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Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.

nytimes.com

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Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.

#31

Post by law »

law wrote: post #7
jdp23 wrote: post #4

"Over the past two years, he has fielded operatives in the mountains of Pakistan and the desert badlands of Afghanistan. Since the United States military cut off his funding in May, he has relied on like-minded private donors to pay his agents to continue gathering information about militant fighters, Taliban leaders and the secrets of Kabul’s ruling class." Sounds like the government is now outsourcing paying for pr…

Actually, this is a terrific idea from the oversight and human rights perspectives. Let's consider a hypothetical for-profit corporation to which the government would outsource these operations. Under a broken system (what we have now), the management of these companies would have some sort of non-business relationship with the government officials responsible for awarding the contracts. Moreover, these companies, un…

It looks like everyone missed the point of this post. I'm advocating for transparency in the companies with which we contract regarding their day-to-day operations, their budgets, etc. For-profit corporations have an economic incentive to remain frugal, which comes, in part, from external government pressure. My point is that the government does not have the equivalent financial oversight that corporations have.

Any questions of classified operations is completely irrelevant; of course you won't be able to load profiles of all spies à la tv shows like '24'.

Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.

#32

Post by tsotha »

shkb wrote: post #16
tsotha wrote: post #9

We probably need outfits like this. The CIA seems to have completely lost the ability to do human intelligence. They get punished when they deal with unsavory characters, which is a necessity in that business. So they don't bother, and rely instead on signals intelligence. Nobody ever got fired at CIA running a program to listen in on jihadi phone calls. But you're not going to pick up everything through signals inte…

Specifically they got their asses handed to them by the Soviets in human intelligence, and choose to do what they were good at. But why would you need a group like this, with all the problems of privatizing intelligence operations? Would reform be a better choice? Or the acknowledge that the disadvantages of covert operations are great enough to find an alternative (similar to how the disadvantages of conventional wa…

The problem is "reform" is what got us where we are today. When a human intelligence operation blows up it's embarrassing. Congress gets involved "reforming" things. So you get stupid rules like "The CIA can never pay someone who's been accused of human rights violations".

People genuinely put the interests of their country first and they get hung out to dry after the next election cycle. So the people who survive do what risk-averse bureaucracies always do: nothing.

Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.

#33

Post by jimmybot »

brandnewlow wrote: post #3

I met Clarridge during college. I took a class taught by an ex-spook where we read spy novels and talked about the ethical dilemmas involved. We read Clarridge's autobiography, "A Spy for all Seasons" and then he came and glowered at us for 3 hours and answered questions. He really doesn't like the CIA these days anymore. If you're interested in this sort of thing, his book's pretty darn good: http://www.amazon.com/S…

Clarridge denies Pinochet caused thousands to disappear or be murdered under his dictatorship. He also calls Amnesty International a propaganda mill. Judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84

The end of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84#t=2m20s

Reminds me that I can't handle the truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY#t=1m36s

Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.

#34

Post by ilamont »

It is difficult to assess the merits of Mr. Clarridge’s secret intelligence dispatches; a review of some of the documents by The Times shows that some appear to be based on rumors from talk at village bazaars or rehashes of press reports.

Actually, the New York Times could have gone back to older dispatches and evaluated whether the bazaar-based predictions came true, or were otherwise accurate.

The danger of using such information is much of it is not true, greatly exaggerated, subjective, etc., but is nevertheless being taken seriously by some military, diplomatic and intelligence staff and helping drive strategy and tactics on the ground. This potentially creates even more problems, misunderstandings, and mistrust and can even lead to unnecessary death and destruction.

Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.

#35

Post by hnhg »

law wrote: post #31
law wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this is a terrific idea from the oversight and human rights perspectives. Let's consider a hypothetical for-profit corporation to which the government would outsource these operations. Under a broken system (what we have now), the management of these companies would have some sort of non-business relationship with the government officials responsible for awarding the contracts. Moreover, these companies, un…

It looks like everyone missed the point of this post. I'm advocating for transparency in the companies with which we contract regarding their day-to-day operations, their budgets, etc. For-profit corporations have an economic incentive to remain frugal, which comes, in part, from external government pressure. My point is that the government does not have the equivalent financial oversight that corporations have. Any…

I think everyone did get your point, but you've not addressed the problems that people have mentioned. Just hand-waving and saying 'transparency' is not convincing.

Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.

#36

Post by Confusion »

jimmybot wrote: post #33
brandnewlow wrote: post #3

I met Clarridge during college. I took a class taught by an ex-spook where we read spy novels and talked about the ethical dilemmas involved. We read Clarridge's autobiography, "A Spy for all Seasons" and then he came and glowered at us for 3 hours and answered questions. He really doesn't like the CIA these days anymore. If you're interested in this sort of thing, his book's pretty darn good: http://www.amazon.com/S…

Clarridge denies Pinochet caused thousands to disappear or be murdered under his dictatorship. He also calls Amnesty International a propaganda mill. Judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84 The end of the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84#t=2m20s Reminds me that I can't handle the truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY#t=1m36s

A good reminder that anyone can suffer from unexpected loopy opinions about some stuff. You can't take anything at face value.

Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.

#37

Post by law »

shkb wrote: post #29
law wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was pretty much the point of my comment. Non-classified companies get that status because of their corporate structure. The hypothetical company that I referenced would be structured such that being classified would be impossible.

So what would they be doing, unclassified spying? How would you advertise and award contracts for matters you want no one to know about?

The same way companies contract with other service providers without disclosing secrets. Companies do this all the time: obviously they can't give away all the details about whatever it is they're doing, so they either do it in-house, or they reveal the minimal information necessary to attract candidates, and use non-disclosure agreements to begin discussing the rest of the details. This is absolutely something that contract law could handle.

So what issues do you see? Oh right: the over-arching theme of corruption. However, I addressed that in my initial post; the only way we can get to a point where government efficiency is no longer questioned is by eliminating corruption.

I think one way to reduce corruption is to decrease the government's size, but that of course leads to situations like those we presently face. There will always be corrupt politicians who award contracts to their friends in return for some sort of illegal remuneration, but I think by reducing the number of politicians/government employees with the power to make those decisions, we will lower the amount of corruption present.

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