Espionage

Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it is known that the information is in unauthorized hands.

See clandestine HUMINT for the basic concepts of such information collection, and subordinate articles such as clandestine HUMINT operational techniques and clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting for discussions of the "tradecraft" used to collect this information.

History

Incidents of espionage are well documented throughout history. The ancient writings of Chinese and Indian military strategists such as Sun-Tzu and Chanakya contain information on deception and subversion. Chanakya's student Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire in India, made use of assassinations, spies and secret agents, which are described in Chanakya's Arthasastra. The ancient Egyptians had a thoroughly developed system for the acquisition of intelligence, and the Hebrews used spies as well, as in the story of Rahab. Spies were also prevalent in the Greek and Roman empires.^[1] During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols relied heavily on espionage in their conquests in Asia and Europe. Feudal Japan often used ninja to gather intelligence. More recently, spies played a significant part in Elizabethan England (see Francis Walsingham). Many modern espionage methods were well established even then.^[2]

The Cold War involved intense espionage activity between the United States of America and its allies and the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China and their allies, particularly related to nuclear weapons secrets. Recently, espionage agencies have targeted the illegal drug trade and those considered to be terrorists.

Different intelligence services value certain intelligence collection techniques over others. The former Soviet Union, for example, preferred human sources over research in open sources, while the United States has tended to emphasize technological methods such as SIGINT and IMINT. Both Soviet political (KGB) and military intelligence (GRU^[3]) officers were judged by the number of agents they recruited.

Methods and terminology

Unlike other forms of intelligence collection disciplines, espionage usually involves accessing the place where the desired information is stored, or accessing the people who know the information and will divulge it through some kind of subterfuge. There are exceptions to physical meetings, such as the Oslo Report, or the insistence of Robert Hanssen in never meeting the people to whom he was selling information.

The US defines espionage towards itself as "The act of obtaining, delivering, transmitting, communicating, or receiving information about the national defense with an intent, or reason to believe, that the information may be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation. Espionage is a violation of United States law, 18 U.S.C. § 792–798 and Article 106 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice".^[4] The United States, like most nations, conducts espionage against other nations, under the control of the National Clandestine Service. Britain's espionage activities are controlled by the Secret Intelligence Service.

Espionage is usually part of an institutional effort (i.e., governmental or corporate espionage), and the term is most readily associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies, primarily for military purposes, but this has been extended to spying involving corporations, known specifically as industrial espionage. Canada is losing $12 billion a year due to industrial espionage.^[5] It is estimated that German companies were losing about €50 billion ($87 billion) and 30,000 jobs to industrial espionage every year.^[6] Many nations routinely spy on both their enemies and allies, although they maintain a policy of not making comment on this. In addition to utilizing agencies within a government many also employ private companies to collect information on their behalf such as SCG International Risk and others. Black's Law Dictionary (1990) defines espionage as: "...gathering, transmitting, or losing...information related to the national defense".

While news media may speak of "spy satellites" and the like, espionage is not a synonym for all intelligence functions. It is a specific form of human source intelligence (HUMINT). Codebreaking (cryptanalysis or COMINT), aircraft or satellite photography (IMINT) and research in open publications (OSINT) are all intelligence gathering disciplines, but none of them are espionage. Many HUMINT activities, such as prisoner interrogation, reports from military reconnaissance patrols and from diplomats, etc., are not espionage.

A spy is a person employed to obtain such secrets. Within the United States Intelligence Community, "asset" is a more common usage. A case officer, who may have diplomatic status (i.e., official cover or non-official cover) supports and directs the human collector. Cutouts are couriers who do not know the agent or case officer, but transfer messages. A safe house is a refuge for spies.

In larger networks, the organization can be complex, with many methods to avoid detection, including clandestine cell systems. Often the players have never met. See Clandestine HUMINT for details of the actual operations and people of espionage systems.

Case officers are stationed in foreign countries to recruit and supervise intelligence agents, who in turn spy on targets in their countries where they are assigned. A spy may or may not be an actual citizen of a target country. While the more common practice is to recruit a person already trusted with access to sensitive information, there are cases where a person may attempt to infiltrate a target organization, with a well-prepared synthetic identity for them, called a legend in tradecraft.

These agents can be moles (who are recruited before they get access to secrets), defectors (who are recruited after they get access to secrets and leave their country) or defectors in place (who get access but do not leave).

Apart from simply gathering information, spies may also be used to spread disinformation in the organization they are planted in, such as giving false reports about their country's military movements, or about a competing company's ability to bring a product to market.

Furthermore, due to the highly skilled infiltration tactics required for espionage, spies may be given other roles that also require infiltration, such as sabotage.

Risks

The risks of espionage vary. A spy breaking the host country's laws may be deported, imprisoned, or even executed. A spy breaking his/her own country's laws can be imprisoned for espionage or/and treason, or even executed, as the Rosenbergs were. For example, when Aldrich Ames handed a stack of dossiers of CIA agents in the Eastern Bloc to his KGB-officer "handler", the KGB "rolled up" several networks, and at least ten people were secretly shot. When Ames was arrested by the FBI, he faced life in prison; his contact, who had diplomatic immunity, was declared persona non grata and taken to the airport. Ames's wife was threatened with life imprisonment if her husband did not cooperate; he did, and she was given a five-year sentence. Hugh Francis Redmond, a CIA officer in China, spent nineteen years in a Chinese prison for espionage—and died there—as he was operating without diplomatic cover and immunity.

Many organizations, both national and non-national, conduct espionage operations. It should not be assumed that espionage is always directed at the most secret operations of a target country. National and terrorist organizations and other groups are also targets.

Communications both are necessary to espionage and clandestine operations, and also a great vulnerability when the adversary has sophisticated SIGINT detection and interception capability. Agents must also transfer money securely.

See espionage organizations for national and non-national groups that conduct clandestine human operations, for reasons that may include: assessment of national capabilities at the strategic level, warning of the movements of security and military organizations; financial systems; protective measures around targets.

Spies in various conflicts

Howard Burnham (1915)

FBI file photo of the leader of the Duquesne Spy Ring (1941)

Espionage under Elizabeth I of England

• Sir Francis Walsingham

Espionage in the American Revolution

• Nathan Hale
• John Andre

Espionage in the Napoleonic Wars

• William Wickham

Espionage in the American Civil War

One of the innovations in the American Civil War was the use of proprietary companies for intelligence collection. See Allan Pinkerton.

• Belle Boyd^[7]

Espionage in the Second Boer War

• Fritz Joubert Duquesne

Espionage in World War I

• Fritz Joubert Duquesne
• Jules C. Silber
• Mata Hari
• Howard Burnham

Espionage in World War II

Informants were common in World War II, examples include the Oslo Report that warned the British of German secret weapons, and the Réseau AGIR reporting V-weapon installations in Occupied France to the British. Counterespionage included the use of turned Double Cross agents to misinform Nazi Germany of impact points during the Blitz and internment of Japanese in the US against "Japan's wartime spy program". Additional WWII espionage examples include Soviet spying on the US Manhattan project, the German Duquesne Spy Ring convicted in the US, and the Soviet Red Orchestra spying on Nazi Germany.

Espionage post World War II

In the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency operates a Clandestine Service (NCS).^[8] Its mission is the clandestine collection of human intelligence (HUMINT) and covert action.^[9]

Women in Espionage

The demand for male soldiers, an increase in womens' rights, and the tactical advantages of female spies led the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to set aside any lingering Victorian Era prejudices and begin employing them in April 1942. Their task was to transmit information from Nazi occupied France back to Allied Forces. The main strategic reason was that men in France were at the risk of being interrogated by Nazi troops, and so women were safer and less likely to arouse suspicion. In this way they made good couriers and proved equal, if not more effective than their male counterparts. Their participation in Organization and Radio Operation was also vital to the success of many operations, including the main network between Paris and London.

See also Honeypot

Agents in Espionage

"An Agent is someone that has been authorized to function on behalf of another."^[10] A "covert human intelligence source."^[11]

• Double agent, "is a person who engages in clandestine activity for two intelligence or security services (or more in joint operations), who provides information about one or about each to the other, and who wittingly withholds significant information from one on the instructions of the other or is unwittingly manipulated by one so that significant facts are withheld from the adversary. Peddlers, fabricators, and others who work for themselves rather than a service are not double agents because they are not agents. The fact that doubles have an agent relationship with both sides distinguishes them from penetrations, who normally are placed with the target service in a staff or officer capacity."^[12]
  • Re-doubled agent, an agent who gets caught as a double agent and is forced to mislead the foreign intelligence service.
    • Unwitting double agent, an agent who offers or is forced to recruit as a double or re-doubled agent and in the process is recruited by either a third party intelligence service or his own government without the knowledge of the intended target intelligence service or the agent. This can be useful in capturing important information from an agent that is attempting to seek allegiance with another country. The double agent usually has knowledge of both intelligence services and can identify operational techniques of both, thus making third party recruitment difficult or impossible. The knowledge of operational techniques can also effect the relationship between the Operations Officer (or case officer) and the agent if the case is transferred by an Operational Targeting Officer to a new Operations Officer, leaving the new officer vulnerable to attack. This type of transfer may occur when an officer has completed his term of service or when his cover is blown.
      • Triple agent, an agent that is working for three intelligence services.

There are several types of agent in use today.^[13]

• Double agent, These agents always require special handling as they can become re-doubled if caught. Special handling may include debriefing with an Operations Officer whose cover has already been blown and verifying intelligence reports immediately in order to establish trust.
• Intelligence agent: Provides access to sensitive information through the use of special privileges. If used in corporate intelligence gathering, this may include gathering information of a corporate business venture, stock portfolio, or the creation of a new menu item at a restaurant. In economic intelligence, "Economic Analysts may use their specialized skills to analyze and interpret economic trends and developments, assess and track foreign financial activities, and develop new econometric and modeling methodologies."^[14] This may also include information of trade or tariff.
• Access agent: Provides access to other potential agents by providing profiling information that can help lead to recruitment into an intelligence service.
• Agent of influence: Someone who may provide political influence in an area of interest or may even provide publications needed to further an intelligence service agenda. I.e. The use of the media to print a story to mislead a foreign service into action, exposing their operations while under surveillance.
• Agent provocateur: This type of agent will instigate trouble or may provide information to gather as many people as possible into one location for an arrest.
• Facilities agent: A facilities agent may provide access to buildings such as garages or offices used for staging operations, resupply, etc.
• Principle agent: This agent functions as a handler for a established network of agents usually Blue Chip.
• Confusion agent: May provide misleading information to an enemy intelligence service or attempt to discredit the operations of the target in an operation.
• Sleeper agent: A sleeper agent is a person who is recruited to an intelligence service to wake up and perform a specific set of tasks or functions while living under cover in an area of interest. This type of agent is not the same as a deep cover operative who is continually in contact with their case officer in order to file intelligence reports. A sleeper agent will not be in contact with anyone until activated.
• Illegal agent: This is a person who is living in another country under false credentials that does not report to a local station. A non official cover operative is a type of cover used by an intelligence operative and can be dubbed an "Illegal"^[15] when working in another country without diplomatic protection.

Espionage technology and techniques

Spy fiction

An early example of espionage literature is Kim by the English novelist Rudyard Kipling, with a description of the training of an intelligence agent in the Great Game between the UK and Russia in 19th century Central Asia. An even earlier work was James Fenimore Cooper's classic novel, The Spy, written in 1821, about an American spy in New York during the Revolutionary War.

During the many 20th century spy scandals, much information became publicly known about national spy agencies and dozens of real-life secret agents. These sensational stories piqued public interest in a profession largely off-limits to human interest news reporting, a natural consequence of the secrecy inherent to their work. To fill in the blanks, the popular conception of the secret agent has been formed largely by 20th and 21st century literature and cinema. Attractive and sociable real-life agents such as Valerie Plame find little employment in serious fiction, however. The fictional secret agent is more often a loner, sometimes amoral—an existential hero operating outside the everyday constraints of society. Loner spy personalities may have been a stereotype of convenience for authors who already knew how to write loner private investigator characters that sold well from the 1920s to the present.

Johnny Fedora achieved popularity as a fictional agent of early Cold War espionage, but James Bond is the most commercially successful of the many spy characters created by intelligence insiders during that struggle. His less fantastic rivals include George Smiley.

See also

• Chinese Intelligence Operations in the United States
• Classified information
• Corporate espionage
• Counter-espionage
• Dumpster diving
• Economic and Industrial Espionage
• Intelligence (information gathering)
• Labor spies
• List of cryptographers
• Military intelligence
• Mitrokhin Archive
• Mole (espionage)
• Ninja
• Operation Snow White
• Sabotage
• Safe house
• Security clearance
• Spymaster

Further reading

There is a vast and ever-growing body of literature devoted to espionage. The following reading list features some of the better known and more comprehensive accounts.

Surveys

World War I

World War II: 1931–1945

Cold War era: 1945–1991

Post Cold War era: 1992–present day

References

External links

• An Interactive Rosenberg Espionage Ring Timeline and Archive
• GCHQ: Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency