Human Intelligence (HUMINT)

You know, Spies and other good stuff.

Actually, this is provoked by a post on Charles Stross's blog

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2012/08/spies-1.html

Nothing special. a short meditation on what the potential for HUMINT is in the 21st Century.

BUT, with over 400 comments form a well informed and interested population, well, most of them don't have a clue.  They confuse Hollywood and James Bond with the well documented (Memoirs, etc) process of recruiting "agents" and the difference between that and limitations of "Direct Action".

Direct Actions is things like sending Seal Team 6 after Osama;  Drones and Black Helicopter stuff.

HUMINT is one of the tools to develop targeting information.

OK, I'm weird I actually READ the court filings about the recent case of the (Russian) SVR Illegals in New York/New Jersey.

Yes, it is a complex process often spoken of in hushed tones.  But it's not a deep dark secret.  Actual knowledge of the identities of our "Case Officers" (See Valerie Plame) is secret, and should be protected. 

The "SECRETS" that must be protected are the identity of any agents they (The Case Officers) have recruited.  Techniques are pretty straightforward and widely reported;  one of my favorites was the MICE acronym (Money, Ideology, Compromise, Excitement).

I recall a throway in a memoir about the KGB establishing twenty "rings" of Illegals in the US in the 1950's.  The accidental compromise of Colonel Abel (The guy we traded for Francis Gary Powers) closed down ONE of them.  What ever happened to the other nineteen?  And was the recent New York operation a sample of a similar scale of effort?

And if people are that (generally) clueless, how do I get a job with (as?) the Wake Up Walmart Rezident?