[iririririr]

What a disingenuous way of thinking. Not falling for this is the basis of much religious text by the way. Splitting baby in the middle, etc.

But on the other hand, being a useful fool that blindly does anything for profit, Do seem in line with the people working in tech for the last decade.

Yes, the CIA is a corrupt today as "tech". And no that is not ok nor required, or it ever was like that.

[sterlind]

the CIA is literally tasked with breaking (other countries') laws. tradecraft is a very similar skillset to being an effective criminal.

think about it: shell companies, lockpicks, bribes, theft, blackmail, hacking, forgery. two kinds of people do those things: spooks, and the mob. the difference is why you're doing it and to whom.

also, if anything the CIA is far tamer today than it was in the '60s.

[MSFT_Edging]

A lot of the really sketchy stuff the CIA used to do has been folded under special ops parts of the military. After the church committee, the CIA has to report to the senate intelligence committee. The military only really answers to the Commander in Chief(POTUS), and gets away with a lot more.

Check out the book "The Fort Bragg Cartel". Tl;Dr, the US military and special ops were holding up the poppy industry in Afghanistan, something like 80% of the world's supply of Heroin came out of US occupied Afghanistan. The DEA would look the other way on shipments intercepted over a certain size.

The special ops guys brought the drug trafficking home, now i95 through the southern states is a major drug trafficking route.

[rithdmc]

I'd move that up a bit! Iran-Contra was around '85, and that involved trading cocaine, which ended up on the streets of the USA, for arms.

I think using the 60s as a comparison unfairly implies the CIA rehabilitated sooner than should be implied.

[thephyber]

I suspect the 1960s was chosen because it was before the Church Committee. Back then, the CIA had fewer restrictions about working within the USA.

[rithdmc]

Got it, thanks. The CIA's cocaine was still ending up on the streets of America during Iran-Contra, though, so I (in my very uninformed opinion!) don't feel like the CIA cared that much.

[thephyber]

That’s debatable.

It’s likely the cocaine originating from Colombia was going to end up in the US with or without the CIA’s help.

Also, it’s worth reading about the journalist who broke the story about Contra-sourced cocaine making it to LA. That journalist is very often misquoted and when he was still alive he tried to fix the missing several times.

[etrautmann]

MKUltra would have been a bizarre horror to experience

[testaccount28]

lol "the extralegal spy agency has become as corrupt as the search engines!"

[simulator5g]

They have funded each other since the beginning of the search engines, so I'm not sure the distinction is very important.

[iririririr]

spies (and specially counter spies*) have a place in a State.

My point was about the populous eating up the inevitability of those entities being above the law by default.

* but is is sad we destroyed the most important part we can't even catch lowly thieves like this

[lenerdenator]

All spies are bastards. That's sort of their job. In the CIA it might speak more ill of the guy who was arrested that he was arrested than that he (allegedly) inflated his credentials and might have bilked the military for leave pay.

[fraserphysics]

When I worked at Los Alamos, the head of counterintelligence was a former CIA ops guy. He seemed warm and intelligent; just an all around good guy. In presentations, he explained that his job at the CIA was to exploit that appearance to ruin people's lives. He said his approach was to gain the trust of a mark, and then provide him with what ever was required to get him to betray things he loved. The presentations were effective, enlightening and spooky.

So, I agree: All spies are bastards.

[iririririr]

Yeah, that's why in a functioning State you have means to control the damage. But now we seem to have accepted it is a free for all and just throw ours helpless hands in the air and hope we are next to enjoy the criminal bonanza at some point.

[lenerdenator]

Don't worry, this happens in functioning states, too. Well, the bastard spies part, at least.

[rbanffy]

For some specific jobs, not all of them, you need sociopaths. Still, the agency should always provide them with adult supervision.