They could check her documents, grill her about her background, search her possessions, or follow her. Until a few years ago, a visiting Canadian in Moscow who claimed to be a graduate student in architecture could present a cover that would be difficult for Russian counterintelligence officers to crack. Traditionally, spies depended on cover identities. Once an adversary learns that an intelligence operation is underway, he or she can use it to discover more clues or feed you false or tainted information. If you fail, your adversary may find out what you’re up to, endangering your source and totally undermining your efforts. Spotting, developing, recruiting, running, and servicing intelligence sources involves concealing what you are doing. Traditional spycraft has always relied on deception based on identity.
The biggest disruptive force is technological. Spymasters increasingly have to justify what they do and accept unprecedented levels of legislative and judicial scrutiny. Public skepticism about the means and aims of a potentially money-grubbing, thuggish, and self-interested caste of spooks has grown.
That shift has allowed some ex-spies to get extremely rich, but it is also eroding the mystique-and the integrity-of the dark arts practiced in the service of the state.įinally, intelligence agencies in democratic countries no longer enjoy the legitimacy bequeathed on them in the past or the glamor that rubbed off from Hollywood and spy fiction. The old rule that you are “either in or out” has become passé. Today, intelligence officers regularly move into the private sector once they leave government. Private contractors have become an essential part of the spy world. In another major change, the boundaries between public and private sector intelligence work are becoming increasingly blurred.
0 kommentar(er)
