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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

The secrecy issue has gotten out of hand.

The classic military view of secrecy is time-limited. "Where the ship was last week is unclassified. Where the ship was yesterday is confidential. Where the ship is now is secret. Where the ship will be tomorrow is top secret." The opposition will eventually find out what you're planning on doing. The goal is for them to find out the hard way, when incoming fire starts hitting them.

The intelligence community has a longer-term view. "We know, and they know. We think they don't know that we know they know. We hope they don't know how we found out that they know." This protection of sources mindset leads to things being kept secret long after all involved parties know.

The anti-terrrorism community has adopted the intelligence community mindset. This is a problem.

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This is wrong.

The classification level of information is determined by confidentiality of the information's source. This is done to protect deeply embedded or highly technical means of information gathering.

For example, information that could have only come from the second in command of some organization would require the highest of security classifications whereas information that could have come from any dozens of members of that organization would only require a confidential or secret classification.

Information is required to be classified at the lowest possible level, a guideline that is both taught and enforced throughout most if not all of the Intelligence Community.

source: I was an intelligence analyst for 6+ years.

It is certainly correct that DHS, and to some extent our government generally, is known for over-classifying things either out of laziness, desire to avoid embarrassment, or because they believe that anything remotely security related needs to be hidden. As an intelligence analyst, you likely didn't see the misclassified things (I'd imagine roughly everything you did was classified for good reason). It's the political officials who are more likely to over-classify.

That's a fair accusation - you're responsible for increasing the classification of material if you find it to be under-classified, or request a review in the opposite case. So, it wouldn't be surprising if something came across the desk of a decision-maker or the IC's version of middle-management and they selfishly raised its classification hoping it'd be lost in a blackhole for fear of embarrassment, etc.

> The anti-terrrorism community has adopted the intelligence community mindset. This is a problem.

Wonder how much that has to do with overlap between the two.

Today's terrorist may well have been yesterday's informat, and may well be an informant again tomorrow.

After all, the CIA was deeply involved in Afghanistan back when the USSR was fighting there. And many of the people that the CIA supported then later turned against USA.

And then the CIA allied again with alQaeda when fighting Assad.

And round and round it goes. Too bad the public is made a to be a sucker every time.

They didn't 'ally with Al Qaeda', they just both happened to be opposed to the same guy while also being opposed to each other. It's a complicated situation out there. Even at the height of the Cold War, sometimes the CIA and KGB would share information of mutual benefit. That didn't mean the CIA was allying with communism. Even Trump has learned this when his 'bombing Syria is the wrong thing to do, what Assad gets up to is non America's business anymore' policy lead to Assad feeling free to start nerve gassing civilians again. Oops. Turns out him being against Islamic State doesn't make him our friend either. It's a horrible nasty mess, but even trying to stay out of it just makes you even more vulnerable to even greater problems in the long run.

And yet, the press has done an about-face on Al Qaeda's, referring to its Syrian branch as 'Al-Nusra, a moderate rebel group.'

If I didn't know any better, I'd say that we are being primed for the CIA getting into bed with Islamist terrorists, in order to combat Russian influence in the Middle East. Again.

They've been Al Nusra since 2013 and while they did affiliate with Al Qaeda for a while they split with them about a year ago. They're no angels, for sure, and I wouldn't describe them as moderate, but let's at least get the facts straight. If they can provide intelligence and tactical support against ISIS why turn it down? Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the better-than-nothing.

Even Trump is beginning to understand some of this. It's just a shame so many people in Khan Sheikhoun had to die first.

"And yet, the press has done an about-face on Al Qaeda's, referring to its Syrian branch as 'Al-Nusra, a moderate rebel group."

Substantiate your claim.

"CIA getting into bed with Islamist terrorists"

This is tiresome, just because US govt allies with Muslims that Russia calls terrorists doesn't make them so. In fact, last time I checked Russia works on the ground with Hezbollah, a designated terrorist group. This argument can easily go sideways for people hoisting it up as a mantra.

"The other areas listed are largely dominated by moderate rebel factions or Islamist groups, such as Ahrar al-Sham and the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front." [1]

Right. They aren't bad dudes like ISIS, they are just, ah, al-Qaeda's Syrian arm. They are totally on the level.

> This is tiresome, just because US govt allies with Muslims that Russia calls terrorists doesn't make them so.

That's true. Just because Russia says they are terrorists doesn't make them terrorists. And, perhaps, using car bombs, suicide attacks, assassinations, and forced conscription of child soldiers doesn't make them terrorists either.

Strangely enough, all of this seems to be sufficient for the the United States to also designate them to be an islamic terrorist organization. [2] (And then issue diplomatic protests when Russia bombs them.)

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-seeks-parliaments-approva...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Nusra_Front

"(And then issue diplomatic protests when Russia bombs them.)"

US has literally never complained when Russia has bombed Nusra. People complain when Russia bombs people then calls them ISIS/AQ. Inanimate grain silos? IS oil facilities according to RU MoD. Hospitals? Nusra strongholds according to RU MoD.

This is what people complain about. If you want to say otherwise please substantiate your claim.

CIA allied with groups that have died fighting al-Qaeda. Just because theft and corruption means material aid given to the groups ended up in AQ's hands doesn't mean CIA allied with al-Qaeda, it shows quite the opposite. SAA goods end up in ISIS's hands by the tons but that doesn't mean they allied with them either.

"Too bad the public is made a to be a sucker"

Who is the sucker here?

There is no political benefit to open-ness. If the information is used to kill your country's citizens, the politicians who allowed it's release will have their careers ended. It doesn't matter that you have a right to know, or that incidents will happen regardless, or that flying would still be safer than 40 years ago if a dozen planes blew up.

I'd vote for open-ness in government.

Anti-terrorism seems like exactly the kind of field where your "intelligence community" outlook is appropriate.

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