{"id":12532,"date":"2016-03-02T08:09:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T14:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=12532"},"modified":"2016-03-02T08:09:31","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T14:09:31","slug":"espionage-files-time-for-a-new-cia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/02\/espionage-files-time-for-a-new-cia\/","title":{"rendered":"Espionage Files: Time for a New CIA?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"CIA\"<\/p>\n

By John Sipher of the Cipher Brief<\/em><\/p>\n

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Across the Central Intelligence Agency lobby from the iconic stars memorializing officers killed in the line of duty is a less well-known memorial.\u00a0 It is an understated relief in honor of those foreign spies who risked and lost their lives to provide secret information to the United States.\u00a0 It is a reminder that the CIA remains at its core, the nation\u2019s espionage arm.\u00a0 Apparently, however, CIA Director John Brennan doesn\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n

In what was otherwise a thoughtful interview with National Public Radio last week, CIA Director John Brennan expressed his personal view that the CIA should be not be viewed as a spy agency.\u00a0 In the 24 February interview he said, \u201cI don\u2019t support government spying\u2026. We don\u2019t steal secrets\u2026\u00a0 We uncover, we discover, we reveal, we obtain, we elicit, we solicit.\u00a0 All of that.\u201d\u00a0 What?\u00a0 We don\u2019t steal secrets?\u00a0 Is he joking?\u00a0 Brennan has reportedly also made clear to the officers under his charge that he eschews the term espionage, and does not view the CIA as an espionage service.<\/p>\n

Fortuitously, former CIA Director Michael Hayden\u2019s new book, \u201cPlaying to the Edge\u201d was released on the same day that Brennan made his comments, and he seems more comfortable advocating for CIA\u2019s espionage role. \u00a0The title of Hayden\u2019s book is sports metaphor meant to highlight how he viewed his responsibility as the Director of the NSA and CIA.\u00a0 That is, in an effort to secure the safety of the American people, U.S. officials should use all of their authorities under the law. \u00a0They should use the entire playing field, even right up to the boundary.\u00a0 In the book, Hayden refers to a speech in which he comments that \u201cthe American people expect CIA to use ever inch we are given to protect her fellow citizens,\u201d adding his view that espionage is essential to a democracy.\u00a0 Sadly, Brennan\u2019s remarks on the same day suggest that he does not see his authority in the same way.<\/p>\n

While his comments might not resonate outside of the Intelligence Community, make no mistake, it is a long term danger to our security when the head of the nation\u2019s espionage organization says that he doesn\u2019t support spying.\u00a0 It sends a chill through those who work in the shadows to keep us safe and makes them wonder if their boss has their back.\u00a0 It also confirms the fears of many CIA employees and alumni that Brennan\u2019s recent efforts to restructure and change CIA culture were a furtive means of weakening the clandestine service.<\/p>\n

CIA houses several very different cultures under one roof.\u00a0 The three main tribes are the analysts, the spies and the techies.\u00a0 For outsiders, the analysts are in-house academics and experts who brief and write papers for the President and policymakers.\u00a0 The spies are those officers of the Clandestine Service (now called the Directorate of Operations, or DO) who live overseas and manage human spy networks.\u00a0 They tend to be the cocky jet pilots of the CIA.\u00a0 The techies spend the money and manage huge, sophisticated, cutting edge programs.\u00a0 They are engineers, scientists and visionaries.\u00a0 Housing these three tribes under one roof has always been both CIA\u2019s strength and weakness.\u00a0 The training, mission and career progression of the three tribes are very different and don\u2019t always mesh.\u00a0 When they work together it is magical.<\/p>\n

However, in order to maintain that magic, one tribe cannot seek to dominate the others.<\/p>\n

Since his arrival in 2012, there has been a fear in the clandestine side of the house that Brennan, a career analyst, was intent on taking the clandestine service down a peg.\u00a0 There is a view that he has never been comfortable with the DO culture and was looking to neuter them.\u00a0 Some view the highly publicized restructuring (\u201cmodernization\u201d) as means to accomplish this culture change.\u00a0 The Washington Post even reported that the previous Chief of the Clandestine Service abruptly retired in opposition to the restructuring plan that he believed was a calculated effort to weaken the spy side of the house at the expense of the Intelligence Directorate (the analysts).\u00a0 Despite the whispers, I didn\u2019t believe that the CIA Director could be so petty.\u00a0 Now I wonder if I was wrong.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear.\u00a0 Despite what Mr. Brennan says, what my colleagues and I did in the CIA was espionage \u2013 stealing secrets.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t \u201cdiscover,\u201d we stole.\u00a0 Our sources were not taxi drivers, social media feeds, or newspapers.\u00a0 They were people with access to secrets who were well aware that they were risking their lives, and possibly those of their families, to steal information for the U.S.<\/p>\n

The CIA steals secrets and will always need to do so. \u00a0We don\u2019t do it for fun or because we can.\u00a0 The clandestine arm of the CIA is the collector of last resort.\u00a0 The USG should use all means\u2014open, technical, and diplomatic\u2014to gather the information it needs to inform policy. \u00a0Collecting information openly is certainly preferable to stealing it.\u00a0 However, if a critical piece of information is determined in our national interest and nobody else can get it, we have to steal it.\u00a0 The officers of the clandestine service take their responsibilities seriously and often put themselves in harm\u2019s way to get the job done.\u00a0 We are not always successful, and sometimes create political scandals, but we succeed more often that the public knows.<\/p>\n

Also, for those of us in the business, it is hard to fathom why a CIA Director would even bother to claim that he doesn\u2019t steal secrets.\u00a0 Our adversaries are not likely to take him at his word.\u00a0 Further, we don\u2019t really get to define what counts as espionage and what doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 Other countries decide what constitutes treachery and secrecy in their countries.\u00a0 As far as I know, every country in the world views espionage as a crime and punishes those who engage in it with prison or death.\u00a0 I certainly took my responsibility seriously and worked diligently to protect those in my care \u2013 always well aware of what would happen to them if caught.\u00a0 No government in the world would see what we did as \u201cdiscovering or eliciting\u201d information consistent with their laws.\u00a0 We scrupulously followed U.S. law, while consistently breaking foreign laws.<\/p>\n

Surely, the CIA is much more than just an espionage Agency.\u00a0 It is a central clearing house for open source information, human intelligence, diplomatic reporting, military reporting, academic expertise, signals intelligence, electronic intelligence, covert action, relations with foreign security services, and a world class analytical shop. \u00a0CIA\u2019s magic is that it can do so much under one roof. \u00a0It needs to put all data and information in context for policymakers.\u00a0 That said, its life blood is secret information \u2013 information that no other organization can provide.<\/p>\n

While Mr. Brennan can claim that the CIA doesn\u2019t engage in espionage, that would come as a surprise to those sources sitting in foreign prisons for allegedly cooperating with the CIA.\u00a0 Dr. Shakil Afridi is still sitting in a Pakistani jail for reportedly helping the CIA find Osama Bin Ladin.\u00a0 According to press accounts, he is the Pakistani physician who ran a fake hepatitis vaccine program in Abbottabad to collect DNA and confirm Bin Ladin\u2019s presence.\u00a0 Over the years, many brave foreigners provided information to the U.S. and paid the ultimate price.\u00a0 Dozens of Russian spies were killed due to the treachery of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen.\u00a0 Pyotr Popov was reportedly thrown into a fire pit in front of his GRU colleagues in an effort by the KGB to show its officers the price of treachery (see the book \u201cMole\u201d by William Hood).\u00a0 And sadly, many more.\u00a0 Those brave souls would be surprised to hear that CIA doesn\u2019t engage in espionage.<\/p>\n

Shortly after its stand-up in 2004, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence tried to create lead agencies for all of the various functions of the Intelligence Community \u2013 NSA for signals intelligence, FBI for domestic intelligence, DIA for military support, NRO for space based collection, NGA for imagery, and CIA for human intelligence \u2013 spying.\u00a0 If Brennan is not comfortable with the spying side of the house and is intent on re-crafting the CIA into an analytical agency, the time has come to look to our history and re-create a separate espionage service along the lines of the WWII era OSS.\u00a0 Spying, stealing, suborning, and pilfering is often dirty work, but someone has to do it if CIA won\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Read the Original Article at the Cipher Brief<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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By John Sipher of the Cipher Brief Across the Central Intelligence Agency lobby from the iconic stars memorializing officers killed in the line of duty is a less well-known memorial.\u00a0 It is an understated relief in honor of those foreign spies who risked and lost their lives to provide secret information to the United States.\u00a0…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3140,74,4445,2908,1814,1725,4880],"tags":[3492,2017,5050,5051,5052,3976],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}