Russian Spies Just Might Train By Watching Get Smart
It is hard to find good help these days. Just ask the Russian intelligence agency formerly known as the KGB.
Ten Russian spies living in America have been arrested by the FBI. Russian spies? What is this 1962? I thought relations between our two countries were all good after Rocky beat Drago in Rocky IV?
These guys are like the Japanese soldiers they found in Pacific Island caves who still thought they were fighting WWII long after it ended.
Turns out the Russian Ten either weren’t very good at the whole spy thing or they just liked living in America so much that they kept stalling so they wouldn’t have to go back. “Yeah, Vladamir, we are really close to something here. I think we might be able to bring down the whole government right after my kids graduate from college.”
The 10 were able to fool their neighbors and even their families for a decade, but not the FBI who has been on to them for years. Many posed as suburban couples. They raised families, kept their lawns and joined the PTA. But the one that has captured the attention of the tabloids is Anna Chapman, a New York party girl, who is all over the Internet. Amid all her clubbing, she recently opened an Internet real estate business and did an interview for Russian TV.
Does it sound like she wants to return to Moscow anytime soon?
These deep-cover plants were at one time the pride of the KGB who labeled them “legends.” These spies would spend years “becoming American,” making the right contacts and gaining the trust of “targets.”
But the FBI has no indication that these 10 did any of that. The Bad News Russian Bears did do some cool spy stuff. They switched briefcases at airports. They hid secret codes in Internet photos. They used invisible ink. They may have even had decoder rings and secret handshakes.
They seemed to get their training from every bad spy movie.
It seems the most investigating they did was on Internet Social Networks. You can still be friends with Anna Chapman on Facebook or connect with her on LinkedIn. There you can see her “glamour shots.” It’s a shame she is now in federal prison in solitary confinement without bail, because she could have a lucrative reality show career ahead of her.
The 10 are also on Twitter. So Anna and the other nine were able to get deep-secret information from Ryan Seacrest and report back to Moscow exactly what Crystal Bowersox was singing on American Idol before it happened. By the way, you can still befriend Anna Chapman on Facebook or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Other than that, as far as the FBI can tell, they never got any real classified information. The FBI had them under surveillance for over seven years waiting for something, anything, big to happen. They finally had to arrest them because two were about to leave the country.
What are they going to charge them with? Impersonating a spy? Attempted espionage?
These 10 are just the latest in a long list of incompetent foreign agents in this country.
We had the Christmas Day Bomber, who did little more than cook his crotch when his underwear bomb smoldered, but didn’t explode.
Then there was the Times Square Bomber whose van snapped and crackled but didn’t pop. He was kind enough to leave his house keys and receipts in the van for the FBI.
I know we can’t get complacent and the FBI has certainly done a great job, but we also can’t ignore the moron factor.
It seems like our greatest security asset is the incompetence of our enemies.
Dasvidaniya!