United States Army Intelligence and Security Command


The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command is a direct reporting unit that conducts intelligence, security, and information operations for United States Army commanders, partners in the Intelligence Community, and national decision-makers. INSCOM is headquartered at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
INSCOM contributes units to the National Security Agency, the United States' unified signals intelligence organization. Within the NSA, INSCOM and its counterparts in the Navy, Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps comprise the Central Security Service. INSCOM's budget has been estimated to be approximately $6 billion.
As a direct reporting unit, INSCOM reports directly to the chief of staff of the Army.

Mission

INSCOM collects intelligence information in all intelligence disciplines to provide unit commanders with intelligence for the battlefield and the focus of combat power. The organization also conducts intelligence production activities, ranging from intelligence preparation of the battlefield to situation development, SIGINT analysis, imagery exploitation, and science and technology intelligence production. INSCOM also has significant responsibilities in counterintelligence, force protection, electronic warfare, and information warfare. Additionally, INSCOM supports force modernization and training.
INSCOM's stated vision for operations includes: conducting and supporting relevant intelligence, security and information operations for U.S. Army, joint and combined forces; optimizing national/theater/tactical partnerships; exploiting leading edge technology; and meeting the challenge of today, tomorrow and the 21st Century.

Structure

Merger and creation of INSCOM

On 1 January 1977, the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command was organized at Arlington Hall Station, Virginia, to provide the U.S. Army with a single organization for conducting multi-discipline intelligence, security operations, and electronic warfare at the level above corps. The new organization merged the former U.S. Army Security Agency, the signal intelligence and signal security organizations previously located at Arlington Hall, Virginia, the U.S. Army Intelligence Agency, a counterintelligence and human intelligence agency based at Fort Meade, Maryland, and several intelligence production units formerly controlled by the Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence and U.S. Army Forces Command. Brigadier General William I. Rolya, former commanding general of the Army Security Agency, became INSCOM's first commanding general.
USAINTA was a reorganization of the United States Army Intelligence Command which had been formed in 1965 to have a centralized command over all Counter Intelligence units in the Continental United States.
On 1 October 1977, the former U.S. Army Intelligence Agency headquarters was integrated into INSCOM. The command established a unified intelligence production element, the Intelligence and Threat Analysis Center, on 1 January 1978. Additionally, INSCOM assumed command of three military intelligence groups located overseas: the 66th Military Intelligence Group in Germany, the 470th Military Intelligence Group in Panama, and the 500th Military Intelligence Group in Japan. These groups were transformed into multidisciplinary units by incorporating former Army Security Agency assets into the previously existing elements. A fourth such group, the 501st Military Intelligence Brigade, was soon organized in South Korea. All of these groups were eventually reorganized and re-designated as brigades.

Parapsychologic research

In association with the Defense Intelligence Agency, and under the leadership of commanding general Albert Stubblebine, INSCOM attempted to use parapsychologic methods such as remote viewing in operation Center Lane. This was done as late as 1981. Other U.S. intelligence services attempted similar projects during the same period, most notably the Stargate Project by the Central Intelligence Agency.

In caselaw

In 2014, a was litigated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the Central Intelligence Agency and other federal departments and agencies, and it was determined that the agencies inappropriately handled an FOIA request regarding a special agent assigned to the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command who illegally issued a national security letter.

List of commanding generals