This article is about the guy behind Intellipedia and A-Space.
Mike Wertheimer may be the most dangerous man in U.S. intelligence. You would probably never guess it, judging from his lengthy and opaque title -- assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analytic transformation and technology. A perfect testament to the well-worn bureaucratic tradition of offering little insight by tossing around a lot of words.
Sharing and secrecy are opposing forces. So this is Wertheimer's task: Transform the massive intelligence bureaucracy into a collaborative network, in which loose lips are, in a way, encouraged; introduce technologies that many seasoned analysts neither understand nor trust; and build a cadre of young, ambitious rookies, who just can't believe they're not allowed to check their personal e-mail at work, into the future of the business.
The opposition is fierce. When The New York Times wrote about A-Space recently, analysts commented about the piece, and about Wertheimer, on a private intelligence community blog. Some recorded their dramatic dissent. "I guarantee," one intelligence employee wrote, "Mike Wertheimer will cause people to get killed over this."
"I am threatening the status quo," Wertheimer says. "And that's a hard pill to swallow for anybody."
