a day ago
Former FBI Agents Are Exposing The Wildest Secrets They Can Reveal Without Killing Us, And Holy Crap
As an avid Criminal Minds-watcher, I've always wondered what it was actually like to work as an FBI agent.
A while back, Reddit user mr_squirell asked, "FBI/CIA agents of Reddit, what's something that you can tell us without killing us?" Here's what they said:
Note: Obviously we can't confirm all of these stories, but these people are supposedly speaking from their own experiences as alleged government employees.
1."I worked with a woman who was a former NSA. We would always beg her to tell us stuff, but she never did. The one thing she did say, though, was that during training, they show them a video of a bunch of things they've found out about and stopped. She said she hardly slept for two weeks after watching that."
—jseego
2."My dad worked for GCHQ in the '80s doing voice recognition, and he can't say anything more for another decade. The technology used that lets Siri and Alexa recognize you today was also being used in the '80s... Just a bit slower..."
—arabidopsis
Related:
3."I was an analyst, not an agent/officer. 85% of all classified material is classified because of how it was collected, not because it is juicy/useful. Yes, your boss and co-workers said that stuff about you."
—ben70
4."We are all told never to use sites like Reddit. Social media in general is pretty much a no-go."
—Throwaway93ee90299
5."An ex-Company man once told me that the movie Get Smart was more accurate than James Bond."
—spiff2268
6."I talked with some CIA recruiters towards the end of college and almost applied earnestly after a large group Q&A and then a much smaller one. The thing that stuck out to me was that the guys said most CIA agents are out of shape and have limited combat training with guns or hand-to-hand. They made it clear that it's the military that uses force. If confronted, they were trained to immediately surrender or to drop their bags and run if possible."
—dring157
Related:
7."If you go through the FBI interview process, it takes a while. Chances are, you're going to have to spend some time working on crimes against children, which is really tough, and most people don't want to do it."
—thermobollocks
8."My dad worked for the government, and he told me that any time he had a meaningful interaction with someone who wasn't American (i.e. going over to my friend's house for Lunar New Year or going on vacation to Canada), he had to report it all, and if he saw anything suspicious."
—AudiKitty
"Yep. I went through a clearance upgrade and got asked about a couple of people that I know through friends who I didn't include on my paperwork and if I knew their background."
—derpyfox
9."I worked with the Australian Federal police with the spider squad doing 'computer stuff' for them in regards to pedophiles and finding trafficking victims. It was the most heartbreaking work, but when you got the pedophiles, the office looked like NASA after a Mars landing."
—dr_m_a_dman
"I don't know if I'm allowed to say, but a mentor who definitely wasn't supposed to tell me used to be a white hat for the FBI. Apparently, all he did was search for pedophiles by tracking child sexual abuse images. He said he didn't stay for very long because it was messing with his mental health."
—mastershow05
10."My spouse is an FBI agent. One of the things they had to do at the FBI Academy was go to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC. The lesson was what can happen if you blindly follow orders without ever questioning the morality/intent behind them. I found that pretty compelling, and I was glad to hear that it's part of their training."
—bukunothing
Related:
11."Not an FBI or CIA officer, but my sister is a district attorney, and over the years, she has prosecuted a number of animal-cruelty cases. This led to her having an ongoing partnership with the FBI for the last several years. It turns out the FBI started tracking animal abuse cases about 10-15 years ago due to the incredibly high correlation between abusing animals when you're young and becoming a serial violent offender as an adult."
—TheDongerNeedsFood
12."I have a relative who retired from the NSA a few years ago. She has talked about a few things in generalities, nothing specific. Among them: Alcoholism in general is rife in the agency. When you cannot speak to anyone outside the agency about your work, it becomes nearly impossible to confide in anyone close to you. Even if you have close work friends or family, you have to be careful what you say because not everyone is read into every program. Two people can sit next to each other in the same office, working on the same subject for months, and never talk about it with each other, even though they're close friends outside the agency. So people turn to the bottle. Her husband worked for a different government agency and also had a Top Secret-SCI clearance, but she couldn't talk about her work with him (nor could he with her, but his didn't involve the intelligence community)."
—NetworkLlama
13."Want to work for them? Prepare to do a fair amount of paper work. The form will ask for each of your employer's contact information, contact information of friends, your history of addresses, etc. They will then send an agent to interview a number of these people. Next, you have to take a psychological exam and be interviewed by a psychologist. Finally, you'll have one last interview with a polygraph and a professional lie detector."
—Sw0rDz
14."The agency employs psychiatrists who are cleared to be read into almost any program. Going to them, though, is often seen as a mark of shame among other agency employees, so they are not used nearly as often as they should be."
—NetworkLlama
Related:
15."Properly secret programs and operations are never named in any way that indicates what they are actually about. They're generally just two words chosen at random and that would rarely come up in normal conversation, stuff like 'Cracked Gorilla' (which I just made up off the top of my head)."
—xxkoloblicinxx
16."I applied to be an accountant at the FBI out of college. On the first or second page of the application, it asks if you have ever done any illegal drug. Not wanting to lie, I said yes, and it immediately ended the application process. It's shocking to me that there are so many FBI agents, and absolutely none of them have ever smoked weed."
—scotchglass22
finally, "Anyone who is a US citizen can apply to join the CIA. It isn't that hard. If you have any kind of degree in computer science, statistics, engineering, or accounting, and don't have anything that would mess up your getting a clearance, getting a job would be relatively easy there. Working at the CIA is far more boring than you would think."
—Intrepid-Client9449
Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
So, to all the former FBI and CIA workers out there. What are some other secrets you can share about the job? Let us know in the comments below. Or, if you prefer to remain anonymous, share your submission in the form below.
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