Inside the Starbucks at CIA HQ | Hacker News Reader

Inside the Starbucks at CIA HQ

washingtonpost.com

61 pointsphilipdlang49 comments

Meh... am I supposed to hate the CIA and the rest of the military-industrial-espionage complex any less because of a cheery article about their Starbucks store? If anything, I now think less of Starbucks as a company, for knowing that they agreed to such a setup.

I mean, yeah, maybe I'm being overly sensitive and care too much about torture, detention camps, pervasive surveillance, blatant disregard of the Constitution, illegal experiments on unwitting victims, and the other myriad crimes committed by these assholes, but this article does nothing to give me the warm fuzzies.

I don't think the CIA wants to give you the warm fuzzies. After all, their sole occupation at the end of the day is basically to destabilize and overthrow governments.

True, but in theory - to some extent - Congress has some oversight of the CIA and (again, in theory) the will of The People can influence the CIA's budget and authority, etc. All in all, I'd guess that CIA leadership would prefer people see them as benevolent guardians of peace and democracy as much as possible.

But I could be wrong. Maybe they are effectively untouchable, know it, and don't give a flap what people like us think. shrug

More disturbing, perhaps the CIA is reflective of the majority will of the people? (questions to keep you up at night)

True. Now I'm going to have nightmares tonight since you raised that specter. sigh

It is a new world after at least 1989 (probably decades older), the CIA almost only destabilize non-democratic juntas. Personally, I don't really care about the working situation for the juntas, they are generally criminal thieves that have stolen a country.

I'd say those are the most visible things they do, since those are pretty hard to hide. But I'd wager the lions share of the work CIA does is actually in the more boring intelligence for diplomatic operations.

They care about PR quite a bit. It could affect funding and could affect appeal for new recruits.

No matter if they torture and assassinate people, it is important for them that they are seen as protecting American ideals and all that. That sounds too abstract sometimes, so a little story about "oh look they are cool people just like you, drinking Starbucks" does that very well.

    > They care about PR quite a bit

As evidence by the fact that this story definitely went via the CIA's PR department

No, you're probably just supposed to be intrigued by the quirky juxtaposition of a common-place occurrence (Starbucks inside x) and one of the most secretive organizations in the world and how that works. You don't have to like the CIA to appreciate a unique implementation of a store we all know so well.

The article doesn't mention whether this is a corporate or licensed store. Frequently Starbucks stores at airports, Albertson's, hotels and other locations are just brand licenses.

For a while you could tell those immediately by their lack of Starbucks mobile terminals to accept mobile payments, but that changed recently.

Interesting article. The CIA sounds like a terrible place to work. No smartphones, definitely no BYOD, and you can't talk to coworkers about your projects. You don't even know if you have old friends who work at the same place.

The benefits and pay are probably decent, but it seems like one could find a better job in the private sector. I guess the restrictions weed out a lot of people who aren't truly dedicated to the CIA's purpose.

I believe it is painful in high security organizations, by definition. You can often e.g. only use tools which are vetted and stamped OK by a complex and expensive process -- so they are old.

Imho, security is really interesting theoretically, but probably not to work with outside of the academic world.

You usually have to put in your years in the government, then move to a defense contractor.

I wouldn't call it a terrible place to work. The work is pretty fulfilling, and worth giving up checking Facebook on your lunch break for.

The tradeoff may be that you might get to work on some of the hardest problems known.

At least harder than your average chat or photo sharing app.

to work on some of the hardest problems known

Like "how do we keep our torture camps secret?" and "what happens if we given random people LSD or other psychoactive drugs?"

I'll pass, thanks.

I didn't say "morally pure" did I?

Fair enough!

That's a one-sided view. The three-letter agencies may have done horrible things, but they are also leading the fight against even worse regimes, like Russia. There is no moral purity, and insulating oneself from the gray areas of geopolitics is a cop out.

> The baristas go through rigorous interviews and background checks and need to be escorted by agency “minders” to leave their work area

I would have expected the baristas to be actual CIA agents in training. Barista is a job available all over the world. Starbucks itself has locations in 65 countries, covering most of North and South America, most of Europe, and most of Asia. They also have pretty good coverage in the Mideast and Arab regions. Map here [1]. Being able to be planted in a coffee house as a barista and pull that off without suspicion would be a useful skill for an undercover agent trying to monitor what's going on in an area.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks#Locations

Maybe some of them are...?

even if they are junior agents, they wouldn't be written about in the washington post.

And even if the writer suspected that, she wouldn't write that with her byline on the article.

This is pure conjecture but I've served in the military and know how these things work in the more security-sensitive areas of that organization: My guess is that they are contractors, placed there by whatever corporation handles the rest of their foodservice. They could be former military servicemembers (cooks, quartermaster, etc) who have clean enough records and credit to obtain the security clearance. I'd be willing to bet that they are the most highly-paid baristas in the country.

they check your credit?

Bad credit could be an angle somebody could use to press you for secrets. So yeah, it seem reasonable.

Yep. If you have a lot of debt, it becomes a vector that a foreign intelligence agency could use as an approach on you. Become your friend, find out about that 20K in student loan debt you have, and then mention "Hey. You know. If you were tell me whenever you hear about XYZ, I could help you out with that debt".

edit: fixed spelling.

"I'd be willing to bet that they are the most highly-paid baristas in the country."

Rumor also has it that the CIA has the highest-paid trash collectors in the world. (All paper waste is incinerated on-site, and is never touched by anyone who isn't cleared by the organization.)

>>“But giving any name at all was making people — you know, the undercover agents — feel very uncomfortable. It just didn’t work for this location.”

>> There are no frequent-customer award cards, because officials fear the data stored on the cards could be mined by marketers and fall into the wrong hands, outing secret agents.

What? CIA agents don't like a real-name policy or their coffee consumption being mined by marketers? Who'da thought.

This reminds me of the Seinfeld joke:

Jerry: This isn't a good time.

Telemarketer: When would be a good time to call back, sir?

Jerry: I have an idea, why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you back later?

Telemarketer: Umm, we're not allowed to do that.

Jerry: Oh, I guess because you don't want strangers calling you at home.

Telemarketer: Umm, no.

Jerry: Well, now you know how I feel.

[hangs up phone]

So here's an idea: why doesn't Starbucks create and distribute the names? A sticker goes on the cup and the secret agent gets the corresponding name on a piece of paper. Like, they print paper with two parts: one part is the sticker that goes on the cup and the other goes to the customer.

Or maybe do it inside-out: print the cups with some phrase on them and have paper that peels off with the same phrase to give to the customer. And do it across all the Starbucks stores. I'd like this: the number of times I have to explain "Hugh" [1] or get a cup that says Q or Hue or Hu is modestly annoying.

[1] That conversation goes like this, at least in my imagination: Me: Like Hugh Grant or Hugh Laurie or Hugh Hefner or Hugh Jackman or Hugh Brown. Barista: Who is Hugh Brown? Me: I am Hugh Brown and you are making my coffee.

Not a spook, but it bugs me also when I'm asked to give my name to identify an order.

I have an unusual name that people find difficult to pronounce and spell. Meanwhile, there are five Matts behind me who have each ordered different things. All six of us have to keep visual attention on the service area so we can identify our stuff when it comes out, because I won't know whose name they're trying to call and latte-Matt has been assigned the same identifier as sandwich-Matt.

It bugs me even more that stores adopt this as a mark of "friendliness". It's not friendly, it's presumptuous, rude and inconvenient. I'll happily chat to the staff and exchange names when it's quiet, but don't make them try and learn mine when they're flat out doing their job. Just give me a number, or call out what I ordered - both practices vendors have been following successfully for thousands of years.

i'm sorry but it sounds like you're making things up. if your name is hard to spell or pronounce, why give them your real name?

these kinds of social constructs are meant to be gamed, not taken at face value. i know people who give baffling names to baristas just for the fun of it.

also, every starbucks i've ever been to say the name you give them, and the order description when they call out for pickup.

MIKE DOUBLE ICED AMERICANO. JOHN SOY CAPPUCCINO. LINDSAY FRAPPUCCINO WITH CARAMEL.

At the cafes in Australia they rarely call out the order description, only the name, repeatedly until someone collects their order. Which often tempts me to give my name as "Bueller"...

I used to give an easier name to baristas (even though it turns out 75% of baristas can't spell "Colin" either), but once I signed up for a loyalty card it caused issues that my "Starbucks name" didn't match the one on my loyalty card, so I mostly use my real name now. Nowadays the baristas at my local have memorized my real name & my order, so it's no longer an issue.

I always give my beautiful wife's name as it's much easier to spell and yell than mine, and slightly less common. It's amazing how many brains seem to process 'Jacob' as either 'Jason' or 'Joseph'.

But I am always tempted to give my name as Primrose Everdeen [1]

[1] http://hungergamesfandom.net/tag/i-volunteer-as-tribute/

> why give them your real name?

Reflex/conditioning? I've actually had exactly this conversation with a Matt, and we came to the common conclusion that we should both use a name like "Zorro" that's unique and easy to spell. But I haven't trained the reflex enough yet: generally when asked for my name, I have no reason not to give it.

At every starbucks i've been to (and it seems like a pretty strictly defined script), they call out both the name and the order so latte-matt and sandwich-matt aren't assigned the same identifier. The barista calls out "i have a tall latte for matt" and matt who ordered a latte knows his order is ready. It solves both the problem of three latte-drinkers in the line and three matts in the line, as long as there is only one latte-drinking Matt. and assigning names to drinks prevents the queue-jumpers who order their grande latte and then grab the grande latte of the person 5 spots ahead of them.

qewrffewqwfqew does seem to be difficult to pronounce and spell.

So the moral of the story is secret agents get uncomfortable when a barista asks to put their name on a cup? These people sound super easy to spot in a crowd.

Well, they get uncomfortable being asked for their name in a context where they are already known to be doing covert work for the CIA. If it was a normal Starbucks where nobody in the room knew about their day job, they probably wouldn't care.

I wonder if it is cash only. Credit card transactions would also be revealing to interested parties. If there ever was a time for the "Company" to pick up the tab, this would be one just to prevent the data leak to the outside world.

It's not cash only, but the few credit card terminals I used had warnings next to them to the effect of "be sure of which card you are using." I discovered the easiest thing to do was use cash.

I imagine that a similar process happens for pretty much all mundane jobs in sensitive locations. Sure, people think about the process to recruit high-level personnel for CIA and NSA positions... but what about the janitors, truck drivers, plumbers, and warehouse personnel?

I imagine that these people are paid pretty well for their positions, as they're not being paid for their skills; they're being paid for trustworthiness.

"...[CIA employees]can’t fiddle with their smartphones during downtime. For security, they have to leave them in their cars."

Pay no attention to the guy just outside the fence remotely rooting them all. Heh.

Isn't Starbucks Store #1 at Pike Place in Seattle? That seems like it would be suspicious; wouldn't it be better to borrow the store number of the one inside the Safeway or something?

According to the article, the receipt just says "Store Number 1", nothing about Starbucks.

Yes, but one guess where a receipt for a "Grande Mocha (Decaf, Soy, No Whip)" might come from.

Surprised Starbucks got more points than the CIA museum https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8370849

an intelligence agency. that specializes in proxies. failing sutton's law. who would've guessed..

wait for it..'thanks, your ORDER NUMBER is #'

ta-da!

At CIA Starbucks, not even the advertorial is called out by name.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com