Secrecy, overclassification, and the the CIA’s hidden history | Hacker News Reader

Secrecy, overclassification, and the the CIA’s hidden history

muckrock.com

130 pointsdanso43 comments

Would it be safe to say that CIA (and NSA and other parts of the intelligence community) is the actual "State within the State" (i.e., the so-called "Deep State")?

"National security", almost at any cost, became the paramount prerogative of US intelligence agencies. However, they seem to be using a military criteria in a civil environment, which was supposed to be transparent enough for accountability.

I'd argue today's situation is, despite many problems, still comparatively better than the past: the Hoover era, as the most salient example, was vastly more corrupt and undemocratic.

It's crucial in this regard to distinguish two issues: (a) to what degree do these institutions wield power unchecked by democratically-elected/legitimized institutions (President/Congress/Courts), and (b) those institutions commanding certain secret programs you (or I) disagree with (i. e. the stuff Snowden revealed).

Despite some regression in the last two years, there is still at least _some_ accountability, as the current whistleblower demonstrates. But, of course, the safety margin is shrinking. With enough turnover in some key positions, a future whistleblower may just find their legitimate complaint buried.

> With enough turnover in some key positions, a future whistleblower may just find their legitimate complaint buried.

Couldn't you say this has already happened with e.g. Snowden?

Did Snowden try to go they official channels? I don't think he did, Snowden (mostly rightly) decided to bypass the existing reporting systems.

He didn't, and I recall that Snowden was motivated to do so outside the reporting systems after he saw the Director of National Intelligence straight-up lie to Congress.

Snowden was pretty smart; it's quite a good thing that he chose to act in good faith.

> Did Snowden try to go they official channels? I don't think he did, Snowden (mostly rightly) decided to bypass the existing reporting systems.

I believe he was deterred from pursuing action through official channels after seeing how William Binney and other whistleblowers were treated.

> there is still at least _some_ accountability

The whistleblowers mostly got put into prison for the current executive branch to save face. At least those that we heard about from. There also weren't any repercussions for the mass surveillance we are still subjected to.

I don't think there is evidence of the situation improving at all. This is not a problem confined to America and these specific agencies, of course.

The state having access to all forms of digital communication is a too powerful tool to suppress democratic dissent and I think we have recently seen bad actors in leading positions. The security benefits these mechanisms provide are marginal, so regulation should be the rational way to go.

The CIA is still torturing people and is currently headed by a known torturer.

https://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/documents/RDI/190710-...

I don't think you can honestly say 'things are fine compared to Hoovers time'.

> Would it be safe to say that CIA (and NSA and other parts of the intelligence community) is the actual "State within the State" (i.e., the so-called "Deep State")?

This shouldn't be done or said because it absolves the state of it's absolute willingness. When the CIA backed Pinochet, the state was absolutely interested in getting rid of Allende, and the same can be said of any other CIA-backed coup.

Great article. It brings back to mind a question I had recently: what gives the federal government, specifically the executive branch, the power to classify information at all?

I know there are laws and executive orders that say they can do that, but I’m wondering what the ultimate authority derives from in the Constitution. If it’s not a simple explanation, are there any scholarly legal articles I can look at?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_of_the_president_of_the...

Upvote for trying, but executive privilege isn't quite it, IMO. All that does is protect the papers and communications of government officials in a way that makes them less accessible to the courts.

State secrets privilege[0] is closer, but not quite it. All that does is allow the executive to say in court "sorry, that's classified, state secrets privilege," and have certain evidence excluded. It doesn't really get to the root of what allowed the government to classify the information in the first place.

My suspicion is that it derives somehow from the president's role as commander-in-chief, but I'm not very familiar with the legal scholarship behind it.

The federal government has the power to classify information because it owns it. The primary purpose of a state is to preserve itself. The ability to control access to secrets is critical to this. It's a bit like asking "What gives the government the right to execute the laws?" Because that's what it's meant to do.

That’s not the primary purpose of government in the United States. And that’s not how government derives the right to execute laws in the United States.

We govern ourselves. The government is given the right to execute laws by the people who vote. The Bill of Rights clarified that any other rights are reserved by the people.

Additionally, most federal information is public domain and owned by the people. That’s why Freedom of Information Act requests are effective.

Freedom isn’t free and things might not always be this way if we don’t protect our freedoms.

> That’s not the primary purpose of government in the United States. And that’s not how government derives the right to execute laws in the United States.

> We govern ourselves. The government is given the right to execute laws by the people who vote. The Bill of Rights clarified that any other rights are reserved by the people.

I agree with you in principle but in practice it seems the US has drifted far from its origins.

The US government has murdered at least one her own citizens without due process. The Constitution has been contorted around trade such that nearly everything can fall under federal purview (currently being tested in the states with marijuana, remember the CA raids?).

The government for all intents and purposes, seems to be putting self-preservation and perpetuation above all else, and has been for quite some time. I suspect _that_ was what the parent poster was getting at.

The United States government classification system is established under Executive Order 13526, the latest in a long series of executive orders on the topic. Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification, declassification, and handling of national security information generated by the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information received from other governments.

Right, but what's the constitutional basis for those laws, regulations, and executive orders?

The preamble of the EO only says: by the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America

This Supreme Court case might be of interest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Reynolds

Its a combination of common law and executive privilege.

Any organization can classify its information. Mundane corporate security policies have classification levels and different security controls required at each level. The government doesn't need explicit Constitutional justification for that any more than it needs Constitutional justification to buy toner cartridges or allocate vacation days.

Congress gives the federal government's classifications legal teeth with criminal statutes, i.e. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/798.

I always found it annoying how things get "declassified" only after anyone that could have provided context and good points of objection, in order to develop a better system of rules, is dead.

How can you expect to perfect a system by making the negative feedback loop ineffective.

It's a tricky balance between that and protecting the people involved from harm, as well as protecting methods that may still be of use. I think the US government is too conservative about when to release information, but in many cases even less conservative standards will result in information being withheld until most or all of the principals are dead.

I agree that's the argument used, but you have to weigh that against the possibility that it also incentivises malicious actor(s) to subversive behavior because they will not be held accountable for their actions.

In the grand scheme of things it comes to a subjective decision point, and I would tend to argue that an increase in accountability toward the customers (us), wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

Hence why I think the US government is too conservative in deciding these matters. The accountability to us is supposed to come via our Congresscritters, but that clearly has issues.

It’s to protect themselves, usually the really nasty stuff doesn’t get declassified until the perps are dead or in adult diapers for the same reason

There are academic researchers have written about this topic:

Amy Benjamin: The Many Faces of Secrecy https://ssrn.com/abstract=3038640

"Political secrecy in the United States has never been more studied – and less understood – than it is today. This irony is due in large part to the slippery nature of the phenomenon: Secrecy presents in different guises depending on the area of governmental activity under consideration. In the classified world of the U.S. national security state, secrecy results from affirmative governmental acts designed to enforce a sharp distinction between official and public knowledge...."

To better understand this organization and its inner workings i highly recommend the book "Overthrow" by Stephen Kinzer.

I also recommend the book "The Company", by Bob Littell. Overall it's fiction, but has the feel of realism.

I'd also recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Veins_of_Latin_America

How about "Legacy of Ashes"?

https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/03...

you know this one is good because the cia denounced it. i started it earlier this week.

Came here to post this. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. For one thing, the quality of the author’s research speaks for itself:

“The book is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Ashes_(book)

See also: Brought to Light, written by Alan Moore and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz.

The author's name looked familiar - then I found that this year he published a book titled _Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control_. Looking forward to reading that soon, and will search for your recommendation too.

'The Secret Team: The CIA And Its Allies In Control Of The United States And The World'

L. FLETCHER PROUTY, Col., U.S. Air Force (Ret.) 1973

https://archive.org/details/pdfy-JnCrjsoqI22z8p9i

It's perfect timing this gets brought up because with all this news about Xinjiang, HK, East Ukraine, etc. we need to make sure China, Russia and so on also let us examine their transparency and protocols so we can give a rigorous, thorough checkup for human rights abuses. This being all about fairness and truth and we need to make sure everyone else can be held accountable to the same standards.

I look forward to a new muckrock feature where FOIA can be sent to Iran, China, and Russia to open up like USA and other European countries.

Also since US journalists evangelize Snowden and Assange, I'm sure Russia/China/other countries targeting USA won't have any leakers themselves. Their people being so well treated and obedient, such great gentlemen, even if they feel flustered and out of place over there, no matter, they can just trust in the virtues of their system and everything will be just fine. :)

So in your eyes, "probably better than China" is the optimum?

If USA government employees are more accountable than China government employees, China wins!

I doubt US Department of Agriculture or Department of Education operate abroad or have human rights issues to FOIA, you can try.

> If USA government employees are more accountable than China government employees, China wins!

"Transparency and accountability in foreign policy/information gathering only applies to the country with a FOIA system conveniently available and uses english!"

ITT we're complaining about "overclassification" and other sins of USA's unsupervised services. (I hadn't been familiar with the atrocities in Indonesia linked by TFA...) We're not sure what you're on about. Do you mean that China and other nations have not respected human rights? We all agree. What else do you intend to say? Do you really think that "US journalists evangelize Snowden and Assange"? If that were the case, surely a name-brand media firm like WaPo, NYT, MSNBC, FoxNews, CNN, etc. would have published such evangelizing in the last several years, but they haven't. Some smaller firms do mention them, but I note that TFA doesn't. Why have you introduced this red herring?

> So in your eyes, "probably better than China" is the optimum?

Being "better", whatever that means, would still be at the bottom. It'd be difficult to do worse, assuming the Xinjiang / HK stuff.

yes, and federal prosecutors should order hits on defense witnesses since the bad guys can do it

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