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America’s Open Wound

edwardsnowden.substack.com

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Re: America’s Open Wound

#21

Post by dfxm12 »

banannaise wrote: post #6
hunglee2 wrote: post #3

it is not clear what could be done should an intelligence agency turn rogue, and become operationally independent from the government. It's basically a non-democratic power centre which - because it is not subject to elections - will always outlast any politician, and because of the nature of the work, has vast powers of direct and indirect influence. Good job that this is not the case in the US

It gets extra fun when you realize that all of this also applies to the police.

Most of it applies to the Supreme Court as well.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#22

Post by dvt »

A bit hypocritical of Snowden to criticize the USA while holed up in Russia. But maybe I'm a bit partial considering the USSR destroyed every semblance of culture and national identity in my home country, causing generations of corruption and trauma, and ultimately emboldening my family to move to the States--abandoning lifelong friends and family--where a much better life was possible.

But please, keep lecturing us on how the US is "problematic." It's highly indicative that someone hasn't lived even a remotely hard life (nor traveled extensively, at least not without a US passport) when their criticism of the US is so paper thin. We get it: US imperialism bad, CIA evil, etc. But boy am I happy (not to mention proud) to be an American.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#23

Post by HideousKojima »

pavlov wrote: post #12
hunglee2 wrote: post #3

it is not clear what could be done should an intelligence agency turn rogue, and become operationally independent from the government. It's basically a non-democratic power centre which - because it is not subject to elections - will always outlast any politician, and because of the nature of the work, has vast powers of direct and indirect influence. Good job that this is not the case in the US

Russia is basically a country that was taken over by a rogue intelligence agency. Putin is a KGB man through and through. Ironic that Snowden found his sanctuary there. He's presumably a Russian citizen now — at least he applied for citizenship in November 2020.

>Ironic that Snowden found his sanctuary there.

It wasn't really by choice, as I understand it he was trying to relocate to South America. And given events like grounding the plane of a head of state because they suspected Snowden was on board I can't say I'm surprised he hasn't tried to relocate to elsewhere.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#25

Post by webdoodle »

TeeMassive wrote: post #14
hunglee2 wrote: post #3

it is not clear what could be done should an intelligence agency turn rogue, and become operationally independent from the government. It's basically a non-democratic power centre which - because it is not subject to elections - will always outlast any politician, and because of the nature of the work, has vast powers of direct and indirect influence. Good job that this is not the case in the US

Congress can simply cut their budget. The President can fire who he wants in the executive branch. Talk about it in the court of public opinion. Discourage "voting X no matter who" and focus on issues rather than sides.

The CIA has significant 'public/private' partnerships with thousands of companies and NGO's and non-profits. It might hurt the face of the CIA, but the people who make up the CIA, AKA it's employee's, will just distribute themselves within these external orgs and continue there operations covertly.

It's exactly what they did when they were caught using military propaganda techniques on U.S. citizens; AKA Operation Mockingbird. During the Church and Pike commissions, which were constantly attacked by CIA blackmailers, they didn't even fire anyone let alone press charges. The result was that the CIA was told not to do propaganda. To avoid this restriction, many CIA agents quit, and then privately entered the media industry, while continuing the same objectives they had while working for the CIA.

Now today, nearly 50 years later, private media is still allowed to use propaganda against us, because it isn't the government. This loop hole needs to be eliminated.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#27

Post by BitwiseFool »

TeeMassive wrote: post #14
hunglee2 wrote: post #3

it is not clear what could be done should an intelligence agency turn rogue, and become operationally independent from the government. It's basically a non-democratic power centre which - because it is not subject to elections - will always outlast any politician, and because of the nature of the work, has vast powers of direct and indirect influence. Good job that this is not the case in the US

Congress can simply cut their budget. The President can fire who he wants in the executive branch. Talk about it in the court of public opinion. Discourage "voting X no matter who" and focus on issues rather than sides.

>"Congress can simply cut their budget. The President can fire who he wants in the executive branch. Talk about it in the court of public opinion. Discourage "voting X no matter who" and focus on issues rather than sides."

Were it so easy. I feel like the same sentiment could apply to the military industrial complex, wherein congress could cut the budget at any time, the President could dismiss the most bellicose and wasteful officers, and the citizenry could focus on the issue rather than partisanship. Indeed, left and right seem to believe we spend way to much on certain military projects, yet nothing ever seems to be done about the ballooning budgets.

I believe one of the most sinister things about our intelligence apparatus is the fact that hoovering up all this data means it is easier than ever to blackmail our politicians who happen to be digital natives. I can only imagine how badly Millennial and Gen Z politicians can be made to look if their browser history were to leak.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#28

Post by zug_zug »

rendall wrote: post #2

Did any American read this without alarm? If so, why not?

Well I think this article does a good job of saying CIA has done some crazy stuff. But then it goes from there to -> so let's get rid of it, which to me seems like potentially a much scarier proposition.

It's not clear to me exactly how real the threat of foreign countries trying to tamper with our elections is, but if this is what the CIA does, I think it's probably naive to think no other nation would try things like hacking elections. 8-year-old girls shouldn't be assassinated, but in the scope of things, that's not a reason to get rid of an entire agency. (Also it's a shame Biden's speech about "hey we're a democracy" had bad visual optics, but again, not really relevant)

Maybe this article isn't saying to eradicate the whole intelligence apparatus, but it's not clear to me what incremental practical step it is proposing.

Re: America’s Open Wound

#29

Post by michael1999 »

mellavora wrote: post #10
anon291 wrote: post #4

We have known for many years the CIA is awful. Get rid of it. We can achieve national security goals via alternate means. It's probably going to get me banned, but we know they interfere in foreign elections. Why is it such a long shot to believe they don't interfere locally?

> Why is it such a long shot to believe they don't interfere locally? Because this goes strongly against the culture of the organization? People are funny. They may be willing to bend any law and/or see themselves as above the law in some aspects (see i.e. the Iran/contra affair), yet will honor-bind themselves to other ways. Because at the end of the day they want to be the heros, the good guys. And the C.I.A. is an…

Do you think it was a coincidence that Nixon recruited his plumbers from the FBI and CIA?

Re: America’s Open Wound

#30

Post by brink »

roenxi wrote: post #13

I have to ask, because I know that Biden was said to give a speech with bad optics but I never looked it up seriously - is that photo doctored?^W^W^W I just googled it myself. Whoever is doing his PR needs to be sacked for leaving him open to a photo like that.

> Whoever is doing his PR needs to be sacked for leaving him open to a photo like that.

The speech wasn't any better.

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