President Trump is reportedly reluctant about the CIA’s use of informants. One official has said it was because of Trump’s belief that, “they’re people who are selling out their country.”
In this case, “Well, duh!” is a highly warranted response.
Gathering intelligence is not about the glamorous, bed-hopping lifestyle of the James Bond movies. Actually, an intelligence officer who lived the 007 lifestyle of high-stakes gambling, womanizing, and checking into very-high-end accommodations while on travel would set off red flags.
The reality of gathering intelligence is a lot less glitzy. It’s something you and most people probably don’t want to know.
There are three general ways the United States gathers intelligence about what is going on around the world. There is the consumption of open-source intelligence, or what appears in media outlets or statements by governments across the world. This is stuff that is allowed to be seen.
But as anyone who has been through high school knows, what someone says and does in public and what they may say or do in private can be two completely different things. That “friend” of yours may be supportive of your desire to go out with someone to your face, but in private, they may like that person, too, and are trying to beat you to the punch.
The same is true of geopolitics, only this time, the stakes are much, much higher. China will talk a good game about human rights and respecting intellectual property in public all the time. What they do when America’s back is turned, though, may reflect their true feelings. Then there are those who don’t just talk, but who are planning something nefarious.
In high school, being unaware of what is said and done in private means little more than teenage drama. In geopolitics, not knowing what’s going on can result in tragedies like Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11.
To get the private discussion, America has to find out what those other countries, not to mention non-state actors, are saying (and doing) in private. There are two ways to do it. One is through eavesdropping on their communications, be it phone, radio, or online. This is called signals intelligence, or SIGINT. America won one of its greatest naval victories, the Battle of Midway in World War II, thanks to SIGINT.
But there are problems with SIGINT: It can only tell us so much, and bad guys have often found out too much about methods and sources of getting SIGINT, or just figured out that SIGINT is even possible, and reacted accordingly. Sometimes SIGINT comes out through the discovery process in court proceedings, other times through leaks, and other times through betrayals like that of Edward Snowden.
Whatever the reason, the bad guys are off the phone, so that means finding out what they are doing requires getting someone close to them to tell you what the bad guys are doing. This is known as human intelligence, or HUMINT. This can become a very tricky part of the intelligence business.
There are reasons people may do that: money (we’re paying them off), ideology (they believe in what America stands for), conscience (they are trying to avert a wrong), compromise (you’re blackmailing them), or ego (they feel they have been slighted, and they want payback). Keep in mind, in all likelihood, an intelligence officer is going to be dealing with some real unsavory characters, even if they defect for reasons of conscience.
There’s a reason for that. In general, the people who will know the most about what the bad guys are up to are other bad guys. These folks will probably be doing shady stuff of their own. In the 1990s, this resulted in a scandal when then-Rep. Robert Torricelli revealed assets the CIA had been using. That resulted in a “human rights scrub” that crippled the CIA in the years before Sept. 11. It should have seen Torricelli tossed in the slammer for a long time.
The subject of enhanced interrogation could also fall into this as well. Does anyone honestly think that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was going to spill his guts for a six-pack of Coors Light and a carton of Newports? Someone had to make him talk, the CIA did just that, and the “thanks” they got were investigations and a dishonorable smear campaign.
Getting intelligence is a dirty business. The CIA exists to protect this country by getting information, and sometimes doing that requires dirty tricks, underhanded moves, and turning a blind eye to some ugly things. It’s an unpleasant reality. But the attacks and danger they protect us from are much worse than what needs to be done to get information.
Harold Hutchison has 15 years of experience covering military issues for multiple outlets.
