TA-ANALYSIS: Bush Creates New Intelligence Czar Post

Citing largely the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, Bush announced on August 2 the further expansion of our intelligence system. While you were paying close attention to the terror levels, Bush has decided to create a National Intelligence Center with a national director that will oversee all of our federal intelligence. The director of the CIA would be subordinate to this new national director.



If this post is based on the 9/11 Commission report, this post will foster corruption. The Commission report states:

In managing the whole community, the National Intelligence Director is stillproviding a service function.With the partial exception of his or her responsibilities for overseeing the NCTC, the National Intelligence Director should support the consumers of national intelligence--the president and policymaking advisers such as the secretaries of state, defense, and homeland security and the attorney general.

Yes, the report uses the word consumer, and in the next paragraph, they explicity state the need to run this as a business, you can find the link in the Supporting News Stories section.

Another point, I ask, what is the point of Homeland security if we needed a more unified intelligence system all along. Surely, some agency(s) will be assimilated or disbanded entirely. Does more bureacracy help our intelligence system? How many intelligence departments do we have now, FBI, CIA, NSA, DHS, and John Ashcroft trotting out every so often as well, I'm sure I'm missing more.

All in all, I say this is way too much power for one man. This one man will basically dictate our intelligence community. While I do not want anymore terror attacks in the US, I find myself very wary of this new department, which fosters a more powerful government and centralization of power.

Related News Links:
www.faqs.org
www.faqs.org
White House Briefing

I'll look at this briefing and see what else I come up with.

[edit on 3-8-2004 by Jamuhn]

[edit on 3-8-2004 by Zion Mainframe]

[edit on 8-6-2004 by Valhall]

OK.....
What exactly is wrong with this new development?
I don't understand exactly the issue that is so upsetting.

1 Centralization would remove the problem of disparate groups of data not showing themes and signifigence. Unless someone can oversee ALL the information around you don't get the WHOLE picture.

2 Just how is this new post open to corruption? What sort of corruption are you afraid of? Some terrorists bribing the person to ignore their actions?

3 What is wrong with identifying the people who use the information as "consumers".

4. What is wrong with the concept of a "business" with all the efficiencies and productivity it infers? A business wouldn't have to put up with the blatent ripoff of $10,000 toilets (for example) that contractors extort from the military

[edit on 3-8-2004 by Netchicken]

1. We don't even know the intelligence agencies involved yet, the only one mentioned by name is the CIA so overseeing all the information probably won't happen anyway. The trends and such you speak of is not even possible given the ENORMOUS amount of intelligence information. This is not possible for one person. This person will only take what the lower level organizations consider important. Whether that information is really important who knows? It is very easy to leave something out. I honestly do not see what this person would provide except to say what the president and the administration wants him to say, which brings me to question 2.

2&3. No, I am afraid of intelligence being manipulated to fit the agenda of the rest of the administration. That is why I do not want to see them treated as consumers. What does a business do, they market their products to fit their target consumers. This is also question 3. I'll leave the rest of the speculation to you on how this national director might market his product - intelligence.

4. Even the 9/11 commision states:

We are wary of too easily equating government management problems with those of the private sector.

Though I believe in the concept of business, the government is most definitely not a business, where is their competition? This is an experiment, not a proven solution. What do you call the CEO of a country who has:

significant control over how money is spent and can hire or fire leaders of the major divisions

I call that a dictator. While I want to believe this will work, there are just too many problems with this type of power.

[edit on 3-8-2004 by Jamuhn]

I just found this out: Congress is out of session and this was created by an Executive Order. I just read this on a website, and I'm going to see if I can get more info on this Executive Order. In the meantime: White House Briefing

The Congress is most definitely not in session from Congressional Schedule:

July 26 - September 3 Summer District Work Period

[edit on 3-8-2004 by Jamuhn]

And so the shameful exploitation of the system continues. This is a huge change in the way things work. To institute this while congress is out of session defies logic. It's obvious the false terror threats were a smoke screen for these orders... to soften the blow.

A major finding was a lack of coordination and cooperation between intelligence gatherers in the 12 federal agencies that collect and analyze intelligence and intelligence agencies and domestic law enforcement.

The true purpose of all this is the conjoining of the spy agencies with the domestic law enforcement agencies... the result of which will be domestic spying on all fronts. All U.S. citizens should be concerned about their freedoms and their privacy. Keep in mind, both Kerry and Bush support this.




[edit on 3-8-2004 by MindWarrior]

Well the problem is that our government has checks and balances, this Czar post basically eliminates these checks and balances, therefore screwing our system over.

I don't understand any of this. Wasn't the
Homeland Security office supposed to be
a focal point and the Director of Homeland
Security was supposed to get ALL the
information and be sure that it got to
all departments, etc. ???

Why are we having yet another director
of something ... isn't this Tom Ridges job?

Or did I miss something with all this?
(which could very well be)

Jamuhn,

I agree with you, the first thing is what in the world we need another agencies second supposedly this person is going to be the personal snitch of the president? And he is going to be in charge of the other agencies under what power is he going to get all that power? The president himself?


Sorry but I see it as more nation domination. For the Czar isn�t a Czar a Russian word? I didn�t we have Czars in our government.

[edit on 3-8-2004 by marg6043]

Reinventing the wheel instead of pumping air into the flat one? Central Inteligence Agency CIA should have always filled this role long before this lol.

FlyersFan

Bush will keep making new jobs in government till he runs out of rich buddies to fill them with.



[edit on 3-8-2004 by Xeven]

Either the FBI and the CIA and Military intelligence(gets 4/5 of budget BTW) are incompetent or not informing the people in charge as to what is going on. In either case they should be scraped and a new clean intelligence agency should be installed.

A good portion of our foreign language translators are not US residents or citizens. THIS IS A RECIPE FOR DISASTER. We have to encourage(require?) US students to study foreign languages.

The CIA is known to use illegal drug profits to fund its operations. The FBI has historically been a blackmailer of people in positions of power. Military intelligence which gets the vast majority of the budget, never even says anything. REMEMBER TOO IT WAS MILITARY (ARMY) INTELLIGENCE THAT WAS IN CHARGE AT ABU GRABE.

As far as I'm concerned they have all burned their bridges, it is time for a new intelligence agency that reports directly to the American people. Perhaps run with random conscripts from the population. Sort of like a citizens draft.
.

As far as I'm concerned they have all burned their bridges, it is time for a new intelligence agency that reports directly to the American people. Perhaps run with random conscripts from the population. Sort of like a citizens draft.

That will be ideal, that is not what the government want he wants a snitch to answer to him, I can't wait how this person is going to be, personally I bet is one of the close family friends of the president and to be truthful It is going to take validity of the hole agency as bias.



[edit on 3-8-2004 by marg6043]

I don't think the fact that it was an Executive Order is anything to worry about. Congress can override any Exutive Order they wish, anytime they wish. It just depends on whether or not Congress feels like it.

personally I bet is one of the close family friends of the president

It's going to be Tom Ridge. That's why the rumors are going around about his resignation from DHS.

I don't think the fact that it was an Executive Order is anything to worry about. Congress can override any Exutive Order they wish, anytime they wish. It just depends on whether or not Congress feels like it.

But people won't hear the real facts. There will be no open debate on the floor of either house, as neither is in session. The only questions will come from commissions where members have 5 minutes to ask their questions and get their answers. Where every dutiful slave of the Republicrats will spend their 5 minutes of question time praising those being interviewed for their "great" work." The few who ask serious questions will be continually interrupted by the Chairpersons, as all the Chairpersons are stalwarts.

Tom Ridge?

Well I see bush is going to increased his salary with a new position so he can send his poor children to college?

If this is true this is going to be the biggest joke this year.

This may seem a little silly to you guys but Im simply not comfortable with the word czar being used in any form to discribe any postition in the american government....


also tsar or tzar (z�r, ts�r) A male monarch or emperor

Usage Note: The word czar can also be spelled tsar. Czar is the most common form in American usage and the one nearly always employed in the extended senses �any tyrant�

n 1: a male monarch or emperor (especially of Russia prior to 1917) [syn: tsar, tzar] 2: a person having great power

Geez, ya czar is a great word choice for a supposed democracy

First, I'd like to note that this position extends way beyond mere terrorism, this includes all intelligence operations to be conducted, domestic and foreign.

Second, I'd like to highlight some important points of the White House Briefing:

That person -- the person in that office will be appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, and will serve at the pleasure of the President. The National Intelligence Director will serve as the President's principal intelligence advisor and will oversee and coordinate the foreign and domestic activities of the intelligence committee. Under this reorganization, the CIA will be managed by a separate Director. The National Intelligence Director will assume the broader responsibility of leading the intelligence community across our government.

And I think that the new National Intelligence Director ought to be able to coordinate budgets.

I will hire the person, and I can fire the person, which is -- any President would like. That's how you have accountability in government. I don't think that the office ought to be in the White House, however. I think it ought to be a stand-alone group, to better coordinate, particularly between foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence matters.

More like the Joint Chiefs, because the Joint Chiefs have got a -- even though not a part of the chain of command, they are affected by the chain of command.

Well, from what I gather, the National Intelligence Director will be in charge of foreign and domestic intelligence operations. My understanding was that he would merely report intelligence to the President for repitition.

But no, this director, will in fact dictate to the lower agencies all the intelligence operations to be conducted. This position is far from just terrorism. The CIA will be its active wing. This director will be directly under the President so that the President basically will be able dictate the intelligence operations. The director will be able to give his advice on what should be conducted though. With the suspicious intelligence operations that already exist today, I am feeling a more dark, ominous presense slowly creeping across our land.

Also, if youd like to see Bush fumble and contradict himself, its a good read, especially because you can get a clearer view of the real point of this Czar.