|
Zonie63 -> RE: Blockbuster Story from the Washington Post (8/30/2013 4:25:29 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: cloudboy
I think it took some courage to leak and then publish this information.
Interesting article, although I didn't find the explanation as to why the intel budget is classified very convincing:
quote:
“The United States has made a considerable investment in the Intelligence Community since the terror attacks of 9/11, a time which includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Arab Spring, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction technology, and asymmetric threats in such areas as cyber-warfare,” Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. wrote in response to inquiries from The Post.
“Our budgets are classified as they could provide insight for foreign intelligence services to discern our top national priorities, capabilities and sources and methods that allow us to obtain information to counter threats,” he said.
It really shouldn't be that difficult for foreign governments to discern our top national priorities even by reviewing political speeches, media propaganda, non-classified articles and other materials for public consumption. They don't need to know the intel budget to be able to figure out our national priorities, so there's no reason to keep it classified.
During the Cold War, one thing I remember hearing is that the typical foreign intelligence agent would not usually be found sneaking around top secret installations like some super spy. Instead, they'd mostly be in public libraries, reviewing as much non-classified material as they could and extrapolating from that. (That's what our own reporters should be doing, instead of sitting around waiting for someone like Snowden to spoon feed them all this.)
|
|
|
|
