I've been against most of our intelligence agencies for a long time. I think they do more harm than good in general, but what about Chinese espionage? How do we counter that without intelligence? I think intelligence should be under the military only and limited to foreign actors. I wonder now what specific relationship NSA and the military have that the others in thr IA community don't have?

You posed a question and then answered it in the next sentence. Intelligence is required in this age. Intelligence goes all the way back to our Revolutionary War. Militiamen had an unspoken duty to wear an "intelligence" hat; ie.. if they saw something that the red coats were doing, they were motivated to share it with their militia.

Secondly, most of you guys dont understand the difference between statecraft intelligence, and military intelligence.. so when these types of discussions come up, you begin to paint a large brush on everything in the IC.