I wouldn't go that far. They honestly do some pretty amazing work and are one of the most competent and lean (really!) agencies in the government. It honestly is like the leaner the program is there, the better it performs.

Congressional strings = low performance.

A lot of that is related to contracting though. These private defense contractors (Raytheon, L3, Booz-Allen Hamilton) get tons of money from congressionally funded programs and they get guaranteed money, no matter their performance. I have seen a situation where a contractor had literally written 10 generations of software for a system that was still using version 1 from 15 years ago. The new software would have made this system AMAZING, but another contractor had control of adding it to the system and never approved it.

Meanwhile the other company would be generating hardware or some such and a THIRD contractor would have to approve that to be added... you see where this is going.

So these companies got paid to make "improvements" that were just immediately shelved and never implemented and the result was a useless system. LOTS of money (hundreds of millions) for nothing. This has been going on for DECADES mind you. Something needs to happen across the board with that crap.

Meanwhile, an NSA-only program with a budget of only a few million would be out working like magic on a shoestring. Think NASA level leanness and ROI. The contrast is ridiculous.