11 ms·

From my readings of CIA memoirs and spy novels, CIA Agents (aka sources or informants) are really foreign people reporting information to the CIA Officers which

by matt_s 9y ago

From my readings of CIA memoirs and spy novels, CIA Agents (aka sources or informants) are really foreign people reporting information to the CIA Officers which are US Government employees. If these were US government workers reporting secrets to the Chinese I would expect imprisonment, etc. I guess it isn't too shocking they would do the same, albeit more cruelly, to their own traitors. There was a post recently about how easy it was for foreign governments, in the 1970's, to track the actual CIA Officers on station at an embassy. TL;DR: Reading job titles and observing who they hung out with was one way. Also mentioned was that CIA officers rarely intermingled with actual Diplomats and support staff often knew who was who because of secret areas of the embassy that were off limits. The article mentions a potential hack into the systems but it could have been good old spy-craft by following people and noticing patterns to find the sources.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sleepingeights 9y ago
Evidently, CIA Officers are notoriously sloppy and negligent in handling their agents in the east and south east. Just rumours from people who escaped Vietnam, etc... The US doesn't like the Asians and have systematically killed them as part of their institutional organization. In the Korean War they dropped more bombs, including napalm and experimental bombs, on the Koreans than all of the bombs dropped in WWI and WWII combined. They dropped two atomic bombs on cities full of civilians in Japan. And these are two of the US' closest Asian "allies". The US simply hates the Asians and the CIA (and FBI) are firmly part of that dogma. Edit: Just looking into US' history and pattern of extreme aggression and negativity directed at Asia, as well as anyone sharing genetic similarities, no one feels sorry for the CIA or the FBI. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if a vast majority of people outside the American Anglosphere think the CIA informants deserved it, let alone were put out of their misery from whatever shit the CIA and FBI had, did and/or put on them.
- jimjimjim 9y ago
  wow, did you read a history book backwards?
- matt_s 9y ago
  I really don't get the US hating all Asians part. Where does that come from? Many of the cold war era wars were proxy wars with Russia to stop the spread of communism. A natural place for that to occur was where Russia was attempting to move neighboring governments to communism, which was Asia. Also we were at war with Japan, they attacked the US after all, so I would hardly call them allies at that point in history.
  - subterfudge4 9y ago
    Part of it is probably because of Christianity and Christian values which see pagan/animists as pure evil. Though Americans are no more as Christian as they use to be the values perhaps have sunk deep into psyche. In past people of Chinese origin were barred from voting, Citizenships revoked retrospectively, during WW-2 Japanese origin citizens of USA were put into a camp (but Americans or German or Italian origin were not). As of today Chinese and Indians have to wait anywhere between 12 to 20 years to get a mere green-card despite doing much better than average American. Democrats don't like Asians because they don't live on welfare and Repupblicans don't like them because they are not Christians or white.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - jjtheblunt 9y ago
    I'd conjecture it's because of a horrific subset of people of whatever sort doing things like raping and killing at Nanking, torturing and eating dogs, cats, monkeys, which just is entirely sacriligious everywhere else...which people extrapolate through built in statistics to form skepticism about the entire class. A few bad apples really do spoil the whole bunch, and that's reality.
deleted 9y ago
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strictnein 9y ago
> From my readings of CIA memoirs and spy novels, CIA Agents (aka sources or informants) are really foreign people reporting information to the CIA Officers which are US Government employees Yep. If you haven't read it, the Billion Dollar Spy details the efforts the CIA made in Moscow during the Cold War. Pretty good read. https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Spy-Espionage-Betrayal/dp/0345805976 https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Spy-Espionage-Betrayal...
backhanded 9y ago
> CIA Agents are really foreign people reporting back Definitely: "one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building" If you're running a US-agent embedded spy ring, your ring's members don't hang out together. They probably don't even know of each others' existences.
paganel 9y ago
> The article mentions a potential hack into the systems but it could have been good old spy-craft by following people and noticing patterns to find the sources. I suspect that is the case, too. Especially this: > Some officers met their sources at a restaurant where Chinese agents had planted listening devices, former officials said, and even the waiters worked for Chinese intelligence. I sometimes go to some fancy and downtown restaurants in the Eastern European capital where I live, and you very often can see politicians there and people you very often see on TV as having had problems with the law. I often joke with one of my work-colleagues about how most probably all the restaurant tables in those kind of places are wired. It doesn't help that the most fancy party place in the city is partially owned by the daughter of a the director of the Security Services back in the 1990s. All these places are also filled with foreign businessmen and I suspect there are also people working for foreign embassies. While I used to live and eat out in the poorer parts of the city I never, never saw what looked to be foreign persons eating at those restaurants. They are all gravitating around the same area in downtown city. I suspect a very similar thing is happening in China and in other countries' capitals around the world. Most of the Western diplomats who are also carrying intelligence activity on the side don't seem very capable of just blending in in a foreign environment.
- ddalex 9y ago
  Ok, since we both know the city, which big restaurant is owned by the blue-eyed daughter?
  - paganel 9y ago
    Club Loft and Anca Magureanu, the daughter of former SRI director Virgil Magureanu. I'm on mobile and am too lazy to link here, but the info is easily searchable.
- taway_1212 9y ago
  > I sometimes go to some fancy and downtown restaurants in the Eastern European capital where I live, and you very often can see politicians there and people you very often see on TV as having had problems with the law. I often joke with one of my work-colleagues about how most probably all the restaurant tables in those kind of places are wired. Lol, you don't know how close to truth you are. It has actually happened already in Poland in 2014 - a high-end restaurant in Warsaw, where ruling party's politicians liked to hang out, was wired and the recording subsequently leaked to the press. It was one of the factors that led to this party falling out of favor with voters and the "right-wing" opposition taking over.

by matt_s 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

sleepingeights 9y ago

Evidently, CIA Officers are notoriously sloppy and negligent in handling their agents in the east and south east. Just rumours from people who escaped Vietnam, etc... The US doesn't like the Asians and have systematically killed them as part of their institutional organization. In the Korean War they dropped more bombs, including napalm and experimental bombs, on the Koreans than all of the bombs dropped in WWI and WWII combined. They dropped two atomic bombs on cities full of civilians in Japan. And these are two of the US' closest Asian "allies". The US simply hates the Asians and the CIA (and FBI) are firmly part of that dogma. Edit: Just looking into US' history and pattern of extreme aggression and negativity directed at Asia, as well as anyone sharing genetic similarities, no one feels sorry for the CIA or the FBI. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if a vast majority of people outside the American Anglosphere think the CIA informants deserved it, let alone were put out of their misery from whatever shit the CIA and FBI had, did and/or put on them.

jimjimjim 9y ago
wow, did you read a history book backwards?
matt_s 9y ago
I really don't get the US hating all Asians part. Where does that come from? Many of the cold war era wars were proxy wars with Russia to stop the spread of communism. A natural place for that to occur was where Russia was attempting to move neighboring governments to communism, which was Asia. Also we were at war with Japan, they attacked the US after all, so I would hardly call them allies at that point in history.
- subterfudge4 9y ago
  Part of it is probably because of Christianity and Christian values which see pagan/animists as pure evil. Though Americans are no more as Christian as they use to be the values perhaps have sunk deep into psyche. In past people of Chinese origin were barred from voting, Citizenships revoked retrospectively, during WW-2 Japanese origin citizens of USA were put into a camp (but Americans or German or Italian origin were not). As of today Chinese and Indians have to wait anywhere between 12 to 20 years to get a mere green-card despite doing much better than average American. Democrats don't like Asians because they don't live on welfare and Repupblicans don't like them because they are not Christians or white.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- jjtheblunt 9y ago
  I'd conjecture it's because of a horrific subset of people of whatever sort doing things like raping and killing at Nanking, torturing and eating dogs, cats, monkeys, which just is entirely sacriligious everywhere else...which people extrapolate through built in statistics to form skepticism about the entire class. A few bad apples really do spoil the whole bunch, and that's reality.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

strictnein 9y ago

> From my readings of CIA memoirs and spy novels, CIA Agents (aka sources or informants) are really foreign people reporting information to the CIA Officers which are US Government employees Yep. If you haven't read it, the Billion Dollar Spy details the efforts the CIA made in Moscow during the Cold War. Pretty good read. https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Spy-Espionage-Betrayal/dp/0345805976 https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Spy-Espionage-Betrayal...

backhanded 9y ago

> CIA Agents are really foreign people reporting back Definitely: "one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building" If you're running a US-agent embedded spy ring, your ring's members don't hang out together. They probably don't even know of each others' existences.

paganel 9y ago

> The article mentions a potential hack into the systems but it could have been good old spy-craft by following people and noticing patterns to find the sources. I suspect that is the case, too. Especially this: > Some officers met their sources at a restaurant where Chinese agents had planted listening devices, former officials said, and even the waiters worked for Chinese intelligence. I sometimes go to some fancy and downtown restaurants in the Eastern European capital where I live, and you very often can see politicians there and people you very often see on TV as having had problems with the law. I often joke with one of my work-colleagues about how most probably all the restaurant tables in those kind of places are wired. It doesn't help that the most fancy party place in the city is partially owned by the daughter of a the director of the Security Services back in the 1990s. All these places are also filled with foreign businessmen and I suspect there are also people working for foreign embassies. While I used to live and eat out in the poorer parts of the city I never, never saw what looked to be foreign persons eating at those restaurants. They are all gravitating around the same area in downtown city. I suspect a very similar thing is happening in China and in other countries' capitals around the world. Most of the Western diplomats who are also carrying intelligence activity on the side don't seem very capable of just blending in in a foreign environment.

ddalex 9y ago
Ok, since we both know the city, which big restaurant is owned by the blue-eyed daughter?
- paganel 9y ago
  Club Loft and Anca Magureanu, the daughter of former SRI director Virgil Magureanu. I'm on mobile and am too lazy to link here, but the info is easily searchable.
taway_1212 9y ago
> I sometimes go to some fancy and downtown restaurants in the Eastern European capital where I live, and you very often can see politicians there and people you very often see on TV as having had problems with the law. I often joke with one of my work-colleagues about how most probably all the restaurant tables in those kind of places are wired. Lol, you don't know how close to truth you are. It has actually happened already in Poland in 2014 - a high-end restaurant in Warsaw, where ruling party's politicians liked to hang out, was wired and the recording subsequently leaked to the press. It was one of the factors that led to this party falling out of favor with voters and the "right-wing" opposition taking over.