THREAD
1/ This is the question that keeps me up at night. The total failure of the intelligence community to connect China with lockdowns is the most devastating part of this story. I can only speculate as to several explanations, roughly in order of least-to-most concerning: https://twitter.com/nonwokenews/status/1322561802115387392
1. They just don’t know.

Immersed in our anti-lockdown community, it’s easy to forget how niche we are. Intel officials have expressed great interest in my work—it’s meant in part as a tip for them. So intelligence agencies may just not know yet. https://twitter.com/Doranimated/status/1306340718496165888?s=20
2. The cleverness of the lab as decoy.

The CCP has deliberately funded rumors that COVID is a super-brain-eating-bio-weapon, mostly to discredit intelligence officials. Based on my interactions with intelligence folks, this decoy has been very effective. https://twitter.com/MichaelPSenger/status/1314349864151642112?s=20
4. They suspect China is driving lockdowns, but they’re not 100% sure.

Announcing a war with a superpower is a big deal. So it’s possible intelligence agencies strongly suspect China is driving lockdowns, but they need to dot their i’s and cross their t’s before going public.
5. The intelligence community may be incompetent.

Contrary to popular imagination, the CIA tends to be far more incompetent than omnipotent. https://twitter.com/KyleOlbert/status/1308239665372319744?s=20
6. Intelligence officials are public employees unaffected by lockdowns.

Just like other Zoom-meeting professionals, intelligence officials bring home big paychecks regardless of productivity, and may not care about lockdowns because they’re not personally affected by them.
7. The intelligence community may be split as to whether COVID is dangerous.

Based on my communications with intel folks, some believe COVID is a super-bio-weapon, and some think lockdowns are China’s plan. Thus, they may be erring on the side of caution by doing nothing.
9. The intelligence community may know, but politicians aren’t acting.

The intelligence community reports to the president/PM. If the president/PM doesn’t want the public to know China is behind lockdowns (e.g., to preserve trade ties), s/he can simply table the intel report.
10. The intelligence community is too embarrassed to admit the truth.

Like politicians, the intelligence community might think the public can't handle the truth that they failed so spectacularly and lockdowns were all for nothing (thus playing right into Xi's hands). Evidence:
11. We’re just wrong.

Of course there’s the possibility that maybe there really is a super-virus out there, and Xi and his collaborators heroically stopped it by suspending all human rights, and we’re just the a-holes spreading germs and misinformation and killing grandmas.
/end
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