U.S. spy chief sees more private sector input

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair delivers a speech on ''the future of the U.S. intelligence community'' to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce National Security Task Force in Washington July 22, 2009.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. intelligence will seek more input from the private sector and outside experts such as academics to support core spy agencies, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said on Wednesday.

In a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he described a future in which intelligence professionals remained at the center but outside elements also provided expertise.

"We sometimes describe our future intelligence community as an enterprise," he said. "But in the future, we have to include a larger membership and think of it as an electron cloud surrounding that nucleus."

Aside from foreign intelligence partners, the larger sphere would include academics, think tanks, other outside experts and commercial private sector partners, he said.

"There will always be an element of secrecy in our profession," he said. "But I don't think there has to be so much an element of mystery as we currently have."

Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. spy agencies including the CIA, said uncovering secrets was not enough to keep the United State safe and that a huge amount of information was in the open.

He also said protecting the U.S. cyber infrastructure was vital to preventing increased vulnerability.

"I don't believe the United States is at risk right now in the way that we have seen countries like Georgia and Estonia attacked recently," Blair said. "But ... unless we continue to work hard on it, we could be very vulnerable."

The U.S. government is still trying to determine who was behind the July 4 cyber attack against government websites in South Korea and the United States.

The United States was comparing data with foreign partners to track down who conducted the "unsophisticated" attack, Blair said.

"The person who perpetrated this attack went through ... a series of cutouts, different IDs, and the process of going back and sorting that out just takes some ... time," he said.

(Reporting by Tabassum Zakaria; Editing by Xavier Briand)