US Government Agencies

dustervoice

Can some help me understand how these three letter agencies in the US work together. Ie. (FBI,CIA,NSA,etc) The reason i'm asking is because ive just read an article about the FBI paying bounty to Carnegie Mellon University to attack and compromise the TOR Network. My thought was that this level of hacking would be carried out by the NSA. Again, if the NSA for example had already compromised TOR why are other agencies wasting resources trying to accomplish the same thing. Isnt there some form of information sharing?

gncsmith

Yes, there is some form of information sharing, which comes in many forms. One such program is the IC Joint Duty program, which works to create cross-agency expertise by fostering an environment of information-sharing, interagency cooperation and intelligence integration at all levels. Basically, this program allows agencies to "swap" employees in technical or leadership positions to learn the gaining agencies culture, technical methods, and leadership styles.

However, this does not mean they will share everything because, at the end of the day, they are competitors for the D.C. money machine.

Source: 10+ years government employee at one of the TLA and once worked in the JD program office.