9 ms·

The CIA should be completely abolished. Unlike the FBI, it does not seek to enforce any laws whatsoever; instead, they operate with absolutely zero oversight, t

The CIA should be completely abolished. Unlike the FBI, it does not seek to enforce any laws whatsoever; instead, they operate with absolutely zero oversight, there only rule being that they're not supposed to be involved in domestic matters. I wouldn't be surprised if they tag-team with other friendly agencies like MI6 to spy on each other's domestic targets so as not to violate that rule.

myrandomcomment 7y ago
Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national security. You know the LAPD beat a man a few times. We should totally get rid of them also. A rational proposal for over-site and control would be a useful comment.
- ggm 7y ago
  A rational proposal for closure and reinstitution under a different founding principle? "Because everybody does it" isn't actually good enough.
- dgzl 7y ago
  The US spy and intelligence agencies frequently infringe on domestic and international human rights, and many people would rather they didn't exist. Some people don't even consider the agencies to be constitutional. Your sarcastic comments are certainly not useful.
  - myrandomcomment 7y ago
    The issue is not the CIA. It has been incredibly successfully in its job since it was founded as the OSS in WW2. We do not hear of the successes as most of it is highly classified. There are some great books on older stuff they did in the Cold War out now that are worth reading. The reality is we only hear about the screw ups and the illegal things because that news worthy in the 24/7/365 hype cycle we now live it. The fact is that we as citizens have failed to provide our voices asking for proper guidance of the CIA. We the people think that TV shows like 24 are the reality and torture is okay because it works on TV and only happens to the bad guys. Society as a whole have allowed things to end up this way. Tell me what really happened when we the public found out about the tap rooms at ATT colo or some of the stuff Wikileaks and Snowden showed? Where is the protest? I do not see the streets full of outrage. Where are the brave Americas standing up for their rights. We could learn from the people of Hong Kong at this point. The fact is that as long as we can order from amazon and Facebook works no one cares anymore. We get the government we deserve. Disbanding the CIA just moves the issue to the next agency.
    - baybal2 7y ago
      Yes, USA has 20+ intelligence agencies. But all you refer to can and should be done by military intelligence.
- KorematsuFred 7y ago
  If you do not like LAPD it is very simple for LA residents to decide how to fix them. Part of the reason why SFPD does not simply shoot many of the hobos dead it because SF population has neccessary oversight on these cops. CIA on other hand runs amock. It is the biggest supplier of weapons to Islamic terrorists who have eventually turned on USA.American citizens have very little control on CIA.
  - myrandomcomment 7y ago
    If the only reason the cops in SF are not shooting hobos is oversight then society is doomed.
- ohithereyou 7y ago
  The CIA is not the only intelligence agency that the US has. Furthermore, most of what the CIA does should be the duty of the State Department. On a more pedantic point, shutting down the CIA is the ultimate in oversight - you don't have to watch for crimes from an organization that does not exist.
  - craftinator 7y ago
    The operations of the CIA would just shift to another agency. Do you really think they would just throw away all personnel, equipment, and data, and cancel all operations?
    - pharrington 7y ago
      Moving current CIA operations to the other national agencies with the appropriate remit would be part of the whole point.
    - ohithereyou 7y ago
      During that shift a comprehensive review takes place of each action and operation as the responsibility for it is transferred. This happens all of the time when agencies are absorbed or transfer responsibilities and is a cornerstone of a functioning, responsive government.
- freeflight 7y ago
  > Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national security. It's not like the CIA is the only intelligence agency the USG has. Without the CIA there'd still be 16 other intelligence agencies left [0]. [0] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-17-intelligence-agencies-20170112-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-17-intelligence-agencie...
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Do you know what those other agencies do, and how they're staffed, and which functions they serve, as compared to the CIA? For that matter, how well do you feel you understand the high-level functions of the CIA?
    - throwaway743 7y ago
      Seeing that your posts throughout this thread whole heartedly defend their practices and ignore mentioning them taking any amount of accountability for their actions, would you care to provide your insights as a means of sharing knowledge with those of us you imply are ignorant regarding the matters of this topic?
      - rfrey 7y ago
        This made me go back and re-read, and I could find no place where your parent made even a half-hearted defense of the CIA, never mind a full-throated one. I believe your passion for this topic might be leading you to misinterpret people. That's to your detriment, the comments are insightful.
      - tptacek 7y ago
        I think you've responded to the wrong commenter. Check your links; it happens to me sometimes too!
    - freeflight 7y ago
      It's like the "dudes on the ground" version of the NSA? I mean, they have a manual on how to kill people and plenty of more shady history, apparently without much of any accountability. I imagine with that amount of agencies there's enough overlap to maybe reform that whole 3 letter forest into something more unified/streamlined while introducing some more oversight.
- igivanov 7y ago
  what has intelligence and national security to do with the things the CIA is best known for: endless subversive acts, overthrows of governments, creating and enabling terrorists, assassinations, torture programs, extraordinary renditions? if anything it's quite the opposite.
WillPostForFood 7y ago
> they operate with absolutely zero oversight There is extensive oversight of the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community_Oversight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com... > there[sic] only rule being that they're not supposed to be involved in domestic matters There are extensive rules, law, regulations, and executive orders governing the CIA. Many are listed or referenced in this document. https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/privacy-and-civil-liberties/CIA-AG-Guidelines-Signed.pdf https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/privacy-and-civil-liberties/CI...
- viivaux 7y ago
  I wonder - do HN rules prevent people from pointing out suspicious accounts even when the user's name is a balls-out reference to shilling? Am I allowed to reference other comments made in the last three days, such as > "If Iran didn't attack the ships who did?", or > "In 1971, 60 Minutes, the most watched TV show in the country won an Emmy for it's story on "What Really Happened at Tonkin Gulf?". The truth was out pretty early, and well accepted." Maybe we :are: dealing with an incredibly naive and honest fella here - but with that fucking name?
- morpheuskafka 7y ago
  Per your first article, the President has the discretion to limit reporting of intelligence activities to only eight members of Congress (all of whom, by definition, belong to the two major parties). That means most of the representatives and senators who we elect to actually vote on the laws governing and funding the CIA don't even get access to briefings on all of its activities (meanwhile, nearly 5 million Americans have a security clearance).
  - WillPostForFood 7y ago
    the President has the discretion to limit reporting of intelligence activities to only eight members of Congress (all of whom, by definition, belong to the two major parties) 1: that's not "absolutely zero oversight" 2: It seems like a reasonable way to maintain critical secret information while still informing members of the opposition party. That means at least several of these members are being briefed: Dianne Feinstein - California Ron Wyden - Oregon Martin Heinrich - New Mexico Angus King - Maine Kamala Harris - California Michael Bennet - Colorado If something goes totally off the rails they can provide oversight.
astazangasta 7y ago
I have been reading Tim Weiner's excellent "Legacy of Ashes", a history of the CIA. Everyone should read it; it won a national book award and is generally well-researched and sourced. What it indicates is that the CIA is essentially a long-running unconstitutional operation, and that every president since WWII has made use of the CIA to conduct covert actions in foreign countries that are entirely illegal, including operations like subverting elections, deposing governments, assassinating foreign leaders, running drugs, and more. Every President should basically have been impeached for running these covert actions, the Constitution has no authority for the President to wage undeclared wars and conduct hostile actions whenever they feel like it. There is another branch of the CIA that conducts intelligence analysis; there might be some room for this half of the CIA, but this function has always been secondary, and has the problematic history of constantly tailoring what it says to satisfy the political demands of the President or Pentagon. We'd be better to replace the CIA with a new agency, one which doesn't conduct covert action, and whose mandate is to make public intelligence assessments (because the public needs to be informed of these things in a democracy) rather than secret ones. The clandestine nature of the service should disappear entirely.
- morpheuskafka 7y ago
  This is exactly what I'm saying. The CIA is not the only secretive and corrupt organization. But the CIA is the only one that has no role--by design--in either law enforcement or legitimate military action. The Army might be secretive, but if you're in the Army, you wear a dog tag and an American flag on your shoulder. If you're in the FBI, you wear a badge and give testimony in court. If you're in the CIA, you illegally enter a foreign country, commit crimes there, and are not bound by laws of war or rule of law. The CIA essentially operates outside the framework of all laws and doesn't have any sort of international standards. Even war--legalized killing--has the Geneva Conventions, laws of war, etc. The CIA just does whatever it wants, almost always violating the laws and sovereignty of a foreign country while doing so, with no public, legislative approval. What the military is doing in the middle east is secretive and abusive but there is, however broad, an AUMF on the public record saying why we're there. If a solider gets captured in a foreign country, we don't just pretend we didn't send them there. The CIA can just deny that it even operates there forever. That's what I mean by no oversight.
sureaboutthis 7y ago
Only if the Chinese, Russians, Germans, et al, promise to do the same thing.

myrandomcomment 7y ago

Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national security. You know the LAPD beat a man a few times. We should totally get rid of them also. A rational proposal for over-site and control would be a useful comment.

ggm 7y ago
A rational proposal for closure and reinstitution under a different founding principle? "Because everybody does it" isn't actually good enough.
dgzl 7y ago
The US spy and intelligence agencies frequently infringe on domestic and international human rights, and many people would rather they didn't exist. Some people don't even consider the agencies to be constitutional. Your sarcastic comments are certainly not useful.
- myrandomcomment 7y ago
  The issue is not the CIA. It has been incredibly successfully in its job since it was founded as the OSS in WW2. We do not hear of the successes as most of it is highly classified. There are some great books on older stuff they did in the Cold War out now that are worth reading. The reality is we only hear about the screw ups and the illegal things because that news worthy in the 24/7/365 hype cycle we now live it. The fact is that we as citizens have failed to provide our voices asking for proper guidance of the CIA. We the people think that TV shows like 24 are the reality and torture is okay because it works on TV and only happens to the bad guys. Society as a whole have allowed things to end up this way. Tell me what really happened when we the public found out about the tap rooms at ATT colo or some of the stuff Wikileaks and Snowden showed? Where is the protest? I do not see the streets full of outrage. Where are the brave Americas standing up for their rights. We could learn from the people of Hong Kong at this point. The fact is that as long as we can order from amazon and Facebook works no one cares anymore. We get the government we deserve. Disbanding the CIA just moves the issue to the next agency.
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Yes, USA has 20+ intelligence agencies. But all you refer to can and should be done by military intelligence.
KorematsuFred 7y ago
If you do not like LAPD it is very simple for LA residents to decide how to fix them. Part of the reason why SFPD does not simply shoot many of the hobos dead it because SF population has neccessary oversight on these cops. CIA on other hand runs amock. It is the biggest supplier of weapons to Islamic terrorists who have eventually turned on USA.American citizens have very little control on CIA.
- myrandomcomment 7y ago
  If the only reason the cops in SF are not shooting hobos is oversight then society is doomed.
ohithereyou 7y ago
The CIA is not the only intelligence agency that the US has. Furthermore, most of what the CIA does should be the duty of the State Department. On a more pedantic point, shutting down the CIA is the ultimate in oversight - you don't have to watch for crimes from an organization that does not exist.
- craftinator 7y ago
  The operations of the CIA would just shift to another agency. Do you really think they would just throw away all personnel, equipment, and data, and cancel all operations?
  - pharrington 7y ago
    Moving current CIA operations to the other national agencies with the appropriate remit would be part of the whole point.
  - ohithereyou 7y ago
    During that shift a comprehensive review takes place of each action and operation as the responsibility for it is transferred. This happens all of the time when agencies are absorbed or transfer responsibilities and is a cornerstone of a functioning, responsive government.
freeflight 7y ago
> Yes, because not having an Intelligence agency is a great idea for national security. It's not like the CIA is the only intelligence agency the USG has. Without the CIA there'd still be 16 other intelligence agencies left [0]. [0] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-17-intelligence-agencies-20170112-story.html https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-17-intelligence-agencie...
- tptacek 7y ago
  Do you know what those other agencies do, and how they're staffed, and which functions they serve, as compared to the CIA? For that matter, how well do you feel you understand the high-level functions of the CIA?
  - throwaway743 7y ago
    Seeing that your posts throughout this thread whole heartedly defend their practices and ignore mentioning them taking any amount of accountability for their actions, would you care to provide your insights as a means of sharing knowledge with those of us you imply are ignorant regarding the matters of this topic?
    - rfrey 7y ago
      This made me go back and re-read, and I could find no place where your parent made even a half-hearted defense of the CIA, never mind a full-throated one. I believe your passion for this topic might be leading you to misinterpret people. That's to your detriment, the comments are insightful.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      I think you've responded to the wrong commenter. Check your links; it happens to me sometimes too!
  - freeflight 7y ago
    It's like the "dudes on the ground" version of the NSA? I mean, they have a manual on how to kill people and plenty of more shady history, apparently without much of any accountability. I imagine with that amount of agencies there's enough overlap to maybe reform that whole 3 letter forest into something more unified/streamlined while introducing some more oversight.
igivanov 7y ago
what has intelligence and national security to do with the things the CIA is best known for: endless subversive acts, overthrows of governments, creating and enabling terrorists, assassinations, torture programs, extraordinary renditions? if anything it's quite the opposite.

WillPostForFood 7y ago

> they operate with absolutely zero oversight There is extensive oversight of the CIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community_Oversight https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Com... > there[sic] only rule being that they're not supposed to be involved in domestic matters There are extensive rules, law, regulations, and executive orders governing the CIA. Many are listed or referenced in this document. https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/privacy-and-civil-liberties/CIA-AG-Guidelines-Signed.pdf https://www.cia.gov/about-cia/privacy-and-civil-liberties/CI...

viivaux 7y ago
I wonder - do HN rules prevent people from pointing out suspicious accounts even when the user's name is a balls-out reference to shilling? Am I allowed to reference other comments made in the last three days, such as > "If Iran didn't attack the ships who did?", or > "In 1971, 60 Minutes, the most watched TV show in the country won an Emmy for it's story on "What Really Happened at Tonkin Gulf?". The truth was out pretty early, and well accepted." Maybe we :are: dealing with an incredibly naive and honest fella here - but with that fucking name?
morpheuskafka 7y ago
Per your first article, the President has the discretion to limit reporting of intelligence activities to only eight members of Congress (all of whom, by definition, belong to the two major parties). That means most of the representatives and senators who we elect to actually vote on the laws governing and funding the CIA don't even get access to briefings on all of its activities (meanwhile, nearly 5 million Americans have a security clearance).
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  the President has the discretion to limit reporting of intelligence activities to only eight members of Congress (all of whom, by definition, belong to the two major parties) 1: that's not "absolutely zero oversight" 2: It seems like a reasonable way to maintain critical secret information while still informing members of the opposition party. That means at least several of these members are being briefed: Dianne Feinstein - California Ron Wyden - Oregon Martin Heinrich - New Mexico Angus King - Maine Kamala Harris - California Michael Bennet - Colorado If something goes totally off the rails they can provide oversight.

astazangasta 7y ago

I have been reading Tim Weiner's excellent "Legacy of Ashes", a history of the CIA. Everyone should read it; it won a national book award and is generally well-researched and sourced. What it indicates is that the CIA is essentially a long-running unconstitutional operation, and that every president since WWII has made use of the CIA to conduct covert actions in foreign countries that are entirely illegal, including operations like subverting elections, deposing governments, assassinating foreign leaders, running drugs, and more. Every President should basically have been impeached for running these covert actions, the Constitution has no authority for the President to wage undeclared wars and conduct hostile actions whenever they feel like it. There is another branch of the CIA that conducts intelligence analysis; there might be some room for this half of the CIA, but this function has always been secondary, and has the problematic history of constantly tailoring what it says to satisfy the political demands of the President or Pentagon. We'd be better to replace the CIA with a new agency, one which doesn't conduct covert action, and whose mandate is to make public intelligence assessments (because the public needs to be informed of these things in a democracy) rather than secret ones. The clandestine nature of the service should disappear entirely.

morpheuskafka 7y ago
This is exactly what I'm saying. The CIA is not the only secretive and corrupt organization. But the CIA is the only one that has no role--by design--in either law enforcement or legitimate military action. The Army might be secretive, but if you're in the Army, you wear a dog tag and an American flag on your shoulder. If you're in the FBI, you wear a badge and give testimony in court. If you're in the CIA, you illegally enter a foreign country, commit crimes there, and are not bound by laws of war or rule of law. The CIA essentially operates outside the framework of all laws and doesn't have any sort of international standards. Even war--legalized killing--has the Geneva Conventions, laws of war, etc. The CIA just does whatever it wants, almost always violating the laws and sovereignty of a foreign country while doing so, with no public, legislative approval. What the military is doing in the middle east is secretive and abusive but there is, however broad, an AUMF on the public record saying why we're there. If a solider gets captured in a foreign country, we don't just pretend we didn't send them there. The CIA can just deny that it even operates there forever. That's what I mean by no oversight.

sureaboutthis 7y ago

Only if the Chinese, Russians, Germans, et al, promise to do the same thing.