Spied On!
Espionage or spying is a practice of obtaining
information about an organization or a society that is considered secret
or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information.
Unlike other forms of intelligence work, espionage involves accessing
the place where the desired information is stored, or accessing the
people who know the information and will divulge it through some kind of
subterfuge.
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Espionage is usually part of an
institutional effort (i.e., governmental or corporate espionage), and the term
is most readily associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies,
primarily for military purposes, but this has been extended to spying involving
corporations, known specifically as industrial espionage. Many nations routinely
spy on both their enemies and allies, although they maintain a policy of not
making comment on this. In addition to utilizing agencies within a government
many also employ private companies to collect information on their behalf such
as SCG International Risk and others. Black's Law Dictionary (1990) defines
espionage as: "...gathering, transmitting, or losing...information related to
the national defence."
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A spy is a person employed to obtain such
secrets. The term intelligence officer is also used to describe a member of the
armed forces, police, or civilian intelligence agency who specialises in the
gathering, fusion, and analysis of information and intelligence in order to
provide advice to their government or another organisation. In general,
intelligence officers travel to foreign countries to recruit and "run"
intelligence agents, who in turn spy on their own governments. These agents can
be moles (who are recruited before they get access to secrets) or defectors (who
are recruited after they get access to secrets).
See Also USA Patriot Act of 2001
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