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| Government Corruption |
| CIA Admits to Losing Dozens of Intelligence Assets Around the World |
| 2022-08-28 |
| [PJ] Top American counterintelligence officials sent a memo that warned every CIA station around the world about a troubling number of intelligence assets who had been killed, disappeared, or captured in recent years. The memo actually gave a specific number of agents — a highly unusual inclusion but one that demonstrates the seriousness of the situation. The CIA is an agency in transition with the focus of intelligence moving from rooting out terrorism in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan to concentrating on our enemies in Russia and China. But the loss of agents is particularly troubling because there doesn’t seem to be a major intelligence leak. The problem is with the agents themselves. The New York Times: Acknowledging that recruiting spies is a high-risk business, the cable raised issues that have plagued the agency in recent years, including poor tradecraft; being too trusting of sources; underestimating foreign intelligence agencies, and moving too quickly to recruit informants while not paying enough attention to potential counterintelligence risks — a problem the cable called placing "mission over security." With all our satellites, sophisticated listening devices, and "Gee-Whiz" technology, our best intel is still gathered the old-fashioned way. Human intelligence or "HUMINT" is the best way to give meaning to the raw data that streams into Langley’s supercomputers. That idea was challenged in the late 1970s by Jimmy Carter’s choice to lead the CIA, Adm. Stansfield Turner. Turner was an unmitigated disaster for the CIA. Admittedly, he took over in 1977 right after the Church Committee discovered CIA abuses and law-breaking. But Turner went to work dismantling the clandestine service, believing that "National Technical Means" like satellites and signals intelligence could do the job of people. He was proved spectacularly wrong. Turner fired 800 clandestine service officers and reorganized and downgraded the entire CIA operations bureau. It took more than a decade for the agency to recover. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |
| #13 I haven't trusted the CIA since they decided they wanted Roland dead. |
| Posted by: Bunyip 2022-08-28 23:39 |
| #12 How many School board infiltrators in that number? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2022-08-28 16:42 |
| #11 Too busy overthrowing the government at home. Those assets are still active. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2022-08-28 16:08 |
| #10 |
| Posted by: Cholutle Thrans9751 2022-08-28 15:44 |
| #9 Do they mention Obama handing over the OPM Database to the Chinese? |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2022-08-28 15:43 |
| #8 MANDATORY RETIREMENT | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov) The mandatory retirement point for those covered is 60 years of age for SIS-3 and below, and 65 years of age for SIS-4 and above. Therefore, the "Cold War" warriors are all gone by now...#4 |
| Posted by: Neville Unavitle4308 2022-08-28 14:42 |
| #7 The CIA Blames Incompetence for Losing Dozens of Agents but Is That the Real Story? |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2022-08-28 14:35 |
| #6 Bye. |
| Posted by: Regular joe 2022-08-28 14:32 |
| #5 See what those classified documents Trump kept did! /s |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2022-08-28 13:51 |
| #4 And I do wonder if the old timers at Camp Peary and AFCITC have long gone, either from just being 'old' or simply disgusted by how things are nowadays. And given the "entitled" woke snowflakes and their stress cards, I don't have a good feeling that things will get much better. |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2022-08-28 13:05 |
| #3 /\ Yes, extraordinarily difficult, hence the trend toward short-term, paid sources within the host nation. Such assets can be unreliable, working both sides of the fence, or both. Losing global credibility and respect, coupled with asset betrayal, as you might imagine, buggers things on many levels. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2022-08-28 12:55 |
| #2 Must be tough in the computer age to establish a [cover] history and do it right. |
| Posted by: DooDahMan 2022-08-28 12:44 |
| #1 The large number of compromised informants in recent years also demonstrated the growing prowess of other countries in employing innovations like biometric scans, facial recognition, artificial intelligence and hacking tools to track the movements of C.I.A. officers in order to discover their sources. Emphasis added. Anyone operating out of an embassy, enjoying diplomatic immunity (US black passport), must be assumed to be (by the host nation) an official cover operative. Any communications, contacts, or travel they may have may also be assumed to be intelligence related. Non-Office Cover intelligence operations require long-term commitment. Their development requires very careful recruitment, extensive training, considerable financial expenditure, and decades of development. Did I mention 'long-term commitment?' |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2022-08-28 12:41 |