NSA vs. CIA

[Recursion]

Before I head off to my honeymoon, I wanted to leave a thought supporting a few other DUers' musings: it is my belief we are witnessing the climax of a turf war between the CIA and the NSA. The CIA seems to have the upper hand. And that's a bad thing.

I have never worked for either, but I have worked with both. (I was stationed at Bolling AFB for a while, if that helps anybody.) This turf war is unfortunate, but we want Ft. Meade to win it instead of Langley. Seriously.

[NoOneMan]

1. Assuming that this fantasy has any bearing in reality

Why is it not a crazy possibility that the CIA acted benevolently (not as a power grab, but as a check against the abuse of power)?

Is it too far-fetched to think some in the CIA are kool-aid drinking patriots who really thought the domestic spying went too far, or that the international network of spying with foreign agencies exceeded the NSAs directives. If the NSA was becoming so powerful (perhaps exceeding the power of the explicit government), perhaps it needed to be checked?

But thats all crazy talk. We don't need either to get laid and get paid. Let them snipe at each other into oblivion, assuming any of this is sniping

[MineralMan]

2. The two agencies have often been at odds with each other,

and both at odds with the FBI. There is a long-standing dispute between HUMINT (human intelligence) and SIGINT and COMINT (Signal and Communications intelligence). CIA is HUMINT and NSA is the other two. The conflict between the FBI and both other agencies arises from international vs. domestic intelligence gathering. The FBI fancies itself to be capable of both, and the CIA and NSA are supposedly prohibited from most domestic intelligence gathering (there are exceptions that involve mixed-source intelligence gathering.)

This battle has been ongoing since the immediate post-WWII era. It has not abated. With the lines becoming blurred and all three agencies, plus some others, including the DIA (perhaps the least known and understood), all competing for the same resources, it's not a battle that will soon disappear.

And that doesn't even include political battles, which also exist, with some Presidents giving more attention to different agencies, and politically entrenched people at all three weighing in.

The unhealthy competition between those three agencies has caused some very serious lapses and issues, including warnings of potential activities by those who would harm the US and decisions about military actions.

It is not a good thing.

[jmowreader]

9. There is a similar war in the UK

The "five eyes" nations - U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand - break up their intel forces differently from...oh, Germany. Five Eyes nations give each intelligence discipline to a different agency. In the U.S., the CIA does humint, NSA does sigint, NRO does overhead coverage, DEA does drug intel, USDA does ag intel (don't laugh; they spend a full day in intelligence school teaching the US intel community and a bunch of agencies you'd never expect are in it) and so on. CIA is highly unhappy about this. They want to be more like the Germans or Israelis, who have one all-source center.
The prospect of the CIA, who has repeatedly proven they view the Constitution as a casual guideline, being able to crawl that far up the public's ass is horrific.

[Laelth]

3. Interesting. Entirely possible.

If true, why would we prefer the NSA to win?



-Laelth

[Recursion]

4. I wish I could answer that objectively

But I can't. I've worked with them both, and I trust the one more than the other.

[MineralMan]

5. We don't know enough about the agencies, generally,

to prefer any of them over the others. Public knowledge is very limited, and is often based on misinformation (deliberate or accidental). The FBI is probably the best understood, in general, with the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) the least understood.

Probably the best source, overall, for getting a general view of each agency is Wikipedia. It's articles on all of the intelligence agencies are quite accurate, as far as they go, and represent a good synthesis of information from many sources. I don't usually recommend Wikipedia as a source, but in this case it does a pretty good job of overviewing the agencies. It's a good starting point, and the links provided with each article are a good way to expand outward from the basics.

It would be a good thing if everyone who is truly interested in this subject started by reading and internalizing the information in those articles. They are quite good, and quite accurate, again as far as they go. Beyond that, you'd have to be someone internal in an agency to know much more, really.

[Recursion]

6. What MM said

I was stationed at Bolling, as a Marine linguist. Look up which of those are there and draw what conclusions you will.

[MineralMan]

7. And I was stationed in Turkey and at the NSA as a USAF

linguist/analyst. I'm glad I included the DIA in an edit to my first reply. That agency is probably the least known of all.

[1-Old-Man]

8. They are really quite different

The CIA may send a spy to discover all of your secretes, and they may photograph you from above, and they may fund and army to overthrow you, but the NSA won't do any of that stuff. The NSA will intercept all information sources about you, it will break your codes, it will report your actual words to the President, the NSA will disrupt your communications and power grid and all other electronic controls from afar, things the CIA probably won't do.

Think of the NSA as all things electronic and the CIA (which certainly also has intelligence gathering and analysis capabilities) as boots on the ground and you won't be too far off.