[HN Gopher] How US intelligence agencies hid their most shameful...
___________________________________________________________________
How US intelligence agencies hid their most shameful experiments
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 203 points
Date : 2023-10-04 15:36 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lithub.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (lithub.com)
| caycep wrote:
| I wonder if these researchers self-select for being terrible
| because they couldn't compete in the "marketplace" for publicly
| funded or corporate grants/employment?
| noslenwerdna wrote:
| This is an unpopular opinion here, but this article clearly
| suffers from reporting bias (successful projects don't get
| declassified) and selection bias (they found ~5 unethical/failed
| projects out of how many in CIA history)?
|
| There are clearly classified programs that we know of that were
| wildly successful: the atomic and hydrogen bombs, U2 spy plane,
| reconnaissance satellites, and probably more that I can't think
| of now.
|
| I would be interested in how this compares with other countries
| with intelligence programs of similar size. Could one find a
| handful of examples of unethical/failed projects from China,
| France, Russia, or the UK?
| Trombone12 wrote:
| A program is not some discreet, one time, thing, it's an
| extended process involving many many decision points: It's
| pretty flippant to pretend that statistic reasoning developed
| for when you draw things out of a hat is equally valid when
| talking about the chances you will produce a 20 year long
| enterprise of illegal human experimentation.
| justinclift wrote:
| > successful projects don't get declassified
|
| Is that really the case?
| noslenwerdna wrote:
| I was thinking if it's still in use, presumably it would not
| get released?
|
| Upon thinking about this a little more, it's possible that a
| project was successful, but it became public (like the atomic
| bombs) or it is just obsolete and superseded by another
| project.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Bombing two cities is definitely a great success as far as
| making bombs is concerned.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| If you're interested, the CIA was enamored of LSD for decades.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra
|
| Poisoning people: MKNAOMI
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKNAOMI
| dantheman wrote:
| This is an also interesting take on that era:
| https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Charles-Manson-History-Sixties/...
|
| It's too bad that so much of the records have been destroyed.
| As with the CIA torture program it is hard to hold those
| accountable and prevent future abuses when everything is
| destroyed.
| uoaei wrote:
| Pull the strings on Charles Manson, see what they unravel!
| Velofellow wrote:
| If anyone wants to dig further, Poisoner In Chief by Stephen
| Kinzer is a "fun" read about Sidney Gottlieb and these
| programs.
| jnsie wrote:
| The Behind the Bastards podcast did a good (3-part IIRC) series
| on MKUltra. Well worth a listen.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| I hate that podcast so much. It's practically unlistenable.
| There's so little content and just lame jokes. I'm always
| surprised when people recommend it.
| hhh wrote:
| What podcasts do you enjoy? It's definitely infotainment
| and leans more towards being funny.
| sangnoir wrote:
| You're surprised that people have different tastes in
| infotainment?
| specialist wrote:
| Ya, it's ok to let other people like things.
|
| (My response to) Behind the Bastards reminds me of (my
| response to) the movie Fahrenheit 9/11. While I
| emphatically agree with his POV, Michael Moore's creative
| voice makes me cringe. Worse, I feel that Fahrenheit 9/11
| is the coloring book version of the Bush Admin's crimes
| and misdemeanors.
|
| However. After watching the audience's reaction, I accept
| that Moore is right and I am wrong. He met people where
| they're at and showed them something new. Resulting in a
| greater awareness. I certainly could not have done that.
|
| Given Behind the Bastard's popularity, I know that Robert
| Evans and friends are doing the same yeoman's work. Which
| I appreciate and respect very much.
| macinjosh wrote:
| A lot of comments about how reflection on history is important
| and that not destroying records is important. IMO though, if
| society, in reality, had an appropriately strong distaste for
| this sort of thing we would simply rid ourselves of these
| "agencies" (I'd argue the term "criminal organizations" is more
| accurate based on their violations of the constitution.)
|
| However, seventy-plus years of history show that society simply
| does not care about what does not affect them so let the drug
| running, experiments, torture, surveillance continue as long as
| we can fill up the car and get to Target without too much hassle.
| crotho wrote:
| [dead]
| hunglee2 wrote:
| These retrospectives are so important - we can understand from
| these historical examples how agencies can get out of control and
| operate without adequate oversight, management control or
| democratic accountability. Thank goodness reforms have been made
| so that excesses like those described cannot happen again
| ericmcer wrote:
| This stuff is terrible, but if it's framed around "what are the
| dark secrets of Americas national security agency." It is kinda
| pathetic. I am glad no Unit 731 level stuff has come out about
| the USA.
| cutemonster wrote:
| Unit 731, "It killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
|
| That's 100 or 1 000 times more people than what I could have
| guessed.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| > Thank goodness reforms have been made so that excesses like
| those described cannot happen again.
|
| I'm sorry. Reforms maybe, but harsh torture? I don't believe
| that for a second.
| lazide wrote:
| I really can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.
|
| We already knew this before those specific abuses in the
| 50's-70's. They were already illegal, which is why they were
| done by the secret agencies, and not by - say - the dept. of
| health (directly).
|
| Congressional oversight has only gotten weaker since the Church
| commission (and frankly, the Church commission only made the
| mildest impact from what I can tell).
|
| The real question is, what are they up to now?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| The trouble is, how do you effectively oversee an agency that
| specializes in lies, misdirection, cover-ups, coercion, and
| blackmail?
|
| I also worry that our three letter agencies have collected an
| immense amount of dirt on Millennials and Gen-Zers. It's not
| hard to imagine blackmailing politicians or releasing dirt on
| candidates running on a platform to curtail or rein-in such
| agencies in order to prevent them from getting elected.
| diogenes4 wrote:
| > The trouble is, how do you effectively oversee an agency
| that specializes in lies, misdirection, cover-ups,
| coercion, and blackmail?
|
| You destroy them--it's the only way to guarantee
| accountability.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| It's known that the FBI was spying on and blackmailing
| civil rights activists like MLK Jr. They even tried to
| coerce him into suicide. They were never held accountable
| for this, so why would they stop? And without anybody to
| hold them accountable, what would stop them from doing this
| to elected officials too?
| lazide wrote:
| Yup, and a lot more - the wider program was COINTELPRO
| mc32 wrote:
| And more recently the Congress[1] and a presidential
| candidate[2] --that we know of. Much we may not.
|
| But even Congress doesn't have the will to do anything
| about the apparatus. What chance does the public at large
| have to have their constitutional rights protected?
|
| [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/t
| he-dan...
|
| [2]I'm sure some people will find no problem given an
| unsympathetic person, but it's still wrong.
| lazide wrote:
| Congress is also likely a _lot_ easier to manipulate
| /control (in a general sense).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Which is also the reason why a lot of the TikTok "but I'd
| rather CCP have my info than US agencies" is so
| infuriating. As if China isn't looking for influence with
| younger up-and-coming politicos. The utter lack of
| understanding from how much information about you the
| analysis of just "metadata" is that what can be learned
| from the actual "data" that data hoarders can collect is
| just mindblowingly naive to me.
| enterprise_cog wrote:
| What does China have to do with the evils of the US
| intelligence community? Why even bring them up? What does
| potentially seeking influence with people have to do with
| blackmailing people or other COINTELPRO activities that
| were used to disrupt civil rights activists?
| dylan604 wrote:
| i wasn't bringing in China just for the sake of it. if
| you read enough threads here on HN, you'll see people
| making comments "i'd rather the CCP have my data than the
| TLAs of the US, since the CCP has no jurisdiction". it's
| a strawman privacy argument. invasion of privacy is bad
| regardless of the "who" is doing it. all of the pervasive
| tracking that is occurring has so many levels of knock-on
| effects that just get ignored or overlooked or whatever
| other term for being allowed is just not a good thing and
| should be something not allowed.
| diogenes4 wrote:
| It seems weird to target tiktok (or china for that
| matter) when everyone hoovers up and sells your data as a
| matter of fact. Everyone. And they all have bad
| intentions. What's so specially trustworthy about
| american fuckery over chinese?
| dylan604 wrote:
| please see response to sibling comment:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37770386
| diogenes4 wrote:
| Yes, i agree that abuse is bad regardless of the
| perpetrator. No argument here.
| dylan604 wrote:
| so it's not weird. the weird is that you felt i was
| targeting when i was just providing a very specific
| example?
| lazide wrote:
| They're dismissing it because using TikTok now is fun (or
| at least interesting) and those other things you're
| talking about are not - and they can't do anything about
| them anyway.
| dylan604 wrote:
| They're dismissing it because they're like a flamingo
| with their head deliberately in the sand. Critically
| thinking about things makes their head hurt.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > our three letter agencies have collected an immense
| amount of dirt
|
| This is something I can't help being reminded of any time
| there's "breaking news" about a political candidate and
| some taboo subject, even today. It seems at least naive to
| believe it _never_ happens. I don 't think it's too wrong
| to say that political candidates today either have very
| clean histories or "play nice" to some extent with these
| agencies.
| lazide wrote:
| Obama was clearly sopping to them, arguably due to their
| role in tracking down Osama Bin Laden, etc.
|
| But the support was extensive, and essentially a blank
| slate. And not just drone assassinations.
|
| Edit: almost forgot - President Bush Sr. who used to be
| the Director of the CIA!
| ambicapter wrote:
| > Obama was clearly sopping to them
|
| What does this mean? Feels like a typo but I can't figure
| out what the intended sentence was.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I don't read a typo. https://www.merriam-
| webster.com/dictionary/sop (second _noun_ definition)
| stavros wrote:
| But it was used as a verb.
| lazide wrote:
| The beauty of English (one of the sluttiest languages in
| the world) is you can verb anything. And there is no
| academie to come arrest me for it! Muahaha
| frabbit wrote:
| "Sopping to" still does not have any common accepted
| meaning though. So, if you want to communicate with other
| users of English it might be a good idea not to use that
| phrase. You want both your listeners and you to agree on
| what it means and as far as I can tell only you know
| that.
| lazide wrote:
| Apologies for the less common words. Other examples:
| Buttering them up. Giving away the farm. Rolling out the
| red carpet.
|
| Essentially giving them whatever they wanted without
| asking any hard questions.
| frabbit wrote:
| I don't think you are correct. Google ngram viewer
| supports the idea that any occurrence of the phrase
| 'sopping to' is so rare as to be probably an error.
|
| You can usually "sop up" == "soak up" something which
| leads to the common "sopping wet". You can also have a
| "sop" == "morsel".
|
| "Sopping to" makes no sense in English.
|
| Sources: google ngram, wiktionary, merriam-webster,
| concise oxford 1971
| lazide wrote:
| And yet, you're the only one complaining. Have fun!
| frabbit wrote:
| Actually I was not complaining. I was trying to help:
| both you and anyone else reading that might believe your
| assertion that "sopping to" has the meaning you believe.
| reaperman wrote:
| It was sarcastic, and your additional commentary is also
| accurate. We do need more systems to actively protect
| citizens against these kinds of abuses.
|
| It's "uncommon" in the sense that a very small % of
| government employees are involved in these, but it's common
| in the sense that something along these lines are always
| ongoing.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| That comment is brilliant because a lot of the commentary on
| past bad deeds exude that stance without stating it so
| explicitly.
|
| Here's the general lifecycle:
|
| 1. Year 0: you are a conspiracy theorist if you think that X
| is doing Y
|
| 2. Year 15: only people on the fringes think that X was doing
| Y
|
| 3. Year [declassified documents]: Some nerd reads it, tells
| it to a living room full of people
|
| 4. Year [declassified documents] + 15: We have learned a lot
| from how X was doing Y in the past; the leaders of current X
| will have to reckon with this past [which is definitely _the
| past_ and has nothing to do with the present]
|
| 5. Year [declassified documents] + 30: Yeah, everyone knew
| that X was doing Y all along, idiot. It was a different time
| back then and nothing about it is comparable to our current
| times.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Yes.
|
| My only critique of your lifecycle is that in more recent
| times, "Years" should be replaced with "Months".. or
| sometimes Weeks.
| almatabata wrote:
| It all comes down to how much proof you require before you
| believe something. Some people do not require iron clad
| proof before they agree something looks fishy. Others
| require a very high level of proof before they agree
| something happened. If you require a high degree of proof
| you will always have to wait for declassified documents or
| leaks before you agree on anything.
|
| I can understand why people chose to wait. You have so many
| different conspiracies and most people simply do not have
| the time to sift through hundreds of documents to make
| yourself an opinion. People already barely have the time to
| read the news let alone follow the conspiracy rabit hole.
| Most people simple chose to wait and see.
|
| It does get annoying when people immediately dismiss any
| doubts you have as conspiracy nonsense though. Most people
| believe in some form of conspiracy without realizing it.
| How many agree that Epstein did not kill himself?
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > It all comes down to how much proof you require before
| you believe something.
|
| Not really. It's about making educated guesses based on
| history. If some institution (a totally hypothetical one)
| has consistently worked a certain way based on proof for
| decades then you can expect it to be more likely for it
| to continue to do so. So if this institution tends to lie
| 95% of the time _based on the evidence_ , which is more
| reasonable?
|
| 1. Maintain the stance that they might be lying with a
| high likelihood
|
| 2. Assume good faith until iron-clad evidence to the
| contrary (X years later). Then after that, of course, in
| any new scenario keep assuming good faith because there
| has been no FOIA or release of declassified documents yet
| celtoid wrote:
| > 2. Assume good faith until iron-clad evidence to the
| contrary (X years later). Then after that, of course, in
| any new scenario keep assuming good faith because there
| has been no FOIA or release of declassified documents yet
|
| A lot of Americans suffer from "lazy decency bias". It
| allows for the worst of humanity to regularly skate for
| some heinous actions.
| almatabata wrote:
| I agree that probably they currently have many illegal
| programs ongoing or in the works. But that does not tell
| you the exact purpose of these programs. Which of these
| conspiracies actually hit upon an accurate piece of
| information and which extrapolated a bit too far? I have
| zero trust in the CIA but that does not really help to
| judge which leaks have merit. Just because the CIA lies
| 95% of the time does not mean that other people cannot
| lie and fake documents.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _I have zero trust in the CIA but that does not really
| help to judge which leaks have merit._
|
| Fair. So when somebody shares their pet theory about the
| CIA doing some shit and they don't have evidence on hand,
| how do you respond?
|
| _" I don't know if that's true. It might be true but I'm
| not persuaded of it."_
|
| _" That's a conspiracy theory, it isn't true. Take your
| meds, schizo/troll."_
|
| I'm not accusing you personally of this, but the second
| kind of response is very common.
| almatabata wrote:
| > Fair. So when somebody shares their pet theory about
| the CIA doing some shit > and they don't have evidence on
| hand, how do you respond?
|
| Me personally i would listen just out of curiosity as
| long as it stayed civil. Most of the time it does so most
| of the time you can just listen and decide if you want to
| take it on board.
|
| > I'm not accusing you personally of this, but the second
| kind of response is > very common.
|
| I agree yes. People forget just how crazy certain
| theories sounded at the time. With MKULTRA you had the
| government giving hard drugs to citizen to see if they
| could brainwash them. If i came out today and said that
| the government operates an underground clinic to create
| super soldiers people would think i have lost my marbles.
| ConceptJunkie wrote:
| Well, with the recent discovery and harnessing of Vita-
| Rays, I might be inclined to think that's not so far-
| fetched.
| lazide wrote:
| The takeaway I guess is that it's best for any unethical
| top-secret programs to have as outlandish and ridiculous
| a premise as possible.
|
| Even if there is a leak, no one would believe it!
|
| That would explain why Operation Condor leaked. It needed
| something more outlandish. Like instead of assassinations
| and regime change, perhaps replacing key South American
| leaders with American body doubles with allegiance to the
| CIA?
| lazide wrote:
| It's a variant of 'Dad didn't molest you, he loves us!',
| unfortunately.
|
| And frankly, what are they supposed to do about it
| anyway?
|
| Unlike said molestation case, calling the cops is
| _definitely_ not going to help re: the CIA.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Just because the CIA lies 95% of the time does not mean
| that other people cannot lie and fake documents.
|
| What material difference does this make? You're just
| muddying the waters. I presented a case for what kind of
| default stance is reasonable to take based on the
| available evidence. Not that one should believe
| everything anyone says about the CIA.
|
| Say that the CIA provably (documented) killed 20
| particular innocent people (hypothetically). Then there
| are five people who each claim that the CIA killed
| whoever (their cousin, their wife) innocent people based
| on no evidence. The takeaway from that is that the CIA
| has killed innocent people (and by extension: can do it
| again), not that you should believe your uncle when he
| says that the CIA killed his dog.
| redeeman wrote:
| hmm very good point, that being said, I would probably
| tend to put more stock in the word of an honest normal
| person, than a proven murderous organisation accountable
| to nobody, but that may just be me
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Others require a very high level of proof before they
| agree something happened. If you require a high degree of
| proof you will always have to wait for declassified
| documents or leaks before you agree on anything._
|
| A lot of those people are just too naive politically...
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _Most people believe in some form of conspiracy without
| realizing it._
|
| Virtually everybody does, but the term 'conspiracy
| theory' has twisted to mean only those theories about
| conspiracies which the government doesn't officially
| endorse. If the federal government tells the public a
| theory about a group of men who conspired to hijack four
| airliners and crash them into buildings on the same day,
| that is _literally_ a conspiracy theory but isn 't
| considered to be a conspiracy theory in the twisted
| colloquial sense of the word because the government
| endorses it as truth.
|
| And it's not really about the evidence. How many people
| have _personally_ sifted through all the evidence before
| deciding what to believe? Few people have the time,
| inclination and access. Instead people delegate that
| responsibility, usually to the government. The veracity
| of the evidence is taken on faith. For instance, how many
| people who take the 9 /11 Commission Report as truth have
| even read the report itself, let alone reviewed all the
| evidence that supposedly backs it up? I think not many.
| How many people who believe the report have also heard
| that intact passports from four of the hijackers were
| supposedly found in the rubble of the fiery wrecks? How
| many have heard that one of those passports was
| supposedly found on the street of NYC, and nobody knows
| the identity of the person who found it?
|
| But _this_ theory about a conspiracy isn 't a _conspiracy
| theory_ because.. the government says it 's true.
| improv wrote:
| >"there were all kinds of reasons we thought we were set
| up to fail"
|
| -Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the 9/11 commission
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_9/11_Com
| mis....
|
| Also Lee Hamilton:
|
| >As chairman of the House Select Committee to Investigate
| Covert Arms Transactions with Iran (1987), Hamilton chose
| not to investigate President Ronald Reagan or President
| George H. W. Bush, stating that he did not think it would
| be "good for the country" to put the public through
| another impeachment trial.[5] Hamilton was later chair of
| the House October Surprise Task Force (1992).
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Hamilton
| lazide wrote:
| Or, most people don't want to believe something
| uncomfortable until it no longer matters (if ever), and
| classifying/making these programs secret is _exactly_ so
| the general public (which is composed mostly of those
| people) has plausible deniability?
|
| Which is also why whistleblowers get at most some
| feathers rustled, but rarely results in actual structural
| change.
|
| Because the public mostly is concerned about _how they
| feel_ , not _what is actually happening_.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| You're conflating the CIA with the public which makes no
| sense.
| lazide wrote:
| How so?
|
| I'm saying that the public tolerates this situation (and
| the CIA et al use the classification system this way)
| because the public prefers feeling a certain way about
| what their government is doing, over _knowing_ what their
| government is doing.
|
| Nominally, if the public cared more about what was
| actually happening:
|
| 1) Church commission type investigations would be a
| monthly occurrence (at the scale the gov't current works
| at), not a one time fluke (historically)
|
| 2) Classified information and secret programs would
| require third party independent oversight ( _actual_
| oversight. Not FISA like rubber stamping, which BTW came
| out of the Church commission investigations).
|
| 3) classified information would have very short
| timeframes before mandatory publication (at most a
| decade)
|
| 4) people would actually go to jail for abuses.
|
| None of which happens.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > I'm saying that the public tolerates this situation
| (and the CIA et al use the classification system this
| way) because the public prefers feeling a certain way
| about what their government is doing, over knowing what
| their government is doing.
|
| Based on what evidence? Think about what you are saying.
|
| 1. The clandestine arms of the US government has hidden
| things from the public
|
| 2. But this was because the public wanted it
|
| Explain how (2) came about.
|
| The US was much more open about things like the Vietnam
| War because there was virtually no public opposition at
| the start of it. Then a culture of opposition eventually
| emerged. When Reagan took office his administration
| interferred in Latin America. But then they found out
| that they couldn't just do that in the open like in the
| past because there was too much public opposition. So the
| operations had to be more clandestine.
|
| Public interest in US government operations abroad
| directly lead to a more clandestine approach--the exact
| _opposite_ effect that _you_ are claiming.
|
| > Nominally, if the public cared more about what was
| actually happening:
|
| And these things would come about _how?_ Again, you 're
| missing a step and somehow think that the public can will
| these concrete legislations into effect. How?
|
| The US government has been around for _centuries_ while
| what could be called universal democracy only came about
| in the 1960 's (arguably). And what democracy? A stronger
| one than pre-WWII, but still an elite-ruled democracy.
| lazide wrote:
| My position is de-facto true - if it weren't, after the
| Snowden leaks (among others), the next round of
| representatives/President would have as their top issue
| disbanding the NSA/CIA no? As freedom from an abusive
| gov't surveillance apparatus would have to be a major
| concern!
|
| Or at least there would have been a serious investigation
| with large scale imprisonment of gov't employees on the
| top of the list of issues?
|
| Instead, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone outside of
| a small minority of mostly computer geeks that cared at
| all. Because most folks didn't want to look or know.
|
| After all, the evidence in those leaks is damning. And
| they were very widely distributed. And they shows large
| scale illegal spying on the US population, abuse of power
| (spying on ex's being one well documented behavior),
| lying to Congress and the American public, etc.
|
| Instead, Snowden has been actively hunted down as a
| traitor (with pronouncements of him as a public enemy
| being common), a token investigation was done which
| resulted in no actual changes or actions except for the
| Director of the NSA being brought up to (verifiably) lie
| to Congress and the Public, and some hand waving
| pronouncements that they totally stopped doing what they
| denied doing in the first place. And then they made sure
| to be more clandestine. Which Congress and the public
| never tried to stop them from doing!
|
| The US public wants to be 'safe' and know their
| government is 'protecting them', and 'the bad guys are
| getting punished'. If you don't believe me, look up the
| polls for those in favor of torture after 9/11. I
| certainly overheard it a lot! Gitmo became a common term.
|
| That doesn't mean they wanted to see or know about the
| reality of it though. If they did (despite their efforts
| to ignore it), it would be outrage not indifference from
| the general population, and it wouldn't be a small
| handful of activists going after the agencies, but
| enterprising politicians of all stripes taking advantage
| of the new 'mandate' to clean things up.
|
| MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE before it existed because 'The
| Russians are figuring this out so we need to figure it
| out first'. A natural response, and if they panned out,
| all the sins would have been forgotten. The US would be a
| world power from more than just Nukes!
|
| They have to be clandestine about the sins, and the
| failures though or it gets folks worked up and then they
| get actual problems (Church commission, funding cuts,
| etc.). Which as long as they hide it (and they are
| allowed many tools to do so) no problems.
|
| I certainly haven't seen any public discourse or
| overheard any conversations about getting rid of the
| ability to classify things. Have you?
|
| It's the 'he's not cheating if I don't know about it'
| response.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > My position is de-facto true - if it weren't, after the
| Snowden leaks (among others), the next round of
| representatives/President would have as their top issue
| disbanding the NSA/CIA no? As freedom from an abusive
| gov't surveillance apparatus would have to be a major
| concern!
|
| So you have no evidence. You're just vaguely gesturing
| towards the _lack_ of something.
|
| No smoking gun. No causal link.
|
| And you dare call this a _de facto_ true stance?
|
| > Or at least there would have been a serious
| investigation with large scale imprisonment of gov't
| employees on the top of the list of issues?
|
| What list of issues? Oh, you mean the monthly plebiscites
| where the citizens vote on what issues the
| representatives are supposed to be working on?
|
| What are you even talking about? There is no "list of
| issues". There are two parties, they decide the issues,
| and if the public doesn't like those issues then they
| foment some Culture War nonsense while the election is
| underway. What choice does the people have?
|
| Vote third party? Get a rogue candidate inside one of the
| two Party Machines?
|
| The US is democratic to a certain extent but it's pretty
| indirect.
|
| > The US public wants to be 'safe' and know their
| government is 'protecting them', and 'the bad guys are
| getting punished'. If you don't believe me, look up the
| polls for those in favor of torture after 9/11. I
| certainly overheard it a lot! Gitmo became a common term.
|
| Uh-huh. And you think the _major issue_ that people have
| with the War on Terror today was that they went after
| terrorists? Not the fact that they invaded Iraq illegally
| and occupied Afghanistan for two decades despite having
| _weak ties_ to Bin Laden?
|
| And what does keeping people safe have to do with doing
| underhanded/clandestine/illegal shit? Precisely nothing.
| No one is mad about a government actually protecting its
| citizens. People are mad when a government agency goes so
| far against the credo that it has to _actively hide_ what
| it 's doing.
|
| > That doesn't mean they wanted to see or know about the
| reality of it though.
|
| No evidence.
|
| > MKULTRA and ARTICHOKE before it existed because 'The
| Russians are figuring this out so we need to figure it
| out first'. A natural response, and if they panned out,
| all the sins would have been forgotten. The US would be a
| world power from more than just Nukes!
|
| No evidence.
|
| > They have to be clandestine about the sins, and the
| failures though or it gets folks worked up and then they
| get actual problems (Church commission, funding cuts,
| etc.). Which as long as they hide it (and they are
| allowed many tools to do so) no problems.
|
| No evidence.
|
| > I certainly haven't seen any public discourse or
| overheard any conversations about getting rid of the
| ability to classify things. Have you?
|
| Again the proof by omission.
|
| > It's the 'he's not cheating if I don't know about it'
| response.
|
| No evidence.
|
| I like that you simulteanously believe that
|
| 1. The US government conspired against all Americans by
| spying on them
|
| 2. The People was of course oblivious to this
|
| 3. The people of the US are so all-powerful that this
| would be immediately solved after the revelations if
| there was only enough interest to solve it
| lazide wrote:
| When you want to read instead of straw man, let me know.
|
| I neither said, nor implied any of your points 1-4.
| Chathamization wrote:
| I don't think it's unreasonable to say that while,
| conspiracy theorist tend to both greatly exaggerate what
| actually happened, and use things that we have evidence of
| to push wild conspiracies we have no evidence of.
|
| Let me give an example I just found. Because of this post,
| I looked at the Wikipedia page for MK Ultra and found this
| line:
|
| > The people under this interrogation were CIA employees,
| U.S. military personnel, and agents suspected of working
| for the other side in the Cold War. Long-term debilitation
| and several deaths resulted from this.
|
| Thought that was an interesting claim, so I checked the
| source - footnote 36 - which was Rappoport, J. (1995). "CIA
| Experiments With Mind Control on Children". Perceptions
| Magazine, p. 56. It took me a while to track that source
| down, but I found some pages that had it such as this
| one[1]:
|
| It claims that there was a vast effort to create children
| sleeper CIA agents in the U.S. to control America. The
| evidence is based on "recovered memories," which is a
| defunct technique that in the 80's lead to conspiracies
| about a nationwide underground Satanic movement that was
| secretly controlling the U.S. Those theories, this
| Rappaport article, and even some comments here all lean
| heavily on Operation Paperclip, with the implication that
| the scientists the U.S. brought over post-WWII created a
| secret Nazi movement within our own government.
|
| Looking at Rappaport's website is interesting too. He
| believes the "Covid shots were kill shots" and that January
| 6 was a staged false flag event.
|
| That's enough time spent on crazy for me today. It takes a
| ton of time to track down each of these individual sources
| like this. Honestly, it's exhausting, and too many people
| think that some evidence of wrong doing decades ago is an
| invitation to shut down critical thought and open the door
| for all sorts of craziness.
|
| [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20070608225401/http://www.to
| tse.c... [2] https://nomorefakenews.com/
| lazide wrote:
| Crazy gloms onto these things - both inside and outside
| the gov't, and confusion is often used as a tool by
| 'friends' and adversaries.
|
| ARTICHOKE was the predecessor program to MKULTRA, and was
| explicitly to figure out how to trigger a cut-out to
| assassinate someone (especially high profile
| politicians). Here is the memo -
| https://nsarchive.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/project-
| artich...
|
| (Copies of course, that I found googling around).
|
| These were real and dangerous programs. The CIA director
| explicitly ordered the destruction of all MKULTRA
| documents 2 years before Congress started to investigate
| it, after a suspicious and rather public death of one of
| the major Directors of the program. The only reason we
| have much documentation at all related to it is because
| several reports got misfiled and were missed during the
| shredder party, but were found later when the
| investigation got started. Unfortunately they were mainly
| financial overviews, not useful program documents.
|
| We know something very similar happened when Congress
| started looking into the CIA's 'extraordinary
| rendition'/torture programs. Along with active
| interference in the investigation. And no consequences
| for anyone involved.
|
| So take that as you will.
| throw7 wrote:
| CIA got better with cleaning up. Bikowsky and Haspel are
| ones I remember (maybe because they happened to be
| woman...).
| lazide wrote:
| I'm not sure being responsible/involved with
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri is good.
| Maybe better than MKULTRA? Seems dubious though. They did
| finally release him instead of 'disappearing' him though.
| So that is one point in their favor I guess?
|
| To your point, better I guess? Still a sad and
| unconscionable thing for the gov't to be doing IMO.
| yetanotherloss wrote:
| This is observed post hoc rationalization behavior for a
| lot of subjects, but it's worth remembering that a lot of
| the kooky stuff from step 1 turns out to in fact be run of
| the mill lunacy, so there is some harsh survivorship bias.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Off hand thought an a small bit is a game of telephone.
| What people hear is completely mangled hearsay.
|
| Problem with intelligence agencies is no feedback to keep
| things same like you have when what people are doing is
| transparent. You don't have the assumption that sooner or
| later there will be an accounting. It's no one will ever
| know.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| I was using the much-maligned term "conspiracy theory",
| the term used to dismiss everyone from the well-read
| critic to the "kooky" Lizard International Government
| crank, but that was just to illustrate the point about
| how all of these get put under the same umbrella so that
| they at worst can be all summarily dismissed as dummies
| or at sort-of best can be equivocated by way of
| survivorship bias.
|
| In the Year Zero (before declassified documents) it's not
| a bad _theory_ that a powerful arm of one of the
| superpowers in a very free nation could be used for
| clandestine purposes since the State has a lot to gain
| from keeping the free men (people) of that nation from
| knowing about what it is really up to.
|
| Thankfully though we don't need to guess at this point
| since we have history to back us up.
| coldtea wrote:
| Is this parody?
| amriksohata wrote:
| Related
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/25/coventry-mp-...
| darkclouds wrote:
| [dead]
| knodi123 wrote:
| The story of "operation acoustic kitty" being squashed by a taxi
| is presented without skepticism; they don't mention that
|
| > this was disputed in 2013 by Robert Wallace, a former director
| of the Office of Technical Service, who said that the project was
| abandoned due to the difficulty of training the cat to behave as
| required, and "the equipment was taken out of the cat; the cat
| was re-sewn for a second time, and lived a long and happy life
| afterwards".
| throwanem wrote:
| Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?
|
| Jokes aside, I don't know how to feel about that one. It's just
| so nonsensically stupid and absurd, on the one hand, but on the
| other how much does that really make it stand out among the CIA
| era with which it's contemporaneous? But merely that it's
| plausible seems indictment enough.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Why is it "so nonsensically stupid and absurd"? This was an
| era before you could just deploy a tiny quad copter. In WW2
| we used live bats in bombs to start fires. We taught certain
| birds to peck TV screens to guide missiles. We tried to teach
| dogs to find land mines and dive under tanks so we could
| explode them. We thought of using live chickens to keep
| nuclear land mines warm for long enough to be effective.
|
| There was an era where "lets make a small animal do it" was
| the technology of the day, and it overlapped with "lets turn
| everything into a listening device for the [soviet|american]
| embassy"
| throwanem wrote:
| Yes, and aside from predating the CIA thing by two decades,
| none of those other projects produced anything worth a damn
| either.
|
| That includes the strict subset that made it so far as an
| _attempt_ at implementation - and I note also none of the
| projects you list involved cats, famously the least
| biddable among animals common in both household and
| farmstead. Even _Skinner_ was more sensible than that!
|
| So I suppose I have to thank you for making such a strong
| argument in support, however unintentionally.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Well ok, doesn't the author have the motivation to keep their
| narrative consistent as well?
| throwanem wrote:
| This article is far from the only source, including some
| from within the agency, to provide a relatively credulous
| account of "Project Acoustic Kitty".
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Why doesn't he, or you, cite them ?
| throwanem wrote:
| I don't know why the article author didn't, aside from
| that this doesn't seem the sort of journal where that
| level of bibliography is common.
|
| For my own sake, because this has been out there for a
| couple decades at least, and I trust you are at least as
| able as I am to find all the sources you desire - and
| without needing to suspect I might've hand-picked mine to
| support my thesis, besides.
| anon291 wrote:
| And yet so many on this forum seem convinced that such programs
| are no longer taking place, despite many examples of such data
| only coming out years later
| krapp wrote:
| I'm convinced MKULTRA isn't still going on simply because it
| was based on faulty assumptions about how the brain works and
| how easily it can be manipulated. Not that there aren't likely
| programs with similar intent going on (more focused on
| influencing the masses rather than programming individuals) but
| the whole "mind-breaking people with LSD and trauma" genre of
| conspiracy theory probably isn't real.
|
| Also I don't know what you mean by "so many," when the default
| consensus on HN is often very much pro-conspiracy.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Reminds me of this great joke from the late comedian Trevor
| Moore: _" What if governments learned from the MKUltra
| experiments in the 50's that trauma allows you to control
| people, so they purposely orchestrate disastrous events to
| keep their citizens afraid + dependent on them, and that's
| one of the reasons that mental illness has been rising? lol"_
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >the whole "mind-breaking people with LSD and trauma" genre
| of conspiracy theory probably isn't real.
|
| Though there isn't anything showing the continued use of LSD,
| the use of trauma to mind-break people continued until at
| least 2008 under the guise of "enhanced interrogation.".
| Black sites still seem to exist, so it's unclear if it really
| stopped.
| krapp wrote:
| >the use of trauma to mind-break people continued until at
| least 2008 under the guise of "enhanced interrogation.".
|
| That isn't a continuation of MKULTRA though, it's just
| torturing prisoners, and torture is notorious for not being
| an effective means of interrogation (which is why I'm
| convinced the only reason it was being pushed by the Bush
| administration post 9/11 was simply pandering to American
| bloodlust.) People will just as easily lie to make the pain
| stop as tell the truth.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| You see both as attempts to get people to say/do what the
| CIA wants and that they're both based on a faulty
| understanding of how the mind works. That's enough for me
| to view them as a continuation, even if some of the
| details differ.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| I suspect that most people are susceptible to such
| techniques. It's not hard to find historical examples of mass
| delusions or bouts of madness in large populations. Sometimes
| something like a severe drought (hunger) convinces an entire
| society that human sacrifice is a good idea in order to
| improve the weather.
|
| Why wouldn't similar things cause most people to break when a
| team of people are working to break them, with the aid of
| drugs and otherwise to make the trauma seem real?
| krapp wrote:
| I think there's a difference between breaking someone and
| breaking them in a specific way that allows them to be
| controlled. As far as I know, the MKULTRA documents
| themselves show their experiments to be a failure. Pumping
| someone full of LSD then playing "kill the President" over
| headphones doesn't work.
|
| The closest working analogue I can come up with to
| MKULTRA's goals is cult indoctrination, and that only works
| so long as someone remains within the cult's sphere of
| influence.
| iosystem wrote:
| I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss what you believe
| doesn't work. Any government willing to subject its own
| citizens to what happened at MKUltra is capable of
| forging documents and releasing them with the goal of
| making the readers believe the experiments were complete
| failures.
| krapp wrote:
| OK, but at that point we're assuming some or all of the
| evidence that exists for MKULTRA was fabricated,
| intentionally declassified and released, while taking for
| granted that those documents are still accurate _except
| for_ any part that discredit the program 's
| effectiveness.
|
| That the government wanted the public to know that these
| heinous experiments were taking place, just to try to
| convince them they didn't work, when it would have been
| much easier and more effective to simply never reveal
| them to begin with if they did work.
|
| And if what the MKULTRA documents themselves say don't
| matter, then all of this is just a matter of faith. What
| is there to even discuss if the evidence doesn't matter
| one way or the other? Anything could be a coverup, false
| flag or misdirection.
| iosystem wrote:
| "[...]when it would have been much easier and more
| effective to simply never reveal them to begin with if
| they did work."
|
| I don't necessarily agree with what you're suggesting as
| being simpler. It may, in fact, be simpler to reveal the
| experiments and discredit them by using forged documents.
| Regardless of what may be simpler, I don't think it's
| scientific to take either position, which is why I prefer
| an agnostic stance when reading things that essentially
| require taking a faith-based position.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Well a contrived example of a bad or ineffective
| technique is not a counter point. Nor, of course, is
| MKULTRA docs themselves that claim ineffectiveness,
| whatever small, unredacted amount of which we're privvy
| to.
|
| People do break and defect to other countries all the
| time. It happened numerous times on both sides during the
| Cold War. Surely part of that process is convincing your
| captive or target that your side's "cause or mission" is
| better than the one they came from.
|
| To what extent is that even wrong I don't know. What is a
| culture but a cult on a grander scale (as has sometimes
| been said of religion)? Not all cults need be death
| cults.
|
| You can't just tell someone to do something repetitiously
| and they blindly follow the order. You would have to
| convince the person that if they didn't do something, the
| world would be worse off or something even more horrific
| would happen in a fictional alternate universe if that
| person was not stopped.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Many might do better to focus on advocacy rather than
| ignorance. Not sure why secret cat experiments should matter
| that much in the stark reality of:
|
| "Overall, 48% say there are some circumstances under which the
| use of torture is acceptable in U.S. anti-terrorism efforts;
| about as many (49%) say there are no circumstances under which
| the use of torture is acceptable." (2017)
|
| This stuff is completely mainstream. The first episode of Blue
| Bloods (2010) had Tom Selleck correcting his DA daughters
| portrayal of police torture of a subject as thoughtful
| "enhanced interrogation". I can turn on the TV anytime and see
| this sort of stuff. It's as normal as apple pie.
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/01/26/americans...
| hedora wrote:
| Geez. Lighten up. /s
|
| According to Wikipedia, it's been at least 10 months since the
| US got caught doing this sort of thing illegally (trainers
| being complicit in steroid use during training):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_drugs_in_warfare
|
| And the US did recently ban giving amphetamines to troops (in
| favor of something more effective and less-well-understood):
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_psychoactive_drugs_use...
| reaperman wrote:
| Having taken both, I'm not sure if modafinil is really "more
| effective" but it absolutely has fewer psychoactive side
| effects overall. Ranks somewhere between caffeine and
| amphetamine in efficacy and side effects.
|
| I'm much more comfortable with service members being given
| modafinil than amphetamine.
|
| Modafinil can still cause an increase in risk-taking behavior
| (certainly did for me), but if you absolutely need to be
| awake and functioning for 30-70 hours at a time it's probably
| the least worst option. I've tried most stimulants, legal and
| illegal, and have had jobs that required me to be awake for
| 70+ hours straight in an environment not so different from
| military work (minus encounters with hostile forces).
|
| I think the most right solution is "don't put people in
| positions where they have to work more than 14 hours or stay
| awake more than 20 hours" but while that is possible for
| corporations to guarantee to workers, it's not always
| possible for militaries to guarantee to soldiers.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| ... or to doctors anywhere
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| How dare so many on this forum require evidence for claims!
| DangitBobby wrote:
| I agree, if I can't see it, it's not happening.
| thephyber wrote:
| And if I can imagine it, for sure the big bad CIA bogeyman
| is doing it to both terrorists and patriotic Americans
| alike. /s
|
| Some evidence of it actually happening is perfectly
| reasonable.
| motohagiography wrote:
| There may be a more economical explanation for indulging some of
| the more insane stuff they got up to. Who cares what the
| narrative is so long as you control it? If leaks got out, there
| was a short list of where they came from, the absurd stuff
| imposed costs on adversaries who had to verify it because they
| couldn't afford not to, it provided freedom for some very smart
| people, was a way of distributing pork to favoured donors, and it
| harnessed the most diabolical elements of society and put them
| into service for national interests. There's a simple idea that
| has some predictive power about these operations and programs.
| It's that, the lie is the power, and each secures the other. If
| it's believable and there are costs to believing it, and maybe
| you get some information out of it, that's a powerful story. If
| you can leak a story about ESP, or even aliens as a way to regain
| narrative control at pivotal political moments, that's a valuable
| service as well. People can flatter themselves by thinking you're
| an idiot, and underestimate you too. The irony is the optimistic
| case for these programs is the one most unacceptably cynical.
| lsedgwick wrote:
| Reminds me of Alan Turing's wildly undernoted remarks about ESP
| in his seminal essay "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"
|
| > I assume that the reader is familiar with the idea of
| extrasensory perception, and the meaning of the four items of it,
| viz., telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psychokinesis.
| These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual scientific
| ideas. How we should like to discredit them! Unfortunately the
| statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming. It
| is very difficult to rearrange one's ideas so as to fit these new
| facts in.
|
| (This is from a paragraph dealing with ESP's implications are for
| the existence of thinking machines.)
|
| https://redirect.cs.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf
| guntars wrote:
| The scientists would love nothing more than to discover a whole
| new area of study, alas ESP doesn't lend itself to study
| despite the overwhelming statistical evidence (?) because it's
| made up.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| The CIA and, by extension, the US government as a whole have
| never altered the outcome of elections anywhere for regime
| change, and have never instigated color revolutions for regime
| change.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| ..s..slava ukraini?
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Yes, a country fighting for its life against a genocidal
| invader is clearly an American conspiracy..somehow.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| > instigated color revolutions for regime change
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Yes Ukraine was referenced. I get it, writing off a war
| as a conspiracy means you don't have to acknowledge what
| is happening, which allows pro-Russian individuals to not
| have to critically think about why their support the
| aggressor in a genocidal war.
|
| It's dishonest, alongside being immoral.
| vuln wrote:
| To go further - A regime that would put the US in
| position to cut off the highly dependent EU from Russian
| LNG. Hundreds of billions of dollars of profit are at
| stake. Which is why the US bombed Nord Stream, it's also
| why the current President's son was on a board he knew
| nothing about, along with other congress critters
| families at different companies.
|
| It's all a "conspiracy theory" until it's not.
|
| https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1708595015507665
| 378
|
| https://twitter.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1699985908395606
| 426
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Blowing up the pipeline did nothing but void the non-
| delivery penalties Russia would have faced if it cut
| supply as it was threatening. Contract law doesn't care
| about military invasions.
|
| And Mike Benz is not a source on anything. He was
| appointed by Trump with no competence to some corner of
| the State Dept for 6 months then left.
|
| Get serious.
| vuln wrote:
| Being told "get serious" by a throw away. This is peak
| HN.
|
| Disparage the source not the content. Right buddy?
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| Actually yes with an internet full conspiracy and
| misinfo, insisting on good sourcing is an excellent way
| of navigating the noise. This guy has zero credibility.
|
| And the point he is making is that some in Europe will
| gladly see Ukraine destroyed if it means cheaper gas. We
| should not be holding that opinion up as reasonable or
| even moral, it's not.
| vuln wrote:
| You have zero credibility. Post on your real account not
| some throwaway, what are you scared of?
| nitwit005 wrote:
| If the CIA was competent enough to create mass protests to
| oust leaders, and not leave significant evidence of their
| involvement, they'd oust Putin and a bunch of others they
| don't like.
|
| If the guy was shot, poisoned, or similar, I'd treat the CIA
| as a possible suspect. Although given their history of
| fumbling assassinations, perhaps not the most likely one (htt
| ps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_assassination_attempts_on_...)
| .
| somenameforme wrote:
| They don't create them, they foment them. Like in the most
| recent protests in Iran, we were agitating those but it's
| not like we created them out of nothing. Those divisions
| and issues are very real. And we tried our hardest to use
| them to overthrow the government, but there just wasn't
| enough momentum. And I think the same was initially true in
| Ukraine, so we took it to the next level.
|
| This [1] is John McCain, in Kyiv, giving a speech trying to
| embolden and agitate the protesters onward. 'America is
| with you. I am with you! Your destiny lies in Europe!' It
| seems unlikely that we would have done that if we thought
| the protests would have organically led to insurrection
| (even with covert instigation), because not only does it
| make our involvement completely overt, but it's also just a
| ridiculously hostile action.
|
| Imagine if in the leadup to January 6th, you had some high
| ranking Chinese official, in DC, riling up protesters
| 'China is with you. I am with you! Your destiny lies in a
| multipolar world!' It's just so unimaginably crass and
| overt that it would be just shy of a defacto declaration of
| war, as it's obviously an effort to try to rile up a group
| of people to overthrow a democratically elected government.
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93eyhO8VTdg
| [deleted]
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Politicians giving public statements of support for
| protests is a rather different thing than a covert CIA
| operation.
|
| People would just laugh if China made such a statement.
| No one paid much attention to the statement they did
| make: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-
| protests-chi...
| reaperman wrote:
| > If the CIA was competent enough to create mass protests
| to oust leaders
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27etat
| ?
|
| (fails the "and not leave significant evidence of their
| involvement" part of your test, however)
| nitwit005 wrote:
| A fundamental assumption of many conspiracy theories is
| that you can manage this stuff in total secrecy, and
| maintain that secret for decades, despite presumably
| involving a huge number of people.
| reaperman wrote:
| Those were shameful, but "legal", at least by USA law. Federal
| agencies have also undertaken a shocking number of illegal
| shameful programs domestically within the USA, consequences
| only came about for a few of those programs, and we continue to
| lack systems which can guarantee that even definitely-illegal
| shameful domestic programs can't be undertaken currently or in
| the future.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > When the family took legal action, government lawyers
| threatened witnesses with prosecution under the Espionage Act.
| Decades later, CIA Director Stansfield Turner admitted that "some
| unwitting testing took place," but testified to Congress that the
| subjects were "criminal sexual psychopaths confined at a State
| hospital."
|
| Of course, since they found their "moral compass", and now they
| don't do that stuff any longer. /s
|
| Purely hypothetically, assuming that they wanted to run some of
| these shady things and fearing some whistleblower might expose
| it, or Congress might start asking too many questions, what
| should they do? They would create stupid program like "study
| behavior of cats", and then assign it to a "friendly" foreign
| country and run it like that. On paper it looks like a silly
| waste of money. Oh well, when hasn't that happened... If they get
| caught, cancel the program, create another one like "study
| behavior of dogs" and assign the work again to the same
| "friendly" team. Any real "work" results and assignments are
| received in person only and kept compartmentalized.
| sysadm1n wrote:
| This makes me wonder. I have a few side projects which if they
| ever got in front of a real engineer, they would poke so many
| holes in it and make me look like an incompetent impostor. Yes,
| transparency and insight into codebases is good and all, and
| enjoys scrutiny, but it's those hidden side projects I love
| working on, because there's no accountability (apart from me
| being better than before), and I can do whatever I want, without
| 'managerial oversight'.
| lobsterslive wrote:
| Anyone interested in this should learn about Operation Paperclip:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
|
| The US recruited Nazi leadership into science and intelligence
| positions directly leading to human experimentation like MKULTRA.
|
| This is considered the definitive book on the subject:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Operation-Paperclip-Intelligence-Prog...
| daemoens wrote:
| The Soviet equivalent, "Operation Osoaviakhim", has an
| entertaining read on Wikipedia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim
| sgt101 wrote:
| If you lie with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Thats plum island.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| The CIA is definitely the creepiest of America's three-letter
| agencies.
| MrZongle2 wrote:
| _That we know of._
| jp42 wrote:
| Wonder what kind of experiments CIA is doing now that will be
| revealed in after 50+ years from now.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Biolabs.
| [deleted]
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Exactly this. Who thinks this agency just went quietly into the
| night?
|
| They have a "public" budget of $24 billion and probably
| countless other dark money funds. We know they made money for
| their operations by running crack cocaine TO THE UNITED STATES
| already.
|
| https://oig.justice.gov/sites/default/files/archive/special/...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| The 1953 probable assassination of Frank Olson by the CIA could
| use a little more expansion - and he wasn't so much a biochemist
| as a microbiologist. He apparently was working on a specific
| program called ARTICHOKE in 1953 that involved torture and
| assassination using the MKULTRA arsenal of drugs and poisons:
|
| https://wariscrime.com/new/scientist-frank-olson-killed-by-t...
|
| Of particular interest is this:
|
| > "Cournoyer also told them Olson learned biological weapons,
| including anthrax, were used during the Korean War, despite
| denials by the U.S. government. Cournoyer repeated his story in a
| 2002 German TV documentary film, "Code Name ARTICHOKE," which can
| be seen on YouTube."
|
| That would be enough of a reason for the CIA to conduct an
| assassination. It didn't become public that the USA had collected
| all of Japan's biological warfare data and given Shiro Ishii,
| head of that program, amnesty for his Mengele-like crimes until
| the 1970s. If all that had been revealed in 1953, it would have
| made US denial of the use of biological weapons in North Korea
| much less plausible.
|
| For more background on Olson and the CIA, this paper (Kuzmarov
| 2020) looks good:
|
| https://www.jstor.org/stable/48645495
|
| > "In 1947, Olson and Rosebury produced a technical monograph
| after constructing a special chamber for the study of "airborne
| clouds of highly infective agents" that recommended the use of
| airplanes as the "best delivery systems for biological agents."
| In May of the previous year, members of Congress hoping to secure
| support for a $4.6 million naval appropriations bill, leaked to
| the Associated Press news about a "new germ spray capable of
| wiping out large cities and entire crops at a single blow, a
| secret weapon" deliverable from high-flying planes, "far more
| deadly than the atomic bomb.""
|
| I can guess what happened: under the influence of an unexpected
| dose of LSD, Olson (a previously straight-laced company man by
| all accounts) suddenly realized that he didn't want to spend his
| life making bioweapons and torture/assassination tools. Outcomes
| like that had a lot to do with the CIA giving up on LSD (as well
| as its later criminalization by the state).
| mcpackieh wrote:
| It seems to be a popular belief that biological weapons
| research was abandoned by all rational governments because
| biological weapons can't be controlled and the infections would
| travel back to their source. But anthrax doesn't have this
| problem. The spores are highly infectious, if you dust an area
| with anthrax spores it has a devastating effect. But at the
| same time, anthrax is barely contagious from person-to-person.
| If you take basic hazmat precautions and burn the bodies, there
| is little risk of the anthrax spreading out of control. The
| area spores were dropped on may remain deadly for decades, but
| that won't spontaneously spread to other areas. It's a
| practical and effective biological weapon.
|
| In 1972, the Soviets accidentally released a cloud of anthrax
| spores from from one of their research/production facilities.
| It killed at least 68 people in that area, maybe many more, but
| didn't spread uncontrollably through the population.
| logicchains wrote:
| > biological weapons can't be controlled and the infections
| would travel back to their source
|
| If a country found a way to make a racially-targeted
| bioweapon they could avoid that. Or a bioweapon for which
| only they had a vaccine/antidote.
| reaperman wrote:
| > racially-targeted bioweapon
|
| Possible with relatively low specificity and sensitivity
| (high false positives, high false negatives, respectively).
| But society's concept of "race" is nearly exclusively
| limited to physical appearance and has no basis in any part
| of the genotype which doesn't affect visual phenotype.
| Therefore to achieve high specificity and sensitivity you'd
| need a bioweapon which targets individuals based on complex
| combinations of genes which together govern physical
| appearance, often in relatively subtle ways.
|
| This is relatively impossible because _overall_ physical
| appearance isn 't a vector for infections. Even if you did
| this relatively impossible thing, you'd get a lot of false
| positives and negatives for most populations due to
| intermixing -- Latin America for example has very, very few
| groups of indigenous populations which aren't significantly
| mixed with the European colonizers' genes.
|
| When I say it's "possible with relatively low specificity
| and sensitivity" I mean that you could find other genes
| that are _somewhat_ loosely correlated with our current
| definitions of "race", such as how some Africans are
| somewhat more likely to have sickle-cell disease (SCD) and
| that provides about a 75% protection against HIV, and
| heterogenous carriers of the gene (SCT - Sickle Cell Trait)
| have about 40% lower incidence rate of HIV. But even in the
| most concentrated areas of Africa, only 3% of some
| populations have SCD.
|
| And that dismal math will repeat for any "race-based"
| infection system -- you might be able to get slightly
| higher rates of infection in another target "race" but it
| won't be dramatically different enough from the effects on
| your constituent population to make it useful.
| lusus_naturae wrote:
| This almost seems like psyops to have anyone believe that "second
| and third rate" minds are bumbling around and failing. Secondly,
| I think the CIA gets the brunt of the focus and criticism because
| its funded by the most powerful nation state in the world. Would
| another country do better (ethically, morally etc.?) Human/social
| problems don't have technological solutions, anyways.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Secondly, I think the CIA gets the brunt of the focus and
| criticism because its funded by the most powerful nation state
| in the world. Would another country do better (ethically,
| morally etc.?)
|
| The actually existing and most powerful such agency in the
| world gets the brunt of the focus compared to lesser agencies
| and hypothetical ones? I hope so.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| My takeaway was that the insanity was only able to carry on
| because these programs were happening in secrecy with no public
| accountability.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| That's a good point. There must be some Google Deepmind-level
| geniuses out there with a patriotic and/or sociopathic streak
| happy to work for Uncle Sam
| noslenwerdna wrote:
| Wouldn't sociopaths just work for big tech and make money?
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Torturing and killing people just hits different, you know?
| krapp wrote:
| It wouldn't for a sociopath, though.
| justinclift wrote:
| There's a comparison to be made there with screwing up
| people's thinking patterns at a societal level, just to
| be able to direct their attention towards advertisements.
| :/
| pphysch wrote:
| > Would another country do better (ethically, morally etc.?
|
| This seems like a rhetorical question (answered with "yes"), or
| are you implying that it is a strange coincidence that the
| nation responsible for the largest ethnic cleansing in the last
| 500 years (that of North America, which inspired Adolf Hitler),
| and the only one to deploy nuclear bombs on civilians, would
| _also_ happen to have an unaccountable intelligence agency that
| inspires comic book villains?
| badpun wrote:
| > the nation responsible for the largest ethnic cleansing in
| the last 500 years (that of North America, which inspired
| Adolf Hitler)
|
| Weren't those nations mainly Brittain, Spain and France?
| pphysch wrote:
| They indeed started the process but most of the ethnic
| cleansing of NA occurred after the formation and rapid
| expansion of the USA.
| l33t7332273 wrote:
| > the largest ethnic cleansing in the last 500 years (that of
| North America
|
| It's my understanding that almost all deaths of the original
| people in America was due to disease that was not understood
| well enough to be weaponized.
|
| I don't see how the size of the deliberate ethnic cleansing
| that did take place can be greater than other far larger
| genocides.
| pphysch wrote:
| If you violently displace entire peoples from their land
| and food supply, and then they die "nonviolently" of
| poverty/disease a short time later, you are still to blame.
| That's clearly ethnic cleansing, even if it may fall short
| of genocide.
| [deleted]
| droptablemain wrote:
| Makes you wonder what sort of degenerate experiments the CIA is
| doing in 2023...
| [deleted]
| macinjosh wrote:
| Some of my assumptions:
|
| - Experiments around influencing online discussions through
| social media influencers, bots, and AI on a mass scale.
|
| - Bioweapons research in labs on foreign soil
|
| - Social psychology experiments with the media through co-opted
| journalists and planted commentators (some don't even bother
| hiding they are CIA)
|
| - Earthquake and weather control. (seriously)
|
| - Possibly something fishy with UAP programs whether it is all
| a distraction or if it has some basis in reality.
| vsareto wrote:
| I'm not sure why they'd go with UAP programs as a
| distraction. Plain old politics and division will dominate
| headlines and discussions much more easily.
| [deleted]
| celtoid wrote:
| > "The CIA ~was~ clearly prepared to kill innocent American
| citizens."
|
| Is.
| logicchains wrote:
| I suspect if the US collapses the remains will probably end up
| ruled by someone from the intelligence agencies, like what
| happened with Putin in Russia. In both Soviet Russia and the
| modern US, no entity has more power than the intelligence
| agencies.
| mucle6 wrote:
| Do you think the US will collapse?
| avgcorrection wrote:
| This is a US-government narrative. The CIA is obviously
| controlled by the US government. Yet it can be used as a
| scapegoat whenever the US is caught--oh, it was the Deep
| State/CIA which did it, not _really_ the government _per se_.
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