Now Snowden and Greenwald really piss me off.  I thought they were all about exposing alleged privacy law violations by the NSA.  I thought they were touting that they were acting responsibly with the information they stole from the US government and they vowed to do no harm to the US? Why are they revealing some of the most classified information of our government?  Now they are getting into areas with which I am really concerned (Korea).  This information can breath new life into the north's nuclear plans as they know that their deception efforts can pay off since (according to our budget documents that require justification for funds) we supposedly cannot gain intelligence on the north's program.  Such knowledge will be useful to the Kim Family Regime in multiple ways from military preparations to the negotiating table.  Snowden and Greenwald need to be hunted down and after due process leading to convictions need to go share a cell with Chelsea Manning (though of course they will have to go to a Supermax and not the Disciplinary Barracks at Ft Leavenworth).

V/R

Dave

North Korea tops list of critical US intelligence gaps

By Carlo Muñoz - 08/29/13 03:12 PM ET

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/319483-north-korea-tops-list-of-critical-us-intelligence-gaps  

Gaining insight into North Korea's secretive nuclear weapons program is one of the the top challenges facing the U.S. intelligence community. 

That issue is among several that have created severe blind spots American intelligence officials are struggling to close, according to classified documents leaked to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. 

Details on the intelligence community's threat assessment was included in the White House's classified fiscal year 2013 budget for intelligence operations, handed over to the Post by Snowden. 

The administration’s 178-page summary of its 2014 budget request for the 16 agencies that make up the intelligence community also provides an assessment of the agencies’ successes, failures and primary objectives, the Post reported on Thursday. 

Of the 50 top counter terrorism threats facing the United States, American intelligence agencies have made "moderate progress" on 38 of those objectives. 

As part of that assessment, intelligence officials noted that lack of insight into Pyongyang's nuclear program tops the list of so-called "critical" gaps in American espionage and counterterrorism efforts. 

Among the foreign nations aspiring to become nuclear powers, Washington has the least visibility into the inner workings of the North Korean program. 

In April, Director of National Security James Clapper told Congress that keeping tabs on the North Korean regime has become an uphill battle for U.S. intelligence. 

"I ... have to say that North Korea, of course, is now and always has been one of the, if not the toughest intelligence targets," Clapper told members of the House intelligence committee at the time. 

That blind spot in U.S. intelligence operations nearly came to a head earlier this year, when provocations by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un brought the region to the brink of war. 

(Continued at the link below)

http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/policy-and-strategy/319483-north-korea-tops-list-of-critical-us-intelligence-gaps