The nation's spy satellite agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, is no longer considered a technology leader, according to a newly declassified review by an independent panel.
The report says the agency has labored under a ponderous bureaucracy since the end of the Cold War, yet still is allotted an estimated $6.2 billion annual budget -- much of which went unspent last year because of delayed satellite launches. The panel declined to recommend that it be scrapped or that the US Air Force take over its tasks.