Donald Trump’s national security team is discussing plans to dismantle the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the organization that was created in response to the 9/11 attacks, according to an adviser to the president-elect and a former senior intelligence official. The news comes as the current director of national intelligence, James Clapper, announced his resignation Thursday.
The Trump national security team has been meeting in recent days, planning the removal of the cabinet-level position and assessing how to fold parts of the organization into the 16 federal intelligence agencies it oversees, according to both people with knowledge of the plans. If the restructuring is accomplished, it would undo legislation passed by Congress in 2004, dismantle the biggest American intelligence bureaucracy created since the end of World War II, and roll back a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.
The national security team believes the effort will be “long and messy” but is confident it will be successful, according to the former senior U.S. intelligence official who is consulting with those involved in the transition.
Both sources asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about confidential plans.
The former senior intelligence official, who supports the proposal, said the DNI was never a solution to the 9/11 attacks. “It was always a naive idea that American intelligence can be ‘fixed.’ You’ll never get it all correct,” the former official said. “You can never have 100 percent intelligence, never stop every terror plot or penetrate every terrorist cell. There will always be gaps.”
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment, but a source close to Clapper said the director was not aware of the Trump transition team’s plans.
The Trump team sees removing the office as an opportunity to reorganize other parts of the intelligence community, something that some career officials have long sought. The transition team, for example, is also contemplating reversing the recent restructuring of the CIA that took place under its current director, John O. Brennan. “Assuming the DNI gets taken apart, they want to undo Brennan’s reorganization of the agency,” the former senior official said.
Last year, Brennan restructured the CIA by removing the wall between analysts and spies, putting them together in mission centers, rather than geographic divisions, as had been the organization since the agency was created. The new structure was largely modeled after the Counterterrorism Center, which had become the agency’s dominant section after 9/11. Critics from inside the agency complained that it weakened the core skill of the agency — human espionage — and removed expertise. Brennan said the move allowed the agency to better reflect the changing landscape of global threats, including cyberspace.
The Trump transition team announced Friday morning that Mike Pompeo, a Republican representative from Kansas, will be nominated to head the CIA. It’s unclear whether Pompeo, a former Army officer, would support reversing Brennan’s reforms, or whether it was a condition of accepting the nomination.
More than a decade ago, a combination of executive orders signed by President George W. Bush and congressional legislation led to the new cabinet-level position. The office, which launched in 2005, was designed to fill gaps that contributed to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by facilitating information sharing among the 16 federal agencies that make up the intelligence community. The director of the Central Intelligence Agency had previously served as the president’s cabinet-level position overseeing intelligence.
Even before the director of national intelligence was established, critics griped about the new bureaucracy. The chief complaint was that while the new position would have budgetary control over the 16 agencies it oversaw, it would have no hiring or firing authority at any individual agency, limiting its ability to actually control personnel decisions or effect espionage operations.
The office lacked direct authority over employees at other agencies, but its own workforce grew to 1,750 employees by 2008.
In his memoir, “Playing to the Edge,” Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and CIA, recalls the skepticism the intelligence community had at the time for what many felt would be an unnecessary bureaucratic intrusion. “There were few in the intelligence community at the time who thought that restructuring was a good idea,” he wrote. “I certainly did not.”
By the time the office got up and running, Hayden decided that it could work, but only if the right people were in charge.” Good people overcome imperfect structures,” he concluded.
While complaints about the new position eventually subsided, tensions continued between the new office and those under its authority. During the first year of President Barack Obama’s administration, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, the third director of national intelligence, sought to place the office’s employees in embassies overseas and supersede the authority of the CIA’s station chief. Blair’s effort, which received considerable pushback from then CIA Director Leon Panetta, ultimately led to Blair’s dismissal, and the plan was never implemented.
Blair, who now serves as chairman and CEO of Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, said that getting rid of the director of national intelligence would be a mistake. “Elimination of the DNI position would be a major setback for the kind of integrated intelligence that the U.S. will need in the future,” Blair told The Intercept. “Despite the advances made since 9/11, there is still a need for a powerful organization to bring together the individually skilled, but often disjointed efforts of the separate intelligence organizations.”
David Priess, author of “The President’s Book of Secrets” and a former intelligence officer, said that concerns about the office and the size of its bureaucracy are not new, but that actually eliminating it would be a difficult undertaking for a new administration. “The office of the DNI is not like so many other things that they’ve talked about reversing and overturning,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s a law, not an executive order at the whim of the president; it was part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act; [they] can’t unilaterally decide it no longer exists, they would have to pass a new law unwrapping all the things in that law.”
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
I am curious: the end of this article states:
“The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”
Did they eventually respond?
Great can we scrap the “Patriot” act too while we are at it?
While I still believe civil servant should be prosecuted for lying to congress I found Clappers characterization of being grilled by congressional oversight bodies in open session (stump the chump) entertaining.
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/james-clapper-us-intelligence/
BRIEF EXCERPT: In August the two men traveled to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library to mark the release of some 2,500 Nixon- and Ford-era briefings. Clapper spent the flight to California hunched over his laptop, reading the declassified documents. The experience was an odd one, he admitted, because the papers still had plenty of redactions—white boxes blocking out snippets and paragraphs of text. It had been years since Clapper had read documents in which anything was redacted from his eyes. “I do have to say that as I was reading, I was thinking, ‘I wonder why we redacted that? Could we have released more? What were we covering up right there?’”
Before the event at the Nixon library, he and Brennan took a private tour of the museum, which was undergoing an extensive renovation. The guide explained that once construction was complete, the tour would begin not with Nixon’s birth but with the turbulent 1960s. “We’ll start people with the chaos of 1968. By the time they finish walking through, they’ll be wondering why anyone wanted to be president then,” the energetic young guide explained. As the two intel chiefs walked into the next gallery, Clapper muttered under his breath to Brennan, “Still a valid question.”
Of those 16 agencies, many serve unique purposes. The military ones serve each individual branch, and most don’t work together (I’d combine their roles under the DIA and merge the USMC’s intel with the ONI). I’d merge NIMA (satellite mapping) with the NRO (Satellite recon). I may consider merging the DEA with the FBI.
I think the two biggest reforms would be to cut out the bureaucracy (Why have multiple staffs, when a joint organization can work better and cheaper), and most of all, STOP SPYING ON AMERICANS OUTSIDE OF CONSTITUTIONAL RESTRICTIONS!
NIMA is not part of the IC, it falls under the Dept of the Interior’s US Geological Service. The organization in the IC that does satellite mapping is the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA). Elimination of the ODNI will definitely impact US Intelligence, as it analysis centers will have to land somewhere. With the Dir, CIA again assuming the role of DCI, the logical location would be CIA. I would suggest simply keeping them intact and re-creating an analytical organization in which they would reside.
Meanwhile, DOD-level intelligence is still pretty much stove piped: NSA does SIGINT and Cyber Intelligence, NGA does geospatial and DIA handles multi-discipline analysis and HUMINT. The intent is that DIA will take information provided by the other agencies and other sources to produce intelligence products supporting decision making at the national level. Not so sure this always works since DIA is a peer to the other agencies and its director has no authority over NSA or NGA. I would suggest DOD make the DIA Director a 4 star and place both NSA and NGA in its fold.
Dismantling any organization touched by career scumbags Brennan and Crapper is surely a good thing. Send them both to Gitmo, while you’re at it, President Orange-a-tan!
Perhaps it would be wiser to form a commission to go over how the DNI currently functions and try to see if they can make it more effective.
on the other hand..
Rogers was being considered by President-elect Donald Trump as the director of national intelligence, in charge of overseeing 17 American spy agencies.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2016/11/19/494335/Obama-urged-to-remove-NSA-chief
“Snowden, who lives in Russia where he has been granted asylum, has said that US government surveillance methods far surpass those of an ‘Orwellian’ state,”
To what advances is he referring I wonder? Advances in illegally spying on everyone?
The DNI should be Chas Freeman. Or he should be consider for Secretary of State.
https://youtu.be/pMD3Zcy5C30
I guess this is part of the payoff to Comey for putting his thumb on the scale during the election.
Criminal behaviors of Clapper & Brennan, recap:
That was in 2013; how did this perjury-tainted individual manage to keep his job?
Again, why wasn’t he removed from office for this, at the very least? Criminal charges are also in order, it’s a clear violation of the separation of powers clause in the U.S. Constitution, the CIA spying on Congressional investigations.
No, instead Obama used the Espionage Act a record number of times to target legitimate whistleblowers and the journalists they worked with, while quietly expanding the domestic mass surveillance program initiated under GW Bush.
This whole notion of federal officials and corporate executives who think they’re above the law and can do whatever they please with the worst consequences being a light slap on the wrist, it has got to end.
Source: (9/18/2014)
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/james-clapper-changes-his-story-false-statements-congress-bulk-collection
A much-needed and potentially greatly beneficial proposal.
The insane proliferation of intelligence organizations is costly and, in the end, actually confusing.
Line two, BINGO.
First all Jews should kicked out of the Intelligence community, they are either pro-Jew or pro-Israel and can’t be trusted. Second if the intelligence community hasn’t figured out Israel did 9/11 then it needs to me completely reorganized. The single biggest threat to America are Jews and Israel.
Dear G-d, not the t’wos the Joooos wot did it! idiocy again!
If the Jews did 9/11, why was the government trying to keep it a secret that the SAUDI government was helping the 9/11 hijackers? If the Jews did it, then that would be the thing they’d need to keep secret.
I’m no fan of Israel, and would certainly sanction them were I in office for their treatment of Palestinians and seeking nuclear arms. OTOH, the Saudis (and their Islamist allies) are the biggest national threat to us, and were I president, I’d give them an ultimatum to stop aiding IS and their allies, or we send the B-2s to Ras Tanura and Abquaiq to destroy their oil infrastructure- while buying oil from other nations.
JFK was going to do the same thing after he got back from Dallas TX.
Wrong, Allen Dulles was fired over the Bay of Pigs fiasco by JFK on Nov 29, 1961. Yes, some of the people involved in that fiasco may have been involved in his assassination.
Regardless, JFK was a military-industrial complex cheerleader, he wasn’t going to withdraw from South Vietnam, he merely thought the South Vietnamese army was capable of controlling the region as a US proxy, and he would have done exactly what Johnson did in 1964, i.e. sent American troops into South Vietnam to protect the puppet regime from being overthrown. Nor was he going to “break up the CIA”, he just wanted his people (John A. McCone, that is) in charge of it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._McCone
Notice how the intersection of the Agency of International Development (USAID) and the CIA existed even back then? Also see McCone & the 1964 Brazilian coup, McCone & the Israeli nuclear weapons complex, etc. etc. All JFK-approved.
The effort to rewrite that history by the likes of Talbot and Stone etc. is duly noted, but it’s BS.
“16 federal agencies that make up the intelligence community.”
No one could untangle this can of worms or prevent stove-piping of information without a ground up rebuild to coordinate and evaluate information. To much no quality control information product, obtained legally and illegally, and to short a fuse to collectively coordinate. First step determine what is important and legal to obtain for informational quality control. To much fuel in the stove just blows the heat and more smoke up the chimney. Once the amount of smoke is reduced then you could work on the stove pipes. I do not expect the system to self correct, few in government can admit inefficiency or failure, change cannot evolve eternally.
Trump cannot fix it but reorganization could expose obvious flaws and force change, maybe even some for the better?
No one could untangle this can of worms or prevent stove-piping of information without a ground up rebuild to coordinate and evaluate information.
POUR MONEY ON FIRE: untangling worm cans…
To much no quality control information product, obtained legally and illegally, and to short a fuse to collectively coordinate.
DYSLEXIC: To much no…?
First step determine what is important and legal to obtain for informational quality control.
LOST IN TRANSLATION: informational quality control…
To much fuel in the stove just blows the heat and more smoke up the chimney.
BLOWING HOT AIR: enforcing the law of thermodynamics…
Once the amount of smoke is reduced then you could work on the stove pipes.
SMOKE AND THE DARK MIRROR: stove pipe work…
I do not expect the system to self correct, few in government can admit inefficiency or failure, change cannot evolve eternally.
ETERNAL CHANGE: admit self correction…
Not my thoughts, your interpretation. Feel free to use your own imagination. Too big to fail, too big to fix, too big to fight, this system must be forced to face its failures and failings, to get to some “creative destruction.” As to cost this huge intelligence apparatus could do more meaningful national security work with less complexity and less personnel. A lot of redundancy and cross purpose causing turf wars and inefficiencies.
It is always sad to lose a highly paid government post, but was probably inevitable. Once Congress starts to automatically assume that you are lying to them, your effectiveness has a liar diminishes sharply. So it will be necessary to create a new position, such as Director of Congressional Disinformation, in order to start with a clean slate.
Do you really think congress cares that the intelligence community lies to them?
I mean, judges all know that cops lie on the witness stand and it’s just generally accepted.
Emperor Trumpius has the Senate currently neutered … if it’s not done now it never will be.
There are possible indicators that Trump will PARDON Snowden. Considering Petreaus for a cabinet position combined with dismantling pieces of the domestic spying apparatus, to name a few.
It’s killing Trump to hear how big Snowden’s balls must be to pull off what he did. He would pardon him so they could hang around with each other, literally.
Ah crap! I just read the Mike Pompeo piece…. Crap CrapCrap!
TIME opens 2016 “Person of the Year” poll in 2010 popular vote was won by Julian Assange but vetoed by Time :
http://time.com/4570237/person-of-the-year-poll-2016/
Hypernormalisation 2016:
Adam Curtis’ documentary for iBBC shows fow we got from Papa Assad to Trump.
Unputdownable!
How come you dont hear this anywhere else in the media?! We need to OCCUPY the MEDIA…Unite and spread the word of alternatives! Next episode of Workin’ Progress is now out-“OCCUPY THE MEDIA” https://youtu.be/d2xnms84N3c
i have refered to it as wallstreet whore media but i think i make it simpler
how about WMD media?
Lets see.
“You can never have 100 percent intelligence, never stop every terror plot or penetrate every terrorist cell. There will always be gaps.”
1. Dismantle the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the biggest American intelligence bureaucracy created since World War II.
2. Cancel Brennans plans to remove the wall between analysts and spies, putting them together in mission centers, rather than geographic divisions.
Trump needs to state that any nominee for CIA Director SHALL REVERSE Brennan’s reforms. No ifs ands or buts.
What we need to do is prosecute anyone who violates the law by torturing people. But Obama won’t tell AG Lynch to prosecute Bush Jr and Cheney because that’s the “custom”. Instead, they torture people and then get all expense paid vacations as a reward.
What’s Trump gonna do now? Outsource all torture to subcontractors? Imagine the CIA getting these invoices.
One minor quibble. We used to have a national intelligence coordinator, namely the CIA Director. George Tenet* did not like this, so he had the NID position created.
* It’s a wonder how he stayed on- his intelligence “success” record rivals Clinton’s foreign policy record and Trump’s business record.
GOOD.
Getting rid of redundant and wholly unnecessary positions is what we need. What america needs to understand rather quickly is the way or government has been living is totally unacceptable. We can not expect the Central Bank to let our government just burn thru money faster than it can collect it from us. The days of quarter% interest rates are coming to an end. Either the government needs to get much leaner or the government will start clearing out your accounts. So bid farewell to bloated beauraucrats and their pensions. The Democrats have plenty of tissues if you need them.
Dismantle part of the 3 digit bureaucracies. Yep. A reasonable beginning.
“It’s a law, not an executive order at the whim of the president…”
(You’d almost think that sentence was aimed at Obama).
Its my understanding that Trump can simple not appoint the position (and many others.) In that case, he would want a “temporary” plan for the agencies.
Oh noes! So much for “it’s a law…” that they wrote themselves for the benefit of themselves, and pushed through via criminal cronies and lobbyists in order to deflect from their total abysmal failures as agencies during 9/11.
How did *Trump*, not exactly a genius, not exactly known for a deep understanding of intelligence agencies, get this notion to get rid of the DNI? What’s he looking for in it? (I see someone suggested getting rid of a Senate confirmation, but I read the Democrats can’t filibuster anyway because they changed the rules in 2013… is that really a motive?) It seems weird for Trump to have developed an opinion on something that most (all?) of us don’t understand.
This is what actual leaders do in the workforce and it’s great to see a president finally doing so as well… They gather people with knowledge (and expertice) that they lack, gather information and discuss, then finally impliment plans to make the workplace more efficient. Trump said he was going to do this pretty much his entire campaign, why are people so shocked that he’s actually following through. (well actually I do get why people are shocked after our last couple of presidents, but I hope that we can at least give this one a chance before judging him on some biased slander put out by the media)
I can design a beautiful building, but not without the help and input from many with expertise outside of my own. You’ll find that applies to most things in life.
Maybe Trump isn’t as naive as he’s been leading people to believe. “Time to drain the swap”.
I doubt he thought of it.
Something about this reeks of Michael Flynn, so whatever it is can’t be good.
Well, his name is on the NSA keyword list (that’s a list of words they search all data streaming through their centers for, for long-term retention):
[ . . . Spoke, Talent, Trump, FX, FXR, IMF, POCSAG, . . . ]
http://www.businessinsider.com/nsa-prism-keywords-for-domestic-spying-2013-6
Maybe he’s upset about it? Who knows, maybe that’s why he ran for President?
Dismantle DNI and do a thorough 9/11 investigation. Then dismantle DHS with its TSA. Also reverse the “Patriot Act” and its invasion of civil liberties. Terrorism is the new communism from J. Edgar Hoover’s day.
We did just find out not long ago (Officially) that the hijackers got help from the Saudis. It’s time for a clean break. Boycott the Saudis, Divest from their assets and Sanction them. Let the Houthis take Yemen.
Of course, my first thought was removing a cabinet-level position because of the Senate.
I read on, because the decision, of course, has tremendous merit.
I question the motives – that’s all.
(It’s really everything, isn’t it?)
I’m not really competent to have an opinion on this subject. I do remember something about stove-piped intelligence leading to the Iraq War.
Maybe Alex Jones can get some experts on to discuss it.
Dismantle Cheney slowly . A fingernail , a finger , a toe , a tongue , an eye .
Pull his teeth with a pair of pliers .
Show the people you mean business .
“Both sources asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about confidential plans.” So a “former senior intelligence official” deems it appropriate to leak confidential information. Is he a whistleblower who fears retribution? Or is the Trump team running something up the flagpole and needs the Intercept’s assistance? What is the policy of the Intercept on granting of anonymity. I have read Glenn Greenwald rail against this practice, but that was before the Intercept. Glenn, any opinion on this?
Anyone seen Richard Bruce “Dick” Cheney ?
Gangsters following gangsters… Nation (still) (or more than ever) run by a criminal class.
One hopes that Trump will also dump DHS and TSA, two more failed bureaucratic legacies of Bush II.
I could overlook many other bad decisions if the 9/11 knee-jerk reactions were to be rolled back by this administration.
I could tell you why there are 16 separate intelligence agencies but it’s Top Secret.
“It’s a law, not an executive order at the whim of the president; it was part of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act; [they] can’t unilaterally decide it no longer exists”
1. Torture was against the law and POTUS unilaterally decided to engage in it.
2. Mass surveillance was against the law and POTUS unilaterally decided to engage in it.
3. Executing American citizens without a trial is against the law and POTUS unilaterally engages in it.
4. Indefinite detention is against the law and POTUS unilaterally engages in it.
5. Attacking Libya was against the law and POTUS unilaterally engaged in it.
So, does anyone really believe that simply dismantling some useless bureaucracy that happened to be caught up in legislation can’t be done or won’t be done by Trump?
This will be a fun spectacle to watch if any congressional idiot tries to oppose this.
Bravo.
And given how big the previous system failed, and how the new system has not helped, why not just return to the way it was done?
We need to OCCUPY the MEDIA…Unite and spread the word of alternatives! Next episode of Workin’ Progress is now out-“OCCUPY THE MEDIA” https://youtu.be/d2xnms84N3c Please share, subscribe, like, etc! Discussion of some of the best alternative progressive media sources. And why it’s important to turn off mainstream media and turn on these other voices.We need to build and support alternative media!?
Drain the Swamp!
Clapper and Brennan were the enemy.
This is a good thing, but not for the reasons they think. The intelligence community, like the military and virtually any other set of entities that have overlapping roles, can best be viewed as an aggregation of warring fiefdoms. Creation of a DNI without hiring and firing authority and control of the subservient agencies’ budgets was doomed to failure from the start, and just added another player to an already full field.
The fact that the intelligence agencies do not share data effectively is all in all a good thing, because it limits their ability to impose a tyranny on the American people. Just think how bad things would be for us if they were truly effective in processing and sharing all the data they collect!
If Congress was really interested in improving the performance of the IC, then they would centralize all the foreign intelligence aspects in one agency and all the domestic ones in another. Instead of having a CIA, NSA, NRO, NGA, DIA, and three military intelligence agencies, there would be one. The intelligence gathering analysis functions of the DOJ, Treasury, FBI, DHS and DOE would similarly be lumped. In doing so, we could fire half the people working for those agencies, and cut the budget by two thirds without noticeable effect on the quality of their products.
But will that happen? Not in a thousand years.
Bravo! In the end the Federal government has become the ultimate employment agency. Repeat with a lavish pension, amazing pay, vacation and healthcare we in the private sector can only dream of. If those who served us were given the same compensation options service would be about making America the Beacon of liberty and prosperity not the land of opportunity to get wealthy.
When the Fed decides to pump up the interest rates if we haven’t cut enough fat the squealing pigs will be heard loud and clear when their lavish lifestyles are switched off.
Yes. Not enough, but good as far as it goes.
The CIA is an ongoing criminal conspiracy and should be dissolved forthwith, with reparations paid to its many victims.
I love the false consciousness of the Intercept. Reforming the CIA is an oxymoron. All Obama does now is outsource his torture to other regimes. Did one of Obama’s reform’s involve supporting Nazi groups in the Ukraine? Or was his landmark reform the rat-line, where arms from Libya where funneled into Syria?
Liberals can’t even grasp the simple fact that being waterboarded is far preferable to being attacked by a drone. Liberals see pouring water on someone as an unthinkable crime, and they are right, yet they excuse and bless incineration by drone, courtesy of Dear Leader Obama.
The idea of working for Pierre Omidyar, while simultaneously pretending you champion reform in the CIA is laughable and impossible to accomplish:
“He [Pierre] and pal George Soros have both assisted the CIA and the State Department in the putsch in Ukraine. Small world. It’s interesting to note that Soros proudly admits to helping Hitler in his youth (yes, he is that old) and now he, along with the US Government, are helping the Neo-Nazis in Ukraine.”
http://www.clearnfo.com/meet-pierre-omidyar/
“Liberals see pouring water on someone as an unthinkable crime, and they are right, yet they excuse and bless incineration by drone”
You haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on at The Intercept if you believe they “excuse and bless incineration by drone”.
Yea, moveon.org and all the progressives that supported Obama are now vigorously protesting his drone war-crimes … and pigs fly.
jamie might be another wallstreet media mongrel looking to discredit or diminish the role of the powerful voices here. Wallstreet media is in silent panic about having got everything wrong about everything and having their favorite whore lose the election, badly. Wallstreet theives want to get back to looting America the free market way and then lying and distracting. We know better.
I’m sorry but who are these “liberals” you’re talking about?
The Intercept published the fucking drone papers, detailing the extent of the actions of Obama’s Drone Program in Afghanistan,Somalia,… They do not BY ANY MEANS “excuse and bless incineration by drone” and they’ve reporte on it and condemned it since I started following this outlet, so a couple years ago. It’s probably more but I only arrived a couple years ago. What you’re doing is the textbook definition of a false equivalency. Liberals are not a monolithic group, just like Republicans aren’t. A shitton of Liberals completely dissaprove the use of torture and overuse of drones, whether by a Republican or Democrat president, this isn’t a partisan issue. It’s an issue of inalienable rights being violated unilaterally
I wish there were an upvote button for Boulanger (above).
Jamie’s speciality: barking up the wrong tree…
Woof, woof! Attaboy, Jamie…
Totally absent from this reorganization is the subject of the outsourcing of so many intelligence activities formerly done in-house by highly capable military and civilian employs of the DOD, CIA, DIA, NSA, and, yes, even the FBI — when it wasn’t trying to control elections, stalk counter-culture personalities, and downstage municipal and state law enforcement agencies.
The proliferation of private corporations with their fingers in the intelligence pie is, to my mind, the single greatest problem in the intelligence/security field. How any national security direct, whatever his title, or the president can ride herd on them is an imponderable question, which as Phil so admirably put it, won’t be answered until the fat is in the fire.
I agree with you, even though I worked for one or another of those corporations for quite a while. At one time, the Government had its own laboratories and other technical centers enabling it to perform quality technical work, including the oversight of contractors. Thanks to two generations of republican thinking on both sides of the aisle in Congress, that capability has been gutted, and the contractors literally get away with murder. Ordinary citizens foolishly believe that outsourcing the Government’s work makes Government more effective but the opposite is true. What little interest there was in truly serving the needs of the People has been systematically replaced by the profit motive.
There is no reason whatsoever to think that the situation will not become worse in the Trump administration. Those who complain about the cronyism of Dick Cheney haven’t seen anything yet!
Destroying bureaucratic crap that hasn’t paid one dividend(classified?) since its inception,works for me.
Go Donald,now get rid of the rest of the f*ckups.
Yeah, like he’s going to throw away the most powerful toy in town. He is not dismantling it, he is just taking off Obama’s labels and putting on his own, whilst rattling the career spooks and seeing who bends and who resists. Spying is going nowhere soon and they form a central part to any totalitarian regime’s control mechanism. If you want them gone, try voting for Chris Hedges next time!
Play that Jenga Donald.
Jenga always ends the same.
It is becoming increasingly clear to Americans that we are at more risk of a strong centralized government taking our liberties from us than we are at risk of some other country or outside force coming for us.
Who is taking trillions of our tax dollars and giving them to failed businesses and countries that want to blow us up?
Who is controlling reproductive rights and determining who gets life saving treatments and who dies?
Who is trying to slowly chip away at our right to bear arms?
Who is allowing the militarization of our police forces?
Who is destabilizing other countries and brewing up a whole new batch of international terrorists?
This is a major step in the right direction. We WANT an ineffective slow moving, bungled government not a well oiled killing machine bent on global oppression.
The less federal agencies the better.
There’s a “chipping away” of our right to bear arms? What fantasy world are you living in? Although Trump is EXACTLY the kind of leader who would fear individual gun ownership, I grant you that. It will be funny when the guy who finally takes the guns comes from the right.
Smart comment.
The federal government is the biggest threat to U.S. citizens, for all the reasons listed above.
Leak any illegal government activity you know of. It’s the only way to even the playing field.
You are quite confused.
I agree with much of what you said.
Until the end.
The time that all Americans thrived – post WWII until the mid 70 was because we had a strong and lively government to pushback at the unregulated corporations/markets. If you don’t think we all need an effective government for 313 million (-/+ and growing), then you are living in the wrong country.
Our governments role is supportive in nature to the inalienable rights of the 300+ million Americans. If you don’t think securing our inalienable rights is what an effective government is, then you are living in the wrong country or you work as a government employee…
Still unclear from this article what the authors think will happen – but can anyone know until the shit come raining down.
Clapper should be jailed and Snowden should be working in the U.S.
How far we have fallen.
Bottomless!
I assume the “Intelligence” community comprises of overseers installed by whatever political elite is in the government, in charge of but receiving critical analysis from top-level career “spies” who in turn command a load of techy grunts like Ed Snowden and some specialised field operatives. I guess the career spies are somewhat dyed-in-the-wool and unlikely to blow the whistle but are likely to be seen as pro one political group or another and so will be prone to firing if they seem to resist, but some of them must wield enormous power just from what they know about whom and who else they are connected to oversees and at home. Some people are just natural limpets when it comes to clinging on to their lot, no matter how cantankerous they are to everyone else!
The grunts and field operatives are in a difficult position regarding how much politics they can play in respect of what they know and what skills they have and the level of punishment or career damage they can expect from any non-compliances.
Trump will want ALL the previous regime’s bigwigs out and he will want to grab the career spies by the balls as early as he can so that he can then start whatever misbehaviour – as that is all these people do – and keep a tight lid on all the grunts especially considering the danger of leaks to entities such as TI and Wikileaks.
The interesting thing to me is how does a political group like Trump’s mix the political understanding and intelligence on given critical situations – such as on Iran and Saudi Arabia and Syria – with the jingoistic, white-supremacist, pro-Christian, anti-Muslim propaganda they will want to disseminate. What grand bullshit justifications are they going to make for their nefarious activities (assuming of course they plan to be nefarious)? Can they radically shake up and keep onside all of the spooks? Just one whistleblower has seismic consequences and propaganda and lies don’t work quite so well when sitting besides the truth.
It is also interesting to think that, given their secrecy and opaqueness, how much of all this can be hidden even from the President? Funding is not an issue and as has been noted before, the Intelligence Community plays a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG game. The continuation that Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama have provided means there are some very long running games being played, and these might not easily be surrendered to Trump or his cronies. This is likely to ramp up the paranoia of the Prez as he will be sure this is happening. It will also mean that things set in motion by previous regimes will continue regardless.
Trump is doing this all probably so that he can start to point fingers and create justifications. But for me the interesting opportunity the mass surveillance spying provides is the ability to intercept business deals and Trump is a money-maniac first and foremost and the NSA provides him with an endless source of insider information he will find too tempting to resist. Just the kind of President-level diversions a truly nefarious and clandestine organisation worthy of conspiracy theories loves to have.
How Trump handles this most disturbing of America’s little toys will be critical to his presidency and thus to the wider world.
One of my favourite bits of Schindler’s List is when Schindler convinces Amon Roth that forgiving and granting life is a far greater display of godlike power than mere killing. Amon likes it for a while and “pardons” those that err. It doesn’t last long, though.
At least Roth hanged for his sins and a pathetic justice was served.
Tiptoe. Through the tulips. With me.