The CIA meets the Department of Common Sense

Timothy Burger reports in Time on a recent initiative by Porter Goss:

In what experts say is a welcome nod to common sense, the CIA, having spent billions over the years on undercover agents, phone taps and the like, plans to create a large wing in the spookhouse dedicated to sorting through various forms of data that are not secret–such as research articles, religious tracts, websites, even phone books–but yet could be vital to national security. Senior intelligence officials tell TIME that CIA Director Porter Goss plans to launch by Oct. 1 an “open source” unit that will greatly expand on the work of the respected but cash-strapped office that currently translates foreign-language broadcasts and documents like declarations by extremist clerics. The budget, which could be in the ballpark of $100 million, is to be carefully monitored by John Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who discussed the new division with Goss in a meeting late last month. “We will want this to be a separate, identifiable line in the CIA program so we know precisely what this center has in terms of investment, and we don’t want money moved from it without [Negroponte’s] approval,” said a senior official in the DNI’s office.

On the one hand, this seems like an excellent idea. On the other hand, I keep wondering why the hell something like this wasn’t instituted, oh, ten twenty thirty sixty years ago??!!!!