Gregg Easterbrook is unimpressed by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which takes "detailed aerial pictures of the Earth’s surface — mainly of cities, including America cities" and then overlays those images "with other forms of data". Like several other military agencies it "has a growing budget never subject to public scrutiny and rarely questioned by Congress":
The key point is that Google and Microsoft are able to give away topographic information, or sell it at low cost — for $399, Google Earth Pro offers better resolution — while a defense agency spends billions of dollars to do the same. As free-market entities, Google and Microsoft are concerned with cost-effectiveness. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, exempt from cost controls and public scrutiny, wants to run up the price: its bureaucrats benefit from empire-building.
This is everything that’s wrong with defense spending in a nutshell.
The Dish 