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Without hard data released to the public we should not take the claim at face value. The intelligence agencies have a lot of credibility to earn back after the

Without hard data released to the public we should not take the claim at face value. The intelligence agencies have a lot of credibility to earn back after the Snowden revelations. No claims should be trusted without conclusive source material. The question is, why is the CIA trying to sway public opinion about this? Why do we tolerate the CIA or FBI being PR agencies for selectively leaked information? And why do we assume that their actions are in the national interest when it is not defined beyond platitudes about freedom.

goalieca 8y ago
I don’t think there’s any question as to the quality of cia intelligence. If anything Snowden really proves us the scale of their gathering and capabilities.
- dhimes 8y ago
  So that leaves the questions of veracity and motive.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    Same motive your local cops have when they leak all kinds of information about this gang banger or that one to the local media in advance of him/her being charged. Increases likelihood of conviction. Of course in this case, there would be no charges, or trials or anything of that nature, but I'd think the same principle is at work. It puts pressure on certain people when they let everyone know that they know. (Along with the not so subtle subtext reminding everyone that their information gathering reach is long, and their memory longer.)
- resters 8y ago
  The gathering methods are encompassing and technically adept, but that does not mean that the announcement reflects data that actually exists. Nor does it answer the question of why the agency chose to selectively promote the claim, which is the main issue. We know from many other examples that hard data is used to sell and add credibility to analytical opinions that are at best informed hunches. Yet we are led to believe that the data speaks for itself.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  > I don’t think there’s any question as to the quality of cia intelligence. If anything Snowden really proves us the scale of their gathering and capabilities. Weren't Snowden's releases about the NSA, not the CIA?
  - meowface 8y ago
    Yes. There was a CIA tool leak later, by an unknown person (but they have a suspect [1]), but it appears to be unrelated to Snowden. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-identifies-suspect-in-major-leak-of-cia-hacking-tools/2018/05/15/5d5ef3f8-5865-11e8-8836-a4a123c359ab_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-id...
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      And it's totally unrelated to RMS, who only encourages NSA and FBI agents to follow Snowden's example: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
  - resters 8y ago
    Many of the programs are shared across agencies so the revelations told s lot about the sigint capabilities of all of the agencies.
tekmate 8y ago
the public opinion doesn't need to be swayed on this and it's unlikely that the cia would ever release things that would threaten their process of getting such things. there's a difference between healthy skepticism of intelligence agencies and a grasping at straws to cast doubt on anything they do.
- resters 8y ago
  Public opinion about MBS was quite favorable a few short months ago, and it is this story alone that threatens it. So those who claim MBS was responsible may be right or wrong. Without a clear definition of how his potential responsibility relates to US national interest, the matter isn’t even necessarily something the CIA should worry about at all. By skipping that step and jumping right to PR to help fuel moral indignation in Americans, the CIA is way way way out of bounds. The agency is not supposed to be a bunch of wise elders providing moral guidance, it’s supposed to protect national security. Quite likely most senior CIA officials have far more blood on their hands than MBS.
  - onetimemanytime 8y ago
    >>By skipping that step and jumping right to PR to help fuel moral indignation in Americans, the CIA is way way way out of bounds. What if CIA was told to do so? Apparently the SA has not paid /signed by it's deadline for a major weapons purchase. 15B I think... and oil is lower now. So CIA is to serve our interests and has the prince by the b*lls. CIA might even get their entire budget paid by this episode. Oil is under $50 a barrel now or $30+ lower I am pretty sure Erdogan would not that outraged if the Saudis cut him a deal too.
  - arcticfox 8y ago
    > Without a clear definition of how his potential responsibility relates to US national interest, the matter isn’t even necessarily something the CIA should worry about at all. The free press is one of the cornerstones of US national interest; allowing our journalists to be murdered because they said something about a foreign power is a threat to that.
ForHackernews 8y ago
> The intelligence agencies have a lot of credibility to earn back after the Snowden revelations Huh? If anything the Snowden revelations showed that they'd been hoovering up even more than previously understood. Those revelations make it more credible that they were intercepting communications of ostensible US allies like the Saudis.
mythrwy 8y ago
It's interesting (and a bit disturbing) to see our public agencies embroiled in domestic and international political struggles. Personally I have no means to determine veracity and don't have a reason to believe anyone who says anything at this juncture. Here's what I do know: there is a lot of money and power at stake and a number of interested parties who would like to sway public opinion, in the US, KSA and internationally. I believe Trump has had some run ins with the CIA, and them giving him a black eye politically could be a motive. Trump probably has to play nice with KSA, there isn't a practical economic way around that at the moment. MBS also has made a lot of enemies in KSA, many of whom no doubt have incredible means and connections. But really no way to tell what the truth might be. Not sure it matters for me personally other than a disgusted headshake at all involved parties.
- resters 8y ago
  Excellent points. I agree. I think one thing that is very clear is that the CIA should not under any circumstances be acting to promote domestic PR about political events. That is out of scope and was until a few years ago illegal.
boomboomsubban 8y ago
>The question is, why is the CIA trying to sway public opinion about this? The WSJ actually cares about this issue, and they want to stay on their good side as they're a huge help in their PR campaigns. Nothing they are releasing is really new, this release was already claimed by a Saudi aide, and their releases have happened at times where they'll easily be missed.
beginningguava 8y ago
The whole thing is strange, there's definitely a lot of different factions in the US fighting behind the scenes for their own agendas, certainly not fighting for the average american. It should be known that Khashoggi's uncle made billions as a weapons broker and helped the CIA funnel guns to Osama Bin Laden when he was fighting for the CIA as the Mujahdeen. My inner conspiracy theorist says that the CIA is pissed that Trump shut down their gun running operation in Syria and they want to keep the middle east in chaos forever because it's good for their budget The fact this story has been covered so much by the media because of "freedom of the press" while they completely ignore China routinely disappearing journalists tells me there's an agenda being pushed. Nothing about this story seems organic
- javagram 8y ago
  Khashoggi was employed by the Washington Post, which is probably the second most influential newspaper in the US behind the NYT. Were the Chinese journalists you mention also employed by a prominent American newspaper and residents of Virginia with influential friends? If not it seems very easy to see why this case has gotten more publicity.
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    That's certainly and transparently Trump's motivation for covering up Kashogi's murder. Imagine how he'd act if Saudi Arabia murdered Sean Hannity.
    - smegger001 8y ago
      "... Imagine how he'd act if Saudi Arabia murdered Sean Hannity." (sighs wistfully)
almost_usual 8y ago
The CIA has been shady far before the Snowden revelations, you can find plenty through the Freedom Of Information act. >And why do we assume that their actions are in the national interest when it is not defined beyond platitudes about freedom. Are you saying supporting SA is in our national interest? I don’t need the CIA to release info about SA for me not to support them. I’m not going to change my stance because of some possible CIA motive.
- fit2rule 8y ago
  The CIA has been a traitorous organ of nefarious and evil deeds for decades. But it has also successfully duped generations of Americans into believing it is acting in their best interests - such is the nature of the dire evil possible when you've got the ability to keep anything you want, a secret. What we need is for the American public to rein in their military-industrial-pharmaceutical masters. But, they can't really do that, for as long as regimes such as Saudi Arabia have bought their country out from under them.
- resters 8y ago
  > Are you saying supporting SA is in our national interest? Not at all. But rather than focusing on something concrete (and falsifiable) like national interest, our leaders and officials moralize and stoke righteous indignation.
- tyre 8y ago
  > Are you saying supporting SA is in our national interest? I’m not who you’re replying to, but yes it absolutely is. We don’t support SA because we secretly like mean people. We have a vested interest in keeping oil flowing. Was interfering in the most recent political turmoils in Egypt in our national interest? When you look at how much oil moves through the Suez Canal, absolutely. Stabilizing access to oil is in our own selfish national interest (we need oil) and in our global interest of stabilizing the world. When countries don’t have access to the natural resources they need, they tend to invade other countries to get them. We want to avoid that. Considering the above, I really wish politicians in the US would frame clean energy as a national security issue. We are far less likely to be bumbling around in the Middle East if we don’t need their natural resources. Would we still sell hundreds of billions of dollars in arms to theocratic authoritarian nut jobs? Maybe. At the very least we should chip away at the reasons we have for doing so.
notafraudster 8y ago
Here is the publicly available evidence: A bunch of Saudi intelligence agents and wetwork contractors flew into Turkey for the express purpose of murdering a political opponent of the Saudi regime, which they successfully did at the Saudi embassy. They then attempted to replace him with a body double to fool efforts to detect their crime. The crime itself was recorded on audio. Everyone knows exactly who murdered him, where, how, and why. After doing this, they disposed of his body (which they still have not returned) and promptly lied dozens of times in a row about the circumstances of his disappearance and death. They originally pitched he had wandered out of the embassy. Then that he had disappeared unrelatedly. Then that he had died, but no one knows how. Then that it was after a fight in the embassy. Then eventually admitting that it was a targeted murder, but by rogue agents. At each step, they lied until their lies were publicly and definitively exposed, largely by the Turkish government who are understandably mad that a foreign government exploited the diplomatic easement given to embassies to murder someone on their soil. In conversations following up on this affair, the position of the Saudi government has been simultaneously that Khashoggi was a dangerous anti-government subversive who no one should mourn because he deserved to be killed, that KSA should face no consequences and be the ones to determine what justice means, and that no one not being charged by the KSA could possibly be involved in the decision to do this. We have two possibilities from this stage: Case 1: This was ordered by either the Crown Prince or someone near him; or Case 2: This was a wonderful act of serendipity that the Crown Prince thinks was a very good outcome, but which was independently pursued by Very Bad Men Who Will Be Executed, and surely they were acting alone. How would we be able to tell between cases 1 and 2 (besides the fact that case 2 is completely implausible and is "Kid with Crumbs Around Mouth Claims Dog Broke In To Cookie Jar" nonsense)? Well, we'd know for sure that case 1 was true if for example we had access to the Crown Prince's private correspondence and it demonstrated that he was involved. It would be difficult to discern between the two without this. Okay, so we all agree that the next step in this investigation is someone who intercepted the Crown Prince's correspondence to confirm what it says. Note that at this stage in my post, the United States and its intelligence community has not been mentioned and nothing said so far relies on its credibility. So, given this, would you care to make a case for Case 2? Would you care to hypothesize which institutions, globally, we might rely on to make Case 1? The CIA and FBI suck and have agendas. Turkey sucks and has an agenda. KSA sucks and has an agenda. And yet we can do better than nihilism when it comes to adjudicating this situation.

goalieca 8y ago

I don’t think there’s any question as to the quality of cia intelligence. If anything Snowden really proves us the scale of their gathering and capabilities.

dhimes 8y ago
So that leaves the questions of veracity and motive.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Same motive your local cops have when they leak all kinds of information about this gang banger or that one to the local media in advance of him/her being charged. Increases likelihood of conviction. Of course in this case, there would be no charges, or trials or anything of that nature, but I'd think the same principle is at work. It puts pressure on certain people when they let everyone know that they know. (Along with the not so subtle subtext reminding everyone that their information gathering reach is long, and their memory longer.)
resters 8y ago
The gathering methods are encompassing and technically adept, but that does not mean that the announcement reflects data that actually exists. Nor does it answer the question of why the agency chose to selectively promote the claim, which is the main issue. We know from many other examples that hard data is used to sell and add credibility to analytical opinions that are at best informed hunches. Yet we are led to believe that the data speaks for itself.
chrisseaton 8y ago
> I don’t think there’s any question as to the quality of cia intelligence. If anything Snowden really proves us the scale of their gathering and capabilities. Weren't Snowden's releases about the NSA, not the CIA?
- meowface 8y ago
  Yes. There was a CIA tool leak later, by an unknown person (but they have a suspect [1]), but it appears to be unrelated to Snowden. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-identifies-suspect-in-major-leak-of-cia-hacking-tools/2018/05/15/5d5ef3f8-5865-11e8-8836-a4a123c359ab_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-id...
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    And it's totally unrelated to RMS, who only encourages NSA and FBI agents to follow Snowden's example: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]
- resters 8y ago
  Many of the programs are shared across agencies so the revelations told s lot about the sigint capabilities of all of the agencies.

tekmate 8y ago

the public opinion doesn't need to be swayed on this and it's unlikely that the cia would ever release things that would threaten their process of getting such things. there's a difference between healthy skepticism of intelligence agencies and a grasping at straws to cast doubt on anything they do.

resters 8y ago
Public opinion about MBS was quite favorable a few short months ago, and it is this story alone that threatens it. So those who claim MBS was responsible may be right or wrong. Without a clear definition of how his potential responsibility relates to US national interest, the matter isn’t even necessarily something the CIA should worry about at all. By skipping that step and jumping right to PR to help fuel moral indignation in Americans, the CIA is way way way out of bounds. The agency is not supposed to be a bunch of wise elders providing moral guidance, it’s supposed to protect national security. Quite likely most senior CIA officials have far more blood on their hands than MBS.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  >>By skipping that step and jumping right to PR to help fuel moral indignation in Americans, the CIA is way way way out of bounds. What if CIA was told to do so? Apparently the SA has not paid /signed by it's deadline for a major weapons purchase. 15B I think... and oil is lower now. So CIA is to serve our interests and has the prince by the b*lls. CIA might even get their entire budget paid by this episode. Oil is under $50 a barrel now or $30+ lower I am pretty sure Erdogan would not that outraged if the Saudis cut him a deal too.
- arcticfox 8y ago
  > Without a clear definition of how his potential responsibility relates to US national interest, the matter isn’t even necessarily something the CIA should worry about at all. The free press is one of the cornerstones of US national interest; allowing our journalists to be murdered because they said something about a foreign power is a threat to that.

ForHackernews 8y ago

> The intelligence agencies have a lot of credibility to earn back after the Snowden revelations Huh? If anything the Snowden revelations showed that they'd been hoovering up even more than previously understood. Those revelations make it more credible that they were intercepting communications of ostensible US allies like the Saudis.

mythrwy 8y ago

It's interesting (and a bit disturbing) to see our public agencies embroiled in domestic and international political struggles. Personally I have no means to determine veracity and don't have a reason to believe anyone who says anything at this juncture. Here's what I do know: there is a lot of money and power at stake and a number of interested parties who would like to sway public opinion, in the US, KSA and internationally. I believe Trump has had some run ins with the CIA, and them giving him a black eye politically could be a motive. Trump probably has to play nice with KSA, there isn't a practical economic way around that at the moment. MBS also has made a lot of enemies in KSA, many of whom no doubt have incredible means and connections. But really no way to tell what the truth might be. Not sure it matters for me personally other than a disgusted headshake at all involved parties.

resters 8y ago
Excellent points. I agree. I think one thing that is very clear is that the CIA should not under any circumstances be acting to promote domestic PR about political events. That is out of scope and was until a few years ago illegal.

boomboomsubban 8y ago

>The question is, why is the CIA trying to sway public opinion about this? The WSJ actually cares about this issue, and they want to stay on their good side as they're a huge help in their PR campaigns. Nothing they are releasing is really new, this release was already claimed by a Saudi aide, and their releases have happened at times where they'll easily be missed.

beginningguava 8y ago

The whole thing is strange, there's definitely a lot of different factions in the US fighting behind the scenes for their own agendas, certainly not fighting for the average american. It should be known that Khashoggi's uncle made billions as a weapons broker and helped the CIA funnel guns to Osama Bin Laden when he was fighting for the CIA as the Mujahdeen. My inner conspiracy theorist says that the CIA is pissed that Trump shut down their gun running operation in Syria and they want to keep the middle east in chaos forever because it's good for their budget The fact this story has been covered so much by the media because of "freedom of the press" while they completely ignore China routinely disappearing journalists tells me there's an agenda being pushed. Nothing about this story seems organic

javagram 8y ago
Khashoggi was employed by the Washington Post, which is probably the second most influential newspaper in the US behind the NYT. Were the Chinese journalists you mention also employed by a prominent American newspaper and residents of Virginia with influential friends? If not it seems very easy to see why this case has gotten more publicity.
- DonHopkins 8y ago
  That's certainly and transparently Trump's motivation for covering up Kashogi's murder. Imagine how he'd act if Saudi Arabia murdered Sean Hannity.
  - smegger001 8y ago
    "... Imagine how he'd act if Saudi Arabia murdered Sean Hannity." (sighs wistfully)

almost_usual 8y ago

The CIA has been shady far before the Snowden revelations, you can find plenty through the Freedom Of Information act. >And why do we assume that their actions are in the national interest when it is not defined beyond platitudes about freedom. Are you saying supporting SA is in our national interest? I don’t need the CIA to release info about SA for me not to support them. I’m not going to change my stance because of some possible CIA motive.

fit2rule 8y ago
The CIA has been a traitorous organ of nefarious and evil deeds for decades. But it has also successfully duped generations of Americans into believing it is acting in their best interests - such is the nature of the dire evil possible when you've got the ability to keep anything you want, a secret. What we need is for the American public to rein in their military-industrial-pharmaceutical masters. But, they can't really do that, for as long as regimes such as Saudi Arabia have bought their country out from under them.
resters 8y ago
> Are you saying supporting SA is in our national interest? Not at all. But rather than focusing on something concrete (and falsifiable) like national interest, our leaders and officials moralize and stoke righteous indignation.
tyre 8y ago
> Are you saying supporting SA is in our national interest? I’m not who you’re replying to, but yes it absolutely is. We don’t support SA because we secretly like mean people. We have a vested interest in keeping oil flowing. Was interfering in the most recent political turmoils in Egypt in our national interest? When you look at how much oil moves through the Suez Canal, absolutely. Stabilizing access to oil is in our own selfish national interest (we need oil) and in our global interest of stabilizing the world. When countries don’t have access to the natural resources they need, they tend to invade other countries to get them. We want to avoid that. Considering the above, I really wish politicians in the US would frame clean energy as a national security issue. We are far less likely to be bumbling around in the Middle East if we don’t need their natural resources. Would we still sell hundreds of billions of dollars in arms to theocratic authoritarian nut jobs? Maybe. At the very least we should chip away at the reasons we have for doing so.

notafraudster 8y ago

Here is the publicly available evidence: A bunch of Saudi intelligence agents and wetwork contractors flew into Turkey for the express purpose of murdering a political opponent of the Saudi regime, which they successfully did at the Saudi embassy. They then attempted to replace him with a body double to fool efforts to detect their crime. The crime itself was recorded on audio. Everyone knows exactly who murdered him, where, how, and why. After doing this, they disposed of his body (which they still have not returned) and promptly lied dozens of times in a row about the circumstances of his disappearance and death. They originally pitched he had wandered out of the embassy. Then that he had disappeared unrelatedly. Then that he had died, but no one knows how. Then that it was after a fight in the embassy. Then eventually admitting that it was a targeted murder, but by rogue agents. At each step, they lied until their lies were publicly and definitively exposed, largely by the Turkish government who are understandably mad that a foreign government exploited the diplomatic easement given to embassies to murder someone on their soil. In conversations following up on this affair, the position of the Saudi government has been simultaneously that Khashoggi was a dangerous anti-government subversive who no one should mourn because he deserved to be killed, that KSA should face no consequences and be the ones to determine what justice means, and that no one not being charged by the KSA could possibly be involved in the decision to do this. We have two possibilities from this stage: Case 1: This was ordered by either the Crown Prince or someone near him; or Case 2: This was a wonderful act of serendipity that the Crown Prince thinks was a very good outcome, but which was independently pursued by Very Bad Men Who Will Be Executed, and surely they were acting alone. How would we be able to tell between cases 1 and 2 (besides the fact that case 2 is completely implausible and is "Kid with Crumbs Around Mouth Claims Dog Broke In To Cookie Jar" nonsense)? Well, we'd know for sure that case 1 was true if for example we had access to the Crown Prince's private correspondence and it demonstrated that he was involved. It would be difficult to discern between the two without this. Okay, so we all agree that the next step in this investigation is someone who intercepted the Crown Prince's correspondence to confirm what it says. Note that at this stage in my post, the United States and its intelligence community has not been mentioned and nothing said so far relies on its credibility. So, given this, would you care to make a case for Case 2? Would you care to hypothesize which institutions, globally, we might rely on to make Case 1? The CIA and FBI suck and have agendas. Turkey sucks and has an agenda. KSA sucks and has an agenda. And yet we can do better than nihilism when it comes to adjudicating this situation.