Sent from [1]ProtonMail, encrypted email based in Switzerland.

     -------- Original Message --------
     Subject: Re: Russia and China crack Snowden Cache
     Time (GMT): Jun 17 2015 12:53:55
     From: tim@diffalt.com
     To: cypherpunks@cpunks.org
     To summarize the problem: the CIA is has about 20.000 employees.
     Which
     is substantially bigger then in the 1950s where they had maybe about
     4-5.000. They are an intelligence office. They started out gathering
     intelligence, gained intelligence gathering capabilities and now
     have
     capabilities to operate independently to some extent for some years.

   It's a somewhat minor point that I believe only supports your main
   argument, but this is not speaking strictly correct. From its inception
   in 1947, CIA has had at least two official missions: 1, the collection
   of intelligence (under what was first called "Office of Special
   Operations"); 2, "action" (under what was first called "Office of
   Policy Coordination," & has changed and mutated several times since),
   the definition and limits of which have always been a huge problem.
   Essentially, or at least arguably, #2 allows for military action
   outside the military chain of command, though not inside the
   territorial US. This in itself is a holdover from the OSS and other
   earlier orgs, all of whom had similar mandates, and even from the
   personnel who were part of those earlier orgs and wanted to continue
   their fun & games. In many ways it is #2 that is the real problem,
   though one could argue that the need for intelligence collection
   outside the military chain of command is itself debatable (MI6, the
   "british equivalent" of CIA in most brief descriptions, is part of the
   British military). At any rate, their official mandate has always been
   much larger than intelligence gathering. See
   [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Central_Intelligence_Ag
   ency

References

   1. https://protonmail.ch/
   2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Central_Intelligence_Agency