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The type of people Intelligence agencies need and use to accomplish their goals are also the type of people who tend to do these things.
by PedroBatista 4mo ago
The type of people Intelligence agencies need and use to accomplish their goals are also the type of people who tend to do these things.
- dolphinscorpion 4mo agoExactly, honest people would fail at such missions. A few million lost here and there is the cost of doing business
- sudoshred 4mo agoimminent danger pay
- iririririr 4mo agoWhat a disingenuous way of thinking. Not falling for this is the basis of much religious text by the way. Splitting baby in the middle, etc. But on the other hand, being a useful fool that blindly does anything for profit, Do seem in line with the people working in tech for the last decade. Yes, the CIA is a corrupt today as "tech". And no that is not ok nor required, or it ever was like that.
- testaccount28 4mo agolol "the extralegal spy agency has become as corrupt as the search engines!"
- iririririr 4mo agospies (and specially counter spies*) have a place in a State. My point was about the populous eating up the inevitability of those entities being above the law by default. * but is is sad we destroyed the most important part we can't even catch lowly thieves like this
- simulator5g 4mo agoThey have funded each other since the beginning of the search engines, so I'm not sure the distinction is very important.
- lenerdenator 4mo agoAll spies are bastards. That's sort of their job. In the CIA it might speak more ill of the guy who was arrested that he was arrested than that he (allegedly) inflated his credentials and might have bilked the military for leave pay.
- iririririr 4mo agoYeah, that's why in a functioning State you have means to control the damage. But now we seem to have accepted it is a free for all and just throw ours helpless hands in the air and hope we are next to enjoy the criminal bonanza at some point.
- lenerdenator 4mo agoDon't worry, this happens in functioning states, too. Well, the bastard spies part, at least.
- rbanffy 4mo agoFor some specific jobs, not all of them, you need sociopaths. Still, the agency should always provide them with adult supervision.
- fraserphysics 4mo agoWhen I worked at Los Alamos, the head of counterintelligence was a former CIA ops guy. He seemed warm and intelligent; just an all around good guy. In presentations, he explained that his job at the CIA was to exploit that appearance to ruin people's lives. He said his approach was to gain the trust of a mark, and then provide him with what ever was required to get him to betray things he loved. The presentations were effective, enlightening and spooky. So, I agree: All spies are bastards.
- sterlind 4mo agothe CIA is literally tasked with breaking (other countries') laws. tradecraft is a very similar skillset to being an effective criminal. think about it: shell companies, lockpicks, bribes, theft, blackmail, hacking, forgery. two kinds of people do those things: spooks, and the mob. the difference is why you're doing it and to whom. also, if anything the CIA is far tamer today than it was in the '60s.
- etrautmann 4mo agoMKUltra would have been a bizarre horror to experience
- rithdmc 4mo agoI'd move that up a bit! Iran-Contra was around '85, and that involved trading cocaine, which ended up on the streets of the USA, for arms. I think using the 60s as a comparison unfairly implies the CIA rehabilitated sooner than should be implied.
- thephyber 4mo agoI suspect the 1960s was chosen because it was before the Church Committee. Back then, the CIA had fewer restrictions about working within the USA.
- rithdmc 4mo agoGot it, thanks. The CIA's cocaine was still ending up on the streets of America during Iran-Contra, though, so I (in my very uninformed opinion!) don't feel like the CIA cared that much.
- thephyber 4mo agoThat’s debatable. It’s likely the cocaine originating from Colombia was going to end up in the US with or without the CIA’s help. Also, it’s worth reading about the journalist who broke the story about Contra-sourced cocaine making it to LA. That journalist is very often misquoted and when he was still alive he tried to fix the missing several times.
- sterlind 4mo agoeh. the shady people are supposed to be the assets; the handlers are supposed to be squeaky clean (on paper, at least.) but yeah, I imagine that a job which requires keeping secrets and breaking laws tends to attract people who keep secrets and break laws.
- rbanffy 4mo agoThey are not supposed to break laws in the US.
- FartyMcFarter 4mo agoThe mindset of law breaking probably carries across jurisdictions.
- rbanffy 4mo agoIt’s all about professionalism.
- saghm 4mo agoThey're not supposed to operate in the US at all. I'm practice I imagine that's mostly aspirational
- rbanffy 4mo agoLet’s say it should be avoided.
- filoeleven 4mo agoSame with NSA - they are not allowed to conduct surveillance of US citizens on US soil. Shit needs to be brought under control.
- burnt-resistor 4mo agoIn their minds, when (not if) they break laws, they should avoid getting caught... because that's all that matters.
- rbanffy 4mo agoTrue, but hiring someone then, later, accusing them of lying in the admission forms that should have been verified before hiring them is bizarre. I’m sure the CIA could come up with a better excuse.
- DANmode 4mo ago> is bizarre Only under the incentive structures you’re used to considering.
- rbanffy 4mo agoIt makes parts of the CIA look incompetent to the public. This is rare. It’s reasonable to assume they knew it from the start he was getting money illicitly from the Navy and they might have enabled it. This was part of the leverage they had on him, to be used if he ever became a liability.
- scheeseman486 4mo ago> It makes parts of the CIA look incompetent to the public. This is rare. Iran–Contra? Their cyber espoinage tools getting swiped? The self-admission from the US administration that the CIA failed to properly recognize and prepare for the tactics used in 9/11, in spite of ample forward warning? Like most intelligence agencies, their unaccountable power often gets mistaken for actual intelligence. That power makes them dangerous, but it doesn't make them smart.
- defrost 4mo agoThey also totally missed India's second round of nuclear weapon development and were blindsided by the tests: U.S. Intelligence and India's Nuclear Tests: Lessons Learned August 11, 1998 98-672 The U.S. Intelligence Community did not have advance knowledge that India intended to conduct nuclear tests beginning on May 11, 1998. Although intelligence agencies cannot have foreknowledge of every significant development in world affairs, many observers (and senior intelligence officials) believe that, in view of the election of an Indian government committed to "inducting" nuclear weapons, much greater attention should have been given to indications of impending nuclear tests ~ https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-672.html https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-672.html
- burnt-resistor 4mo agoConfirmed. CIA hires people with sociopathic/psychopathic tendencies and tries to hire them so they're mild rather than criminal in nature.
- kakacik 4mo agoHa, this was explored in some credible article here on HN some months ago, wasn't it? It made complete sense. You can't be a nice balanced guy doing work which often dips in shady stuff, sometimes being responsible for killing innocents, or in extreme cases one's failed actions can send some region into death spiral of some small or larger conflict. No, you need (relatively) smart folks for whom emotions are just a tool to use on others to achieve your goals. And this obviously has various side effects, some quite negative.
- chrisss395 4mo agoMoral flexibility if the term we use. Substance abuse is also, unfortunately, is a hallmark.
- jongjong 4mo agoI reject the the idea that these types of people are needed. It's probably that most of the people in the CIA happen to be like that because they're power-hungry and they're just selecting their kin and justifying their choices as "right kind" because they narcissistically believe themselves to be the right type... They're probably the wrong type. Especially if they all share narcissistic or psychopathic traits; it's too many, it cannot work.
- thephyber 4mo agoThe company hires people who match the company’s desired culture. If the people in the CIA who do hiring want the talent who are excellent at lying and compartmentalizing their ethics, then that’s what the organization becomes over a generation.