Who is pretending? The discussion is about the CIA.
When I discuss cats, there is no reason I should have to always qualify it by saying "yes, and dogs are cute, too."
This advice makes no sense to me.
Anyway, the point is that I don’t think you have to dig very deep these days to find plenty of instances of geopolitical power X doing bad things, so I’m not sure why the CIA would bother lying to stir up shit against them when they could tell the truth just as easily, with the same result. This assumes their purpose in releasing any information at all is to influence public opinion, not increase transparency, as the latter would probably mean divulging uncomfortable truths. The former does not—they can release exactly what they want, and no more.
On the other hand, flatly denying you’ve done a bad thing is a form response for governments and corporations (and politicians) at this point, even when it’s risible on its face. If you’re the guy responsible for putting those comms together and you admit wrongdoing, you’re never working in this town again. Simple as that. Deny, deny, deny. Deny everything. (Isn’t that a one-off X-Files title card?)
Has the CIA lied? Absolutely, though I’d guess far more often (orders of magnitude?) by omission than by outright explicit falsehood. The latter goes against the same ass-covering impulse that drives the bullshit denials. My brief comment above is meant to be a general observation on the sorts of public communication games the CIA and similar organizations tend to play, not an absolute truth or bible for living your life.
Honestly, yes.
> Then when the CIA denies they lied about the foreign government was doing something bad
When have they done this? A few times probably, but not really a high percentage.
At any rate, P(CIA telling the truth about a foreign govt|foreign govt is doing something bad) is much higher than P(CIA lying about foreign govt|foreign govt is not doing something bad). The rational thing is to put higher weight on such statements than when the CIA is trying to cover their own ass.
99 reports could be truthful but the 1 lie that leads to war is enough to ruin their reputation.
https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/admission-against-interest...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_against_interest
that is to say, when making a statement is personally detrimental to someone, and they make it anyway, that statement should generally be given a higher degree of belief than one that is self-interested.
so in other words, if the CIA denies that they did something bad, you don't necessarily believe that straightaway, because of course they would say that. On the other hand if they do admit they did something bad, then it's OK to believe them in that instance even if they've lied in other instances.
Now of course - in the specific case of the CIA they are a government apparatus, not an independent actor, so the fact that they say (eg) Russia did a bad thing isn't necessarily against their interest, it is in their interest for the US Government to look good and truthful. But as a general rule, it's important to look at the interests in a specific instance to determine rather than just assuming that because an actor lied once that everything they say is suspect.
That’s... not how that works at all. Disinformation campaigns very frequently include publicly signaling you’ve come to a different conclusion than the real one you’ve come to.
I'm not sure why you think what I said is incompatible with this. Often the best "lie" is a carefully cut-out corner of a larger truth.
Because it’s literally the opposite. Misattribution is disinformation 101 if you have a solid source you need to protect.
US finds out China severely compromised a system while pretending to be Russia. The US found this out via a compromised Chinese government asset.
They need to fix the system but don’t want to let on they knew it was China and risk compromising their insider knowledge. Best course is to just say, “we found this that looks like Russia and we fixed it”.
There is no reason to assume a public attribution from an intelligence agency is correct. There are far too many reasons for it to be helpful to lie.
In your scenario, that's not a lie.
That was news to me, so I went looking for some context.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_bans_and_allegations...
Hey, I don't even believe the CIA quite always lies: I'm sure it has sometimes said "The FSB is lying", and I believe that too. Because the FSB is pretty much always lying... Just like the CIA.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Kaspersky#Early_life
Somebody says people are skeptical of attribution to governments outside the US, but not the US. Specifically he says that he does not doubt it was the US.
So yeah, the discussion you're replying to is not just about CIA.
How do you go from reading "the CIA is lying" to "the FSB is telling the truth"? Do you understand the difference between those statements? Reminds me of a stand up bit, "are you a Jew or an antisemite?"
The link is a Kaspersky press release, so there’s potential for an FSB connection:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-11/kaspersky...
A whole lot of these outfits are started by former NSA employees, and they love having people that previously worked in US national security on their rooster for the marketing value.
Yet whenever one of these outfits accuses China/Russia/Iran of being responsible for the latest "cyber incident"/"misinformation campaign" these accusations are widely regurgitated without any doubt like some kind of definitive factual truth.
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world’s history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.
If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." - John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Sun, at a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club in 1880
You don't know everything there is to know about the CIA. All it means that that they can't lie about what you do know.
Let's not pretend the FSB and MSS don't also lie constantly. That you're more familiar with the CIA lying is a testament to the free press of the US, not the other way around.
The point of the previous post is that it could easily be another security agency.