A $230k debt and a LinkedIn message led an ex-CIA officer to spy for China

It's actually even worse than that. If you're cleared highly enough, "competing states" will actively try to entangle you in these kinds of compromising scenarios, expressly for the purpose of maneuvering you into a position where you can be blackmailed.

One age-old example is the classic espionage "honey trap": https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/03/12/the-history-of-the-hone...

>If you are involved in a secret affair without your partner's knowledge or if you're closeted non-hetero sexually, you shouldn't apply for high level security clearances or run for politics.

Those two things are completely different. The first is an active lie to the person you are supposed to be closest with. It is a demonstration on some level of a lack of character. The second is the omission of not telling people something that it shouldn't be their business to know. LGBTQ folks are under no obligation to be out publicly and refusing to do so is not an indictment on their character.

I thought it was only TS/SCI that was that thorough?

> it's VERY thorough and personally invasive to minimize the risks

And yet, near completely useless as shown by cases known to wide public.

If you think blackmail is the only thing that can compromise a man, you have a lot to learn about life.

History: some of most baffling espionage cases were "walk ins"

I think, it is the type of personality that services all around the world seek – somebody brilliant, but easy to guide, and motivateable with BS pretenses, that itself makes such people to seek to play with fire.

Yeah sure, because all the politicians are "clean", right? And they don't do dirty stuff while they are in office either, right?

If there is something to be learnt from politics it's that it doesn't matter what you've done or what you do but what your electorate wants to hear.

Morality is luxury and as such most of the people can't afford it. Simply they don't care.

As far as national security is concerned you could say that any big foreign company could be considered a national security threat if it kills its US competitiors regardless of the industry. We already had steel, telecom, social media and cars. What's the next security threat? Corn? What happened to free trade?

>It has been described by federal officials as among the largest breaches of government data in the history of the United States.

Huh, that sounds like a pretty big scandal but I’d never heard of this until you posted it.

Financial stability is one of the most important criteria checked when you apply for clearance.

I read through a public list of the decisions on clearance appeals a couple of years ago, and financial concerns were a very common reason for denied clearances. (Might have been http://ogc.osd.mil/doha/industrial/)

Another thing I found interesting from that list was that a lot of concerns (e.g. earlier drug consumption) could be successfully addressed, but lying on the questionnaire was pretty close to an absolute no-go. I also expected a lot more denials for political opinion to stop ideologically motivated whistleblowers, but barely found any such entries.

There’s definitely a strong angle about irresponsible decisions in this guy’s case but note also that areas like DC are extremely expensive and civil service pay scales have been slipping behind the private sector for decades. Most people react by cashing out to a contractor but there’s always a risk of something more nefarious, and the opposition only needs a few bites.

My understanding is that personal finances are a major consideration when evaluating people for security clearances.

The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is probably motivated by debt motivated espionage in addition to being a general benefit for military personnel.

Having a healthy society has always been a national security issue: there’s literally millennia of documents on how governments collapsed because outsiders funded dissidents.

These morality lessons we see aimed at societies aren’t mere moralizing — they’re an evolved code of conduct designed to keep a vibrant whole in the face of genuine adversarial conditions.

People have forgotten the value of a strong national identity in many Western nations, largely because of the activity of groups funded by outside nations.

It is not necessarily malicious. Some malware is purely designed as a prank type of stuff or to do something funny to the computer.

Yeah, you'd think malmalware was good.

That's because once they're done looting, the elites can now just move to New Zealand or somewhere.

economists do not factor these risks and costs into their assessments. globalized free trade and labor are generally always assessed as win-win by economists.

Yup. For anyone who is a security type IT person at your company, make sure you send out bogus phising emails to employees to see who falls for it and what type of data they give away. At my work if you fall for it the first time then you get training not to do it again. If you fall for it a second time, terminated. They just consider it to be too high of a security risk to keep you around if you fall for it a second time.

Why does it seem like you are giving him a pass for treason? Everyone has struggles. This does not give you a pass to become a spy for a hostile foreign nation and endanger the lives of your countrymen.

Just because someone ends up in dire straits, doesn't mean they are good.

He could have spent less to avoid debt. He could have gotten a job in the private sector. In a country like the US, there is no excuse for resorting to treason to get a pay check.

He was probably making $100k when he left the CIA. If he worked 20 years, he probably has a nice pension. Most career federal employees make decent money, both my parents worked their careers for the government and live debt free.

At what point of poverty would you start attacking people you know to be innocent, to sustain yourself? For many people, as the number of homeless testify to, that point does not exist. It's obvious that a multi millionaire would not become a spy for $25k (as this man did), but would he for $50 million? If our multi-millionaire is this person, I'd expect the answer would likely be a resounding yes. And this guy did something much worse than just attacking people. He allegedly gave information on undercover operatives to China. Them going "missing" after extensive "questioning" would be hardly surprising, and this blood would be on his hands. But hey, now he has $25k...

I think peoples actions generally reflect their character, not their condition. It's why you'll find penny pinching billionaires, or people who can barely afford a loaf of bread insistent on sharing it with you. But spies... if somebody wants to go join an enemy force and fight against their home country - that's fine - though they should never expect to be treated as anything besides an enemy. But a spy, by contrast, exploits good will to try to hurt the people giving it to him. As the article mentions he was pressing former colleagues for information, with the aim of giving it to people that would likely use it to hurt them with. Spies are the scum of this earth and in no way whatsoever does this individual deserve even the slightest grain of sympathy. Whatever punishment he receives will be far too lenient.

Come back soon!

Stored a lot in between his ears?

Or he knows which civilian resources they considered reliable and pointed them in that direction.

We do hear about it, and in the Western press primarily: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spie...

The difference is that when US-run agents get burned, they get publicly executed by the Chinese government, as opposed to put on trial for imprisonment.