What is a secret society? There are two types: Societies with Secrets and actual Secret Societies. Societies with Secrets would be along the line of The Freemasons. Actual secret societies are along the lines of Societies who are not known to exist, or at the very least those groups who's membership is not revealed to the public, and who's internal activities are not well known.

Where does this apply to the Intelligence Community (IC)? Well, the IC is most definitely secretive, it is also a society of sorts, and agencies have been known to be completely unknown for several decades (like the National Security Agency's early years). Secret societies are insular units that have goals either generally vaguely known or who's activities are fully secret.

The IC and secret societies both have cell-based organization schemes. By being modular and cellular those two groups are similar to one another. Using these structures, both groups keep their secrets very secret, and do their activities without being known to be behind actions. If you can perform an action or perform an action where the originating agency is not known, a group can aim one enemy against another enemy, so being secretive can actually be key in manipulating parties to war.

ICs are a type of secret society, just government-based rather than private-based. You can find yourself in a very bad spot if you are affiliated with such entities and you reveal that secret.that they have which they are trying to keep secret. Secrets are secrets for a good reason; if some group mandates something as secret there is a reason behind that decision. Beware of their secrets, and beware of the reasons behind those secrets.

Cheers!
-warmfuzzy

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