The organization, which was founded after the attacks on Pearl Harbour, later came to be known as the CIA, the most powerful intelligence agency in the world. Both Unionists and Confederates used spies during the American Civil War.ĭuring World War II the American Office of Strategic Services gathered information for the Allies. In the Middle Ages, Queen Elizabeth I of England organized a spy network to gather information about Spain, her long-time enemy.ĭuring the American Revolution George Washington set up a complicated network of spies to gather information about the British army. Ancient Egypt and Greece, as well as the Roman Empire employed spies to find out the secrets of their enemies. Spies were common in all ancient cultures and civilizations. The information that is collected can be a country’s military secrets, facts about a person’s private life or even a firm’s production secrets.Įspionage is almost as old as mankind itself. Spies are specially trained people who do this. Opium cultivation jumps in Myanmar and Laos, U.N.Espionage happens when people gather secret information on a country, an organization or individuals. The legislation will backfire against its promoters, Gudkov argued, by causing more people to take to the streets in protest. ‘But I have little doubt that the first victims of the new legislation will be my colleagues, leaders of the protest movement, impossible to stop by such absurd initiatives.’ ‘Now all the citizens of the country become potential targets for charges of espionage and high treason,’ said Gudkov, a government critic who was recently expelled from parliament for allegedly running a private business while serving as a lawmaker, a charge he denied. Markov said the bill is not aimed at suppressing the opposition and dissent, because ‘it makes no sense to accuse them of spy activities unless they are really guilty.’ But former lawmaker Gennady Gudkov noted that legislators in what he called ‘the Kremlin’s pocket parliament’ continue to approve one bill after another in a government strategy to curb the growing protest movement and reduce foreign influence in Russia, a effort he dismissed as shortsighted. ‘Up to now, it was easy for the Federal Security Service to catch spies but increasingly difficult to gather enough evidence to implicate them in a crime.’ ‘Our security services are still struggling against numerous spies but often have a hard time bringing them to justice bridled by legal limitations,’ added Markov, a vice president of the Russian Plekhanov University of Economics. ‘Back in the early ‘90s, after dumping the communist theory for good, we in the new democratic Russia thought that now that we share peace, friendship and chewing gum with the West, no one will try to bring us down anymore,’ he said in an interview Wednesday. The lawmakers simply agreed to oblige the Federal Security Service and make its work of catching spies easier and more cost-efficient, said Kremlin advisor Sergei Markov. He wrote in the committee’s assessment that ‘the bill will serve the improvement of criminal law in the sphere of protecting the state secrets from criminal encroachment and will enhance the efficiency of upholding the security of the Russian Federation.’ The legislation, which was submitted by the Federal Security Service, the successor of the Soviet KGB, offers officials wide room for interpretation and could undercut the development of democracy in Russia, warned Mikhail Fedotov, head of the Presidential Council of Civic Society and Human Rights.Īndrei Klishas, head of the upper house’s committee on constitutional law, legal issues and civic society development, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. The bill was approved by 138 of the 139 lawmakers present in the Federal Council, the parliament’s upper house. The legislation, which will become law if signed by President Vladimir Putin, expands the definition of espionage and high treason to encompass ‘the rendering of financial, material-technical or other assistance to a foreign state, international or other organization or their representatives in the activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation.’ MOSCOW - The upper house of Russia’s parliament voted Wednesday to broaden the definition of espionage and high treason, continuing what many activists view as a crackdown on dissent in the country. This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links.
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