SpyTalk on China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS in Chinese) Since its founding in 1983, the MSS has had a preeminent role in China’s vast machinery of domestic repression. But Chen appears set to turn its foreign spying arm into an increasingly effective presence in America and elsewhere during the 2020s, says Nicholas Eftimades, one...
Category: Countries
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Israel Threatens War to Block Biden’s Iran Diplomacy
It is clear that President Biden wants to rejoin the international nuclear agreement with Iran. President Obama negotiated the pact and Biden regards it as a key part of the Obama legacy. President Trump trashed the agreement with support of Israel. Now Israel is seeking to sustain Trump’s policy. The Israelis, in league with Mohammed bin...
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MI6 and CIA Are Recruiting: Diversity and Disabilities Welcome
The glamorization of intelligence work began with Ian Fleming’s James Bond series in the later 1950s. Fleming, a veteran of MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency. invented a spy who appealed The U.S. sales of Bond novels skyrocketed in March 1961 when President John Kennedy disclosed he was a fan. Spies were now seen as...
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Transparency and National Security: What News Editors Need to Tell Their Reporters
Dan Froomkin at PressWatch on journalism after January 6. The most important lesson of the Bush/Cheney years is that we should never assume government officials are telling us the truth, especially when it comes to matters involving war and national security. This is hardly an original lesson, and yet nonetheless it bears repeating. We should...
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Can U.S. Spy Agencies Stop White Power Violence?
In the aftermath of the failed Jan. 6 coup, people are calling for the creation of a domestic intelligence agency. Jeff Stein at SpyTalk surveys leading US officials from a variety of agencies for theirreaction. I think the nays have it. The US doesn’t need new laws or new organizations to combat white nationalists. It...