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And you do believe this unironically ?
Yes. I have factual reason to believe this. What is your basis for believing otherwise?
It's generally not true in other countries. People get attached to the their classmates, former companies and so on.
Well, first of all, the United States has very different norms, and stricter regulations, about federal service.
Second, people getting attached to their classmates and former companies is not the argument you made. Of course ex-feds maintain a professional and social network that typically includes other current and former feds. But you were claiming something much different, that they constitute in effect a "Mob" that they not only do not but cannot really leave, and that their former agencies can still compel them to do work for them after they've left. This is flatly untrue.
Strict ? You have generals retiring and then getting cushy board or consultant positions at defence contractors.
There's the infamous 'revolving door' problem at all kinds of agencies.
I should've been more clear- what I had in mind was more that these are special jobs that confer life-long status by association, and that people who've gone through them typically have a specific outlook and set of contacts that make them unique.
However-
We know feds compel people who fucked up to serve them. They're called confidential informants.
Is this a practice that cannot be used on agents who messed up ? Say, some boss 'misplaces' a crucial piece of evidence, agent is exonerated.
Retires, but knows he'll be asked to do favors for feds, unless he wants that piece accidentally found during an unrelated investigation..
A different problem (and I agree it's a problem) but the coziness of the defense industry with the military, like the way in which former congressmen and senators exit to become highly paid lobbyists for the companies they used to legislate, is not related to what you were claiming.
Well yes, but how is that different from any other specialized job? Ex-military (especially in elite branches like special forces) also enjoy a unique outlook and set of contacts. Everyone knows having a security clearance (or having formerly held a security clearance) is itself a valuable thing to put on your resume. But again, not the thing you were claiming.
They're also called criminals. Not the same thing.
It has certainly has happened that a military or federal employee caught conducting espionage has been "turned" into a double agent under threat of prosecution. Other than that, I don't know what you mean by "agents who messed up." If they messed up badly enough to be prosecuted, they might be forced to cooperate in order to avoid or lighten their prosecution. If they simply got fired, then the government has no further leverage on them.
Your scenario - an agent "messes up" and rather than prosecuting them, their agency holds onto the evidence to extort them into doing favors for them in the future - sounds very unlikely. What kind of "evidence" do you imagine would fit this criteria? If it's espionage, that agent is not being given a pass so he can go work in the private sector as a secret "asset." Same deal if it's anything else seriously illegal like child porn or rape or murder. Assuming some lesser offense, what exactly would the agent's former employer have them do? Go work for Twitter and push moderation buttons for them? And the ex-fed is going to do this because... otherwise the evidence he could have been prosecuted for will resurface? Except he now has a lawyer who will raise awkward questions about why he's being prosecuted now, for some bullshit charge like soliciting or drug use or misappropriation or whatever else they have on him. Do you see how much this doesn't make sense?
Aren't you a criminal only after you've been convincted of a crime ?
I'm fairly sure a lot of CIs are people who haven't been convicted, but perhaps only charged with something, and the charges were dropped or suspended in exchange for a promise of cooperation.
Embezzlement, loss of expensive equipment, something criminal but not treasonous.
And how far will the lawyer get, given how FBI and other government agencies operate, with everything secret ?
How lucky would the guy have to be to get a lawyer who wants to get on the Feds' naughty list ?
Theoretically, because he'll get rewarded if he does it and punished if he doesn't.
And more likely, the ex-FBI people acting on FBI's behalf just do it out of their own sincerely held convictions about what's right.
In your hypothetical, they are doing this to agents who've been caught committing a crime but not prosecuted. First of all, how many of those do you think they are? Second, again, nothing you have conjectured actually matches the legal reality in the United States. Feds accused of crimes do get lawyers, and their lawyers aren't helpless against the all-powerful FBI or NSA or DIA or CIA that simply makes all evidence disappear or extorts the lawyer.
You are simply making up just-so stories.
Pardon me for being suspicious given all that very shady stuff that has happened over the years and which Feds are implicated in.
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