NYPD: Yes, a CIA officer works out of NYC police headquarters

From the AP, news on the increasingly blurred lines between foreign and domestic spying in the US:

New York's police commissioner confirmed Thursday that a CIA officer is working out of police headquarters there, after an Associated Press investigation revealed an unusual partnership with the CIA (...) but he and the CIA said the spy agency's role at the department is an advisory one.

• [nosehat]

  he and the CIA said the spy agency’s role at the department is an advisory one

  Gotta love this language.  Is there any CIA involvement anywhere that has ever not been (on paper) an “advisory role”?

  • [SedanChair]

    As in…

    “I advise you to overthrow the government”
    “I advise you to torture that guy”
    “I advise you to plant agents provocateur in the Muslim community”

    • [millie fink]

      “I advise you to plant agents provocateur in the Muslim community”
      FBI too–

      http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/25/terrorists_for_the_fbi_how_the

      GADEIR ABBAS: So, the effort to set up plots for people in the Muslim community, the only thing that we see are the cases that go to prosecution. What we don’t end up seeing is how many times has theFBI attempted to enlist an American Muslim into some plot like this. And so, for instance, if you take, for example, the Craig Monteilh case, where a convicted felon is enlisted by the FBI to go throughout the Los Angeles area Muslim community, recording conversations and talking about jihad and committing acts of violence. Well, in that case, the Muslim community there reported to the FBI their own informant, and when the FBI didn’t do anything, they went to court and got a restraining order against the FBI’s informant in the community. And that’s—you know, that’s revealing for two reasons. First, there is a disposition inside the community that rejects acts of violence. And two, the efforts of the FBI are essentially an ongoing attempt to monitor the thoughts and proclivities of members of the Muslim community inside the U.S.

• [Bruce Colwin]

  Comforted to hear that.

• [EH]

  So, the CIA is prohibited from operating within US borders, but it’s OK for them to tell other people how to operate there?

• [jb]

  Oh, of course its just an advisory positions. Just like the US soldiers in Viet Nam were “military advisors”. And hookers are “massage advisors”.

• [Bubba73]

   ”the spy agency’s role at the department is an advisory one.”
  You are advised to stop fucking talking about me.

• [Bryan Green]

  So wait, the NYPD outs a CIA agent. Does the CIA have a problem with this?

• [SerfCity]

  It’s not that unusual when you consider that the NYPD has their own Intelligence officers in several major cities around the globe including London, Tel Aviv, Medellin etc.   I’m not saying it’s right but why would anyone really be surprised.

• [PJDK]

  This seems pretty unsurprising.  Wasn’t one of the biggest complaints after 9/11 that the different agencies don’t talk to each other properly?

• [Tod Westlake]

  This is so fucking illegal.

  • [bkad]

    This is so fucking illegal.

    Indeed. I tend to give law enforcement more benefit of the doubt than most people on boing boind, and still I say, bring the hammer down. Besides, it’s not like there aren’t enough other three-letter agency folks (NSA, FBI, DHS) to accomplish whatever it is the CIA could legitimately be doing in such a role.

• [AlexG55]

  I thought it might be something to do with UN headquarters. I don’t know how the limits on domestic spying interact with extraterritoriality- anyone?

• [MDwebguy]

  Asked if he knows the CIA field operative’s identity, an officer assigned to the headquarters unit said, “There’s no way to tell. He’s always got that black rectangle thing superimposed over his eyes.”

• [Ted Brennan]

  The CIA role is an “advisory one”. Reminds me of the USA’s grand use through history of “Military Advisors”. 

• [akaaudio]

  I work in the event industry in NYC. I worked an event where the intrepid museum foundation gave Ray Kelly the lifetime achievement award or some such nonsense… In his speech he spoke about how the NYPD has 2 officers working undercover in nearly every country in the world. I was pretty surprised that this was happening then and I’m sure it is now….

• [Dan Marshall]

  There is clearly room for abuse here, but on the surface at least, I don’t see a major threat to civil liberties. According TFA, the CIA officer teaches the police tradecraft and passes along information about things happening overseas that might affect the NYPD. I would certainly *hope* the police monitor various communities, just so long as they don’t go full-out panopticon. For example, it might be nice to know which churches are mainstream, which are radical, even though none of the members of a given radical church has done nothing illegal. If the NYPD was doing covert actions rather than just gathering intelligence, or passing along domestic intelligence to the CIA, that would obviously be a Bad Thing. There is a danger of them doing that, but it isn’t clear that this is happening. Keep a close eye on them, I would say.

  • [townandgownie]

    I have to agree here. Considering that NY is the entry point for most of the foreign travelers, contains the UN, etc I could see no problem with the CIA reviewing materials collected from the NY Police.

    Of course, neither will be able to resist the urge to cooperate in more than a legal fashion so I’m sure we’ll see plenty of abuse here. One can certainly NOT count on the Obama administration in this regards any more than one could count on the Bush administration.

• [grimc]

  What the NYPD is doing is so much more a dire and vile violation of the 1st Amendment than what BART did by shutting down a few cell network repeaters, I’m sure Anonymous is all over this.

  Right?

  • [benher]

    There was a shortage of Gay Fawkes masks… they’ll be back on the job by next week!

• [kmoser]

  Not surprising: that a CIA officer is working with the NYPD. Surprising: that it’s only one.