CIA
 | |
| Central Intelligence Agency | |
|---|---|
| Created in | 18 Sept 1947 (officially), January 1946 (as the NIA) |
| And a major problem since | January 1946 |
| Website | cia.gov |
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, ostensibly tasked with gathering, processing, and analyzing national security information from around the world. As libertarians, we view this agency as a threat to individual liberty and a prime example of government overreach.
What Is This?
The CIA is an independent agency that claims to provide intelligence about foreign countries to assist in national security decisions. In reality, it has become a powerful, unaccountable entity that routinely violates rights both domestically and abroad.
Why Does This Exist?
The CIA was officially established to prevent intelligence failures like those that allegedly preceded the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, its actual purpose has proven to be the expansion of state power and the subversion of democratic processes both at home and abroad.
What Has It Done?
The CIA's activities represent a litany of violations against individual liberty and national sovereignty:
Conducted warrantless searches and domestic spying, violating Fourth Amendment rights Overthrown democratically elected governments in foreign countries Manipulated media and entertainment industries for propaganda purposes Engaged in covert operations without proper oversight or accountability Conducted unethical human experiments (e.g., MK-ULTRA) Allegedly participated in drug trafficking operations
In the merely wasteful column, the CIA was a patron of abstract art during the Cold War, ironically showing better taste than the National Endowment for the Arts or the Civil Works Administration, though still an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds.
What's Wrong With It?
The CIA represents a fundamental threat to liberty:
It operates with minimal accountability or oversight It routinely violates US and international laws It has repeatedly failed in its stated mission of preventing intelligence failures Its excessive secrecy undermines democratic control and public understanding Its very existence creates a dangerous concentration of power prone to abuse
How Do We Get Rid Of It?
Abolishing the CIA would require action from the US Congress. As libertarians, we advocate for:
Full public disclosure of all non-classified CIA activities Congressional hearings on CIA abuses and failures Legislation to dismantle the agency and redistribute any necessary functions to more transparent and accountable bodies
Questions for further research:
What are the constitutional limits on presidential authority to reform executive agencies? How can we build public support for abolishing the CIA? What alternative models for necessary intelligence functions could be implemented that respect individual rights and national sovereignty?
External Links
A Timeline of CIA Atrocities [Insert additional sources documenting CIA abuses and libertarian critiques]
This article is a stub. You can help Dissent by expanding it.
What Is This?
Why Does This Exist?
What Has It Done?
This is probably going to mostly be a list of its sins, isn't it.
Note that in proper Soviet-style fashion, many of its sins overlap with the FBI.
- Warrantless searches
- Domestic spying
- Overthrowing popular, elected governments and replacing them with tyranny
- Corrupting Movies and Television
- Suborning news media
- Murder
- Drug running
- Propaganda
- Mind control projects, such as MK-ULTRA
- Overthrowing US presidents
This list is known to be incomplete
In the merely wasteful column, the CIA was a patron of the arts during the Cold War, promoting the most abstract artwork that was the most antithetical to the approved Communist Party schools of art. Still, it did show better taste than the National Endowment for the Arts or the Civil Works Administration.
What's Wrong With It?
What goes here aside from 'see above'?
It's consistently unable to predict things that it wasn't responsible for causing. Sometimes it's unable to predict things it caused because it needs deniability, too.
How Do We Get Rid Of It?
The US Congress is the branch of the US government that would need to act to outright abolish the CIA.
Q: What are the limits of the US president to perform a California remodeling job on the CIA without the cooperation of Congress, with the desired result of a completely different (and presumably far smaller) organization with the same name but hopefully none of the corrupt organizational culture at the end of the process?
External Links
- Don't bother looking at Wikipedia. The articles on both the CIA and the OSS have been thoroughly sanitized.
- A Timeline of CIA Atrocities
This article is a stub. You can help Dissent by expanding it.
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