4 ms·

Are the CIA basically the not-so-bad guys now? Seems like they haven't been busted for doing anything super-nasty lately.

cglace 13y ago
They are too busy toppling countries.
rdl 13y ago
Aside from running drones everywhere except Afghanistan itself (and even there I assume they run some). All those Pakistan, Yemen, etc. civilian casualties due to drones = CIA. And secret prisons, both gitmo and worse ("black sites", many of which are still unknown to the public.) Ongoing.
joshAg 13y ago
no the nsa is still cuter, cuddlier, and less deadly than the cia.
- fakeer 13y ago
  There was some novel where I read NSA has their own resident tough guys. was that pure fiction?
  - rdl 13y ago
    There are plenty of military assigned to NSA, to do things like operate SIGINT aircraft, or handle key distribution to the military on the COMSEC side. NSA doesn't do much field intelligence stuff; it's mainly radio/etc. intercepts on military bases, aircraft, ships, etc. Their regular site security is either military or contracted out to Wackenhut or other private security companies, after all (which is apparently what one of Snowden's early jobs was). The real tough guys of the signals world are the Army's ISA, who do tactical sigint and killing, all in one. I'm sure ISA and NSA cooperate a lot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_Support_Activity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_Support_Activity They're the guys who caught Pablo Escobar. Essentially the most secretive of the tier-1 JSOC units. IMO, the world's most awesome job for a bofh sysadmin -- you get to listen in to enemy communications, and use their improper security procedures to find them, and then punish them (by killing them).
    - dfc 13y ago
      The real ____ guys of the... You can fill in that blank with just about any superlative and it fits. My dream job would be to work for the secret army of northern virginia.
  - rl3 13y ago
    Ubisoft dropped Michael Ironside from the Splinter Cell franchise, so I'm pretty sure NSA has no tough guys left now.
  - wisty 13y ago
    Probably fiction. The NSA might use its black budget to fund tough guys (paying the payroll and overhead), but they'd probably be trained and managed by the CIA and / or military, as part of some joint operation. It's very common for public officials to get too much money, and not be able to spend it. So they find another agency which wants the money, and organise some kind of joint operation. It keeps their spending nice and robust (so the bean counters don't realise they don't need all that money), and the other side gets the resources they need. It's win-win (for everyone but the taxpayers).
krapp 13y ago
The NSA are the nerds, the CIA are the jocks.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
tptacek 13y ago
You mean besides running the secret prisons? It's exactly the opposite for me; I can deal with the NSA overreaching on surveillance (so long as they occasionally get slapped back), but the CIA is a national embarrassment.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jlgreco 13y ago
Take everything negative that you have ever heard about the CIA. Now consider that the victors write the history books and the CIA records have not yet been seized and poured over. Both those things considered together should paint a rather chilling picture. Never underestimate the crimes of the CIA. We will likely never live to see the full extent of their atrocities.
- rdl 13y ago
  OTOH, the CIA has some incentive to being known as ineffectual. If enemies underestimate them, the mission of the CIA will be easier. OTOH, as far as I can tell, to call them ineffectual from ~1989 until ~2000s sometime would be excessively kind. So maybe they did also suck before that as well, but I think the end of the Cold War and political turnover after GHWB really gutted them, and it wasn't until they remade themselves as a black site operating, drone killing paramilitary group that they came back.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    If the CIA has an incentive to be known as ineffectual, then I can only conclude that I am most likely assuming that they are incapable of far less than they actually are. The idea that I am underestimating their vile capacity only serves to disturb me further.
  - EthanHeilman 13y ago
    They have very strong institutional motives to be seen as highly-competent. A cynical view would be to think of intelligence agencies as semi-rational actors attempting to capture as much of the budget as possible with secrecy reducing all the costs of getting caught lying (think FEMA with no transparency and machine that prints get out of jail free cards). The cynical view is never fully accurate, sometimes it isn't accurate at all because organisations always include idealist/true believers/patriots. Organisations which don't include idealists tend to weed themselves out pretty quickly and collapse.
    - rdl 13y ago

cglace 13y ago

They are too busy toppling countries.

rdl 13y ago

Aside from running drones everywhere except Afghanistan itself (and even there I assume they run some). All those Pakistan, Yemen, etc. civilian casualties due to drones = CIA. And secret prisons, both gitmo and worse ("black sites", many of which are still unknown to the public.) Ongoing.

joshAg 13y ago

no the nsa is still cuter, cuddlier, and less deadly than the cia.

fakeer 13y ago
There was some novel where I read NSA has their own resident tough guys. was that pure fiction?
- rdl 13y ago
  There are plenty of military assigned to NSA, to do things like operate SIGINT aircraft, or handle key distribution to the military on the COMSEC side. NSA doesn't do much field intelligence stuff; it's mainly radio/etc. intercepts on military bases, aircraft, ships, etc. Their regular site security is either military or contracted out to Wackenhut or other private security companies, after all (which is apparently what one of Snowden's early jobs was). The real tough guys of the signals world are the Army's ISA, who do tactical sigint and killing, all in one. I'm sure ISA and NSA cooperate a lot. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_Support_Activity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_Support_Activity They're the guys who caught Pablo Escobar. Essentially the most secretive of the tier-1 JSOC units. IMO, the world's most awesome job for a bofh sysadmin -- you get to listen in to enemy communications, and use their improper security procedures to find them, and then punish them (by killing them).
  - dfc 13y ago
    The real ____ guys of the... You can fill in that blank with just about any superlative and it fits. My dream job would be to work for the secret army of northern virginia.
- rl3 13y ago
  Ubisoft dropped Michael Ironside from the Splinter Cell franchise, so I'm pretty sure NSA has no tough guys left now.
- wisty 13y ago
  Probably fiction. The NSA might use its black budget to fund tough guys (paying the payroll and overhead), but they'd probably be trained and managed by the CIA and / or military, as part of some joint operation. It's very common for public officials to get too much money, and not be able to spend it. So they find another agency which wants the money, and organise some kind of joint operation. It keeps their spending nice and robust (so the bean counters don't realise they don't need all that money), and the other side gets the resources they need. It's win-win (for everyone but the taxpayers).

krapp 13y ago

The NSA are the nerds, the CIA are the jocks.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

tptacek 13y ago

You mean besides running the secret prisons? It's exactly the opposite for me; I can deal with the NSA overreaching on surveillance (so long as they occasionally get slapped back), but the CIA is a national embarrassment.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

jlgreco 13y ago

Take everything negative that you have ever heard about the CIA. Now consider that the victors write the history books and the CIA records have not yet been seized and poured over. Both those things considered together should paint a rather chilling picture. Never underestimate the crimes of the CIA. We will likely never live to see the full extent of their atrocities.

rdl 13y ago
OTOH, the CIA has some incentive to being known as ineffectual. If enemies underestimate them, the mission of the CIA will be easier. OTOH, as far as I can tell, to call them ineffectual from ~1989 until ~2000s sometime would be excessively kind. So maybe they did also suck before that as well, but I think the end of the Cold War and political turnover after GHWB really gutted them, and it wasn't until they remade themselves as a black site operating, drone killing paramilitary group that they came back.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  If the CIA has an incentive to be known as ineffectual, then I can only conclude that I am most likely assuming that they are incapable of far less than they actually are. The idea that I am underestimating their vile capacity only serves to disturb me further.
- EthanHeilman 13y ago
  They have very strong institutional motives to be seen as highly-competent. A cynical view would be to think of intelligence agencies as semi-rational actors attempting to capture as much of the budget as possible with secrecy reducing all the costs of getting caught lying (think FEMA with no transparency and machine that prints get out of jail free cards). The cynical view is never fully accurate, sometimes it isn't accurate at all because organisations always include idealist/true believers/patriots. Organisations which don't include idealists tend to weed themselves out pretty quickly and collapse.
  - rdl 13y ago