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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

We Have Not Fixed Intel Bureaucracies

Obama has discovered systematic failures in intel sharing.  So, is this particularly surprising?  No.  Amy Zegart wrote a great book showing how difficult it is to reform intelligence bureaucracies, and she called it "Spying Blind."  We knew before 9/11 that the FBI and the CIA did not play well together, that various suggested reforms were never legislated or implemented, and that the list that came out after 9/11 was mostly the same stuff. She argues well why reforms were not and are not likely to work out so well--given the twisted incentives and institutions involved....

On a related not, I wonder if the FBI has computers yet?  The old pencil and a gun no longer cuts it, but I am not sure that the Bureau has moved into the 1990's, not to mention the Aughts.

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