I am a former covert CIA intelligence officer (Reddit Ask Me Anything)

reddit ask me anything I am Andrew Bustamante a former covered CIA intelligence officer and founder of the everyday espionage training platform ask me anything I share the truth about espionage after serving in the US Air Force in the Central Intelligence Agency I have seen the value and impact of well-organized well-executed intelligence operations the same techniques that shape international events can also serve everyday people in their daily lives I have witnessed the benefits in my own life and the lives of my fellow agency officers now my mission is to share that knowledge with all people some will listen some will not but the future has always been shaped by those who learn verified hopefully Opie is still reading this thread about a year or two ago there was an ask me anything from another former CIA field agent who was releasing a book about his experience he ended his ask me anything after another poster made a comment something along the lines of oak or Hickory in reference to what type of wood he wanted his coffin to be the Opie replied to the comments are essentially telling him and any other former field agents who were apparently harassing him to duck off is it common for those who serve in the intelligence field to have a disdain for those who retire from service you hit a very sensitive topic here well done the short answer is yes when an agency person leaves they essentially become a punching bag for anyone still on the inside they disdain increases exponentially if the leaving officer writer memoir or takes on any kind of public image in many ways it's our insider shaming tool to keep people in place it is also a bit of a sucker punch because any time an officer leaves and succeeds it makes everyone who chose to stay in place second-guess their decision so there is a balance to be met but as far as violence against one another that would be contrary to every fiber of any public servant we can disagree we can fight but we don't harm one another that is justice doing the enemy's job for them are there really big secrets that you know that could land you slash the country in terrible trouble if it came out to the public yes and I wish I could forget them aliens what are some signs that people are being mischievous or other psychological tricks you may know never trust a quiet person they are listening and learning and that makes them the smartest person in the room is it true that on foreign soil one call will summon black subs to take you to safety just curious yes but with different delivery times what would you say the number one rule for undercover agents listen don't talk given the ease with which we can communicate electronically today is there still a role in modern trader craft filled air drops same question on number stations but because they are known to still exist I presume the answer is yes if anything the growing dependency and usage of digital technology underscores the value of classic trader craft like dead drops I would take a physical dead drop over a digital transmission any day way fewer risks greater control and no permanent record what's the closest who can get to talking about a past mission without getting in trouble and can you'd give us a story that gets that close to the line I had to run counter surveillance against a rogue state target in a third world country in 2011 I was supporting a second officer on the ground who had to do face-to-face meetings despite not knowing the mental state or intentions of the target this is the worst type of operation to run because we have no information and no control but the potential payout is significant enough to outweigh the risk when we got eyes on the target and observe their behavior they were highly unpredictable wearing winter clothes in a hot climate appearing openly hostile and aggressive to strangers on the street clearly disheveled and surly because the operating window was so limited we had to make a decision whether or not to allow the meeting or enter the target separately ultimately decided to allow the in-person meeting in a public space only to find out that the target wasn't strapped with dynamite or intending to kill our officer but rather he had a nasty flu but was dedicated enough to talking to an American that he made the trip anyway after he vomited on the officers shoes we were able to collect enough intelligence to put a dent in that rug state's operational objectives for over a year was the agent compensated for his shoes asking the real questions redacted two questions what are some key skills you'd recommend for someone wanting to pursue a career in intelligence what graduate programs would you recommend for someone in intelligence key skills would include mastering short-term memory and mastering conversational dynamics as far as graduate programs go look into anthropology Thorin area studies and sociology if you go into the hard sciences you can also end up in intelligence but less likely in the field how often does America have a near miss that the general population is completely oblivious about I think more importantly America often has huge victories that Americans can never hear about are talking about how CIA thwarted a massive attack in Chicago or prevented a terrorist attack at a concert doesn't make for good news if anything it incites fear and negatively impact the communities that were originally targeted this answer is frightening lol what's the coolest by fact about yourself you're able to tell us is there a gadget that eleven-year-old me would freak out over I once was workout buddies with General Petraeus when he was the director of CIA and he kicks my ass in morning PT for a week straight as for a cool gadget for an 11 year old we had a tech guy who accidentally invented fart spray that lasted for hours after it permeated the air he was trying to create an adhesive spray that would allow rubber soles and rubber gloves to temporarily stick to wet vertical surfaces who do you think killed JFK I have no idea and it is extremely frustrating to me in narcos there were depictions of some CIA personnel having real disdain for the D in their war on drugs any of it true totally true CIA is like the oldest child in a family they believe they are the best doing the most important work and worthy of the most attention and the funny thing is CIA even has their own counter narcotics elements to do these job better than they do it what motivates someone to get involved in intelligence work in your opinion what motivates someone in another regime to cooperate with intelligence work in your opinion motivations are a tricky thing many of us get into it because we are curious and service driven who wouldn't want to try right but for those who ultimately sell the secrets of their own County to an enemy that is a much darker world of manipulation and deceit hazard a guess for the latter or is that two inside baseball foreign ask me anything ego they think they are smarter than everyone else and they want to cash in on the gamble some win many lose in your experience who was the most professional foreign intelligence agency you engaged with the Japanese I know who even thinks of the Japanese intelligence service I'm having a hard time formulating this question properly so my apologies if it doesn't make sense with your best guess how many years behind are as civilians to the government in terms of Technology if at all I would say that the commercial sector of the United States is about 10 years ahead of government unless you want to be operating on Windows 7 and asking Facebook to share facial recognition best practices the average American consumer is on the cutting edge of technology far more than the federal government cross-eyed grinning face with stuck out tongue what's your opinion on Elevens recent campaign to expand Chinese influence by building rails and centralized infrastructure around the world more specifically how do you think they will leverage these projects to gain access influence in Africa the Middle East the Chinese are singularly skilled at building influence by investing in tangible infrastructure most investment in the u.s. is intangible and not directly impactful to the majority of Americans for that reason we don't feel ingratiated to those investing the money the Chinese know that building a bridge today means every person who crosses that bridge knows our friends the Chinese gave us this bridge and that appreciation lasts for multiple generations are there secret societies or powerful people that have huge influence on the intelligence community Texas A&M in the Mormon Church that's not a joke which country regime is the biggest threat to us for instance North Korea Russia China Isis etc and in your opinion how can we improve our safety within US borders thank you our biggest strategic threat is China we are so tightly wound together and so fundamentally opposite that we are destined to conflict but the more immediate threat to the u.s. is our own infighting when we kick and scratch at each other we are doing the enemy's job for them and I skipped your second question safety I advocate that each others has to become more secure individually in so doing or community will benefit in the aggregate were you ever in a position where you were questioning your orders or your morals in completing an assignment absolutely it's something that every officer faces at some point in their career for me it was the beginning of my planning an exit strategy for many compromising on your morals is the first step to compromising on other ambitions and resigning yourself to a typical government career a great question and I am proud to tell my son and my daughter that the reason I left was because I refuse to compromise I hope that one day they will support that decision with data and other tips becoming bigger every day and our God becoming more tech-savvy by the minute do you think an unofficial credit system will eventually make its way into the hands of the intelligence community for its populace we already sort of have this with the clearance system et Cie but I mean for those who are uncleared as well if by credit you are referring to an an official clearance system I could absolutely see it happening the IC finds itself in constant need of experts far outside their talent pool it would only make sense to use prevalent open-source data as a way to produce low-risk experts that could be called upon to serve in times of need hello Andrew it is believed my grandfather was CIA due to his mysterious death military background and years after his death family finding that he had 12-plus aliases mostly of Russian names the official story is that my grandmother shot and killed him and then took her life but my dad and uncles remember two men coming in putting the bones in their room and taking my grandparents into their room where they heard shots being fired this happened in 64 stroke 65 during the Cold War my uncle went back to where this happened and spoke to the sheriff who handled the case he said he remembered it but wasn't able to speak about it I guess my question is is there any way to find out a more concrete answer on what happened my grandmother is Japanese and her living family in Japan are full of shame due to the official story being suicide and I know my dad and uncles would sleep better at night knowing what happened to their parents Thank You ro I know just enough about Japanese culture to know how heavy this must sit with your family unfortunately I do not have an answer for you based on what you've learned since your grandfather's death he certainly seems Intel related but whether CIA or another service I'm not sure if he died in service to freedom rest assured he is Honnold by a star on the wall at CIA headquarters I know that does little to ease your pain but it means a great deal to those heroes who walk past those starts every day two questions from me in your professional opinion what percentage of the things we hear or see on the news is the truth and what percentage of it is engineered based on your personal experiences how willing would you say our intelligence community is when it comes to deceiving us whether it be in our own interest in the interest of other parties I know the assumed answer is extremely but I suppose my real question is how accurate that isn't if it's in fact the reality how are we supposed to trust that the intelligence community have our best interests in mind and not say the military industrial complex of the next highest bidder by we etcetera I mean American citizens just to be clear very little of the news is true but even less is engineered most news sources are desperately grasping for attention so they say anything that might win one stroke to a percent more viewership the IC and the government at large has a long history of deceiving Americans when it serves national interest most deceptions are simply limiting information but some are openly false information used to misdirect malicious actors who are paying attention to the news your intelligence community is fulfilling its obligation to meet policymakers requirements a federal mandate the truth is that we have to elect the right policymakers if we want to drive a forthright intelligence community have you ever worked alongside with sad and if so what were their main backgrounds sukham CIA etc semicolon do they stay busy I cannot disclose my background specifically but sad officers are some of the humblest most incredible people you can meet selfless courageous and obviously crazy there are equal parts special forces and totally self-taught badass why should we expect anyone and the CIA to tell us the truth about anything you shouldn't that's why I left why did you leave the CIA I met my wife at CIA she is also a former covet intelligence officer and we were a tandem operating couple when we found out we were pregnant we had to ask some hard questions about whether serving a family or our nation was more important to us fortunately the highly capable men and women still serving made it possible for us to choose our family what advice do you have for those wanting to take their first steps into your career in today's world travel abroad learn a language and smoke pot now you won't get the chance later are you endangering yourself or others by doing this that is a hard question I am taking some personal risk as is my family but we assess the risk to be minimal bad people will always do bad things but that doesn't keep us from speaking up what is the process like to be an intelligence officer at the CIA do you just go on use our jobs and hope for the best or is there a certain amount of paying your dues so to speak before you work your way into the job the good news is that there is no matter it need to pay dues you actually can apply formally or even at a job fair as funny as it seems but the process really starts when you get identified as a viable candidate that is when the cycles and test scenarios start hope is always helpful though how many people are realistically needed to tell someone the most effective tale is a team of five one person keeps their eyes on the rabbit at all times with the other four rotating in a circle around the rabbit that ensures that whether the rabbit goes north south east or west a new face can follow them without recycling one of the previous phases what made you do an ask me anything I had a number of people attend my lectures or meet me in person who recommended ask me anything I am still a social media no but I figured it was as good a time as any to learn a new skill and put myself out there hello Andrew what are some clandestine skills that you can share that you utilize now in your daily life denne misconceptions ordinary people have regarding the CIA thanks for the ask me anything I use indirect influence in my professional networking all the time I also use quite a lot of conversational engineering when I am prepping for a negotiation while these are all clandestine skills taught to us at the farm they are also skills that are openly documented in the commercial and entrepreneurial space what questions should we be asking as Americans that don't get asked enough why would someone ever leave CIA once they've been accepted and gone through the training is a government career as promising today as it was 20 years ago what kind of food do they serve in CIA's cafeteria debunking myths what do you say to new possible recruits who turned down the agency because they don't want to be tortured to Sapru for joining a team that doesn't how does one exit for CIA life the CIA is actually struggling to attract the most talented of the current generation for exactly reason you note and they have been suffering from significant voluntary attrition recently as existing officers realize they have more value and can have more impact on the outside leaving the agency alive is not that hard but building a life after you leave is quite a bit more challenging you don't really get to list your references job duties or detail your skill sets in a resume what's your perspective on Russia's activities in eastern Ukraine what are your thoughts on Russian efforts to build a military base in Venezuela after Venezuela defaulted on debt to Russia Russia is playing a strong long-term strategic game and they are playing it well while we call politics a gentleman's game winning always requires risk I think Russia knows that it can step on toes today in the world will forget in a few weeks but by then their position is stronger for the long run how real and place two movies TV shows are CIA black sites not very close at all remember that black sites have to blend in with their surroundings so you're not really going to be able to support a bunch of high end technology and blacked out windows real black sites look more like the typical business centers can you find in any town somewhere between Chili's and Jersey Mike's do you think Snowden's actions increase the capabilities of non-state actors not really Snowden called out a legitimate issue in an unfortunate way the most damage he caused was undermining a domestic capability against foreign actors the level of technological savvy he shared is far beyond the capability of most non-state actors is the publication Review Board reviewing everything before you reply to questions always curious how that worked they are not and that is an excellent point I suppose we will find out in a few weeks if you reopen this thread and everything is redacted if you were to do it all over again would do it all over the again doing the AF and the CIA did you retire from the CIA in a heartbeat I would try to meet my wife earlier though there's this I'll use child prostitutes to control assets I plead the fifth the things we use to control assets are unsettling enough without going into details that's a scary ducking answer I feel like he's implying that's not even the worst thing they use hello Jesus what was the hardest part about starting an espionage career is there nearly so much cloak-and-dagger as Hollywood shows the hardest part is lying to everybody it gets hard to lie so you eventually just start cutting off relationships you get very lonely then surround yourself only with your peers which is inherently risky for other reasons there is a lot of cloak-and-dagger but it's much less dramatic than TV portrays equals what news sources do you read that you find accurate The Economist is great I also like BBC I steer clear of Fox CNN and NPR how many times has the u.s. been the bad guys another question might be how many more times will we let ourselves be the bad guys is it true there is a huge database with collected Internet data from all citizens I can't remember the name anymore something similar happening in Europe CIA doesn't collect against citizens of the United States anymore I think are we supposed to believe all your answers will be truthful one's a spook you don't have to believe it for it to be the truth victory hand could you debunk a common myths surrounding your former profession I can try what's a myth sorry I phrased that badly I meant to ask if you heard of anything that people say about your former profession that is incorrect and if so could you be bonkers we don't do assassinations anymore many officers only speak English and the lgbtq+ community is alive and well no you made it to the end you're ducking beasts I'll cut you a deal smash like and subscribe for more curated content might it's free and that's a great price

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Id: yrwTFu7XdMQ

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 19 2019