I mean, that would just be science fiction stuff. Never happen. But hey, it could happen. And it would be irreponsible not to speculate (Hi, Nooners!):

Concerned about the growing dependence of the nation’s spy agencies on private contractors, top intelligence officials have spent months determining just how many contractors work at the C.I.A., D.I.A., F.B.I., N.S.A. and the rest of the spook alphabet soup.

Now they have an answer. But they cannot reveal it, they say, because America’s enemies might be listening.

And by “America’s enemies” they definitely mean “Democrats with subpoena power.”

Ronald P. Sanders, chief human capital officer for the director of national intelligence, said that because personnel numbers and agency budgets were classified, he could not reveal the contractor count.

“I can’t give you anything that would allow you to impute the size of the I.C. civilian work force,” Mr. Sanders said, using shorthand for “intelligence community” in a telephone briefing that covered everything about the contractor survey except its core findings.

Heh. “Everything but the core findings.” Always nice to see a reporter at The World’s Greatest Newspaper (not!) wake from slumber.

The government’s use of contractors has accelerated greatly during the Bush administration. Nowhere has the increase been more striking than in the spy agencies, like Central Intelligence, Defense Intelligence and National Security, whose budgets were cut sharply in the 1990s and then faced huge new demands after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

More hitchhiking on 9/11. That act is very, very tired by now.

Look, the Bushies are privatizing intelligence, using the same playbook they use for everything else. Why would anybody imagine anything else?

NOTE Oh, I almost forgot. Coptix.