Chapter 44

As far as national bugaboos go, most conspiracy theorists would list the CIA as the most threatening organization officially sanctioned by any government on Earth.

Sure, true-blue American patriots might go with the KGB – but the KGB is gone, a relic of the Communist past, now rolled into some other agency.

The CIA is still alive and kicking. In the last five decades, you’ve got multiple ventures to overthrow other countries’ democratically elected administrations… collusion with drug traffickers to fund arms deals for foreign paramilitary groups… and assassination plots up the wazoo. Not to mention the roving torture ‘black sites’ used by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Allegedly.

Pretty scary, right?

For my money, though, the NSA is scarier, because it’s the biggest global intelligence agency on the planet.

The CIA is only supposed to work internationally. They can’t legally do anything on American soil, and they only concern themselves with foreigners.

Not so the NSA. Their ter