7 ms·

CIA employee’s quest to release information ‘destroyed my entire career’

182 points by gluxon 12y ago

bowmessage 12y ago
It is troublesome that I am afraid to comment on this article in fear of my NSA_SUSPICION_INT rising.
- zipwitch 12y ago
  If you're commenting here, you've almost certainly googled the Tor Project or Tails, and have read at least one Linux Journal article, so you're already classed as a dangerous extremist and some NSA employee is busy seeing if your taste in porn caters to their personal fetishes.
  - JetSpiegel 12y ago
    I bet it does...
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 12y ago
  Don't worry. Just comment here, where the NSA will never see it.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    Although you are joking, HN does use https, so it's less likely to be caught up in a fiber tap dragnet, and more likely to require a scraping bot dragnet ;-).
- leorocky 12y ago
  It's not the NSA_SUSPICIOUN_INT rising I worry about. I am certain that individual monitoring of the average hobo like your or me (I don't know maybe you're actually a TOR dev or something) isn't happing, BUT someday you may become an interest to the police for something and THEN they look at your posting history and THEN they will find your possibly less sensitive comments on how you hated such and such and put some horrible out of context quote in big print on a poster at your trial when the prosecutor makes his case for why you should be in jail for the rest of your life for something you may or may not have actually done. And so I use anonymous accounts to post things other than nice happy words relevant to my job so they don't show up in search results. I create new accounts and stuff. I can be pretty opinionated and I don't want the average person googling my very googlable name and seeing my stupid uninformed opinions and using that to misinterpret me or something.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    - Mandatum 12y ago
      OT/ I'd really like to hear your story, even if you were to leave out identifying details. Were you using a pseudonym? What political area were you being "overly vocal"? How did they intimidate you?
    - e12e 12y ago
      If you're already the victim of intimidation, there are only two viable options: give up, stop making waves (not my recommendation, but I won't fault anyone for prioritizing their income/economic security/family) -- or be more vocal and outspoken. That's how such things have been stopped, and brought to light before. Eg, see: "Pete Seeger - Black List" for some historical context and inspiration. This abuse of power isn't new, not in the US and not in Europe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_IME9WsHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_IME9WsHQ
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - chatmasta 12y ago
    I would much rather post anti-government opinions with my name attached than anonymously. As much as we complain about the NSA, we do in fact still live in a free society with a right to habeas corpus. Should you ever find yourself at trial, where the prosecutors try to turn "anti-government sentiment" against you, would you rather it be written behind an anonymous pseudonym or your real name? If they're going to find it regardless, then at least with your real name attached, you have the credibility of your persona, which you should confidently feel is worth something to a jury. It's much easier to argue a case for freedom of speech when it doesn't appear you're trying to hide something. After all, who would attach their name to an opinion he didn't want people to know he held? Furthermore, I'm proud of my opinions. If I'm going to perpetuate them, I'm going to do it with my name attached. God willing, should I ever have to defend those opinions in court, I will proudly and defiantly do so. Hiding behind a pseudonym strikes me as needless cowardice in the face of yet manifest oppression. This anti-government, anti-NSA, anti-1984 rhetoric is healthy and valuable, but let's keep our emotions in check and avoid overdramaticizing the situation. We don't live in a police state. Yet. If we ever get to that point, I would like to have my trail of opinions to fall back on and use to defend myself.
mhurron 12y ago
> histories of long-dormant conflicts and operations that he concluded were still being stored in secret years after they should have been shared with the public. Ya, I'm trying to figure out what he thought would happen.
- sp332 12y ago
  That sentence might be unclear, but there are laws and policies that govern how long certain operations can be kept secret once they are concluded. Since the CIA has since published 1400 of the 1700 documents, it seems he was mostly right. Edit: this is clarified later. In the process, he said, he discovered about 1,600 articles that were listed as released to the public but could not be found at the National Archives.
jacobolus 12y ago
This is amazing: > The CIA disbanded the Historical Collections Division last year, citing budget cuts How much have we increased overall intelligence services budgets in the past 10 years? And they can’t afford to keep paying their internal historians?
- sp332 12y ago
  It seems to have been going down in the last two years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intelligence_budget#Top-line_figure_of_aggregate_NIP_and_available_aggregate_MIP_budget.2C_FY_2006-present http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intelligence_budg... Although it's still higher than it was in 2009.
cyphunk 12y ago
This is less an issue of an agency that lost sight of legal requirements to allow documents be released to the public than it is an indicator of an institution stuck with boys-club hierarchy where any questioning goes against the parental nature of things. And despite the washington posts desire to paint this with the same stroke they did the email cache from snowden, the two are entirely different issues. this juxtaposition along with how overboard the post went in considering "ongoing intelligence operations" in the snowden case, just feels like ass covering.
CitizenKane 12y ago
It seems like that as time has gone on, the intelligence apparatus in the US and closely allied countries has come to depend more and more on holding any and all information on anything. It's their leverage and it's their ability to control and influence events. Even small concessions are probably felt to be too much, and I imagine to many in the CIA and elsewhere, a cold war domino effect mentality still permeates. It's ridiculous, and it undermines a free flow of knowledge that our society desperately needs to function effectively. However, it only seems to be increasing in scope, and I believe the people related are more concerned about their positions and power rather than the long term viability of our country. Addenum: Perhaps worse, is that behaviors like this from the CIA, FBI, and NSA give ample diplomatic ammunition to every totalitarian and oppressive state on the planet and it legitimizes their actions. Even more so, they can argue that they were at least transparent about it rather than lying to the public. It's sad to think that a place that used to stand for freedom from oppression can more and more be used as a justification for it.
- esbranson 12y ago
  When was the last time you filed a FOIA request with the FSB or KGB? Or the BND or Säpo? Every totalitarian and oppressive state on the planet will find a reason to legitimize their actions regardless of whether or not America passes acts like the 1966 FOIA.
  - x1798DE 12y ago
    Should we also let all the murderers and rapists out of jail because they didn't commit genocide? The fact that the US intelligence apparatus is one of the taller pygmies around doesn't make it a giant.
    - esbranson 12y ago
      If its genocide you are worried about, best pay more attention to those committing genocide rather than murderers and rapists. If its freedom of information you care about, best pay more attention to the FSBs, KGBs, BNDs and Säpos of the world than the CIAs, NSAs and FBIs. But I guess you can't hate what you can't see. And I say that with the understanding that FOIA + CIA is probably as uniquely American as it gets.
phaus 12y ago
I dislike many of the recent revelations about the intelligence community's activities, but if this guy based a freedom of information request on information that he only knew about due to his access to classified information, then he did in fact mishandle classified information. You are only allowed to use classified information to perform your duties at work. I agree that there should be things in place to protect legitimate whistle blowers, but that doesn't even seem to come into play here. Then again, we don't know the complete story, so I reserve judgement.
- pyre 12y ago
  From the article: > Scudder’s FOIA submissions fell into two categories: one seeking new digital copies of articles already designated for release and another aimed at articles yet to be cleared. He made spreadsheets that listed the titles of all 1,987 articles he wanted, he said, then had them scanned for classified content and got permission to take them home so he could assemble his FOIA request on personal time. So, apparently the CIA said 'nothing classified in this list of titles' and let him take them home... only to attack him later for some of the titles being classified. If he isn't lying, then do you support the CIA punishing him for someone other agent's mistake? > if this guy based a freedom of information request on information that he only knew about due to his access to classified information, then he did in fact mishandle classified information So just knowing that they exist to create a FOIA request is a 'mishandling' if classified information? What about the 1,400 articles that were cleared, but were just sitting around? What about the fact that the CIA cleared his spreadsheet of titles to take home and work on the FOIA requests?
  - phaus 12y ago
    >If he isn't lying, then do you support the CIA punishing him for someone other agent's mistake? I didn't say I supported punishing him. I said "If" he did a certain thing, he would be guilty of mishandling classified information. If he didn't do that certain thing, then he's not guilty. In the course of handling nearly 2000 documents, it would be easy to make a mistake and accidentally include one that had not been approved by his supervisor. Going solely off of the information in the article, if he made no such mistakes, the fault should lie with his supervisor (If and only if it can be proven that his supervisor approved the release of information that he should have known was still sensitive.) I was just talking about the handling of classified information in general. From the limited information we have, it seems like this particular CIA agent was just trying to do the right thing. I was just attempting to illustrate that when it comes to handling classified information, it is very easy to make an honest mistake that could land you in a world of trouble. That's part of the reason I got away from working for the government. Too much stress.
yottah 12y ago
What did he think was going to happen? He acts like an idealistic and naive attention grabbing princess.
- pyre 12y ago
  > He acts like an idealistic and naive attention grabbing princess. Please put in at least a little effort to remain civil on this site. All that you've contributed to the discussion is: > He got what was coming to him. <insert-name-calling>
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  What has happened to us that "idealistic" has somehow become a slur?
saalweachter 12y ago
> In an interview, Scudder, 51, cast his ordeal as a struggle against “mindless” bureaucracy... I think this is wrong. Bureaucracies are made up of people. Some of those people choose to persecute whistle-blowers. They don't have to, they have a choice. They are not automatons. Blaming it on bureaucracy wrongfully absolves the individuals.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  >Blaming it on bureaucracy wrongfully absolves the individuals. I agree with the sentiment, but I think the point of calling it mindless bureaucracy is to emphasize that these systems themselves tend to reward this sort of behavior and punish deviation. Even if you punished all the individuals involved (which you should, because that's one of the reasons that these bureaucracies have these incentives), you might get a good organization for a while, but the natural entropy of things would push it back to something resembling the status quo unless you change the fundamental incentives. Frankly, I imagine the bureaucrats in general would be happy to blame it on "a few bad apples" and just move things along.
cheetahtech 12y ago
This should be pushed over to swintonreport.com. Not to push it as a site, but it does carry this type of pertinent information.
noonespecial 12y ago
He should have used parallel construction. Had someone else actually submit the requests for the docs he found that he figured should be public.
boomlinde 12y ago
Getting your home raided for submitting a FOIA request seems to neatly summarize the state of freedom of information.

182 points by gluxon 12y ago

bowmessage 12y ago

It is troublesome that I am afraid to comment on this article in fear of my NSA_SUSPICION_INT rising.

zipwitch 12y ago
If you're commenting here, you've almost certainly googled the Tor Project or Tails, and have read at least one Linux Journal article, so you're already classed as a dangerous extremist and some NSA employee is busy seeing if your taste in porn caters to their personal fetishes.
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  I bet it does...
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
krapp 12y ago
Don't worry. Just comment here, where the NSA will never see it.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  Although you are joking, HN does use https, so it's less likely to be caught up in a fiber tap dragnet, and more likely to require a scraping bot dragnet ;-).
leorocky 12y ago
It's not the NSA_SUSPICIOUN_INT rising I worry about. I am certain that individual monitoring of the average hobo like your or me (I don't know maybe you're actually a TOR dev or something) isn't happing, BUT someday you may become an interest to the police for something and THEN they look at your posting history and THEN they will find your possibly less sensitive comments on how you hated such and such and put some horrible out of context quote in big print on a poster at your trial when the prosecutor makes his case for why you should be in jail for the rest of your life for something you may or may not have actually done. And so I use anonymous accounts to post things other than nice happy words relevant to my job so they don't show up in search results. I create new accounts and stuff. I can be pretty opinionated and I don't want the average person googling my very googlable name and seeing my stupid uninformed opinions and using that to misinterpret me or something.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - Mandatum 12y ago
    OT/ I'd really like to hear your story, even if you were to leave out identifying details. Were you using a pseudonym? What political area were you being "overly vocal"? How did they intimidate you?
  - e12e 12y ago
    If you're already the victim of intimidation, there are only two viable options: give up, stop making waves (not my recommendation, but I won't fault anyone for prioritizing their income/economic security/family) -- or be more vocal and outspoken. That's how such things have been stopped, and brought to light before. Eg, see: "Pete Seeger - Black List" for some historical context and inspiration. This abuse of power isn't new, not in the US and not in Europe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_IME9WsHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0_IME9WsHQ
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- chatmasta 12y ago
  I would much rather post anti-government opinions with my name attached than anonymously. As much as we complain about the NSA, we do in fact still live in a free society with a right to habeas corpus. Should you ever find yourself at trial, where the prosecutors try to turn "anti-government sentiment" against you, would you rather it be written behind an anonymous pseudonym or your real name? If they're going to find it regardless, then at least with your real name attached, you have the credibility of your persona, which you should confidently feel is worth something to a jury. It's much easier to argue a case for freedom of speech when it doesn't appear you're trying to hide something. After all, who would attach their name to an opinion he didn't want people to know he held? Furthermore, I'm proud of my opinions. If I'm going to perpetuate them, I'm going to do it with my name attached. God willing, should I ever have to defend those opinions in court, I will proudly and defiantly do so. Hiding behind a pseudonym strikes me as needless cowardice in the face of yet manifest oppression. This anti-government, anti-NSA, anti-1984 rhetoric is healthy and valuable, but let's keep our emotions in check and avoid overdramaticizing the situation. We don't live in a police state. Yet. If we ever get to that point, I would like to have my trail of opinions to fall back on and use to defend myself.

mhurron 12y ago

> histories of long-dormant conflicts and operations that he concluded were still being stored in secret years after they should have been shared with the public. Ya, I'm trying to figure out what he thought would happen.

sp332 12y ago
That sentence might be unclear, but there are laws and policies that govern how long certain operations can be kept secret once they are concluded. Since the CIA has since published 1400 of the 1700 documents, it seems he was mostly right. Edit: this is clarified later. In the process, he said, he discovered about 1,600 articles that were listed as released to the public but could not be found at the National Archives.

jacobolus 12y ago

This is amazing: > The CIA disbanded the Historical Collections Division last year, citing budget cuts How much have we increased overall intelligence services budgets in the past 10 years? And they can’t afford to keep paying their internal historians?

sp332 12y ago
It seems to have been going down in the last two years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intelligence_budget#Top-line_figure_of_aggregate_NIP_and_available_aggregate_MIP_budget.2C_FY_2006-present http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intelligence_budg... Although it's still higher than it was in 2009.

cyphunk 12y ago

This is less an issue of an agency that lost sight of legal requirements to allow documents be released to the public than it is an indicator of an institution stuck with boys-club hierarchy where any questioning goes against the parental nature of things. And despite the washington posts desire to paint this with the same stroke they did the email cache from snowden, the two are entirely different issues. this juxtaposition along with how overboard the post went in considering "ongoing intelligence operations" in the snowden case, just feels like ass covering.

CitizenKane 12y ago

It seems like that as time has gone on, the intelligence apparatus in the US and closely allied countries has come to depend more and more on holding any and all information on anything. It's their leverage and it's their ability to control and influence events. Even small concessions are probably felt to be too much, and I imagine to many in the CIA and elsewhere, a cold war domino effect mentality still permeates. It's ridiculous, and it undermines a free flow of knowledge that our society desperately needs to function effectively. However, it only seems to be increasing in scope, and I believe the people related are more concerned about their positions and power rather than the long term viability of our country. Addenum: Perhaps worse, is that behaviors like this from the CIA, FBI, and NSA give ample diplomatic ammunition to every totalitarian and oppressive state on the planet and it legitimizes their actions. Even more so, they can argue that they were at least transparent about it rather than lying to the public. It's sad to think that a place that used to stand for freedom from oppression can more and more be used as a justification for it.

esbranson 12y ago
When was the last time you filed a FOIA request with the FSB or KGB? Or the BND or Säpo? Every totalitarian and oppressive state on the planet will find a reason to legitimize their actions regardless of whether or not America passes acts like the 1966 FOIA.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  Should we also let all the murderers and rapists out of jail because they didn't commit genocide? The fact that the US intelligence apparatus is one of the taller pygmies around doesn't make it a giant.
  - esbranson 12y ago
    If its genocide you are worried about, best pay more attention to those committing genocide rather than murderers and rapists. If its freedom of information you care about, best pay more attention to the FSBs, KGBs, BNDs and Säpos of the world than the CIAs, NSAs and FBIs. But I guess you can't hate what you can't see. And I say that with the understanding that FOIA + CIA is probably as uniquely American as it gets.

phaus 12y ago

I dislike many of the recent revelations about the intelligence community's activities, but if this guy based a freedom of information request on information that he only knew about due to his access to classified information, then he did in fact mishandle classified information. You are only allowed to use classified information to perform your duties at work. I agree that there should be things in place to protect legitimate whistle blowers, but that doesn't even seem to come into play here. Then again, we don't know the complete story, so I reserve judgement.

pyre 12y ago
From the article: > Scudder’s FOIA submissions fell into two categories: one seeking new digital copies of articles already designated for release and another aimed at articles yet to be cleared. He made spreadsheets that listed the titles of all 1,987 articles he wanted, he said, then had them scanned for classified content and got permission to take them home so he could assemble his FOIA request on personal time. So, apparently the CIA said 'nothing classified in this list of titles' and let him take them home... only to attack him later for some of the titles being classified. If he isn't lying, then do you support the CIA punishing him for someone other agent's mistake? > if this guy based a freedom of information request on information that he only knew about due to his access to classified information, then he did in fact mishandle classified information So just knowing that they exist to create a FOIA request is a 'mishandling' if classified information? What about the 1,400 articles that were cleared, but were just sitting around? What about the fact that the CIA cleared his spreadsheet of titles to take home and work on the FOIA requests?
- phaus 12y ago
  >If he isn't lying, then do you support the CIA punishing him for someone other agent's mistake? I didn't say I supported punishing him. I said "If" he did a certain thing, he would be guilty of mishandling classified information. If he didn't do that certain thing, then he's not guilty. In the course of handling nearly 2000 documents, it would be easy to make a mistake and accidentally include one that had not been approved by his supervisor. Going solely off of the information in the article, if he made no such mistakes, the fault should lie with his supervisor (If and only if it can be proven that his supervisor approved the release of information that he should have known was still sensitive.) I was just talking about the handling of classified information in general. From the limited information we have, it seems like this particular CIA agent was just trying to do the right thing. I was just attempting to illustrate that when it comes to handling classified information, it is very easy to make an honest mistake that could land you in a world of trouble. That's part of the reason I got away from working for the government. Too much stress.

yottah 12y ago

What did he think was going to happen? He acts like an idealistic and naive attention grabbing princess.

pyre 12y ago
> He acts like an idealistic and naive attention grabbing princess. Please put in at least a little effort to remain civil on this site. All that you've contributed to the discussion is: > He got what was coming to him. <insert-name-calling>
PhasmaFelis 12y ago
What has happened to us that "idealistic" has somehow become a slur?

saalweachter 12y ago

> In an interview, Scudder, 51, cast his ordeal as a struggle against “mindless” bureaucracy... I think this is wrong. Bureaucracies are made up of people. Some of those people choose to persecute whistle-blowers. They don't have to, they have a choice. They are not automatons. Blaming it on bureaucracy wrongfully absolves the individuals.

x1798DE 12y ago
>Blaming it on bureaucracy wrongfully absolves the individuals. I agree with the sentiment, but I think the point of calling it mindless bureaucracy is to emphasize that these systems themselves tend to reward this sort of behavior and punish deviation. Even if you punished all the individuals involved (which you should, because that's one of the reasons that these bureaucracies have these incentives), you might get a good organization for a while, but the natural entropy of things would push it back to something resembling the status quo unless you change the fundamental incentives. Frankly, I imagine the bureaucrats in general would be happy to blame it on "a few bad apples" and just move things along.

cheetahtech 12y ago

This should be pushed over to swintonreport.com. Not to push it as a site, but it does carry this type of pertinent information.

noonespecial 12y ago

He should have used parallel construction. Had someone else actually submit the requests for the docs he found that he figured should be public.

boomlinde 12y ago

Getting your home raided for submitting a FOIA request seems to neatly summarize the state of freedom of information.