Is signals intelligence recession-proof?

(rant on): I respectfully disagree with the idea that Congress has learned anything, even from 9/11. First, the current system of campaign finance, and their control of the Federal budget, pretty well ensures that Job 1 for any Congressperson is to take care of their contributors. Do those contributors see intel as important? Some do, most don''t. How much intel financing will take place will be a political calculation, not one that has the interests of the country at heart. Those contributors, by the way, really appreciate all the attention being paid to the new President--it means that their activities will go even MORE unnoticed than would otherwise be the case. (rant off). That being said, I''d like to see more spending on intel. Indeed, I''d like our intel operations to be like the wind--pulling large amounts of small bits of data from all kinds of places and assembling it into pictures, and doing so WITHOUT drawing attention to itself. Leave James Bond in the fiction novels.

There's something to be said about both of these responses. In economic crises as severe as this one, every federal agency will feel the impact - and not just intel agencies in the U.S., but worldwide. However, if strategic budgets of agencies like NSA and NRO get affected, they could be more than made up by increases in tactical programs that are stuffed inside programs like TIARA (Tactical Intelligence and Related Activities). Will be interesting to see!

Yes, this segment is somewhat immune from all the economic turmoil. If we are not actively engaging terrorist nations with military force, we need to know what they are doing. We cannot afford to let our guard down again, as we did in the 1990's (that led to 9-11). Congress has learned their lesson, and will not let that happen again. SIGINT is the cornerstone of that new-found understanding, even by politicians stumping for votes. The new administration will shift MIL spending from weapons to intelligence gathering, data monitoring and SIGINT. I have just released a report on that topic in my latest "State of the Industry" white paper. You can get that paper by going to VITA.com. It is the last item in the news category, at the bottom of the home page (it's in pdf format).

Although the sigint world may no be as affected as some markets by economic factors, political will to spend or not to spend on these important tools can kill budgets in times perceived peacful or sold as such to the electorate to gain votes.