The Obama Administration has announced that it will seek the expansion of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to include a wider range of espionage operations. The move which has attracted little attention would create a large spy network in the Pentagon as the same time that the CIA is moving to build more of an independent air force and military operational capacity.

There seems little concern that we are eliminating the long tradition of keeping military and intelligence operations separate — to avoid the concentration of power in these agencies. We will now have largely duplicative operational capacities in the Pentagon and CIA, which each able to launch large military or intelligence operations.

The DIA expansion will include as many as 1,600 “collectors” in positions around the world to expand clandestine operatives in the Pentagon. They want to monitor large Islamist militant groups in Africa, weapons transfers by North Korea and Iran, and military modernization underway in China — areas overlapping with the CIA.

The agency’s director, Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, admitted recently that “This is a major adjustment for national security.”

The DIA expansion also adds to a burgeoning security state both domestically and internationally. The Obama Administration has expanded national security powers and actively sought the establishment of a Nixonian “Imperial Presidency.” With the Administration’s opposition to transparency and increase in security forces, the concern is that the center of gravity in our system is shifting dramatically toward clandestine and national security services. Once again, there is little opposition under a civil liberties movement which has been eviscerated under Obama. Congress is unlikely to present much opposition with most Democratic members seeking to protect Obama from such criticism rather than maintaining any check or balance on the Executive Branch. The result is the appearance of a runaway security system that is both adding operational abilities and reducing oversight pressures. A dangerous combination.

Source: Washington Post