How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

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  • How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

    I'm not talking about miraculous time-zone crossings, sudden availability of weapons, etc., to which we all joyfully surrender our disbelief for a good spy flick.

    Rather, the more reality based elements:

    -okay, really, how many passports does a USA spy have? And are they still valid after a mission?
    -are they always locked in a safe in a Swiss bank?
    -does a U.S. spy always have a getaway fund? On a civil servant salary?
    -I understand chatter via Echelon and the likes... presumably random, does not violate civil rights.... OK. But in Law and Order, they have to get a court order to tap a phone. In ENEMY OF THE STATE, not so much, they make it look like a training op. In the BOURNE franchise, they are on someone in a matter of seconds, satellites, assassins /assets activated, phones tapped, banking info, etc. How real is that??? And how constitutional? I guess it's OK to tap the phones of a British journalist because he's not protected by the U.S. constitution, right?
    -And say an agent is THOUGHT to be rogue, under what authority is it legal to just take him out? Wouldn't that actually have to be an executive order? And weren't assassinations (mostly of foreign leaders, but whatever) banned a few administrations ago? So who is the authority?
    -What is the extent of "covert" as protected under the law? And who in government actually knows about covert ops? Who is accountable?


    Things that make you go: HMMMMMM.

    AND: totally random side note about the real life story flick about a journalist chick who divulged the identity of a spy and was sent to prison for not revealing her source. I guess the moral of the story was about freedom the press, YAY, but I couldn't help seeing someone who not only outed a secret operative and got her killed, but who in doing so also put some measure of national security at risk. And yet the film never even addressed that. Isn't there some basic journalism 101 class that says, never give out the name of a secret agent???????

  • #2
    Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

    It's obviously well out of date now, but read Peter Wright's SPYCATCHER memoir: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spycatcher-P.../dp/0440201322

    It was published 100% against the permission of the UK spy agency, which is why it was published in Australia. They took the publishers to court to try and stop it. (They eventually gave up the battle, as it was probably the sole reason the book sold so well ... every airport outside of the UK had the book on sale to travellers)

    He worked as a British spy and described his illegal operations, bugging the French embassy etc.

    He described his CIA counterparts. He was very impressed when they showed off how well they could pick locks - as the boring MI5 guys weren't trained to do that.

    ---

    He also described the method the spy agencies use to work around the rules against spying on their own citizens.

    Everyone does it - but they do it in a way that technically avoids breaking the law.

    The way is to have an agent on secondment from another country ... so technically even though it is CIA equipment being used it would be a Canadian agent doing the bugging and spying. So, on paper, it is entirely a Canadian (CSIS) operation. The Canadian agent sends a report to the CSIS who then sends it straight back to the CIA as part of a 'shared intelligence' system on that particular operation.

    Then everyone can go to Congress and swear an oath that the CIA did *NOT* spy on that particular American citizen . Because they didn't. They got the information from a CSIS report.

    That tactic was used a few years ago here in Australia. The opposition kept asking in Parliamentary Question Time whether equipment at a certain Australian base was used to spy illegally on certain vessels.

    The Prime Minister at the time kept replying that ASIO had not spied on those vessels. The opposition kept asking 'We know ASIO didn't do it .. but was equipment at that base used to spy on the vessels ?'. The Prime Minister kept replying "ASIO did not use the equipment on that base to spy on Australian citizens.'

    Everyone knew what the real story was, but there was this bizarre dance around the issue. As it was a security issue, protocol meant that the opposition couldn't simply say what everyone knew - but everyone knew it anyway. A bizarre dance indeed.

    ---

    There was also a great BBC interview recently with a someone who was a US diplomat in a foreign country many decades ago. He was describing his battles against the CIA who was trying to assassinate the current leader. (The leader was democratically elected but not pro-USA )

    The CIA wanted it done because the opposition who would seize power after the assassination was secretly meeting them and promising that they were going to help the USA. But the diplomat knew that the the opposition was just claiming it so they could get the CIA to do their dirty work. The CIA kept arguing that they weren't stupid - they knew that. But everyone knew the leader wouldn't last 6 months anyway so this way they'd at least have someone in power that they could influence a bit more.

    From memory, the CIA plan was to poison him.
    He basically kept blocking them with paperwork etc until the mood shifted and they changed their mind.
    ---

    There's another great story about someone working for a US spy agency, who was having dinner with work colleagues:

    That evening I was there with three other couples cooking over the barbie in their backyard. After night fell we reconvened in their living room as we continued to go through the local beer. The conversation happened to hit on politics and culture and my friend’s’ wife innocently offered up she had lived in a commune in California. Well that created a bit of alcohol-fueled cross-cultural disconnect and heated discussion.

    Until one of the other wives changed a few lives forever with a slip of the tongue.

    One of the other wives asked, “Well what would your friends in the commune think of you now that your husband is working for the ████?”

    As soon as the words came out of her mouth, I felt time slow down. The other couples laughed for about half a second expecting my friend’s wife to do so as well. But instead the look on her face went from puzzlement in processing the question, to concentration, as she was thinking and correlating past questions she had about who exactly her husband had been working for. It seemed like forever before she asked with a look of confusion, “What do you mean the ████?”

    The laughter in the room stopped way too soon, and the room got deathly quiet. Her face slowly went from a look of puzzlement to betrayal to horror as she realized that that the drunken silence, the dirty looks from other husbands to the wife who made the agency comment, and the wives now staring at their shoes was an answer.

    She had married someone who never told her who he was really working for. She was living in a lie with people she hated. In less than a minute her entire worldview had shattered and coming apart in front of us, she started screaming.

    This probably took no more than 10 seconds, but watching her face, it felt like hours.

    More info: http://steveblank.com/2009/08/24/the-end-of-innocence/
    Mac
    Last edited by Mac H.; 10-27-2012, 12:05 AM.
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    • #3
      Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

      I'd say THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR is very accurate because they had ex-CIA personell as consultants to the film. It seems realistic, I guess. It's also very good movie regardless of the accuracy.
      Originally posted by Great White Mark
      Film is art? Just a tip, it's called show business, not show art.

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      • #4
        Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

        Mac, that story about the the diplomat, the CIA, and assassination - even if true as that person claimed - must have been before the mid-70s. Once the CIA is trying to hit someone, that means they've got the OK to do it. And even the ambassador him/herself wouldn't necessarily know that it had been approved. As for US intel agencies using a 3rd party/cutout do its spying so US law and Congress can be circumvented...Has it happened? Yes. Does it still happen? Wouldn't surprise me. But as for that being some sort of safe haven? Or US congressional committee members not knowing how to phrase questions so that a denial would be perjury? Not so much.

        Rantanplan, have you seen Homeland? Many parts of that show are complete BS, and yet the show's popular among many who actually work in that business and know those parts are BS. I think that's odd, but hey. Opposite side of the same coin. There are some things those guys can actually do that audiences might well find implausible. Truth is no defense.

        Almost forgot. Assassinations. Yes, there is an Executive Order, but no U.S. law. If you want some insight into that process, check some press reports in the past year about how the "Kill List" is compiled - the one that allows the guys who operate the drones to target people so they can kill them. As for killing a guy who's revealing the identities of covert CIA people, Google "Philip Agee".

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        • #5
          Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

          Originally posted by Manchester View Post

          Rantanplan, have you seen Homeland? Many parts of that show are complete BS, and yet the show's popular among many who actually work in that business and know those parts are BS. I think that's odd, but hey. Opposite side of the same coin. There are some things those guys can actually do that audiences might well find implausible. Truth is no defense.
          Thanks for your thoughts guys. No I have not seen HOMELAND, I haven't really watched TV in a year and half, but I do like to rent series when they come out, so I will def check it out. I still mourn for Jack Bauer!

          Anyway, I'm just fascinated by spy material both on a constitutional level, and also on a reality level in terms of their resources, physical abilities, etc.

          And, probably the most fascinating aspect of spies to me is that they're on their own and get no public acknowledgment for their sacrifice. Military special ops guys have codes of honor that involve never leaving a man behind, whereas nobody is coming to get the lone secret agent, and his only way out is a cyanide capsule. Then again, I also wonder how accurate THAT is.

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          • #6
            Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

            When you read spy fiction by guys who were really spies, like Charles McCarry, they show things working much differently than in the movies. Usually the "spy" is someone assigned to an embassy in some unimportant post who *uses* others as the spies and assassins (etc). They bribe or blackmail or find those with a grudge and *use* them to do the dirty work, while they sit behind a desk.

            Same thing in the LeCarre novels (and he was also a spy) - in fact, check out the nice film version of TAILOR OF PANAMA to see the spy *use* a tailor to the politically powerful in Panama to gain information... even though the tailor will most likely be killed if discovered.

            Real spies are kind of like con men, who convince others to risk their lives.

            - Bill
            Free Script Tips:
            http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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            • #7
              Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

              Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
              When you read spy fiction by guys who were really spies, like Charles McCarry, they show things working much differently than in the movies. Usually the "spy" is someone assigned to an embassy in some unimportant post who *uses* others as the spies and assassins (etc). - Bill
              And vice versa. If you're working for a certain organization, you will certainly be contacted by certain people... I remember a conversation I had with some Eff Bee Eye folks back around the time when 60 minutes did that story on the Chinese American scientist who had "accidentally" taken top secret information out of the office. I was all about defending the innocent until proven guilty etc., and then my Eff Bee Eye friends said, Yes but Rant, those files were never recovered.

              And that's when it hit me: you're a top nuclear Chinese-American scientist with family back home on the mainland, SOMEONE is going to pay you a visit. And what are your choices then?

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              • #8
                Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

                Originally posted by Manchester View Post
                Mac, that story about the the diplomat, the CIA, and assassination - even if true as that person claimed - must have been before the mid-70s.
                From memory, yes, it was before the mid-70s. It was basically an interview an old retired guy gave in the last month before he died of cancer. It wasn't a scandal because everyone knew those things occurred during the 1960s - it was just a recording made for history's sake.

                As for US intel agencies using a 3rd party/cutout do its spying so US law and Congress can be circumvented...Has it happened? Yes. Does it still happen? Wouldn't surprise me. But as for that being some sort of safe haven? Or US congressional committee members not knowing how to phrase questions so that a denial would be perjury? Not so much.
                Well - I've certainly witnessed Australian politicians phrasing questions so that a 'yes' would answer the question, but the reply simply rephrasing the answer to avoid the real question. And it isn't so much about perjury - the limits of the committee are probably to investigate suspected illegal acts. Once they use a technique to ensure that it is legal, it is now a securities issue that is outside the scope of the committee. You may have broken the intent of the law .. but there's no law against that.

                It was described by the Executive Director of MI5 as being a standard technique to provide a safe haven. Having witnessed it being used during the Tampa Incident (I was listening to the live streaming Question Time when it occurred) - I believe it is still being used.

                I'm just surprised that I haven't seen it used in fiction before.

                -----------

                Another interesting question - what exactly is spying? If you are a business trying to enter the coal market in China, and you hire a local consultant to teach you about the local market - is that spying? After all - there is probably some element of commercially confidential information that you'll learn from the local consultant.

                When a civilian doctor in a war zone tell the media "We've had a lot of shrapnel wounds in the last week, but no major injuries" - should she be arrested for spying? After all - she's informed the enemy commanders (along with the rest of the world) what kind of damage their attacks have caused. That is militarily valuable information. (In fact, during the Faulklands war the Argentinians would smash holes in the roofs of the aircraft hangers after a bombing raid. That way the British would believe the bombing raid was a lot more successful than it actually was.)

                Many of the spies in World War II were collecting very mundane information. Simply counting how many goods trains with how many carriages are passing your home was extremely valuable information - the enemy could figure out troop movements from that information. So imagine you were a trainspotter - someone who collects that kind of information and posts in on your public blog. You know that in this modern era the information is going to be automatically analysed by the enemy government.

                Should you go to jail for spying?

                Mac
                Last edited by Mac H.; 10-27-2012, 10:02 PM.
                New blogposts:
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                • #9
                  Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

                  Originally posted by Mac H. View Post

                  Should you go to jail for spying?

                  Mac
                  Some of what you said, i.e. the doctor, could easily be reported on CNN or wherever else, big deal. Not exactly national security information. Sh!t happens in war, and the more democratic a country, the more freedom of the press to report it. Reports from the front, etc.

                  As far as industrial spying, I'm sure multi-billion dollar companies resort to all kinds of tricks to stay ahead of the competition (what was that flick with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen, they were both former government spies now working for the corporate world).

                  But what we're talking about here are government ordered assassinations, wire tappings and the likes. And again, I'm curious as to who in the government actually sanctions major covert ops NOT blind, as in, they sanction it with full disclosure. My recollection of CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR was that that particular Senate committee voted blind on budget. They actually approved funds without knowing what they were going for. Cool, in that case, but what about in other, not so cool cases? Once again, WHO is accountable?

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                  • #10
                    Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

                    I hate to say this, but BURN AFTER READING is probably a "great" spy film, in that the "spy business" is full of civilians with various ideas of what the business is, and the reality is much closer to a vast bureaucratic entity that sometimes doesn't know what various parts of the machine are doing at any given time, and contribute to unintended consequences.

                    It's always been my thought that 9/11 happened precisely because the intelligence community was shrinking (remember, Rumsfeld's idea pre-9/11 was to take a hatchet to the DoD, perpetuating to the nth degree what the Clinton administration was already trying to do in cutting the budgets), and some mid-level manager, fearing for his job and pension, decided to fund some Afghan tribe or Taliban leader with a bunch of money to plant a car bomb in a foreign embassy so that people were killed, but not Americans. At least, not many Americans.

                    However, these people that were funded, decided to opt for bigger and better, i.e. 9/11.

                    I know, I know...conspiracy bvllsh!t.

                    But all one has to do is look what happened with our recon plane in China in early 2001; the one that collided with the Chinese Mig and the American plane had to land in China.

                    What happened was once the cold war ended, we cut the budget and all of a sudden instead of 40 (or whatever crazy number it was) sorties a day with us playing cat and mouse with the Russians, we were down to maybe 1 or 2 a month.

                    American commanders, desperate to keep their jobs and squadrons intact, decided they were going to fvck with the Chinese the same way we had been fvcking with the Russians for fifty years. Except no one told the Chinese this, so what was really a game to the Americans and Russians, were all of a sudden threats to China.

                    And we would delve deeper and deeper into their airspace, and the Chinese overreacted 'cause no one told them it was just a game...and two planes collided.

                    HH

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                    • #11
                      Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

                      Originally posted by Rantanplan View Post
                      In ENEMY OF THE STATE, not so much, they make it look like a training op. In the BOURNE franchise, they are on someone in a matter of seconds, satellites, assassins /assets activated, phones tapped, banking info, etc. How real is that???
                      It's not real. It's closer to pure fantasy than reality.

                      There are some impressive resources available, but no agency has the ability to marshal them together as quickly or efficaciously as you see in the movies. Not even close.

                      It's probably not even possible to pull all the different information sources and computer systems together in the way spy agencies in TV shows and movies do. Even if it was humanly possible, the agencies haven't done it (and probably can't -- it's a plain truth that the best programmers work for private industry, the government has second-tier talent at best).

                      .

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                      • #12
                        Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

                        I try to shoot for "as accurate as you make it feel" which can be hit or miss depending on the type and amount of research I've done. Whenever I go into these types of situations, I always think about CSI. The show is a huge success, but it's science fiction based on some reality.

                        I'm writing a story. I need it to feel real. I don't really need it to be real.

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                        • #13
                          Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

                          ENEMY OF THE STATE actually focuses on the NSA, not CIA. FWIW.

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                          • #14
                            Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

                            My father worked for the CIA for a very, very long time. To say that our lives were secretive is putting it lightly. We were always moving, always changing schools, and it was brutal on our family in just about every way imaginable.

                            The reason I say this, of course, is to point out that he never spoke about operations. I managed to sneak into his room -- only once -- and overhear planning for something, but even when I asked, he only furrowed his brow and walked off. Tough man... alas, he retired, and my knowledge about the agency and its tactics is minimal. He never had any friends -- at least any that I saw -- and we never went out.

                            When I finally moved away and attended college, he would call me once a month to check in. It was only this past year that we finally opened up to one another about our lives. He had missed so many birthdays, events and school functions for his work. He still hasn't told me specifically why, but he has always hinted that he was doing work that was honorable and true.

                            I wish that I believed him.

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                            • #15
                              Re: How accurate ARE CIA type flicks ?

                              Originally posted by absolutepower View Post
                              My father worked for the CIA for a very, very long time. To say that our lives were secretive is putting it lightly. We were always moving, always changing schools, and it was brutal on our family in just about every way imaginable.

                              The reason I say this, of course, is to point out that he never spoke about operations. I managed to sneak into his room -- only once -- and overhear planning for something, but even when I asked, he only furrowed his brow and walked off. Tough man... alas, he retired, and my knowledge about the agency and its tactics is minimal. He never had any friends -- at least any that I saw -- and we never went out.

                              When I finally moved away and attended college, he would call me once a month to check in. It was only this past year that we finally opened up to one another about our lives. He had missed so many birthdays, events and school functions for his work. He still hasn't told me specifically why, but he has always hinted that he was doing work that was honorable and true.

                              I wish that I believed him.
                              and now you're a writer. Do you find the CIA stuff interesting? do you write thriller/spy stuff?

                              just curious.

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