Actually, this is one of the few smart things they have done. It’s not too different from what the CIA has done for years. Read the papers - even as lame as they ahve become, there’s, like, NEWS there.
“Mainstream” news organizations spend billions to capture news around the world, report it and contextualize it. But the real cutting edge in news is in the alternative media.
Drudge is a news aggregator who constantly watches numerous news sources and has a knack for reporting the interesting bits he finds.
They should read FR for the same reason most of us do. A thousand people looking at news and events, many times at the local level, and posting them. Then another thousand people look at it, compare it to similar events they know about and put it all together in a single convenient thread.
And it’s all free. (They should, however, kick in during Freepathon. It’s only fair!)
Can't disagree with your reasoning, but why the duplication of work between departments? Are they really just separate fiefdoms, who refuse to share intel with each other?
Probably so. Thank Jamie Gorelick.