RSS feedYou gotta love the CIA’s attempt to reinvent themselves. Courtesy of the ever wonderful Boing Boing, the CIA has a web site for kids, complete with happy smiley faces of people that I assume are doing what they refer to as “intelligence work”, and at least one photo of what looks like a covert operative. How do I know? Well, they’re in a dark raincoat, with a 1950 cold war hat, under a single street lamp. I thought covert meant under cover, but of course I was unable to check the Australian Macquarie Dictionary to be sure.
Anyway, if you dig deep, you get to this classic description of “Who We Are & What We Do”.
We collect […] information from many sources: newspapers, magazines, and foreign radio or TV broadcasts, which are overt or “open.” Some sources are “covert”–that is, other people’s secrets. We persuade these people to tell us their secrets. The other way we collect information is …
Woah boy! Of course this is exactly what we need to be teaching our children, how to persuade people to tell us their secrets. You probably don’t need the definition of persuade, but here it is anyway.
To induce to undertake a course of action or embrace a point of view by means of argument, reasoning, or entreaty
Probably not exactly what the CIA uses as a primary persuation tactic, but amusing none the less.
“Look, tell me your godamn secret, or I’m going to have to continue arguing with you!”
We now turn to the page describing The People, with a lovely photo of the happy intelligence workers around the CIA logo. That’s where we learn that…
If you like to write papers, long and short, if you like to put puzzles together, solve mysteries and have the patience to go through a mound of different types of information to do all this, then the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) is for you.
Yes, that’s right girls and boys! Or of course unless you’re a child between the age of about 7 and 13, in which case, school and Nancy Drew mysteries are probably best for you. When you grow up, then you can start persuading people to tell you their secrets.
Finally, here’s the U.S. secret service in action, persuading interviewing a boy about his anti-war drawings.
The secret service in Washington DC had not yet commented yesterday.
Obviously the persuading is continuing.