It is absolutely astounding
 

I have watched all of the Commission hearings on C-Span and the mis-information and lack of information provided by our intel agencies...to President's Clinton and Bush is absolutely astounding.

Another thing that is absolutely astounding is the lack of funding for the agencies...creating a personell shortage in general...and a shortage of expert personell specifically...and obsolete technical hardware.

I...having been a professional soldier...aware of the state of the art military hardware America possesses...just assumed that our intel agencies had state of the art technical hardware. The FBI as an example had such outdated computers that a global search could not be done. A grammer school kid with the cheapest Dell had better technology than the FBI did. Our agencies were basically just a facade...and that is disgraceful. They still are not state of the art and it will be several more months-to years before they are up to speed.

yup - disturbing shit
Doesn't always pay to cut the budget.

The former FBI director asked for more than an 1800 personnel increase...and he was allowed something over 70.

Has anyone here been following the hearings from beginning to end? I am anxious to read their final report...which one member of said would be book size. In addition it should not be a whole lot longer until the Senate Intel Select committee should be ending their investigation and issuing a report.

Am I actually the only one to watch the hearings?

Blame J. Edgar Hoover for the FBI's antiquated system. He was a control freak to the max. Up until recently the FBI was using a paper file system to track things and didn't use modern computer systems out of fear they'd get hacked.

Like most stuff in the US, its all smoke and mirrors, hype and bs.

And people everywhere believe it decade after decade.

I don't believe anything the government puts out for statistics at all. I think half the numbers they just make up so that everything syncs.

No way in hell can there be accuracy with a Trillion dollar budget.

This is causing me some astonishment...though it shouldn't. Of all the clowns that come on this board and mouth off about the internal affairs of the US...it is apparent that they do not have any real interest in educating themselves about said affairs...but instead prefer to pick up on some sound bite from some media source or some fruitcake internet site. I watch C-span daily and/or check its website. It is a place that you can get the word from the "horses mouth" and not some interpretation from some media soundbite from a biased media source...with an agenda.

I will just have to assume that I am the only one,

nah i watch them..that money is wasted elsewhere, and i do mean wasted.

I keep up with things via various sources, but don't feel the need to crow, nor cry about it on a webmaster board and esPECially to someone thats not even one of us. I'd sooner believe the Latino that runs the market down the street, than someone that looks down on us as a group.

Low rent neigborhood?

HAHHAHAHAH