Yesterday, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper provided the national intelligence community’s annual threat assessment to the U.S. Senate. Of particular significance to our work was that both mass atrocities and human trafficking were included as threats to U.S. national security.

While mass atrocities had been included in the 2010 threat assessment, it was omitted last year. Restoring this recognition will help raise mass atrocities and human trafficking as priorities within the intelligence community and promote interaction between the legislature and the executive branch on these issues. It also reflects the continuing influence of the Genocide Prevention Task Force Report, supported in part by Humanity United, which recommended that the report include the risk of genocide and mass atrocities in the threat assessment. 

The annual threat assessment is compiled by various U.S. intelligence agencies. You can access the full testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee here, but we've included the relevant quotes below:

Mass Atrocities - page 9

"Unfortunately, mass atrocities have been a recurring feature of the global landscape. Since the turn of century, hundreds of thousands of civilians have lost their lives during conflicts in the Darfur region of Sudan and in the eastern Congo (Kinshasa). Recently, atrocities in Libya and Syria have occurred against the backdrop of major political upheavals. Mass atrocities usually occur in the context of other instability events and often result from calculated strategies by new or threatened ruling elites to assert or retain control, regardless of the cost. Violence against civilians also emerges in places where poorly institutionalized governments discriminate against minorities, socioeconomic conditions are poor, or local powerbrokers operate with impunity, as in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. In addition, terrorists and insurgents may exploit similar conditions to conduct attacks against civilians, as in Boko Haram?s recent attacks on churches in Nigeria." 

Human Trafficking - page 27

"As pressure is applied to their traditional illicit businesses, members of transnational criminal organizations are moving into human trafficking because it is a lower risk, higher profit operation, according to a 2010 UN Office on Drugs and Crime review. Human traffickers often use the same document forgers, corrupt officials, and illicit travel experts.”

Abigail Long is an associate for Policy & Government Relations. She is based in Humanity United’s Washington, D.C. office.

Photo: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that there has never been a "more complex and interdependent array of challenges than that we face today." (Kit Fox/Medill)