Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
There are 17 different intelligence agencies that compose the Intelligence Community.
This statement presupposes that the director of National Intelligence has notified the U.S. Congress and the American public of all of the agencies involved in the IC. It is possible there are other agencies that remain so secret that only a handful of individuals outside of the un-named agency know of its existence.
As an example of this, the National Reconnaissance Office, whose primary mission is to build and operate recon satellites, was a secret agency until 1992. Not only the mission, but also the name, National Reconnaissance Office, including its acronym was classified at the highest levels.
Some IC agencies are well known such as the FBI and the CIA, but who would think at first blush that the Department of Energy was a member of the IC? The Department of Defense has its own Defense Intelligence Agency, but so do the branches of the Armed Forces. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency also falls under the Defense Department. The Coast Guard has an intelligence agency as does its parent organization, the Department of Homeland Security. Departments of State and Treasury and the Drug Enforcement Administration, oh, and before I forget, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is also an intelligence agency. All God’s children got Intel.
Although exact budgetary figures for these 17 agencies are difficult to determine, figures from the DNI from 2007–2016 average out to $71.7 billion per year. These figures reflect a low of $63.5 billion for 2007 and a high of $80.1 billion for 2010.
The IC budgets have the media as well as Congress beginning to ask what we are getting for our tax dollars.
In recent years the IC has missed or underestimated the rise of the Islamic state, the Russian invasion of Crimea, North Korea’s rapid development of a nuclear arsenal and the Benghazi assault of our consulate. This last happening on 9/11, a date that should have raised some heightened sense of concern.
Finally, they appear to have been blindsided by the attempted Russian election interference that openly advertised on Facebook.
The former British spy who put together the fake Trump dossier from un-named Russian sources and pedaled it to James Comey pulled off that caper for around $10 million.
Why don’t we just hire him?
Rube Render is the Curry County Republican chairman. Contact him at: