Click HERE to see this thread with all of the graphics, features, and links.

Holy crap


Katharine Gun, 29, from Cheltenham, claimed the e-mail was from US spies asking British officers to tap phones of nations voting on war against Iraq.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3485072.stm


This is totally wrong we should not be spying on friendly allies

Why not? We've been doing it for the last 100 years. Basic rule of intelligence is to never not spy just because the nation is allied.

Intelligence work is a dirty business.

"She walked free on Wednesday when the prosecution offered no evidence."

Yup., because juries never do their damn job and just concentrate on the facts.

Truth is she is as guilty as hell and regardless of motive she SHOULD be jailed for it.

You sound like you know what its like...

well i would spy on my allies

remember some people keep their enemies closer than they do their friends ....Mr burns for example but seriously i think its a smart move

Absolutely. Everyone spies on everyone- it is what diplomacy is all about.

funny, reminds me of someone who found relaystations from the former Sovjet Union that were used to get secrets from here to Moscow
first thing our minister said was "we definitly have to find out what on earth they wanted from us cause we have no clue what so ever"

lol!

Ok fair enough but it is till against the law

its only illegal if you get caught

which if your spying you try not to do

Only by the laws of the country being spied on. Apply that logic and we could not spy on enemies either!

Spies kick ass!!!

everyone spies on everyone, well maybe not those tiny countries in asia but everyone else does......
let's face it, it is the information age, info = power

I would have actually been suprised if they hadn't spied on them.

gosh i must be living in some fantasy world where everyone is pure and innocent .

I guess me becoming a lawyer doesn't help

I doubt anyone spies on san marino or lichtenstein

i have always wondered is there a such thing as spies..i mean i know there are spies but are there like James Bond type spies or i dont know what im talking about. Im very interested in this spy stuff if anyone has any info on it please put it in this thread..also how does someone become a spy in the us? CIA?

Whats the suprise? Nothing new and not the worst thing US Government does.

spies, yes
bond-like... no, not such spies, no superspies anyway
I mean, not someone who does the entire mission

Yeah, it is mostly very dull and repetitive work.

Dull and Repetitive are two words I thought id never hear when a Spy comes to mind lol but all I know about spies is Hollywood movies which is nothing. what kind of work do spies do? i rememeber reading on the news a few years back a british spy in the northern ireland army. His cover was blown becuase of a news paper article. they also said the spy got paid some 2,000,000 dollars? thats a lot for dull and repetive work.

Yes, because it can also get you killed.

But 90% of spying work is observation, translation, and decryption. About 0.01% of it is action. The rest is social.

high risk on personal injury .... I mean, traitors get shot in the knee no?

what is new aboutr that, they aint the only one though

Ok, it seems like the development is now that the prosecution was halted because the intelligence that would have to be released was not practical to be done so.

This will possibly cause some great changes in the future. The sanctity of the Official Secrets Act is a vital piece of UK security and if someone can flout it- no matter HOW high-minded the reason, and that is controversial- then our whole security system is at risk. It does not take a genius to work out that this kind of thing depends on trust, and there is good reason why breaking that trust is a criminal offence.

Possibly in future such issues would have to be decided in a closed court.

are there such people as govenment assasins?

Nations always spy on other nations. It's just for security and safety. Nothing wrong with it I don't think.

Yes, though do not think of it as a job you apply for (only the Russians and East Germans ever really did have actual official assassins working for them in that direct capacity). Over the period of the Cold War where this kind of thing really happened with anything even approaching regularity- and even then it was rare- Government security agencies would have names of people they could use if they needed something terminal done.

Sometimes Government agencies do try directly- we all know how hilarious the CIA's attempts to kill Castro were. Of course, the really successful ones you never hear about... but even then, the CIA nearly always got someone else to do the job for them, and these days assassinations are more likely to be done by bomb and missile than a poisoined cigar or umbrella tip (failed and very successful respectively).

In the underground war with the IRA, things tended to get comical also (the original FRU (our specially created security Agency for Nothern Ireland) security operation was basically a laundry firm, which would collect the washing of all suspected IRA members and search thge clothing for evidence against them. Seriously! It was a proper laundry and everything). But also very harsh, as the British security agencies (or at least some elements of them) would simply identify Republican targets to Unionists, knowing full well the Unionists would then kill the target for them. The British security personel felt justified doing that seeing as the IRA would just shoot them dead in the street, of course, but then that was a HORRIBLE conflict.

So all in all... Governments kill, but they don't really hand out licenses to kill- they go to more obscure lengths to do it.

yeah I was looking more toward the poison cigar ect. but I know what you mean. thats what they do in the hollywood movies I guess.

Well that used to happen, the bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov that was killed in London with a Ricin coated dart fired from the tip of an umbrella as he walked down the street.

I'd link it but i dont have weblink rights yet.

Yes, that is kinda why I mentioned the umbrella tip, yeah? And mentioned that it was very successful.