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CIA is largest US spy agency, according to black budget leaked by Edward Snowden
- galapago 13y agoIn your face, NSA!
- atrus 13y agoI'm confused, why is it surprising that the CIA is the largest spy agency?
- ianstallings 13y agoBecause the myth was that the NSA was many times larger than the CIA. The reality is they pumped money into their Special Activities Division, which is a paramilitary division that gets involved in a lot of clandestine military actions. Usually they work side by side with DoD assets to accomplish military missions. This basically changes the notion that the CIA is simply a bunch of agents working out of embassies around the world to handle HUMINT assets that do the real spying. They still do that of course but they've become a much more hands on agency.
- JonSkeptic 13y agoHalf-jokingly, I will posit an alternative theory: The NSA is still the largest (has the most personnel), they just pay their people crap compared to CIA.
- sker 13y agoBecause of Good Will Hunting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrOZllbNarw "You guys handle 80 percent of the intelligence workload. You're seven times the size of the CIA."
- ImprovedSilence 13y agoHaha. Well, I wouldn't be all the surprised if the the NSA was bigger employee wise. But budget wise, no way.
- ianstallings 13y agoYeah if they are paying administrators 150k/year can you imagine how much a contractor for their SAD division makes? Probably a huge amount compared to the average modern mercenary.
- dsl 13y agoNCS does not employ contractors for SOD (which I assume is what you meant by "mercenary", SAD includes non-tactical units too). Pay is relatively modest compared to other lines of work within the Agency. Edit: I realized after I commented that I dropped alphabet soup all over the uninitiated. NCS is the National Clandestine Service, which is the division of the CIA responsible for covert operations. Most people assume the Special Activities Division (SAD) is only the Special Operations Group (SOG). There are no "mercenaries" within SOG, only Specialized Skills Officers, whom are recruited and transfered from other Special Forces branches.
- ImprovedSilence 13y agouh... no shit Sherlock. Are there even any other "spy" agencies? Does the NSA count as spying? Invasion of privacy, warentless and possible unlawful search, yes. But the word "spy" implies people on the ground collecting information, does it not? Does the NSA makes the tools that facilitate CIA spying? Perhaps. Even so, of course the CIA spends more than anyone else, it costs a lot lot LOT more to run and maintain huge network of humans planted throughout the globe than it does to run a big ass data center.
- SeanLuke 13y ago> But the word "spy" implies people on the ground collecting information, does it not? It does not. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spy http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spy
- migrantgeek 13y agoHeh, this is some real movie stuff. Do you think some Yale grad with blonde hair is hanging around cafes in the Middle East or China trying to blend with a disguise too? Human collection work is done by that Yale grad paying some locals for info, putting that info into a product (powerpoint) and sending up the chain where no one ever looks at it again. The information is probably bad because the local just wanted to feed his family and took money to rat on some guy he just doesn't like. That's why the CIA's budget is huge. All the payouts and bribes. I know couriers grift plenty in the process too.
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- untog 13y agoIt's kind of staggering that a contractor like Snowden had access to information like this. What possible reason could someone at his level have for looking this up?
- spdy 13y agoThats what happens when you outsource your administrators. If i remember correctly the CIA made a hosting deal with Amazon. So every high level Amazon administrator can access highly classified informations. And for Snowden he saw the black hole and everything they are planning he must have seen some very scary stuff, hopefully he wont be the guy in jail or death with a mark on his head "Told you so." and we did not act.
- ImprovedSilence 13y ago>> Thats what happens when you outsource your administrators. Wait, I understand that he was a contractor. But wasn't he previously an NSA employee too. So he basically stayed in the same chair, but just got a bigger pay check. Revolving door and all that. I wouldn't go so far as to call it outsourced, his work was still 'in-house'.
- cdash 13y agoI believe he worked at both the NSA and the CIA but I don't think in the same capacity.
- Jtsummers 13y agohttp://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/0321/Amazon-enters-600M-deal-to-develop-CIA-cloud http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/2013/0321/Amazon-enters-... Amazon will be developing it, and probably managing it, but it is not part of the primary Amazon infrastructure so outside of those contracted to work specifically on the CIA system, Amazon employees shouldn't have access.
- ianstallings 13y agoYou know I keep hearing this myth. As if a real employee/agent could never leak information. TS/SCI clearance is the same for everyone. Cleared is cleared.
- aet 13y agoWhat about DIA? Budget ~ $25billion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Intelligence_Agency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Intelligence_Agency
- ianstallings 13y agoAlso a big budget, most likely towards warfare related spying, such as figuring out how many main battle tanks a particular bridge in China can hold.
- rgbrenner 13y agoI wasn't surprised (the CIA ran the drone program), but apparently it is a common myth that the NSA is larger. More importantly though.. what purpose does leaking this serve? It shows nothing illegal, or even questionable. It has nothing to do with the documents leaked previously. I just don't understand why he thought this needed to be leaked.
- MikeCapone 13y ago> More importantly though.. what purpose does leaking this serve? It shows nothing illegal, or even questionable. It has nothing to do with the documents leaked previously. I just don't understand why he thought this needed to be leaked. Maybe it's about taxpayers knowing where their dollars are going? First you show that your government is spying on you, and then you show how much of your own money that costs..?
- rgbrenner 13y agoIf it were $100b+ or some other outrageous number, then perhaps... but the CIA is $14.7b.. It's a drop in the bucket in the budget. It's even less than NASA, and you can see how much the general public cares about that.
- jrs235 13y ago"No single raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood". Similarly what singled out line item in the budget isn't just a "drop in the bucket" when compared to the entirety of the government budget? Just because some program or item doesn't "cost" much compared to everything combined doesn't mean we shouldn't scrutinize spending money on it.
- eru 13y agoThe armed forces, or interest payments would be pretty substantial all by themselves. (And so would social security, probably, but I don't know enough about the USA to make that comment.)
- joecurry 13y agoHow is this news? I don't need a budget, or Snowden to tell me the obvious.
- medlazik 13y agoIt's more news than what honey booboo ate yesterday or whatever is in your country's newspapers today.
- jrs235 13y agoOr what hannah montana did at an entertainment award show.
- jrs235 13y agoI understand you might be implying the relative size or budgets of the organizations may have been obvious. But, how are/were their actual budget's obvious?
- alayne 13y agoA budget was leaked in the 1990s that showed the NSA receiving more dollars and the CIA having a 3 billion dollar budget. I don't understand you guys saying this reversal was in any way obvious. Not only that but the leak indicates that the budgets are in flux now. It's also long been assumed that the NSA isn't running just some "big ass data center", but rather expensive cutting edge technology.
- ihsw 13y agoIt should be noted especially clearly that the CIA is the only independent US intelligence agency[1][2], where others fall under the following: * Defense Department * Department of Energy * Department of Homeland Security * Justice Department * State Department * Treasury Department Now, the above mentioned departments directly fall under the purview of the executive branch (through presidential appointment of directors, administrators, or secretaries) whereas independent agencies have a commission or a committee of some kind. Whether or not this should concern you is up to you, and one thing to note is that the independent agency's commissions have longer appointment terms than the usual four-year presidential terms. It should also be noted that the CIA is the go-to agency for clandestine operations that involve reconnaissance, espionage, or subversive operations -- both domestically and abroad. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_United_States_government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_Uni... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intelligence_community#Members http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intelligence_community#Membe...
- UnoriginalGuy 13y ago> It should also be noted that the CIA is the go-to agency for clandestine operations that involve reconnaissance, espionage, or subversive operations -- both domestically and abroad. I thought the CIA had limits placed on what they could do within the US?
- mhurron 13y agoAnd the NSA is limited to not collecting details on Americans.
- jonnybgood 13y agoThe NSA, unlike the CIA, does not have such legal restrictions.
- mhurron 13y agoWell I'm glad you cleared that up. Perhaps you could go to Washington and clear this whole thing up for everyone.
- orenmazor 13y agoWhy is this surprising? the CIA deals with people. the NSA deals with math. shipping a shitload people around the world costs way more than running a shitload of servers.
- humanspecies 13y agoThe leaked papers offer a tiny glimpse into the tip of a gigantic hidden iceberg. We don't realy know the size of these institutions and that is cause for concern, IMO, as in a democracy all these things should be known to the public. Their activities may be confidential, but their administrative data should not. The fact that we need leaks in order to know such things means the democracy needs urgent reform.