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Internet Searches Reveal CIA's Secrets
GabrielF writes "In another blow to the reputation of the agency that just can't seem to get anything right, the Chicago Tribune used web searches and various commercial online databases to uncover a treasure trove of information about the CIA. The Tribune found the identities of over 2600 CIA employees (including an undisclosed number of covert operatives) as well as the locations of over two dozen CIA facilities across the U.S., internal telephone numbers, and information on 17 aircraft."
Don't worry, damage control is by default in effect as most people won't bother registering with the Chicago Tribune's website to read the story. ;)
Stuck down a hole! In the middle of the night! With an owl!
But how are they sure it's not disinformation setup by these organizations to throw people off the trail? I don't have much faith in our government, but I don't think the Intelligence Agencies are that stupid.
How do we know that all that info is not just a bunch of red herrings to throw us off the track and keep us distracted?
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
What the hell happened to the spy agency? CIA Agents now chat away on unsecure cell phones, check into foreign hotels using GSAs (US gov't issued credit cards), and leak every other intelligence briefing to the press. They might as well start a group on MySpace and issue bumper stickers and T shirts. The fact that Google can catch sensitive information means these guys have failed the test of keeping our government's secrets secure.
Any fool can criticise, condemn, and complain, and most fools do. - Benjamin Franklin
Quote from the Slashdot story: "In another blow to the reputation of the agency that just can't seem to get anything right..."
That depends on the definition of "right". CIA employees get more money and promotions if there is more trouble in the world. So, they make trouble. For example, the CIA trained Osama bin Laden and other Arabs in the techniques of terrorism.
U.S. citizens should not expect that ANY U.S. government secret agency actually does what it is supposed to do. The secrecy allows the purpose to drift off course, until it is the employees who determine what happens, not the policy makers.
Government leaders, such as U.S. congressmen and women, are allowed to know only the public relations information about the secret agencies, not what is really happening. In the name of secrecy and covert operation, the secret U.S. government agencies are allowed to lie. They place lies in newspapers and magazines the same way other P.R. is placed.
A government that sometimes acts in secret cannot be said to be a democratic government, because the citizens cannot supervise what they don't know.
--
Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?
The Gestapo was a secret police and its facilities were perfectly well known (and feared).
(Damn, I just broke Godwin's law...)
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Actually, you fulfilled Godwin's Law. (To paraphrase -- the number of posts in any given thread approaches infinity, the probability of an analogy to Nazism being mentioned approaches 1.) The only way that you may have, in fact, violated Godwin's Law is in your very mention of it, which may negate any "thread-ending" characteristics that an invocation of said law possesses.
I'm not too sure this article should be posted under "your rights online". It should be more like "the CIA's rights online".
... look, the poor CIA are getting their privacy invaded because people are looking at what they've been searching for!! :-(
Maybe the CIA could get a blanket, some hot chocolate, and sit down with the DOJ to share their thoughts and feelings about this invasion of their privacy. Perhaps then the DOJ might stop trying to demand search data from Google.
The CIA is changing. Give them time.
... complicated, and often the left hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. Its the nature of the beast it's riding. (well, technically, it's in the belly of the beast, or perhaps the cloaca if you are HQ)
o r-credible/
m l).
The following article explains some of the issues behind the Tribune article
http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/26366
The agency is
I have no doubt Goss is horrified. He just took over the CIA, and what GS manager would enjoy an outsider showing him a clear look at his department? And Goss hasn't had a chance ot fix things yet. THat is, if that's his goal...with the CIA, who knows?
By the way, didn't Goss inherit an agency that was once run by George Bush? It would explain a lot.
The CIA has other problems as well. The worse is that it facing some competition from private firms like StratFor(sorta like the US Post Office and Federal Express). It can't be much fun to be a world famous secret agency and having to explain to the Intelligence committee why you are being scooped by some small company in Austin,
For those of you who haven't heard of it, StratFor (http://www.stratfor.com/) is a private intelligence firm, with several hundred thousand customers, that is the CIA for multinationals and private individuals. It is considered somewhat more accurate than the CIA. http://seekerblog.com/archives/20050313/is-stratf
Hmm.. if the CIA is getting rid of people, that means they are hiring. I would like to apply as an intelligence analyst, or maybe an In Tel Q VC... (There is a rumor the easiest way to apply for a job with the CIA is write in on your computer and wait for ADVISE to pick it up. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.ht
... The Tribune has suddenly vanished without a trace. The offices are scrubbed clean, the files are empty, and there's a For Lease sign up by the building management company.
... Hundreds of families across Illinois have filed new missing persons reports this month, a drastic rise from the usual numbers. Oddly, a high percentage of the newly missing persons seem to have worked for the Chicago Tribune.
---- I'm out of your mind!
The Gestapo had a secret branch whose facilities were not well known. They were, in fact, secret.
There was also a secret police not allied with the Gestapo, because the watchers needed to be afraid of someone as well. These were completely secret police who answered only to Hitler and/or Goering.
Yes, the Gestapo also had a public facing branch, if only because in order to rat out your neighbor you needed someplace to go to do it.
Perhaps the CIA, rather than being remiss in their duties for having a publicly accessable branch, actually have some clue as to what they are doing by having offices and phones that the general public are perfectly aware of.
And, of course, in America, the people watching the watchers are supposed to be "The People."
KFG
Excuse me, the "failure got 3000 civilians killed"? What about the presidential security briefing, a month before 9/11, entitled "bin Laden plans to strike inside the US"?
And what about the US MURDERING somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 Iraqis, on the basis of no WMDs?
Now, unless you think that we've spent tens of billions of dollars on what, three? four? five? (CIA, FBI, NSA, Army intel, Pentagon Intel, etc) agencies completely staffed by clones of Maxwell Smart, the only intelligence failure, either through ideological blinders or deliberately for ideological reasons, is the administration and the GOP.
And the fools who voted for them.
mark
Isn't it funny how nobody wants to actually call attention to the FACT that Bush had warning that Bin Laden was going to attack the U.S. as well as intelligence indicating the intended use of planes as weapons. And he apparently ignored this. The OP is right. There was failure which got 3000 people killed. Failure by the President and his administration and the people underneath them who disregarded critical intelligence.
And people are surprised that there's supposedly secret information publicly available?
The CIA is on its own side. It is not on yours, or mine, or anyone else's necessarily. It is not even necessarily on the US government's side sometimes.
The article puts up some big numbers, but lest we forget a few things:
- The CIA is a BIG organization - it needs support personnel, etc. and they are not likely to ALL be undercover. Maintaining cover on accountants and receptionists would certainly be a big waste of resources.
- Most CIA positions are not undercover, including most analysts
The article admits a lot of this halfway down: "Not all of the 2,653 employees whose names were produced by the Tribune search are supposed to be working under cover. More than 160 are intelligence analysts, an occupation that is not considered a covert position, and senior CIA executives such as Tenet are included on the list."
So, in other words, the Tribune puts up a big number that is supposed to be shocking and then, after most people stop reading, admits it's not really that big a deal. The article does state, however:
"But an undisclosed number of those on the list--the CIA would not say how many--are covert employees, and some are known to hold jobs that could make them terrorist targets."
There must be at least one - given the example at the top of the article - but no one says how many. The discovery that 26 people are working at Camp Peary (AKA - "The Farm" of "The Recruit" fame) is equally unimpressive, as SOMEONE must work there for support staff, and the 26 individuals discovered are likely to be support staff, not trainers. The 17 aircraft aren't particularly interesting, either, as the CIA likely operates many aircraft openly. Big organizations like the CIA cannot maintain cover on EVERYTHING, nor do they try to, as this report implies
I'm of the opinion that this article boils down to the following:
- The Chicago Tribune tooting its own horn
- A cheap jab at Bush, which seems to represent "objective" journalism these days
- Sensationalist journalism - they put up big numbers, but those numbers are unlikely to actually mean anything
Many have jokingly said, "move along, nothing to see here". To be honest, I think those statements are accurate.
- Both agents were doing everything but keeping a low profile in the days before the evacuation of the German Embassy in Iraq. Apparently they had no problems mingling with the press.
- Both had websites with pictures of their current postings. For example, one guy showed himself with his family at his new post in Australia.
- Their websites had guestbooks. Other agents left "well concealed" messages on there. For example, one post ended with "greetings from Pullach". The CIA equivalent of that would be "greetings from Langley".
Pretty bad...