America’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Agencies

Posted on Nov 29, 2007
James Harris and Josh Scheer

"Spying Blind” author Amy Zegart gives Truthdig a status report on America’s intelligence agencies and explains why our intelligence system is so broken and why our democracy may be to blame.

Listen to this interview.

Transcript:

James Harris: This is Truthdig. James Harris with Josh Scheer. We’re talking to the author of “Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11.” Her name is Amy Zegart and she’s on the way to the airport so we’re going to take a few moments of her time to get some information and to learn more about this book. Amy, one of the things that critics say you do really well in this book is deconstruct the myth that national security agencies work reasonably well to serve national interests. I was under the impression that the NSA, the FBI and the CIA did a reasonably decent job at protecting us. Tell me what you learned in the writing of this book that should lead me to believe something very different.