Skip to content
quotesby

If any of you have ever looked at your FBI file, you discover that intelligence agencies in general are extremely incompetent. That's one of the reasons why there are so many intelligence failures. They just never get anything straight, for all kinds of reasons. Part of it is because of the information they get. The information they get comes from ideological fanatics, typically, who always misunderstand things in their own crazy way. If you look at an FBI file, say, about yourself, where you know what the facts are, you'll see that the information has some kind of relation to the facts, you can figure out what they're talking about, but by the time it works its way through the ideological fanaticism of the intelligence agencies, there's always weird distortion.

Noam Chomsky#179

PoliticsBiasSecurityIntelligenceAccuracy

About this quote

What does it mean?
Chomsky argues intelligence agencies are incompetent and distort information due to ideological bias.
In plain terms
Intelligence agencies often get facts wrong due to bias.
What can you take from it?
Information from agencies may be distorted.

Where it applies

  • security debates
  • policy analysis
  • government oversight

Putting it to work

  • verify intelligence claims
  • scrutinize agency reports

Questions to consider

  • Who can be trusted with secrets?
  • How to assess intelligence quality?

Another view

Some intelligence work is inherently difficult.

More from Noam Chomsky

  1. Mass non-violent protest is predicated on the humanity of the oppressor. Quite often it doesn't work. Sometimes it does, in unexpected ways. But judgements abo…

    Permalink to quote #178
  2. ...the incompetence of intelligence agencies is legendary. Every one of which you have records at all, whether it's the CIA, or the Israeli Mossad, or British …

    Permalink to quote #180
  3. If you had asked my grandmother whether she is oppressed, she probably wouldn't have understood what you are talking about; that's life. If you'd asked my moth…

    Permalink to quote #177

Related quotes

  1. Russia does not have in its possession any trustworthy data that supports the existence of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we ha…

    Vladimir PutinVladimir Putin quote #1
  2. Obviously we know now their nuclear claims were wholly inaccurate. But more troubling is the fact that a lot of intelligence experts were telling the Administr…

    Harry ReidHarry Reid quote #10
  3. I believe the title was Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States.

    Condoleezza RiceCondoleezza Rice quote #13