This week we have a spy in our midst. Okay, not exactly a spy, but a former CIA analyst. My guest is Yaya Fanusie, director of anti-money laundering & cyber-risk at the Crypto Council for Innovation and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for New American Security. He is also, of course, a podcaster. I got to know Yaya while we were both working on the Woodson Center’s 1776 Unites project. I had intended to have him on to talk about one of his areas of expertise—crypto currency and financial crime—but was so fascinated by his backstory that we didn’t get to it.
Yaya begins by telling me about his audio spy thriller The Jabbari Lincoln Files, whose titular hero resembles Yaya in the broad strokes but not, Yaya insists, in the details. It’s not every day I have an ex-CIA analyst on the show. He explains how he became one and what it is that analysts actually do. As a black Muslim convert, Yaya might seem an unlikely candidate for the CIA, which has a mixed reputation among American blacks, Muslims, and black Muslims. But, as someone put it to Yaya, “this isn’t your father’s CIA.” As Yaya tells it, the days of COINTELPRO are gone, which is not to say that the CIA is perfect.
I loved this conversation. Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to ask a CIA analyst for the inside dope? I’m looking forward to having Yaya back soon, and I promise we’ll talk about crypto.
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0:47 The Jabbari Lincoln Files, Yaya’s audio spy thriller
5:40 Is Jabbari Lincoln a fictional surrogate for Yaya?
10:05 How Yaya joined the CIA
16:18 What does a CIA analyst do, anyway?
20:42 The lessons of the WMDs debacle
23:08 A Muslim convert at the Agency
28:40 How the 2005 London Underground bombings got Yaya interested in counterterrorism
30:28 Terrorist recruitment and the search for self
35:57 Why Yaya doesn’t use the term “Islamophobia”
38:52 Yaya: Not even freedom fighters have license to kill with impunity
45:06 What would Malcolm X think about African American support of Palestinians?
52:22 Working for the CIA in the post-COINTELPRO era
Recorded November 9, 2024
Links and Readings
Sam Greenlee’s novel, The Spook Who Sat by the Door
Ivan Dixon’s 1973 film adaptation of The Spook Who Say by the Door
Yaya’s essay for the Journal of Free Black Thought, “Hamas Are Not Muslim Freedom Fighters”
December 2, 1963 NYT article on Malcolm X’s “Chickens coming home to roost” comment
Yaya’s other podcast, Designated
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