>> I’m flummoxed that the CIA is on this list. Why in the world would the CIA be in the AS? <<
Yep, I saw that list also. It’s downright misleading.
The CIA is “independent” only to the extent that it is not under one of the traditional “cabinet” departments. It is definitely not an adminstrative “fourth branch” agency.
More specifically, the Director of the CIA serves at the pleasure of the POTUS. He is obliged to take orders and direction from the POTUS, and he can be removed by the POTUS at any time. So there’s no persuasive argument that the CIA is unconstitutional.
On the other hand, the administrative agencies like the FCC and the FTC truly are independent. Their Commissioners are appointed by the President, but they serve fixed five-year terms and cannot be removed by the POTUS even if they work directly against the policy lines laid down by the WH. I think that kind of arrangement should have been ruled unconstitutional long ago. But it just ain’t gonna happen in the Federal courts. No chance at all.
Should the CIA have been part of DOD, just as is NSA? Might have been a good idea in 1947, when the CIA was set up. But that horse left the barn long ago. Nobody with knowledge of Washington DC reality expects it will be coming back.
I understand the “tyranny of the status quo” mentality in D.C. but that is what we’re fighting and what Trump is busy dismantling to some degree. I see no good reason other than the need for a paradigm shift why the CIA couldn’t come under DOD making it more clearly a constitutional non-independent agency.