I think it’s much more likely for both these orgs to be telling the truth when they’re accusing their enemies of doing bad things than it is when they’re denying that they’ve done bad things themselves. It’s not a simple case of one consistently telling the truth, and the other consistently lying...
So when the CIA tells me some foreign government is doing something bad, I should believe them? Then when the CIA denies they lied about the foreign government was doing something bad, I should ignore them?
Isn’t this kind of begging the question? It’s implicit in your reasoning that the CIA does exactly what I’ve claimed they generally don’t do.
Anyway, the point is that I don’t think you have to dig very deep these days to find plenty of instances of geopolitical power X doing bad things, so I’m not sure why the CIA would bother lying to stir up shit against them when they could tell the truth just as easily, with the same result. This assumes their purpose in releasing any information at all is to influence public opinion, not increase transparency, as the latter would probably mean divulging uncomfortable truths. The former does not—they can release exactly what they want, and no more.
On the other hand, flatly denying you’ve done a bad thing is a form response for governments and corporations (and politicians) at this point, even when it’s risible on its face. If you’re the guy responsible for putting those comms together and you admit wrongdoing, you’re never working in this town again. Simple as that. Deny, deny, deny. Deny everything. (Isn’t that a one-off X-Files title card?)
Has the CIA lied? Absolutely, though I’d guess far more often (orders of magnitude?) by omission than by outright explicit falsehood. The latter goes against the same ass-covering impulse that drives the bullshit denials. My brief comment above is meant to be a general observation on the sorts of public communication games the CIA and similar organizations tend to play, not an absolute truth or bible for living your life.
> So when the CIA tells me some foreign government is doing something bad, I should believe them?
Honestly, yes.
> Then when the CIA denies they lied about the foreign government was doing something bad
When have they done this? A few times probably, but not really a high percentage.
At any rate, P(CIA telling the truth about a foreign govt|foreign govt is doing something bad) is much higher than P(CIA lying about foreign govt|foreign govt is not doing something bad). The rational thing is to put higher weight on such statements than when the CIA is trying to cover their own ass.
There's a difference between them telling what they think is the truth, and them actually knowing something and telling it. The whole "Havana Syndrome" thing might actually be them telling what they think is the truth (Russian/Cuban conspiracy to use secret weapons to give headaches to people), even though it's complete nonsense.
that is to say, when making a statement is personally detrimental to someone, and they make it anyway, that statement should generally be given a higher degree of belief than one that is self-interested.
so in other words, if the CIA denies that they did something bad, you don't necessarily believe that straightaway, because of course they would say that. On the other hand if they do admit they did something bad, then it's OK to believe them in that instance even if they've lied in other instances.
Now of course - in the specific case of the CIA they are a government apparatus, not an independent actor, so the fact that they say (eg) Russia did a bad thing isn't necessarily against their interest, it is in their interest for the US Government to look good and truthful. But as a general rule, it's important to look at the interests in a specific instance to determine rather than just assuming that because an actor lied once that everything they say is suspect.
> think it’s much more likely for both these orgs to be telling the truth when they’re accusing their enemies of doing bad things
That’s... not how that works at all. Disinformation campaigns very frequently include publicly signaling you’ve come to a different conclusion than the real one you’ve come to.
> I'm not sure why you think what I said is incompatible with this.
Because it’s literally the opposite. Misattribution is disinformation 101 if you have a solid source you need to protect.
US finds out China severely compromised a system while pretending to be Russia. The US found this out via a compromised Chinese government asset.
They need to fix the system but don’t want to let on they knew it was China and risk compromising their insider knowledge. Best course is to just say, “we found this that looks like Russia and we fixed it”.
There is no reason to assume a public attribution from an intelligence agency is correct. There are far too many reasons for it to be helpful to lie.
If you already believe the CIA is usually lying, then the accusation "But you believe the FSB!" when the FSB says "The CIA is lying" may be technically true, but meaningless.
Hey, I don't even believe the CIA quite always lies: I'm sure it has sometimes said "The FSB is lying", and I believe that too. Because the FSB is pretty much always lying... Just like the CIA.
I mean would Kaspersky even have a choice not to work with FSB? I mean it is a Russian company , I doubt if anyone other than Putin can naysay FSB dictates.
With Eugene Kaspersky being a graduate of both KGB special school and higher school and later an intelligence officer [1] - no, I doubt that he had a choice or even ever had that question in mind.
