Famously secretive organization joins Instagram

Instagram is an open network, and a visual one, too. Posts are images with text playing a very small part in the makeup of an Instagram post. You would think that this makes Instagram a hard place to keep a secret; quite the opposite, in fact. Instagram is the place you go to announce things. Your vacation, that new lipstick you’re using, that old friend you’ve just seen, or how amazing your breakfast looks. Instagram is about sharing information not withholding it. This is why a recent announcement is a little bemusing, to say the least.

The CIA is about to launch its own Instagram account

During a national security forum at Auburn University in Alabama, CIA Director General Gina Haspel made the surprise announcement. She said, “Just to talk a moment about transparency, of course, CIA does have a Twitter account… Our office of public affairs is getting ready to launch our Instagram account.” Details about what we might expect to see on said account, however, were thin.

The aforementioned CIA Twitter account is very real and has over 2.5 million followers. Its tweets are rather mundane, however, as you might expect. Rather than sharing details about daring missions on foreign soil, it acts as more of a showcase for CIA history and is used as a way to recruit new agents. It also advises on upcoming forums like the one that Haspel dropped the Instagram news at and revels in letting everybody know when former deputy directors find themselves on TV.

A perk of working for CIA is world travel. Apparently that sometimes extends to other realms…

“Little birds,” be on the lookout for a former deputy director of ours wandering through #Westeros in tonight’s episode of #GameOfThrones. pic.twitter.com/DBIzIFKoju

— CIA (@CIA) April 22, 2019

If we take the CIA Twitter account as our guide, we can expect photos of people receiving medals rather than secret photos taken using classified spy plane technology. There’ll likely also be recruitment drives and photos of interesting items and artifacts used by various CIA personnel through the years.

Interestingly enough, the CIA won’t be the only government intelligence agency looking to share on Instagram. The FBI is already way ahead of them with more than 400,000 followers. If the movies are anything to go by, these two agencies have a testy relationship at the best of times, so it could be fun to see them head off against each other to see who can get the most Instagram Likes and followers.

View this post on Instagram

Over the years, the #FBI seal has undergone several significant changes. In its early years, the Bureau used the Department of Justice seal. . The first official FBI seal was adopted in 1935, modifying the Department of Justice logo by adding “Federal Bureau of Investigation” and “Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity” to the outer band. . In 1940, Special Agent Leo Gauthier—a draftsman, artist, and illustrator—presented a new design based on an earlier Bureau flag that he had created. . Each symbol and color in the FBI seal has special significance. The dominant blue field of the seal and the scales on the shield represent justice. The endless circle of 13 stars denotes unity of purpose as exemplified by the original 13 states. The laurel leaf has, since early civilization, symbolized academic honors, distinction, and fame. There are exactly 46 leaves in the two branches, since there were 46 states in the Union when the FBI was founded in 1908. The significance of the red and white parallel stripes lies in their colors. Red traditionally stands for courage, valor, strength, while white conveys cleanliness, light, truth, and peace. As in the American flag, the red bars exceed the white by one. The motto, “ Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity,” succinctly describes the motivating force behind the men and women of the FBI. The peaked beveled edge which circumscribes the seal symbolizes the severe challenges confronting the FBI and the ruggedness of the organization. The gold color in the seal conveys its overall value. . #fbiseal #history #fbihistory #dyk

A post shared by FBI (@fbi) on Mar 11, 2019 at 11:00am PDT

There is no news yet about when the CIA will start posting on Instagram. There is an account claiming to be the “Official Account of the CIA” that links to the CIA homepage but as yet, there are no posts. Also, the page has Leviticus 20:13 in its bio, which is a Bible passage that is often used to attack same-sex relationships. We don’t know what that means, but we have to believe this isn’t the official account of the CIA. We’ll just have to wait and see.