worst breach in decades: CIA officer helped China kill or arrest 20 undercover operatives; arrested

method115 said:
So if your ex-CIA your no longer allowed to live in another country? How far does that go? Are they allowed to leave the country? If so for how long? 1 week max then they have to come back? How often are they allowed to leave? 2 times a year? Once a year?
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Basically that's how Eastern block intelligence officers were treated. No vacations out of the country. And for good reason.
 
vespasian said:
Basically that's how Eastern block intelligence officers were treated. No vacations out of the country. And for good reason.
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Fortunately for us and the CIA officers we still live in the land of the free. There will be a price to pay for that freedom but were all willing to pay it including the CIA officers who work to defend it.
 
vespasian said:
You worked for the CIA and know plenty of info invaluable for the Chinese and you're allowed to settle in China.

What could go wrong?
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What does living in China have to do with anything?
 
Quipling said:
I took a quick look. Most treason convictions were due to literal rebellions or by aiding hostile countries with whom we were at war. Sometimes via propaganda, etc.

The best exception is Walter Allen, who was convicted in connection with the Blair mountain labor uprising. But the courts treated that as taking up arms against the US because it culminated in a conflict with the US army. So I don't think we have any.

Interesting anecdote: Billy, a revolutionary era slave, allegedly attempted to join the British army. He was initially convicted of treason but was pardoned by TJ and the VA legislature because, as a slave, he owed no alleigance to the state.

Cool stuff
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Yeah, labor disputes was one of the first things I thought about. The US has a very violent labor history. Unions were suppressed and they often did battle with the police and military. They could have all been tried for treason.

There are so many factors at play that for me, "treason" on its own doesn't sound as grave as for most. In some cases (rebelling against a totalitarian government) it could actually be moral.
 
AnGrYcRoW said:
What does living in China have to do with anything?
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For what it's worth, I'd be extremely wary of an intelligence officer who makes a second home or vacations frequently to a country that has a long history of extremely aggressive intelligence operations against the US. China and Russia would be at the top of my list in regards to that.

Perhaps it's worth just keeping tabs on the guy and/or checking into his communications? Doesn't even have to be tapping his phones, just looking at the metadata.

BTW, I'm not blaming any Presidential Administration for this, as I think that's wholly absurd. This just seems to be a gap in the CIA's policies regarding their own officers.
 
No sympathy for spies. We should also jail or kill the ones we find.
 
grimballer said:
Your ruthlessness is Nazi like
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Haha, no, it's not. Hyperbole is not a good look for you, and by calling me "Nazi-like," you are demonstrating that you have absolutely no idea what the Nazis actually did to people. Either that or you are way off in Imagination Land, making up things. At no point did I say anything about torturing him. I'm not a jailer, but something like keeping him in a 60-degree cell at night without blankets (so he stays awake because he's cold), playing loud music to keep him awake, feed him one meal (something like prison loaf) and stuff like that will make him talk after a few days. Nothing that will have any long-term physical effects, but being tired and hungry will make him really uncomfortable. Considering what he has done, I think that's more than reasonable so that he gives up his handlers, collection methods, and delivery methods. And once done with interrogation, sentence him to death for treason. Personally, I don't see why shooting someone in the dead is so abhorrent to our legal system. You hear about lethal injections going awry all the time, and while I am not typically sympathetic to the suffering of serial killers, I can say with 100% certainty that a .45 ACP passing through the brain stem in a human skull is about as quick and painless of a death as you are likely to experience. Compare that to dying of cancer, and tell me which one you'd prefer...
 
sub_thug said:
For what it's worth, I'd be extremely wary of an intelligence officer who makes a second home or vacations frequently to a country that has a long history of extremely aggressive intelligence operations against the US. China and Russia would be at the top of my list in regards to that.

Perhaps it's worth just keeping tabs on the guy and/or checking into his communications? Doesn't even have to be tapping his phones, just looking at the metadata.

BTW, I'm not blaming any Presidential Administration for this, as I think that's wholly absurd. This just seems to be a gap in the CIA's policies regarding their own officers.
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Well it's easy to pass information regardles of where you are , if anything having a former operative living abroad could be useful I imagine .
 
AnGrYcRoW said:
Well it's easy to pass information regardles of where you are , if anything having a former operative living abroad could be useful I imagine .
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It's much easier to pass information to the Chinese while in China. Just as it would be much easier to pass information to the US while you are in the States.

Living abroad is useful, but it's a double-edged sword. The pros are that you can integrate better to foster relationships and legitimize your cover, ensure that you stay proficient in the language while maintaining the right accents, etc. The cons are that you could be more easily discovered while in another country and that you could be turned as a double-agent. The key is to find ways of mitigating those risks while still allowing your people to do their jobs to the best of their ability.
 
Cubo de Sangre said:
No sympathy for spies. We should also jail or kill the ones we find.
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If we find foreign spies here, I'd much rather feed them horribly wrong intelligence so that they can send that back to their respective countries. If that isn't practical, then I'd rather send their spies home alive. I'm fine with making them uncomfortable for a few weeks, but we should develop norms with other countries that spies come home alive and well. If we just slit their throats and be done with it, then we should reasonably expect that they will do the same with our spies. If they start regularly killing our spies anyways, then we should reexamine those norms, and I'll be more inclined to say that turnabout is fair play.
 
sub_thug said:
Haha, no, it's not. Hyperbole is not a good look for you, and by calling me "Nazi-like," you are demonstrating that you have absolutely no idea what the Nazis actually did to people. Either that or you are way off in Imagination Land, making up things. At no point did I say anything about torturing him. I'm not a jailer, but something like keeping him in a 60-degree cell at night without blankets (so he stays awake because he's cold), playing loud music to keep him awake, feed him one meal (something like prison loaf) and stuff like that will make him talk after a few days. Nothing that will have any long-term physical effects, but being tired and hungry will make him really uncomfortable. Considering what he has done, I think that's more than reasonable so that he gives up his handlers, collection methods, and delivery methods. And once done with interrogation, sentence him to death for treason. Personally, I don't see why shooting someone in the dead is so abhorrent to our legal system. You hear about lethal injections going awry all the time, and while I am not typically sympathetic to the suffering of serial killers, I can say with 100% certainty that a .45 ACP passing through the brain stem in a human skull is about as quick and painless of a death as you are likely to experience. Compare that to dying of cancer, and tell me which one you'd prefer...
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Agreed, firing squad is much cleaner than just fucking with someone's fluid dynamics to try and kill them. Although, drowning is easily the best way to go. Last couple seconds are euphoric.
 
This means China already knew the Great Recession in America was coming.
No wonder why they took out massive loans from American banks with no fucks given and built billion dollar properties in their own country.

And yet our government keeps treating them like saints.
 
Greoric said:
Agreed, firing squad is much cleaner than just fucking with someone's fluid dynamics to try and kill them. Although, drowning is easily the best way to go. Last couple seconds are euphoric.
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Yikes. I've come close to shallow water blackout before, and that was terrible. I wouldn't wish that on pretty much anyone. Weren't you in BUD/S? Did you go through dive phase?
 
sub_thug said:
...but we should develop norms with other countries that spies come home alive and well.
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Not sure why. Is spying some cute little game for governments to play? Shouldn't it be a little more than "aw shucks" when one is caught?
 
KnightTemplar said:
Have the Russians been blamed yet?:)

Joking aside, Ministry of State Security are vicious bastards. On a par with FSB or Mossad for sheer ruthlesness.
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i wonder if there will ever be a ministry for global state security. probably will be ministry of islamic global state security once muslims takeover earth at this rate. or maybe the chinese will when they complete cloning and gene engineer themselves.
 
Cubo de Sangre said:
Not sure why. Is spying some cute little game for governments to play? Shouldn't it be a little more than "aw shucks" when one is caught?
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It's not a cute little game, but we need to be realistic about it. Spying is something that all governments do, provided that they have the means to do so. As such, we have a lot of spies, as do the other major world powers. I don't think that we want to get into a pissing contest where a bunch of Chinese, Russian, French, British, Israeli, and American spies are all being executed by the governments of the others. Our own people that turn on us? For sure, as I said, this dude who was spying on behalf of China should be executed for his crimes. But executing a bunch of British nationals is a bad look once we've discovered them here, and they are 100% here, spying on behalf of the Crown. Better to just punt them home, slap their government in the peepee somehow, and then readjust our efforts to close that vulnerability. I would expect others to do the same or face consequences, as such.
 
sub_thug said:
Yikes. I've come close to shallow water blackout before, and that was terrible. I wouldn't wish that on pretty much anyone. Weren't you in BUD/S? Did you go through dive phase?
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Yeah the lead up sucks, but the last few seconds before you red line are like you're in paradise.
 
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