When the DoD IG found that NSA “does not effectively monitor the Special Access Programs it operates or supports,” it inadvertently outlined how Project Preserve Destiny functioned without oversight.
Brilliant examination of the structural gaps in oversight architecture. Your mapping of the VRK/ECI compartment system within AFI 16-701's SAP framework reveals something crucial: the bifurcation wasn't a bug, it was a design feature. When NSA insisted its programs fell under DCI authority rather than DoD SAP reporting, it created exactly the kind of administrative blind spot the IG flagged. What strikes me most is how Sherman's "onion effect" briefing mirrors the intelligence community's actualbureaucratic reality. The part about Air Force FOIA kicking requests to NSA, followed by NSA's Glomar response, is particularly telling because it shows the accountability fracture persisting decades later. If these nested compartments existed for conventional SIGINT, the question becomes: what prevents similar architecture from housing far more exotic programs?
Thank you for the comment! I found the DoD IG report on Friday, and the parallels between the report's findings and PPD were too close to ignore.
>the question becomes: what prevents similar architecture from housing far more exotic programs?
The article defines a very specific instance on how one piece of "the program" avoided oversight; however, the ultimate of goal of the article was to show that if this mechanism--purposefully made to avoid oversight-- exists, there are certainly more. And, that there may be more literature in the open source to uncover them.
Brilliant examination of the structural gaps in oversight architecture. Your mapping of the VRK/ECI compartment system within AFI 16-701's SAP framework reveals something crucial: the bifurcation wasn't a bug, it was a design feature. When NSA insisted its programs fell under DCI authority rather than DoD SAP reporting, it created exactly the kind of administrative blind spot the IG flagged. What strikes me most is how Sherman's "onion effect" briefing mirrors the intelligence community's actualbureaucratic reality. The part about Air Force FOIA kicking requests to NSA, followed by NSA's Glomar response, is particularly telling because it shows the accountability fracture persisting decades later. If these nested compartments existed for conventional SIGINT, the question becomes: what prevents similar architecture from housing far more exotic programs?
Thank you for the comment! I found the DoD IG report on Friday, and the parallels between the report's findings and PPD were too close to ignore.
>the question becomes: what prevents similar architecture from housing far more exotic programs?
The article defines a very specific instance on how one piece of "the program" avoided oversight; however, the ultimate of goal of the article was to show that if this mechanism--purposefully made to avoid oversight-- exists, there are certainly more. And, that there may be more literature in the open source to uncover them.
Most likely incompetence sits at its core.