Although there are 17 agencies within the
U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), the CIA is best-known for HUMINT, human
intelligence. Hollywood has James Bond fixated in our minds, but not too many
CIA operations officers have chased terrorists in a half-million-dollar
vehicle. However, they do carry and use spy craft and spy tools that even “Q”
would be jealous of.
I visited CIA headquarters in Langley a
few years back, and enjoyed seeing the robot fish and artificial insects that
carried listening devices. CIA case officers are trained at the “Farm” to go
into foreign nations undercover and recruit people to commit treason against
their own countries by giving away information that the government wants to
keep secret. Those people they recruit are called “spies,” although Hollywood
calls all CIA agents spies, which they aren’t. The officers themselves, neither
is James Bond in Britain’s MI6 a spy.
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| CIA's artificial insect |
The vast majority of CIA employees are not
case officers. Many are analysts, support staff and
technology experts (Like “Q” in James Bond). Also, unlike Hollywood’s
portrayal, the CIA cannot spy on U.S. citizens. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation has the lead on intelligence matters in the United States,
especially those directed against US citizens, like the FBI does domestically,
but maintains on-going foreign intelligence collection in every corner of the
earth it can plant officers into.
Sorry, Hollywood, but the CIA lacks agents
who go “rogue” and there are no illegal, secretive operations going on under
the radar. I met a CIA lawyer at a luncheon sponsored by the Association of
Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO). His name was John Rizzo, and he explained
that the CIA does not operate above the law. There are hundreds of lawyers
hired by the CIA and their sole purpose is to make sure the CIA conforms to the
National Security Act of 1947 and to the many Executive Orders that give
authority to CIA activities. No, there are no “rogue” agents or
conspiracy-theory operations going on out there (Sorry, Hollywood). Jason
Bourne would have his ass in front of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence (HPSCI) and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and
then prosecuted and sent to a federal prison. That’s after the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) nails
him and the secretive CIA administrators who created the program Bourne got
mixed-up in.
A “Spies” (CIA Case Officer) mission can
be exciting when overseas, but much different than Hollywood’s portrayal.
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