The CIA debuts on Twitter
WASHINGTON: In the movie "Tomorrow Never Dies," James Bond famously claims that he has "enjoyed learning a new tongue," prompting a saucy Ms Moneypenny to riposte, "You were always a cunning linguist, James." In keeping with the times, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the world's premier spook outfit, threw its hat in the social media on Friday, essaying its first tweet and attracting a raft of followers — and repartees.
"We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet," the @CIA account tweeted in its smart-alecky debut, with the kind of droll humor the British spymaster was known for. Within hours, the tweet was relayed 220,000 times and the Agency garnered more than 400,000 followers, prompting it to continue its tongue-in-cheek sortie.
"Thank you for the @Twitter welcome! We look forward to sharing great #unclassified content with you," it
said in a second tweet, even as it drew a raft of sassy responses, among them from @wikileaks, which greeted it with a digital dig. "@CIA we look forward to sharing great classified info about you," it said, along with links to CIA-related revelations in the Wikileaks website.
The CIA has been slow to hit the social media front, with its spooky associates such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and Director of National Intelligence (DNI) way ahead of the curve. In part, that was because the more famous Agency had to reclaim the @CIA handle, which had been first snagged by Cleveland Institute of Art, and after it gave it up, was acquired by some squatter who had to be evicted with help from Twitter parent company. The Cleveland institute indicated it abandoned the handle after it had to wade through ad hominem attacks from those not well inclined towards CIA.
Those attacks will now go directly to the CIA public affairs office that will run the social media operation. Amnesty International was quickly off the mark, dourly noting that the CIA's first Tweet "would be funny if it weren't for the agency's use of torture and extrajudicial executions. They should put as least as much effort into following the law as they do into social media."
But the spooks were not deterred from displaying their humorous side in the initial exchanges. Even as some observers, notably former White House spokesman @AriFleischer, wondered if they could direct mail each other, the National Geo-spatial Intelligence Agency @NGA_GEOINT, greeted @CIA with: "Welcome to Twitter! Can't wait to work with you on [REDACTED] :-)"
