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No. The intelligence is crap; the CIA has missed basically everything important in its history. It is frequently politicized. It only goes to the President, who

No. The intelligence is crap; the CIA has missed basically everything important in its history. It is frequently politicized. It only goes to the President, who might ignore it or misinterpret it. We do much better just by reading newspapers well.

sk0g 7y ago
> missed basically everything important in its history Or the things it has caught don't make newspaper headlines. Because the plots were defused, and thus can't be used to cause chaos and fear in citizens, something newspapers seem to delight in.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > Or the things it has caught don't make newspaper headlines. Because the plots were defused, and thus can't be used to cause chaos and fear in citizens, something newspapers seem to delight in. That sounds like conspiracy thinking. The media isn't able to suppress the CIA's good deeds, and I don't believe they'd try. "Big alien invasion averted thanks to heroic CIA agent" is a great headline. So great in fact, that fiction books are written on that premise. With all the minor and major leaks from the intelligence community, they're supposed to have a super tight and successful conspiracy going to hide the fact that they are actually effective? I have some doubts, both on the technical part (large conspiracies are hard) and the reasoning.
  - sprafa 7y ago
    The CIA constantly says “we have prevented X terrorist attacks in the last Y years“ and nobody believes them
    - ionised 7y ago
      We have no reason to believe them. They have a demonstrable history of lies and terrorist-style anti-democratic activities themselves for political and economic purposes.
      - sprafa 7y ago
        There’s no arguing with you. You’d rather believe that you’re being persecuted than in the complexities of actual reality.
        dang 7y ago
        Please don't cross into personal attack on HN. It doesn't help, and provokes worse from others. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

sk0g 7y ago

> missed basically everything important in its history Or the things it has caught don't make newspaper headlines. Because the plots were defused, and thus can't be used to cause chaos and fear in citizens, something newspapers seem to delight in.

luckylion 7y ago
> Or the things it has caught don't make newspaper headlines. Because the plots were defused, and thus can't be used to cause chaos and fear in citizens, something newspapers seem to delight in. That sounds like conspiracy thinking. The media isn't able to suppress the CIA's good deeds, and I don't believe they'd try. "Big alien invasion averted thanks to heroic CIA agent" is a great headline. So great in fact, that fiction books are written on that premise. With all the minor and major leaks from the intelligence community, they're supposed to have a super tight and successful conspiracy going to hide the fact that they are actually effective? I have some doubts, both on the technical part (large conspiracies are hard) and the reasoning.
- sprafa 7y ago
  The CIA constantly says “we have prevented X terrorist attacks in the last Y years“ and nobody believes them
  - ionised 7y ago
    We have no reason to believe them. They have a demonstrable history of lies and terrorist-style anti-democratic activities themselves for political and economic purposes.
    - sprafa 7y ago
      There’s no arguing with you. You’d rather believe that you’re being persecuted than in the complexities of actual reality.
      - dang 7y ago
        Please don't cross into personal attack on HN. It doesn't help, and provokes worse from others. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html