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Author Topic: SPIES!  (Read 5098 times)

Leafsnail

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SPIES!
« on: June 30, 2010, 08:33:17 am »

Well, this story seemed interesting to me.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/29/russian-spies-suburban-america

(I don't guarentee accuracy of the article - it's just the paper I normally read.  Feel free to visit any other site).

Basically, it seems that the FBI has caught 11 Russian spies.  These spies allegedly worked very hard to maintain images of them as normal Americans, but were secretly passing information back to Moscow.

The thing I want to know is... why??  What could you possibly learn from these spies that you couldn't learn just by having a few American newspapers delivered?  Why go through all the bother of planting these people all over the place considering the risk of discovery?  Am I missing something very important here?
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Virex

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2010, 09:12:56 am »

aside from the often questionable value of newspaper articles you mean?
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Nikov

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2010, 09:38:23 am »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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scriver

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2010, 10:33:01 am »

Maybe not spies as much as hidden agents? Preparations for a might-happen Hot war?
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smjjames

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2010, 10:44:39 am »

CNN doesn't really say anything about what they were trying to do. So, I don't think there are many details given to the public yet, considering that the news was broken just yesterday or maybe the day before.

Seriously though, I did think of Cold War era spy novels when they first reported it (and they did as well). I guess Russia is up to their old tricks and habits die hard.
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alway

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2010, 10:54:03 am »

According to the chat they were having about it on NPR last night, its pretty hillarious. They came here to gather intel and send it back to Russia; the thing is though, none of them were in any sort of a position to even try getting information which wasn't already publicly available.
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smjjames

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2010, 10:59:39 am »

NPR? Not sure what that is.

Anyways, when I heard about it, I was like 'huh? What are the russians up to?' since you wouldn't expect russia to do spying like that since the cold war, so........
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vagel7

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2010, 11:03:31 am »

maybe they were sleepers?

When the time comes they can be activated and start working
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Muz

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2010, 11:07:18 am »

The thing I want to know is... why??  What could you possibly learn from these spies that you couldn't learn just by having a few American newspapers delivered?  Why go through all the bother of planting these people all over the place considering the risk of discovery?  Am I missing something very important here?

In times of peace, prepare for war. It's much, much more difficult to plant a spy during an actual war. If you're going to plant some, do it in advance. If the nations cut diplomatic ties, those spies will still be able to report everything. If anything, it's much cheaper to do some spy mission when ties are cordial, rather than when everyone's panicking and security is all tied up.

Yeah, there are spies everywhere now. My country has some in yours and yours has some in mine. Even if you live in some small country like Slovakia or Brunei. It's no surprise they were caught, and certainly no surprise that they were attractive and nice people. If your country does something as low as planting undercover cops to bust crime rings, they're certainly capable of espionage.

Most of the time they don't actually do anything. There's always plenty of information to steal though. The latest weapon plans. Military locations and plans. Encryption systems. Soviets stole the plans for nuclear weapon technology when both were allies. They planted their spies well in advance, and it's likely that they're doing the same thing again.
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smjjames

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2010, 11:16:55 am »

Yea you're right.

The US is used to these spy games from Russia since I think there was an article in CNN that President Obama said that there isn't any change in the relationship between the US and Russia. Besides, the embarrassment from having 11 getting caught at once and it becoming public is probably punishment enough than anything we could do.
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Footkerchief

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2010, 11:32:09 am »

NPR? Not sure what that is.

You don't know about National Public Radio or search engines?
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Akura

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2010, 11:42:08 am »

It's politics. You'd be stupid not to spy on your closest friends and neighbors.
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smjjames

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #12 on: June 30, 2010, 11:47:14 am »

NPR? Not sure what that is.

You don't know about National Public Radio or search engines?

I did think National Public Radio, but wasn't sure.
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smigenboger

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2010, 12:52:05 pm »

I advocate the use of NPR, they seem unbiased, and geared towards news, not opinions.
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smjjames

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Re: SPIES!
« Reply #14 on: June 30, 2010, 12:55:33 pm »

I'm hard of hearing, so unless they captioned the radio, I wouldn't be able to hear whats being said.
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