FBI Operation Ghost Stories arrested 11 people back in 2010. https://vault.fbi.gov/ghost-stories-russian-foreign-intellig...
What I'm wondering is: how many other agents are out there and haven't been caught yet? Or were here and left without being caught?
I wonder if this type of agent is still in active use, in the sense of seeding more of them. Given the arrests just 7 years ago, I'd guess so. But perhaps not, since hacking and electronic surveillance can be so effective. You don't necessarily need an agent within a country's borders to penetrate a lot of their networks, email, and other communications.
But you never know ... what lengths would Russia go to to get an agent TS/SCI clearance and access to a SCIF?
What are the chances of an agent being hired and then promoted to have access to an SCI file you're interested in?
It seems a pretty poor bet compared to turning individuals already in relevant positions.
Much easier to get your person into an IT position. Edward Snowden gained access to more secret documents than almost any individual person in the NSA. Get your infiltrator into the IT department and then help them with hacker tools and zero day exploits needed to extract data. Who knows how often this technique has already been used already.
I think the chances are higher if you expand the realm of interest to industrial espionage.
If interested, I recommend "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB". There was a post-Cold War defection of an individual (Mitrokhin) who worked for the KGB in their archives and provided a large trove of intelligence. A researcher (Christopher Andrew) collaborated with him to produce 2 books, which included a large amount of data about the Soviet "illegals" programs.
It's often going to just be more effective to bribe and blackmail people with access, rather than hope your illegals have successful careers and gain the right access.
The article refers to that; in fact it's how this agent was identified:
Barsky had in fact been trailed for several years
by the FBI. His name had been discovered in files
copied from KGB archives by Vasili Mitrokin, an
archivist who walked into the British embassy in
Riga in 1991 to offer up his secrets.The TV series Deutchland 83 is also well worth watching for a snappy spy drama about a young man from East Germany being coerced into being a double agent.
Would definitely recommend it if you liked Deutschland 83.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/03/24/a_former_kgb_...
I wonder what might have become of him had he become a chemist. Nothing remarkable, maybe. Might have been even more mundane than the reality of spycraft.
For what it's worth, he managed to accomplish several 'lifes' in just one lifetime.
The Americans is a cool show, but the real life illegals could not fool anyone.
These days Russia probably has no need for this type of presence, since there are enough Russians living in the US and enough of them support Putin that a small percentage may choose to work as spies. Same for China.
Another interesting detail that came out of the 2010 illegal bust was that America is so diverse and people are so respectful of privacy, that one of the spies was doing just fine with an American name ("Jack Ryan" or "Patric Foley" or something like), fully American "legend" and a heavy Russian accent. People wondered but nobody asked any questions.
P.S. And who needs spies when you can have a whole administration? :)
Accent reduction does not work for everyone (see e.g. Bela Lugosi), but its success rate is much better than what your post would suggest.
Three of the 2010 illegals (Chapman, Mills and Zottoli) had Russian accents. Their neighbors knew that they were Russian, and said that they never tried to conceal their national background. On the other hand, nobody could tell that Heathfield and Foley weren't real Americans.
And of course a journo is going to try and use current events to shoehorn in a half written story they have had for a while. A bit like how almost every piece of software now has a cloud version.
But the Guardian is critical to the landscape of UK news. It is one of very few newspapers not controlled by a press baron like Murdoch or the 'Weird Twins'. The UK press as a whole is much much more right wing (notably on immigration and the EU) than properly fits the UK IMHO and the Guardian is an important antidote. As well as Snowden, it also broke the important 'phone hacking' scandal, where some tabloids were getting their stories with very questionable ethics. It was also the only newspaper to cover the 'Snoopers Charter' legislation, that allows random parts of the UK government to look at users browsing history (and share it with the US gov).
It shows up so much on HN for its other important trait, no paywall.
They had a side-bar for "Related Articles", which were one after the other - critical of Israel as being an unprovoked aggressor. Fine, if that's the truth, except:
Every article I opened had a long lead-in about Israeli aggression, its consequences, etc. Every article had buried in the last paragraph, practically mumbling under its breath, "The IDF moved in because they were repeatedly being attacked by RPGs &tc." Nothing was provided to suggest the IDF was lying or incorrect about being provoked - so why was one headline after the other all about characterizing unprovoked unilateral aggression?
I was done. It's fine to be critical of Israeli policies and military posturing; it's another to essentially lie through your teeth and then cover your ass in postscript.
The experience mase me understand that, in practice, all sources have major amounts of spin where you might not expect it, and that it is very difficult to figure out which spin, if any, is closer to reality. It's not about fake news, but about how wide the journalist's sources are, and how much did they care about digging for what is real.
That's hard to say, since you haven't provided any examples of it.
It's like claiming Hitler just justified in killing 6 million jews because after he killed 1 million, a few jews tried to fight back, and he had to kill another 5 million because he was provoked.
I ask what he thinks of the unverified allegations that President Trump was compromised during visits to Russia. The dossier of claims, compiled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, was published just a day before we meet. “Clearly, blackmail is a weapon in the KGB arsenal,” Barsky shrugs. “If they could use it, they would. The only question is whether our new president was foolish enough to do any of that stuff.” Today’s Russian security services seem to think in much the same way as his old handlers in the KGB, he says. “That’s the thing with big organisations anywhere: they’re very resistant to change.”
And
In the 1980s, Barsky’s most interesting potential recruits were radical rightwing ideologues; here, Soviet agents would pose as activists from the radical right. “There was one individual I reported on who I’m convinced would have fallen for that, because he was so strongly rightwing,” he says.
I think it would be unusual not to have asked at least the first (and I don't think Trump is a Russian agent).
Are you familiar with Sam Harris' objections to his character?
If you were trying to show altruistic examples of scientists and engineers, you fell very far astray.
Of course they do, the actual change has always been done by engineers and scientists, however, history only remembers the rulers and recently entrepreneurs