TIL the NSA is just one of 16 separate clandestine intelligence agencies operating within the federal government of the United States.

123  2013-09-22 by [deleted]

The full 16: Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency (AFISRA), Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM), Marine Corps Intelligence Activity (MCIA), Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (OICI), Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), Coast Guard Intelligence (CGI), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Office of National Security Intelligence (DEA/ONSI), Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI).

14 comments

The NSA is just one of 16 separate clandestine intelligence agencies operating within the federal government of the United States... that we know of.

This. It's really just a tip of the iceberg situation. Get's way worse once you consider all the organized crime, front corporations and straight up cults employed by our "intelligence" infrastructure.

I have a theory that "transcript labor" is probably sent to India. What isn't converted from audio to text by computers, some "call center" in India is transcribing all our phone calls in an easy to read format for "intelligence" agents....

99.99% is being done by computer. I highly doubt they would bother with what is left unless it was serious.

Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, created by noted NeoCon Douglas J Feith

They can't justify their existence without maintaining a "terror threat." Probably need some false flag ops here and there to prove that there are terrorists. Even fake news stories that no one can verify will seem real enough to terrified people.

Ok, sure. I guess I'm missing something, what does that have to do with the NSA operating 16 clandestine intelligence agencies and my adding to that list with CTEG?

Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU)

Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS)

Sorry, just that learning how many exist lends to the credence of these shows. God dam, how many resources does the USA spend spying on itself? How many people actually benefit; is there an overarching control body?

The office of DNI was created after 9/11, allegedly to centralize oversight under POTUS. Entities like FBI and NCIS do intelligence (mostly counterintelligence) as a side-business of their real jobs, which are law enforcement.

Each of the armed services plus DoD itself has some equivalent to NCIS, so each of them implement the role. Each armed service also has an actual "intelligence" organization to support war-fighting.

It's a bit disingenuous to equate them with each other.

Sure, they may be unequatable but they all ultimately report to SecDef... that's a crazy scary amount of power...

As the head of DoD, all officials, employees and service members are "under" the Secretary of Defense. Some of those high-ranking officials, civil and military (outside of OSD and the Joint Staff) are: the Secretary of the Army, Secretary of the Navy, and Secretary of the Air Force, Army Chief of Staff, Commandant of the Marine Corps, Chief of Naval Operations, and Air Force Chief of Staff, Chief of the National Guard Bureau and the Combatant Commanders of the Combatant Commands

Right now, it's Mr Chuck Hagel, a multi-millionaire that co-founded Vanguad Cellular

FBI does not report to SECDEF, nor do the DHS agencies. They do all report ultimately to POTUS. Edit: come to think of it, DNI reports directly to POTUS vice SECDEF. Technically this bypasses SECDEF, although as a practical matter it probably depends on the administration.

DoD. Pentagon. Langley. Quantico.

Although if you go deeper, find out how one actually gets a top tier job in any of those places, it gets weird.