Quotes & Sayings About Intelligence Agencies

Representatives of the American intelligence agencies - and I hope they won't be angry - but they could have been more professional, and the diplomats as well. After they found out that he was flying to us, and that he was flying as a transit passenger, there was pressure from all sides - from the Americans, from the Europeans - instead of just letting him go to a country where they could operate easily. — Vladimir Putin

We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We've got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies ... That's the world these folks operate in, and so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective. — Dick Cheney

The invasion was undertaken with the expectation that it probably would increase the threat of terror. That was the advice given by the government's own intelligence agencies and by others, by lots of specialists on terror, who said it was very likely to increase terror, for — Noam Chomsky

I hoped to offer U.S. intelligence agencies the opportunity to even place CIA officers in NOC (non-official cover) jobs in our company working under our Libyan contract. With agency officers in place with rock-solid "cover for status" - that's the lie that explains who you are pretending to be - and "cover for action" - that's the lie that explains what you're doing while you're there - the United States would have direct access to people in the seedy, murky underside of Libya, people whose motives and alliances were now unclear. The goals were a tall order, but don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon, because as my dad would say, you never hit high aiming low."

Excerpt From: Jamie Smith. "Gray Work — Jamie Smith

In some cases the intelligence community could subsidize commercial and academic sources to ensure specialized or additional expertise for surge situations. The key challenge in these cases is that, although experts in academia and the media are likely to be eager to assist the government, they may be reluctant to have direct association with intelligence organizations. U.S. intelligence will need mechanisms that keep these experts at arm's length. One alternative could be to work through agencies such at the State Department and National Security Council, or private organizations such as the National Science Foundation. Moreover, these buffer mechanisms will need to be real, and not just a cover story. A few stories about how such-and-such organization is a 'front for U.S. intelligence' will ensure not only that the organization will lose its access to experts, but that the experts themselves will be less likely to offer their services to the government in the future. — Bruce D. Berkowitz

As a digital technology writer, I have had more than one former student and colleague tell me about digital switchers they have serviced through which calls and data are diverted to government servers or the big data algorithms they've written to be used on our e-mails by intelligence agencies. — Douglas Rushkoff

Before 9/11 there were weak procedures, willingness, and mechanisms for communicating among agencies for foreign intelligence and the FBI with its focus on law enforcement. The domestic-vs.-foreign barrier has been solved by the reforms after 9/11 that established the DNI. — Dennis C. Blair

I was reading about all of these medical and psychological experimental programs that the government and various intelligence agencies had run throughout the 20th century. Any book you can read on that, there's some really horrifying and fascinating stuff that goes on there. — Caitlin Kittredge

Another factor is the decision, made in 1976, to sharply divide the FBI and the foreign intelligence agencies. The FBI would collect within the United States; the foreign intelligence agencies would collect overseas. — Bobby Ray Inman

We believe, from everything we have been told by the intelligence community, by 12 years of history with Iraq, by the experience of the U.N. inspectors and by other intelligence agencies in other countries that Saddam Hussein had the intention to develop weapons of mass destruction and to have such weapons, and that was a sound judgment which I still believe to this day because he had had them in the past, he'd used them in the past. — Colin Powell

What do you do when other countries' intelligence agencies give you information and you aren't entirely certain about its source? Simply ignore it? That's impossible. We have a duty to guarantee the safety of our citizens. — Angela Merkel

Danger is a very rare commodity in these times, monopolized by intelligence agencies and stuntmen. — William S. Burroughs

I can tell you that the Canadian intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been providing outstanding co-operation with our intelligence and law enforcement agencies as we work together to track down terrorists here in North America and put them out of commission. — Paul Cellucci

USA Freedom Actdid, however, take away a valuable tool that allowed the National Security Agency and other law - and other intelligence agencies to quickly and rapidly access phone records and match them up with other phone records to see who terrorists have been calling. — Marco Rubio

Intelligence agencies keep things secret because they often violate the rule of law or of good behavior. — Julian Assange

Now, is it the case that Facebook is actually run by U.S. intelligence? No, it's not like that. It's simply that U.S. intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure on them. And it's costly for them to hand out records one by one, so they have automated the process. Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies in building this database for them. — Julian Assange

As the local police department might want to decrypt a phone of a criminal suspect, so would the Chinese or the Russian or the Iranian intelligence agencies like to be able to do exactly the same thing. — Matt Blaze

Since the tragedies, the Department of Homeland Security was established to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States, and most importantly, to share intelligence information among government agencies and departments. — Randy Forbes

The intelligence investigation under the leadership of Senator Church, which I know has helped cause this investigation by you, points out that the agencies did not disclose certain facts to us and that certain plots were going on. — John Sherman Cooper

Foreign Ministry guys don't become agents. Party officials, the Foreign Ministry nerds, tend not to volunteer to Western intelligence agencies. — Aldrich Ames

The longer someone ignores an email before finally responding, the more relative social power that person has. Map these response times across an entire organization and you get a remarkably accurate chart of the actual social standing. The boss leaves emails unanswered for hours or days; those lower down respond within minutes. There's an algorithm for this, a data mining method called "automated social hierarchy detection," developed at Columbia University.8 When applied to the archive of email traffic at Enron Corporation before it folded, the method correctly identified the roles of top-level managers and their subordinates just by how long it took them to answer a given person's emails. Intelligence agencies have been applying the same metric to suspected terrorist gangs, piecing together the chain of influence to spot the central figures. — Daniel Goleman

In the fight against terrorism, national agencies keep full control over their police forces, security and intelligence agencies and judicial authorities. — Gijs De Vries

There is thus little or no ability for an internet user to know when they are being covertly propagandized by their government, which is precisely what makes it so appealing to intelligence agencies, so powerful, and so dangerous. — Glenn Greenwald

Then there are intelligence agencies in the US, which require billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the government every year. This funding issue was not a big problem till the existence of the former Soviet Union but after that the budget of these agencies has been in danger. They needed an enemy. So, they first started propaganda against Usamah and Taleban and then this incident happened [11th September]. — Osama Bin Laden

The CIA's offices in London were no secret to the MI6. In fact, the two agencies were practically kissing cousins. — Kenneth Eade

In order for any smartphone manufacturer to decrypt the data on your phone, it has to hold onto a secret that lets it get that access. And that secret or that database of secrets becomes an extremely valuable and useful target for intelligence agencies. — Matt Blaze

I strongly agree that a National Intelligence Director should be established to oversee and coordinate the 15 federal intelligence agencies. — Jim Ramstad

Prior to the passage of the Patriot Act, it was very difficult - often impossible - for us to share information with the Central Intelligence Agency, with NSA, with the other intelligence agencies, and likewise, for them to share information with us. — Robert Mueller

And this was to be his main point - there was one overriding reason for our failure, which was the lack of coordinated intelligence. Too many agencies, too many bureaucracies defending their corners, too many points of demarcation, insufficient centralized control. — Ian McEwan

Since 2001, the Patriot Act has provided the means to detect and disrupt terrorist threats against the U.S. Prior to enactment of the law, major legal barriers prevented intelligence, national defense, and law enforcement agencies from working together and sharing information. — Roger Wicker

The drug war isn't what purports to be. If you look at the whole operation and the tie-in between the American intelligence agencies, these so-called "assets", the spies on the payroll of the CIA, and drug dealers. Don't let members of Congress and the media get away with this complacency and distortion! — Jerry Brown

US intelligence agencies will only use such data to meet specific security requirements: counterintelligence, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, cybersecurity, force protection for our troops and allies, and combating transnational crime, including sanctions evasion. — Barack Obama

It's high time for a fresh European alternative to enter the market, taking the existing Internet behemoths head on. What the world needs now is a cloud storage service that is not subject to uncontrolled access by intelligence agencies. — Mikko Hypponen

You can't come forward against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and be completely free from risk. — Edward Snowden

We are going to see a great number of articles in the future from so-called experts and public officials. They will warn about more violence, more kidnappings, and more terrorists. Mass media, the armed forces, and intelligence agencies will saturate our lives with fascist scare tactics and 'predictions' that have already been planned to come true. — Mae Brussell

You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk. — Edward Snowden

You have multiple intelligence agencies. They all ultimately report to the director of national intelligence but, you know, it never comes in neat packages. So you have to make judgments on what you have, and it's not easy to do. — Raymond Kelly

Would it not be much better to have a president who deliberately lied to the people because he thought a war was essential than to have one who was so dumb as to be taken in by intelligence agencies, especially those who told him what he wanted to hear? — Andrew Greeley

Our intelligence agencies will continue to gather information about the intentions of governments - as opposed to ordinary citizens - around the world, in the same way that the intelligence services of every other nation does. We will not apologize simply because our services may be more effective. — Barack Obama

The PATRIOT Act brought down the wall separating intelligence agencies from law enforcement and other entities charged with protecting the Nation from terrorism. — Chris Chocola

This is a story, not history. So the characters and incidents are not real. It is a story about different types of rulers who rule, protect, patronize, intimidate, terrorize, or kill their subjects and others. We call them presidents, sultans, ministers, and intelligence agencies. And many people end up as pawns to further their interests. — Raj Nellooli

During the campaign of 2016, we took a step toward totalitarianism without even noticing by accepting as normal the violation of electronic privacy. Whether it is done by American or Russian intelligence agencies, or for that matter by any institution, the theft, discussion, or publication of personal communications destroys a basic foundation of our rights. If we have no control over who reads what and when, we have no ability to act in the present or plan for the future. Whoever can pierce your privacy can humiliate you and disrupt your relationships at will. — Timothy Snyder

The FBI has built up substantial expertise to address cyber threats, both in the homeland and overseas. Here at home, the FBI serves as the executive agent for the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), which joins together 19 intelligence, law enforcement, and military agencies to coordinate cyber threat investigations. — James Comey