
Ex-Spy Runs His Own Private C.I.A. - georgecmu
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/world/23clarridge.html?pagewanted=all
======
brandnewlow
I met Clarridge during college. I took a class taught by an ex-spook where we
read spy novels and talked about the ethical dilemmas involved. We read
Clarridge's autobiography, "A Spy for all Seasons" and then he came and
glowered at us for 3 hours and answered questions. He really doesn't like the
CIA these days anymore. If you're interested in this sort of thing, his book's
pretty darn good: <http://www.amazon.com/Spy-All-Seasons-Life-
CIA/dp/0743245369>

~~~
jimmybot
Clarridge denies Pinochet caused thousands to disappear or be murdered under
his dictatorship. He also calls Amnesty International a propaganda mill. Judge
for yourself: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84>

The end of the video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNgCyDsvi84#t=2m20s>

Reminds me that I can't handle the truth:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGvQtumNAY#t=1m36s>

~~~
Confusion
A good reminder that _anyone_ can suffer from unexpected loopy opinions about
some stuff. You can't take anything at face value.

------
jdp23
"Over the past two years, he has fielded operatives in the mountains of
Pakistan and the desert badlands of Afghanistan. Since the United States
military cut off his funding in May, he has relied on like-minded private
donors to pay his agents to continue gathering information about militant
fighters, Taliban leaders and the secrets of Kabul’s ruling class."

Sounds like the government is now outsourcing paying for private intelligence
and security services as well as the work. I can see why 'small government'
people would like this but from the oversight and human rights perspectives it
seems like a really bad idea.

~~~
law
Actually, this is a terrific idea from the oversight and human rights
perspectives. Let's consider a hypothetical for-profit corporation to which
the government would outsource these operations. Under a broken system (what
we have now), the management of these companies would have some sort of non-
business relationship with the government officials responsible for awarding
the contracts. Moreover, these companies, under a broken system, would keep
their books shut, offering less transparency than we already have.

Now let's consider the best case: these companies compete with each other for
government contracts, which the people award. This type of system would compel
the companies to maintain high levels of transparency, especially with the SEC
and IRS now taking interest.

The reason the government is so inefficient is because they don't have any
external auditing agencies. The SEC and the IRS, for example, will never put
the CIA or FBI through the same rigorous audits that they would put private
companies through.

~~~
jdp23
a hypothetical for-profit corporation like Blackwater?

or the guys who were pimping Afghan teenage boys to warlords?

yeah, that worked well.

~~~
law
Right, I tried to make it clear that our current system is broken... the for-
profit corporation approach absolutely can work with transparency.

~~~
shkb
Transparency in spying?

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geekfactor
This article reads like the back-story of a season of 24...

Owner of intelligence-agency-for-hire is "determined to remain a player."
President/government has a different take on things and attempts to shut down
the agency. Agency plants WMDs on American soil in order to distract country
and guarantee relevance.

Wait. That _was_ a season of 24.

Oh well. In actuality I'm surprised at myself for being surprised that such
outfits exist.

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tsotha
We probably need outfits like this. The CIA seems to have completely lost the
ability to do human intelligence. They get punished when they deal with
unsavory characters, which is a necessity in that business. So they don't
bother, and rely instead on signals intelligence. Nobody ever got fired at CIA
running a program to listen in on jihadi phone calls. But you're not going to
pick up everything through signals intelligence.

~~~
shkb
Specifically they got their asses handed to them by the Soviets in human
intelligence, and choose to do what they were good at. But why would you need
a group like this, with all the problems of privatizing intelligence
operations? Would reform be a better choice? Or the acknowledge that the
disadvantages of covert operations are great enough to find an alternative
(similar to how the disadvantages of conventional warfare lead to covert ops)

~~~
tsotha
The problem is "reform" is what got us where we are today. When a human
intelligence operation blows up it's embarrassing. Congress gets involved
"reforming" things. So you get stupid rules like "The CIA can never pay
someone who's been accused of human rights violations".

People genuinely put the interests of their country first and they get hung
out to dry after the next election cycle. So the people who survive do what
risk-averse bureaucracies always do: nothing.

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wglb
Didn't Bobby Inman <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Ray_Inman> attempt to
start such a private company with private clients? While he had no problem
speaking his mind, it doesn't appear that he was as pugnacious as Clarridge.

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ahi
There are plenty of private intelligence agencies. It's an industry pretty
much like any other. Few are dumb enough to compete with the CIA. Why hire a
private agency in Afghanistan when the American taxpayer is already paying for
those services? If you run a private intelligence firm, just how desperate for
customers/donors do you have to be to get an article in the New York Times?

~~~
joe_the_user
Yes,

The "intelligence community" is a community - whether a given actor is in or
out of government does not seem as important as whether they in the community.

Secrecy grants it's possessors the ability to act very informally.

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dguido
In related news, ex-spy who runs his own private c.i.a. no longer has any
business due to being featured in the NYT.

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ilamont
_It is difficult to assess the merits of Mr. Clarridge’s secret intelligence
dispatches; a review of some of the documents by The Times shows that some
appear to be based on rumors from talk at village bazaars or rehashes of press
reports._

Actually, the New York Times could have gone back to older dispatches and
evaluated whether the bazaar-based predictions came true, or were otherwise
accurate.

The danger of using such information is much of it is not true, greatly
exaggerated, subjective, etc., but is nevertheless being taken seriously by
some military, diplomatic and intelligence staff and helping drive strategy
and tactics on the ground. This potentially creates even more problems,
misunderstandings, and mistrust and can even lead to unnecessary death and
destruction.

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bane
I wonder what this kind of thing is called?

Bounty Hunter? Mercenary? Vigilante? Somehow, none of those labels really seem
to fit quite right. Is this sort of thing something new?

~~~
snth
How about "Private Intelligence Contractor". Like "Private Military
Contractor".

~~~
bane
There's plenty of those. The fact that he's going it solo, vs. working on a
contract makes this something uniquely different.

