In Intelligence, Who's an 'Employee'?

"Could someone be considered an intelligence community employee even if his salary is not paid out of the intelligence budget?" asks Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. In a post at Secrecy News, Aftergood notes the FBI refused to provide information on certain of its employees last year to the Government Accountability Office on the grounds that GAO is generally not allowed to review intelligence community information.

FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni argued that the definition of who is an intelligence employee hinges not on who pays the employee's salary but "an assessment of the functions the employee performs." So employees could be placed outside of the purview of GAO oversight even if they don't work for an intelligence agency, as long as whoever does employ them classifies them as working in the intelligence field.