CIA Holding Academic Conference at Georgetown University This Week

CIA to Hold First Public Conference at Georgetown on National Security

Georgetown University News

JUNE  2014

The Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) first public conference on national security will take place at Georgetown June 11 with scholars and experts from both academia and the intelligence community.

The conference, also sponsored by the university’s Security Studies Program, will explore, among other topics, the status of intelligence work in the 21st century, cybersecurity threats and the balance between secrecy and transparency.

John Brennan, CIA director 

“The CIA and [Georgetown’s] security studies program are natural partners for this important conference given our mutual focus on the key national security challenges facing the United States,” says CIA Director John Brennan. “By bringing together leaders from across the government, private sector, academia, policy institutes and the media, I believe this joint conference will generate fresh ideas for the future of our country and the intelligence community.”

The all-day conference in Georgetown’s historic Gaston Hall is called “Ethos and Progression of Intelligence,” and will open with remarks by former FBI director Robert Mueller.

Robert Mueller, former FBI director

“This conference will contribute to the ongoing and important conversations about cybersecurity, and about the balance between transparency and the protection of sources and methods essential to our national security,” says Mueller, who just completed a year as Georgetown’s first distinguished executive-in-residence. “Georgetown, with its many faculty and alumni with expertise in intelligence matters, is an ideal place for such a conference.”

In his university role, Mueller provided faculty, students and university leaders with insights and perspectives based on his lengthy career in the intelligence field.

Conference panelists and moderators include U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan), chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; Bruce Hoffman, professor and director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown; Siobahn Gorman, reporter for The Wall Street Journal; John Negroponte, former U.S. deputy Secretary of State and former ambassador to Iraq; and Paul Pillar, security studies faculty member and author of such books as Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform (Columbia University Press, 2011).