ABSTRACT
Intelligence accounts for approximately 10 percent of America’s security effort.1 Approximately is the correct modifier because intelligence is, of course, mostly a secret enterprise. The official number is that the United States spent $60 billion in Fiscal Year 2012 on intelligence, but the government did not release any details about the allocations to particular programs or activities within this total.2 There are 17 agencies listed as part of the “Intelligence Community,” directly employing more than 200,000 people. Not counted in this total are “agents” or operatives and the tens of thousands of others who work for government contractors designing, building, and operating various surveillance systems and translating and interpreting data gathered through intelligence activities. Intelligence – gathering, interpreting, and transmitting information to fielded forces and policy-makers – is clearly a very big part of American national security.
