Has Trust in the U.S. Intelligence Community Eroded?

https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA864-1.html

by wolverine876 • 2 years ago

64 74 2 years ago

amflare• 2 years ago

What kind of question is this? Of course it has. The 3-letter-agencies are effectively a black box that command unlimited resources, all the power that can be wrung from a blank check cashed by the US economy, and no oversight except what they allow. What is there to trust?

jvanderbot• 2 years ago

The question is not about public perception but mostly about policymaker perception. That's not obviously true that policymakers have lost trust.

cheeseomlit• 2 years ago

I get the impression that policymakers are more afraid of them than trusting, thinking of the "don't cross them or they have 6 ways from sunday to get back at you" sentiment

_3u103• 2 years ago

Given how little they spend compared to the unlimited spending power you claim they have, the TLAs might be the only people who could balance the budget.

dzonga2• 2 years ago

because majority of the spending and revenue generated is off the books.

they're not only getting financed by the US gvt through the budget. But they have their own ventures that generate profits to feed the monster. their ventures could be public such as the CIA venture firm or dark money as usual.

thistletame4• 2 years ago

How little they spend? What's that about the trillions in defence that go missing each year?

ganzuul3• 2 years ago

The U.S. IC considers itself untrustworthy because it knows how compartmentalized it is. If it tries to garner trust then it is straight up lying.

thistletame4• 2 years ago

Was going to say, isn't this the whole point of what they do? Gain some assets, kill some assets, so no one really knows what they are up to.

_mlbt• 2 years ago

Only a fool would have trusted them in the first place.

They’re spies with little to no oversight.

stevenjgarner• 2 years ago

How can the the American voter trust the IC when the rubric for deciding what is secret, private, confidential or in the national interest is so far removed from them personally, removed even from their elected representatives? I think more transparency and open discussion of the actual rubric itself would go a long way to building trust.

_3u103• 2 years ago

Easy, look around the world and see if the things you want to have happen are happening.

Are the right governments being overthrown? Or no.

llostein• 2 years ago

It really depends on which side you are on. If you support Evangelical-backed business interests and are partial to Israel then you would have more trust in the intelligence community than someone who wants higher taxes or someone who has no religious preferences.

unnamed76ri• 2 years ago

I think you might be letting your own political biases guide your opinion here. I don’t know any evangelicals who trust IC.

1oooqooq• 2 years ago

it goes both ways. there's two sides to the current praetorian guard setup. nsa if you're a technocrat liberal. cia if you're a bible conservative.

with both having nothing to hide, of course

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

If you support Evangelical-backed business interests and are partial to Israel then you would have more trust in the intelligence community

Don't many who fit that description consider the IC to be part of the 'deep state'?

OrvalWintermute• 2 years ago

I think the a legitimate and trusted IC is essential. Unfortunately though, the perception is the US IC:

(1) has been weaponized against non-establishment politicals

(2) is heavily involved in censorship cutouts against non-establishment politicals

(3) is evading the spirit of the law around constitutional protections via 5 eyes & outsourcing collection to BigTech

(4) is heavily involved in regime change operations "color revolutions" overseas that may trigger WW3.

(5) Hasn't been completely forthcoming around a number of different things such as JFK assassination, 9-11 hijackers, Epstein/Mossad, Spying on Congress, intentional weakening of crypto standards, plots vs Asssange.

dralley• 2 years ago

Compared to 2006, or 2015? No. Compared to 1990, probably.

Emphatically calling the Russian invasion despite widespread media, domestic and international skepticism helped gain a bit of it back. They should keep doing more of that and less fucking around with paramilitaries in South America.

bell-cot2• 2 years ago

George Bush Sr. was POTUS in '90. He'd served as CIA Director back in '76-'77, and (that I've heard) still knew exactly who to call, from the Oval office to 'way down the CIA's org chart, when he need correct and competent facts and analysis.

(Obviously you can argue that he still wasn't talking to the right people about Iran & Kuwait in July of '90.)

bell-cot2• 2 years ago

Between the U.S. IC's long history of spectacular failures, blind eyes toward high-level enemy moles, and squanderous operating expenses...when in the (say) past 80 years would competent policymakers actually have trusted them?

bigcat12345678• 2 years ago

I get a vibe of manufacturing consensus

I am an immigrant from China, I never trusted any intelligence community.

In a title, it implies there has been a time when the intelligence community was trusted (by who?)

I think this is mental manipulation from rand

ganzuul3• 2 years ago

The individuals who make up the IC are trustworthy* so it comes as a shock to them that on aggregate they are not.

*E.g. One group can be trusted with fair elections, another can be trusted to predictably obliterate a village without asking questions.

thistletame4• 2 years ago

Who says that's true? I always thought the people who got hired were just easily controlled and had enough dirt on them that they'd never act outside of their interests.

abeppu3• 2 years ago

I think in the same way that the Congressional Budget Office is generally regarded as pretty neutral and trustworthy, and makes forecasts about legislation proposed by both parties in a way that is generally credible, perhaps we need an intelligence branch whose remit is just to gather info and do analysis on issues of geopolitical and security importance -- and _not_ to execute on any particular administration goals, support or undermine foreign governments, detain or transport prisoners, etc.

Retrospectively, it's easier to answer "Were they right in predicting X, about which more information has now come to light?" than to evaluate "Were they effective in pursuing administration goal Y with the information reasonably accessible at the time?" which involves a lot of messy counterfactuals.

fakedang2• 2 years ago

Isn't that the DIA? They're in most of the Presidential briefings.

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

The issue is that the DIA isn't above the rest of the alphabet soup agencies in the hierarchy, hence it cannot just report on the activities of the other agencies itself.

abeppu3• 2 years ago

Is that the DIA? I'm of the understanding that because the DIA reports to the Secretary of Defense, and is a combat support agency, that it is pretty tied to administration goals. An example of serving administration goals and political appointees in a way that erodes trust would be Rumsfeld's DoD asking for novel prisoner interrogation techniques. DIA staff were involved in proposing/developing and then implementing "enhanced interrogation" at Guantanamo and Bagram.

I want a non-political intelligence agency, or as close to it as possible. I think it structurally cannot be within or reporting to the executive branch.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

The DIA is the military's intellgience agency, presumably reporting on military capabilities, plans, etc.

the DIA isn't above the rest of the alphabet soup agencies in the hierarchy, hence it cannot just report on the activities of the other agencies itself.

None of the others are either, afaik. The only intelligence organization above the rest is the Director of National Intelligence, whose job is to ~ oversee and coordinate the intelligence community.

0x38B• 2 years ago

I know the US Intelligence Community is more than the CIA, but it's been fascinating to read in CIA-veteran Douglas London's "The Recruiter" about how the CIA marketed its "seductive" covert action capabilities after 9/11 and became less about intelligence collection:

"[after the debacle of 9/11's intelligence failures], the CIA fundamentally changed its core mission, values, and culture: a metamorphosis designed to earn White House approval and guard itself from the encroachments of the Department of Defense and the FBI, agencies seen as threats that might steal its turf and authorities, and perhaps swallow the CIA whole.

A slippery slope of compromises, facelifts, and revised narratives justifying a unique set of capabilities and authorities undertaken to preserve the Agency would instead leave it barely recognizable for the institution it was meant to be. Established in 1947 as a small, elite, independent, civilian, and nonpartisan foreign intelligence service, the CIA's charter was intelligence collection, analysis, and covert action. Freeing the CIA from association with defense, law enforcement, and diplomacy theoretically protected it from grading its own homework as a policy maker, as was the case for the Pentagon, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State. Small, under the radar, and relatively chaste from the political pressures of its larger counterparts, the CIA was intended to speak truth to power....

That was the mindset of the CIA I joined in 1984. Today, the CIA must choose whether to be the elite spy service it was intended, or continue the Agency's post-9/11 leadership's ill-fated path of compromise." (emphasis mine)

----

an intelligence branch whose remit is just to gather info and do analysis on issues of geopolitical and security importance -- and _not_ to execute on any particular administration goals ...

I think this is what the CIA was meant to be and started out as. But in its struggle for survival after 9/11, it reinvented itself as a far more political entity.

Cheer2171• 2 years ago

It is really hard to take that seriously when the CIA was instrumental in overthrowing Leftist governments in Central and South America throughout the 1970s and 1980s. A CIA that was as deep in Operation Condor or the School of the Americas as they were could not be described as a "small, elite, independent, civilian, and nonpartisan foreign intelligence service". This seemed to change long before 9/11.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

perhaps we need an intelligence branch whose remit is just to gather info and do analysis on issues of geopolitical and security importance

The first part is, afaik, part of the intelligence community's mission. It worked to the extent that when GW Bush wasn't getting the answers he wanted on Iraq, he setup his own intelligence office to create the disinformation they wanted. (On the other hand, CIA head George Tenet, perhaps due to pressure, told Bush that Iraq WMD would be a "slam dunk".)

Also, afaik, that happens in a separate branch of the CIA than the covert operations. Is that not separate enough?

dragonwriter• 2 years ago

The CBO has a good reputation because of transparency of methodology than an intelligence service could not have. The last thing I want is an service with covert ELINT and/or HUMINT capacity, even without notionally an active measures role, that the Congress has even less inclination to constrain abuses by than the existing executive branch ones.

HUAC and the McCarthy committee were bad enough without Congress having its own independent spying capacity.

silent_cal• 2 years ago

I can't speak for everyone, but I have virtually no trust in it at all.

daft_pink• 2 years ago

They said Russia would invade Ukraine. Many other people denied it. Russia invaded Ukraine. I feel this is pretty good evidence that people trust US intelligence. You can cherry pick some failures, but they generally do a good job.

cess112• 2 years ago

United Fruit.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

You gave one example of a success. That doesn't make a track record. Iraq was an enormous failure, and also torturing prisoners.

93po2• 2 years ago

Also general failure to even attempt prosecution of the politically well-connected and powerful, unless of course other well-connected people were harmed or allege harm

plorkyeran• 2 years ago

What is the connection between them making a correct prediction and people trusting them? A track record of making correct predictions would be a reason why people should trust them, but it wouldn't be evidence that people actually do.

largehotcoffee• 2 years ago

Russian misinformation has just gotten better.

cess112• 2 years ago

Not sure how it would matter, but I'm also not living in the US.

Vaguely related video which I found interesting, about the geography of state secrecies in the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pf64nBAfujk

TypicalHog• 2 years ago

Pretty sure CIA is the big brain which essentially controls the world.

gamepsys• 2 years ago

I imagine the U.S. Intelligence Community played a large role in preventing 9/11 style terrorism in the last 23 years. I sometimes worry about some of their actions, or rumors of their actions. I do think their north star is in the countries' best interest.

Edit: 12 -> 23 years. Wow it's been a long time.

protomolecule3• 2 years ago

"I sometimes worry about some of their actions, or rumors of their actions."

Don't you think that you got 9/11 because of their actions?

thistletame4• 2 years ago

Mindcontrol programs, Tuskegee experiments, dropping biological agents on us civilians, distributing metric tons of crack cocaine, arent really rumors at this point. In this day and age if anyone thinks they are doing better things than the now public mistakes of the past I would advise to hold their beer.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

I imagine the U.S. Intelligence Community played a large role in preventing 9/11 style terrorism in the last 23 years.

I guess it's honest to call it 'imagination'. What evidence do you have? There haven't been those attacks anywhere for 23 years, and they didn't happen for 23 years before that.

I do think their north star is in the countries' best interest.

Per TFA, their north star is often pleasing the current President.

Scipio_Afri• 2 years ago

Off the top of my head, I’m sure there are plenty others - “2006 transatlantic aircraft plot”:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_....

protomolecule3• 2 years ago

"I do think their north star is in the countries' best interest."

And by the way, do you also think that Nazi's north star was in the Germany's best interest? It didn't work out well, but their heart was in the right place, wasn't it?

csdreamer7• 2 years ago

"The most common reason for bias internal to the IC is self-censorship

    IC analysts and managers have consciously changed or watered down assessments. This self-censorship was largely driven by a desire to stay relevant or an effort to avoid retaliation from policymakers.

Would anyone be able to offer insight into this? Are they worried about pointing out ties of lawmakers foreign investment ties? Biden's son to Ukraine and Republicans to Russia?

Due to the political nature of this please post credible links to back up your claims.

wolverine8769• 2 years ago

I've read about it or something similar in other reports: The administration puts pressure on them to produce certain results or to not produce others that conflict with their priorities or worldview. People hesitate to stick their finger in their boss's eye, and to produce work that will result in them being ridiculed, demoted, or simply excluded from the power structure, even though it's true.

I remember some intelligence agency or agencies assessing that Iran had much less of a nuclear weapons program than generally thought. The report was dragged through the mud.

Look up reports on past intelligence failures and you'll find similar issues.

alecco• 2 years ago

It's interesting how they work to gain trust: just finance movies like Sicario so people accept they have no other option but to break the law. And of course they only want to serve the interest of the nation, not their selfish interests or private interests. Next movies will probably justify how they have to run the country. Just like the greatest ally in the Middle East does, where most presidents come from intelligence. War is peace.

Has Trust in the U.S. Intelligence Community Eroded?

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