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Cyber Crime A Distant #3 Priority for FBI
An anonymous reader writes "A reading of the Justice Department's 2008 budget justification to Congress for the FBI indicates the agency is dedicating about 5.5 percent of its field agents to combating cyber crime, the FBI's stated Number Three priority, The Washington Post reports. Take away the agents dedicated to catching child predators online — a program that accounts for the vast majority of the department's prosecutorial victories — and about 3.6 percent of the FBI's agents are dedicated to cyber crime, the report notes. From the story: 'If the FBI's third most-important priority claims just over 3.5 percent of its active agents, how many agents and FBI resources are dedicated to the remaining Top Ten priorities?'"
A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending a "CEO's dinner" at a regional tech trade show. (I'm not a CEO, I just happened to work for the meetings major sponsor.) The majority of attendees were the type of people who wear very expensive watches and attend regional tech conferences and use words like "synergy" a lot.
The keynote speech was given by an FBI special agent, and was about cybercrime (I hate that word). He talked about where major risks came from, talked up InfraGard a bit, and generally gave common sense advice to the CEO types there. I remember thinking, "This guy can't really be a computer security expert, can he?"
At one point, I zoned out, and when I tuned back in I thought he was using a Latino name repeatedly in a context I didn't understand. So I glanced up at his powerpoint slide, then back at him, and then back at the slide, until I made the connection.
He was talking about "warez," but he was pronouncing it "Juarez."
I found it very hard to take him seriously after that.
Though from the UK perspective, I would point out one thing.
The primary aim of ALL government-operated organisations, in any part of the world is:
SECURE YOUR BUDGET
If you do not do this, you can whistle for any other work. If there is no independent audit or pressure to keep you primarily focussed on your work, more and more time will be spent fighting for your budget.
So I suggest that between a quarter and a third of FBI staff are primarily engaged in this process. It will involve writing reports, attending liaison meetings, and general admin - all intended to ensure the presence of the FBI in other state run operations is expected, costed, and budgeted for.
Of the remaining 2/3 of the staff, I suspect that anything up to half their time may be spent on either supporting the obtaining of the main FBI budget, or internal work intended to ensure that their portion of the money does not go to some other section.
That leaves around 1/3 of staff time available for performing the priority tasks of the FBI.
The same goes for the CIA, the British Security Service, and any other government body whose accounts are not open to independant audit. I have been through this loop before in Whitehall. Were you surprised at the cost of weapons development, or any other secretive government activity? Now you know. Remember, it's NOT commercial!
I was a target of an FBI cyber-crime investigation, launched against me by a greedy former business partner who wanted to mess up my life. The investigation was based on nothing more than bullshit opinion letter written by that guy's good friend who happened to be a lawyer. It took me about a year and tens of thousands of dollars to explain basic copyright law to this FBI agent. When they figured out that there was no crime or misconduct, they went away... but I didn't get any compensation for what had happened. I almost wish they had arrested me, so I could have at least come back at them for wrongful arrest damages, but whatever.
I have a feeling that a lot of their "cyber crime" investigations are not crimes at all, but rather are civil matter, business disputes, or just plain revenge and retaliation missions. They shouldn't be involved in such things, ever, but they do get involved. All it takes is an authoritative-sounding pitch from a lawyer, who has nothing to lose from it.
First off, as others have pointed out, you are assuming that there are only ten priorities.
Second, and more importantly, you need to read the article summary again and try to see which weasel words apply to which statements.
The number three priority takes 5.5% of field agents. The 3.6% number is just a conveniently small fraction of that which was chosen because it looks better in headlines.Did you know that if you take away all of the right handed agents who speak English as a first language, there would be only 10% of all FBI agents even showing up to work in the morning? If showing up for work in the morning claims just over ten percent of its active agents, how many agents and FBI resources are dedicated to doing anything for the rest of the day?
Speaking of ratios, it's interesting to note that, according to the article, they're requesting $258.5 million for 659 field agents. Does the $392,261 per agent seem excessive to anyone else? I suppose it depends on what kind of support staff gets lumped into that bucket.
Also, how exactly do you define a field agent, in this case? Is the guy who hangs out in chat rooms, pretending to be a 14 year old girl a field agent, or are field agents the ones kicking down doors and confiscating computer equipment?
Neoconservative was first coined in the 80s as a synonym for "Reagan Democrats." It was a derisive term for politicians who cynically took (or pretended to take) conservative positions that they do not believe on certain issues for the purpose getting elected. The implication was that they did not hold those views, and once elected would not behave conservatively as they suggested.
It certainly shouldn't be applied to people who have always been conservative. Ann Coulter is not a neocon. Both of the Clintons are. Newt Gingrich is not a neocon, but neither is Nancy Pelosi. Dick Cheney is not, but both the Bush presidents (41,43) could be considered to be. Rudy Guiliani is shaping up to be one. Barack Obama has cleverly been on the campaign trail (or otherwise occupied) during a number of policy-defining votes during his freshman term, so it remains to be seen just exactly what he is, and what he's pretending to be.
Neocons don't tend to control anything, principally because they, like moderates, like to stick their finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing before not really doing anything of substance.
There is no logical reason why the word would be repeated so often about people it does not describe except to create a new definition. One which is intended to associate conservatives with a certain kind of nazis by way of a common prefix. It is very tiring to watch this in action. Especially as it appears to be succeeding amongst the ill-informed, non-critically thinking masses.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Parent is spot on: it's not something you throw Agents at, it's something you throw Information Analysts at.
The FBI has allocated 659 (out of 11,868; or 5.5%) Agents -- with the authority to arrest and prosecute -- to the Cyber division. However, it has allocated 492 (out of 2303, or 21.4%) of it's Information Analyst positions to the task. That's close to a quarter of the guys who would be the ones actually investigating Cybercrime anyway.
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