Agreed,
Few know and fully understand how we have evolved the best intelligence services in the world.
A small primer of the major USG intel organizations by intelligence discipline (all under the Executive branch of the triad):
- SIGINT (signals; fastest and most successful): NSA, under the DoD and manned with DoD civilians and service members of all ranks and grades (political appointees are peppered throughout the higher DoD Pentagon establishment, not at this level).
- IMINT (imagery; fills many gaps the others cannot, very expensive): NGA, also under the DoD with a staff makeup similar to NSA.
- HUMINT (human; slow and very dangerous for those directly involved yet often answers the ‘why’ which the other two sometimes cannot): CIA, separate from DoD yet DoD has DCS.
- No -int can answer the mail without the others; they complement and support/validate each other.
- There are five National analysis centers (do some homework); why, because analysis can be guess work based on raw intelligence and sometimes we need separate opinions on thorny subjects.
Yes, we have had instances when our intel services have made mistakes and they have been dealt with and corrected both publicly and privately. Why privately, because doing it otherwise would endanger the country and erode public trust; precisely what our enemies want and are pushing for with so called rampant NSA civil liberties violation stories. As for violations of civil liberties, the services are made up of solid patriotic Americans who chose to live a life in the shadows of anonymity, for obvious security reasons, who love and uphold the Constitution. Of course there are partisans in the mist just like in any other USG entity with many people. There are many laws to protect US citizens from collateral and direct collection and many investigations occur yearly to investigate and remove those who break these laws. FISA is the legal instrument to collect against a known US citizen without their knowledge; it is a rigorous and onerous process.
All the intel community can ask for is the country’s trust they are doing their best to protect the People without having to be “transparent” since having a “transparent” intelligence service is an oxymoron for obvious reasons. Put it this way, when one goes into surgery, one does not know everything the surgeon is going to do yet one trusts the surgeon do to it right. Not a perfect analogy yet I think passes the point along. Consider how many attacks AQ or other groups have successfully conducted in US soil since Sep ‘11. Announcing these successes and how it was done would disclose the techniques used and thwart future successes, unless they can be attributed to other means such as good local police work. Lone homegrown wolves are a problem for local law enforcement.
Let us hope the SSCI and the HPSCI (Legislative branch watchdogs) have the country’s best interest at hand when they discharge their duties and are not pursuing political or personal vendettas.
Regards.
For those thrown by some unfamiliar acronyms: NGA is not the National Governors Association, nor the National Gallery of Art, but the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency;
DCS does not stand for the Department of Children’s Services, nor Desktop Color Separation, nor the Drew Carey Show, but for Defense Communications System;
SSCI does not stand for the Social Sciences Citation Index, nor Self Service Check-In, but U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence;
HPSCI does not stand for Head Posture Spinal Curvature Instrument, but the House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence.