Talk:Covert agent

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What people outside of the intelligence community don't understand is that there are a wide variety of jobs within the intelligence community in which service members, government employees, and contractors are sent overseas while officially holding non-intelligence occupations. Whether their true role is to run and recruit sources as a human intelligence collector in uniform or as a case officer at an embassy, or act as a consultant to a scientific project in an agency, or pour over reports and put intelligence products together is irrelevant. Whether their jobs involve meeting with agents or doing analysis behind a desk is also irrelevant (it should be noted that interrogators spend long hours flying desks themselves when they are done talking to sources; it's more journalism than James Bond). "Covert agent" is not limited to a particular occupation within the intelligence community and also applies to analysts who may be sent undercover overseas to do all-source work on classified networks. Either way, having association with the intelligence community in any capacity makes them susceptible to recruitment by host nation security services which is why their identities and/or occupations may be covert. A long list of former analysts working for the government have been recruited as spies throughout U.S. history, not only FBI agents or CIA case officers. This is why the public tendency to make a distinction between analysts and collectors (with one being seen as purely "desk work" and the other not being seen as "desk work" when they both, in fact, involve desk work) is silly and demonstrates a lack of understanding about what they do for the community. Furthermore, nobody who is formally employed by an intelligence agency is a "spy" and those claiming otherwise are probably trying to sound dramatic to those who don't know any better. The word "spy" is synonymous with traitor and true intelligence professionals avoid such terms like the plague. -Former IO — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.107.143.3 (talk) 22:19, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

This article does not provide even a basic definition of its topic. There is no way to determine whether Valerie Plame or Michael Scheuer were "covert agents" or merely analysts whose connection to the CIA was confidential. This is significant, because of the "outing" controversy.

Beyond this, we'd like to know more in general about what covert agents do. Are they "spies" is in the Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy novels? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ed Poor (talk • contribs)


 * Just to clarify, we know for a fact that Michael Scheuer was not a "covert agent", as I explained on the talk page for his bio. For Plame we know that the CIA considered her "covert" enough to ask for a Justice Dept investigation, but the question of whether she meets the technical definition of the IIPA has not been resolved by any court.  (However, the revelations in Isikoff and Corn's book pretty much settle the case, assuming they are accurate -- they make it clear that she traveled overseas doing covert work for the CIA during the necessary time period).  She was certainly "covert" in the more general sense of "undercover", since we know the CIA considered her position classified and that she was given a cover story to operate under.  As for what covert agents actually do, from what we know, a variety of things.  There are numerous books by former covert agents and analysts that shed light on such things; the earliest I recall reading was Marchetti and Marks The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence back in the 70s.  Of course, since their work is by definition covert, there's only so much we will ever be able to know about it.--csloat 20:03, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response, Commodore. That straightened out a few things. --Uncle Ed 20:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Just another comment based on your edit summary - the quote is from the US Code, not from a law review, and "fair use" is simply not an issue. US laws are property of the public and cannot be restricted by copyright (if they could be, it would be very difficult for the government to expect obedience to laws that are privately owned!).  Cheers! --csloat 21:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)