Posted originally on CTH on May 3, 2025 | Sundance

The Washington Post (but of course, CIA outlet) is reporting on a downsizing effort within the CIA to eliminate approximately 1,200 jobs.  The number represents approximately 5% of the workforce although the actual number of CIA employees is classified (national security, dontchaknow).

Within the report, Director John Ratcliffe is noted as shifting the focus of America’s leading spy agency to use more “human intelligence.”  That phrase, “human intelligence,” is IC silo code speak for shifting away from “analysts” (political operatives) and engaging in more ¹factual intelligence information.

According to the report, DNI Tulsi Gabbard has also reduced the employment level within the Director of National Intelligence office by approximately 25% (current payroll estimate of 2,000 employees).  The general narrative within the WaPo reporting is that “national security” is being compromised by large downsizing of spy agency employment.

Additionally, to bolster the positions of the current political operatives within the CIA, the WaPo waxes concerningly about China and other mysterious foreign adversaries recruiting the CIA employees who are now becoming increasingly concerned about their paychecks.

WASHINGTON POST – “The Trump administration is planning significant personnel cuts at the Central Intelligence Agency and other major U.S. spy units, downsizing the government’s most sensitive national security agencies, according to people familiar with the plans.

The administration recently informed lawmakers on Capitol Hill that it intends to reduce the CIA’s workforce by about 1,200 personnel over several years and cut thousands more from other parts of the U.S. intelligence community, including at the National Security Agency, a highly secretive service that specializes in cryptology and global electronic espionage, a person familiar with the matter said. The person, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

[…] The staff reductions would take place over several years and would be accomplished in part through reduced hiring. No outright firings are envisioned. The goal of a roughly 1,200-person staff reduction includes several hundred individuals who already have opted for early retirement, the person familiar with the matter said.

The downsizing is taking place separately from efforts by the U.S. DOGE Service, led by billionaire Elon Musk, to radically restructure the federal government. Musk met with Ratcliffe in late March for a discussion that included government efficiency measures, but no DOGE teams have been working at the agency’s Langley, Virginia, campus. (more)

[¹Obviously, I can certainly appreciate the “human intelligence” shift noted by Director Ratcliffe for all the factual reasons that necessitate his concern.  It is part of the reason why I ended up frustrated with “western reports” and determined the only way to really understand what is going on inside Russia during the sanctions was to travel there myself and review.

It was quite an experience to sit in a renamed Starbucks coffee shop at the crowded Galleria Mall in downtown St Petersburg, Russia and read the Wall Street Journal reporting on the devastation to the Russian economy, while looking around at the packed stores and purchases being made on an ordinary weekday.  Then to read the New York Times reports of shortages of steel in Russia, while driving past many miles of apartment and condominium construction.  Everything cited in western corporate media, “according to sources familiar with the situation”, was/is the complete opposite of everything factually visible.]

♦ Imagine a world, our world, where all the scary threat protection systems are removed. What does that world look like?

CCTV cameras removed. Body scans at airports removed. X-Ray machines removed. Shoes stay on. You carry a bottle of water onto an airplane without issue. You return to the 1980’s world of transit.

Your metadata is no longer being captured for review. Your conversations are no longer being recorded by your devices. Your data profile is no longer being sold and monetized.

No one is tracking you, or anyone else. It’s a scary world with all kinds of perceived ‘risks’ and potential ‘threats’ existing, that never surface.

It’s a world where all these terrible ‘what if’ dark imaginings still happen in the psyche, but nothing ever comes from them.

Stop being scared, and suddenly you no longer need the ‘global counterterrorism conference’ and all the looming rules and regulations they can put into place to protect you, ultimately control you, from the scary imagined stuff that has existed for generations….

Australia used quarantine camps for a fictitious threat. New Zealand set up regional roadblocks for a fictitious threat. The EU made you carry documents to ensure your compliance with a fictitious threat.  In the USA, the paint in WalMart was blockaded to protect you from a fictitious threat. You could not stand at a bar to drink, but if you sat down at a table the virus wouldn’t get you.  In Canada they shut down the bank accounts of those who did not comply with the rules of the fictitious threat.

Do we realize the same IC people at Dan Bongino’s ‘global security conference‘ are the same IC people who stimulated the threat response noted above?

Do we realize the same industry professionals now control the election outcomes in Brazil, France, Romania, Germany and 2020 USA?

Those who benefit from fear, claim it is a scary world out there. However, be careful about hiring some entity to protect you from it; and ask yourself quiet questions about the rules they show up with.

What exactly is this global security network protecting us from? And why do we need to be protected from it?

Ask Jair Bolsonaro. Ask Marine LePen. Ask Donald Trump. Ask Romania. Ask the AfD party in Germany.  As we are witnessing in real time, the western global security network is protecting us from all of these ‘threats.’

Some nervous people say, “trust the plan.”  I ask the simple question, “why do we need a plan“?

Think about it.