lOMoARcPSD|255728 27
Intelligence budget allocations
The three key areas discussed by Sneed were first, the destruction of
bureaucratic barriers that may make information sharing difficult. Second a more
directed approach to training in the intelligence workforce investing in cyber, foreign
language and analytical training. Third combining intelligence budget allocations for
the National and Military Intelligence Programs, this combination of budgets will
hopefully create and environment more flexible for relocation resources (Sneed,
2015). As per the U.S. National Intelligence Overview its states in its core mission a
lead to the intelligence integration in the Intelligence Community (DNI.gov, 2013).
Having good intelligence is key in making decisions both from a government
perspective and also a private sector perspective. There are many routes to
obtaining information but a major concern for the intelligence community, specifically
the U.S. government is the ability to find good, well trained analysts. Becoming an
analyst for the government is a very difficult goal to achieve, with most jobs requiring
a Bachelors to Masters degree just to apply applicants are also subject to medical
evaluations, including a background investigation, a polygraph interview, and a
physical and psychological examination, while also needing to be able to obtain
secret security clearance (CIA.gov 2022). The starting salary for someone in the CIA
averages around 59 and 65 thousand depending on your job, this is below the
average base salary of people who live in my home state of New Jersey
(ZipRecruiter.com, n,d). This creates two major problems, the first of which is getting
people to join your agency. Finding qualified applicants who can get through this
rigorous application process is getting harder and harder with the need for analysts
growing higher and higher. The second problem you find is that once you have these
employees, retaining them after giving them higher training. If you train an new
analyst in certain fields you are giving them more skills making themselves more
profitable. That means you must have a competitive pay scale to retain the
employees that you have recruited. Like with most things this all leads to money.
Obtaining information is done by many means both with and without the use of
analysts. Newer technology is making obtaining information easier then it has ever
been. Drones are a fairly new technology that people are still having trouble
countering. Drones can be purchased for kids for cheap or you can by a professional
drone which can take professional pictures. While government agencies are starting
to develop technologies for shooting down these aerial cameras there was a while
where these things were fairly unpoliced. Information gathering has been made
easier and easier but when intelligence is gathered it needs to be processed by an
analyst. Once you have obtained the information it must be processed, Intelligence is
"result of taking information relevant to a specific issue and subjecting it to a process
of integration, evaluation, and analysis with the specific purpose of projecting future
events and actions, and estimating and predicting out- comes" (McDowell, 2008). If
we want the more then steady flow of information to be properly analysed we need to
be willing to pay the bill that will come with it.
lOMoARcPSD|255728 27
References
Average annual salary in New Jersey ($64,399 avg - ziprecruiter. (n.d.). Retrieved
July 7, 2022, from https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Average-Salary--in-New-
Jersey
Central Intelligence Agency. (n.d.). CIA. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved July
7, 2022, from https://www.cia.gov/careers/how-we-hire/
McDowell, D. (2008). Strategic intelligence: A handbook for practitioners, managers,
and users. Scarecrow Press, Inc.
Odni Home. Home. (n.d.). Retrieved July 7, 2022, from
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-
2013/item/835-u-s-national-intelligence-an-overview-2013-sponsored-by-the-
intelligence-community-information-sharing-executive
Sneed, D. R. (2015, October 5). Intelligence and national defense. The Heritage
Foundation. Retrieved July 7, 2022, from https://www.heritage.org/military-strength-
topical-essays/2016-essays/intelligence-and-national-defense
