Article Entry
22 Jul 2010
Comments:1
Spies All Around Us: Dulles-Chantilly Region Key Area for Intelligence Community
Added by USGIF Category: Daily Intelligence Brief, General
There must be something in the air. Or is it the water? Over the past couple of weeks there have been some pretty sensational stories about the Intelligence Community. First, we had the Russian spies, then the Washington Post’s expose on the IC (well timed, right before Clapper’s confirmation hearing – but we digress), and stories about the lack of GAO oversight for the community. And, CBS News recently ran a story about how top secret spy work is done in neighborhoods around the Washington DC area. One of the areas highlighted, in addition to Fort Meade, is the Dulles-Chantilly region.
Here’s an interesting section of the article:
Other locations include Dulles-Chantilly, Denver-Aurora and Tampa. All of them are under-the-radar versions of traditional military towns: economically dependent on the federal budget and culturally defined by their unique work.
The difference, of course, is that the military is not a secret culture. In the clusters of Top Secret America, a company lanyard attached to a digital smart card is often the only clue to a job location. Work is not discussed. Neither are deployments. Debate about the role of intelligence in protecting the country occurs only when something goes wrong and the government investigates, or when an unauthorized disclosure of classified information turns into news.
The existence of these clusters is so little known that most people don’t realize when they’re nearing the epicenter of Fort Meade’s, even when the GPS on their car dashboard suddenly begins giving incorrect directions, trapping the driver in a series of U-turns, because the government is jamming all nearby signals.
It is a very detailed article and certainly enlightening for those who don’t work in the IC. To us, though, it is not that eye-opening…perhaps because we work in the IC and we know who we are, and we know where we live and work. Any thoughts an feedback about this article?
Tags: CIA, DIA, Dulles Region and the Intel Community, GEOINT, geospatial intelligence, got geoint?, IC, Intel Community, Intelligence Community, NGA, NRO, NSA, spies, Spies All Around Us, Spying, United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation
[...] Food for Thought post from got geoint? As we highlighted yesterday, it has been a very interesting week for the Intelligence Community. In many ways, the Washington Post story — and the Russian spy [...]