The Hollywood perception of the CIA is one of vicious, unprincipled, highly effective thugs. Yet the truth appears to be more that they are ineffective and snoozing. I’m not sure which is more unsettling.
Nadia Nadim Prouty just pled guilty to federal charges of illegally using government computers to access information about her brother-in-law, a Hizbollah-linked fugitive and others. Counterterrorism blog wonders how she managed to fraudulently become a citizen, get jobs with the FBI and CIA, and remain undetected. They also say US agencies have been penetrated by any number of foreign agents; Russian and Chinese as well as Islamist. (Rumors that Spongebob and Patrick are manipulating FBI data to prevent Mr. Krabs from being indicted for embezzlement are probably untrue.)
What is striking in the Prouty case is that she was conducting unauthorized classified searches in 2003, and yet was not shut down until 2007. It seems that it took a long time for the dime to drop on that one.