Recently, the actuality has been filled with reports in the news about spying on many different levels and it is a bit difficult for ordinary folks to distinguish facts from fiction in that domain, especially as most normal people’s knowledge on the matter comes from novels or movies à la James Bond! A piece that surfaced in Brazil 2 days ago caught my eye and fancy and, on top of the American Snowden and NSA affairs brings me to write this explanation of the matter.
Let’s start by clearing a misconception : spying is not a prerogative of States or Nations! Corporations and firms spy on each other and even the government. This is usually termed industrial espionage and yet there are other forms of it! For instance in monetary and market matters, acquiring informations as to who will sell or buy what amounts of what shares at which times and then making exchanges to make a profit from these informations constitutes a kind of spying, illegal and punishable under the moniker : insider trading. A worker in a company or fund that would get paid to source the info to an investor is technically a spy?
Similarly, anyone that shares technological or process secrets to a competing firm in any domain is actually a spy too? And accordingly, some of the agencies that spy for your government attempt to find those persons? Which brings us to the types of spying done by an average government.
In general, there are three clear and recognized activities in National Espionage activities. Taking France as an example since the USA have a system too complex to be representative of most countries worldwide, we thus find 7 groups of which 3 really matter for our explanation.
DGSE is tasked with spying and anti-spying to and from abroad ( = US CIA ).
DRM is tasked with spying related to the Armed Forces’ missions. ( = US DIA ).
DCRI is tasked with anti-spying and anti-terrorist activities at home ( =US FBI ).
The other four are dedicated to customs, financial, protection of Defense and oversight of the previous ones respectively.
To compare, Russia has 4 but following the same pattern as the French albeit with a second internal ( or police force ) one justified by the sheer size of the land.
This kind of set-up is pretty standard. Most Anglo-Saxon Nations for instance ( Still not counting America ), UK and Commonwealth ( but also Germany et al, heck, even China? ) go for a 3 pronged approach too although usually on a format of Exterior / Interior / Communications. Many other countries separate only military from police and thus have 2 agencies while the smaller or poorer nations often manage with the lone one!
Having cleared this and before moving on to the American case, let us use the Brazilian news to show what and why those spies do. In 2003, the VLS-1 V-03 rocket exploded on its launch pad at the Alcântara site. What the journalist signing the piece reveals is that the Brazilian anti-espionage agency then spied on France as it suspected a possible sabotage! Although the title only mentions France, the USA, Russia, Iran and others were also checked. As a matter of fact, the main target of this investigation was a supposed French agent that had taken pictures and conducted surveillance of the launch site in the previous year or two, not reasonably enough by far to suspect sabotage.
Besides, reports have since been produced by the Brazilian government and others to pin the blame on the solid fuel technology and a series of institutional lacks.
http://www.aereo.jor.br/downloads/VLS-1_V03_Relatorio_Final.pdf
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~johnson/papers/Ildeberto_and_Chris.PDF
So why did some reporter find it necessary to come out with this imprecise and incomplete piece now? Simply because after the recent Snowden and NSA scandals, espionage is suddenly back in actuality, has a heightened commercial value if you prefer.
Still, it serves my purpose as it allows me to expound on the various types of spying as per their motivations. What would France or the other suspects have had to gain in the Brazilian example?
We spy for industrial secrets i.e. technology. We spy for commercial reasons i.e. to secure sales. We spy for National security, to defend our land. And of course we spy to get the means to outdo or dominate the neighbour militarily. As ludicrous as the piece linked to above might be considering its timing ( I especially liked the part where the French Embassy refused to comment on allegations from ten years ago ), it does show these reasons. That French spy’s mission was possibly true and in fact probable. By keeping abreast of the Brazilian Space Program, France which is a leading Nation in the field could gain by : preparing accordingly its future developments, knowing at what point its commercial interests ( Arianespace sells trips for payloads on its own rockets, remember ) would be facing concurrence and how much technology it could still have to sell to the Brazilian military ( since rockets can send bombs away as well as satellites? ).
This is normal! All Nations that have the means to do so carry on such spying. I seriously do mean all Nations! Unless you are particularly naive, you should not be surprised by this. Yes, even allies such as the main Western powers continuously try to get information in all the fields we have listed previously. Spying on a technology such as rockets ( and its associated electronics instruments, chemical components and so on ) might even be carried on many levels by more than one agency? The maker of that rocket fuel could thus have been under espionage by a concurrent firm & by the military intelligence DRM & by the DGSE all at once?
Why then is so much noise being spread around concerning the recent USA based scandal?
In short because America represents somewhat of an exception. It is not so much a matter of how many agencies it maintains but of their means? The CIA ( even counting its subdivisions ), FBI and DIA are rather normal. The NGA exists elsewhere, merely included in one of the previous corps as the DEA in police and the NCIS is only justified by the importance of the American fleet both in numbers and omni-presence on our globe.
The two services that are really special are the NRO & NSA. The former is concerned with military satellites and has more means to send these up in orbit than most countries have overall for their space programs and yet, it is not so big in personnel and the info is mostly military both in its nature and its use. The latter though, the National Security Agency, is special.
It turned 61 years old on November 4 and works on collecting and protecting electromagnetic intelligence. It is literally the sole collector of communications and signals intel for the Nation inside and abroad, military and civilian even sharing the task with the CIA? It is also in charge of overall cyberwar along with the US Cyber Command. To achieve these ambitious goals, it counts about 40 000 employees.
All of which presents 2 problems. First, it has too much leeway and too little responsibilities. The important balance between rights and duties is not accounted for. In the recent scandal of it spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel that might have both offered the escape for US President Obama to argue that he wasn’t told about it ( although that in turn brings about the question of whether the Commander in Chief is in charge? ) and the rationale that the NSA has gone overboard? Similarly, collecting without being the end user is a situation that begs the question of whether it is directed by any sound moral or efficiency motives which, again, might point out to the problem behind the recent scandal? For the NSA is accused of having spied ( collected/intercepted/etc ) thousands of personal calls of French, Spanish and other foreign citizens, the very scope of which numbers begs the question of the usefulness of these actions?
And if that shocks you for the infringement on your individual rights to privacy, I do agree entirely but it is not the worst thing in my opinion especially since it will get worse in the future through digital technologies anyhow. The biggest problem I can see relates to the failures? As much as I understand the Reason of State that dictates those ungracious activities that I outlined above, the one thing that I cannot fathom is that they would be found to have been carried on in vain?
200 000 people in America watch over the rest of the World? And yet they could catch neither the suspicious gang in 2001 despite being warned by their French and German colleagues of impending doom nor, possibly precisely because they are so numerous the lone guy running away with their secrets?
Makes you want to support Snowden, send old school written letters? And I think if I ever pretend to be a spy to pick up a poor girl in bar, I’ll tell her I work for the NIO? The National Intelligence Organization of Papua New-Guinea? Just for credibility’s sake?
Sheesh! Tay.
Original Portuguese version of the Alcântara disaster is also available at the link below :
Definitive Lapse of Reason 
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