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Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens with LSD (2012)
- vmception 5y agoThe CIA really bothers me, but it alone is a red herring. Congress consciously and sometimes inadvertently commissions additional organizations. All Federal agencies are created by statute, and they can autonomously create others subsidiaries and divisions. There are several organizations that are specifically in intelligence and do all sorts of messed up things for supposed national security or geopolitical purposes, and they are mostly unknown, even heads of state are unfamiliar with them not because they are secret but because theyre mostly irrelevant. So to focus on the CIA allows the rest of it to go on unimpededed. Its like hiring a model to act like your close friend so that your girlfriend focuses all her attention on her waiting for infidelity with that specific person and you can always disprove that there wasn't .... with her. But no further scrutiny goes on, when there should be.
- adamrezich 5y agointelligence agencies have too much power and independence from government. I think this is one of those things that pretty much everyone agrees with regardless of political affiliation, yet nothing gets done about it, and these entities keep growing and growing
- V_Terranova_Jr 5y agoAgree wholeheartedly. Within government, the tendency is to avoid the extremely uncomfortable discussions pushing back on questionable activities other government entities are engaged in, especially if those activities can be ascribed to some perceived good intent. Even harder if you learn of something questionable that has been going on for a long time - it's grandfathered in by both a long time in the pursuit of "good intent", and by you being a new objector when lots of people who came before you did not object.
- mc32 5y agoAnd from the pushback received by the previous admin, it’s looks like they don’t take kindly to getting sidelined or downsized... They spied on congress during the Obama years, they spied on the Trump admin when he was a candidate, and then of course the embarrassing revelation that they got caught spying on allies —which is par for the course, but still.
- xtian 5y agoIt generally doesn’t go well for anyone who tries to do something about it.
- landemva 5y agoWith black budgets shielded from adequate oversight, the people working in some of these agencies have escaped the rule of law and receive funding that allows rogue behavior. To some extent this is human nature, though taxpayers should stop funding it. A 50% cut in federal spending would be a good start.
- luffapi 5y agoIt’s thought one of the main reasons the CIA is involved in drug trafficking is to raise funds for operations without having to get congressional approval or other oversight.
- eganist 5y agoso basically just Iran Contra but not yet discovered.
- anticodon 5y agoJust look at the amount of heroin produced in Afghanistan before US invasion and after (hint: it's increased by orders of magnitude). Even more: US invaded Afghanistan immediately after Taliban managed to destroy almost all heroin production. I don't think it's a coincidence. There're reports of people who visited Afghanistan after US invasion and they reported that it feels like US army guards poppy fields. It would be very easy for US to destroy them, but they behave like they didn't care. I think that's was the main reason for Afghanistan incursion: to kill two birds with one stone. Earn lots of money and flood Russia (which US hates) with drugs.
- fedreserved 5y agoNothing like invading Afghanistan the heart of poppy production with a us army. You would imagine we could shut down the production fairly easy, if that's the point.
- pjc50 5y agoDefund the (secret) police?
- dcolkitt 5y agoI think it’s actually shocking how few people seem to agree with this. In particular, the speed with which most of the left pivoted to reverence for the “intelligence community” simply because it was politically expedient after 2016. How many times did we hear breathless tirades about how the president wasn’t “respecting” the recommendations of intelligence agencies, or leaking classified intelligence. As if democratic representative of the American people was responsible to the unelected agency heads instead of vice versa. I voted against Trump twice, but when you get to the point where not even POTUS has the right to challenge the CIA and NSA, you’re no longer living in a democracy.
- yipbub 5y agoI'm not convinced. The criticism against the agencies is that they grossly overstep their bounds and commit atrocities. Not that they have bad intel. Trump quite clearly saying whatever was politically expedient.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> In particular, the speed with which most of the left pivoted to reverence for the “intelligence community” simply because it was politically expedient after 2016. I think you are either confusing the Democratic center-right (whuch has always had reverence for the intelligence community and defense establishment) with “most of the left", or confusing opposing abnormally blatant political abuse of (and by political officials within) the national security apparatus with reverence for that same apparatus, or both.
- krrrh 5y agoHm, I think GP is talking about how the left-of-center media in the NY Times & MSNBC called out goons like John Brennan and James Clapper for lying in front of congress about domestic surveillance and then lionized them because they were convenient enemies of Trump. You can relabel these left-of-center outlets as center-right but that’s not a common perspective.
- sangnoir 5y ago
- DSingularity 5y agoThis isn’t an “oops we didn’t structure the organization with sufficient oversight” kind problem. Nothing gets done about it because things quickly devolve into zero-sum games when nations are involved. You will certainly lose when you decide not to play. The American oligarchy decided they don’t want to lose out on juicy resources to those who will play dirty so here we are.
- baq 5y agoplease suggest how to reconcile that with adversary nation states which don't have the same qualms about citizen rights.
- belatw 5y agoIf it makes you feel better more and more of this gets outsourced to spy and mercenary companies like Palantir, Facebook, Google and Blackwater.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Talanes 5y agoExactly, if you want to do something truly illegal, like dosing citizens with LSD, you need shady government agencies. But so much of the shady shit the government wants now is only illegal for the government to do, so much easier just to let a private company do their data-collecting legally, and buy that.
- kwdc 5y agoExcept that after you hire that model, you later discover she set up a multi-million-dollar per day cocaine operation to fly drugs into the country to fund her lavish lifestyle.
- vmception 5y agoScared money doesn't make money. I would mildly chuckle though. Mostly because of models and cocaine. Not the CIA off-balance sheet reference.
- vmception 5y agoAlternate comment as there are at least 3 women in the man's life in this scenario: A man couldn't decide which of his girl friends to stay with. As a test, he decided to give each woman $5,000 to see how they would spend it. The first girlfriend went out and got herself a complete makeover. She told him, "I spend the money so I could look pretty for you because I love you so much." The second went shopping and bought the man new golf clubs, an iPad and an 80-inch flatscreen television. She said, "I bought these gifts for you because I love you so much." The third woman took the $5,000 and invested it in the stock market, doubled her investment, returned $5,000 to the man and reinvested the rest. She said, "I am investing the rest of the money for our future because I love you so much." The man thought long and hard about how each of his girlfriends had spent the money, and then he decided to stay with the one with the biggest breasts.
- sneak 5y agoThe CIA hacked US congressional computers to cover up the CIA lying to Congress about the CIA's torture program. They got caught. Nobody got in trouble. There are at least four crimes in here, one being a crime against humanity. The CIA is not accountable whatsoever to the legislature.
- specialist 5y agoLegislators and agencies are antagonists. Based on my participation in politics. Local, county, state, but not federal, so YMMV. Think bureaucracy, the Deep State, ambitious climbers, technocrats, whatever. Observing agency heads run circles around elected officials completely flipped me from "yay term limits" to "pay electeds more, give them more staff." FWIW, I think everyone should run for office at least once. Folk understanding of politics isn't even wrong. Becoming and serving as an elected really sucks. Least of which is serving as arrow catchers for all of govts faults.
- dang 5y agoDiscussed (barely) at the time (of the article): Operation Midnight Climax: How the CIA Dosed S.F. Citizens with LSD - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3710624 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3710624 - March 2012 (2 comments) Also related: Others? The CIA's Quest for Mind Control: Torture, LSD and a 'Poisoner in Chief' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25182099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25182099 - Nov 2020 (174 comments) The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20938279 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20938279 - Sept 2019 (120 comments) The CIA’s human experiments with mind control (2017) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22976846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22976846 - April 2020 (48 comments)
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- nafix 5y agoIt's surprising how many people don't know about this stuff. I've brought it up to lots of people, and they get very uneasy when I show them that it's factual.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- beebeepka 5y agoI wonder what's the root cause for this truly prevalent behaviour. I find it off putting when a person is feeling uneasy and tried to evade the topic. These are serious matters
- chrisco255 5y agoCognitive dissonance. If people don't want to believe something is true, they will subconsciously reject it.
- skhr0680 5y agoI once had a conversation with a coworker once that went like this: Me: There’s a theory that the US government remote-controlled the 9/11 airliners and crashed them into the WTC to fire up arms sales that have been slow since the Cold War ended Colleague: Yeah, so? Me: that conspiracy theory is from March, 2001 Colleague: (uncomfortable silence) [0] https://youtu.be/FcZ6HXIOmYE https://youtu.be/FcZ6HXIOmYE
- fighterpilot 5y agoWait so someone predicted the date of 9/11 on March, 2001? Or is that something you've inserted that isn't reflective of the original prediction?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Mkultravictim 5y ago
- recursivedoubts 5y agoJust another crazy conspiracy theory.
- smolder 5y agoWhat makes you think this is false? I'm pretty sure this is not just a theory anymore, not for a long time. In fact, you can go read about it on the CIAs freedom of information act portal, on their own website. So it's just a "crazy conspiracy", a real one.
- alexnewman 5y agoHe said conspiracy theory. Not that it’s false.
- smolder 5y agoYou're right, I shouldn't have jumped from one to the other, despite the phrasing.
- Vecr 5y agoI think that might be the point of GP, that when people hear "conspiracy theory" they think "false", but it really means a theory about a conspiracy. This theory about a conspiracy has a lot of evidence supporting is.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- marrone12 5y agoActions like this and the Tuskegee experiments by governments are so horrifying. While I wouldn't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, it behooves all of us to have a healthy skepticism of government actions. I've gotten both of my covid shots but it's stories like this that make me more empathetic to vaccine doubters.
- pope_meat 5y agoIf it happened before, it can happen again. It's far to easy/comfortable to think that bad actions on behalf of the authorities that happened in the past can't happen again. They can, and probably will on a long enough timeline.
- mleonhard 5y agoI think Jason Russel was drugged [1] to discredit him and to warn off any others who would use social media to try to influence US foreign policy. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Russell#Legal_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Russell#Legal_issues
- Mkultravictim 5y agoThe craziest part about the CIA's LSD brothel is that the #2 man at the Bureau of Narcotics (which became the DEA in 1975) retired and then ran CIA's brothel for several years. Let that sink in. The number #2 law enforcement leader in the country switched jobs to secretly dose American citizens with an illegal drug. Laws for thee but not for me indeed. Second, the most eye popping factoid is that CIA installed two-way mirrors and wired their brothel to record the John's with the prostitutes. I often wondered where did Jeffrey Epstein get the idea to secretly record his elite pals frolicking with his harem of underage girls in order to blackmail them. Epstein wasn't even the first guy to come up with this idea. CIA did. I have done LSD several times decades ago. It is the most powerful drug I have ever taken. Nobody should ever be fed LSD without knowing it. I can see how a surprise trip could flip a switch in your brain and drive you insane, if you don't know what is happening to you. I wish most of all that CIA would scrounge up their "lost" MKULTRA files and declassify them and at least tell us WHY they ran this brothel and secretly drugged Americans with LSD. If we knew their specific reasons why, at least we could then forgive and forget. As long as we don't know, we can only assume the craziest conspiracy theories about treason and political control are true.
- luffapi 5y agoA lot of people feel that Epstein was CIA (at least sometimes). I mentioned the CIA trafficking cocaine through Mena Airport on the earlier HN CIA thread, but I actually learned about that researching Epstein. It’s thought he and Wexner were involved in the Mena operation. This whole series on Epstein and intelligence agencies is fascinating. This part focuses on Epstein/Mena/Clinton but it also explores ties to Trump and pre-Epstein CIA and FBI operations. https://www.mintpressnews.com/genesis-jeffrey-epstein-bill-clinton-relationship/261455/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/genesis-jeffrey-epstein-bill-c...
- skhr0680 5y ago> I wish most of all that CIA would scrounge up their "lost" MKULTRA files and declassify them and at least tell us WHY they ran this brothel and secretly drugged Americans with LSD. It would be nice to have proof, but I’m 100% certain the reason was “to see what happens”.
- encryptluks2 5y agoThere is also plausibility that Epstein was connected to either a US or foreign government sex trafficking operation to blackmail high-level officials.
- dorkmind 5y agoAs a Protestant, I struggle with being an effective Jew; being an effective Catholic, is, I'm afraid, just a bit out of my reach. I suspect it has to do with the creation myth of Protestantism. When it comes to synthetic telepathy, I'm a True Believer. God knows if I have Faith; the Tao is the Voice of God. And as for Zen, it cannot be spoken of. I will never be a Catholic. All of the LSD, all of the conspiracy theories, all of the CIA operations in the world can't turn me into a Catholic. And it doesn't make it any better that MTV is totally amped up and hyped up for a Catholic teen audience!!! I feel like Caliban and Prospero is the Pope and Loren Gray is Ariel. WHERE IS MY OVERWEIGHT GLASSES-WEARING SEXUALLY REPRESSED PROTESTANT DUTCH QUEEN?!?! WHO ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT KANT!!! JFC HOLLYWOOD CAN'T YOU EVEN SAY CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE?!?!
- trhway 5y agoThe article talk about 1957-1964 when operation officially ended. Unofficially, the stuff was happening as research by some private foundations/doctors/researchers https://theintercept.com/2019/11/24/cia-mkultra-louis-jolyon-west/ https://theintercept.com/2019/11/24/cia-mkultra-louis-jolyon... That MKULTRA's Jolly West is the guy who surfaces near Jack Ruby (of Lee Oswald fame), and Manson was visiting some clinic next door to the West's operation in SF. Talking about coincidences...
- hluska 5y agoThere's something really off about this story. The CIA apparently launched MK Ultra because they were concerned that the Soviet Union had developed a powerful mind control drug. They had to keep up so they launched their own program to do research on mind control drugs. If that's true and this was a weapon's program instead of some people with security clearances saying "Let's party dudes", wouldn't they have actually tried to control people's minds? In this case, you've got a US Marshall who went from a Christmas Party to a robbery over the course of a bad trip. If you wanted a proof of concept that you could make a well connected Soviet official do something, how much better of a poc can you come up with? I know this sounds conspiratorial and it is, but the CIA giving people LSD without their knowledge is a true conspiracy theory. I'm having a lot of trouble believing they'd just get people high, let them wander San Francisco and see what happens.
- Mkultravictim 5y agoI highly recommend the 2017 Netflix documentary "Wormwood", which is a 6 hour interview with Eric Olson, the son of Frank Olson. In 1953 Frank Olson jumped out of a hospital window after he got secretly dosed with LSD by his CIA/DOD co-workers. That's how far back CIA and LSD and MKULTRA goes. We still don't know what really happened or why. It's classified top secret. But Frank Olson's son describes a pretty crazy scene in 1953, with spooks working for DoD secret chemical and biowar programs involving LSD for research on involuntary American test subjects. This was still the 50's era where the Pentagon tested A-bombs in the desert and invited crowds to watch from a distance, in order to test radiation exposure on live people. Then the CIA guys started tasting their own supply and partying with LSD. Then they gave LSD to Frank Olson in a drink. There is still a massive classified history of CIA using LSD as a bioweapon. I hope we get to see it someday.
- hluska 5y agoI’d love to be able to see it and again, at risk of spreading false conspiracy theories, I can’t figure out why they haven’t declassified it yet. I mean, the DoD has practically admitted they don’t control the skies. How much worse could the MK Ultra documents be?? I suspect that the answer is “much worse.” This makes Get Smart seem like a documentary about the best case intelligence scenario…
- jonplackett 5y agoMakes you wonder what the secret services are up to now. This really wasn't that long ago.
- sam345 5y agoAppalling. Also certainly raises questions about the safety of LSD as has been recently promoted in some articles arguing for legalization posted on HN.