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At CIA Starbucks, Even the Baristas Are Covert
An anonymous reader writes with this interesting story about what it's like to work at “Store Number 1,” the CIA's Starbucks. The new supervisor thought his idea was innocent enough. He wanted the baristas to write the names of customers on their cups to speed up lines and ease confusion, just like other Starbucks do around the world. But these aren't just any customers. They are regulars at the CIA Starbucks. "They could use the alias 'Polly-O string cheese' for all I care," said a food services supervisor at the Central Intelligence Agency, asking that his identity remain unpublished for security reasons. "But giving any name at all was making people — you know, the undercover agents — feel very uncomfortable. It just didn't work for this location."
... tradition of ticket numbers?!
When you live in a sick society, just about everything you do is wrong.
Intelligence agency indeed.
Yet the government (FBI) objects to our desires for privacy (Apple & Google on-phone encryption).
While they fund their black ops with drug dealing by moving cocaine and of course heroin from Afghanistan that they completely own.
Can we retitle this to "Treasonous CIA gets more taxpayer money" , or post an story exposing one of the most corrupt organizations in the history of mankind?
Okay, and what? Is that it? Starbucks at the CIA doesn't use names for customers, just like any other coffee shop in the world, or any shop for that matter.
News for nerds = Nope.
Stuff that matter: = Negatory.
Well they can be like rest area places where it has the name but other stuff in under control of a overall vendor.
If not for that then the Manger will have to answer to Starbucks and not the CIA.
my local SB even if they know you by name (I have long histories with a lot of coffee shops around here, most of them know me by name and how I like my coffee), none of them write names on cups. They all, for large orders (more than 4 cups) write what's actually in the cups.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Regular coffee is too cheap for them?
Can't we use 2D QR codes 3D printed on the side of the custom made drone delivered pumpkin lattés? I mean I've been told the game has changed so much that I can't believe anyone still waits in line for someone to boil water for them!!????
Maybe it's to give undercover agents in training some semi-real-world experience with giving false names with confidence?
Open up another register dopey. - Or are you purposely trying delay those guys from spying on us?...nah, I'm sticking with the dopey, cheerleader theory.
Anonymous coffee ?
But no US citizen visiting US web sites can be anonymous on the Internet ?
Private phone calls threaten National Security ?
Oh my God Buffy, they might find out you ordered a sex toy.
Or my fetish with kitten videos !
I thought that was a Pike's Place in Seattle?
Use Pike or Howard :-)
I thought undercover agents would be trained to conjure up a fake identity on the spot, even under duress, and keep it consistent with any information the interrogating party may have.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
How long can it take to prepare a cup of coffee-based food product?
I can actually understand this - suppose I was an agent and I made up a random name, like 'Polly-O string cheese'. If I used it consistently, a spy for the other side could do traffic analysis - things like " 'Polly-O string cheese' always gets a coffee, except for 2 recent periods of about a week each. Suspected agent X was reported as being in country Y, an ally of ours, during those 2 periods, and at no other time. Next time 'Polly-O string cheese' doesn't get a coffee, if X is in country Y, get the Y state security to arrest him.
If I were agent X, I would be very nervous at having to give any name, even if I could make one up each time. Humans are not very good at making up random things...
I'm a little surprised that they don't accept the rewards cards.
Why not have it randomly select a Starbucks store ID from the POS every time it processes a transaction at that location?
This is a very real concern. They don't want you to know they work for the intelligence community. They work in a submarine as much as humanly possible.
But on a more important topic: I have *never* been in a Starbucks that does anything other than call out the name of the drink ordered.
This story baffles me. I'm calling B.S.
Kriston
James Bond. And I'll take that shaken, not stirred.
What was I thinking? I'll just send Moneypenny down to fetch the coffee.
Have gnu, will travel.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that they're mostly psychopathic mercenaries and murderers -- on behalf of Big Bucks, not Starbucks.
Is this connected with the transition from Phase Two to Phase Three? Presumably it must have helped with recruitment:
"Though the coffee chain's specific plans are not known, existing Starbucks franchises across the nation have been locked down with titanium shutters across all windows. In each coffee shop's door hangs the familiar Starbucks logo, slightly altered to present the familiar mermaid figure as a cyclopean mermaid whose all-seeing eye forms the apex of a world-spanning pyramid...Remaining Starbucks employees earmarked for re-training are being taught revised corporate procedures alongside 15,500 new hires recently recruited from such non-traditional sources as the CIA retirement program, Internet bulletin boards frequented by former Eagle Scouts, and the employment section in the back of Soldier Of Fortune magazine."
http://www.theonion.com/articl...
I would call it the study of graph theory, but that aside, I used to go to a new donut shop in town but they tried really hard to always remember peoples names, i didn't like, I stopped going there, also of note is that a group of police went there one time and I never saw them again after they had to use their names, I still pass the place almost every day
also another food place had five people use the same name, and yes I got the order for someone else, i just kept the food it was close to my order
but they all use their loyalty program cards tied to their personal credit cards....
-- Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui
I don't even drink coffee, but when I go with other people, there are plenty of coffee shops out there (some Starbucks, some not) that ask for your name.
It stands out to me, because one of my co-workers ends up with 'Richard' on his cup, because he doesn't want to waste 5 min repeating his name and then trying to tell them how to spell it.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
"Because the campus is a highly secured island, few people leave for coffee, and the lines, both in the morning and mid-afternoon, can stretch down the hallway."
What a waste of time and resources!
For a group of people who likes to give the impression they are all super geniuses (and by extension deserve X 100 billion a year in funding), I would expect at least one person could have done some capacity planning and figured out how big the Starbucks need to be for that location. How about some accountability? Fire the person who planned this coffee shop. His/her mistakes cost the country the hourly rate of each person in line * the time they waste standing around.
And yet it still reeks of irony. The agents are nervous about being identified and traceable, except that's what they do to the rest of us every day. Every. Single. Day!
Oh I get it, they focus on bad people. But in the course of finding the baddies they are stepping all over everyone else. Funny, they used to be able to do their jobs with at least a passing reference to due process. Well, except for that Hoover thing...
2) You take the supervisor to the basement and put one in his ear. Also duh. God damn are we running an intelligence agency or a kindergarden?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I just get the impression that they're all just wannabe spies who wanna act top-secret. I'm not expert, but I'd be surprised if there was anything at stake with random CIA employees getting coffee. If there was, I'm sure the Agency would interfere swiftly and silently.
Public anonymity is important to people; a shocking revelation for the government to be sure.
These people to assert themselves like this. Oh we're all secret agents, so we can't give out our first names to the gal who makes the coffee, not even here inside our secret agent headquarters, it would be a security risk, and we're all about security and secrecy.
Ummm.. Starbucks #1 is in the Pikes Place marketplace in Seattle Washington, not CIA HQ.... somebody got their wires crossed...
A: Sugar with that?
B: Not at liberty to say.
I started using the name 'Bob' at the local Starbucks because of the pronunciation issue, not to mention I am a wee bit paranoid.
Just because I am paranoid DOESN'T mean they aren't after me.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
US Intel is NOT going to be happy that Obama is trying to pin the blame on THEM.
Expect more "Chicago Stye" bullets in the walls of The White House!
Snicker snicker.
then they have nothing to worry about!
So you're telling me that "security" people are self-important asshats? Who knew?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I'm betting its just the desk jockeys being precious, I very much doubt the real spies have any trouble with using an alias to get their coffee.
I've had lunch there, and it is pretty surreal how they have this normal mall food court in the middle of one of the most secure places on the planet.
But I guess everyone needs a slice from Shapiro pizza now and again.
even I use a fake name at Starbucks. Their undercover agents need a refresher course on espionage methinks.
Star Bucks
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Well for me at least it makes me uncomfortable at every location.
How about this. Since I don't know you and you don't know me; I will call you sir and you will call me sir and we will have a nice conversation between 2 people that aren't trying to pretend there best friends.
Barista: Can I get your name?
Spy: I feel uncomfortable with this line of questioning
Barista: Sir, I just want to put your name on the cup so you know when you coffee is ready.
Spy: I don't know I think answering this question could compromise my cover.
Barista: Sir, I swear I just want to make sure you get the correct coffee.
Spy: I need to push this up the line. Make sure I can get clearance to give you my name
Barista: Never mind your coffee is ready. Here you go. Would that be cash or credit.
Spy: Credit here you go.
Barista: Thank you Mr. Smith have a nice day.
I doubt undercover agents spend much time in the CIA building.
This would be more the Q's and Moneypenies and less the James Bond's.
The most likely problem was that for essentially no good reason everyone gave a pseudonym and much like people tend to pick terrible passwords, they rendered the system pointless by picking the same handfull of pseudonyms causing confusion and delays instead if making the process more efficient.
If they can't come up with a fake name to give to a person that makes coffee then I don't have a lot of confidence in their job performance.