June 14, 2006: The war on terror has made many organizations more active in the intelligence department. Since 2001, for example, the U.S. Capitol Police has assigned eight percent of their 600 personnel to intelligence work. The Capitol Police are responsible for security in and around the Capitol area in Washington, DC. The people they protect include the 535 Senators and Representatives, their families in the area, and Congressional staffers and anyone else working in the vicinity. In addition to the usual work of collecting information on potential threats (including tips from the CIA, FBI and other agencies), the Capitol Police intel unit also does counter-intelligence work, keeping an eye out for people who might be scouting the Capitol area as part of planning for an attack. Before 2001, all this was not much of an issue, and most of the threats came from deranged individuals, irate constituents or the usual criminal activity. But now the Capitol is considered one of the principal targets for Islamic terrorists, and these attacks are likely to be carefully planned over a long period of time. Because of this kind of threat, there is also a lot more information coming in from existing intelligence agencies. To deal with this sort of thing, you need an intel operation, and now the Capitol Police have one.