Comments on: Competitive Analysis, Comparative Advantage

By: 66

66 — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:00:37 +0000

“Because there are a finite number of places where intelligence funds may be hidden in the federal budget, a skilled budget analyst could construct a hypothetical intelligence budget by aggregating suspected intelligence line items from the publicly disclosed appropriations. Release of the aggregate intelligence budget would provide a mathematic benchmark to test and refine such a hypothesis. Repeated disclosures of the total appropriation could provide more data with which to test and refine the hypothesis. Confirmation of the hypothetical budget could disclose the actual locations in the appropriations acts where intelligence funds are hidden.” http://www.fas.org/sgp/foia/2002/tenet.html

God only knows how much is spent and where it’s being spent. The bankers crashed their banks and ended up with more power. Investing in failed banks is a bigger security risk than funding intelligence activities. Maybe the Washington Post can track the bailout funds. Chances are the bankers are hiding funds. The insurance companies are withholding policy payments and paying bonuses. The cost of war. Insure your funds. Intelligence is insurance.

It’s all tarps and no funds here. The roof is leaking and the foundation is leaking. I’m working on it. It’s costing me a fortune. I just try to forget about the costs and stop the leaks.

By: Arnold Bogis

Arnold Bogis — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:27:43 +0000

I agree with your premise, but feel that it is not lack of investment but the nature of secrecy itself that is preventing robust public engagement.

Citizen preparedness blogger John Solomon has accurately pointed out that the “public is too often infantilized when it comes to information on serious terrorist threats, including weapons of mass destruction.”

I think this because of the overuse of secrecy–from labeling things Secret down to the ubiquitous “FOUO” stamp on all homeland security documents. There is a mixture of reasons why this exists:

1. A person in a position of power decides some bit of information is sensitive because it could reveal dangerous facts (e.g. nuclear weapon design) or by not widely disseminating the information it could provide that person with some level of extra influence through possession of “restricted” knowledge.

2. Because that sort of information has always been designated secret, sensitive, FOUO, etc.–standard operating procedure.

3. If it is considered sensitive knowledge, then perhaps we don’t have to share it with our institutional rivals and thus gain some budgetary or other advantage in internal governmental processes.

A bit crude Model I, II, III analysis, but I think it holds true. When the overall dynamic of secrecy changes in our national and homeland security institutions, then you may see vastly improved public involvement in these issues.

For further reading:
–”In case of emergency, read blog:” http://incaseofemergencyblog.com/2010/08/02/when-u-s-officials-warn-public-about-new-terror-threats-to-nation-why-do-they-have-to-do-it-anonymously/

–Allison, Graham T., “Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

By: William R. Cumming

William R. Cumming — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:12:59 +0000

The line between engagement of the public and line drawing with civil liberties and privacy is a very very tough thing to do. From the WWI era Palmer Raids (Palmer was AG and investigations into anarchists and communists-and there were both–were led by J. Edgar Hoover) destroyed the lives of many innocents. Also Senators McCarran of Nevada and McCarthy of Wisconsin also deeply scarred American life in many ways. Then of course CounterIntelPro and other domestic spying activities. It is a large country and many diverse beliefs and there will always be some who are outside the legitimate bounds of anti-government sentiment and willing to destroy innocents to fulfull their vision. Just starting to read “Driven To Death” by Ariel Merari, 2010, analyzing psychological and social aspects of suicide terrorism. My question is what evidence do we have to give the interested public as to how are political leadership wants this line-drawing to be conducted and by who? Not much at this point but still not yet acrossed the 9 year mark since 9/11-01! What seems to be the case is that so far the evidence that bureacratic rivalry, politics, contractor greed has dominated homeland security and homeland defense but certainly willing to have the opposite view documented. The problem of course is that democratic society can be swayed so that the majorities can temporarily go off course. So maybe time will tell US the answers. Still as the oldest and richest democracy (Republic)ever on the face of the earth the journey is as important as the destination.