Report: U.S. spying is costly but often ineffective

[East Coast Pirate]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government
will spend $52 billion on intelligence
programs this year, but it often fails to
provide the president with information
needed to protect national security,
according to a report in The
Washington Post.

The Post's story is based on the
intelligence community's secret
budget, which it obtained from Edward
Snowden, the former National Security
Agency (NSA) contractor who has
leaked information on the nation's
most secretive spy agencies and their
programs.

The disclosures could cause
"significant" damage to U.S. national
security interests, said Paul Pillar, a
scholar at the Brookings Institution
and former top official at the CIA.

U.S. adversaries now know they need
to "erect fences" to protect against
cyberattacks, they may help the
"insider threats" escape the United
States before they can be captured,
and countries such as Iran and North
Korea have a "roadmap" on how to
avoid U.S. spying, he said.

More: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/08/29/spy-agencies-intelligence/2728585/

[Pholus]

1. The money is in the collection, not the analysis.

And so the analysis suffers. Because the contractor bottom line had better NOT suffer.

More evidence that this is a corporate giveaway rather than a legitimate national security endeavor.