Do the US Intelligence agencies need an overhaul?

Try and watch the news lately and you will see a lot dealing with the CIA, TSA and apparently Bloggers. After the Nigerian terrorist incident last week a lot of things have been going on to determine whose at fault and what can be done in the future.

The CIA unofficially stated that they did in fact have a file on this Nigerian. They simply hadn't released it yet because the analyst in charge of it was waiting for pictures to include in the report. At first this sounds like it could be bad. Any delay in intelligence is typically considered bad. The deal is though, that this Nigerians name was actually in the national terrorist database that includes something around 500,000 names. He wasn't added to a completely separate "no fly" list which could have helped. So at first glance it really looks like it came down to a failure on the intelligence agency part.

On the same day of this attack the TSA put out a memo of sorts that updated security procedures. Well, apparently someone at the TSA thought it would be a good idea to give a popular blogger the memo for him to spread around. While I am all for freedom of information, there comes a time when you need to know what is appropriate and leaking new security precautions defiantly isn't. This blogger found himself with a few TSA agents at his door looking for a little information and I hope he does cooperate.

I hope this entire situation doesn't turn into a "We will open an investigation" to determine whose really at fault. We all know nothing will come of that until a year down the road when there is a 30 second news blip saying congress came to no conclusion. What really needs to happen is a systematic overhaul of this countries intelligence gathering.

Anyone who is involved in Law Enforcement at any level can see that agencies still can't communicate effectively. We have the technology to totally remake the databases that store vital information to make it accessible across agency lines. This analysts report on this Nigerian for example should already have been entered in electronic form so it could be forwarded automatically to the proper foreign office. That way one of our intelligence officials would already have a heads up as to what is going on in his area. Photos could be updated on the fly instead of being the ball and chain.

I bet if Google were in charge of the Intelligence gathering we would have nothing to worry about. If I were a terrorist I would be worried about eating my breakfast in the morning without Google knowing, never-mind trying to make a bomb. It would be like a scene out of Minority Report with Tom Cruise.



In all seriousness though we have more agencies then most people even know about. (FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, ATF etc..) They might not all be built around pure intelligence gathering but for the most part they overlap a lot. We need to start realizing that Terrorists and people who want to hurt us will be around for a long time. It's time that America start acting like the super power that it is and get our Intelligence Agencies back in shape, back to where they should scare people just hearing about them.