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What will become of the CIA?
- neonate 1y agohttps://archive.is/6k1FH https://archive.is/6k1FH
- cuuupid 1y ago(Archive: https://archive.is/6k1FH https://archive.is/6k1FH) Author does not fully address that the CIA effectively funds and directs the rest of the IC. They gate all infrastructure - from networks to satellites to drones. When Congress tried to limit their operations with heavy oversight, they spun out a brand new intelligence agency, classified its very existence, and spun out operations on that side for years before CBO caught on.
- Havoc 1y agoCould you elaborate / point me in the right direction on this? Would love to read up on this spun out operation
- cuuupid 1y agoMany would argue there are 2-3 agencies that fit this description but the most famous and clear cut is the NRO: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reconnaissance_Office https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reconnaissance_Offi...
- lowwave 1y agoSpun off to another subsidiary seems like the game here! Not just CIA. Whenever military industrial complex or bankers want a make over, defers litigation risks or just conceal ownership, they just create a subsidiary, spun it off with another name and/or hide the everything behind client attorney privileges. It also gives the public a memory wipe. Very clever technique indeed.
- firesteelrain 1y agoI thought NRO was funded separate from CIA not spawned off from
- eigencoder 1y agoThe NRO was not spun out from the CIA. It's a separate organization. The wikipedia article you link to suggests that it was not created as part of the CIA.
- egberts1 1y agoIf you remove government budget from an NGO and it cease to exist, it was never really a non-government organization, it is technically a government organization.
- sam_bristow 1y agoI believe you've got confused between the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) and NGO (Non-governmental Organisation). The NRO is very much part of the US government.
- egberts1 1y agoWrong article, was reading about NGO. My bad.
- bawana 1y agoThey ccreated a few private equity firms so they could get wall street suckers to fund their military and covert adventures.
- adolph 1y agoFrom the mind of Tom Clancy: The Campus operates under the cover of Hendley Associates, a financial trading institution. Hendley Associates is a trader in stocks, bonds, and international currencies, though, it does little in the way of public business and is not known to have any clients. . . . By intercepting communications between the CIA and NSA, the Campus is able to take advantage of SIGINT they gather and cross-deck to the CIA. This gives The Campus currency-trading troops the best sort of insider information, which enables the organization to make a ton of long-term money without anybody really noticing. . . . https://jackryan.fandom.com/wiki/The_Campus https://jackryan.fandom.com/wiki/The_Campus
- RaftPeople 1y ago> Would love to read up on this spun out operation It's called Treadstone, there are a few movies about it.
- JamesSwift 1y agoUhh, no? In what way does the CIA fund and direct the FBI and/or NSA?
- threemux 1y agoThey don't. This guy is talking out of his ass. They don't have the same funding streams (NSA falls under DoD for example) or missions. Hell, several IC members are military organizations and definitely do not fall under CIA in any way.
- red-iron-pine 1y agoyeah the NSA is straight up US military. It's headed by a general or occasionally admiral. located on a US Army base (Fort Meade). instead of each branch of the US military having their own codebreaking and SIGINT group the DoD decided to merge them and members of all services work at Ft Meade.
- cuuupid 1y agoUntil 2004 directly via DCI, since then via embedding officers in leadership across the rest of the IC. Today, NSA SIGINT still flows directly to the CIA. They are also the only agency without an independent mission, and must rely on the CIA or CYBERCOM to actually do anything with SIGINT (they are only allowed to gather) Also an open secret that the FBI and CIA often collude and any operation that they can’t get a warrant for just gets performed by the CIA. The FBI’s threat matrix is coordinated by the CIA and despite the Church probes their collusion has only incentivized and even been codified (eg NCTC)
- jonnybgood 1y agoNSA SIGINT flows to any agency who has a need to know. And what do you mean by can only do anything with SIGINT? SIGINT is a broad term that includes COMINT and ELINT, which many other agencies do quite a lot with.
- snypher 1y ago
- Animats 1y agoThe CIA used to be in charge of the US intelligence community, at least on paper. But since 2004, there's the Director of National Intelligence, who heads an organization with about 1700 people. They supervise CIA, NSA, NRO, and the armed services intelligence agencies, and control the flow of information to the President. They create the President's Daily Brief, which the CIA used to generate. (Not to be confused with someone's podcast of the same name.) Tulsi Gabbard is the current DNI.
- JamesSwift 1y agoIt should be heavily emphasized that pre and post 9/11 IC are two completely different entities. One of the biggest changes post 9/11 was a fundamental analysis of how our agencies are split up and how they share information.
- cuuupid 1y agoOn paper sure, but ODNI & CIA are interchangeable highside. The NRO is spun off the CIA, NSA’s network sits in a network gated by the CIA, and everything under DIA is overseen by the NSC which is “advised” by the CIA. They also control all HUMINT which is critical to the mission of nearly every agency. Would also mention the last two DNI were CIA directors. The two before that were NSA directors during a time where the NSA was largely controlled by the CIA and its leadership largely shared positions on the CIA’s senior leadership team.
- actionfromafar 1y agoThe existance of the President's brief makes me smirk these days. It's probably a 10 second cartoon now, if it's used at all. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/gabbard-considering-ways-revamp-trumps-intelligence-briefing-rcna209805 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/gabbard-c...
- IAmBroom 1y agoI always picture handpuppets. "Oh no! A missile is hitting Kiev!" (puppeteer makes sound of explosion like BKSHSH!)
- freejazz 1y agoWhen you say spun out, you mean that congress created another agency, right?
- colechristensen 1y agoCongress gave the president the power to create national security agencies with the National Security Act of 1947. Eisenhower created the NRO in 1960 (well if was named differently and renamed to NRO in 61) There have been several changes to the relationship of the various national security agencies and Congress over the years.
- freejazz 1y agoThank you for explaining.
- lazide 1y agoThe entire existence of the NSA was classified for a long time too (including that they had a budget). These agencies seem to go through a cycle where a prior agency gets noticed/public and starts to get blowback, so can’t hide anymore. This makes it more difficult for them to do some or part of their mission, so a new secret agency gets spun up to do the new hotness part - and their existence is classified, wash rinse repeat.
- colechristensen 1y agoAnd this is the American government functioning as intended! The president was given powers to create these agencies by Congress, and Congress regularly steps in to regulate and put into law various details of how they operate. Today's Congress entirely failing to regulate the executive branch and seemingly... uninterested? in doing so is troubling for the stability of the republic.
- dylan604 1y ago> Today's Congress entirely failing to regulate the executive branch and seemingly...uninterested? You say uninterested, yet it seems more like complicit. Both chambers of Congress are led by the same party as POTUS. They are quite happy with how things are going, and actively work to enable POTUS and his agenda. There are some things where previous Congress has put limits on POTUS that this POTUS is ignoring. If this Congress was really effective, they'd repeal those regulations so POTUS' actions would not run afoul of legislation. Instead, they are just ignoring the flagrant violations, and letting SCOTUS (also led by the same party) get involved with their decisions that POTUS has flagrantly pushed back against as well.
- dzonga 1y agoyep!! people tend to overlook how powerful the CIA is. it's probably the only gvt agency which can fully fund itself, answers to no one. can probably take down the president, or the whole congress and judges. what has saved americans is the CIA has been focused on foreign issues. once that might is turned internally there's hell to pay.
- NoGravitas 1y ago> can probably take down the president It is extremely likely but not proven that they have done so at least one time in the past.
- aredox 1y agoGood thing the current CIA director helped the current president avoid accountability for his first putch attempt.
- pjc50 1y agoForeign abuses eventually rebound on the imperial core. The establishment of more and more internment camps and the snatch squads to fill them is extremely alarming, even if it doesn't have a "CIA" label on it but "ICE" instead. America built a machine for overthrowing democratic governments in South America because they didn't align with corporate interests, and somehow pretends that this can be contained to only operate south of the Rio Grande? Ironically I think the extremely indiscriminate nature of Trumpism might be its downfall when the security agencies finally turn on him. I wonder to what extent USAID really was a CIA front, and if they're offended that it was burned down without consulting them.
- dontlaugh 1y agoJust because Trump represents a slightly different faction of capital doesn’t mean he seriously threatens the one the CIA is the paramilitary arm of, though.
- gadders 1y ago>>America built a machine for overthrowing democratic governments in South America because they didn't align with corporate interests, and somehow pretends that this can be contained to only operate south of the Rio Grande? It's been used in Ukraine and other Eastern Europe countries as well.
- jandrewrogers 1y agoIt doesn't work that way, there is a pretty clear separation between civilian and military intelligence. For example, CIA and FBI are civilian, NSA and DIA are military. This separation is both legal and practical. Some agencies are more influential than others but that waxes and wanes over time. There is always some agency in ascendency and another in decline. I've seen the centers of influence shift between agencies more than once. Your conspiracy theory is a bit overwrought.
- tedmcory77 1y ago"they spun out a brand new intelligence agency, classified its very existence, and spun out operations on that side for years before CBO caught on." - Do you have any details on this? Super interested in this.
- caseysoftware 1y agoIs this a defense of the CIA? The first half of the article catalogs decades of failures ranging from comical to catastrophic. "There was a time when the C.I.A.’s existential fear was of losing its adversary. In Al Qaeda, it found a new one; in Iraq, it created others. In Trump, it faces an adversary of a different kind." Further, calling the Commander in Chief its "adversary" is terrible framing.. if they're working against the elected leadership of the US, who are they working FOR?
- kevingadd 1y ago> if they're working against the elected leadership of the US, who are they working FOR? Unironically: Either themselves, or the American people.
- didibus 1y agoAll institutions are supposed to work for the people no? And kind of supposed to have some amount of independence for check and balances? To make sure none of them stop working for the people? That's what I always thought.
- throwaway290 1y agoThere's the "at the pleasure of the president" kind of thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_pleasure_of_the_president https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_pleasure_of_the_preside... These jobs are pretty big ones like CISA chief but it doesn't matter much how well you serve the people or whatever. It just matters how well you serve the president
- freejazz 1y agoI find it incredibly weird that people stroll into a conversation like this, basically flexing the complete lack of civic knowledge they have.
- throwaway290 1y ago
- jxf 1y agoRegardless of how you feel about the US IC, I think the systematic dismantling of the national infrastructure and capacity to govern is, to put it mildly, a serious problem.
- 0x5FC3 1y agoHow much is a foreign intelligence service tied to nation's capacity to govern?
- nine_k 1y agoAverting threats from abroad is sort of important. E.g. a more capable foreign intelligence organization could have averted 9/11, and with it, an avalanche of changes in the way US citizens live and are governed.
- 0x5FC3 1y agoI agree, but the CIA is quite out of line, quite a lot of times. Specifically in its current iteration, I do not see the agency being high up in the absolute requirement for the capacity to govern.
- margalabargala 1y agoWhat things has the CIA done in the last quarter century that you object to as being out of line?
- 0x5FC3 1y agoWe will probably have to wait another quarter century for them to be public.
- margalabargala 1y agoOkay, so then when you were talking about your problems with the CIA "Specifically in its current iteration", you were talking about what exactly?
- hackandthink 1y agoI read Tim Weiner's first CIA book and expect something similar. You learn a lot about the obvious and well-known mistakes and crimes. But I lack the basic sympathy for these organizations, if they were abolished the world would be a better place.
- IdSayThatllDoIt 1y agoIt's a nash equilibrium, the primary value of spycraft is opposition to hostile spycraft. It's like wishing militaries didn't exist.
- jMyles 1y ago> It's like wishing militaries didn't exist. I'm convinced that the evolution of the internet will bring this as well.
- ambicapter 1y agoI think the internet is making this problem worse, actually.
- jMyles 1y agoIn the short-term, the wheat and chaff are very mixed for sure. But I don't think nation-states are likely to survive for more than 500 or so more years. And the capacity for collaboration, innovation, and even perhaps transcendence into something like a distinct and more peaceful species seems to only grow.
- thrance 1y agoThe CIA does more than counterespionage. For example, Chile would be a much better place if the CIA didn't overthrow its democracy and install a fascist dictator, Pinochet, in its stead.
- marknutter 1y ago
- southpawxlix 1y ago[flagged]
- jMyles 1y agoIncreasing spending, taking on record debts, and spraying a small army of masked cops on our streets... that's dismantling?
- immibis 1y ago[flagged]
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoDon't forget 4 trillion in tax cuts going straight onto the national debt.
- thrance 1y agoSold to Trump's friends.
- smsm42 1y ago"Dismantling" is very far from what is happening. "Slightly reducing" would be more accurate - even if we concentrate on the discretionary budget, i.e. start with ignoring 3/4 of the whole federal spending - the projected 2025 spending is around $1.6 trln, where 2024 was at $1.8 trln. It is a cut of about 12%, which is substantial, as federal budgets go, but nowhere near "dismantling". If we dig further down and ignore defense and security spending (which is the whole point of this post, but let's go wild!) then it's projected that 2025 figure would be about $710 bln, down from $910 bln in 2024. Thats about 22% reduction (Trump's cuts, unsurprisingly, mostly go to nondefense budget parts) - again, a substantial reduction, but nowhere near "dismantling". In fact, the government, spending 7 trillion dollars per year, does not look "dismantled" to me, dwarfing the GDP of every country on Earth excluding USA and China. And this is not likely to change much in the rest of Trump's term, more likely these are the biggest cuts we will see and some of them may even be quietly rolled back later in the term.
- reginald78 1y agoCan't they just go back to selling crack cocaine to fund themselves again?
- yieldcrv 1y agoIn accordance with the Executive Order, sounds like great “budget neutral” candidates to fund the bitcoin reserve
- bamboozled 1y agoIs that going to be a good thing ?
- ml-anon 1y agoThe CIA spectacularly failed to prevent the US from being compromised by a foreign power. That was sort of its only reason for existing.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- cosmicgadget 1y agoYou're thinking of the FBI.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Animats 1y agoThe great problem of intelligence is that collection will tell you capability but not intent. During a war, capabilities tend to be used. Finding out that the enemy has massed forces somewhere or has a new weapon indicates something is about to happen. During peacetime, there's mostly unused capability, and preparations take place that don't result in actual conflict. Military assets are built and trained, but not being used. Intent may exist only in the mind of the leader and may change rapidly. This often frustrates decision-makers, who want intelligence to tell them what's going to happen.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> great problem of intelligence is that collection will tell you capability but not intent We had a pretty clear picture of intent in the build-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Different countries have historically been skillful in different elements of intelligence. American geospatial and signals intelligence is renowned. Our human intellignece, on the other hand, has been crap in the modern era. I would be wary about projecting the strengths and weaknesses of the American IC to intelligence as a whole.
- ArnoVW 1y agodon't know why you were voted down. You are right, the intent was clear, thanks to geospatial and signals intelligence. Given the amount of amunition, medical teams, blood reserves, etc, it was clear that they were not staging an excercise. Unfortunately the Americans lost all credibility after the Gulf war. History is a bitch.
- scythe 1y agoThere was already a war on the border of Russia and Ukraine in 2022. The Donbas conflict from 2014-22 took thousands of lives and devastated several towns.
- cess11 1y agoThe US hasn't seen peacetime in a very long time.
- runjake 1y agoIt's important to note that CIA is a very large, bureaucratic government. Perhaps the best example of the downsides of "big government". There are a lot of great people who work there. And people who innovate, but that's in spite of. It is the opposite of nimble, innovative, and adaptable.
- pphysch 1y agoAlways interesting to read these highly-selective histories of the CIA, where the most powerful clandestine organization in the world is presented as largely above-board and under-resourced. Apparently the CIA was struggling to find a place in the early 90s while its former director was the sitting POTUS and the USA was renewing its grand campaign to covertly and overtly reshape the Middle East. Sure buddy, totally believable. And no mention of the CIA's protection of 9/11 attackers from FBI persecution prior to the attacks.
- NoelJacob 1y agoNice try, CIA
- Validark 1y agoYou're supposed to say, "Not today, CIA" "Nice try, FBI" "Nice attempt at obscurity, Department of Homeland Security"
- herodoturtle 1y agoAnd don’t forget “$&773AjjaWj7-_£7f, NSA”
- tartoran 1y agoBhe flfgrzf ner frpher rabhtu. Hanhgubevmrq npprff vf haynjshy.
- droideqa 1y agoA good article that is critical of the previous book by Weiner ("Legacy of Ashes") is this article[0]. Here is a quote from it: "A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist has distorted what was said, why it was said, when it was said, and the circumstances under which it was said—all to support his thesis that CIA has been a continuous failure from 1947 up to the present. Weiner’s use of the plural 'final gatherings' in the excerpt from his account suggests he knows what he is doing." [0]: https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/blog/legacy-of-ashes.pdf https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/blog/legacy-of-ashes.pdf
- EverydayBalloon 1y ago"If a genuine emergency were to take place, and Trump tried to use the occasion to cancel elections or declare martial law, who would be able to stop him?" LOL
- cryptonector 1y agoThis comment was killed, and I vouched for it because the comment's quote from TFA is accurate, and its implication in TFA is that the CIA should be able to do something like, idk, kill or remove the POTUS, something that is quite nefarious. Pointing out that TFA does that is very much worth having here. Feel free to discuss.
- HaZeust 1y agoAgreed, but it's a good question. Will the will of the people do it - should we expect the will of the people, as a conglomerate, to make such a concentrated and calculated decision?
- cryptonector 1y agoWhat are you talking about? The subject was TFA implying that the CIA should be able to kill or otherwise remove the sitting POTUS. The CIA does not implement "the will of the people" -- the POTUS in principle does, and should, but the POTUS is an individual with his own will. There is no "will of the people" involved in this sub-thread. The question is: should the CIA have the capability and power to remove the sitting POTUS, yes or no?
- HaZeust 1y agoWhile correct, the implication of the quote in the article that GP shares is that of, “who ELSE CAN incapacitate the president in event of overreach on the status quo?” There’s usually 2 implied answers to this - at least in American discourse (the people - with an extralegal right to revolution, and foreign states - as an act of war). However, the author actually introduces a party that usually isn’t discussed in the conversation - the IC. I was just bringing up the party of “The People” that is USUALLY assumed the responsibility in hypotheticals like these, and actually challenging the grounds of doing so
- temptemptemp111 1y ago[dead]
- woodpanel 1y ago> But these days the threats are coming from above. Author makes it sound like democratically legitimate oversight is bad
- ashoeafoot 1y agoThe military industrial complex lies in ruins, the west is in full retreat while other empires expand in another great game and the CIA conspiracy theories where revealed as just left racism dogwhistles. Because of course , non-white people can not be bad acteurs , creating their own destiny and pursuit the original sin that is imperialism, racism and genocide. They are noble savages. Meanwhile , the agents of centralized incompetence aggregated, rainmade the public behind this conspiracy facade, by hijacking the stories of local developments. So tirrd of all this hyperbiased nonsense, that then turns out to be the narratives pushed by the working secret service of hostile nations. If you willingly turn yourself into a propaganda asset of a hostile foreign power, you should leave the democracy you reside in .
- ggm 1y agoIf it wasn't for "Felix Leiter" in James Bond, I think pretty much all non US views of the (fictional) CIA would be net negative. Probably the same can be said of MI5.
- gadders 1y agoYeah, this article hasn't aged well. It looks like a CIA briefing of a friendly journalist in advance of the Tulsi Gabbard releasing the evidence that the CIA colluded with Obama to lie about Trump/Russia collusion: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2025/4086-pr-15-25 https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-...
- LatteLazy 1y agoThe press release seems to conflat cyber attacks (of which there were none) with election influence (I think interference would be another phrase for the same thing?). But those are different no? "Russia tried to get people to vote for candidate X" can be true even when "Russia tried to stop people voting by breaking machines" isn't.
- gadders 1y ago[flagged]
- Applejinx 1y agoNonsense, he literally did that on TV and his current scrambling is to obscure that he is, not an Epstein client, but a collaborator.
- gadders 1y agoIf the Epstein files damage Trump, why didn't the Democrats release them?
- Aloisius 1y agoI'm confused, why would they? Administrations, as a rule, don't release recent criminal evidence to the public, let alone to harm a Presidential candidate and past President. Hell, for the Justice Department, it's official policy never to comment on an ongoing investigation or do anything that may be viewed as influencing an election (a rule that Comey broke). Never mind that the evidence would be distrusted and attacked for being politically motivated, but it would also invite retribution every time the party in the White House changed. It would create intense political divisiveness making it impossible to get support of a majority of the population - severely limiting what one can accomplish as President. Trump doesn't seem to care about that at all, but he's not normal.
- thiagoharry 1y agoThey will continue commiting crimes around the world. Do not worry.
- josfredo 1y agoAww, thanks for the reassurance! (Equally useful comment)
- cess11 1y agoIt's weird how accounts like this one forgets to mention how the CIA rebooted global heroin trade (as well as addiction at home) and gave it to italian mafia networks, and of course subsequent deep interfacing with such actors. Especially since it mentions election interference in Italy through those same mob networks. Perhaps it's easy to forget they early brought the fruits of their activities home and never stopped, or easy to believe that they only have effects abroad. https://history.wisc.edu/publications/the-politics-of-heroin-cia-complicity-in-the-global-drug-trade/ https://history.wisc.edu/publications/the-politics-of-heroin...
- jokoon 1y agoIt's true that if a leader betrays his own country, is that really a treason if that leader was elected? Democracy and politics are outside of the realm of the CIA and intelligence, because the CIA is under the command of the white house. It's true that Putin found a big vulnerability in the US by abusing its democracy, it's difficult to deny it.
- jonyt 1y agoThe article comes off as a laughable attempt to fire the arrow and then paint the target around it. For example the author claims about 9/11 that "the first attack had already achieved its aims: it dragged the U.S. into a protracted war in Afghanistan, pushed the country back into the moral swamp of torture, and, as a bonus, helped goad America into invading Iraq." Bin Laden was a fanatical mass murderer and his aim was to establish a caliphate. I highly, highly, highly doubt that he saw the attacks as an attempt to degrade the morals of the CIA (or any of the other outlandish claptrap that the author claims).
- nobunaga 1y agoBin laden did achieve what he set out, hurting the US, not just the CIA. You could argue that todays problems actually started with Bush and his cronies cheney et al. And while he poked the monster that killed him too much, America is not what it use to be. And you, underestimate people that are not of your own.
- jpadkins 1y agoYou should read the words of Bin Laden, pre 9/11. His stated goal was: "Terrorizing you, while you are carrying arms on our land, is a legitimate and morally demanding duty." He wanted to get the US in another Vietnam. He understood the effect it would have on the American people.
- msgodel 1y agoThe state should not have secrets during peace time. It's a crime against the population. I'd love to see all of these agencies gone.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ashoeafoot 1y agoA joke? Even without trump gutting the agency, reality of the us spiraling into isolationism and the great game resuming without the us and without us armament suppliers, reveals the Centralized Incompetence Aggregated organisation as just a public rainmaking scam. Its whole nimbus nothing but left imagination with distinct racist overtones. Has that mighty CIA ever existed ? Is it in the room with us right now?
- richardatlarge 1y agoA stupid, cynical ending with no insight. Better to explore the way the CIA could be used by an authoritarian like Trump. Everything in the NYer these days is NYer Lite. And the timing could not be worse.