Im pondering the great likelihood that the number represented does not adequately represent vast number of spooks thusly employed.
Indeed, the number of just over 100,000 intelligence “employees” grossly understates the total amount of manpower being marshaled and deployed. The WaPo article notes the CIA alone now has 21,575 “case officers,” up from 17,000 10 years ago. It also credits the CIA with $14.7 billion of budgeted spending in FY 2013, or about 28% of the total $52.6 billion reported. That’s almost $700,000 of CIA spending per case officer. Clearly, the published total of IC employees must only include the on-payroll (W-2 reporting) government staff. There must be two or three times that many people running around as unofficial “assets” being paid per diem or in casual ways for the work they do.