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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   29321 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 4, 2024

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I was actually thinking about this subject recently while reading Wikipedia biographies of Soviet spies (this guy died in 2020, after spending 50 years in Moscow post-defection!) from decades ago.

It is telling that the volume of high-profile defection seems much, much lower today than it was at the height of the Cold War. The influence operations we have today are either low level things, like your $42,000 case, or stuff like Bob Menendez being comically and publicly bribed with literal gold bars by the Egyptians, which the intelligence community has obviously known about since it first happened. I think the motivation for high-volume elite defection just isn't there anymore.

When you read the biographies of famous Cold War defectors, almost all of them were motivated by a genuine belief in the Communist system. For every greedy Aldrich Ames there were a half dozen Rosenbergs, Philbys, Blakes and so on who truly believed in the Marxist message and revolution. And it's telling that the few major spies the West has seen since the 1991 have also been motivated either by extreme narcissism (Manning) or by genuine political conviction (Snowden's libertarianism).

Most of the people that were recruited as double agents in the 50s and 60s, certainly in higher-IQ positions, really believed. They believed they were serving global revolution, serving a superior system, and that the sooner the USSR outcompeted the West and the West had its revolution, the better. Many genuinely believed the above would happen in their lifetime, very soon even, such that even if they were discovered and as such either imprisoned or forced to officially defect and flee, they would return home before long.

China and Russia don't really have much to offer American double agents. They can flip the occasional low-level operative with the promise of money, but the scale of US surveillance over global banking is such that multi-million-dollar payoffs to poorly-paid intelligence agents are pretty much impossible to get away with permanently for now, even with crypto (it's not like trying to convert your Chinese monero into dollars to buy anything isn't going to tip anyone off, especially if every bank already has you flagged as intelligence, which they do). Your only options in the case of defection are living a shitty life in Moscow or Beijing as an eternal foreigner in a system that doesn't care about you and which is essentially just a poorer, more authoritarian and more corrupt version of what exists in the West. (And they know it too, which is why Snowden and others will be under permanent surveillance in case they attempt to defect back.)

And I think this is increasingly visible in the way that China and especially Russia conduct international espionage. China outright kidnaps random prominent Americans / Canadians / Brits etc and holds them hostage until its people are released (eg. the Huawei heiress). Russia does the same, but maintains order by assassinating double agents who defect to the West on foreign soil at an increasingly aggressive pace, presumably to keep its people in line and convince them that they'll never be safe if they leave. Foreign influence operations by both nations are increasingly short-termist, amateurish, or just chancers, like the largely abortive attempts via Manafort etc to influence Trump, which were mostly just an embarrassment for everyone involved.

Neither system really has anything to offer. If you become a true enemy of the West you better (a) hope you enjoy your miserable life in Russia or China, (b) hope neither nation tires of you enough to trade you for someone they care about, (c) accept that even many neutral nations (India, the UAE etc) will be 'no go zones' because the US can and will extrajudicially kidnap you and the local government won't care enough to stop you, or they'll just trade you for money/influence/weapons/some other foreign policy goal.

Cuba is arguably the only exception. If you have some cash, or are given some in exchange for defection, you can enjoy a nice, comfortable retirement on the beach. There are plenty of modern-enough international resorts catering to Canadians and Europeans, the weather is good, the food and alcohol are good, it's comfortable and you can live very well for a very small amount of money. And because Cuba isn't Russia or China, you're not a high priority enough threat that receiving visitors or conducting some limited business is impossible. In time, rapprochement of some kind will likely continue (unlike Russia or China where it seems ever less likely), your defection may well be washed under the bridge, and everything will turn out (possibly) fine. And unlike Venezuela or Bolivia, where a successful US-aligned coup led by people who will gladly ship anyone the CIA wants back to Washington is at least possible in the near term, Cuba's system is very unlikely to experience that kind of revolution.

So, interestingly, Cuban intelligence might well have an easier time than their peers in the anti-American axis.

assassinating double agents who defect to the West on foreign soil

Like who ?

(a) hope you enjoy your miserable life in Russia or China,

Aren't you London based? The quality of life in Moscow 2023 is nowhere near that of Moscow 1970. Let's not even speak about China, which has its own problems but most of those do not exist to people who are valued by TPTB.

You have an interesting argument and then try to support it with an awful comparison. Life in Russia/China absolutely sucks for factors but not in Cuba. A country with absolutely the same factors, and not even the upsides of Russia/China being mid-high income countries by global standards. What’s even the logic here? China has cool beaches as well

Life in Cuba sucks for Cubans. But life in Cuba for affluent(ish) expats is great in a way that life as a foreign dissident in Russia usually isn’t. If you escape the US with $500,000 in cash/bitcoin, Cuba is by far preferable to life in China or Russia.

I've been to Russia, never been to the other two. Based on vibes alone I'd rather live in Cuba than China. Much of Chinese society seems to be built around positional status games and the culture seems incredibly foreign, not even mentioning language difficulties. In my experience of other Latin American countries and other Caribbean countries this is not the case there. The material standard of living is certainly way worse in Cuba, but Latin culture seems more relatable (although obviously it has its own peccadillos).

As a foreigner there’s not really a status ladder for you to climb. You’re can be an English teacher which is becoming kind of looked down on, be married into a Chinese family and be part of their network, or be neither and just be a foreign curiosity.

For material comforts and modern convenience I’d prefer China to the other two. There’s no Amazon equivalent in Cuba, and I’m guessing the internet connectivity is poor. The Chinese firewall is annoying but easily traversed.

Though you’re right that Spanish is definitely easier for an English speaker to pick up than Chinese.

Maybe no status ladder for you, but definitely one for your wife and kids. Would you really want to raise kids grinding to ace the gaokao their entire lives?

That seems like bullshit, tbh.

China has about half of the world's industry, anyone with talent even if they haven't got stellar school results is probably able to make a decent living if they pick a sensible profession and are diligent with it.

China's also got a billion people.

White collar work seems to be gated on the gaokao. Much of the white collar work is on a grueling 996 schedule too, so the grind continues even once you get a decent job.

gaokao

Was passed by 10 million people last year.

grueling 996 schedule too,

Guess who has earned the ire of Xi last year? Guys demanding 996.

Was passed by 10 million people last year.

And? Just about any shitty experience you can imagine has been experienced by millions of people.

Guess who has earned the ire of Xi last year? Guys demanding 996.

Because they weren't working hard enough you mean?

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Yes I have also been to Latin America and indeed the culture was more familiar. Not sure how this relates to the point you were making. 99.9% of Russian and Chinese population can freely leave their country on a middle class income and many regularly do for vacations, education or work. Everytime the current Cuban regime allowed such a thing in any limited form the country has seen a mass exodus. Out of these three, it’s clearly not the choice if you want a decent life. Russians are generally not an alien culture to average westerner and China has good weather too.

Well, you have to consider the fact that Russia has already gone through such an evaporative cooling and many Chinese do leave the country. As a defector, I imagine your standard of living would be somewhat higher than average.

Most of the people that were recruited as double agents in the 50s and 60s, certainly in higher-IQ positions, really believed. They believed they were serving global revolution, serving a superior system, and that the sooner the USSR outcompeted the West and the West had its revolution, the better. Many genuinely believed the above would happen in their lifetime, very soon even, such that even if they were discovered and as such either imprisoned or forced to officially defect and flee, they would return home before long.

nowadays high-IQ tech-focused people have better career options than espionage or working for federal agencies. Second, the Cold War is long over. Third, the technology has gotten way better at detecting espionage. Everything is traced. Canary drops are major problem. The biggest concern is not govt. agents leaking stuff, but instead tech or defense company employees doing the leaking.

There's a solid point that the U.S. being able to offer a higher standard of living than virtually anywhere else is its single greatest power to tempt defection and dissuade its own defectors. As you say, if you defect somewhere you don't have immediate cultural ties, you'll almost certainly end up living a far crappier lifestyle once the initial rewards for your valorous actions are spent.

Like how in the Hunt for Red October the defectors manage to persuade themselves that American life will be idyllic if they can pull it off.

There's a solid point that the U.S. being able to offer a higher standard of living than virtually anywhere else

What does the US have that China doesn't? Certainly not safer streets.

Shanghai: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ff29nDLBzaA

New York: https://youtube.com/watch?v=6y5CqAHxGX0

The Chinese govt is more authoritarian, you aren't allowed to go shoot guns. They are always watching you. But they can and will pay the big bucks if you have something to offer. They pinch Taiwanese semiconductor engineers by 4xing their salary. They bring in ex-SF or former air force pilots to train their people - on substantial pay packages. I bet we don't hear about the guy who handed over the F-35 radar schematics for 8 million because it makes people think. The US military is not exactly the highest paying organization in the world.

Furthermore, they might throw in a cute girlfriend. Hinkle was going out with Miss Russia.

Really, what stops people defecting is that they'd lose all their friends, family and have to live somewhere else they don't know, where most speak a foreign language. That's why most people stay in their home countries, even when wealth differences are quite stark.

In practice, I think there are a number of ways in which living as a moderately rich Westerner in China is still much worse than living as a PMC Westerner in the West. The reason those ex-fighter pilots and so on take the million dollars to train the Chinese etc is precisely that they expect to be able to take their gains and return home to the US or England.

Look at perhaps the most famous Western dissident of modern times, Ed Snowden, now defected to Russia and granted citizenship personally by Putin last year. Snowden is admittedly an edge case because he didn’t actually defect to Russia, he just betrayed his country and fled to Russia. He was a well-paid software guy living in Hawaii by the beach with his acrobat girlfriend. He doesn’t seem to be living large out there, he hasn’t been granted a tony Moscow apartment with servants, premier dacha and an annual five star vacation to the Maldives (the kind of lifestyle the Russian elite enjoy). He seems to live a pretty mediocre existence, living largely off (Zoom) speech income, the kind of income someone of his class in Russia might live, maybe worse even.

My guess is Hawaii was still better. Similarly, there are people who live well in China, but almost all are Chinese save for a (shrinking) few rich expats in finance and a handful of other industries in Beijing and Shanghai who work for Western companies.

he just betrayed his country

So.. do you really ly believe Americans owe allegiance to thoroughly authoritarian, secretive institutions that have usurped power in their republic and acting in the spirit of the US constitution by fighting against unaccountable tyranny is a betrayal ?

Is that a reasonable summary of your position ?

Snowden did what he did for ideological reasons, there's always a quantum of those people, but I would be willing to bet that most defectors/traitors are so because of money or threats (either from the inside or from the outside).

I think he's the exception, which is why he's both famous and even could do what he did. There's almost no reason to suspect a guy like that. But most people aren't willing to risk a very nice life on the altar of the 4th amendment. And I present as evidence the fact that basically nothing happened after he blew the whistle.

See also: Reality Winner, Private Manning.

The two biggest leaks in the last few decades were both ideologically motivated, as were many if not most during the Cold War.

basically nothing happened after he blew the whistle.

Well that’s because he (and Manning) were emotionally unstable idiots who thought they had found some major malfeasance and then leaked massive amounts of data not actually showing that.

We'll have to disagree that constant universal violation of the 4th amendment and contempt of Congress to hide it doesn't constitute major malfeasance.

Not that it matters of course.

What is the lifestyle of a non-Chinese expat living in China like?

How does it compare to the lifestyle of the average Chinese immigrant to the U.S.?

lifestyle of a non-Chinese expat living in China like

https://www.thepackablelife.com/travel/journal/living-in-china

Seems OK for English teachers. I hear that white men are considered attractive there too, though that's diminishing.

I don't understand, why do people think China is this super-poor country? There are parts of China that are poor but the major cities you're most likely to be in are quite rich, as shown in my videos. You don't even get accosted by crazy homeless people either. One of my female friends went to China and was raving about how safe she felt everywhere, even at night. If you sold state secrets to them, they'd presumably be positively inclined towards you and unlikely to turn the police state against you.

I don't want to move to China because it's not my homeland and because I don't want to learn Mandarin. But it's not like you're moving to Moscow in the 1960s, where you'll be condemned to a leaky apartment and cars that don't work. There's loads of gadgets and cool things in China.

I've heard that the major cities have awful smog problems and the rest of the country is, like, Central America level poor.

Yeah, the air quality is way less than what we’re accustomed to in the West. It’s also highly variable, in our city I think about ten percent of the time the air was visibly bad, though also only about ten percent of the time was it good enough to meet WHO standards. I kept air filters running at all times.

Though from historic data and images it seems not that different from what people used to put up with in cities like Los Angeles.

Villages are quite poor, usually without even flush toilets, and with coal stove heating, but they’re kind of a relic. Part of my family still lives in a village, but almost everyone lives in the city in apartments of varying quality. Some are very nice, some would be nice only by broke American college student standards.

Keep in mind that even tier three cities have the amenities a Westerner would be accustomed too. Nice shopping malls with top brands, app based ride share, food delivery, parks, gyms, libraries, etc.

If you sold state secrets to them, they'd presumably be positively inclined towards you and unlikely to turn the police state against you.

I actually suspect the opposite. "If he'll spy for you, he'll spy on you."

Standards of living overseas are not that bad. A low per-capita GDP is negated to some extent by greater purchasing power in dollars, so your ill-gotten gains go very far. Those countries have electricity, internet access, plumbing, cars, public transport, airport, etc. It's not like Somalia or something.

A low per-capita GDP is negated to some extent by greater purchasing power in dollars, so your ill-gotten gains go very far.

Sure. Just sucks for your kids.

compared to being in jail for rest of your life? that is probably worse for your kids

You think that will matter in 30 years? Computers and robots will literally have 100% of the jobs.

Computers and robots will literally have 100% of the jobs.

No they will not.

source: the same as yours

I'll leave this very informative (and accurate) chart here for you.

It was put out about 25 years ago and we are right on track so far.

https://i.imgur.com/48wuJkO.jpeg

By 2050/60 one AI will have more compute than all human brains on earth.

Why you expect this to be unbound exponential curve rather than logistic function?

Also, lol at jpeg without source for dataset.

This is a famous chart by a famous author. I thought it would be well known in these circles.

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Do you have a meaningful counterargument to Wolfram's computational irreducibility thesis, or have you not considered the issue at all?

Kurzweil style number-go-up arguments are fun Whig catnip, but they completely handwave away crucial details. There's a reason Malthus' predictions ended up being wrong despite being mathematically sound.

Considering that wolfram alpha is now 100% obsolete due to AI advancements maybe he isn't the best sword to bring to this gunfight.

Yes he has an idea about complex systems needing to be fully simulated and in that way becoming the very thing they simulate. But guess what! Computational reducibility is a thing too, and it works really really well! Human brains do it every day even!

Bringing Malthus into this is also an interesting choice, considering he was wrong precisely since he underestimated the pace of technological change.

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The question is whether it is worth giving up ever returning to the country which objectively has the best economic conditions and relocating to a country where you might not even have the skills (i.e. language fluency) to be of any economic value.

Uh, aren’t well-off people with government connections in Russia and China doing quite well, even by American standards?

Russia and China could treat their defectors like local elites. They don’t.

I think they are doing extremely well in terms of luxury, even being able to ensure the best possible education for their children but there is something that you cannot buy in Russia or China. Political stability, trust and justice cannot be bought in these countries for any price. There is always a chance (and rather high, I would say) that Kremlin or CCP will knock at your door asking you for a favor, or even worse, seeing enemy in you. That's why all the progeny of Russian upper class, including Putin himself lives in the West.

Having to choose: being extremely wealthy Russian oligarch or just average citizen of Switzerland, I take the latter without any doubt, but it depends on a character obviously.

That's why all the progeny of Russian upper class, including Putin himself lives in the West.

I doubt it. You really think Russian elites would leave their children in the West so the West would be free to arrest them on various bullshit charges like e.g. in the case of the Huawei founder's daughter?

Might be true for the merely very rich, but Putin? Lmao.

Absolutely banging analysis and write up! My only nit is that you're not correct about the crypto (not a crypto fan here btw as I think really the only value add use case for it is crime and money laundering). It is extremely easy to trade a thumb drive or a wallet number and pass key for cash/gold/land, or oh hey I bought a hard drive on ebay with an old wallet on it so I put it in my coinbase account...the options are endless, as long as you pay your taxes. If you really are a spy you don't even need to go that far, just use someone else's accounts.

oh hey I bought a hard drive on ebay with an old wallet on it so I put it in my coinbase account...the options are endless,

nope. the blockchain can reveal where it came from

Bitcoin and Eth yes, monero no.

Also, MSS could just buy an old thumb drive with bitcoin from like 2014 and transfer it to you, so you've found legit bitcoin with no on-chain connections to the Chinese govt. A hell of a lot of bitcoin mining was done in China and they're still No. 2, they surely have some old coins for use-cases like this.

There is evidence federal agencies have reconstructed Monero transactions. Monero is better but still has holes. https://www.wired.com/story/bitcoin-seizure-record-doj-crypto-tracing-monero/

The article itself admits, as the zcash guy involved says, that we actually have no idea if the capability exists. It's likely these cases are resolved through old fashioned forensic accounting.

Most of the people I've talked to with a serious background in this area seemed to think the chainalysis claims were fanciful bullshit. It's possible they have something, I wouldn't be surprised, but nobody really knows.

you only know those who get caught, i guess. Not uncommonly the feds will take over mixers or dark markets to see the money flow. The govt. is very dogged though.

Double nope: coin tumblers make it a random collection of coins rather than traceable coins from Russia or China.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-men-charged-operating-25m-cryptocurrency-ponzi-scheme

Saffron and Mazzotta also allegedly conspired to obstruct official proceedings by concealing assets, concealing or destroying evidence, and falsifying records. The defendants also allegedly conspired to conceal the source and location of victims’ cryptocurrency investments through various means, including using methods known as “blockchain hopping” and through services known as “mixers” or “tumblers” that are designed to prevent cryptocurrency tracing.

A sufficiently determined adversary can trace the origin of coins passed through tumblers. Also, tumbers can 'dirty' crypto by mixing them with fraudulent coins, making them blacklisted in the processes by merchants who refuse to accept tumbled coins.

Other than fees and the technical know-how what's to stop someone swapping from an open blockchain into Monero or another privacy coin and then back again to sever the links? The blockchain might indicate money went into Monero, and came out of Monero, but Monero says "...".

Liquidity. Monero atomic swaps are better than they used to be, but there simply isn't enough capital around there to operate on a large scale and not suffer from extreme slippage.

And the places that do have liquidity are usually KYCed exchanges, which means uncle Fed knows how much you're swapping and can account for it.

This will improve if we get a sudden demand for privacycoins and the like, but I doubt we'll see much change unless either CDBCs materialize of there's fallout from the TornadoCash lawsuits.

Monero is fine if your adversary is not that determined or does not have much resources. The feds however have demonstrated some capability at tracing Monero. Criminals do this and they are still caught. They use all sorts of strategies, like you describe, of mixing through Monero, other chains, back to Monero, etc. Of course, we only hear about the guys who get caught. It may be possible there is some way to do it.

If you work with classified information, sudden spurts of wealth are noticed. It's one of the primary signs discussed in all materials and training. Someone with a clearance suddenly acquiring a lot of money is suspicious. And can be reported without any other evidence, at which point someone will start asking questions. And there are self-reporting requirements for such things. You can't just secretly "come into your inheritance".

This is a limited power when the leaker's coworkers are also constrained by social niceties. But this hypothetical leaker can't just spend wantonly.

Oh I totally get that. I just think people vastly overestimate the security apparatus when it comes to detecting or caring about money and corruption. Report you found a hard drive in your basement...if you haven't screwed up badly nothing will come of it. There are an abnormal amount of rich people in government and intelligence that were not rich when they started.

Bog standard insider trading or non-foreign linked consulting gigs are hard to detect because some people really do beat the market or have consulting gigs.

But if an NSA cryptographer gets a six-figure no show job with a Confucius institute, well…. And it’s not like Russia and China can offer better opportunities for insider trading than they already get.

There are an abnormal amount of rich people in government and intelligence that were not rich when they started.

Are there? How do you know? Are you including elected officials in this group?

The rate of hard corruption (e.g. outright bribery) in the US is not zero, but it’s pretty low.

One reason it’s low is that we have real competition between two major parties who share and switch off power, and always have an incentive to nail the opposing side for violations.

Yes it isn't "hard", it is obvious though. No one is trading bags of cash. They just say buy NVDA options or Here have a 400k seat on the board.

Of course! I’m not suggesting it would be impossible for serving senior intelligence personnel to receive crypto as payment when selling secrets, either via a physical wallet or digitally.

But the way that modern KYC / transaction analysis tools have advanced makes it much more difficult to hide the spending of this money than ever before.

If you make $120,000 a year at the NSA, you can’t buy a $4m vacation house in Palm Beach without your bosses knowing; you probably can’t go on a $100k summer vacation to Europe without your bosses knowing; you can’t suddenly become a major shareholder in a highly profitable small business without your bosses knowing. Right now, almost every use case for spending crypto still involves a conversion to dollars and thus some involvement with the regular, heavily surveilled financial system. You can try to transact as much as possible in crypto, but there will pretty much always be signs (especially if you intend to share any wealth with friends and family). Neighbors gossip, people overhear things, notice sudden changes in spending. And if you’re intelligence, you’re on everyone’s list of sensitive accounts.

So sure, you could conceivably receive $5m in crypto and do nothing with it, no differently to how Russia could just give you $5m in a suitcase that you keep under the bed for the rest of your life. But that tends not to satisfy those who sell secrets.

Sure, but we're not talking about millions here. Many people get caught selling secrets for paltry amounts - a few thousand, even. You could make that much money in a week selling commissions to suspiciously wealthy furries and nobody is going to look too hard at it.

But the way that modern KYC / transaction analysis tools have advanced makes it much more difficult to hide the spending of this money than ever before.

exactly. gold arguably would be better

I think if you’re extremely patient your grandchildren in 80 years might get away with selling a diamond pendant or something whose provenance can’t be fully proven. But if you want to enjoy the money yourself (which most financially-motivated double agents presumably do) then it’s much tougher.

With all the shitcoin pump schemes it really wouldn't be difficult to have some coin, dogeMoonDiamondCoinbirdDog2Coin or something created by the paying party. the recipient buys it on a decentralized exchange, the paying party fakes a bunch of trades back and forth at a higher price point, then the recipient sells their shares. Is it a little suspicious that you got lucky and picked the right moonshot coin? Sure. But people get lucky. Especially if you are smart enough to also have picked a bunch of duds as well.

this is what an NFT accomplishes . it is why it has been accused of being used for money laundering.

This isn't a court of law. Doing sus shit when you're privy to the good stuff is going to get you shitcanned even if you have a "clever" story about why it's actually not sus.

Right but I mean you can just "find" some on an old hard drive. I mean shoot I scrapped a computer with a wallet on it a decade ago. Who can say boo to that? As long as you are paying someone or depositing with a wallet that has been inactive for a while, just in case anyone looks into it while you buy you 4 million dollar home. You're correct in that it would be suspicious if you work in intelligence, better be paid up on your red flag insurance! I suppose I was gaming it out more for the average person.

It can be traced. the only fresh bitcoin is coins direct from miner or major exchange.

Agreed that paying a bribe or two to someone with a security clearance and having everyone get away with it is probably doable to someone with the resources of the FSB, or all of China. But this isn’t a bribe or two; lottery-style cash infusions are probably not enough, the CCP or FSB need to continually send more money to their spies, which you can’t get away with.

Because if you’re CIA and you file your taxes one year and your bank and the IRS flag you as having sold $4m in crypto that you ‘found on a thumb drive I lost in 2011’ you’re going to be under extreme scrutiny. Every alarm is going to ring, there is going to be a big internal investigation, all of your communications are going to be reviewed, your movements are going to be reviewed, what you had access to is going to be reviewed. They’re going to ask to see the thumb drive, to see the wallet, to see when and from whom the coins were purchased etc. Better have those old Mt Gox emails ready.

Could you still get away with it? Possibly, if you covered your tracks during the initial selling of secrets perfectly. People get away with espionage all the time, obviously. But it is going to flag, and for the rest of your time in intelligence (and beyond if you retire) you’re going to be on a list somewhere of people who mysteriously came into great wealth while working with state secrets.

I'm worried about making a fortune off crypto and other investments without any funny business, and being thrown in a rape cage by a DC judge because fuck you that's why. They'd probably dig up my conservative leaning post here as further evidence about how much I "hate America" to supply the motive. Might even explicitly not allow me to present evidence that all the transactions are legitimate some fucking how.

After what I've seen done to Jan 6'ers, I have no expectation of justice if the DOJ notices me.

These posts are starting to remind me of the handmaid's tale meme. There's no reason to think that the DoJ gives a shit about Internet poasters.

If you don’t have a clearance the scenarios previously discussed wouldn’t apply to you.

Worrying about a progressive surveillance state unbanking and imprisoning you is worrisome if present trends continue (and Europe already does this at times for speech), but the Jan 6 mostly peaceful insurrectionists did about the dumbest thing possible in putting a giant red target on their backs for the feds to go after.

If you don’t have a clearance the scenarios previously discussed wouldn’t apply to you.

Yes

You're totally right, but didn't you just describe 50% of congress? I think we may be overestimating the security apparatus here. Shoot you can buy off a supreme court judge with a winnebago and a few vacations these days.

It might just be, "Hey Tom found his old computer in the basement and now he's rich"! It might not be incompetence, it might be that no one really cares as long as you keep your head down and your boss happy.

Menendez was previously investigated for taking bribes from a drug cartel to put diplomatic pressure on Columbia to drop cases. The CIA- and everyone else for that matter- knew he was corrupt. But it’s not actually the CIA’s job to bust serving congressmen for taking bribes.

I think intelligence knows who’s corrupt in congress and with who, and prefers to approach congressmen quietly to remind them of what they know and what the consequences are. The Menendez thing where he’s finally been arrested is because they told him again and again and he didn’t stop.

As the spy novelists tell us, there are four reasons for turning coat: Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego. Ideology may have fallen somewhat, but the others were always there.

Well yes, the existence of blackmail material is usually a reason to deny a security clearance for that reason, and Russia and China don’t actually have very attractive systems.

True, though when potentially defecting to somewhere with less money (and less ability to get it to you) and limited ability to coerce [foreign intelligence officials], ideology is often a major factor.

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