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Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

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101–110 of 159 posts

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#101
post #87

> invited her to a pub called the Fuggle & Firkin Fuggle is a classic English aroma hop, released in 1875 by Mr Richard Fuggle. [1] Firkin is an English brewery cask unit, specifically one fourth of a barrel or half a kilderkin. [2] There used to be a chain of Firkin pubs in the UK, all of which featured Firkin in the name, e.g. Fettler and Firkin, Goose and Firkin, etc. [3] [1] https://www.britishhops.org.uk/varieti…

There are also Firkin pubs in Southern Ontario.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#102
post #14

to "the Farm," a secret CIA facility in Virginia where their grueling training included all the obligatory skills of what Fox refers to as "the Bond business": how to flip or crash a car; how to use a Glock; how to parachute; how to use a speedboat; how to withstand torture; how to use a grocery bag and duct tape to bandage a punctured chest; and how to commit suicide This is over-egging the pudding a bit.

You'd think the "commit suicide" lesson would just be "perform any of the prior taught skills not well enough."

Dying isn't as easy as you think, and being incapacitated in a an already-bad situation is immeasurably worse.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#103
post #87

> invited her to a pub called the Fuggle & Firkin Fuggle is a classic English aroma hop, released in 1875 by Mr Richard Fuggle. [1] Firkin is an English brewery cask unit, specifically one fourth of a barrel or half a kilderkin. [2] There used to be a chain of Firkin pubs in the UK, all of which featured Firkin in the name, e.g. Fettler and Firkin, Goose and Firkin, etc. [3] [1] https://www.britishhops.org.uk/varieti…

fox and Firkin in my hometown closed but the brewery there now rocks sours.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#104

I wonder how much of CIA spycraft has been made obsolete because of social media? In the past finding out who someone's family, friends, interests, political leanings, where they travel, and skills might involve sending a human to secretly follow them around. Now you can just see who their family and friends on Facebook are, look at their daugther's Instagram page to see where the family has traveled, see their comme…

I love this The Onion video that is a news report on the CIA's most successful project ever, Facebook:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqggW08BWO0

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm having trouble understanding how one can seriously consider NPR 'internal propaganda.' Their national broadcasts are like radically centrist and unbiased “Radically centrist” and “unbiased” are mutually incompatible descriptions, the former of which is compatible with propaganda favoring the elite consensus.

Radically centrist in that they go out of their way not to be liberal or conservative in an attempt to stay unbiased, sometimes to the detriment of the programming.

> Radically centrist in that they go out of their way not to be liberal or conservative in an attempt to stay unbiased

You can't go out of your way to avoid particular positions to stay unbiased. Going out of your way to avoid particular positions is bias.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife likes to sit in what she calls 'the Mafia seat', the seat in a restaurant that is best-protected by walls, etc, from behind, and that gives the best view of the rest of the room, so you can see what or who is coming. She's not in the mafia or allied professions, AFAIK, but I'd wager that similar metrics are used by the professionals.

This sort of seat is seldom ideal for those who need to leave the premises quickly.

As the article points out, back exits are critical. I imagine it’s not difficult to find a good seat like that near the kitchen.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#107
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

heh you were downvoted for that. Apparently someone approves of * An employer training their employees to kill themselves. * A line of work where employees may have to kill themselves. * Dying for the US government (more like actually the interests of the elites) and the "greater good". How is that different from the indoctrination of suicide bombers? Before someone retorts with "because they kill innocent civilians"…

> How is that different from the indoctrination of suicide bombers? Presumably the CIA mission is not dependent on the agent's suicide. This is an action taken in a worst-case scenario to avoid torture.

Right. They’re going to be killed anyway after immeasurable misery and betraying their contacts, so best to end it themselves.

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#108
post #9

I found this title subtly wrong, and it took me a little while to realize why: my accent doesn't have the Mary–marry–merry merger, so "Be Wary" and "Be Merry" don't rhyme for me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes...

As someone who does have this merger, which one (of Mary/marry/merry) does "wary" most resemble for you?

Mary

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is—no joke—one of the main reasons why tech companies feed their employees on campus.

I don't get that. I don't bring my laptop to lunch even in the office. Prior to this job, I had neither a laptop nor (paid) on-site lunch.

The GP is pointing out that companies may improve security by providing employees food on-site which reduces the exposure of business information to people who do not work for the company (insofar as people with access to the on-site food are a proxy for people employed by the company).

Re: Eat, Drink and Be Wary: Ex-CIA Officer Reveals How Eateries Are Key to Spycraft

#110

Interesting that one passed on SIS (the traditional tap on the shoulder by a don) I was surprised that the CIA will take dual nationals on as Officers.

> I was surprised that the CIA will take dual nationals on as Officers.

You keep your citizenship but cannot carry two passports.

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