Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
nytimes.com
Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#2Didn't Bobby Inman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Ray_Inman attempt to start such a private company with private clients? While he had no problem speaking his mind, it doesn't appear that he was as pugnacious as Clarridge.
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#3I 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/Spy-All-Seasons-Life-CIA/dp/0743245369
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#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 private intelligence and security services as well as the work. I can see why 'small government' people would like this but from the oversight and human rights perspectives it seems like a really bad idea.
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#5There are plenty of private intelligence agencies. It's an industry pretty much like any other. Few are dumb enough to compete with the CIA. Why hire a private agency in Afghanistan when the American taxpayer is already paying for those services? If you run a private intelligence firm, just how desperate for customers/donors do you have to be to get an article in the New York Times?
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#6"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.
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#7"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, under a broken system, would keep their books shut, offering less transparency than we already have.
Now let's consider the best case: these companies compete with each other for government contracts, which the people award. This type of system would compel the companies to maintain high levels of transparency, especially with the SEC and IRS now taking interest.
The reason the government is so inefficient is because they don't have any external auditing agencies. The SEC and the IRS, for example, will never put the CIA or FBI through the same rigorous audits that they would put private companies through.
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#8There are plenty of private intelligence agencies. It's an industry pretty much like any other. Few are dumb enough to compete with the CIA. Why hire a private agency in Afghanistan when the American taxpayer is already paying for those services? If you run a private intelligence firm, just how desperate for customers/donors do you have to be to get an article in the New York Times?
Yes,
The "intelligence community" is a community - whether a given actor is in or out of government does not seem as important as whether they in the community.
Secrecy grants it's possessors the ability to act very informally.
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#9We 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 intelligence.
Re: Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A.
#10"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…
You only know about non-classified private companies.
Classified private companies today have pretty much carte blanche in similar fashion to the CIA or FBI.
A friend of mine was unable to resolve a labor dispute with his classified employer because he could only sue them using a lawyer with clearance (and then his manager coerced him into signing a termination agreement... using a baseball bat! Again, try and sue?)
This was not a small, fly-by-night operation either but one of the largest government contractors.