Thank God for the CIA

After the federal government warned of a potential Al Qaeda attack, as the city shifted into Thanksgiving holiday mode, the New York Police Department (NYPD) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority have stepped up patrols in the city's subways and trains.

(Harkamai Singh, “Security beefed up on NY subways after warning of possible attack”, TopNews, 29 Nov 2008)

We have heard many vehement accusations — some of them, no doubt, deserved — regarding the conduct of American intelligence operations in recent years. But the fact remains, we have not experienced a terrorist attack on American soil in 7 years. I think we can safely assume there have been attempts. The intelligence agencies (not just the CIA) must be doing something right.

If you think about it, their task is herculean. We have thousands of miles of borders, thousands of people flying into our airports every day, and millions of square miles of potential targets. It is literally impossible to patrol it all. And yet, we have not had an attack in 7 years. How is that possible?

Presumably, we have our intelligence organizations to thank. Agents on the ground infiltrate terrorist groups to uncover their plots. Technical geniuses intercept mind-boggling quantities of message traffic, and try to sift through it all to identify terrorist plots. When they identify a possible target, policy-makers have to decide whether to inform the public and risk panic, or keep it quiet and risk accusations from conspiracy-theorists.

What thanks to they get? If they do their job right, the public never hears about it. The only time they get news coverage is when they screw up.

So why do they keep doing it? For the money? I doubt it. For the power? Yeah, maybe there's some of that. But I'm guessing most of them do it because they believe it's necessary for the protection of the folks back home. They're honest-to-God patriots.

We don't have to worship our intelligence agencies, and we should hold them to the rule of law. But let's cut them some slack, okay?