Comments on: FBI updates reading list for spy catchers

FBI updates reading list for spy catchers

magullo — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 10:13:23 -0800

In Graham Greene's hilarious "Our Man in Havana", a salesman-unlikely-turned-spy passes vacuum-cleaner blueprints as plans of a nuclear plant to his superiors at MI6. Turns an American of Korean origin has been doing pretty much the same with North Korea and thus cannot be charged with espionage. One can only hope that the current bullish attitude of North Korea is all based on the info passed by this guy (who, BTW, sold it for cash).

By: ubi

ubi — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 10:36:34 -0800

I'll be very interested to hear what happens to this guy. From the article, it looks like he could make a good case for having just spoofed the N. Koreans into paying him for useless info. It's the American Way (see: Fox News, O'Reilly, Rivera, most of the rest of commercial TV, et al.). Seems like his only real mistake was not declaring the cash to the IRS...

By: quonsar

quonsar — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 11:17:45 -0800

so. all north korea ACTUALLY has in it's possession weapons of mass suckage?

By: Satapher

Satapher — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 12:10:42 -0800

unlike the bullish attitiude of other "non mentionables"

By: geekhorde

geekhorde — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 13:01:33 -0800

If he sold useless information to them, i.e. drained away their cash, then I say good for him. But, yeah, the taxes situation is a bit odd. How do you declare something like that? "Yeah, um... I was pretending to be a spy, so a foreign government gave me money for uselss info. Where do I put that on the form?" That would be a funny situation to see.

By: IshmaelGraves

IshmaelGraves — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 13:49:01 -0800

I am so in the wrong line of work.

By: nyxxxx

nyxxxx — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 14:12:15 -0800

How do you declare something like that? "Yeah, um... I was pretending to be a spy, so a foreign government gave me money for uselss info. Where do I put that on the form?" Sounds like a Consultant to me.

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 16:12:19 -0800

one word: Decoy

By: Mack Twain

Mack Twain — Thu, 06 Feb 2003 17:43:39 -0800

Sounds familiar. Remember Edmund Pope, an American who was arrested, tried and convicted by the Russians in 2000? The FSB claimed he was buying secrets dealing with Russian torpedo technology – “secrets” which, it turns out, had been public knowledge for years! Some of this old torpedo technology had even been published in Popular Science magazine.