Espionage
Espionage is the governmental or corporate practice of obtaining secrets (spying) from rivals or enemies for military, political, or economic advantage. A spy is an agent employed to obtain such secrets. Historically the definition was restricted to a state spying on potential or actual enemies, primarily for military purposes, but has extended to spying involving corporations, known specifically as Industrial espionage. Most nations routinely spy on their enemies, and allies, although they generally deny this. Black's Law Dictionary (1990) defines espionage as: "...gathering, transmitting, or losing...[information related to the national defense]."
Espionage, by a citizen of the target state, is generally considered to be a form of treason. In many countries espionage is a crime punishable by death or life imprisonment, e.g. espionage is still a capital crime in the USA. In Britain a foreign spy would face up to 14 years imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act while a Briton who spied for a foreign country would face a maximum life sentence for treason.
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, particulary related to nuclear weapons secrets.
Recently, espionage agencies have targeted the illegal drug trade and those considered to be terroristss. Spies have also engaged in assassination and kidnap of people their country doesn't like, especially the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Intelligence agencies have also been involved in covert and overt paramilitary activity, this included many CIA operations during the Cold War and the current "war on terrorism".
See: Cold War espionage
Spies in various conflicts
Notable spies or alleged spies
United States (CIA)
Soviet Union (KGB)
- Rudolf Abel
- Aldrich Ames, CIA agent spying for the Soviet Union
- Rosario Ames, wife of Aldrich Ames
- George Blake, a double-agent
- Christopher John Boyce and Daulton Lee - A pair of American walk-in spies for the Soviet Union known as the Falcon and the Snowman.
- Cambridge Five
- William Fischer
- Klaus Fuchs, physicist who supplied information about the British and American atomic bomb research to the Soviet Union
- Theodore Hall, physicist who supplied information from Los Alamos during WWII, a NYC walk-in
- Robert Hanssen, FBI agent convicted of spying for the Soviet Union
- William Kampiles, supplied spy satellite info
- Alan Nunn May, physicist who supplied information about the British and American atomic bomb research to the Soviet Union
- Rudolf Roessler chief of the very successful, and very odd, Lucy spy ring of WWII
- Earl Edwin Pitts
- Geoffrey Prime employee of GCHQ, UK cryptography agency
- Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, American civilians executed for espionage for the Soviet Union
- Richard Sorge German 'journalist' who worked for the Soviet Union as a spy throughout East Asia in the 30's and 40's. He was also on the Abwehr rolls -- almost certainly falsely -- while in Japan in WWII.
- John Anthony Walker US Navy senior enlisted man who spied for the Soviet Union for decades, enlisting family and friends to do so as well
Israel (Mossad)
United Kingdom (MI5/MI6)
East Germany (Stasi)
France
Germany
Czechoslovakia (StB)
Unknown affiliation
- James Armistead
- Mansfield Cummings
- Ian Fleming worked in WWII in UK Intelligence administration, made infamous suggestion -- not in the end actually tried -- for obtaining Naval Enigma key schedules
- Reinhard Gehlen worked in German Army Intelligence on the Eastern Front in WWII, later director of West Germany's Intelligence Agency
- Anatoli Golitsin
- David Greenglass engineering draftsman who worked at Los Alamos in WWII, gave engineering data to his sister Ethel Rosenberg
- Reino Hayhanen Finn who worked in the US as a Soviet spy, used the VIC cypher, defected to the US
- Noor Inyat Khan, WWII, executed by the Nazi
- Gordon Lonsdale
- Ana Montes
- Harold Nicholson
- Alfred Redl Austrian General Staff Colonel who worked for Russian intellegence prior to WWI
- Saville Sax friend of Theodore Hall assisted with Hall's disclosure to the Soviets of Los Alamos research and development
- John Vassall
- Greville Wynne
Fictional spies
Espionage organizations
See also Intelligence agencies and Special Operations Executive
Intelligence disciplines
See List of intelligence gathering disciplines
- SIGINT — Intelligence gathered by intercepting communications.
- HUMINT — Intelligence gathered by a person on the ground.
- ELINT — Intelligence gathered from electronic sensors.
- OSINT — Intelligence gathered from open sources.
- IMINT
- MASINT
Espionage technology and techniques
Counter-espionage technology and techniques
- TEMPEST — Protection devices for communication equipment.
See also
Secret agent, Spy fiction, numbers station, surveillance, List of cryptographers.