Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Nah, we should level an American city that isn't being useful anymore and build a waterpark. For future reference, this is the same solution I have proposed to end the israeli-palestinian conflict.
No I don't have a newsletter.
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?
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.
Nah, we should level an American city that isn't being useful anymore.
Washington DC?
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.
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
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.
Therefore, I really, honestly believe that there are some really scary things happening at Gitmo with very few horrible, hardcore killers who have been giving up all sorts of useful intelligence but who cannot be tried in a civilian court because they have been endlessly tortured to obtain that information. Senator Obama made his campaign promises to close down Gitmo not knowing the secret horrors and President Obama has to backtrack because he now knows about the shit going on.
You know... I can't resist but point out that this would be like saying: Maybe Hitler knew more about the Jewish Community than we do.
And no, I don't feel like that's a Godwin. If there's illegal/immoral/uncool activity going on in Gitmo, it should be shut down. Period. Claiming that maybe he's doing it because the people there did something wrong to his family (figuratively speaking) is just sick. It points out to me (and I hope just not me) how you gloss over human rights violations because you think it benefits national security or some bullshit like that.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The idea that anyone could still have some useful intelligence to give up after sitting in a cell at Gitmo for 8 years is pretty ridiculous.