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Sorry HN for respecting all my NDAs and staying out of prison, but I will say, as a person who has spent much of my adult life working on classified intelligenc

Sorry HN for respecting all my NDAs and staying out of prison, but I will say, as a person who has spent much of my adult life working on classified intelligence projects, I am consistently amazed by how far off the public Internet perception of our activities is, whether that be capabilities or operations, but I am also occasionally amazed to find some crackpot theory in a deadend corner of the web that is actually an entirely correct guess. Broken clock effect, I guess. Sorry to say you're probably not the one making the correct guess. Just think of something you're a privileged insider to. How often is the public discourse abuot that something way the fuck off? It's no different when the topic is classified operations of the clandestine government. For what it's worth, the CIA is an organization I've never worked for and I have no idea what they're doing, but it's amusing nonetheless to see the first question being whether they still try to plant friendly stories in foreign press publications. This isn't even a classified activity! The Army has an entire MOS called PSYOPS where your goal is to influence foreign populations and cultural institutions in support of US military objectives. You can go apply here: https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/special-ops/psychological-operations.html https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/sp.... They're giving out $50K signing bonuses. This isn't some kind of secret. It's just the public-sector version of brand marketing.

snakeyjake 3y ago
>I am consistently amazed by how far off the public Internet perception of our activities is, whether that be capabilities or operations If the public knew the truth about what really goes on, they would riot. Not because their rights are being violated but because the apparatus is so mired in bureaucracy that hardly anything ever gets done so it is a colossal waste of money. Everyone thinks spies are racing across the globe when in reality they're stuck in annual training and can't go anywhere anyways because their travel card is maxed out and their expense reports are stuck in the system being processed. One of the reasons the Russians are so much more effective dollar-per-dollar is that they aren't buried under sixty layers of procedure.
reducesuffering 3y ago
> This isn't even a classified activity! The Army has an entire MOS called PSYOPS where your goal is to influence foreign populations and cultural institutions in support of US military objectives. It's even more apparent than that! They themselves made a wild Youtube video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4e0NqyYMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4e0NqyYMw

snakeyjake 3y ago

>I am consistently amazed by how far off the public Internet perception of our activities is, whether that be capabilities or operations If the public knew the truth about what really goes on, they would riot. Not because their rights are being violated but because the apparatus is so mired in bureaucracy that hardly anything ever gets done so it is a colossal waste of money. Everyone thinks spies are racing across the globe when in reality they're stuck in annual training and can't go anywhere anyways because their travel card is maxed out and their expense reports are stuck in the system being processed. One of the reasons the Russians are so much more effective dollar-per-dollar is that they aren't buried under sixty layers of procedure.

reducesuffering 3y ago

> This isn't even a classified activity! The Army has an entire MOS called PSYOPS where your goal is to influence foreign populations and cultural institutions in support of US military objectives. It's even more apparent than that! They themselves made a wild Youtube video about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4e0NqyYMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA4e0NqyYMw