1 of 6

No

Write now Article Tools

America is not in need of more spies gathering information - we have ample amounts of biological and mechanical eyes and ears getting us obscene amounts of information - we need analysts to go through the information we have and make sense of it.

Information, in and of itself, is useless. Between the CIA, FBI, NSA and the many other intelligence agencies that exist, we get enough information that each analysts we have has to look through 3000 reports and email A DAY. If you assume our analysts work a 15 hour day since they're stressed and have a great deal of work that still only translates to 3.3 seconds on each report and email sent to them from the field. With such little time available to spend on each piece of information, the chances of finding the one that matters and getting it to a superior who likely has a large number of such information coming to him as well is incredibly difficult.

Analysts are not what people think of when they think the CIA. They are, for all intents and purposes, paper pushers. They're also the most intelligent and important paper pushers in the country. Each one of them is responsible for looking at raw data and coming to a conclusion, in a remarkably short period of time, about which pieces are important and need to be passed on to analysts higher up, and which can be discarded as interesting, but ultimately unimportant. Those analysts we have are very good, the United States is incredibly well informed. But even with highly qualified men and women working every day at it, we are still completely overwhelmed with more information than we could possibly hope to process with the work force we have.

The solution, therefore, is not to increase the amount of information being sent to us by spies and satellites all over the world, but rather to increase the number of people going through this information to see if it means anything. Without the context through which to view the information we get, the information itself is worse than useless, its dangerous. Improper context can paint a completely different picture of a situation, and, in the intelligence business, that can get people killed.

Learn more about this author, Bryan Jennings.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Does the US need more spies to help inform and protect our country??
We want to hear your view. Write now!