Why Do Ordinary People Commit Espionage?

Per the affidavit, Boutina was allegedly involved in an operation led by officials within the Russian government to infiltrate the Republican Party, including members of the Trump campaign and the National Rifle Association, for the purposes of aligning right wing political interests with similar interests in Russia. Boutina's actions dovetailed with continued efforts by Russian operatives to commit cyber espionage

to influence US elections. According to the affidavit, two American citizens provided Boutina intelligence and guidance on her efforts in the United States. M I five, the Intelligence Agency of the United Kingdom, defines espionage as the process of obtaining information that is not normally publicly available using human resources agents or technical means like hacking into computer systems. It may also involve seeking to influence decision makers and opinion

formers to benefit the interests of a foreign power. As Boutina and countless other spies throughout history have discovered, espionage is a dangerous game, one that can lead to imprisonment or even death. What motivates people to commit acts of espionage is as important as the ramifications of their actions, and naturally simple ideology serves as a motivator to commit espionage,

but it's not the singular cause. According to a spring article in the Intelligencer Journal of u S Intelligence Studies, ideology is quote adopted by an individual to the degree that it reflects the individuals ego. In that sense, an ideology is like another motivation money, and that it serves as a vehicle for the individual to express a personal value or belief, and ideology has chosen in order to confirm conscious or unconscious beliefs the individual has already internalized.

In the case of espionage, a particular ideology may serve as either the actual motivation for a spy to breach the trust placed in them, or simply as a means of rationalizing that behavior. Three concurrent elements need to exist within an individual to make them prone to acts of espionage,

a personality dysfunction, personal crisis, and opportunity. According to Dr ur Slow Wilder, a clinical psychologist with the Central Intelligence Agency, for personality elements are essential to the entry into espionage, psychopathy, narcissism, immaturity, and grandiosity, she stated in an interview at the International Spy Museum in Washington, d C. A psychopathic person is a person whose approach to reality is ruthless and cold.

They have no conscience or they have very limited capacity to feel guilt, so their whole approach to life is predatory. Their excitement seeking. They love to con people. It's a game. This is all they can do to connect with other human beings. So that kind of person will commit espionage, either flat out for self interest or because it's fun, or both, she explained. The next is narcissism. A narcissistic person is fundamentally egocentric. They can only experience the world

with themselves at the center. They are very much needy for and will provoke circumstances that will permit them to be at the center of attention. They believe that what they need, want, and desire is truth. They will get greedy for attention. That kind of person will commit espionage as a grab for fame. Someone like that will commit

espionage because it makes them feel big and important. Re Arting immaturity, Wilder said that an individual prone to commit acts of espionage in comparison to a professional intelligence agent, either for or against their nation, is quote an adult who can only function as an adolescent. These people live their lives in a blend of fact and fantasy. They do have a conscience, they can feel deep guilt afterwards, but fantasy is much more real to them than it

is to adults who are grounded in reality. So to them, committing espionage is a bit of a game, a fantasy, and online they have this illusion that if they do it online, if they just turn off the machine, it goes away. They have a fantasy about the implications of their actions, and although on some level they might grasp the reality of it, it's not real to them. The grandiosity applies to all three. Furthermore, an individual must be up against some form of personal crisis that produces distress.

According to a paper released by the CIA titled y Spy, a survey of agency employees, quote identified emotional instability related to ambition, anger leading to a need for revenge, feelings of being unrecognized and unrewarded, and loneliness as the top vulnerabilities on the road to espionage. They ranked such problem behaviors as drug abuse and delicit sex as second, and various mental crises or stresses brought on by debt, work

issues or psychological factors such as depression as third. Regarding opportunity access matters, an individual must have access to sensitive information of some caliber that could be of use to a foreign power. All three combined, the personality, the crises, and the access serve as fertile soil for acts of espionage, but it is important to make the distinction between ordinary people who commit espionage and individuals who join intelligence services.

For the article of this episode is based on how Stuff Work. Spoke with Dr David L. Charney, a psychiatrist with the National Office of Intelligence Reconciliation known as NOIR, a nonprofit dedicated to educating the intelligence community on the

management of insider threats. He said, people who joined the intel community spent years preparing themselves, school, applying screening, and there's a huge amount of drive and ambition, identification, pride, He explained that this would include people with access to sensitive information who flipped, such as Edward Snowdon or Reality winner quote. They're not coming into be spies, they join for loftier reasons. The question is what makes a person

go bad. That's when you have to get more psychological. According to Charney, at the core of espionage can be an intolerable sense of personal failure and not necessarily a shifting ideology. He said, going back to the ideological spies of the nineteen thirties and forties, we run a cross people all the time who you know have personal demons that are driving them, but they wrapped their demons into the current issue of the day to give it a

higher minded packaging. Anytime you try to understand, you have to dig a little deeper. Today's episode is based on the article why do ordinary people commit acts of espionage? On how Stuffworks dot com written by Jared w Alexander. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com and is produced by Tyler clang Or more podcasts for my heart Radio is that the heart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows