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The original was posted on /r/ufos by /u/gcijeff77 on 2024-12-11 06:38:54+00:00.
During today's hearing, Agent Robert Wheeler Jr., Assistant Director of the Critical Incident Response Group for the FBI, testified that the FBI's entire counter-drone budget is "about $500,000"
That's half a million dollars that the FBI has allocated (out of a budget of around 10 billion) to counter one of the most significant domestic security threats to our infrastructure today (according to other witnesses who testified today and in previous hearings) and one of the fastest-changing technological platforms for delivery of deadly force or kinetic payload.
Making some very rough assumptions, I believe that the FBI actually (not ironically and not an exaggeration) spends more on coffee than on counter-drone activity and platforms:
Assume the taxpayers are funding some basic Folgers grinds agency-wide:
One tub that makes about 240 cups is around 24 bucks if ordered through ULine
So that's about 10 cents a (small 6 oz) cup.
Assume half of the FBI's 35,000 person workforce are coffee drinkers, and on average they drink 2 cups (12 oz) per day.
That's 17,500 times 20 cents per day, or $3,500 per day (give or take). Let's say I'm overestimating and we'll round down to $3,000 per day.
Assume that each agent works about 250 days per year (they get weekends and holidays and vacation, right?)
So that's 250 x $3,000 = $750,000 per year.
Maybe I'm overestimating. Maybe they get a government high-volume discount. Maybe it's only $700,000.
That's still, very likely, in a very real world, hundreds of thousands more than they are spending on counter-drone technology and strategy.
For real.
I want a bigger tax refund. And I demand the FBI start buying the crappy generic coffee too.
This is maddening, right?
Right?