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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.

#11

Post by joe_the_user »

w1ntermute wrote: post #6
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…

> from the oversight and human rights perspectives it seems like a really bad idea. Well, it's not like the government has a very good track record wrt human rights either.

Government has a terrible record but with the government, there's a slim possibility of sunshine appearing sooner or later. With private industry, it's even less so.

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

#14

Post by geekfactor »

This article reads like the back-story of a season of 24...

Owner of intelligence-agency-for-hire is "determined to remain a player." President/government has a different take on things and attempts to shut down the agency. Agency plants WMDs on American soil in order to distract country and guarantee relevance.

Wait. That was a season of 24.

Oh well. In actuality I'm surprised at myself for being surprised that such outfits exist.

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

#15

Post by jdp23 »

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…

a hypothetical for-profit corporation like Blackwater?

or the guys who were pimping Afghan teenage boys to warlords?

yeah, that worked well.

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

#16

Post by shkb »

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 warfare lead to covert ops)

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

#17

Post by snth »

bane wrote: post #12

I wonder what this kind of thing is called? Bounty Hunter? Mercenary? Vigilante? Somehow, none of those labels really seem to fit quite right. Is this sort of thing something new?

How about "Private Intelligence Contractor". Like "Private Military Contractor".

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

#18

Post by zokier »

joe_the_user wrote: post #11
w1ntermute wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from the oversight and human rights perspectives it seems like a really bad idea. Well, it's not like the government has a very good track record wrt human rights either.

Government has a terrible record but with the government, there's a slim possibility of sunshine appearing sooner or later. With private industry, it's even less so.

I'm not so sure. With private industry a good willed (and relatively wealthy) entrepreneur can just make a cheaper offer and hope to get the job, and actually try to respect human rights. With government you are kinda stuck with what you got.

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

#19

Post by alnayyir »

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…

Making it politically viable for a government organization to inadvertently fund people like Osama Bin Laden in order to gather intelligence is hardly what most people think of as reform even if it could be effective.

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

#20

Post by cynest »

zokier wrote: post #18
joe_the_user wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government has a terrible record but with the government, there's a slim possibility of sunshine appearing sooner or later. With private industry, it's even less so.

I'm not so sure. With private industry a good willed (and relatively wealthy) entrepreneur can just make a cheaper offer and hope to get the job, and actually try to respect human rights. With government you are kinda stuck with what you got.

There are several problems with this:

1. said entrepreneur is likely to be from a similar background, eg having served in the same agency, and thus being exposed to the same culture, and from this might very well be a bit desensitized to human rights abuses.

2. a cheaper, but also more ethical, solution isn't necessarily available. An organization with fewer morals has more tools available to it, such as nonempty death threats, which ultimately lower costs. A cheaper solution has to cut somewhere else to compete.

3. sometimes an organization cannot completely keep tabs on employees, especially an intelligence organization.

Simply put, this is the wishful thinking wherein the thinker believes that the private sector will correct for any nastiness and then creates a fantasy to support this belief in the specific case being discussed.

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