[vbmoneyspender]

Also, it's time for the DOD to ramp up machine translation research.

Doesn't the NSA have that kind of software? Otherwise, how do they keep up with all of the phone conversation traffic that they eavesdrop on.

[livius]

To my knowledge, they rely on human translators. (Technically speaking, interpreters: translators deal with the written word, and interpreters deal with speech.)

They recruit them through commercial agencies, the candidates have to pass a security check, and then they're in.

I'm not sure how extensive the security check is, but it's obviously not extensive enough.