This week, the Washington Post is running a story by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin about the nature of our modern day intelligence system within the United States Federal Government. I plan on reading all the articles, but the first one is probably the most important so far and I encourage you to read it (link is here).
Now, I know that the Washington Post does tend to have a liberal bent, but this first article seemed to be unbiased and didn’t point fingers at anyone in particular. It merely introduced the nature of the beast with a million ears. The trouble with all those ears is, you’ll have a hard time getting the brain to process all that information correctly.
Right now, there are about 2.5 million people with the clearance to read Secret-level government documents. Here in the rim of insanity, having some level of government clearance can land you a pretty nice job as a government contractor, especially if you are a software developer like me. It is a pain to get, as you have to remember several things about your past life here in the United States, especially any places you’ve lived in, and you have to provide references who really like having government men call them and ask them about you. I hope you’ve been a decent person to all your friends, if you’re looking to get one of these things.
But think about the sheer number of people who have that level of clearance. I can hardly imagine the number of people it takes to fill a football stadium. And that doesn’t even come close to the number of people who are a member of that special group. The Post article points out that there are a little over 800,000 people who have Top Secret clearance, which would be a subset of the aforementioned 2.5 million, and those people are the ones that Ms. Priest and Mr. Arkin focus on.
Understand that not all of those people are analysts. I would assume it was a fraction who are the analysts, while others are simply workers and guards. Even an intelligence office needs security and janitorial services. Not to mention IT professionals who maintain the integrity of the data and network. But still, even it was, say 100,000 people who were going over the mounds of information, it still isn’t enough. As demonstrated by the Fort Hood shootings and the Underwear Bomber, intelligence gathering truly has become a beast and there are no signs that President Obama’s lackey, Janet “Shoulder Pads” Napolitano is even remotely interested in streamlining the process.
Statist-driven government, you see, always expands and will fight contraction and refinement to the last man. Anyone who attempts to do so will be cast out by politicians and bureaucrats alike who seek to preserve their precious status quo and look good in front of the dumb masses. Both liberals and conservatives are guilty of building and maintaining this beast as they have always loved big government (for conservatives, it’s big government in terms of big guns).
So, our intelligence system is probably doomed to go up in flames because there is too much information, no focus, and no streamlined process. To top that off, there are hundreds of private companies who aid in intelligence gathering and I doubt those people will remain loyal once budget cuts start going through (or the dumb masses rise due to high taxation, considering that the Federal Reserve option doesn’t seem to be working). More importantly, do you honestly believe that 2.5 million people are all loyal Americans?
While the days of gaining millions of dollars for spying on the United States may be over, I’m sure that many of these people would be willing to sell off what they had for a few thousand dollars or some other cushy perk. I know I might be tempted. The truth is, the farcical notions of National Security in the United States are really quite amusing. It’s nothing more than a bunch of Americans closing their eyes and covering their ears. We are not safe if we continue to rely on the Federal government to save us.
Nor should we ultimately do so. Because when it comes to National Security risks, we’re totally boned.