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Annual US Intelligence Bill Tops $80 Billion
Ponca City writes "The LA Times reports that the US government has disclosed its annual intel budget for the first time in more than a decade: $80.1 billion on intelligence gathering, representing about 12% of the nation's $664-billion defense budget. The government revealed the total intelligence budget twice before, in 1997 and 1998, in response to a lawsuit. It was $26.6 billion and $26.7 billion, respectively, meaning the budget has tripled in 12 years. 'It is clear that the overall spending on intelligence has blossomed to an unacceptable level in the past decade,' says Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Dana Priest reported that more than 1,200 government agencies or offices and almost 2,000 outside contractors are involved in counter-terrorism activities, producing about 50,000 intelligence reports each year, far more than the government can effectively digest. The US is running so many secret programs that James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, said during his confirmation hearings that 'only one entity in the entire universe' knows what they're all doing, and 'that's God.'"
Here's what they should do, Take 10 Billion have a massive pizza party for all of the US and then give 20 Billion to Intelligence and put the rest in the economy.
Thanks for posting this. Now we now that Diane Feinstein has no business being on this committee and that James R. Clapper Jr. isn't doing his job either.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
They spent $80billion and they still don't have any.
The problem has an obvious solution.
Create an infra-intelligence department which would gather info on what all the other intelligence and secret programs depts are doing.
Yeah, an yet another layer of abstraction, but when the situation demands it...
Does God have the need to know? I can't find him in JPAS either.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Those two helped to rake $80 billion through the business of government. At the top of the pyramid, that's cause for a raise, not a firing. The more cash you control, the better positioned you are to exploit that cash flow for personal gain.
You're not in the business of government, are you?
When we talk about space, we always compare the Iraq war to costs of building good
spaceships, like Apollo for instance.
Heck, here a one year budget is almost exactly half of total cost of Apollo program in modern money.
80 Billion vs 170 Billion.
Linux forever
An obviously meant-to-be-discovered "bomb" was discovered in a flight heading for the US that was uncovered by US intelligence. I know this because the reporters have been making sure to mention over and over again that it was US intelligence that discovered this "bomb" and not a sharp-eyed baggage handler. They also reported that this "bomb" had all sorts of wires hanging out of the packaging suggesting it was meant to be discovered.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It seems fairly clear that with "the last decade" they are trying to blame it on (who would've guessed?) Bush.
The chairs of the committee have been:
I wonder how much the budget went up from 2001-2003 and from 2007-present, since Democrats chaired it then? I find it hard to pin this down on either party...
all that intelligence, and still they don't know god doesn't excist
Make way for the terror-industrial complex. I remember after the cold war there was actually serious talk about reducing the military budget from utterly ludicrous to just slightly ludicrous. That is until we found a new boogieman and started the "war on terror". Now that we're fighting an abstract concept instead of an actual definable (and beatable) enemy, our military-industrial complex can continue to grow without limit forever. As an extra added bonus, since this abstract concept requires constant surveillance of small targets (ie, people in small huts scattered all over the world), the vast majority of the money can simply be tossed into a giant hole called "classified operations" and we don't even have to bother with all that tedious itemized budgeting we had to do with the traditional military.
On the other hand, at least with the old military-industrial complex we got some cool hardware that we got to see at air shows and parades. Nowadays all we get is the occasional FBI surveillance device on our cars and constant news stories about entire airports being shut down because someone forgot to put their shampoo in the checked bag instead of the carry-on.
But hey, at least we're all safer now, right?
Let's see, what things might have happened in the last decade which demanded a growth in our intelligence spending?
Man, I can't think of *anything*. I guess that means that total spending approaching $10 Billion is completely unreasonable.
If you want to understand what any organization is actually doing (as opposed to understanding what they say they're doing), read their budget. So the fact that the people theoretically in charge of the intelligence agencies don't know how the money is being spent means that they aren't in charge at all.
There are 2 non-mutually-exclusive reasons this could happen:
- The people that are supposed to be in charge aren't doing their jobs.
- The career spies that work directly for the people in charge are hiding their activities from their superiors.
Either way, that means that it doesn't matter who gets elected next week - the spooks will continue doing whatever the heck they want with the US government's money.
I am officially gone from
This is the inevitable outcome of having the operations side of the intelligence community gutted back in the 1970s by the Church Committee. There are two ways to organize intelligence: boots on the ground or an army of analysts who "use technology to make up for the lack of boots on the ground."
The American people want good, actionable intelligence without all of the sordid shit that the CIA did to get it back then. That's like a fat ass wanting to gorge herself with cake and have a body that rivals Gisele Bundchen or Heidi Klum.
9/11 was proof that the "we can use technology to replace an operations-focused intelligence apparatus" argument is a load of bullshit.
How about spending some of the money trying to help these poor students understand the two elusive lines?
complaining about uncontrolled government spending?
only when it goes to teachers and transit systems and healthcare for poor people do they seem to get upset
the usa has to massively curtail its intelligence and military spending
unfortunately, we will only dominate the world 2x over, rather than 10x over (rolls eyes)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From the reports I've been reading, it wasn't even a bomb. To be fair, we're probably overdue for the next power grab against our rights, and they usually seem to start with a good scare...
Don't take the above poster too seriously. He doesn't.
Are you twelve years old?
It shows a massive lack of intelligence across teh board fro US defense budgets.
Consider what the world wants and this was calculated years ago.
Amazing that the US defense Budget is nearing what the whole world had budgeted for defense not so long ago.
The incredible lack of intelligence these current numbers show is of complete failure to realize this amount of money used on removing real world problems and improving the general social environment the people of this world live in, would result in a massively reduced motive to go to war. and perhaps even eliminate any need for war should all other countries instead spend their defence budgets on such improvements.
The intelligence community is showing their moronic ignorance.
More than half of this is what we would call under the table payments to "operatives" in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Yemen and Somalia who then turn around and use the US cash to finance attacks against the US.
Time to kill the Black Budget (which is "off the book") and daylight everything.
France does it - and they're busy attacking al-Qaeda in Somalia where they actually are, whereas the US is in Iraq and Afghanistan where al-Qaeda HAS NOT BEEN for FIVE years.
You don't have to itemize the people involved, just the dollars involved in large groups.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
This is actually one thing that the Federal Government should be spending money on, as it does not fall to the powers and responsibilities of the states.
And I thought my education was expensive!
That's the basic problem. Actually this is problem in a number of government run systems.
"$664-billion defense budget"
The U.S. government has invaded or bombed or interfered with at least 24 countries since the end of the 2nd world war. The U.S. government has killed or caused the death of an estimated 11,000,000 people during that time.
"Defense" allows extreme corruption, because the affairs and the budget is easily hidden. For examples from just one war, see Grand Theft Pentagon
Playing devil's advocate here...
We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?
B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more
C: The counterterrorism efforts have prevented such an attack
For ANY of the above choices, how do you know? I mean, REALLY know, not just guessing or trying to shout louder than the guy next to you whose opinion is different than yours?
And for future budgets, how do you decide? Reduce the budget until a major attack happens, then go slightly higher next year? Reduce the budget then just absorb major attacks when they happen? Keep it where it's at on the assumption that the spending levels are the reason there's been nothing big happening? Again, upon what do you base your decision?
In all of Slashdot's membership, there are probably a few who have the real, first-hand primary-source knowledge (or are themselves a primary source) to make these decisions based upon fact and clear, rational thought. The rest of us, myself included, are talking out of our asses because we don't know shit. I loathe and despise Feinstein (she's never met a government-power-increasing law she didn't like), but she's in a position to have at least some factual knowledge. Have we overspent? Probably. But I don't want to be the one to decide how much to cut, and what to keep, and I'm not going to pretend I'm qualified to tell the intel community how to do their jobs. (Intel(tm)? That's another matter...)
We leave it to the judgment of history whether Feinstein is qualified to do so. Myself? I DON'T KNOW.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
You have to wonder how much of this is spent internally - wiretapping ourselves, invading our own privacy, installing GPS to some poor innocent kid's car for no reason. Unless you count some idle remarks on facebook as legit reasons for anything.
Terrorists are the new commies. And like commies they could be among us, working to bring us down from within! Hurry and report all your friends on facebook before they report you!
Administration: 12%
Mistakes: 9%
Useful work: 8%
Coverups: 11%
Pork:60%
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
That's only $258 per person per year which means a family of four is only on the hook for $1032.26 per year.
We were paying big bucks for a bunch of unaccountable fiefdoms that kept secrets from each other (despite working for the same government) lest someone steal from someone else's budget.
Shoving an infinite amount of money into more unaccountable fiefdoms just gets us more secrets and more debt. And no new agency larded on top of other agencies will fix it.
With 80 billion, one should expect a lot more intelligence.
If only we could buy intelligence, 89 bil ought to buy a whole lot.
In fact that explains the scarcity ... the government is buying it all up and probably locking it up inside Fort Knox for a rainy day. Politicians are so good at euphemisms.
s/geopolitical/propaganda
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Let's see, what things might have happened in the last decade which demanded a growth in our intelligence spending?
Man, I can't think of *anything*. I guess that means that total spending approaching $10 Billion is completely unreasonable.
Look, I'm pretty right wing, but even with the two wars and Al Qaeda still trying to run ops against us, there's no excuse for the current state of our intelligence community. Do you realize just how big and bloated it is? Have you seen the Wikipedia page for the U.S. Intelligence Community? Do you see how many different agencies there are? It seems like every single organ of the government has its own intel department, some of them very large. And many of these agencies... for example the military branches and the State Department... are often working against each other. The way Intel has grown has been monstrous and counterproductive. And it's just way too damn big. Intelligence, to be effective, cannot be too big or too expansive. So recognizing that we had so many agencies, what did we do? Cut them down? Eliminate and consolidate some of them? No, we added yet another layer of bureaucracy with the "Director of National Intelligence", the idea being that he'd be a central clearinghouse and authority for all US Intel. But guess what... we had that already. Wasn't the "Director of Central Intelligence" supposed to have that job? I mean the very nature of the, duh, Central Intelligence Agency was to be that central clearinghouse for all US intel. Again, we just added more bureaucracy.
Have a good look at that list. We should probably eliminate or consolidate two-thirds of those organizations. Why in the holy hell do we need a separate national reconnaissance office and national geospatial intel agency outside of CIA? Why does the State Department need an intel org? Just have diplomats write observational reports and forward them to CIA.
Bottom line, just like every other branch of government, intelligence has gotten too huge, expensive, and bloated to effectively do its job.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
it strives to be free, however, it remains unavailable to US. butt, we are paying (integrity, humanity, conscience etc...) dearly to sponsor worldwide deception, murder, mayhem etc..., so we wouldn't be alone/afraid in the manufactured 'darkness'?
the corepirate nazi freemason holycost (life, liberty etc...) is increasing by the minute. you call this 'weather'?
continue to add immeasurable amounts of MISinformation, rhetoric & fluff, & there you have IT? that's US? thou shalt not... oh forget it. fake weather (censored?), fake money, fake god(s), what's next? fake ?aliens? ahhaha. seeing as we (have been told that) came from monkeys, the only possible clue we would have to anything being out of order, we would get from the weather. that, & all the other monkeys tipping over/exploding around US.
the search continues; on any search engine
weather+manipulation
bush+cheney+wolfowitz+rumsfeld+wmd+oil+freemason+blair+obama+weather+authors
meanwhile (as it may take a while longer to finish wrecking this place); the corepirate nazi illuminati (remember, (we have been told) we came from monkeys, & 'they' believe they DIDN'T), continues to demand that we learn to live on less/nothing while they continue to consume/waste/destroy immeasurable amounts of stuff/life, & feast on nubile virgins while worshipping themselves (& evile in general (baal to be exact)). they're always hunting that patch of red on almost everyones' neck. if they cannot find yours (greed, fear ego etc...) then you can go starve. that's their (slippery/slimy) 'platform' now. see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
never a better time to consult with/trust in our creators. the lights are coming up rapidly all over now. see you there?
greed, fear & ego (in any order) are unprecedented evile's primary weapons. those, along with deception & coercion, helps most of us remain (unwittingly?) dependent on its' life0cidal hired goons' agenda. most of our dwindling resources are being squandered on the 'wars', & continuation of the billionerrors stock markup FraUD/pyramid schemes. nobody ever mentions the real long term costs of those debacles in both life & any notion of prosperity for us, or our children. not to mention the abuse of the consciences of those of us who still have one, & the terminal damage to our atmosphere/planet (see also: manufactured 'weather', hot etc...). see you on the other side of it? the lights are coming up all over now. the fairytail is winding down now. let your conscience be your guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. we now have some choices. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on your brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
"The current rate of extinction is around 10 to 100 times the usual background level, and has been elevated above the background level since the Pleistocene. The current extinction rate is more rapid than in any other extinction event in earth history, and 50% of species could be extinct by the end of this century. While the role of humans is unclear in the longer-term extinction pattern, it is clear that factors such as deforestation, habitat destruction, hunting, the introduction of non-native species, pollution and climate change have reduced biodiversity profoundly.' (wiki)
"I think the bottom line is, what kind of a world do you want to leave for your children," Andrew Smith, a professor in the Arizona State University School of Life Sciences, said in a telephone interview. "How impoverished we would be if we lost 25 percent of the world's mammals," said Smith, one of more than 100 co-authors of the report. "Within our lifetime hundreds of species could be lost as a result of our own actions, a frightening sign of what is happening to the ecosystems where they live," added Julia Marton-Lefevre, IUCN director general. "We must now set clear targets for the future to reverse
80 billion and they are still a hated country and the riaa and mpaa copyright craze is still on all that money and they cant figure out taxing culture isn't smart
"The incredible lack of intelligence these current numbers show is of complete failure to realize this amount of money used on removing real world problems and improving the general social environment the people of this world live in, would result in a massively reduced motive to go to war. and perhaps even eliminate any need for war should all other countries instead spend their defence budgets on such improvements."
Ah, the old "social spending will end war and terrorism" canard. Too bad that reality has shot it full of holes.
You think social spending will stop Islamist terrorism? Really? Especially considering that every Islamist terrorist attack against the west has been conducted by middle class or wealthy Muslims? These people aren't attacking us because of lack of clean water or trade. They're attacking us because their religion tells them to. All of the social spending in the world isn't going to stop them.
What about wars between nation-states? Russia has perhaps more natural wealth than any country in the world. It hasnt' stopped them from trying to push their neighbors around. Ask the Georgians how peaceful the Russians are with all of their oil and gas and mineral wealth.
War will be here as long as humans will be here. Social spending will not change that one whit.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Take for example the constant paucity of translators familiar with the tongue of countries we're occupying. Where was the nationwide scholarship initiative for Pashto, Farsi and Arabic -- in High school -- in say 9/12/01? It's not like 10 years later our major problem has been trust and the second one has been trust and the third has been blowing up people accidently due to flawed -- um what is that word I'm looking for?
I guess the conspiracy buffs have been right all along.
I've worked at the CIA. I sincerely doubt that God knows everything going on in there.
So it's $80 billion? Did everyone else fail to notice the other number in TFS? Total defense spending is $664 billion, which leaves $584 billion on non intelligence related defense spending. How much of that $584 billion is spent on military forces meant to defend against a cold war style enemy vs the kind of threats the US faces today? My guess would be a large portion of it. Of the $80 billion on intelligence, how much is appropriate for the kinds of threats the US faces today? My guess would be a significantly larger portion than the rest of the defense budget.
Would I like to see a significantly lower defense budget for the US? Absolutely. But intelligence seems like entirely the wrong portion of our national defense to cut it from, given current conditions.
Why do we need defense spending when we have the SECOND AMENDMENT! Screw the nanny state! RON PAULEM 4EVR!
Why does intelligence need a 1+:1 growth rate with GDP? Someone more naive might say, a doubling of the GDP "is a good time to reduce taxes." Except, as we know, that will never happen.
The intel business has changed. It used to be that the US intelligence community was focused on the capabilities of the USSR, which was a big, slow-moving, closed society. Moving to today's targets is tough. The CIA and NSA had all that expertise focused on what the USSR was doing. They were looking for big stuff like missile launchers that are visible from orbit, and communications between a very centralized bureaucracy in Moscow with outlying subordinate stations. It was reasonably clear how to approach that. All that capability was ill-matched to the many post-USSR threats.
Trying to get intel on a terrorist group is tough. First, the target is tiny. Remember, 9/11 only involved about 25 people, and only a few of them knew the plan more than a day in advance. Second, the groups aren't that connected. Islamic terrorism is an ideology, not an organization. Al-Queda ("The Base") is maybe 200 people at this point, and not doing much. The terrorist incidents in recent years haven't been very connected. Third, intel on terrorist groups has a short useful life. Where bin Laden was last month is only of historical interest. US intelligence used to be strategic. Now it's mostly tactical. The US used to obsess over Soviet bomber production rates. There's nothing like that to track now.
Then there are the messes in Afghanistan and Iraq. That's an intel problem; insurgents are hard to find but easy to kill. The dumb insurgents are already dead. The remaining ones know how to keep quiet. There's no centralized control of either insurgency. If the insurgents establish a "stronghold", they become vulnerable. That, by the way, is why the war with the Taliban is stalemated. If the Taliban concentrates enough combat power to do anything big, they become vulnerable to modern firepower. If they operate in the background, they can survive, but can't take over, unless they can wear out their opposition. (This frustrates the US military. "Marine doctrine demands a decision." - FMFM-1. Insurgent doctrine does not. "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue" - Mao Zedong.)
Coming up next: Mexico. Arguably, northern Mexico is already a "failed state". Drug lords are more vulnerable to intel operations than religiously-motivated insurgents, though. They can't hide too much and still do business, they have to deal and communicate, and the members mistrust each other.
That confusion is why the US now has such a confused intel establishment. That's no excuse for it being as big as it is, though. Or, really, as secretive. Most of the targets today have insignificant capabilities to infiltrate or eavesdrop on the US intel establishment. It's not like going up against Moscow Center, which would devote huge resources and years of time to getting inside some US establishment. The secrecy can get in the way of getting things done.
During WWII, and for decades thereafter, it didn't take a pass to get into the Pentagon. Gen. Marshall decided that any competent intelligence service would figure out a way to get into the building, and so only the really important stuff would be secured. Trying to secure the whole building would be security theater. We need more of that kind of thinking.
We're not getting our money's worth.
I'll be here all night, try the ribeye, it's excellent
include $sig;
1;
Why should Clapper lose his job? Because he doesn't "know what they are all doing"?
In any large organization, no one person ("besides God") has complete knowledge of what everyone is up to.
Let's take a hypothetical example. Some guy four levels down the hierarchy is responsible for HUMINT in Baghdad. He assigns someone two levels below him to read the graffiti on the city walls to get a feel for the mood of the crowd and to watch for anomalies. This guy does his job and his reports go three levels up the food chain-- unless he comes across something interesting that needs to be investigated further. So Clapper never has a clue this is going on unless it actually turns something up.
This is what you WANT in an endeavor like this: subordinates who take initiative within the boundaries set by their superiors, don't waste their time with irrelevant details and non-results and report the interesting bits.
I suspect this is what Clapper was saying, and it is why we have hierarchies. Clapper doesn't need to know about the graffiti guy in Baghdad any more than the President needs to know that a stamp machine is empty in Boise, Idaho despite the fact that it is, in the end, his responsibility.
"The US is running so many secret programs that James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, said during his confirmation hearings that 'only one entity in the entire universe' knows what they're all doing, and 'that's God.'""
What a moron, which of all the Gods does he mean?! As he is a defence guy I guess it must be some war God. It wouldn't surprise me if it was Týr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Týr) one of the mightiest God who gave his name to the day Tuesday!
Man..they should just do what I do. Send out an SCV out every once in awhile to gather intel for you. They only cost 50 minerals a pop (no gas).
D: Increased Vigilance of Everyday Americans
They have not been any successful terror incidents in the US since 9/11 but there have been several attempts (underpants bomber, Times Square bomber, etc). What stopped those attempts from becoming incidents was not $80B intelligence, but the vigilance of ordinary citizens (cost: $0). Even on 9/11, one of the four planes did not hit its target due the action of ordinary citizens.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Tripled in the last 12 years? That seems about right, given inflation and all. I know that in the last 12 years my stock portfolio has... hey, wait a minute!!!
Just kidding. Actually I think $80B seems like a small amount of the $600B defense budget. After all, it's probably much cheaper to have good intelligence and make the best use of our troops than to just invade countries at random in hopes of making America safer (not that that would ever happen ;). Of course, we have no idea if we're really getting our money's worth for this necessarily un-transparent expenditure, but all us patriotic Americans here on /. know that our wonderful government officials are generally trustworthy and honest. (At least those of us with our tinfoil hats firmly atop our heads).
And supposedly it would cost $10 to $20 billion to get to Mars. I'm glad we have our priorities straight.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
for 80 Billon of budget their should be the only ones that knows everything that God does.
Given the latest bunch of political types, we're not getting nearly enough intelligence for our money.
... not the boogeyman.
I've never been afraid of any so called 'terrorist'. Any action they bring is a singular event, a pimple on the ass of their target.
Nuke NY/DC/Chi/LA? Fine, we'll crush you and rebuild. That's the attitude we all should have.
Our REAL problem and decline in the world is of our OWN making. Let's see...
The Berlin wall fell, US owned the planet, no more need for global arms race, China/India was a joke at that time. Japan was our economic competition.
The US boomed for 20 years. And almost silently, Japan/Britain faded, China/EU/Russia/India rose.
Then something interesting happened in the early 2000's, the globe realized the US was a bit wonky.
Before, people just believed it was the guiding light and followed blindly. Now, they began to attempt to validate that. Turns out, there was no supernatural force in effect there. The US ju
st knew how to play to win. The globe now knows that all along, the US is simply a competitor, one to be competed with... ideas, economics, power, global citizenry.
Then they looked even deeper and found the US is stupid about playing the game and is on terrible economic footing...
Spending $600bn on 'defense', excluding Iraq/Afghanistan for 5-10 years straight... major problem.
Having $43 TRILLION in unfunded total liabilities: Debt, deficit, SocialSec, healthcare, yearly budget, bonds, etc.... major problem.
Arm twisting, shit talking and invading soverign countries on a whim, for oil, whatever the case may truly be... major problem.
Ignoring the UN and the little guys... major problem.
Religious fervor... ditto.
Incompetent legislative and executive branches... yep, ditto.
Military industrial corporate complex COMPLETELY out of control and disjoint from the true wishes of the citizenry... OOPS.
Our consumers shipping all of our cash directly to China/India, container ships full of it... bad news.
Failing to replace lost manufacturing, tech and education with new ones... duh.
Doping down the public with 200 channels of reality TV, cooking and shopping.... dorks.
Government actively gone into protection mode, snooping pervasively now because it KNOWS both it and the country are teetering... fact.
Crazy consumption of natural resources... sigh.
Anything else????
Do you all have ANY F'IN IDEA what we could have done with that $6.5 trillion [at LEAST] we blew on worthless 'defense' budget the last ten years?
That's extremely conservative, say budget was $500bn avg over 10yr, half of that was unnecessary, add in Iraq/Afghan 'wars'. black and other stupid expenditures.
The US people know that unless the US does an abrubt about face and fixes itself NOW, it's screwed.
The have so far failed to act and are still resorting to accepting fear.
So when some normal everyday pimple like Usama, or any of the above litany of things, pop up... we fall for it, hook, line and sinker.
MAJOR PROBLEM.
You win by making friends in the world, not alienating them.
The world sees $6.5 trillion of waste by an arrogant, stupid, fearful country on extremely shaky footing.
You can damn well bet they're going to take advantage of that.
I would, and I'm born and raised full blooded live here American.
At this point, I'd rather move to China. ;-)
At least that way I'll get lots of tiny Asian hotness on my tip
And my kids and grandkids will have a future.
CHANGE NOW AMERICA, OR BE DONE FOR!!!
It costs a lot of money to trick people into trading their freedoms for security.
Seems like the last "first time" was just 2009 ($US75 billion btw). Well, I guess it sounds better to write for the first time in a decade a second time then for the second time a first time. ; )
I have a terrorist-repelling rock. In addition to its tiger-repelling function, it also prevents terrorist attacks.
We haven't had a major terrorist incident in the US for a while. Why?
* A: There hasn't been any credible ability to do so by the bad guys
B: Nobody wants to harm the US any more
C: My incredible terrorist-repelling rock has prevented such an attack
Its important to recognize that the vast bureaucracies that exist in the intelligence community are mostly self-serving in function. Like any large organization, they mostly aim to increase their own status and budget and scope, and try to guarantee their continued existence.
If we really WANT good intelligence, I propose to leave all the existing agencies alone, and over a period of build a single new one -- from the ground up, without using people from any of the old ones -- that will be focused on the use of human assets for intel gathering, penetrating terrorist groups, counter-espionage, etc. If it works, then future generations can use it as an excuse to dismantle or severely curtail the big bloated agencies we have now. If it doesn't work, stop funding it so it shrivels and dies. The hard part will be to prevent the entrenched interests of the existing intelligence community from sabotaging the new organization any way they can.
Something we all might benefit from: http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing/msg/2846ca1b6bee64e1 ... ...
"Summary: This note is essentially about how civilians could benefit by have access to the sorts of "sensemaking" tools the intelligence community (as well as corporations) aspire to have, in order to design more joyful, secure, and healthy civilian communities (including through creating a more sustainable and resilient open manufacturing infrastructure for such communities). It outlines why the intelligence community should consider funding the creation of such FOSS "dual use" intelligence applications as a way to reduce global tensions through increased local prosperity, health, and with intrinsic mutual security.
As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for things like a basic income, all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. While I can't guarantee success at the second option of using the internet for abundance for all, I can guarantee that if we do nothing, the first option of using the internet to round up dissenters (or really, anybody who is different, like was done using IBM computers in WWII Germany) will probably prevail. So, I feel the global public really needs access to these sorts of sensemaking tools in an open source way, and the way to use them is not so much to "fight back" as to "transform and/or transcend the system". As Bucky Fuller said, you never change thing by fighting the old paradigm directly; you change things by inventing a new way that makes the old paradigm obsolete.
As with that notion of "mutual security", the US intelligence community needs to look beyond seeing an intelligence tool as just something proprietary that gives a "friendly" analyst some advantage over an "unfriendly" analyst. Instead, the intelligence community could begin to see the potential for a free and open source intelligence tool as a way to promote "friendship" across the planet by dispelling some of the gloom of "want and ignorance" (see the scene in "A Christmas Carol" with Scrooge and a Christmas Spirit) that we still have all too much of around the planet. So, beyond supporting legitimate US intelligence needs (useful with their own closed sources of data), supporting a free and open source intelligence tool (and related open datasets) could become a strategic part of US (or other nation's) "diplomacy" and constructive outreach."
Otherwise, our military-intelligence-industrial-prison-schooling system is just ironic:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Likewise, even United States three-letter agencies like the NSA and the CIA, as well as their foreign counterparts, are becoming ironic institutions in many ways. Despite probably having more computing power per square foot than any other place in the world, they seem not to have thought much about the implications of all that computer power and organized information to transform the world into a place of abundance for all. Cheap computing makes possible just about cheap everything else, as does the ability to make better designs through shared computing.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
If their intelligence bill came to $80 billion,
I wonder how much their stupidity bill comes out to.
So with an $80 Billion dollar Budget, and 50,000 intelligence reports, the American taxpayers are paying $1,600,000.00 per intelligence report. I want a REFUND!!!!!
Nine and a half. But a really smart kid.
All that money, and we still have no intelligence in the US government.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
What a fucking waste.
Yea, his mom told him so. She said he's Precious and his dad said he incorrigible.
Because do you realise just how many American politicians you have to grind down to get one ounce of intelligence?