The C.I.A. Doesn't Need To Be On Twitter; It Needs A Public Makeover.

July 22, 2014

Emily Brandwin

Former CIA Agent & Improv Comedienne

My most impressive career skill used to be fending off sleazy hecklers in smoky nightclubs, where I performed improv comedy to half-drunk crowds. So I took the obvious next step: I joined the Central Intelligence Agency.

My first gig there was in a closet full of wigs, mustaches and glasses, where I created disguises for operatives. So I dressed myself up as Ruth Buzzi from Laugh-In, naturally.

My boss quickly reprimanded me: These are not Halloween costumes – this is serious tools of the espionage trade.

What can I say? Langley is a tough room. You are not supposed to joke at the CIA. It is not a funny place.

So when my former employer joined the rest of the US government agencies on Twitter a month ago, I was actually pretty impressed with the CIA's first tweet – a surprisingly pitch-perfect blend of clandestine seriousness and knowing smarminess.

But it has all been embarrassingly downhill ever since. By spewing out humdrum information about pneumatic tubes (yawn) and "U2 Week" (the airplane, not the band, but still), the agency has since become the joke of the in-crowd on Twitter. Then the CIA's social media account began a series of questionable, decidedly unfunny tweets on its one-month #twitterversary (not a thing, by the way), and this happened:

Now I'm from the Sarah Silverman, Louis CK and Chris Rock school of comedy – I love when boundaries are pushed, when audiences are made uncomfortable – but their jokes work because they are comedians, not a government agency that specializes in secrecy and covert operations.

The CIA knows what everyone else knows: it's in desperate need of a makeover. We haven't forgotten about Benghazi or torture, and painfully awkward tweets – like watching-your-dad-dance-to-CeeLo-at-your-wedding awkward – won't make the CIA appear soft and fuzzy, just woefully disconnected from reality. The CIA does not need to be on Twitter, because it can't be transparent. (Though it is really into the #transparency hashtag.)

If the CIA could tweet about the truth, it would skip the Ellen selfie "jokes" and skip ahead to the real scandal about the CIA reportedly recruiting a German intelligence officer. Where is #OperationKaput when you need it?

But hashtags won't fend off the furor after the Senate torture report is finally released. The only way for the agency to rebuild its reputation is to return to its core identity and shut up. The CIA needs to collect intelligence and figure out a way to play better with other government agencies. It's already the most capable clandestine agency in the world; spies don't need social media to prove that.

I remember sitting on a plane next to my boss on the way back from my first real assignment: Don't you wish you could tell the world about what we just did?

She smiled, grabbed my hand: Success in the CIA is not seeing your name in the paper. You just have to know that you left a little thumbprint on history.

The CIA may need a win, but clandestine victories are just that: classified. Anything public would be a #fail.