CIA suddenly stops publishing, removes archives of The World Factbook(simonwillison.net)
155 pointsby ck25 hours ago10 comments
  • clintfredan hour ago
    Facts are the enemy.

    I remember reading books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 as a teen thinking, "Cool story, but the US will never look like that." Oof.

    • Xmd5a22 minutes ago
      > If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.

      I think it's the idea of the boot that is stamping on this human face. We're in an open society, 1984 makes up for a good contrast that pushes us in the right direction.

    • ericras40 minutes ago
      [flagged]
      • milesvp37 minutes ago
        This drips of sarcasm. While the parent comment is low quality, it can be seen as merely noise. your comment actively makes this site toxic. Please refrain from such comments in the future.
        • nothrabannosir15 minutes ago
          I think it’s satire, not sarcasm. Mocking sycophant but ultimately hollow AIs, by imitating them. And, in the end, concurring with GP. Highlighting both the ways in which GP is correct, and filling in the gaps in implementation between the originally proposed dystopia, and the one we actively find ourselves marching towards.

          Upvote from me :)

        • Noaidi32 minutes ago
          > While the parent comment is low quality

          I disagree with this. I think the comment was perfect quality. As we are slowly sinking into totalitarianism in the US, you will understand that this "noise" was in fact the signal you should have been listening to.

          • milesvp27 minutes ago
            Forgive me, my bar is high, but I tend to agree with you. I didn’t have a good way to indicate that I find value in a small number of comments like these without potentially undermining my greater desire to avoid toxic comments here.
          • eth0up23 minutes ago
            I'll second here. While not profound, I found myself nodding, involuntarily, in agreement.
    • dizlexic19 minutes ago
      I love that you're lamenting a CIA website closure as a step toward dystopia... 10/10

      It could be as simple as budget changes.

  • scarecrowbob2 hours ago
    Damn I wish the waning of US soft power felt like a positive thing to me; the CIA, along with the DEA, has been one of the more powerful criminal networks on the planet since its inception in the mid 20th C.

    It doesn't feel like the US gov is moving away from the soft-power/understated action stuff because the US gov is somehow committed to being less evil.

    It feels to me like they don't feel like it's as useful as the application simple hard power.

    That feels a little horrifying to me.

    • idle_zealotan hour ago
      > It feels to me like they don't feel like it's as useful as the application simple hard power.

      They do feel that way, but I think they're wrong. Pervasive soft power is a lot better for building stable systems of oppression than more overt shows of force. They're either really bad at, or not interested in (probably both) building anything. I don't think this period of brutal oppression they're gearing up for is going to last very long. People in the US react very poorly to roving bands of State goons.

    • supjeff2 hours ago
      How much do we believe the current administration values "intelligence"? For the most part, the truth is trump's enemy. as far as he can control it, it's better for his to be the only authoritative voice. If he says Australia is full of muslims and bad hombres, he doesn't need the CIA contradicting him.
      • exe34an hour ago
        It gives me hope that Trump will replace the top generals and a few layers down with yes-men who will spend the military budget on coke and then the US will be less of a threat to the rest of the world. Another Russia is not a good thing, but it's better than a mad man at the top of the most powerful military in history.
        • simonhan hour ago
          What were getting is another Russia with the full military and economic might of the US.
    • epsilonican hour ago
      We're definitely going in the direction of "might is right". The "palantirization" of data stores (not just those for surveillance) is going to be an enabler of the "hard power" you're alluding to. This whole platform is probably a dragnet for identifying intelligent people with dissident views. Expect things to get uglier and stranger as well.
      • Revolution112019 minutes ago
        Power also needs to be justified. Hitler is an example of "unjustifiable might." And all fools who want to promote Darwinism need to know that causing one's own extinction is far easier than causing one's own evolution. Evolution is merely a survivor bias, and Darwin's On the Origin of Species didn't analyze the patterns of extinction.The evolutionary pattern should be that only when you yourself are perfectly rational can you eliminate the irrational enemy. Some people are inherently irrational, yet they try to use Darwinian "survival of the fittest" as their belief to eliminate rational beings, ultimately leading only to their own extinction. This is what happened, is happening, and will happen.Might makes right is not an Rights; Rights are Rights. Might is might, and Right is Right. The statement "might makes right" is rife with literary folly.
        • epsilonic7 minutes ago
          Book 1 of Plato: Republic demonstrates the folly of such thinking.
      • exe34an hour ago
        Project Insight. Hydra was growing inside S.H.I.E.L.D the entire time!
    • Revolution112036 minutes ago
      Shouldn't the DEA be the weakest agency? Now that the drug problem requires the involvement of the Department of Homeland Security, the War Department, and the U.S. military, shouldn't the DEA be shut down?
    • goda90an hour ago
      > It feels to me like they don't feel like it's as useful as the application simple hard power.

      Soft power is a hard power amplifier though. I don't think it's incompetence and ignorance about how to maintain and use power, I think it's intentional deconstruction of power so that others can fill the vacuum.

    • learingsci2 hours ago
      One can view the defensive realist perspective as another application of the 80/20 rule. It’s all economics. Debt determines many outcomes.
    • iwontberudean hour ago
      It’s the incompetence and low-intelligence of our leaders that scares me most. We need actual clever people in office coming up with decentralized systems that work rather than the mentally deficient demagogues and liars coasting along collecting rent. Californian independence is the best way forward for us.
    • mrexcessan hour ago
      Point of clarification: you are horrified that one of the more powerful criminal networks on the planet is potentially becoming less powerful, because you materially benefitted from their crimes?
  • ks204818 minutes ago
    This is surely just the tip of the iceberg of what is going on in the CIA at the moment. Senator Ron Wyden just sent a mysterious public letter about concerns about what they are doing.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5724300-ron-wyden-cia-le...

  • lvspiff2 hours ago
    I used the CIA factbook so much in college in the early 2000's when looking at so many things. When researching countries to support and travel to it made sense to vreview it beforehand. Its insane that this as a resource would be taken down.
    • anigbrowl12 minutes ago
      It gets cited a lot in immigration litigation as well (eg in asylum arguments) because it's an unimpeachable factual source that the government's lawyers can't reasonably dispute.
    • strangattractoran hour ago
      It was a great resource for basic facts about countries. Providing it to the public was genius in addition to being useful.
  • dundarious2 hours ago
    There was a website redesign under the Biden administration that lost a lot of important historical information as well. For example, the CIA in-house historian had a book review about the overthrow of the Mosaddegh government in Iran in the 50s, and the CIA/MI6 role in that coup.
  • ChrisArchitect4 hours ago
    More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46891794
  • abdelhousni32 minutes ago
    Truth is a danger for the ruling oligarchy.
  • Swoerd15 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • SilverElfin5 hours ago
    [flagged]
    • regenschutz2 hours ago
      It was updated weekly. Constantly writing and maintaining so much information is almost certainly very expensive. Coupled with the fact that you have to be very careful before releasing each edit to make sure that no accidental personal beliefs or theories slip by (as that would be a diplomatic catastrophe), I reckon the cost of maintaining the thing could be very high.

      I would wager that they're still going to maintain their own version of the World Factbook, and just simply not share it. This would allow them to cut out the very costly review step that I talked about.

      Now whether that's a good decision or not is a completely different question.

      • RajT882 hours ago
        Your definition of "very high" costs likely don't align with what you think of when you think of "very high" government spending. NASA's 25 billion dollar budget for 2025 was a paltry ~.4% of the total government budget.

        Wikimedia foundation's operating budget is 207 million a year - a drop in the ocean of federal budgets, if Factbook was similar.

        • SECProto2 hours ago
          > NASA's 25 billion dollar budget for 2025 was a paltry ~.04% of the total government budget.

          I'm sorry, I think you have a math or data error here. The US government budget for 2025 was not $62.5 trillion dollars.

          • Retrican hour ago
            Yea, they where off by a factor of 10, so 0.4%.
            • RajT88an hour ago
              Now fixed. Point still stands!
      • supjeffan hour ago
        yeah, where is the CIA going to find the money to pay a few editors?

        I think you touched on the real reason: objective facts are anti-trump, woke leftist propaganda

    • waynesonfire3 hours ago
      What makes you think they can't "keep it going"? They're ceasing the publication, aka, the act of releasing it.

      From the CIA Factbook History page it writes,

      > It was first made available to the public in 1975 and in 1981 was renamed The World Factbook

      Is it just being classified again? Who knows! That could be classified.

    • unethical_ban38 minutes ago
      $100,000,000,000 budget for ICE in a year. Average $400,000,000,000 a year in tax cuts for the wealthy. Those expenditures don't pay for themselves. Gotta cut useful services, medical care for the working class, and devalue the dollar some.
  • macinjosh3 hours ago
    The irony of an intelligence agency publishing a "fact book" in the first place is thick.
    • stochtastic2 hours ago
      Why? It's an excellent recruiting tool. I used to read it as a kid (along with every other paper or digital encyclopedia I could get my hands on), and it certainly made me interested in the CIA.
    • 2 hours ago
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    • quietsegfault2 hours ago
      Why?
      • regenschutz2 hours ago
        Because intelligence agencies generally have a vested interest in spreading subtle propaganda, such as by distorting facts.

        Now, I have yet to see any cases of the CIA doing this to the World Factbook, since that would tank its credibility, but I also don't browse the Factbook too often.

        • dragonwriter2 hours ago
          You are looking at the trees, and missing the forest. The subtle propaganda that the Factbook exists to spread is “the CIA is a neutral and trustworthy gatherer and purveyor of facts”.
          • otterleyan hour ago
            I think that’s a secondary or even tertiary goal. The primary goal is to provide a public service to public and private parties who want to become better informed and to show the American people that their tax dollars are at work and reduce the risk of having their funding get cut.
            • dragonwriter40 minutes ago
              The part before the “and” is the how of the propaganda I described, the part after the “and” is one of the outcomes the propaganda is intended to influence; neither is an alternative to the propaganda function.
        • bluGill2 hours ago
          They have multiple competing interests. One of their interests is telling the truth to their local military and politicians - getting caught in a lie to their side is the worst that could happen to them.

          The world factbook was mostly things that the military or politicians might care about the truth of, and data they need anyway. Mostly what is there were things where there wouldn't be much value in spreading lies - and what value that might have is outweighed by you can fact check everything (with a lot of work) so lies are likely to be caught.

          Not saying they are perfect, but this isn't a place where I would expect they would see distorting facts help them.

          • Supermanchoan hour ago
            > One of their interests is telling the truth to their local military and politicians - getting caught in a lie to their side is the worst that could happen to them.

            It's definitely not the worst that can happen. Happens fairly often - google: CIA lying to congress. Getting audited is the worst that thing that happens to the CIA. ie The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) last actively audited the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the early 1960s, specifically discontinuing such work around 1962.