world, Brennan said. He said the agency must "understand all of the aspects of that digital environment.''
In another big change, the CIA is ending a long-held division between its operations and analytical branches, a system that required one group of workers to collect data and another to analyze it.
The new plan would blend those divisions into 10 new "mission centers." The centers will focus on specific challenges or geographic areas of the world. The CIA is already operating several such interdisciplinary centers, including one on counter-terrorism.
"I know there are seams right now, but what we've tried to do with these mission centers is cover the entire universe, regionally and functionally, and so something that's going on in the world falls into one of those buckets," Brennan said.
