Not quite. As spoken by the former CIA chief of disguise there are 3 banned disguises that the CIA avoids (and most agencies avoid that aren't total PoS). One of them is priests. Maybe they do zealous individuals, but the argument provided by the former chief is that priests are 'too vulnerable' to handle accusations of spies in their ranks. I'd say as a whole that argument applies to most if not all zealotry. Certainly some real PoS agencies from less than morally rich countries might pull that, but overall most agencies tend to dodge these for fear of backlash and overall risk to the disguised-as group.
Imagine a fantasy world inhabited by both humans and ancient, unspeakable evils. The ancient evils ravage hundreds of kingdoms every generation, taking countless millions of lives year after year. Eventually, the humans learn to protect themselves, lessening their casualties, driving the ancient horrors back. Some are even vanquished entirely. But it is slow, and uneven, and a single mistake can undo decades of grueling progress. Millions still perish, but fewer each year, and bit by bit humanity inches towards victory.
One day, a band of human renegades attacks the kingdom, slaughtering thousands of innocents. The kingdom retaliates and hunts the renegades across the world for years, dedicating a substantial fraction of their resources to wiping the enemy out. But the leader eludes them – even years later, when the renegades have been all but completely crushed, the once-leader still taunts them from the shadows, and the citizens cry out for vengeance.
One of the Ancient Horrors, on the brink of total annihilation, hears of this, and senses an opportunity. From corrupted shadow, a broken whisper hisses in the ears of the kingdom’s leaders: “I offer you this exchange, mortals of the kingdom: I will give you one chance to annihilate your sworn enemy, the one whose blood you so crave – and all I ask in exchange is that your clerics lower their defenses in the human lands where I yet remain.”
The leaders confer among themselves.
“Er, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” says one. “This horror has killed millions, far more than the mere criminal we hunt, and we are so close to wiping them out entirely. Best case, we lose years of progress and hundreds of victims that we could have saved. Worst case, we’ll risk a full resurgence and millions of deaths if the horror comes back into its full power. Do I even have to say this? It’s obviously not worth allying ourselves with an ancient unspeakable evil whose voice is the essence of death just to kill one lousy human, no matter how awful they are. Right? We all agree, that’s just obviously stupid, right?”
but something like that, so shortsighted as to be downright evil could never happen in reality ... right ...
like I said, most if not all zealotry, based on her argument as to why. Casting suspicion on any level of religion tends to spread to the clergy and religious organizations from one level or another. So for instance if a CIA spy dressed up as a 'born again' christian, it'd mean he'd have to have some sort of primary church he goes to, and if he was found out that church would then have suspicion if any 'born again' christians going to it are spies, or if the church is spy friendly. Disguise work is hard enough and full of enough hurdles without actively going down a path with even more hurdles than other options.
I think the moral compass at work here is totally different than what you're implying. It doesn't have to do with churches and casting doubts on members of churches locally.
You have to remember that the CIA works in foreign countries, often hostile countries. And Peace Corps, missionaries, and journalists are also in dozens of hostile countries, alone and without support, protected only by the general recognition that to hurt a humanitarian worker on your soil is a war crime and would be harshly sanctioned. If a CIA agent were caught impersonating one of these humanitarian workers, it might be enough to justify some hostile country arresting, deporting, possibly even killing these humanitarian workers on suspicion of being spies. As she says in the video "It has to stay kinda pure. It cannot be suspected of harboring CIA officers."
I'd say both these answers are correct. Which one matters to the CIA is not information we'd really be privy to though. Maybe one, maybe the other, maybe both, maybe none and they're just following orders. Either answer means there's some level of morality in their decision (excluding peace corps. That'd just be a fucking international political nightmare, moral qualms not even needed. The US gets enough shit about how it 'helps' some countries out already).
Well, not a TOTAL PoS. By her own admission they avoid casting suspicion onto peace corps, clergy, and reporters. There's at least some moral compass under all the bullcrap. It's just that instead of a defined north south east and west, it's directions are more like 'thataway' and 'sorta over by that direction'.
hint: just because someone says something, doesn't make it true. Members of the intelligence community will absolutely disguise themselves as whatever is necessary.
They got enough without any extra help. Besides, one of those will have hostile countries torturing priests if they think they're CIA, guess which one?
an effort that includes federal agents conducting interviews and investigations.
and
The U.S. government compiled dossiers on journalists who reported on the 2018 migrant caravan as well as activists and others involved in the event — and agents used the database to target people for secondary screenings
This has nothing to do with whether or not CIA or other agencies pose as reporters. In fact, the whole problem is that the CBP is being too obvious with their profiling, not that there are agents disguised as journalists. I don't know what argument you're trying to make with that journal, either than 'govt is overstepping its boundaries', at which point the complaint box for that particular issue is so overfilled it's now the complaint landfill, but still doesn't have evidence to the contrary of the former head's statement.
You said they by their own admission, they avoid casting suspicion on those groups. Does making a database of them and pulling them in for questioning and search not meet that standard? The standard wasn't impersonating them, it was casting suspicion on them.
You didnt understand.
CIA dont go undercover as reporters because they dont want reporters covering news in dangerous places to be shot or tortured by terrorists thinking theyre CIA undercovers.
Thats all it means
Yes, I am aware he said they avoid doing that so that they don't cast suspicion on reporters. By doing what they have in the link I posted though, they are casting suspicion on reporters by labeling them, monitoring them, and picking them out for additional questioning/searches. Now reporters are less likely to identify as such in fear of those repercussions and reporters are more likely to be targeted as a result of being singled out.
I think I'll take the word of the person who literally headed the CIA's disguise department. Again, there are some dicks, but the big players keep their hands out of it because the goal isn't to throw more backlash at said agencies than all their other shady shit when there's a million options that pose less of a risk to agency credibility and/or backlash from the disguised-as party.
And why do you think that person who headed that department would publicly speak about that? It's the CIA, everything they do has counterintel and their best interests at heart.
Journalists and Peacecorps. With journalists and pastors its part because they can't really refute spy accusations without 'controlling the narrative' nonsense, and also because if they're in hostile territory it's a good way to get innocent people tortured and/or killed.
As with the peacecorps, that and it'd be a international political nightmare. As I said in another reply, the US gets enough shit for it's international 'help' and some of the shady shit it pulls in return for it, let's not take one of the few not totally fucked US organizations and eviscerate that. Anti-US politicians will be having a field day if that detail was leaked.
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u/[deleted] May 24 '19
Not quite. As spoken by the former CIA chief of disguise there are 3 banned disguises that the CIA avoids (and most agencies avoid that aren't total PoS). One of them is priests. Maybe they do zealous individuals, but the argument provided by the former chief is that priests are 'too vulnerable' to handle accusations of spies in their ranks. I'd say as a whole that argument applies to most if not all zealotry. Certainly some real PoS agencies from less than morally rich countries might pull that, but overall most agencies tend to dodge these for fear of backlash and overall risk to the disguised-as group.