Mile High Spies

The CIA is moving to Denver.

The CIA has plans to relocate the headquarters of its domestic division, which is responsible for operations and recruitment in the United States, from the CIA’s Langley, Va., headquarters to Denver, a move designed to promote innovation, according to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.

The main function of the domestic division, which has stations in many major U.S. cities, is to conduct voluntary debriefings of U.S. citizens who travel overseas for work or to visit relatives, and to recruit foreign students, diplomats and businesspeople to become CIA assets when they return to their countries.

It’s an odd decision, according to some, given Denver’s (relative) isolation (at least in DC-area terms), but it’s evidently a move by the new Director to break up some of the all-in-one-place group-think that he’s criticized in the past.

Colorado has become a major intelligence hub since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Aurora is home to the little- known Aerospace Data Facility. Located at Buckley Air Force Base, it has become the major U.S.-based technical downlink for intelligence satellites operated by the military, the National Security Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, according to military and government documents obtained by William Arkin, author of “Code Names,” a book about secret military plans and programs.

About 70 miles south of Denver, the U.S. Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, is tasked with homeland defense and has been increasing its domestic intelligence work.

It’s not known if the CIA’s Denver plans are linked to the presence of either facility.

Heck, it may just be that it’s relatively cheap office space, given downsizing of Federal facilities in Denver over the last decade. Or, given the agency’s purpose, it may be a recognition that getting something closer to the Pacific Coast might be of value …