There are almost as many cable series about intelligence agencies as there are intelligence agencies. There’s “Pine Gap,” which takes you inside the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. There’s “Mossad 101” about Israel’s famed intelligence service. And now there’s “Special Ops” a streaming hit in India about the once-ignored Research & Analysis Wing. But “Special Ops”...
Category: Blog
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The Unsolved Mystery of the ‘Havana Syndrome’
The non-profit National Security Archive in Washington has the latest on a mysterious malady that felled two CIA operatives in Cuba and many others. Is it a secret weapon, perhaps developed by the Russians, targeting U.S. intelligence operatives and diplomat? There’s no evidence that. But it’s not clear what could be causing similar symptoms among...
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China’s Top Spy is a Working Class Hero
SpyTalk on China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS in Chinese) Since its founding in 1983, the MSS has had a preeminent role in China’s vast machinery of domestic repression. But Chen appears set to turn its foreign spying arm into an increasingly effective presence in America and elsewhere during the 2020s, says Nicholas Eftimades, one...
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MI6 and CIA Are Recruiting: Diversity and Disabilities Welcome
The glamorization of intelligence work began with Ian Fleming’s James Bond series in the later 1950s. Fleming, a veteran of MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency. invented a spy who appealed The U.S. sales of Bond novels skyrocketed in March 1961 when President John Kennedy disclosed he was a fan. Spies were now seen as...
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Transparency and National Security: What News Editors Need to Tell Their Reporters
Dan Froomkin at PressWatch on journalism after January 6. The most important lesson of the Bush/Cheney years is that we should never assume government officials are telling us the truth, especially when it comes to matters involving war and national security. This is hardly an original lesson, and yet nonetheless it bears repeating. We should...