[kyllo]

No surprises here, of course this is what happens when you create an agency whose mission is to lie, decieve, and break the law, and then give it limited oversight and almost unlimited funding. The CIA's entire history is just one scandal after another.

[secstate]

nod What other agency can take explicit part in countless political coups around the world and come out non-the-worse-for-wear?

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Bolivia

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1949_Syrian_coup_d%27%C3%...

And the list goes on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...

What a tangled web we weave.

[Alupis]

The CIA's charter forbids any domestic campaigns...

[pessimizer]

But defines "domestic" as something that never touches the internet, and never once does business with or makes a phone call to a foreign national.

[joe_the_user]

When a society codifies secrecy into the law, that society has opened the door to every kind of unraveling of the rule of law.

We have gone from classified information to secret laws to who knows-what-all-else.

Among many other possibilities, the CIA's character might have been secretly changed - with it's agents authorized to lie about this change. Such is the can of worms that "classified information" opens from the get-go.

[dghf]

"Oh, that's just the window-display charter. Our real, secret charter gives us unlimited power forever!"

-- Boss to Agent Norbert in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.

(Okay, that was the Federal Atomic Regulatory Taskforce rather than the CIA, but the principle holds.)

[ajmurmann]

They didn't mind when they drugged up people in SF as part of MKUltra.

[sp332]

Right, the FBI doesn't like the competition.

[CamperBob2]

They have altered the charter. Don't even bother praying.

[mikeash]

And clearly that's working out just great.

[sobkas]

It's only forbidden if you get caught.

[sliverstorm]

Of course, a mission like the CIA's does not exactly lend itself to strong oversight.

The issues of which you speak, seem like inherent challenges to making effective yet responsible intelligence organizations, rather than just garden variety stupid choices.

[kyllo]

I agree that making an intelligence organization effective yet responsible is inherently challenging, but I also think that our government has made plenty of garden variety stupid choices w/r/t the CIA as well.

At this point from a simple costs vs. benefits standpoint I just do not see how even having a CIA (or at least the Clandestine Service portion) is worth it. They have wasted probably billions of dollars on countless blunders over the decades. They constantly embarrass the State Department by lying to and stealing from our supposed allies, and getting caught doing it. And they get informants killed. Now they're spying on the US's own democratically elected representatives. Meanwhile, what imminent dangers to US security has the Clandestine Service ever prevented? How do they justify their own existence? The Cold War ended decades ago, I don't see how their mission is relevant anymore.