Espionage

The world's most famous spy is surely James Bond. But the vast majority of the espionage business bears little resemblance to a 007 mission. There's little running, leaping and hurtling through exotic cities, and even less gunplay. Most American spooks keep busy in surroundings that look more like a low-budget stockbroker's office or computer-heavy Silicon Valley startup.

Headed by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the U.S. intelligence community has a budget of some $44 billion a year and nearly 100,000 employees at 16 agencies. A huge portion of these resources is devoted to Pentagon satellites, which generally scarf up three types of intelligence: IMINT, or imagery intelligence, consisting of photos, radar and infrared images; SIGINT, or signals intelligence, such as intercepted computer, e-mail, telephone and radio traffic of foreign officials and terrorists; and MASINT, measurement and signatures intelligence, which includes, for example, emissions or other telltale signs left by illicit nuclear or chemical activity.

On the intelligence payroll, the number of actual Central Intelligence Agency spies who do tours overseas is secret, but is estimated to be around 1,300. The CIA and the Pentagon, which also has a good many spooks, some in the uniformed military and some in covert civilian roles, are trying to sharply increase those numbers, especially with people skilled in the languages of U.S. adversaries, such as Korean, Chinese, Farsi and Arabic. But placing well-trained spies where they won't be noticed takes a lot of time and money.

Most of these American spies try to collect HUMINT, or human intelligence, from foreigners with access to foreign government or terrorist secrets. The spies are commonly placed in nondescript jobs in U.S. embassies abroad, and usually have diplomatic immunity. Immunity comes in handy if they are caught meeting a foreign agent or placing a bug, since they cannot be criminally charged. In the age of the Internet and surveillance cameras, however, such spies are more and more easily discovered by foreign services.

A handful of U.S. spooks are so-called NOCs, concealed overseas under non-official cover in the guise of, say, professors or business executives. It's even more costly and difficult to place NOCs. If arrested, they face being disowned by the U.S. government and can be tried, imprisoned or even tortured and executed.

Much of a spy's job is to spot a foreign government official or business executive with access to useful secrets—a banker, for instance, who may handle terrorist accounts—and to assess whether the person might be recruited as a clandestine agent for the U.S. The inducements for such spying are generally bribes, college tuition for children, or help getting out of the country—the last in cases where the foreigner's motive is disenchantment with job or country.

NOCs and official-cover spies usually do enough mundane work to make their cover post appear plausible, while surreptitiously meeting with agents or checking "dead drops," hiding places where money, equipment and intelligence are exchanged. Though they often tote pistols when in hot spots like Afghanistan or Iraq, CIA spies are not supposed to sponsor assassinations or get caught trading fire with other spies.

The closest thing to a 007 job that the CIA is normally allowed to do these days is covert action—missions intended to influence foreign countries or governments, or terrorists, without revealing any U.S. role. These missions can include rigging elections, arming groups believed to share U.S. goals, and establishing secret prisons and interrogation programs such as those set up by the CIA after 9/11. Covert action is authorized only by the signature of the President.

CIA case officers, and the analysts who pore over the information from foreign moles, have to bear in mind that any one of their contacts could be a double agent. That is, someone actually working for his own government, trying to suss out who the American spies are and what they're up to, and perhaps handing over bogus intelligence to trip up the CIA. Spies must trust no one. Special counterintelligence officers are assigned to try to find the spies working against the U.S. and to ferret out traitors among American spooks.

Another major source of information for the U.S. is "liaison" intelligence provided by friendly foreign governments. These governments often have looser—sometimes nonexistent—rules about whom they target and how they dig up dirt. While the CIA and the U.S. military, for example, are not allowed to spy on Americans, and the FBI has to comply with strict rules before doing so, the British have much more leeway to conduct surveillance on fellow citizens. Many Middle Eastern governments are dictatorships that maintain effective, if undemocratic, secret police forces to aggressively spy on, interrogate and even torture suspects.

Sifting and interpreting the array of information that spies and satellites haul in is the job of the thousands of intelligence analysts. They are normally experts on such topics as nuclear proliferation, banking, regional economics, culture, agriculture and satellite imagery. Analysts also survey so-called open-source information from the media and public government reports.

After assessing the meaning of the mass of raw intelligence, analysts prepare reports that go up the chain of command. When a report is important, it may be noted in the President's Daily Brief, which intelligence officials present to the President on weekday and Saturday mornings— under the watchful eye of the DNI.

Many thousands more people apply to the CIA every year than can be accommodated, though 40% of its employees have been hired since 9/11. What those who do get these important jobs quickly find is that although spying is complex, important and sometimes even dangerous work, it is rarely as glamorous as it sounds.

—Timothy J. Burger