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Intelligence agency hosts kids' Web sites

Intelligence Agency Community Kids' Page offers games and educational material to future spies and diplomats.

Mark Rutherford
The military establishment's ever increasing reliance on technology and whiz-bang gadgetry impacts us as consumers, investors, taxpayers and ultimately as the defended. Our mission here is to bring some of these products and concepts to your attention based on carefully selected criteria such as importance to national security, originality, collateral damage to the treasury and adaptability to yard maintenance-but not necessarily in that order. E-mail him at markr@milapp.com. Disclosure.
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Mark Rutherford
U.S. Dept. of State

It's never too early to know your organs of state. To this end, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is hosting what it calls the Intelligence Agency Community Kids' Page.

The page offers roughly a dozen links to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agency sites, where children can learn about the institutional layout and various skill sets of each department.

For example, the NSA offers a primer on cryptology, led by a collection of trademarked characters like Crypto Cat and Decipher Dog. Youngsters can race through timed puzzles and try their hand at photo analysis with the CIA.

The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency allows kids to play Image Ace with Terry Firma and Wanda World. The Defense Intelligence Agency clearly knows its market. Go here to blast away at incoming jets.

Department of Homeland Security concentrates on natural disaster preparedness, explaining topics from tornadoes to tsunamis, relegating terrorism to the bottom of the page, and wisely leaving it to parents or teachers to go into further detail.

The State Department, which probably had little say in being lumped in with the others, invites future diplomats to play Where in the World is the Secretary, following Hillary Clinton around the world and clicking on a map of her state visits for more information, video, and photos on each trip. It's also a good place to see how the other half lives with Meet the Children of Diplomats.