22 ms·

The CIA employs linguists!? All of the things you've listed sound pretty reasonable for basically any huge gov agency

• gpm 5y ago
  > The CIA employs linguists!? Not sure why this is a surprise? They're in the business of understanding information from all over the world, in all languages... and are undoubtedly interested in things like "this accent means this person came from this part of the country" too.
  • mhh__ 5y ago
    Sarcasm. I hoped it was obvious from the second paragraph.
    • gpm 5y ago
      Oops, sorry. I read it as "well this one is surprisingly, but the list is generally reasonable". My bad.
  • jessaustin 5y ago
    It could be a surprise because they always blame translation difficulties whenever they fail to predict important events e.g. fall of USSR, 9/11, no WMDs, 12-hour Taliban flash-takeover of Afghanistan, etc. One almost suspects that they don't particularly care to get "intelligence" right since they have other priorities.