Slashdot Mirror
CIA Declassifies the "Family Jewels"
An anonymous reader informs us that the CIA has recently declassified for your reading pleasure some records relating to illegal spying, assassination attempts, and other goodies. These are available from the CIA's FOIA portal. From the BBC article: " Last week, CIA chief Michael Hayden announced the decision to declassify the records, saying the documents were 'unflattering but part of CIA history.' The documents detail assassination plots, domestic spying, wiretapping, and kidnapping... Among the documents is a request in 1972 for someone 'who was accomplished at picking locks' who might be retiring or resigning from the agency."
"We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones".
Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)
What exactly is your point? That we should stop giving the CIA the finger because Mossad and KGB and all the others were/are doing the same thing?
I think it's an interesting step to release all this information, though. Would be great if more agencies would follow.
What I find very funny about your post, though: Do you really think the agencies are there to protect the security and wealth of a nation? The nation basically consists of the people and the government. So this is at least partially wrong. The agencies are there to protect the government and its agenda. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether that is in the best interest of the public is a matter of opinion and coincidence.
The message this sends current CIA operatives: go ahead, do whatever illegal stuff you want because you're going to get away with it - in 50 years time we'll tell everyone and have a good laugh about it.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
There is one reason to keep information that old classified: Protecting the identities, and the lives, of current operatives.
Here's an example: Let's say the CIA's current operatives in Shanghai were all recruited by a long-serving operative there, starting back in the 1960's. If the classified information provides enough information for China to identify him, China can go back into their intelligence files and possibly identify people with whom he has had regular contact over the years, allowing them to identify the current operatives. This could cripple the intelligence network for that area, and possibly result in the deaths of many CIA employees.
They'll get my encryption algorithm when they pry it from my cold, dead hard drive.