Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf | Hacker News Reader

Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf

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134 pointssp33248 comments

This is interesting, although the editorial comments are not particularly surprising given the source. e.g.:

"Throughout this chapter and the next, 'The Harm of Surveillance,' Greenwald emphasizes the coincidence of his judgments and values with those of Snowden. He also links Snowden’s upbringing and checkered employment history as justification for his decision to proceed as he did rather than follow official whistle-blower procedures."

Snowden's stated reasons for not going through official channels, and Greenwald's reporting of this, were based upon the NSA's prior treatment of whistleblowers, specifically William Benney and Thomas Drake[1]. The surveillance agencies believe that all information collection is desirable, justified and, because of the public's ignorance of the threats posed, necessarily secret. Like most organizations, insiders who push for changes are met with varying degrees of resistance.

[1] http://www.npr.org/2014/07/22/333741495/before-snowden-the-w...

The editorials should be read as propaganda targeted toward the CIA's staff who will consume these documents. The critical giveaway here is the phrase "checkered employment history". Snowden's employment history isn't checkered, it was a clear upward trajectory, starting at the very bottom.

It's to their benefit to form their propaganda in a very dry "factual" sounding way such that it can more easily dodge the perception of bias. Of course, it's merely a biased presentation of some facts and twisting/fabrication of others in a way that favors the agency.

Especially given the "checkered employment history" he worked at CIA with security clearance.

The CIA can pass the buck there as the FBI conducts clearance investigations. The CIA does do additional screening for access to certain information, but if it's anything like most other agencies then they likely trust the FBI's judgement on non-sensitive positions that only need collateral clearance.

Actually, the CIA runs its own background investigations, as well as those for the ODNI. Additionally, Snowden was cleared through the DOD contractor process which means he was investigated by either DSS or OPM initially, depending on when he got his initial clearance.

Some might consider that to be the black square on his checkerboard.

If you're interested in the (modern) history of spycraft I highly recommend Allen Dulles 'The Craft of Intelligence':

http://www.amazon.com/Craft-Intelligence-Legendary-Fundament...

It was written by the first CIA director in the 1950s and is part memoir and part look into the structure of the early intelligence world.

I find looking back at the beginning of something is necessary to understand the current state and this book lays a good foundation for understanding how the CIA grew and evolved. It's particularly interesting how even back then it started out of paranoia and suspicion of all ideas that were an affront to the American Dream. More than just out of simply the need for a national defense mechanism.

Famous operations sound quite different from the perspective of the leaders who ran them. Than what you might find in the media or documentaries.

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

I've read OF Dulles, but this one escaped me. thanks for the share.

For more of the nuts and bolts of modern operations, I suggest 'Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy' by Mark Lowenthal.

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Secrets-Policy-Mark-Lowen...

I also appreciate the foundations and history, but this is a great introduction to the tasking, training, mindset, and goals of modern intelligence operations. He's updated for post-9/11 and post DHS splintering of the IC as well.

A good history of the CIA is Legacy of Ashes. TL;DR: Dulles was a tragic incompetent with a talent for self-promotion who played a crucial role in organizing the CIA so that it could not learn from its mistakes.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0010SIPZ8?btkr=1

Wow, here's a quote from their summary of one of the books:

  Each of these books about the Snowden affair covers the 
  basics of Snowden’s broken family life, his half-finished 
  education, his political beliefs, and his devotion to the 
  Internet.

Well, they really didn't have much to work with here. Snowden was almost the perfect dissident. His actions and past were totally clean, except for maybe going to Russia,.

You have to understand that he didn't leave them much to manipulate external and internal biases with. So they went with his lack of education.

As someone else pointed out in the thread, his career trajectory was pretty much straight up. It wasn't until 2012 where he became disenfranchised with the intelligence community.

Otherwise, he's held some incredibly top level positions in the NSA and CIA up until 2012. Had he not gone "rogue", I'm pretty sure he'd still be climbing the ladder and be one of the more respected people within the intelligence community. This guy was headed to some very high, well paid positions within the NSA.

Kind of hard to discount his career up to that point.

>he's held some incredibly top level positions in the NSA and CIA

And Kim Dotcom was an elite hacker. Don't let reality get in the way of a good myth.

So this all myth then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#Career

According to Greenwald, while there Snowden was "considered the top technical and cybersecurity expert" in that country and "was hand-picked by the CIA to support the president at the 2008 NATO summit in Romania."[73]

In 2011 he returned to Maryland, where he spent a year as lead technologist on Dell's CIA account. In that capacity, he was consulted by the chiefs of the CIA's technical branches, including the agency's chief information officer and its chief technology officer.[39]

Pretty sure if you're being consulted by the CIA's CTO, you're not exactly some low level contractor doing sys admin work.

It may or may not be a myth, but the only source backing up these assertions is Snowden himself by way of interviews.

He got stuck in Russia on his way to South America.

Yes, the US cancelled his passport while he was trying to get a connecting flight in a Russian airport, thus sticking him there.

Which, from what I've read, was an error. They actually wanted him to get on an aircraft, fly over Europe, and then when he flew over the skies of a US ally that ally would force the aircraft to land. Then the US would extradite him from there.

But they lost track of Snowden, panicked, and cancelled his passport. Leaving him stuck in Russia of all places (which is actually worse for the US than either a South American country OR HK, as they have zero political capital there).

They didn't revoke his passport when he was in Russia, they revoked his passport the day before he left Hong Kong [1]. He traveled to Russia on what turned out to be an invalid travel document issued by the Ecuadorian embassy in London [2] (same one that Julian Assange is holed up in).

[1] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-source-nsa-leaker-snowdens...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/02/ecuador-rafael-...

It belies the attitude of the typical intelligence official that they believe an education is something that is finished and then you learn no more.

Which is why they have a Bookshelf page.

Indeed, we should all strive for a half-finished education.

Are all intelligence officers college graduates?

Devotion to the internet is a bad thing?

Of course it is. The internet is a frightening place filled with pornography and free thinkers.

Funny thing is the CIA never includes this book in their lists

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Company-Diary-Philip-Agee/dp/08...

Or Robert Baer's books (which had a fictionalized form in the movie Syriana).

His See No Evil goes into a lot of detail about the training and day to day work of a CIA case officer:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/See_No_Evil_%28book%29

That looks really interesting; I'll have to check it out. Thanks!

However, I suspect that Baer may be out of touch with US post-cold-war national security issues.

"The final section of the memoir deals with Baer's experience with oil politics in Washington, and the extended reach granted to oil's agenda by the politically fixated and strategically oblivious American government. At one point, Baer is stunned at being asked to approve the sale of a sophisticated American defense weapon to a former Soviet-bloc country as an incentive for participating in an oil deal, while that same country had recently obstructed the investigation of the murder of an American diplomat on their soil."

His 'Sleeping with the Devil' on the US-Saudi connection was pretty damning for its time too. No pun intended.

http://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Devil-Washington-Saudi-Crude/...

I grew up in Saudi, and got my undergraduate degree in intelligence studies. From my perspective, Baer was quite in touch with modern politics. A bit bombastic, but always a seemingly strong understanding of the political landscape.

I thought the most surreal part was where he was investigated by the FBI, on a charge that could have potentially have resulted in the death penalty, for conspiracy to assassinate Saddam Hussein.

Of course, the assassination was a complete fiction - but the CIA made it clear that they were hanging him out to dry.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

Pot Shards by Donald P. Gregg is also good

http://www.amazon.com/Pot-Shards-Fragments-Lived-Koreas/dp/0...

>> Snowden’s acts were justified because he chose to seek “reform of the surveillance state,” (248) and journalists have the absolute right to be the final arbiters of what to publish. Greenwald’s often bitter ad hominem rationale for this is unlikely to be the last word on the subject.

Interesting comments from the other angle. As they are just waiting for prosecution.

Greenwald's book is a long series of winces and groans. It's just awful the way he indulges his vengeful, bitter side. Maybe you'd like to know things about the Snowden affair but reading them via Greenwald just has to be the worst possible way to get that knowledge.

What is the second worst?

A tight race! Hacker News maybe?

Interesting list. And if this is really the list I can see why CIA have hard time doing what it should be doing: National Intelligence Agency. There is nothing written by Russian authors from communist area, nothing written by Muslim extremists, no books written by Nazis, etc. I was assume the list will be combination of books from all over the world - especially books written by past and current adversaries.

But this is probably not the official list for agents. I would love to see the official list.

My impression is that this isn't an official CIA reading list. It's one edition of a regular book review article that appears in each issue of the journal Studies in Intelligence.

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

If controversy or Agency efforts to censor or block publication is something you view as a badge of authenticity and information value then:

The Human Factor (Jones): http://www.amazon.com/Human-Factor-Dysfunctional-Intelligenc...

Loose Lips (Berlinski): http://www.amazon.com/Loose-Lips-Novel-Claire-Berlinski-eboo...

Rift Zone (Hillhouse): http://www.amazon.com/Rift-Zone-Raelynn-Hillhouse-ebook/dp/B...

Is there any modern book/guide on spycraft and carrying out intelligence operations in general instead of just a history?

I wonder if CIA personnel are actually forbidden from reading or possessing some of the Snowdrn related books. If they contained any leaked classified material, that would be a violation for anyone possessing a security clearance.

I remember reading an article that said military bases began blocking the Guardian, as most information was still classified and despite being public soldiers weren't allowed to read it.

I think it was this one: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/01/us-military-blo...

That's not just closing the barn door after the horse has fled, but beating any others that may have died in the escape attempt.

It is also completely true. As you might expect, .mil unclassified public networks are still strictly controlled and monitored, with all the invasive filters and MitM certificates you could ask for. I recall seeing mass-distribution e-mails "reminding" cleared personnel that they should not even be visiting WikiLeaks or Guardian.co.uk using their own equipment when they return home from work.

They actually expected people who saw classified material distributed from the web on their home computers to call and report it, so that the "spillage" experts could examine every bit of their privately owned hardware and permanently delete the classified material. It sounds ridiculous, but they were completely serious.

I cannot even imagine the sort of brain damage that would allow a person to have such an expectation.

How is that a violation? My understanding is that it's a violation to disclose classified information. It doesn't really make any sense to prevent cleared people from reading these things because then who's going to be able to figure out the extent of the information leaked.

Because it's still technically classified. When you hold a security clearance, you're not only agreeing to keep things classified, but also to not pursue any classified information you don't need to know.

This was a big issue when WikiLeaks started leaking info. There were regular memos circulated in DoD and DoE environments reminding people they weren't to be reading classified documents.

As is so often the case with government bureaucracy, that's pretty ridiculous (although I'm not disputing its truth). I can totally see it being a violation to knowingly look at documents that are clearly marked or otherwise denoted as something for which you don't have the need to know. But with something public that probably doesn't have classification markings, how can you possibly know?

interesting to see the CIA's ssl cert is still SHA1.

the whole point of this list is paragraph 1

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