by Marc Ambinder,The Atlantic
Obama was planning deep cuts for the National Counterterrorism Center
The highly touted intelligence fusion center at the heart of the nation’s counterterrorism establishment was preparing for deep budget cuts across 2010,senior intelligence officials said. According to one official,who asked not to be identified because intelligence budget matters are classified,the administration and Congress slashed the budget for the National Counterterrorism Center by at least $25 million. Those affected,the official said,included employees responsible for maintaining the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) system,which contains the list of about 550,000 known or suspected terrorists.
TIDE contains highly classified information provided by the entire intelligence community. Each day,what the NCTC calls an "unclassified extract"is forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Terrorist Screening Center,which in turn sends it to the Transportation Security Agency,the State Department’s Visa and Passport Database,the Customs and Border Patrol’s entry database,and the National Crime and Information Center (NCIC.)
Both the Director of National Intelligence,Adm. Dennis Blair,and the head of the NCTC,Mike Leiter,pressed to have the funding restored well before the Christmas Day attack exposed potential problems.
"Without question,recent events will cause those proposals to be re-considered,"an intelligence official said.